'I'll live,' said the Doctor, brushing himself down.

'No,' said Ace distantly.

Robin jumped back on to his bike and grinned at Ace.

'You should, you know, you really should. Of course I 'I wonder if you can help us, young man?'

remember the day it was finished ...'

'Surely.'

Ace looked up from her thoughts and smiled. She never 'We'd like to know whether this fine establishment is knew whether the Doctor's tales were serious or not. At any open for some breakfast just yet?'

rate, he certainly seemed to have snapped out of his Ace found that she was staring at Robin as he spoke to the depression. If anything, he now seemed a little too chatty.

Doctor. There were disconcerting but very nice tinglings Almost as if he were trying to hide something...

moving through her body.

Ace frowned.

'Fraid not,' said Robin. 'Mum's just up but the pub doesn't open till eleven.'

Edmund Trevithick blinked into wakefulness. There was a He was tall and slim with thick black hair and skin as band of cold winter sunlight streaming across his bed. He smooth as soapstone. His eyes were an extraordinary green blinked again. For a moment he couldn't remember where and his smile broad and cheeky.

he was. There was some fugitive memory prodding at his 'Try the cafe up the road,' he advised. 'Cheap and subconscious.

cheerful but it does the job.'

Lying there in the bed by the window, Trevithick began to 'Thank you very much,' said the Doctor.

think of his childhood. He remembered seeing the intense, 48 49.thrilling white reflection off newly fallen snow as it peeked abstraction by the orange light of the fire. His father helped through the c.h.i.n.ks in the curtains. And the joy of throwing him write out his list for Santa Claus and then tossed the back the heavy drapes to expose the acres and acres of land small square of paper on to the fused knot of red hot coal. It behind his father's parsonage, knee deep in wonderful snow.

spun briefly in the column of hot air, became temporarily His father (a completely different sort of chap out of transparent - he could see writing on both sides at once - church) would get into his 'civvies' and root out the old and vanished up the chimney.

wooden sled from the outhouse. Then they would be off, Then there would be tall tales from his father about Edmund, his father and Edmund's elder brother Maurice, winters so severe that houses vanished under drifts and speeding down the hill, b.u.mping and smashing into little match flames froze as they were struck.

mounds of impacted snow or bruising their backsides on That was back at the turn of the century. Then he'd seen unexpected clumps of stubble, which protruded like yellow really bad winters. The one in '47... and '63, only five years bristles from under the drifts.

ago. That had caught him short. He'd never last another one The latter part of the year had always been his favourite.

of those if it came, especially with the ancient heating in the Better by far than the long, depressing summer evenings Dalesview Home.

which stretched out like flavourless chewing gum. Better A bad smell, like rotting fish, dragged him back from his than the dull, in-between months with no special character.

memories into reality. It was the same smell from the night No, the end of the year it was, with the deliciously long run-before. Trevithick sat up in bed and looked around. The in through the burnt turnip smells of Hallowe'en and dark sight of the shattered panes and billowing curtains brought smoke of November into the crisp, freezing, perfect-sunned back his experiences in a rush of remembrance. He days of early December.

swallowed hard and pressed the buzzer which would And then Christmas! One huge red and green memory, summon Jill.

packed to bursting with sensual delights. Pulled by his Jill Mason glared at the buzzing light by her bed. Edmund mother's hand into palatial department stores like castles of again. Was he never content? She knew already that ice: twinkling lights, the hum of extortionately priced train-whichever side of the bed she chose to get out of would be sets, the exciting smell of unfamiliar perfume, all mingling the wrong side. She'd slept badly and was in a rather foul and bursting before his astonished little eyes. Going into mood. Trevithick's remarks of the previous night had these stores in daylight and the fantastic shock of emerging touched a raw nerve. Yes, she would rather be with those into wintry darkness - the reversal of the disappointment he 'b.l.o.o.d.y anarchists' in Paris than rot in this dismal corner of felt coming out of a cinema into painful sunshine.

England. She'd received an exciting letter from an old Trevithick recalled sitting with his father and brother in a university friend only the other day, extensively detailing wonderfully dark front room that smelled of tangerines.

the French students' pitched battles with the police on the Dark as pitch. The corners of the room softened into Rive Gauche. It had been a magical summer, her friend 50 51.a.s.sured her, getting stoned with her strange and interesting The Doctor and Ace had taken Robin's advice and were new French lover, trying to 'find herself' by looking inward.

now warmly ensconced in Mrs Crithin's delightful cafe, a Jill felt an almost painful sense of missing out on pleasantly cluttered room of red plastic upholstered seats something huge and important. She should've been there and tarnished cappuccino urns. There was a heavy, greasy too, challenging reactionaries like de Gaulle and Johnson smell of bacon fat coupled with the not unpleasant blue just as she had at university, not locked up in an old folk's haze of Mrs Crithin's eighth cigarette of the morning.

home. Sometimes she felt more of an invalid than her On the wall, Ace had found a calendar which, along with charges.

