Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [36]
‘This is temporal contamination,’ he said.
‘I know,’ confessed the Doctor, ‘but I couldn’t resist.’
‘Typical of your immaturity.’
The Doctor smiled. He was stretched out languidly on the bookshelf, eyes half shut. He looked thinner to Sabbath, and pinched, as if he’d been ill, but perfectly, almost liquidly relaxed. Now he sighed. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Such a pity. I once had so much promise.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Oh, can’t you figure it out? All your alarms and defences are keyed to your biodata.’
Sabbath remained expressionless. The Doctor’s smile thinned mockingly. He slipped to the floor, padded over to Sabbath and laid his ear against his chest, listening. ‘Tick tock, tick tock, like the clock in the crocodile. I don’t think it sounds very happy.’
Sabbath calmly pushed him away and crossed to his desk.
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor, ‘I see I was standing too close. Invading your personal space. Of course, even from over here I’m invading your personal space.’ Sabbath looked at him. ‘All nestled up under your ribs. Quite intimate, really. Yet we hardly know each other. Love songs have been written about less.’
Sabbath sighed and sat down. ‘Have you finished?’
‘You wish.’ The Doctor gave a little hop and perched lightly on the edge of the desk. ‘I kept wondering where my heart had got to. Was it in the highlands a-chasing the deer? Did I leave it in San Francisco? Had it joined a club for other lonely ones of its kind? Was it achy? Or breaky? Did it now belong to someone named Daddy?’ Sabbath had turned his attention to some papers. The Doctor suddenly stretched out across them, like a cat taking over a computer keyboard. He gazed soulfully into Sabbath’s eyes. ‘Shall I call thee Father?’
Looking bored, Sabbath rose.
‘Hamlet?’ the Doctor queried. ‘Royal Dane?’
Sabbath left the room. ‘ “I’ve got you under my skin”,’ the Doctor warbled after him. Then his face grew sober. He moved his hand to the empty side of his chest. ‘You know,’ he murmured, ‘I think once I did leave it in San Francisco.’ He shivered, as if, as the saying went, a rabbit had run over his grave.
When Sabbath returned, the Doctor was seated crosslegged on the desk surrounded by origami penguins.
‘Oh, I see,’ Sabbath said. ‘Time for some infantile destruction.’
‘I haven’t destroyed anything. The papers are intact, they’re just a different shape.’ The Doctor surveyed his flock. ‘Penguins are all right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not saying a word against them. But I used to be able to make birds that flapped their wings when you pulled the tail. Only I don’t remember how any more. Have I told you about my memory problems?’
‘Please don’t.’
‘Well, I can’t, can I, having forgotten?’
Sabbath looked at him speculatively for a moment, as if considering whether it would be worth the bother to break his neck. ‘Was there something you wanted?’
The Doctor snorted with laughter. ‘What do you think? Walked into that one, Sabbath old man. You’re slipping. Tell me, you haven’t felt a bit shaky recently, have you? Under the weather? Full fathoms five under the weather.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘You noticed, did you? I’m touched. Literally.’ The Doctor was off the desk and in his face. ‘I almost died. Only I couldn’t.’ He placed a hand on Sabbath’s chest. ‘I wonder... why... not.’
‘Oh please, don’t be coy. If you’d wanted to kill me, you would have. But you can’t do without me yet. You don’t know your way around well enough.’
Sabbath removed his hand. The Doctor put it back. Sabbath pulled it away again, gripping the Doctor’s wrist as if he’d like to break it.
‘It’s time you accepted the situation. Stop taking it personally.’
‘How can I?’ The Doctor jerked his wrist free. ‘You’re the one who’s taken it. Personally. What did you want it for, anyway, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘As a human being, I had intrinsic physical limitations in penetrating