Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [69]
‘I see into your past, your present and your future... Time Lord... I see into your eyes and your soul is there. How many have read your secrets? We are both orphans of space... both condemned to wander in search of meaning and both ultimately trapped here. Yet I have found my destiny here - in correcting sociological wrongs, even if I do confront them in an extreme way.
Have you found yours?’ He released the Doctor who crumpled to the ground, eyes haunted.
The Doctor was alone again. His tormentor had abruptly vanished.
Princess Mary turns towards the man with the gun and the whole world sucks in its breath. Photographers are too shocked to snap, bodyguards pose like players of a children’s game where to move is to be caught out. Princess Mary turns towards the man with the gun and she smiles. Her eyes are suddenly grey pebbles and she is reaching for the gun, smiling her crooked smile, and she takes it from the man as if it’s a present being offered. Now the world
164
breathes out and the cameras fire away like crazy and the bodyguards reel like drunks and the gun is blazing, the Princess is pumping the trigger like Dirty Harry and explosions are ripping little holes in the man’s body as he stands there taking it. Then he’s falling, blood squirting from those holes and he’s hitting the dirt of the pavement and the princess has shot him five times and now she’s leaping forward, on top of the body and look: she’s dancing.
Dancing on death.
She’s giglling as she performs her macabre jig, trampling on the leaking corpse, and the cameras lavish her with their praise and even the BBC have got in on the act with their big OB camera which moves in like a greedy beast to devour the action.
The bodyguards have stopped their confused reeling; now they stand, completely lost. They’re watching the show too.
The princess finishes her dance, and she turns towards her audience as the bodyguards finally move forward to lead her gently away. she laughs brightly, like a delighted child at Christmas.
‘This is Our Birthright,’ she says proudly, stepping off the corpse of her would-be assassin. ‘To dance on the grave of the filthy poor.’ A few streets away, in the car park of a department store, the cattle truck growls into life and pulls away from the kerbside where it has been waiting, seemingly abandoned, all morning.
And the day goes mad.
165
Chapter Fifteen
CLASS WAR, the headline of the Daily Mail bawled, AND THE
ROYAL SOLUTION. The Guardian was more poetic: THE
PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER. The Communist Worker positively roared its own take: MURDERING MONARCHY. The Sun had the best laugh with: ONE SHOT HIM FIVE TIMEs M’LUD.
Jo was reading all of them, as Nick tossed the newspapers to her one after the other. Now she glanced at the Mirror which had trotted out some headlines from Derek Pole’s own magazine Class Hate to accompany its article: DON’T WORK, WON’T WORK: A REDUNDANT MONARCHY SMASH THE RICH. Jimmy was chuckling obscenely as he drove the camper, repeating some of the choicer extracts like punch lines as Jo read them aloud.
‘Could the royals have gone too far?’ he echoed, turning The Clash’s ‘I Fought the Law’ up on the dash player. ‘I fought the parasites, and the parasites won. Well maybe not this time, eh, Nick? Maybe this time they have gone too far, and all those stupid sheep they call soddin’ subjects will finally realise the bastards have gottago!’ He cackled with wild enthusiasm, tailgating the Beetle crammed with travellers in front of them, his energy levels kicked into top gear and impatient with the crawl of the convoy.
They were on the move again. Nobody knew why; nobody knew where to. But hell, they were on the move again, and that was good enough for Jimmy.
Nick