Doctor Who_ The Blue Angel Part 3

That was when he had his funny turn.

There was the most surprising and sudden pain in his left leg. It felt like a burn, but one that originated from within.

He cried out, seized by the shock of the pain. He slipped sideways from his seat, and fell on to the polished wooden floor. He knocked the milk jug and his cup from the table.

The dog barked, affronted. Sally jumped up and the waiter came running.

The Doctor pa.s.sed out and

came to, moments later, with his concerned friend looking down at him.

There was something quite wrong with his left leg. It was numb from the knee down. He didn't dare touch it yet. He would look at it when he got home. He would go home now He wouldn't talk about it any more. He would act as if he'd had a twinge of cramp, so as not to alarm Sally. But it wasn't cramp.

He brushed off her concern.

He put down his funny turn to the pills his private Doctor was making him take.

Then he was getting up to be gone, taking her ma.n.u.script with him. He clasped it to his chest, rustling the plastic bag, and trying to mask the wince he made as he put his weight on to his leg.

Will you come to dinner this week? You can meet Fitz and Compa.s.sion.

I'd love to. Who's Compa.s.sion?

She's only just moved in. A new friend. Sort of.

Compa.s.sion. Honestly, Doctor. These women you hang around with...

Chapter Five.

It Might Have Been Any Time of Day...

It might have been any time of day. Once the ladies were inside the shopping mall time outside could be conveniently forgotten as they, like all the other shoppers, surrendered themselves happily to the brightly lit, perfumed, air-conditioned halls and walkways and amphitheatres. There wasn't a sc.r.a.p of natural lighting here, nor of air and all the potted palms and Christmas trees were triumphantly plastic. The water in the many fountains and pools that glistened and rumbled beneath the busy escalators had a golden quality to it, as if that, too, were somehow artificial.

'Stay close by, girls,' Big Sue said, as they braced themselves for the crowds. 'We don't want to get separated in here.'

'That can spoil your day, that,' said Nesta gloomily 'You spend the whole time looking for each other and, before you know it, it's time to go home.'

They were standing by one of the entrances to British Home Stores. Each of them was itching to be off to her own favourite departments. Really, though, Maddy was in charge, since she had driven them through the perilous snow, and by rights it should be up to her where they went first. This was the kind of democracy the ladies operated by.

Maddy was preoccupied just that minute, however, with her son, who was drifting off into the department store already. He took no heed of the others' careful plans.

She called after him and he ignored her. She watched the back of him, disappearing into the push and crush of the Bhs parfumerie parfumerie. She shrugged and laughed to the others. 'He's seen something that interests him, obviously.'

Big Sue and Nesta exchanged a look. Maddy let that lad get away with murder. It was as if, Sue thought, Maddy felt that, if she reprimanded him properly for his behaviour, he would just wander back out of her life. But that was no way to bring up a wayward son, Sue thought, letting him have his own way all the time. Maddy was just making more problems for herself in the future. Big Sue bit her lip though, and nodded.

'Well! Your Ian's gone and made the choice for us. Come on, Nesta... follow us!'

Maddy smiled gratefully and led the way after her son.

They found him two floors up from the parfumerie parfumerie. The ladies had been dogged in their pursuit, jumping on escalators behind him, hunting through the forests of racks and hangers in Ladieswear. They caught up with Ian at last in the music department.

'I didn't know he was interested in music, Maddy,' said Nesta, looking round.

'Neither did I,' she said.

And there he was. On a podium among a whole set of podiums, he was standing poised above the many keyboards of a rather complicated-looking electric organ. He was testing out several sounds and, it seemed, had the volume turned up full. Maddy winced. He'd make a show of her.

Ian was in a world of his own as he flipped through a book of songs from the sixties and settled on his choice. Then he flipped a switch and the machine began pumping out a slowed-down bossa-nova beat. Then his fingers went to work, ranging over all of the keys and playing, note perfect, a Cilia Black song that all the ladies half recognised as they rushed up to him.

