Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [116]
‘It’s not much notice, is it?’
‘Oh, time isn’t the problem. Not this time, anyway.’
‘Really?’ The barman said, glancing at his watch. ‘The party’s meant to start in a couple of hours. Mind you, knowing the punters at the Tropics, I should think they’ll all come running once they hear about the free booze.’
The Doctor read the name which had been hurriedly scrawled on the front of the first envelope. Did he really have the right to trick all these people, to lie to them, in order to let another race be born?
‘I need someone to tell me that I’m doing the right thing,’ he murmured out loud.
‘Darling, if you need someone else to tell you that then you already know that it’s not. Otherwise you could tell yourself, couldn’t you?’
The Doctor’s face broke into a toothy smile. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘You’re a wise man, Andrew.’
‘I know,’ the young man agreed. ‘I know.’
Andrew watched the strange little man step back inside the dancehall. He took a drag on his cigarette, and then considered it for a moment before grinding it out beneath his heel.
Premature hair loss? he thought and gingerly patted the back of his head.
‘I just hope that everyone turns up,’ Julia Mannheim said, as the hour of the party approached. ‘We hardly gave any notice.’
‘Don’t worry your little psychological brain, deah,’ Tilda laughed, putting up the last of the bunting. ‘I’ve invited all my regulars and told them to bring their mates. And that lot would walk a hundred miles barefoot on broken glass if there was a free drink in it. Besides, the Doctor’s promised to go back in time in that little closet of his and put them in last week’s post.’
‘No one’s coming,’ the Doctor said quietly from beside her.
‘Little Miss Doctor’s an optimist, isn’t she?’
‘I didn’t send the invitations. I’m not going to send them. I can’t.’
A tense silence descended upon the dancehall.
Julia and Harris both
stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at the Doctor.
Tilda climbed slowly down the ladder. ‘Has your time machine blown a gasket or something?’
‘No, the TARDIS is fine. I can’t be party to the duplicity. It isn’t fair. I’m sorry, Tilda, truly.’
Tilda stared at him, a look of total incomprehension on her face. ‘Can’t be party to the duplicity?’ she repeated under her breath, shaking her head.
201
‘Do you know what you are doing?’ she demanded, her voice filled with suppressed anger.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. Finally I do.’
She poked him in the chest with a thin finger. ‘You are sentencing all of my people to death. Don’t you understand, you stupid little man, that without partners my people are nothing. You have condemned each and every one of them to a blank empty nothing. Well, I hope your fancy morals and ethics keep you warm at night.’ Tilda stamped her foot angrily. ‘We’re not like you.
We can’t be whole on our own. We need others. We need people to bond with.’
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about you? Who are you bonded with?’
‘Me?’ Tilda looked at him blankly. The thought had clearly not occurred to her. ‘Frankly, I don’t have the time. I’m too busy looking after this little lot.’
‘So why are you still alive?’
Jack had almost left Ronnie Scott’s and gone home several times. Almost.
But he was still hovering in the hallway when the music started. He knew the song – it was an old show tune. His mother used to sing it when she cleaned the house on Sundays. The words were curious, simple but affecting.
A woman politely asking her lover how she could be expected to go on living without him. The sentiment was haunting.
Jack slipped into the back of the dancehall, and stood quietly in the shadows. Patsy was standing on the small stage on the other side of the room, singing. A narrow spotlight picked her out on the stage, isolating her from the band.
She wasn’t wearing make-up and her hair, usually carefully coiffured, was tied back in a simple ponytail. Instead of her cocktail dress she was wearing a gentleman’s suit, a couple