Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [16]
Saiarossa seemed like a city desperately struggling not to collapse. Like an elderly woman plastering herself with make-up in an attempt to hold back the indignities of age, it looked sad and rather pathetic. Murals of people he didn’t recognise, surrounded by angels and wearing halos, adorned crumbling walls; metal spars and girders jutted skeletally from cracked walls. It reminded him of Venice, a city sliding graciously towards its final end. More skinny dogs roamed the streets, and haunted, tired eyes stared hack at him from cracked and dirty windows. The ground beneath him was a mess: broken and uneven, sprouting weeds and even a fully grown tree bearing small, pallid fruits like deformed oranges – it looked as if it had been laid in one, long seamless ribbon, perhaps by machine when the city had been built. But the years had taken their toll, and it was now full of potholes and wide, grit-filled cracks.
‘We’re here,’ said Calamee, glancing up and down the street as if they were about to enter an opium den. They were in front of a blue door, its paint flaking and chipped. In a niche at the side of it was mounted a painted wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, her face and hands black, as was the raised heart, carved on to the centre of her chest. It had evidently been there some years, judging by its condition, and the Doctor couldn’t help but notice the tired look in its eyes. Or maybe that was just him, projecting his own weariness. At the other side of the door was a wooden plaque, hand-painted in blue and white, proclaiming that they were outside ‘The Church of the Forgotten Saints’.
How appropriate. He looked up at the tiny building: it didn’t look much like a church to him (but, as he kept reminding himself, what did he know?).
Calamee tried the door, but it was locked. She pressed a small button at the side.
‘I’m surprised,’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t strike me as the church-going 28
type.’ He pulled away from Nessus as the mokey woke up and reached out for his shoulder.
‘I’m not, but this is where Mother and Father used to come before they moved to Santa Anghelis and found a posher one.’ She glanced up at the buildings towering over them. ‘I was born not far from here, believe it or not.
I was confirmed here.’
The door opened a few inches, and the face of an elderly man peered out.
He eyed Calamee dubiously, but when he saw the Doctor, there was an audible inhalation of breath.
‘Father Roberto?’ said Calamee. ‘My name’s Calamee Fischer. You remember me?’
Father Roberto opened the door wider and leaned out a little.
‘Child, you’ve grown!’ he said, almost disapprovingly. He was short and quite pudgy; a halo of fuzzy grey hair wrapped itself around the sides and back of his head, and he looked as though he hadn’t shaved for a few days.
He looked the Doctor up and down.
‘And who’s this?’
‘They call me the Doctor,’ said the Doctor, holding out his hand – which went ignored.
‘Do they indeed? And what would St Thomas have made of that, I wonder?’
Roberto’s voice was full of suspicion – and, thought the Doctor, perhaps with good reason: if even he didn’t know quite what he was doing here, he could hardly blame the Esperons for wondering too.
‘Can we come in?’ asked Calamee, when it seemed that an invitation was not to be forthcoming.
‘I suppose,’ Roberto said grudgingly, after giving the Doctor the once-over again. He stepped back and opened the door wide. Calamee stepped inside and the Doctor followed.
They were in a deliciously cool hallway, illuminated only by light spilling from an open door at the end of a short corridor. The air was rich with the smells of leather and camphor, tobacco and