Rona Munro - Doctor Who: Survival

DOCTOR WHO

SURVIVAL

RONA MUNRO

Based on the BBC television serial by Rona Munro by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation

It was an ordinary Sunday in Perivale. The hazy June sunshine made a half-hearted attempt to pierce the cloud and fumes that hung over London.

Mr Aitken was outside his home washing his car; he washed his car every Sunday. Inside the house, Mrs Aitken toiled over a turkey roast and a pan of mashed potato; they had a turkey roast every Sunday.

Only the frozen vegetables varied: Mrs Aitken cooked either green beans or peas; occasionally she presented sweet-corn.

Mr Aitken was thinking about turkey roast and sweet-corn as he massaged suds into the bonnet of his car. The pink sponge moved in a hypnotic, regular rhythm. Mr Aitken was unaware that he was being observed.

On the opposite side of the street, a cat stared down at him from a window ledge. It was a powerful animal with heavy dark fur; it crouched with its head low, the tip of its tail twitching.

The cat regarded Mr Aitken as if he were a particularly plump and incautious sparrow. It watched as Mrs Aitken appeared in the neat front garden, flapping a tea-towel and calling her husband in for lunch.

It waited until she had disappeared back into the house and the street was deserted except for Mr Aitken and his bucket of suds.

At first Mr Aitken didn't recognize the sound of hoofbeats. He was aware of a thundering clatter on the road behind him and a strange threatening animal noise - a throaty yowling. With the dripping sponge still his his hands, he turned to face the source of the noise, a frown on his face.

What he saw bearing down on him simply made no sense: his eyes saw it but his brain could not deal with the information. He gaped in shock until a delayed survival instinct propelled him up the street, breathless and stumbling.

Mrs Aitken heard his faint scream in the distance as she arranged paper napkins on the table in the front room. She moved to the window, opening it and leant out to call into the street, 'Dave?'

Mrs Aitken frowned. The car dripped, untended; an upturned bucket rolled in the gutter.

The cat slipped off the window ledge opposite and padded purposefully across the road to vanish behind a hedge.

Mrs Aitken pulled in her head and made for the door. She didn't see the cat, or the old-fashioned blue police box that then materialized at one side of her neat front garden. Even if she had she would have been unlikely to have identified it as a TARDIS, the time machine of a Time Lord, specifically the one belonging to the Doctor.

By the time Mrs Aitken reached the street the Doctor and his companion, Ace, had emerged. Ace was walking away down the road with the rapid, long strides of a woman who had had enough.

'You had to pick a Sunday didn't you?' Ace threw the words over her shoulder, 'You bring me back to boredom capital of the universe and you pick the one day of the week you can't even get a decent television programme.'

The Doctor followed a pace behind her, looking round at the sights. He was not familiar with Perivale in the late 1980s. He wasn't reacting to Ace's mood.

'As I recall Ace,' he murmured, 'I brought you here at your request.'

Ace swung round. 'I just said I wondered what the old gang were up to.

You didn't need to bring us here did you? You could've dropped me up town and I could've phoned.'

They were now passing the Aitken's house. The Doctor glanced at the half-washed car. Mrs Aitken had walked down to the edge of the pavement and was looking anxiously up and down the road. The Doctor looked at her, taking in her expression. He bent down, picked up the overturned bucket and set it upright. Mrs Aitken barely noticed.

Ace sighed impatiently.

'I just wanted to catch up with a few mates, that's all, we didn't have to have the guided tour...' She strode off again. 'Come on, Professor.'

The Doctor followed meekly.

'So what's so terrible about Perivale?' he asked as he caught up with her.

Ace sighed again. 'Nothing ever happens here.'

Mrs Bates, the elderly woman at number thirty-three, a few doors down from the Aitkens, wasn't certain what was happening at the bottom of her garden: it sounded as if someone was killing a cat. She stared in alarm at her herbaceous border which was thrashing to and fro as unseen animals struggled within it.

She pushed up her window and called 'Shoo!' plaintively and ineffectively as the yowls became screams. Abruptly there was silence.

The bushes were motionless. A single cat slipped out of the undergrowth.

The woman gasped.

The cat looked up. Its eyes were red, as was its muzzle - red and dripping.

It was difficult to see anything attractive about the patch of wasteground to which Ace had led the Doctor. Dusty weeds struggled up through piles of split, black bin-liners that were stuffed with ancient rubbish. Ace stared at it all morosely. If this was home it still needed redecoration, she thought. It looked exactly as she remembered it. It was a depressing recollection. She looked at the Doctor.

'How long since I was here then?' she asked.

The Doctor considered a few complex descriptions of time and relativity. One of many inconveniences of time travel was the mind-boggling complexity of accurately describing any journey. He looked at the young woman he had taken half-way around the universe and into the past and future of this and several other planets. He decided to keep his explanation simple. 'You've been away exactly as long as you think you have.'

Ace snorted. 'Feels like I've been away for ever.'

She returned to her gloomy contemplation of the debris around her.

The Doctor followed her gaze expectantly. It still appeared to be a singularly uninteresting and uninviting corner of twentieth century Earth. He sighed.

'Any particular reason for standing here?' he asked.

'It's Sunday.'

The Doctor attempted to make sense of this information and failed. He looked at her enquiringly.

'Some of the gang always come down here on Sunday.'

The Doctor looked round again. 'What for?'

The question seemed to irritate Ace; everything seemed to be irritating her. She kicked at the ground.

'I dunno... light a fire, muck about, you know.'

The Doctor stifled a yawn. She glared at him.

'Well I told you it was dull! Look, you don't need to hang about; I'll meet you back at the TARDIS if you want.'

The Doctor picked a dead head of willow herb and examined it briefly.

If he had noticed her mood he wasn't reacting.

Ace sighed again.

'Maybe they don't come here anymore.' She spoke almost to herself, staring at a split bag with rotting and rotten rubbish. This was where she had come for fun and excitement - good times.

A threadbare tabby cat clawed at the plastic bag, widening its wounds.

'There's no one here is there?' she murmured. 'Nothing but tin cans and stray cats.'

'And horses.'

Ace looked at the Doctor in surprise. He was staring at the ground, still ignoring her. This was too irritating to be borne.

'Horses?' she snapped. 'In Perivale? Don't be stupid.'

Ace turned on her heel and strode off.

For a second the Doctor lingered, frowning at the hoofprint in the wet earth, then he followed her.

Perivale streets, a jungle of gutters, drainpipes, walls to leap, and brick that gave a good grip to paw-pads and claws. The cat slinked over garden gates, under the dark, oil-dripping shadows of parked cars. It stared, stalked and watched.

The cat saw red. Red eyes peered through a veil of blood at the shapes of these new creatures with their sharp, animal smell - food.

It stared out now at a flurry of legs that kicked round its hiding place.