Ian's face was solemn at first, as he wrestled with the complications of the tune, the first few tricky bits. Then he appeared to relax into it, and he started smiling. He looked completely serene.

Nesta and Big Sue started to applaud, then clapped along, keeping time with him, delighted that they had something to praise him for. Maddy glanced about nervously, waiting for the manager to come over and give them a shouting-at. There was indeed a salesman, in a black suit, hovering beside a display of golden saxophones and things, pink and green lights bouncing festively off all their intricate keys and nodules. But the salesman didn't look very cross at the commotion her son was making.

What was that song? She would have to ask him afterwards.

And then Maddy looked round behind her as the song reached its rather melancholy climax and there, perched on the seat of a glossy black baby grand, was a woman some years younger than herself, dressed rather slinkily in a kind of catsuit affair, with her head in her hands, weeping buckets at the song Ian was playing.

Maddy could never stand to see someone upsetting herself. She drifted over to the poor woman, taking in the details of her eccentric outfit. She was wearing yellow plastic boots that came up to her knees, and it really was a catsuit, of the sort Maddy hadn't seen in years, since the sixties in fact. It was pink and purple, extremely close fitting, and fastened right up to the neck. The weeping woman had ma.s.ses of honey-blonde hair, which covered her face as she sobbed and heaved.

'Excuse me...' Maddy patted the stranger's shoulder. The metallic stuff of the catsuit was oddly warm to the touch.

The woman took her gloved hands away from her face and looked up. Her mascara had run, bleeding black down her inflamed cheeks. Her eyes were terribly puffy and her lipstick was smudged. But she was beautiful. Almond-shaped eyes, heart-shaped face, slightly upturned nose all the cliches of s.e.x-kitten beauty applied. She had, thought Maddy suddenly, a look of the young Jane Fonda about her.

'Yes...?' asked the stranger.

'You looked upset,' Maddy said. 'I thought...'

At this moment Ian finished his rendition of the nostalgic Cilla Black number with a grand flourish and silence fell for a second with a crash, and then the other ladies, a small crowd which had gathered, and the salesman himself started clapping enthusiastically. The stranger in the catsuit applauded likewise, her green eyes gleaming.

Then she said to Maddy, 'I'm not upset really. Just that song... caught me unawares. Made me nostalgic for a second.'

'I know.' Maddy nodded. She herself who was known to become very morose whenever she heard 'Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday'. 'Everything you regret, every lost chance, the end of your youth...'

The stranger nodded tearily and thrust out her hand for Maddy to shake. 'Thanks for your concern, anyway. I'm Iris.'

'Maddy,' said Maddy. 'That was my son, Ian, playing the organ, by the way.'

'You've got a very talented son.'

'Yes... I didn't even know he could do that.'

'A very good-looking son, too,' noted Iris approvingly. Across the way, the others were trying to cajole the boy into playing for them again. 'He's quite beautiful.'

'Beautiful?' For a second Maddy thought the word sounded odd. But, when she looked at Ian, there was a kind of glamour radiating off him. Glamour also in the older sense that of witchcraft, of a kind of spell about him.

'I don't think he'll play another song for them,' Maddy said, breaking the moment and watching the boy move away from the instrument.

'My nerves won't stand it anyway,' Iris smiled. 'I feel quite wrung out.'

'Mum?' Ian came towards them. 'You aren't cross at me, are you? For playing?'

Maddy hugged him. 'Course not. It was fabulous. Here, look, you've got a fan. This is Iris...'

Maddy turned then, back to the woman by the baby grand, but when she did she caught her breath and blinked.

Iris had slunk away.

Chapter Six.

I Used to be a Lot Bigger...

I used to be a lot bigger. Perhaps I'm not used to being this slender and perhaps I never will be. When I'm in crowds like this one, Christmas shopping I still tend to turn sideways and I get the urge to cry out, 'Coming through!' preserving my bulk against the ma.s.ses. Now, of course, I needn't bother. I can squeeze through the tightest of crushes blithe as a spirit.

