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How long was it since the Doctor had sat down and watched Countdown? He used to like Countdown.
‘You’ll take care of him.’
‘You’re not coming with us?’
Sylvia looked as if she was about to say something, but then she just shook her head slightly. ‘Not my thing.’
‘But it’s your dad…’
‘We had a… discussion about that.’
‘Ah.’ The Doctor could only begin to imagine how that went. ‘Are you sure? Because I’m positive he, Do
Netty would love you–’
He stopped. Sylvia was one step away from flinching at the mention of Henrietta Goodhart.
‘Look after him, please, Doctor,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s not getting any younger, despite what he thinks.’
The Doctor smiled disarmingly. ‘Course I will.’
‘There’s no “course I will” about it with you, Doctor, so don’t give me any of your so-called charm and fla
I wasn’t asking a question, I was telling you.’
The Doctor tried not to smile – it was like being told off by a headmistress. Then the glint in Sylvia’s eye reminded him this was not remotely fu
‘Promise,’ he said, mentally adding, ‘And I’ll do three hundred lines: “I will not lose members of the Noble family in London”.’
‘They’re all I have,’ she said and walked out of the room.
The Doctor licked his forefinger and held it up.
Yup, the room’s ambient temperature had indeed dropped several degrees.
Half an hour later, they had piled into a cab. Wilf and Do
Wilf was dressed up to the nines – silk tie, good shirt, slightly tight jacket that had probably been bought in the early seventies – but was let down by the pair of trainers on his feet.
As if sensing where the Doctor was looking, Wilf held up a tatty carrier bag. Inside it was a pair of black dress
shoes. ‘They don’t half kill the circulation in my feet, so I wear ’em as little time as I can,’ he explained.
The Doctor nodded. ‘You look nice,’ he said to Do
‘Thanks. Had to borrow something off of Veena, who’d lent it to Mooky, so she had to bring it round this afternoon while you were out getting your suit and –what?’
The Doctor gri
Do
‘Fair point, although Ood isn’t really a name, it’s more a sort of species designation, and I… um…’
Do
looks, so he turned to Wilf instead.
‘Excited?’
‘Too right I am, Doctor. I get a star to myself. Named after me. How great is that?’
‘It’s more than great, Gramps,’ Do
‘Have they, Doctor?’
Whether they had or hadn’t was neither here nor there right now. ‘Absolutely not,’ he told Wilf. ‘And I’m very jealous.’
‘Yeah,’ Wilf leaned forward, so the driver wouldn’t hear him. ‘Yeah, but you? You get to visit ’em, don’t you?
You get to go up there.’ He turned to Do
her playfully. ‘You make the most of it, my girl.’
‘Oh, I am, don’t you worry,’ she said.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh, she is, don’t you worry at all.’
‘I mean, I’ve seen and done some things in my time, Doctor, but nothing can compare to what you’re showing my little girl, eh?’
‘Hey, I’m not just a passenger, you know,’ Do
And a big axe. And twelve legs.’
‘Ten legs,’ the Doctor automatically corrected her.
‘Oooh, all right then. Ten legs, and two arms that hung down to the ground. If you’re being pedantic. Which you clearly are. Tonight.’
The Doctor gri
‘No!’
Both Do
‘It’s dangerous, Granddad.’
‘You go!’
‘I’m… I can look after myself. If anything happened to you, what’d Mum do?’
‘Kill you?’
‘Well, she’d kill him,’ Do
‘You said “no” too, Wilf,’ the Doctor said.
Wilf looked up at the stars as they drove into South
London, crossing Vauxhall Bridge. ‘I like to look, Doctor.
I like to look, and imagine and dream. But the reality? All them monsters and guns and stuff? Nah. I prefer my ideas.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Very wise. Mind you, you’d be a calming influence on her.’
‘Oh I know. She does go on, doesn’t she?’
‘I am sitting here. Right here,’ Do
The Doctor was still talking to Wilf. ‘And there’s obviously something in her childhood about centipedes, but she won’t say what. Cos we went to this one place—’
‘Oi!’
Wilf laughed. ‘Oh I gotta tell you about that. When she was about eight, her dad and I took her up Norfolk way.
To the Broads? Anyway, she was paddling about when—’
‘ OI!! ’
They both looked at Do
‘As I said. Sat here. Listening. Not liking.’ The two men gri
‘Later,’ the Doctor said.
‘Later,’ Wilf confirmed.
Do
The cab pulled up outside the Society, a huge red-brick building built in early Victorian times, just off the main circus by Vauxhall station.
Do
At the new star Wilf had shown him last night. Which was now brighter than before. And there seemed to be another couple of stars that he didn’t think should be there…
Do
‘What?’
She indicated with her head towards Wilf, who was gripping a lamppost, trying to take off his trainers and hold onto his carrier bag at the same time.
‘I can’t bend in this thing,’ she hissed. ‘If I tear it, Veena will knock me into next week. She does the whole martial arts thing.’
The Doctor took the bag from Wilf and let the old man lean on him as he slipped his trainers off and replaced them with the dress shoes.
‘Sylvia bought these,’ he said to the Doctor. ‘Bloody things are three sizes too small.’
‘No they’re not,’ Do
‘Blimey, when did you turn into your mum?’ said Wilf.
Do
‘Someone’s di
The huge wooden door swung open as they reached the top step and a smartly dressed gentleman, mid-thirties, olive skin, dark hair and eyes that twinkled, waved them in.
‘Good evening, Mister Mott,’ he said in a slight
European accent. ‘Miss Noble. Doctor Smith. I am Gia
Do
‘Guest of honour,’ Wilf said. ‘I had to tell them who I was bringing.’
Gia
Do