Mrs Crithin's splendidly boisterous decorations, told her it Trevithick's light buzzed. Jill sighed and threw on a was almost Christmas. Christmas 1968.

heavily creased dressing gown. She padded down the She felt a little thrill run through her. So here she was at corridor and threw open Trevithick's door.

last. The real sixties. Not '63 where she'd seen little of 'What is it, Edmund?' she yawned. 'Because if it can wait England except Coal Hill School and the Daleks, but '68: I'd appreciate it. It's not time for breakfast yet and Polly has time of the Beatles and the Stones, Martin Luther King and her hands full with Miss Norton's drip...'

the Mexico Olympics, the Paris Riots and man on the moon.

Trevithick didn't say a word. Instead he simply pointed at No, that was '69, wasn't it?

the window like some dying medieval bishop catching sight All she'd known of this time was her mum's enthusiasm of the Grim Reaper.

and the evidence of faded home movies. Yet even these Jill rubbed a hand across sleep-misted eyes and turned silent figures in vibrant colours mouthing and waving on round. The sight of the smashed window turned her cold.

warm beaches seemed to have something of the era's She remembered the time her flat was burgled and how indefinable presence about them. Ace's mum with high, she'd thrown up at the sight of devastation. But it wasn't the lacquered hair and garish mini-dress laughing as Uncle financial loss, or even the mess, which had upset her. Rather Harry goosed her from behind. Harry's mint-green Hillman it was the sense of invasion; the idea that some stranger had Minx with its Batmobile tail-fins gliding into the distance as ploughed through her private things, destroyed the sanct.i.ty the family waved him away. All this to the achingly of her little nest.

comforting trill of the film projector.

She felt the same thing now and the same desire to vomit.

The Doctor returned from the counter with two mugs of Trevithick looked at her, a little fear in his eyes.

steaming tea. It was nice and warm inside the cafe and Ace Jill then became aware of another sensation. An insistent, took off her donkey jacket with some relief.

pungent smell wafting from the shattered window. It was 'Ta,' she said and took a deep draught of tea. It was a little like bad meat. Or the rancid smell of a dead animal in the too hot and burned the roof of her mouth.

road...

The Doctor was staring into the middle distance, his inky black eyes distracted and fathomless. He drank some tea 52 53.almost without thinking. Ace decided it was best to keep The Doctor sighed and gazed past her again, his eyes quiet. Mrs Crithin's tranny played a song which Ace could seeing different places, different people, different times ... 'I remember Uncle Harry humming in his familiar way. It wonder if I'm not being a selfish old Time Lord. Keeping drifted across the cafe as Mrs Crithin mopped up some you from better things.'

spilled tea.

'But Doctor, you're all I've got! I don't want anything else.

'Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never Not yet. Where else could I go?'

end. We'd sing and dance for ever and a day ...'

The Doctor put up his hands. 'It's all right, it's all right.

Quite suddenly, the Doctor seemed to snap out of it and I'm not about to abandon you. I just thought... perhaps...

fixed Ace with his most charming smile.

perhaps it's time to stop all this aimless wandering. That's 'Well, Ace,' he mused, rubbing his finger around the rim all.'

of the mug, 'how are you keeping?'

Ace nodded slowly. She'd been right then.

It was such an odd question that Ace was momentarily 'I'm not daft, Doctor. You're talking about yourself, aren't taken aback. It was the sort of thing old aunts or distant you?' she said, c.o.c.king an eyebrow. The Doctor looked at cousins ask just before they remember they haven't seen her in mock indignation and then his rumpled face you since you were knee high to a gra.s.shopper.

collapsed into a resigned frown. 'Yes. I'm talking about 'What d'you mean? You see me every day.'

myself.'

The Doctor smiled, but it was a thin smile. 'I know, I It had begun to rain again and Mrs Crithin switched on know. But I mean ... how are you? Really. In yourself.'

the dirty-yellow lights to brighten things up. Sheets of rain Ace frowned.

lashed against the big, plate-gla.s.s window. There was a 'Oh, I'm not putting this very well, am I?' said the Doctor, quality of stillness in the air too, as in before a thunderstorm.

absently rummaging through the pockets of his duffel coat.

