The Dalek Problem (2)

I was woken up at about 6.30 a.m. by a hammering on my back door.

I dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, to find Alun in an agitated state.

“The Daleks are returning Jed,” he said.

“The Daleks. Are you sure?” It seemed unlikely. The TV series the Daleks had recorded on our island had been a ratings flop. “You mean they’re making another series of Dalek Island?”

“Of course they aren’t Jed, it’s ratings poison. The Daleks have given up any dreams of making it on their own, they’re back on Dr Who where they belong.”

“You mean …” I was too excited for words. “You mean they’re going to film Dr Who here?”

“Yes Jed. They’re filming Dr Who here, on our little island.”

I danced a merry jig around my kitchen. My favourite TV programme, coming here, to our island, where nobody ever visits.

“You must be delighted Jed, you fancy the Dr’s assistant don’t you.”

“No, no,” I said, “That was the last assistant, Karen Gillam. She was soooooooo gorgeous. I’m not that enamoured by the new girl. Her character doesn’t convince, she lacks the screen presence, and her legs aren’t anywhere near sexy enough.”

“It’s probably just as well though, Jed. It’s a Dalek episode, so your girlfriend will be returning. She wouldn’t want you drooling over Karen Gillam.”

Ah, yes. Jane. My Dalek girlfriend. We’d gotten together during the seven month recording of the Dalek Island series, but had split when she returned to the mainland. I wasn’t ready for a distance relationship and when the second series wasn’t given the go-ahead it meant that our affair was doomed. It was my last serious relationship. Indeed, apart from the occasional visit to the island by Professor Mary Beard I’ve not so much as seen a woman since Jane left, as Alun and I live alone on the island.

“She’s probably forgotten I exist,” I said. “Daleks are a heartless breed. Besides, she hasn’t even been in touch, so she clearly doesn’t want to see me.”

“Maybe she was waiting for you to call her.”

“That makes no sense. Why would I call her if I didn’t know she was coming back?”

Alun shrugged, “Well, you’ll soon find out, they’re arriving tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes Jed. The executive producer was on the early boat. There’s a small team fitting out the empty house today, and the cast and crew are all arriving tomorrow.”

It left us very little time to prepare. Not used to visitors, Alun and I always make an effort for the Daleks, and we could both look forward to a hard day’s spring cleaning in preparation.

I washed my best clothes and (somewhat optimistically) changed the sheets on my bed. I didn’t want Jane to recognise the same stains from when she was last here three years ago.

Jane.

It was stupid of me to even think of her, of course. She hadn’t even told me she was coming, so I clearly wasn’t in her thoughts. I didn’t even know she was going to be in the cast. Maybe she’d given up being a Dalek. It was at best an unreliable profession. And even if she was here she’d probably found someone else now. It’s been a long time and she’s a good looking girl with the whole of the mainland to choose from.

It was with a heavy heart that I decorated the front of my house with ‘Happy Island welcomes Dr Who’ tinsel. The love of my life was returning and all I could feel was a leaden dread, knowing that any love between us was long gone, meaning that the total love felt for me in the whole wide world equalled zero, nil, nothing, nowt. I was as lonely and useless as an abandoned refrigerated sans refrigerator bird.

xxx

I was woken early next morning by the sound of Daleks. “Exterminate, exterminate,” they said, “we are here to kill Jed.” It was the Voice of the Daleks, an actor I’d met during the recording of Dalek Island.

I quickly dressed and rushed downstairs to say hello and catch up on gossip. He told me a bit about the show. It was set at the end of the universe, on the last, abandoned, lump of rock, all other planets and life having long since died out as the universe slowly ran out of energy, like an overlong-running TV show slowly running out of ideas. It was the last oasis of existence, with the last remnants of life-kind clinging desperately to it. The Daleks planned to take over the rock and turn it into a Mr Blobby Theme Park, but the Doctor would do his best to thwart their evil scheme.

‘Great’, I thought, ‘that’s all we need, Blobby’s back on the island’. He played havoc last time he was here’. (for the full story see ‘The Blobby Problem’). What with Jane, Blobby and the distracting absence of Amy Pond, things did not bode well.

However, as a Dr Who fan and Dalek lover in the literal sense, I swallowed my pride, and after a quick breakfast of eggs and eggs I made my way down to the empty house. It was, of course, empty no more, teaming with the urgency and energy of a television crew preparing their first serious brew of the day.

There were a couple of Daleks in front of the house and, my stomach pinched tight with nerves, I went over to say hello.

“Take me to your leader,” I said.

“We don’t have a leader,” a female voice replied cheerfully, “the new Dalek race operate on an anarcho-syndicalist basis, all decisions to exterminate or not exterminate are made on a quasi-democratic-majoritative-decision-making-process.”

It was Tina, one of Jane’s fellow Daleks. (In real life all of the Daleks are females, as the Daleks are too small for a fully-grown adult male to fit into. Remember that next time some feminist tells you that all the evil in the universe is caused by men).

I walked past the empty house towards a rocky patch of land where there was pre-shooting preparation going on. And it was there I met him, in the flesh, The Doctor, Matt Smith in this incarnation. I had planned for this moment all night, all my life in fact, and had prepared a short speech welcoming him to the island and introducing myself as a humble resident. However, my planned speech was soon forgotten, as I was distracted by an amazing sight, a baby Dalek. In all my years of watching Dr Who I’ve never seen any Dalek that wasn’t a fully-grown adult, hence my first words to The Doctor were: “Oh, a little baby Dalek!”

“Cute isn’t it,” he said.

I approached the Dalek, a scaled down version of the real thing and, looking inside, saw that it contained a scaled down version of a human being. A young child in other words. It spoke to me. “Stermnate,” it said.

