Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28 (11 page)

‘Sixty years next year. This is the International Year of Astronomy, it’s all big double-sized issues. I wrote ’em a letter about the Triple Conjunction! Jupiter and Neptune!

Netty saw it, disagreed with my thoughts about how difficult it’d be to see with a telescope like mine and BANG, we had a little war across about three issues. Then one day she phoned me up out of the blue, we had coffee in London to sort out our disagreements and a week later she’d used her influence to make me a member of the RPS. And here we are.’

Donna smiled at him. ‘So when did you find out about her Alzheimer’s?’

‘Oh, she told me on our second… meeting.’

‘You were gonna say “second date”, weren’t you? Oh you sly old fox!’ Donna stared at him. ‘I’m happy for you, Gramps. To find a friend, someone you like to be with.

And I reckon Mum is, too.’

‘Oh, I know. She’s just worried about her illness, and how much strain it puts on me. She and Netty were talking about nursing homes, but I won’t have none of that.’

He looked at Henrietta Goodhart. ‘She’s a great lady, Donna. I wish you could see her like I do.’

‘I did. At the house yesterday and this morning. She’s lovely, and I think you should hang on to her.’

And Wilf felt so, so sad. ‘But one day, I’m gonna lose her. It’s inevitable. I looked it up on the internet.’

‘Oh well, that must be true, then.’

‘Seriously. It’s not good. I don’t mean she’s going to die, but I will lose her because one day she’ll retreat to wherever it is she goes and won’t come back. We don’t have the medicines, the knowledge to cure it. It’s not fair.’

Then a thought struck him. ‘I bet out there, in the stars, I bet they could treat her. I bet there’s something…’

And Donna squeezed his hands. ‘It doesn’t work like that, Gramps. God knows, with everything I’ve seen, all the people I’ve met, there’ve been times I thought there must be solutions to illness, famine, all sorts of nasty things. I thought if I shouted at the Doctor loud enough he could find a way. But it doesn’t matter if you’re in Chiswick or Cestus Minor, there are no easy answers. We just have to deal with what fate’s given us.’

‘It’s not fair,’ he repeated.

‘No. No, it’s not. And I’m so, so sorry for you. Because I love you, and I really like Netty and if I could find a way to make everything easy for you both, I really, really would. And you know what, the Doctor doesn’t know either of you that well, but I reckon he’d try ten times harder than me. And it probably still wouldn’t make a difference, so there’s no point beating yourself up over something you have no control over.’

Wilf looked at Donna, and wondered what had happened to that silly, flighty girl he’d loved but worried about all those years. Now she was a fine, brave, brilliant young woman. And he loved her even more.

And then there was Netty.

He eased his hand away from Donna’s and took both of Netty’s in his. ‘Hey you,’ he said quietly. ‘Henrietta Goodhart, I think it’s time for a singsong, like we used to, back in the old days?’

Donna frowned in confusion, but he just winked at her.

‘I know what I’m doing.’

Softly he began to hum a tune. An old gospel hymn.

‘When the stars begin to fall,’ he began to sing quietly, ‘Oh Lord! What a morning. Oh Lord! What a morning…’

He glanced at Donna. ‘She told me that her husband used to sing this with her, during the war.

‘I thought she never married?’

Wilf smiled tightly. ‘Never let anyone know I told you this, sweetheart. She was married. For three days. And he was killed in Singapore, when the bombing started. She told me that they’d sung this at her wedding, on the way in a big Silver Rolls. She had a photo of it and showed me, it was gorgeous. And then, when they tried to flee Singapore, he died holding her hand and she sung it to him as he lay dying in her lap.’ He looked back at Netty.

‘Never tell anyone I told you that, least of all her. Promise.

She really loved him so much and swore she’d never marry again.’

‘Course I promise, Gramps. Course I do.’

He started again. ‘Oh sinner, what will you do, when the stars begin to fall… oh Lord, what a morning…’

Netty’s eyes seemed to focus, and she took a deep breath, as if waking up.

‘I went, didn’t I? Oh no, I’ve not been wandering out in

the streets in nothing but my underwear?’ She looked at Donna and winked. ‘Again!’