Ace suddenly felt like a priest at confession.

'What I'm trying to find out is... well... whether you're 'Go on,' she said quietly. The Doctor bowed his head and happy. Whether you don't think it's time to put down a few gazed at his mug of tea. In the garish artificial light he roots.'

seemed much older, the lines on his wise face like the Ace was shocked. The Doctor was full of surprises. She carving on some ancient crusader's tomb effigy.

had a vague impression, too, that he was really thinking 'It's just that... I've been thinking lately... and if I've been aloud, trying to vocalise a debate obviously raging inside difficult, then I'm truly sorry. Thinking... whether I've really his own head.

done any good. All these years... all these years of roaming 'What are you on about, Doctor?' She drank another gulp about. Righting wrongs. Interfering...'

of tea. The burnt skin on the roof of her mouth was Ace felt an upsurge of tenderness inside her. 'But how can beginning to throb.

you say that, Doctor? You know you've done good. The 54 55.whole world... Well, everyone is in your debt a hundred up and give them a quick turn around the Universe but they times over. You know that.'

all go in the end. And I'm left... ultimately alone.'

'But have I the right to take it upon myself? To act as self-Ace found herself blinking back tears. He's just like the appointed judge and jury?' The Doctor looked Ace in the rest of us, she thought.

eye.

'Let me get this straight, Doctor. Are you talking about 'You know you've done good,' she said, feeling that her retiring?'

attempt at rea.s.surance was hopelessly inadequate.

The Doctor smiled. 'I suppose I am, yes. Settling down 'Have I, Ace? Have I?'

somewhere. For a few centuries at least. Somewhere away Ace looked away. Mrs Crithin was attempting to change from death and disaster. Far from the madding crowd.'

the station on her tranny.

'But where?'

The Doctor rested his cheek on one hand and his deeply Privately, Ace thought the Doctor was incapable of living lined face rucked up against his fingers like ripples in sand.

a quiet life, like that old woman in the Agatha Christie 'I'm so tired,' he said with a heavy sigh. His eyes flicked books. Wherever she goes, people get b.u.mped off.

up at Ace. 'I've been thinking a lot lately. About the past.

'Perhaps it's time I went home. To Gallifrey.'

About my past, I mean.'

Ace was amazed. 'But you're always telling me what a Ace suddenly remembered the incident with the grey dull hole it is. All those geriatrics swarming around doing tunic in the tertiary console room. The Doctor nodded as if nothing all day. Isn't that why you left in the first place?'

he'd read her thoughts.

'One of the reasons.'

'Yes. The uniform. It was Susan's.'

'So what's changed?' said Ace.

Ace's ears p.r.i.c.ked up. 'Girlfriend?'

'I have. I mean... all these years of poking my nose into The Doctor laughed almost scornfully. 'She was my first other people's business. Perhaps I should try and sort things travelling companion. We were... we are from the same out back there. It's corrupt and it's a bureaucratic nightmare planet. I enrolled her in that school when I came to Earth but its heart is in the right place. I think it's time I stopped with the Hand of Omega. We saw so much in our time shirking my responsibilities.'

together. But she left me. As they all do. As you will... And For once in her life, Ace could think of absolutely nothing do you know, Ace, I don't think a day pa.s.ses when I don't to say.

think of her.'

The cafe door burst open and a tall Asian man with 'What are you trying to say, Doctor?'

shoulder-length black hair strode inside. Ace was struck by He shrugged. 'I miss her, I suppose. I miss... my family. In the appealing openness of his finely sculpted face but whatever sense of the word. There've been so many over the thought it a shame he masked his features with such an ugly years. Ian and Barbara. Sarah. Jo. Dear Jamie... I whisk them moustache.

56.57.Vijay Degun ran his fingers through his soaking hair and 'I need some time to myself. To do some thinking. I was grinned at Mrs Crithin behind the counter. 'Could I use wondering - well...'

your phone, Mrs Crithin? We had a bit of an emergency up Ace smiled. 'Here's two bob, get yourself to the pictures?

at the station last night and it blew all our phone lines. I Yeah, I understand, Doctor. I'll occupy myself for a bit.

need to get through to Cambridge.'

Where will you be?'

Ace looked out of the window and noticed the big green The Doctor stood up and put on his hat. 'I'm going to that Land Rover in which Vijay had arrived.