Doctor Who - Downtime Part 4

'Do I?' That fl.u.s.tered her. 'Are you sure that's not the cats?

Or the ether?'

Mrs Cywynski nodded. 'That's possible. The ether is very turbulent at the moment. Gives me no peace.' She sniffed.

'Come. If you like, I will read you the cards.'

Victoria flinched. 'Oh, no. That's very kind, Roxana, but not now. The future can be complicated enough without knowing it in advance.' Besides which her father, and the Doctor too, had always insisted on a scientific approach to everything. 'Fiddle-faddle' father had called it once, when he had caught the maid consulting the tea-leaves.

'How unadventurous. Still, if you don't have expectations, you can't have disappointments,' retorted the landlady. 'How are you getting on with the book on astral projection I lent you?'

'Well, it's quite quite interesting,' floundered Victoria. 'But I don't think I really believe in out-of-body experiences.' interesting,' floundered Victoria. 'But I don't think I really believe in out-of-body experiences.'

'Not scientifically proven?'

'Not yet, anyway.'

'Of course, dear. Nothing exists until it's discovered.' Mrs Cywynski shrugged. 'So you must find other means of travel.

It must be a holiday then.'

'I don't need a holiday. Who would I go with anyway?'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, there must be someone. Some nice young man... or professor.'

'I don't think so.'

'No excuses. I can't think why you've never travelled.'

'Well, actually...'

'A holiday for you must be something cultural. Italy or Greece?'

'Oh no, not the Grand Tour. Everybody goes on that.'

'Then where would you really like to go?'

Victoria lifted one of the saucepan lids and stirred the rich brown chutney. 'Tibet,' she smiled. 'That's where I want to go.'

When she had glided up to Lukla, the village had looked no more than a few houses bunched on the green mountain slopes around the airstrip. A high cl.u.s.ter of white buildings with blue and green windows. But today was the day of the bazaar and the place was suddenly alive with Sherpa in coloured hats and dealers with bamboo baskets selling rice and fruit.

It had taken a night to recover from the b.u.mpy flight from Kathmandu. The little Twin Otter craft had been tossed about in the air as if the clouds were playing tennis with it. Victoria felt as if her stomach was still somewhere over the middle of Nepal.

She sat outside the local teahouse content to drink tea and watch the comings and goings of the market. There was no sign of the Sherpa guide she had arranged to meet, but Eric, who ran the teahouse, said that there were delays on the road north and he would arrive soon. Eric was wiry with long grey hair tied in a ponytail and had a vaguely American accent. On the walls, he had dog-eared posters of John Lennon and a man with a moustache and a beret, who was called Che. When she told Eric where she was going, he seemed startled. 'Bad karma, man,' he said and went back to his kitchen. Still, the mountain air outside was so sharp and clean, and the sun so warm, that she began to doze.

' Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! ' '

The voice startled her awake. She saw the squinting brown eyes of an old man only inches from her face.

' Dzu-teh, Dzu-teh, ' he insisted through broken teeth. He was waving a brown object in his hand. It was desiccated and covered in matted grey hair. ' he insisted through broken teeth. He was waving a brown object in his hand. It was desiccated and covered in matted grey hair.

'No. Sorry, I'm not interested,' she said, pulling back as far as she could, but he only persisted, chattering in Nepali and waving the object in her face. Around the street, other villagers turned and stared without intervening.

' Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! Dzu-teh, dzu-teh! ' '

'No. I said I don't want it. Leave me alone!'

' Pa gyu! Pa gyu! ' Another voice cut across the street. 'Go on, you heard me. ' Another voice cut across the street. 'Go on, you heard me. Pa gyu. Pa gyu. The young lady doesn't want to buy it.' The young lady doesn't want to buy it.'

The old man faltered and turned. He fell back as the newcomer approached.

'That's right. No sale. Bidaa chha. Bidaa chha. Thank you.' Thank you.'

She swallowed hard and turned to look up at her rescuer.

His hand was reaching out to take her arm. 'Sorry about that,'

he said. 'That was a phrasebook mixture of Nepali and Tibetan. It did the job anyway.'

For a moment she thought she knew him. His sandy hair was brushed over his high forehead and his eyes were fiercely penetrating. He wore khaki shorts and looked like an overgrown school prefect. 'Are you trekking on your own?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said, taken aback.

'That's brave.' He glanced after the old man. 'You'll have to put up a better fight than that, though.'

'I think he wanted me to buy that thing he had.'

'It was a yeti scalp.'

'A yeti?'

'You look startled.'

'Well, yes. I thought yeti were terribly rare.'

'Very nearly extinct in the wild. And only a few in captivity.' He plunged his hands into his pockets and grinned enthusiastically. 'Don't worry, the scalp was almost certainly a fake. Goat hair, I expect. He's probably got dozens.'

'Thank goodness,' Victoria said.

'That's right,' he nodded and sat down next to her. 'You see, Yeti are a bit of a hobbyhorse as far as I'm concerned.'

She smiled and said cautiously, 'I only know what I've read about them in books.'

