Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28 by Beautiful Chaos # Gary Russell Page A

obviously well-rehearsed manoeuvre.
    ‘I never married,’ she went on. ‘Seemed such an alarming waste of time. I live in Greenwich you know, bit of a trek out here, but my local cab firm, they know me and my little ways, so it’s never a problem if I forget to have money. Or where I’m going.’
    The Doctor had taken to this gregarious lady instantly.
    ‘You can’t beat a reliable taxi firm, Netty,’ he said, managing to get a sentence in before she blithely carried on.
    ‘Are they rowing yet? It’s all they ever do. And it’s about me. I was so ashamed to start with, now I just treat it as a ritual, and in ten minutes Sylvia’s back to her normal charming self, full of tea and crackers.’
    The Doctor smiled. ‘Sylvia Noble? Charming? Words not often in the same sentence.’
    The look he got from Netty showed him how he’d misjudged the situation between the two women.
    ‘Oh, don’t disappoint me, Doctor. Not after all I’ve
    been told about you. That woman out there is a saint.
    She’s just lost her husband, she’s got a daughter you drag halfway to God knows where on a whim, and has to tolerate that marvellous Wilfred, who can be just as stubborn and cantankerous as her. More so in fact. I like her a lot. Besides which, and I know she complains, but that’s just her way of letting off steam, she’s bloody terrific with my… you know…’ Netty tapped the side of her head. ‘My condition. Bless her, last weekend she drove Wilf all the way to Charlton. Apparently I was found in someone’s back garden, trying to convince them I used to live there when I was six!’
    ‘And did you?’
    ‘Good gracious, no. I was brought up in Hampshire.’
    She dived into her handbag and brought out an A5-sized red notebook and showed it to him. ‘My life,’ she said simply. ‘So I can remember things.’
    The Doctor looked her straight in the eye and saw, briefly, a very scared but very proud old lady. And he liked her even more than before.
    ‘Without that book, without the likes of Sylvia Noble, I’m nothing. I’d left my bag in a shop on Greenwich High Street, so I’m in this garden, unable to know who I am, where I’m from. Sylvia found a receipt in my pocket, found the shop, got my bag back where I’d left it, sorted it all out with the police. She wants to put me in a home, you know. The brochures are in that drawer next to the cooker.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. Wilf won’t hear of it. Says he’ll have me move in
    here first. Daft old fool, as if I’m going to go from one house I can barely cope with to another. But a lovely nursing home, where I’ll be looked after? How marvellous is that?’
    The kitchen door opened. Donna and Sylvia trooped in, and Donna immediately introduced herself.
    As Sylvia put the kettle on, the Doctor crossed and stood behind her. ‘Does Wilf know all you do for his friend?’
    ‘Does Donna know you’re poking your nose into her family’s business?’ Sylvia responded.
    ‘I’m not your enemy, Mrs Noble,’ the Doctor said.
    Sylvia turned and smiled at him. The most insincere smile possible. ‘For my daughter’s sake, Doctor, I tolerate you in this house. But that’s all. For my dad’s sake, I’ll do the best I can for Netty Goodhart. I don’t think I’m a selfish woman, Doctor. I’ve worked hard, I built a life, I never had much money, and I tried to give Donna a decent life. But then one day, I lost my husband. My rock. And since then I’ve tried to do what both of us did, but with a daughter who one minute won’t get a job, the next can afford to be in a different hemisphere, but can’t afford a stamp, and an old dad who seems to have decided it’s time to replace my mum once and for all.’
    ‘Are you sure you’re not worried he’s replacing you? I imagine he let your mum go a long time ago.’
    The silence that followed the slap around the face he received seemed to go on for a few hours, but was probably only a few seconds.
    ‘I didn’t mean