Wilf smiled at her, a tear almost trying to escape his eye, so he blinked it away before either of them could see it. ‘I think we need to get back to the party, rescue the Doctor, yeah?’

Netty stood up and let Wilf lead the way. She hung back a little and leaned on Donna. ‘I get more tired each time,’ she said. ‘Oh, and thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘His name was Richard Philip Goodhart. And your grandfather is the only person I’ve ever met who comes close.’

By the time they’d made their way back to the main hall, the dinner was over.

Wilf and the Doctor were now propping up the far wall, and Wilf was apologising because Ariadne Holt and Cedric Crossland had refused to take the Doctor seriously.

‘I’m embarrassed to know them.’

The Doctor looked at Wilf in sadness. ‘Don’t be. These are good people. Some of them are a bit odd, but at heart they’re just marvellously normal. Why should they believe me?’

‘Well, we have had spaceships and Sontarans and stuff over the last few years.’

‘There’s no accounting for mankind’s ability to rationalise things, Wilf. What one group of people will be scared by, another group see no danger from because it’s within their comfort zone. These people are marvellous pioneers, loving the stars, the constellations and just

watching and noting and cataloguing the heavens. Like you! None of that should ever stop, it’s too important, even if things are unlikely to be recognised for a couple of centuries. Nobody took Galileo or Copernicus or Organon seriously in their own times.’

‘You take their rudeness very well, Doctor.’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘It’s not personal. People like Doctor Crossland just don’t want to contemplate things that fall outside their sphere of reference. At worst itsfoolhardy, at best easily overlooked.’ Then he looked at the glass of lemonade in his hand. ‘Usually.’

‘But this Mandragora stuff, that’s not usual, is it?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘It’s a malevolent entity, Wilf. Last time it was here in force, a lot of people died.

But it was trying to stop the Italian Renaissance, to stop science reaching the state it’s at now. I can’t see what it hopes to achieve today. Go back forty years and stop the transistor, or the microchip and yes, you’d spoil the next generation of human progress. But here? Nothing particularly special happens this year, this decade even, that can really affect Earth’s future that much. You lot just plod on for a century or so. Getting out to Mars. A couple of major space flights—’

‘Mars? We get to Mars? Do we find Martians?’

‘Spoilers,’ the Doctor winked. ‘My lips are sealed.’ He swigged his lemonade. ‘So I’m not sure whether to leave the Mandragora Helix alone up there and assume that it’s just keeping an eye on things, or be prepared for a big battle.’

‘Perhaps it’s got something to do with those Carnes

boys, Doctor. You said you thought they had aliens in the family.’

‘Oh yes! And how did Joe Carnes know my name?’

The Doctor sighed. ‘Oh Wilf, Wilf, Wilf! You just ruined a perfectly pleasant evening.’

‘I did? How? And, um, sorry.’

‘Because you just spotted a chink, a tiny, tiny flaw in my logic. Mandragora is linked, in a bizarre way, to astrology, not just astronomy.’

‘Astrology’s nonsense.’

‘Well, most of it’s just made up by newspapers. But it dates back to the Dark Times, so there’s probably something
in it. Go back to the birth of the universe and you’ll see every society, every civilisation has some form of zodiac, a belief in the power of ancient lights linked to some kind of belief system based around the movement of planets and stars and constellational shift. Astrologers on the planet Hynass swear blind that there’s no such thing as coincidence and have absolute faith in the knowledge that every event since the Big Bang has been divined, is a matter of pre-established fate that no one can ever break out of. Now you might think it’s nonsense and I might think it’s nonsense, but Mandragora thrives on that belief, that unproven system, and uses it. Cause and effect.’

Wilf frowned. ‘But it’s still nonsense.’

‘Oh yes! Yeah, course it is. Nonsense! Well, probably.

Doesn’t stop Mandragora being able to tap into those energies though.’

Wilf shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Doctor.’

Donna walked over. ‘Granddad, I think Netty could do

with some support against that mad old witch’s opinions on a woman’s place in modern society.’

Wilf nodded. ‘Cheers, Doctor. I hope you’re wrong by the way.’ And he wandered off.

‘What was that all about then, sunshine? You upsetting my gramps?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, Donna, not at all. He’s got me thinking about coincidence and causality.’ He glanced over at Netty. ‘How is she?’

