Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [6]
‘ Countess Gallowglass, Doctor.’ Her voice was deep and plummy, quite at odds with her birdlike frame. She gave a theatrical little sigh. ‘Sadly, Edmund passed away last year. So tragic.’ She glanced away and downwards, as Ace just knew she’d been taught to do at some expensive Swiss finishing school. She stifled a laugh at the theatricality of it all.
‘My deepest condolences,’ he said softly.
Her eyes fluttered a thank-you at him, and she turned to lead them through into another room – this one, if it were possible, even more tacky than the hallway. Even the table lamps had shades like tiny chandeliers.
‘How long has it been Doctor?’ she crooned, almost flirtatiously, over her shoulder. ‘Too long, I’m sure.’
‘You know how it is. The whole of the cosmos to roam in, and never enough time to read the papers, never mind the post.
It’s usually all junk mail, anyway. Anything interesting happened recently then?’
The Countess smiled. ‘Nothing that I can tell you about, I’m afraid. Although,’ she leaned towards him, casting her eyes about as if they might be under surveillance, ‘I’d make sure that I wasn’t here next July 4th if I were you.’
‘Independence Day?’
She raised a peremptory finger to her thin, scarlet lips. ‘Word to the wise,’ she whispered and winked at Ace. ‘And you must be the delightful Ace! It’s a pleasure to meet you my dear!’ She shook hands with a bemused – and baffled – Ace.
Had the Doctor been talking about her behind her back, Ace wondered, or was she destined to become some important historical figure? She’d have to have words with him, she thought wryly, as the Countess drifted away to check the Doctor’s mail. The cat slid from her arms like oil and trotted after her.
‘Professor, that is some seriously weird woman! Who is she?’
‘Miss – Countess Gallowglass? She’s a dear friend.’
He caught Ace’s smirk and tutted.
‘She runs a message forwarding service for aliens, time-travellers. The dispossessed. She’s a lifeline for many of them. I met her just after my exile on Earth ended. She was operating from a Portakabin in the East End.’ He gazed around. ‘She really has done well for herself.’
‘So she’s an alien, then?’
‘Well, bits of her are –’
He hushed Ace with a gentle elbow as the Countess swanned back in, an inch-thick pile of letters, cards – and what looked like a squashed rat, complete with long, pink (and, thankfully, limp) tail – in her bony hand.
‘My, you have been busy, Doctor,’ she said, flicking through them, eyebrow raised archly. The Doctor reached out and plucked them from her. She smiled beneficently as he extracted the flattened rat from his post and laid it on the desk. Ace noticed that it had an address label slapped on its back, covered with blocky writing in purple crayon.
‘Return to sender for this one, I think,’ he commented, as the black cat strolled silkily around his legs, sniffing the air, and eyeing the rat greedily.
‘Beautiful cat,’ said the Doctor, wiggling his fingers in the animal’s direction. It stared at him, unimpressed.
‘Yes he is – and he’s settled in marvellously,’ the Countess replied, scooping the cat up in her arms and clasping him to her chest, from where he continued to eye the two newcomers. Ace stared back, determined not to be outfaced by a spoiled, over-pampered moggy.
‘Tea?’ asked the Countess, watching the Doctor fan through his post.
He glanced at Ace and shook his head. ‘Thank you Countess, but I think we really should be going – this is Ace’s first visit to this time period, and I promised I’d show her around. Anything you’d recommend?’
The Countess considered. ‘There’s an exhibition of Etruscan art at the Southbank – but I don’t suppose the Doctor’s brought you to your own future only to take a step back into history, have you Doctor?’
‘I was hoping for something a bit spacey, yeah,’ Ace grinned as the Countess sailed past and escorted them back through the jewel-box hallway. The Doctor gazed wistfully at a grandfather clock, seemingly cast out of solid gold, as the Countess waited decorously by the door for them.