Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [23]
‘Then help me lay those fears to rest,’ said the Doctor. ‘Go and talk to Ray Morita.’
Ray Morita’s building resembled the WAC barracks in its basic plan, being a low rectangular dwelling two stories high, shaped like a stretched shoe box.
But there were certain crucial differences between the two buildings. Ace’s had a raw, unfinished look, with tarpaper walls, and was surrounded by an unsightly cluster of telephone poles. It was deemed an adequate dwelling place for the Women’s Auxiliary Corps, who represented nothing more than a source of menial clerical labour on the Hill. More important personnel, eggheads like Ray Morita, got a building with beautifully finished wooden walls, surrounded by the pleasant shadows of oak trees.
Ace reflected on this bitterly as she made her way to the centrally placed entrance of Ray’s building. This was reached by a low wooden staircase. Above 40
the staircase was a pleasant open balcony area where the two halves of the building converged and the privileged scientists could, presumably, loll and catch the sun. Above that, on the roof, were two symmetrically placed rectangular chimneys that no doubt kept the place warm and cosy throughout the long desert winter.
At the Oppenheimers’ party, Ace had noted that the primitive record players in this period could only play music for about three minutes at a time. Then you had to reload the stone-age device. Therefore the music thundering from within Ray’s apartment – some jaunty loping jazz – could only have been set in motion mere moments earlier.
So she knew he was in there.
Ace knocked until the music came to an end and paused in the sudden silence. Then she realised that this was the opposite of a successful strategy and hastily began knocking on the door again. Too late. A new piece of jazz commenced blasting from inside, absolute proof that Cosmic Ray was lurking within the apartment.
Ace cursed and increased the volume and frequency of her knocking. The music from inside grew, if anything, louder. Her knuckles were starting to hurt and Ace was considering stopping and waiting for this record in turn to end when the door suddenly opened in a surge of sour body odour and surly, outraged growling. ‘Bringing me down, man! All that knocking’s bringing me –’
Cosmic Ray stood staring at Ace. ‘Down,’ he said, then fell silent, a look of amusing poleaxed astonishment on his face. Ray was still wearing his red beret, but now he was wearing it with a baggy undershirt and capacious striped briefs. He had sneakers on his feet but no socks. He stared at Ace.
‘Can I come in?’ she said.
Ray stood aside wordlessly, his face still vacant with surprise, and let her walk into the apartment. The place was nice, a spacious, light and airy three-room flat with a lot of light from the window falling on wooden floors. There were rugs thrown here and there, bright Indian patterns, and the minimum of furniture. There was a bathroom, a bedroom and a generously sized living room. Most of the living room was given over to a record player and boxes of records, though in one corner space had been made for a large, bulbous metallic refrigerator that was almost big enough to step into. There were also at least a dozen potted plants, all of which, to Ace’s surprise, were thriving, as plump and shiny in their green way as their owner. Plump Cosmic Ray, shiny with sweat, abruptly moved past Ace and scurried quickly across the room to a small table with several potted plants and a framed portrait on it.
He turned to face her as he did something on the table, fumbling behind his back. ‘I know you. I met you that night at the Oppenheimers’. That night 41
they had the party.’
‘That was last night, Ray.’
‘That’s right, that’s right. I saw you there last night. So what,’ he said, ‘so what, so what brings you here. . . ’
Ace had been pondering what kind of story she could tell him. It would have to be pretty good to explain her presence here. It was all very well for the Doctor to instruct her to go and strike up a friendship with the man. But it wasn’t