Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [12]
The bus they had caught, bright red and shiny, was so much like the ones she'd used to catch – only the headlights, round and old-fashioned, gave it away as belonging to the past. In the same way, the ambulance that had taken away the old dear had been a variation on a familiar theme - no back-to-front writing, a stacked roof... And the design was so boxy, so...
well, so out of the sixties.
Sam shook her head. Nineties girl. I'm going to stand out if I keep gawping like this. But, for God's sake, there's another TARDIS over there!
'Here we are. Chateau Kreiner.' A long journey with two changes and they were approaching Fitz's home, a convenient ten-minute walk from Archway tube. Sam smiled politely - it was a tiny-looking third-floor flat with grimy windows.
'It's bigger on the inside, honest,' said Fitz, opening the front door and leading her up the stairs. Sam looked wryly to an imaginary camera.
'Here we are, then. Swinging or what?' Fitz said, deadpan.
'It's... great.' Sam looked around at the cluttered interior of the stale-smoke-smelling flat. A brown armchair like the one her gran owned, with a pile of newspapers and half-full ashtrays next to it. A big brown radio - or a wireless, whatever - sat on the mantelpiece. There was no TV, and the carpet was puckered with cigarette bums. An electric guitar was leaning against a large rubber plant, and a small orange amp sat dutifully beside it.
'Do you play, then?' asked Sam.
'No, it's my mother's.' said Fitz.
'Really? That's cool.'
'Actually, it is mine. Sucker.'
'No, you're the sucker. I was suckering you with my sarcasm.'
'No, you believed me.'
'I did not believe you...'
Sam realised she was following Fitz's gangly form up the squeaking wooden stairs and wondered vaguely if that was wise.
'My room's up here.'
'My life won't be complete until I've seen it.'
Sam looked around the poky attic room. There was a single mattress on the floor, with a miserably thin, brightly-dyed pillow adorning it. The walls had been white, once, she imagined, but now they were beige - partly age, partly fag smoke to judge by the smell of the place. A huge striped flag that Sam didn't recognise smothered the far wall, pinned up below the tiny window angled up at the sky.
'You've travelled, then?' asked Sam, nodding towards the flag.
'Only as far as Brick Lane market for that,' said Fitz.
He was lighting up again . Sam coughed once more, meaningfully, but he ignored her. 'So where is it, then? Somewhere you'd like to go?'
'Somewhere I'd like to go...' Fitz smiled at the thought. 'I don't know what flag it is. The bloke who flogged it to me didn't know either.' He inhaled and smiled, more gently this time. 'I quite like that. But yeah... it's somewhere out there. Fitz Free State, maybe. I'll get there someday.' He exhaled heavily and looked at her. 'Well, it's got to be better than round here, hasn't it?'
Sam couldn't think of anything to say, and found herself staring at his dismal little bed. Fitz flopped down on to it and looked up at her a little sheepishly. His eyes were a soft grey, nice. Shame about his nose - it was a bit too long, but at least it matched the rest of him. She could see a few patches of stubble he'd missed when shaving. File under 'needs mothering', she thought, idly.
'I'm sorry,' Fitz said. 'You're not supposed to find out I'm a bit of a loser until you're sufficiently intrigued by my mysterious airs.' He sighed. It was getting dark through the tiny window in the roof. '"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars!"' he proclaimed.
Some of us have visited them, mate, thought Sam to herself, noting how he changed the subject.
'How about a little