Doctor Who: Rags (26 page)

He rolled over in the grass and sat up, his bones aching, his head competing with them. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s lay three-quarters empty beside him. He pounced on it like a bird spotting a worm and, twisting off the cap, thrust the neck to his lips.

He took a long pull, and only then took time to look around him.

Travellers everywhere, camping in the field of stones. Some in tattered tents, others rolled in sleeping bags out in the open. A few tottered around the ashy ruins of fires provoking them into some semblance of life. Kane belched. Not far from where he sat 190

a figure was slumped against another stone, the remains of a fire next to him. Kane remembered that the night before, when he’d staggered drunkenly among the hippies and punks, accosting any who’d listen with urgent and oft-repeated warnings that were met universally with derision and insults, the young man had been in exactly the same position. He remembered that he’d tried to wake the bastard, but with no response. And here the young man was still, head slumped on his knees.

Kane walked over to him and nudged him with his boot. ‘He’s coming,’ he croaked. The young man remained unmoving, so Kane left him and shuffled over the field towards the village, and specifically the pub.

Cassandra intercepted him on the way. She was sitting on the stile that led from the field. she was dressed in a soft leather jacket and a green dress patterned with black shapes. Her dark, softly spiked hair framed her ascetic cheekbones and her sea-green eyes were clear with bright intelligence. Kane stood before her, stained T-shirt hanging out over filthy, urine-soaked jeans, face haggard and scurfed by stubble, hair lank with grease and littered with grass. He smiled vacantly at her and belched.

‘He’s coming, Cass,’ he said by way of greeting, and held the bottle out to her. She refused it with a gesture, soft eyes watching him closely.

‘Who’s coming, Kane?’ she asked in the manner of a nurse addressing a mental patient.

Kane laughed and lugged the bottle to his lips again, draining it with one gulp. ‘Raggers, of course’ He spun and hurled the empty bottle against the nearest of the crusty stones.

‘Raggers?’

‘The Ragman to you. He’s come back to Cirbury, and he’s mightily pissed off. Heads are gonna roll, Cass.’

Cassandra shook her head confusedly, warding off his ramblings. ‘You’re in a bad way, Kane.’

Kane giggled, and searched the pockets of his leather jacket for cigarettes. Cassandra put him out of his misery and leant forward 191

to offer him one. He leant against the stile smoking it, swaying slightly.

‘You stink like a pig, Kane.’

‘Still wanna shag me, eh, Cass? Well, it’s too late for shit like that. Things have gone to bad.’

She ignored him. Her face was hard, though her eyes could never be anything other than soft. Her jawline tensed as she spoke. ‘You couldn’t leave it, could you? You had to come and spoil it for him. His big night, that meant so much to him. You just couldn’t stop yourself.’

Kane didn’t know what she was talking about. He frowned over at the roadies who were unrolling cables and connecting them to amps and speakers arranged amongst the stones. ‘Bad times coming, Cass,’ was all he said. ‘The band’s gonna play us all into hell!’

‘Tell me, Kane: what’s it like to be you?’

He looked up then, and she saw for the first time the extent of his madness. His eyes were haunted and barren. She flinched, and almost fell backwards off the stile.

‘You don’t wanna know that, Cass. You wouldn’t like to go there. scary places inside my head. No one playing games, no children, no... Raggers - he’s been there, left his shadow behind.

See, he’s been playing with my family for years and years. Didn’t know that, did ya, Cass? Didn’t know I come from good stock, once upon a time. I didn’t know either, but there it is: Kane Sawyer’s ancestor was a rich bastard. Mayor of Cirbury.’ And here he broke off laughing, a wild raucous laugh that was like a cold hand on Cassandra’s spine.