‘Not sure. She just drifted off for a while but then she just seemed to wake up, all smiles and dragged me back here.’

‘It happens, I’m afraid,’ he said, still observing her as she slipped an arm around Wilf’s waist. ‘And don’t forget, she’s used to it herself.’

Donna tapped his hand. ‘And there’s something else. In the bar. That good-looking bloke who showed us in earlier?’

‘Gianni?’

‘Yeah, him. He was going on about someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Dunno, I wasn’t sure he was even speaking at first but it seemed to be something about a man licking a mad dolphin.’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘Could be anything. Probably had too much to drink himself.’

‘Or working with these people has sent him nutty,’

Donna grinned. ‘Oh well. Not sure why you’d lick a mad dolphin, though.’

The Doctor laughed. ‘Nor me. We should think of

heading off soon, though.’

‘Why?’

‘Something to do with a very old and dangerous alien entity suspended not far above your planet that is unlikely to be there sightseeing.’

‘How dangerous?’

‘Well, it’ll be waiting for something like a lunar eclipse which, looking at the moon tonight, doesn’t seem especially imminent.’

‘There’s always the Triple Conjunction.’

‘The what?’

‘Gramps told me about it, it’s why they’re all so excited by his discovery of that new star. This is the International Year of Astronomy, and they’re all waiting to see the first triple conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune.’

Donna was quite proud that she’d retained all that information, but the Doctor was legging it across the room to Doctor Crossland. ‘The Triple Conjunction,’ he yelled.

‘When is it?’

‘Sorry?’

‘This year, yes? But when this year?’

Crossland sighed. ‘I thought you were supposed to be clever?’

‘I am. But, like all clever people, I can only learn things when people give me straight answers to straight questions and not sarcasm.’

Doctor Crossland looked triumphant. He had outsmarted the Doctor. ‘Well, if you knew as much about astronomy as you say, you’d know it’s ongoing. It started

a while back.’

‘When the Chaos Body was first sighted?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And when does it hit its peak?’

‘It’s why we’re having this dinner, Doctor. The main event occurs on Monday, about three o’clock in the afternoon, local time.’

‘You appear to be looking very smug, Doctor Crossland,’ the Doctor said, ‘for a man who may well be dead in forty-eight hours. Give or take five or six hours.’

Doctor Crossland frowned. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘Not from me, from me it’s an assurance. The threat is from Mandragora. From your Chaos Body. It’s here to kill you all.’

He hurried over to Wilf, Netty and Ariadne Holt. ‘Sorry to break up the party, Wilf, but I have to go. Can you get Netty home OK, Donna?’

‘Oh, Doctor, you go, don’t worry about us. I have a cab booked to take me home at eleven anyway,’ Netty said.

She touched Wilf’s arm. ‘And don’t even try to argue with me, Wilfred Mott. This is your night, so I didn’t want you feeling all responsible for me tonight.’

Wilf looked from her to the Doctor.

‘Wilf can’t leave,’ said Ariadne Holt. ‘We haven’t done the presentation yet.’

‘It’s only us that’s going,’ said Donna. ‘Granddad will stay.’

‘Like hell I will,’ said Wilf. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No one’s coming with me,’ the Doctor said, but no one was listening to him.

Donna pulled him closer. ‘Gramps, Netty has already had one… spell this evening. You have to stay with her.

Make sure she gets home. Go with her in the cab, then keep the cab and get home, yeah?’ She reached into her handbag and took out three tenners. ‘Dunno if it’s enough, but it should help.’

Wilf refused the money. ‘I can pay my own way, thank you, sweetheart.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ Donna said. ‘But take it anyway, so I don’t have it on my conscience that you might’ve got stranded somewhere and have to drag Mum out of bed to come and pick you up, all right?’

Wilf looked at his granddaughter, then at the Doctor, who pretended to find something interesting on the ceiling. He took the cash. ‘Call me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my mobile.’

‘I know you have. And it’ll be switched off or have a flat battery. Same as always. We’ll be fine, I’ll see you in the morning.’ She kissed him, then Netty and grabbed the Doctor’s hand. ‘Come on you, time we were gone.’