Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [2]
Talking of which... Sarah leaned perilously far out over the window ledge at the sound of raucous singing coming down the alley. Yes, there they were as usual, coming out of the Dog and Duck. That song was yukky enough when Old Bleary Eyes wrapped his tonsils around it, but – ’Da da de da, I’ve had a few...’ You can say that again, mate.
A memory floated from nowhere into Sarah’s head: a slightly dandified figure dressed in a frilly shirt, a velvet jacket and cloak, standing outside an old-fashioned Police Telephone Box, holding the door open for her; and suddenly her grumpy mood was trickling away and she was flooded with a warmth which made her lift her eyebrows in surprise.
‘Good heavens above,’ she said aloud, ‘I do believe I’m missing the Doctor!’
‘I did it m-y-y-y-y way!’
With a deal of yawing, Bill and Nobby steered their uncertain course through the long grass in a vaguely north-easterly direction. They could hardly get lost using as their prime navigational aid the massive tower, shaped like the original Apollo moon rocket, which rose majestically above the high fence which protected the new theme park.
Bill stopped. ‘Hang on,’ he said. The singing continued.
Belt up!’
‘Wha’ssa matter?’
‘Opens tomorrow, doesn’t it?’
‘Wha’ you on about?’
‘You know, all that fuss in the papers. Monsters and all.’
‘Wha’ about it?’
‘Why don’t we go and have a look? Come on!’
Bill set off purposefully towards the fence. Nobby took a couple of reluctant steps and stopped. ‘Wha’ if they are real? The monsters. Like it said in the paper?’ Bill kept on going. Nobby slowly followed him.
‘Yeah, but I mean, what if they are?’
‘Don’t be a berk. Come on, give us a leg up. Anyway, they’d be in cages, wouldn’t they?’
Only half convinced, Nobby made his hands into a step the way he always had. But this fence was higher than the wall of old Wilson’s garden where they used to go to steal the fruit dropping off the Victoria plum tree, or the corrugated iron barrier which had hindered their one and only attempt to do some real thieving some three years ago.
In the end, on Bill’s insistence that this was the opportunity of a lifetime, they dragged over a fallen beech log, victim of last year’s gale, and climbed with precarious determination, up the stumps of its lost branches, towards the ending of their brief and unproductive lives.
Freeth wrinkled his nose fastidiously as Tragan returned to the saloon from the rear compartment. The sound of savage snarls was abruptly cut off by the closing of the door.
‘Don’t you ever give them a bath?’
‘Would you like to try?’
‘You could at least hose them down – or take them for a swim. I can’t think why you want to get them out at all.’
‘An elementary precaution. We’ll be coming in to land in a few minutes.’
Freeth dabbed at his nose with a fine lawn handkerchief, scented with a perfume blended for his exclusive use.
‘You’re always such a moaner, Tragan. There’ll be no trouble. Kitson would have warned us.’
Tragan’s voice was as colourless as his eyes. ‘That’s just what you said last time,’ he said.
It was hardly surprising that the building of the theme park had roused so much opposition. Rivalling Disneyworld in size and the scope of its attractions, not only did it swallow up acres of London’s favourite open space, it also made it inevitable that the remainder would be trampled into an ugly death.
For the style of its odd-looking buildings, some as seemingly fragile as a spider’s web, others weighing down the earth as massively as any of the edifices of ancient times, compelling awe in the beholder; the majesty of its wide avenues, lined with peculiar trees as elegant as they were strange (Not real? Run your hands over the bark, smell the flowers); the richness of the giant three-dimensional posters (Colour holography? But that’s impossible!); everything was designed to lure the curiosity and wonder of the paying masses from all over the