His eyes lit up. 'Ah well, the three different types are protected species, of course. Which is why our friend there scarpered pretty sharp-ish. The mih-teh mih-teh and the and the Dzu-teh Dzu-teh, they're both closer to apes as species, while the Ye-teh Ye-teh, aka Yeti Traversii Yeti Traversii, is more bearlike and particularly timid.

London Zoo's trying to breed from a couple at the moment.

They've flown the male over from Peking.' He paused. 'I'm babbling on, aren't I?' He grasped her hand and shook it firmly. 'Charles Bryce. Pleased to meet you.'

'Victoria Waterfield,' she said. 'You're the travel writer, aren't you? I thought I recognized you.'

He grunted. 'That means I look like my dust-jacket photo.

How appalling.'

'Thank you for rescuing me, Mr Bryce. I'd been sitting here trying not to look too English.'

'Always a dead giveaway. And call me Charles, please.' He stood and yelled at the teahouse door. 'Eric? Two more teas when you're ready.' He sat down again and added confidentially, 'Stay off the yakburgers. It's the thin end of the greasy slope that leads to the Big Mac. Nothing is sacred.'

'Are you writing a book now... Charles?'

'Maybe. I dabble in zoology and botany too. At the moment I'm looking for rare plants. Gentiana Gentiana and and Meconopsis Meconopsis. The Khumbu Himal Khumbu Himal is full of unknown species. is full of unknown species.

I've been here several times now. But what about you? Where are you headed?'

'I'm travelling up into Tibet. I want to visit one of the monasteries not far across the border. Det-sen. Do you know it?'

Eric clumped their mugs of tea down next to them.

Globules of yak-b.u.t.ter floated on the surface.

'It's bad news, that place,' he muttered.

'Why do you say that?' Victoria asked.

'There's only bad vibes about it.'

'But it is still open?'

'Oh, yeah. Open for business.' Eric scowled and disappeared back inside leaving the bead curtain clattering to and fro.

Charles smiled sheepishly. 'Take no notice. Eric's a leftover from the hippy trail. He came here in Sixty-seven and didn't have the money to get back.'

'Ah,' said Victoria, suddenly sympathetic.

'Never really got over the Beatles splitting up.'

'Oh yes, I've read about them.' She would normally have reprimanded herself for such an awkward remark, but here, so far from what pa.s.sed for civilization, she found she didn't really care.

Charles studied her for a moment with raised eyebrows over the edge of his mug, plainly trying to fathom her out.

Then he scrutinized his tea carefully. 'Eric knows a fair bit about plants though, judging from some of the stranger substances growing in his garden.'

Victoria watched him, finding that she had started to like his excitable manner and boyish grin. In her head, she heard the words 'nice young man, nice young professor' repeating in an all-too-familiar Polish accent.

The voice, her father's voice, had been growing in impatience.

' Why don't you come? You have deserted me! Why don't you come? You have deserted me! ' '

'You know that's not true.' Victoria pa.s.sed down through the roof of the deserted monastery, and back along the now familiar halls deep in shadow. The solid oak doors that guarded the entrance to the Inner Sanctum were barred across with ma.s.sive planks.

'Where are you?' she heard herself ask. For the first time, she was aware of the dress she was wearing. The rich purple satin fabric was hooped out wide on a stiff crinoline. Over it and covering her head, she wore a black cloak with a voluminous hood. The dress rustled gently as she floated. She was sure her mother had worn it.

' Here! I'm here! Here! I'm here! ' '

She had never heard him so angry. She was searching, yet the voice was always close at her ear.

' Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness. ' '

'I shall reach you, dear father.' She had pushed at the doors before, but unlike other walls, through which she pa.s.sed like light through gla.s.s, they resisted. Where everything else was intangible, the doors had substance. They had a force that repelled her as if they contained a heart of darkness that must not be disturbed. She wanted to turn away, but the certainty of what she sought drove her. Steeling herself, she set her hands to them again and, this time slowly, she began to push through.

It was like forcing herself inch by inch into a wall of molten toffee. Then suddenly her arms were free in the cold air on the other side of the door. She had never felt the chill before in this dream state and she longed to return to her sleeping body far away in a lodge in the mountains of Nepal.

But even in waking, she was being drawn closer.

' Victoria. Victoria. ' '

How could she turn back now? His voice was close to despair. Her face pressed into the treacly substance of the door. She was being crushed against it. With a lurch, she was finally through into the baleful light of the Inner Sanctum of Det-sen. The moon was shining through a hole in the ceiling.

There was rubble on the floor and a broken chair beyond a torn curtain.

But the chamber was empty.

'Good morning.'

She had opened her rickety window, hoping that there might be a sign of him. The sunlight made her blink, it was so fierce, but there was Charles in the street below, infuriatingly enthusiastic for the time of morning and grinning up at her.

She groaned. 'Is it?'

'Bad night?'

'Queasy.'

'You've drunk too much yak-b.u.t.ter tea. It takes getting used to.'

'Probably. I'll be down in a minute.'