Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [6]
‘Yes. He’s already delirious. Talking about monsters chasing him.’
‘And you don’t believe that?’ the woman asked hurriedly.
‘Well... no.’
‘Good,’ the man concluded.
‘You have to get help,’ Mrs Castle insisted.
The two looked at each other again, and it was clear they found something about her amusing.
‘We could...’ the woman said.
‘...could, but shan’t,’ the man finished quickly.
The car sped off, the electric window sliding smoothly up, and Mrs Castle could hear the man and woman laughing together as it went, the man’s laugh sounding like a woman giggling and the woman’s laugh like the deep guffaw of an old man.
She slumped her shoulders. There was a little nugget of cold in her stomach. She didn’t understand why those two people would want to be so cruel. She knew there wasn’t a reason, not really, they were just ‘having a laff’ , as her pupils would have called it. That was what the children who pushed other children over in the playground said; that was what Greg had said when she’d caught him writing his name on his desk with a marker pen. That was what Barry said when he’d told everyone at her birthday party that her Purdey cut made her look like Velma from Scooby-Doo. ‘Just having a laff.’
Mrs Castle felt like crying, but knew she had to be brave for Arnold Knight.
She went back to the injured man. He was cowering behind her car.
‘You mustn’t move,’ she told him sternly.
‘They didn’t see me,’ he said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Were they the ones who were chasing you?’
‘No... no, it was a –’ He clamped his mouth shut.
‘A what?’ Mrs Castle scowled.
Arnold tried to sit up. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s gone.’
‘Stay still.’
‘It can’t be doing me any good sitting down here,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get frostbite.’
‘You said someone was after you,’ Mrs Castle said sternly. ‘Who?’
Arnold looked down at his legs. ‘They’d have caught up with me by now. I must have got away from them. You saved me. Thanks.’
Mrs Castle was grateful that he didn’t blame her for running him over, but she found it hard to believe that she’d done him any favours. ‘What were you doing out here?’ she said.
Arnold chuckled. ‘Looking for UFOs.’
Mrs Castle laughed. ‘Did you see any little green men? Was it them chasing you?’
He didn’t answer. Instead he asked, ‘Can I get into the car? Please?’
She helped him into the car, keeping the weight off his feet, and told him to stay put while she went to get help. She told him that whatever her husband’s faults, he would have made sure there were blankets in the boot, there would even be a shovel if she needed to dig them out of a snowdrift. Arnold would be safe. She put on her emergency lights and got out of the car, assuring Arnold that she’d be as quick as she could. Arnold ducked down, saying it was safest if he stayed out of sight.
Outside the car it was quiet. No wind. Calm.
Mrs Castle wondered if Arnold was all right in the head.
She looked up at the night’s sky, and she thought it looked like a window. A window to a better place. Perhaps the UFO spotters were right: perhaps she would see something else up there tonight. The regulars at the Dragon thought the UFO spotters were nutters – and they did look like nutters. They talked like them, too – they told their stories with such authority, comparing notes, exchanging blurry photographs that could be of anything. But for the last few weeks they had congregated in Greyfrith, drawn there by tales of mysterious lights and even traces – they said – that the saucers had landed.
Mrs Castle knew what the UFO spotters wanted – they wanted there to be a better place. They wanted the world to be like it had been when they were children, when they had storybooks instead of this, when they’d welcomed the fall of snow. They wanted to fly, they wanted to travel to faraway places, they wanted there to be more to life than the human race had made of it. They wanted someone, anyone, to come to their rescue, and take them to a better life where cars didn’t break down, where there weren’t strikes and power cuts. Somewhere wives didn’t hate their