Part 4 (1/2)

Three months ago, she'd found this aspect of his behaviour infuriating, now it seemed almost endearing. He was also the only person she'd ever known who didn't notice when she was naked.

'I could have killed you. I had a gun under my pillow. I might have flunked the odd cla.s.s during my military training, but even I could blow your head off at point-blank range.'

'If you did that, I'd just grow a new one,' the Doctor joked.

At least Benny a.s.sumed it was a joke.

'Pick a less bendy one next time. One whose eyebrows occasionally stay in the same place for more than two seconds.'

The Doctor deliberately contorted his face. Benny laughed. She leant over and hugged him. It was so good to see him.

The Doctor seemed embarra.s.sed. 'Please, Professor Summerfield, put some clothes on, I have a reputation to maintain. You'll get me struck off.'

The Doctor extricated himself and sat on a small wooden chair, hands clasped over his umbrella. Benny looked at him.

He hadn't changed in the last three months of course. Unlike her, he hadn't aged a bit. A decade from now, they'd look the same age. A decade after that and everyone would a.s.sume that the Doctor was her son. She had always known that he was an alien, an immortal being who resembled a scruffy little middle-aged man, but most of the time the knowledge sat at the back of her mind and she didn't let it bother her. Once, just once, in the last three months, she had questioned his motives, wondering why he should leave her totally alone for so long. For a little while she had even wondered whether he had abandoned her to die in this time, for some inscrutable alien reason of his own. Perhaps she was turning into a racist. Or alienist. Whatever Roz was. As Benny watched him, the Doctor glanced down at the floor, then poked at something with the point of his umbrella.

He broke into a grin. 'Nice dress.'

Benny pulled herself up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. 'Check the pocket.'

'You know, I'd forgotten how ratty you were first thing in the morning. Ah, this is interesting.'

The Doctor turned the k.n.o.bbly piece of metal he'd found in the dress pocket over and over in his hand. Benny stood stretching, and stepped over to the dresser. She caught a reflection of her gaunt face, her dead eyes and her skinny arms. The Doctor hadn't looked up.

'Just a guess, Doctor, but I bet that Chris and Roz have had a better three months than me.'

'They're in London, with the TARDIS. And they've only been there a week. We had to attend to the political situation on Troxos 4. I'll tell you about it one day, or better still I'll show you. Er, won't you get cold like that?'

Benny shrugged indifferently. After a second, she looked up from her clothes drawer.

'The TARDIS is in London? How did you get over here then?'

The Doctor smiled enigmatically, and she decided not to press the point.

'I'll meet you downstairs when you're dressed.'

The Doctor lifted himself up and left the room. Benny reached over to bolt the door, but it was already bolted.

Rather than think about it, she reached for the holowig, and brushed the filament into her hair. She stood back, watching herself in the mirror as her hair lightened. Naturally brunette, she still wasn't used to seeing herself as a peroxided blonde.

She'd tried to bleach her hair when she was twelve, an act of defiance that had gone very very wrong, so badly wrong that she'd worn a plastifez until it grew out. She'd been blonde a couple of times since, over the years, but it had never really suited her. The holowig was less fuss, a gadget from a short-lived late-twentyfirst-century craze that used fibre optics and a simple holographic projector. Her hair was naturally longer now than she would normally wear it, shoulder-length. Benny remembered writing a paper on fas.h.i.+ons in the twentieth century. As she applied her make-up, Benny recalled a relevant pa.s.sage; 'Whereas most clothing now' - the mid-twenty-sixth century - 'tends to be fairly androgynous, in the first half of the twentieth century in the Anglo-Saxon territories clothing was used to emphasize s.e.xual difference: women wore skirts, and low-cut blouses, that emphasized their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips. Men wore jackets with square shoulders and often wore hats, to emphasize their size and physical presence. This can best be seen in the military uniforms of the period (see ill.u.s.tration). Gender roles at all levels of society were more strictly defined anyway, with a - '. Typical Summerfield prose, Benny mused: wandering punctuation, too talky, and it wasn't really about anything.

Ace had once managed to get hold of that paper. She had been particularly taken with 'Mods were so named due to their love of modernist poetry'. A mistake that anyone could have made. It was hardly fair, anyway. Archaeologists should be able to get away with generalizations and guesswork without representatives of long-dead civilizations coming along and laughing at them. The Pharaohs hadn't phoned Howard Carter up and corrected him on points of detail, had they? No, they jolly well hadn't. This period was as distant to Benny as the Hundred Years War was to Ace - the occasional error was bound to slip in every so often. Benny finished getting dressed and packed her belongings - including the milk - into a small travel bag.

When Benny had finished, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen and the Doctor. Ma Doras was sitting at the kitchen table, mugs of tea ready for them. She was a stout woman nearly sixty years old, with great wide hips and thick ankles. As ever, a cigarette hung from her lip.

The Doctor was in the middle of an anecdote. '...and when he turned round they were all wearing -'

'Morning, Celia. The Germans have all gone, trouble down at St Jaonnet. Something to do with the explosion last night,' Ma said quickly. The old woman turned her full attention to the new arrival, apparently relieved that she didn't have to hear any more.

'I saw the explosion happen,' Benny said. Ma didn't look surprised.

The Doctor sipped at his tea, chuckling to himself.

Suddenly, his expression clouded over. 'Celia is going now, Ma.'

The old woman's expression flickered. 'I'll miss you, Bernice.'

It was the first time that she'd ever used that name.

Benny gave a thin smile. She would not be sorry to leave Guernsey, but would certainly miss Ma and Anne. Before she went, though, she had to ask a question. 'Why did you help us? The Germans could have you killed.'

Ma Doras and the Doctor shared a conspiratorial look.

Ma spoke softly. 'I can remember the last time the Doctor was here, a long time now. Back before the first war. He saved the islands then, and those of us who were there know what he had to go through to do it. There's worse out there than n.a.z.is, believe it or not, and there's worse than dying.

That's when Celia, my baby Celia, died. Will you tell me something now, Doctor?'

He nodded, and she continued. It's going to get better, isn't it? We'll win the war?'

Benny watched the Doctor, expecting his usual knowing silence. Instead he spoke in a low voice. 'It'll get better, Ma, but it will get worse before it does. More islanders will be deported, tens of millions of people will die across the world, soldiers and civilians, men and women, Jews and Gentiles.

Great scars will be left on history, wounds that will take generations to heal. Terrible weapons will be built. But there will also be courage, technical innovation, hope for the future.

This will be the last war of its kind for a very long time. Anne's children will live all their lives in peace and safety and so will their children.'

They had left shortly afterwards. Benny took one last look at the boardinghouse, then they set off for the crash site. After a few minutes it became obvious that the Doctor knew the way.

'What is the size of the German occupying force?' The Doctor sounded almost conversational as he interrogated her.

'It varies; somewhere between twenty and twentyfive thousand.'

The Doctor seemed to work something out with his fingers. He chuckled. 'More per square mile than in Germany!

What are they doing here?'

'Most are just barracked here. The islands are being heavily fortified. The sea defences at St Peter Port have been improved, there's some sort of underground hospital complex being built and there's unusual activity, and very high security, up at the airstrip.'

She peeked at him to check his reaction.