‘And Raggers, well, Raggers messed with my ancestor’s daughter. Messed with ‘er. You know what I mean, Cass? She was dancin’ with the devil, and bore his brat. Ha ha. A Raggers brat. And her pop, guess what he did?Yeah, you just won the sale of the century, Cass, cos I know you’re keeping up. He disowned her, cos she was tainted by scum and filth. She died cos of his neglect, in poverty and distress. Are you moved to tears yet, Cass?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kane.’

192

‘Course you soddin’ don’t. What did you ever know about poverty and distress?’

‘Kane,’ she said after a while, her bitterness dissipating fast as she realised how far he was slipping away. ‘Who’s the Ragman?’

Kane swayed and dropped his cigarette. It lay burning amongst the buttercups. ‘Is the pub open yet?’ he said quietly.

The pub was packed. Just about every member of the small community was in there, and quite a few of them had drunk more than their usual allocation. But the mood was strangely jovial and benevolent; even when some of the travellers entered.

Jo, Sin and Jimmy were among them. They received a few amused and curious stares but no hostility. ‘The mummer said we’d be welcome here,’ Sin said as Jimmy ordered the round.

‘Did ‘e?’ Jimmy turned round with a puzzled expression. ‘Can’t remember that.’

‘Yeah,’ Sin said, but her face was crinkled with puzzlement. ‘I’m sure he did.’ Jo was silent, watching the locals swilling and murmuring. She spotted one shabby young man leaning against the jukebox, swaying drunkenly. He was staring at her with unfocused eyes.

‘Well, he was right anyway, wasn’t he?’ Sin continued, gesturing around the pub. ‘Despite all the bad publicity the tour’s been given, they don’t give a shit about us being here.’ The tall punk who had helped her sort out the traitor at Amos Vale cemetery entered the pub with a few other spiky-haired rebels. He spotted Sin and strolled over, casually kissing her neck and putting his hand on her backside. She grinned emptily at him.

Jo was still watching the scruffy, drunken young man. He detached himself from the jukebox and advanced waveringly on her. she stood her ground, thinking he might be one of the convoy

‘tribe’ although she had never seen him before.

He wobbled to a halt in front of her and his large, hollow eyes fixed on hers.

‘He’s coming,’ was all he said. And suddenly Jo was treated to a 193

mental image of the Doctor kneeling with his hands over his ears, screaming in the back of the cattle truck, and she felt cold, colder than ever before, and then the image was fading, and another face swam before her eyes. She turned towards Sin and Jimmy.

‘Where’s Nick?’ she said, as if she had only just remembered he existed.

Sin shrugged coldly while the punk continued to nuzzle her neck. Jo turned back to the drunk.

‘Get lost, loser,’ she said and pushed him back towards the jukebox. Then she smiled at Jimmy and accepted her pint. The coldness had gone. And so had Nick’s face.

By mid-afternoon the equipment was all set up, drum kit shining amongst the buttercups and daisies, amps positioned in front of grim standing stones, the generator hunched over the lip of the grassy trench that curved around the field. The roadies tuned the instruments and barked repetitively into the microphone. Birds spiced the air with summer song and sheep wandered curiously amongst the stones, watching the bizarre undertakings. The travellers - those who weren’t still in the pub - watched too, as curious as the sheep. This was it: this was the big one. The final gig. They all knew it, and there was a little sadness tinged in with the excitement. Villagers looked on too, and felt the excitement creeping into their own complacent souls, stirring wonder and other things.

Corporal Robinson was beginning to feel the strain. She listened to the taunts and jeers from the travellers camped before the UNIT cordon on Salisbury Plain. As yet they had made no concerted effort to force the point, but it was evident they wanted access to the stone circle in time for the solstice. But that they would not get. Even if she had to shoot every soddin’ one of them herself. And she could feel the kill-lust hot within her, like the need for sex. And whenever she got that particular itch, she always had to scratch it. Same with this.

