‘Curtain in ten!’ The chirpy call drifted through the thin door, but Chris only replied with a grunt and a sour look. As he added a final layer of greasepaint to his already prominent cheekbones, he surveyed his dressing room through the mirror. Cards and bouquets of flowers from various people he despised, a bottle of Scotch from Ewan MacGregor (nice one, mate), a box of chocolates from Nicole (who was presumably pathologically unable to eat them herself) and, hanging malevolently from the costume rack, a single battered leather coat.
‘Get a grip, Chris,’ he told his reflection firmly. ‘It’s only the one night, it’s for charity, and it’ll clinch the Jennifer Lawrence flick. We are not become panto. We are not the Chuckle Brothers.’ This stern talking-to raised his spirits a bit, although it certainly didn’t help that the Chuckle Brothers were higher up the bill than him. And why had he agreed to The Coat? Whoever heard of Buttons wearing such a thing? It was a conceptual nightmare.
And to cap it all, Colin bloody Baker was playing the Dame like a natural, poncing around like a size 26 Ghost of Christmas Future.
He was just pulling on the Coat when the knock came. With a frown and a shrug he strode to the dressing-room door and yanked it open, to reveal an empty corridor. Empty apart from a battered blue Police Box.
Chris scowled. ‘Russell, you lanky Welsh prat, I’m going to tear you a new one!’ he yelled at the open doorway. McGann hadn’t been joking then, he really was stuck with this crap for life.
But then he was stopped in his tracks as a familiar dark-haired, leather-coated bloke poked his head out. The head grinned widely. ‘Hi there, can I have a word?’
Chris’s brow cleared a little. ‘Ah right, you’re my double for the cannon bit, yeah?’
The newcomer hesitated briefly, but covered it with another grin. ‘Er, yeah, that’s it. You got a minute?’
‘No! I’m working.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you can spare a few minutes, Mr “Also-featuring-TV’s-Doctor-Who-Chris-Eccleston-as-Buttons”’ The head vanished back inside the prop.
Chris grimaced, then shrugged and shouldered his way into the box. ‘Ok, what do you want? I’m warning you, I don’t have much double work – I do my own sex scenes and... well, bugger me.’
He trailed off as he found himself in the entrance to a cavernous control room. Walls covered in roundels, imposing metal struts and a deceptively primitive console, it was all there. Right down to the typewriter and bicycle pump. Just as he remembered, except all four sides were now solid and he could feel strange vibrations through the soles of his shoes.
His stunt double was at the console, pushing the door lever. He was wearing the full outfit, Chris realised. Then the man turned, looked him straight in the eye and he realised. Oh God.
‘It’s really bigger on the inside,’ he breathed.
‘Oh yes.’
‘It’s real,’
‘Yup.’
‘You’re real!’
‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Rose did that better, you know.’ He gestured to the far side of the room, where a track-suited figure lay on the floor.
‘Billie?’ Chris dashed over, but she was out cold.
‘She’s fast asleep, Chrissie Boy. Absorbing the power of the Vortex takes it right out of you.’
Chris looked closer. It looked so much like Bill but...
‘Is it me,’ he asked, ‘Or is she looking a bit... curvier?’
The Doctor laughed as he dashed round the console. ‘Down, Chrissie. Yeah, she got em done in LA, 2044.’ He grinned with obvious glee. ‘Her Mum went mental. Or jealous. Now, let’s get to work, tight schedule, time waits for no man. Well, except me.’
Chris was floundering. ‘You what?’ Then he realised the Doctor’s ears were literally glowing from within, and the man was leaning heavily on the console.
‘Chris,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m dying. I’ve got a few hours left and a few places I have to go. But I can’t leave the TARDIS, it’s all that’s keeping me together. So I need you to extend your contract. Well, I say extend, but as we’re currently between you snogging Rose – and smooth move there by the way – and her waking up to say goodbye, consider it the DVD extra of a lifetime.’ He rubbed his hands together as though the matter was settled and pressed a few switches.
‘Hang on,’ said Chris. ‘I did read those scripts. There wasn’t a gap there, you can’t be making side-trips!’
The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘There was an edit there, Chrissie, we’ve got breathing space. It might have implied continuity but that’s just a trick of the trade, you know that. Montage fulfils the same function for time as mise-en-scene does for space.’
‘Is that Time Lordish?’
‘No! Jean-Luc Godard, Cahiers du Cinéma, nineteen fifty... something. Look, stop jabbering on, you’re wasting time, are you going to help or what?’
‘And my panto?’
‘Time machine! Now, outside is Southampton, 1912. Change your coat and persuade the Daniels to change their holiday plans.’
***
Chris was still glowering as he flung open the TARDIS door and strode out, but his sour look evaporated as he found himself in bright sunlight. It was with a broad wondering grin that he pulled the door closed and looked around him.
There were people everywhere, happy people. God knows how they’d missed the TARDIS’s appearance, already an elderly gentleman was leaning gratefully against its shady side.
Just ahead, Chris could see the crowd was concentrated at the edge of a street. He loosened his frock coat slightly as he moved forwards. He was already sweating in the afternoon sun and from the press of bodies all around him. He was massively over-dressed. He had no idea how he was supposed to find the Daniels family. He was adrift in time and space with a man who could be his twin if it weren’t for the two hearts beating in his chest.
And despite all of this, he was still grinning.
Even when he pushed his way through the couple standing in front of him on the grassy knoll, saw the motorcade and realised the Doctor had cocked up.
His grin froze as President Kennedy jerked and collapsed, a split-second before the sharp crack of a gunshot rang out.
***
‘Well, maybe they won’t look at it too hard!’
‘They’re conspiracy nuts, all they do is look at stuff too hard!’ Chris was getting exasperated, the Doctor had abducted him, patronised him and emotionally blackmailed him, all to get him to make these little appearances, and now they had irrevocably mucked up the first one.
Far from the sombre gaze Chris had adopted when posing for the shoot all those months ago, he was looking at a picture of himself in a ludicrous frock coat, drenched in sweat and mugging widely at the camera from the middle of a crowd in Dallas.
The Doctor was clearly bored of the debate though, dashing round the console again. ‘Well, practice makes perfect Chrissie, at least no one can say I wasn’t there now.’
‘But –‘
The Time Lord held up a bony finger. ‘You hear that, Chris? That is the sound of causality not fracturing around our strikingly distinctive ears. We got away with it, you prima donna. Now get that coat back on!’
TO BE CONTINUED
