Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [21]
Mrs Castle was surprised to see the Doctor spellbound.
‘You’re not listening to them, are you?’
The Doctor looked at her. ‘Shouldn’t I?’
‘You don’t believe in UFOs and little green men, do you?’
‘Do you?’
‘I asked first.’
The Doctor hesitated. ‘I think it’s good to have an open mind.’
‘You can’t always tell the difference between an open mind and an empty head.’
‘No,’ the Doctor agreed, ‘no you can’t.’
He stared into his mineral water, clearly disappointed with the world.
‘Did I see you with Miranda?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘I met her mother. A nice woman.’
‘Happily married,’ Mrs Castle said, perhaps a little too quickly.
‘Good,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’ve offered to give Miranda some extra tuition.’
Mrs Castle raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s normal to talk to the school if you’re going to do that.’
‘Oh.’ The Doctor didn’t seemed unduly concerned about that. ‘You were going to tell me about Mr Knight.’
Mrs Castle could almost hear the sound of three dozen UFO spotters’ ears pricking up.
‘We’d better go outside,’ she suggested.
* * *
Mrs Castle had forgotten how cold it would be.
The burble of conversation drifted over from the pub, bringing some of its warmth with it. Mrs Castle tried to suck as much of the heat as she could from her cigarette.
The Doctor was sitting on the other side of the pub bench, looking at her expectantly.
‘There’s not much to tell,’ she confessed. ‘He said he was being chased.’
‘By a monster?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘Did he describe it?’
‘Describe it? Well...’ She struggled to remember. ‘He said it was metal. “A big metal alien”.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I didn’t believe him!’ She laughed. ‘I’d just run him over – he must have hit his head.’
‘Perhaps,’ the Doctor said sadly.
She looked at the Doctor, sitting there, oblivious to the cold. She looked into his sad, blue eyes. ‘Have you been crying?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor admitted.
‘Why?’
‘I...’ He stopped, then shook his head.
‘Go on,’ she prompted him.
‘I get like this, from time to time,’ the Doctor told her. ‘I’ve lost... It’s all right. I’ll be all right.’
‘You’re lonely?’ she guessed. ‘Who have you lost?’
He didn’t reply.
‘There’s no one else you can talk to, is there? I know we hardly know each other but –’
‘You are the closest thing I have to a friend,’ the Doctor said.
Mrs Castle sucked in a little more cigarette smoke than she’d bargained for. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘You’re young, you’re confident. I don’t understand the problem.’
The words came slowly, as though the Doctor was having difficulty letting them out after so long. ‘I’m... older than I look. And I don’t understand the problem either. I just know that I’m... different. That I’ve lost a great many things and people and memories that were special to me.’
‘Memories? There’s nothing wrong with your memory: just look at the way you remembered everyone’s name at the chess club.’
‘I have a photographic memory,’ the Doctor told her. ‘Perfect pitch. A grasp of symbolic logic that put Alan Turing himself to shame. I can quote every line of Shakespeare, hum any song I’ve ever heard, speed-read... but my memories start with me waking in a railway carriage. There’s nothing before that. Nothing except a sense that... that I was from a large family, that I travelled, and had friends everywhere I went, and that my life used to have a purpose, I used to make a difference.’
‘Wow,’ said Mrs Castle. ‘Could the police help?’
‘No. There are thousands of people reported missing every year. I’m not one of them.’
‘What were you wearing? You could speak English?’
‘I have thought about it. Too much, if anything. It’s like trying to guess what the jigsaw is from only one piece. Have you ever had the sense you’ve been here before? That you remember the words that you’re just hearing. A sense that everything is utterly familiar?’
‘Déjà vu. Yeah. Everyone gets that.’
‘I don’t. I never