She glanced at the Brigadier who was standing next to his jeep 194

talking to Captain Yates. The young captain had recovered from his ordeal at the cemetery, a large lump on his head the sole souvenir of his treatment at the hands of the ‘scum’ he’d been trying to infiltrate. She looked around for sergeant Benton, and there he was, inspecting the tight cordon that completely encircled the monument, checking weapons and morale. A good man, Benton. One of the boys - if that didn’t seem a strange salute coming from the petite corporal. But while she respected the Brigadier for his iron resolve, equanimity and bravery, the Brig would never be a man of the people; and nor would the slightly fey Yates, come to that. Benton was a solid trooper, a man’s man, and yes, a woman’s man too. She could even fancy him, if she put her mind to it. But right now she was putting her mind to the scum a few hundred yards away, who were congregating messily on the grass in front of their filthy vehicles.

The ringleader seemed to be the large biker roadie who was leaning beside his Vincent, smoking and apparently watching her as she inspected her segment of the cordon. She felt like flipping her rifle down from her shoulder and shooting the bastard there and then.

Maybe later, if things hotted up; oh yes, maybe we can save you for later, you scruffy, dirty, long-haired bastard.

It was around six in the evening when the roadies brought the final item out of the back of the cattle truck. A flat-bedded Bedford was positioned beneath the rear doors and, with much grunting and heaving, two roadies succeeded in levering the large rock down into the smaller vehicle. The gate leading into the field of stones was thrown open and the roadies drove into the meadow, heading for the standing stones.

The Bedford bounced and careened over tussocks and through beds of buttercups before coming to a rest at a specified location between two stones, a few yards from the band’s equipment. The roadies climbed out of the truck and secured ropes to the large stone, then signalled to some nearby punks to help them.

It took ten of them to pull the hefty rock down from the 195

Bedford and drag it to the desired spot. When it was finally erected the entire field of hippies and punks grew silent. The awed hush reached even as far as the village. Some members of the community, including five policemen, were at their habitual observation point leaning against the fence overlooking the field, and they too felt the power of the moment. There was no need to put it into words.

The rock had come home. After centuries it was once more in its rightful position.

The field crackled with the primal significance of the occasion.

And falling through the door of the pub, Kane felt it too, almost insensible with drink as he was.

He straightened up, leaning against the wall of the pub, and his eyes were huge and very afraid. Then he slid down the wall, his head nodding forward on his chest as the drink kicked in.

Just across the road Simon was on the point of climbing into his Jaguar, anxious to leave the setting of his grand humiliation a couple of evenings earlier. He would have gone sooner, but for his sister’s pleas for him to spend some time with her. Well, that particular (hollow) duty was fulfilled, and he could quit this shit at last. This village of no prospects, this Loserville. No wonder he was the only one to ever succeed - it was such a no-through-road of a place. Along with maths and English they taught you how to underachieve at the village school. Most of his wretched peers all had 0 levels in mediocrity and the odd A in ‘making the best of your lot’.Well, sod that. Making do had never been enough for him.

It was then he spotted Kane.

The symbol of everything this shitty village stood for: here he was, the personification of stagnation.

He closed the car door slowly, and crossed the street.

His smile grew as he walked up to his old enemy. It was a cruel smile, vicious and triumphant. It was the smile of a schoolyard bully who was into spite in a big way. As he stood over Kane he could feel the warmth of the midsummer sun on the back of his finely tailored jacket, and it could just as well have been burning 196

on the back of a school blazer worn by a vindictive boy who squatted astride his victim and reached for the crawling jar.

The crawling jar. God, he hadn’t thought of that in such a long time.

Years and years. And they could have been bloody days, because he felt exactly the same as he had back then; the same urge to humiliate totally, the same impulse to torture. He remembered Kane’s fourteen-year-old mouth bulging with squirming horrors, slime running from his soiled lips, mucus from his nose, tears from his eyes. He smirked. That was how to be a bully. Perhaps Simon should have given lessons in it at Cirbury Road To Nowhere Comprehensive school: at least the dropouts would have learned something.