When I was the old me I used to exaggerate my size. I loved being a big woman. I would wear layer upon layer of cardigans and coats. It was always freezing aboard the bus. It was full of draughts and, when I drove it through the night on long hauls, the window panes would rattle and let in the freezing air. I also used to wear those disgusting woollen stockings. I found those again recently and couldn't imagine wanting to wear such things. What had I been thinking of? Practicality, I suppose. The old Iris was nothing less than a practical dame. Sometimes the old me seems like an entirely different person. An awful, pushy, tasteless person. A funny old aunt of mine.

The two of us met up, I seem to remember. In the Death Zone, a breezy bleak place, and we were brought together to solve something and the two of us looked at each other with wary disdain. And the other Irises, the other five, all of whom were somewhat hazy to me, looked on with their own appalled reactions. I can see that scene now, the seven of us with all our friends in that freezing mausoleum at the climax of our adventure together, and I can see it through seven pairs of eyes. Though I don't think this particular me has been there yet. Which means I have to brace myself to be scooped back there at some point, someday soon, and live it through again. Ah, me.

These days I wear these tall boots in black, yellow, red or silver. Colossal heels. Not exactly practical for the sc.r.a.pes I get myself into.

But they do turn heads.

One other thing I used to be in the days when I was large, elderly, obstreperous and Valkyrie-like: I was in love.

It was something I felt quite definite about. Its pressure was as insistent and unmistakable as my own two good hearts. Today I feel ambivalent about my erstwhile object of desire. Funny, to change like that.

But... I haven't seen him in a while. How will I feel when I see the Doctor again?

I know it must happen someday soon. There are plans of mine afoot that will bring us into certain contact and, I fear, conflict.

Ambiguous as my feelings might be about that mysterious traveller in the region where time and s.p.a.ce are one... I do still feel obliged help him out now and then.

I can't let him fall into danger when I see a way of letting him out. He doesn't know it yet, but he's gone breezing into a terrible situation. One of the worst yet.

And, if I can just shunt him along into safety with a harmless little nudge, then so be it. I know he hates being tampered with, timelines and all, but I can't help it. He's safe. Confused but safe.

And that leaves me to deal with the rest of it.

This is where it starts. With that boy, the one who played us that tune. That has to be him.

But that song he was playing. I hadn't expected that. A song from the sixties, by Cilia Black. 'Love's Just A Broken Heart'. How would the Doctor react if I told him that was Our Tune? In it, Cilia recants her love for her perfect fella, tells him that they are worlds apart now and that she has been warned off him. He's had too many lovers in the past, he's seen too many things. Now they are worlds apart and she can have nothing more to do with him. It gave me quite a start to hear that boy playing it such an obscure Cilla cla.s.sic on the organ. It quite caught my breath and, when I was meant to be acting like a proper double agent, there I am bursting into tears sitting by a baby grand piano in Bhs.

It's ten to three local time. Soon that first wave of shoppers will be leaving. Maddy and her small band will be tiring and thinking of turning back home. Outside, the snow has piled up ceaselessly and, with every hour, the journey home becomes a more terrifying prospect. They have had their lunch (sandwiches and tea in Marks and Spencer's cafe) and they have spent all of the money they brought with them. Maddy will have told herself that three o'clock is her limit. Her nerves are frayed, and she's feeling tired. Three o'clock is her limit and that's when she will tell the others that it's time to go.

So now I have to slip myself into position. Because at three o'clock it will all start to happen.

The electricity will fail, the lights will flicker and dim. The exits and entrances will seal up. That's when our disaster movie starts up. We'll be stuck inside our Poseidon Adventure Poseidon Adventure, our Towering Inferno Towering Inferno, our very own Earthquake Earthquake.

Except it won't be any of those things. It'll be hundreds of people trapped inside the frozen interior of a shopping mall. And beasties outside slavering slavering to come in.

Five to three. Got to get to the exit.

Red Quadrant: here I come.

Oh, so much zippier, this new body.

Tearing about in my knee-high boots...

Chapter Seven.