It was with a full-sized Dalek, clearly its mother. “What’s its name?” I asked.

“Jed.”

I froze, recognising the name and the voice that spoke it. “We need to talk,” said Jane, climbing out of her Dalek.

xxx

Jane took Jed Junior out of his Dalek and we found an empty room in the empty house, where we could talk without disturbance.

“You never said,” I said.

“You never asked,” she said. “You haven’t been in touch. You’ve never once come to visit me.”

“You live on the mainland,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s only a couple of hours to my house. If you wanted to see me there’s nothing to stop you.”

“If I’d known you were pregnant ...”

“I didn’t want you to care because I was pregnant. I wanted you to care because you cared. I never heard from you. You have a phone, you have email, you have skype, there was nothing to stop you getting in touch.”

I paused, trying to take all this in.

“I love his Dalek,” I said. “He looks really cute.”

“It was done as a favour to me, so I could take my child to work. It’s hard being a single Dalek.”

“So you’re still single then?”

She didn’t reply to this perfectly reasonable question, responding simply with a fierce glare.

We sat in silence for a while, watching Jed clown around shouting ‘stermnate’ and ‘eggs’.

“You should come and stay in my house,” I said. “Away from the rest of the crew. It’s a nice place for a child.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I didn’t mean… I just meant you can have the spare room. You and Jed Junior.”

There was another silence, filled only by sterminating.

“I have to go,” Jane said eventually. “The last remnants of lifekind won’t exterminate themselves you know.”

xxx

Despite her protestations Jane did come up to the house that night. I’d made up the spare room just in case, with a cot for Jed and the spare bed for Jane.

We had a late supper and opened a bottle of wine. We talked for a long time, with Jane telling me all about Jed and her work on Dr Who. I updated her on what I’d been up to, though of course very little happens on an island inhabited by just two people.

The evening passed and before long Jed was tired, crying and moaning. “You can put him to bed in the spare room, so you don’t have to leave immediately.”

“It doesn’t mean we’re staying,” she said.

With Jed safely tucked up in bed asleep we talked.

“We could give it another go,” I said. “For Jed’s sake. I’m sure I’d make a good father. It seems a waste you having to struggle as a single mother when I’ve got so much to give.”

“I’m only here for a week Jed. We can hardly restart a relationship for 7 days. It’s barely long enough to get my hopes up again.”

“I could move back with you. To the mainland.”

“No Jed. I know what you think about the mainland. I wouldn’t want to tear you away from the island.”

“I could support you both, if that’s what you’re worried about. I wouldn’t have to get a job. My books are all million sellers (I write New York murder mysteries) and Hollywood has just given me a £1 million for the movie rights.”

“It’s not about money Jed. I just couldn’t live in an island with a handful of inhabitants. There’d be no-one for Jed to play with. What sort of childhood is that? Goodness knows what he’d grow up like.”

“Well, like me. That was my childhood.”

“Exactly. And you’ve grown into a man who’s afraid to travel 5 miles to the mainland.”

“I’m not afraid. It’s just a long way.”

Some time after midnight Jane retired to the spare room. “I’ll wedge a chair up against the door,” she said.

I was confused. “Well if the chair’s in the way you can move it to my room.”

“I mean so you won’t be able to get in.”

“Oh. Do you want me to show you how to use the lock and key? It’s quite a simple mechanism. Much more effective than wedged chairs.”

For no apparent reason Jane laughed at my helpful offer. “I just mean no sneaking in.”

Strangely, given her constant warnings not to attempt to sneak in with her, about 2.00 O’clock in the morning I felt Jane creep into my bed. I wasn’t sure what to do, maybe she’d just made a wrong turning.

“I’m just here for a cuddle,” she said, “nothing more.” We cuddled for a while, before my hands strayed into more-than-cuddle territory. She slapped me. “No straying hands,” she said.

Jane and Jed stayed the next night as well. Just as before Jane insisted on sleeping in the spare room, but again she crept in beside me. This time though I made sure that my hands didn’t stray. “Where are those nice straying hands?” she complained.

We spent the rest of the week together, like an idyllic family of the kind you see on the TV. I looked after Jed most days, as he was only needed for a few scenes. I mostly avoided the TV crew, as although I’d wanted to meet the Doctor all my life, I was also keen to avoid the gossip that would be bound to follow me around.

On the last night the rest of the Dr Who crew were celebrating the defeat of the Daleks. It had been a close thing, but the Doctor was saved by Mr Blobby switching sides in the final battle. The entire Dalek fleet was oblobbinated (a gruesome death the nature of which I won’t describe, for fear of putting you off your tea).

Jane and Jed Junior excused themselves and the three of us went for a walk to the cliffs overlooking Refrigerator Bay, the very same location we had gone the last time she’d left me. We looked down at the abandoned refrigerators scattered around the bay below us.

This time though, I’d made a decision.

“I’m come to the mainland with you,” I said. “It’s stupid to end a relationship just because of geography.”

“Are you sure,” she said. “Do you really want to leave this?”

“I’ll give it a chance,” I said.

We agreed that I’d follow her to the mainland in a few days, giving me a chance to pack and prepare.
The next morning I kissed Jane and Jed farewell as they stepped onto the morning ferry.
“I’ll ring you tonight,” I promised.
“You’d better,” she said.
The next few days were busy as I prepared my things, ready for my great adventure. Saddest of all was saying farewell to Alun, the only other occupant of the island. He, more than anyone else, would miss me. He promised to come and visit.
Three days later I was stood waiting for the morning boat. Though I was only planning to go for a few days initially, I knew that a few days could easily turn into forever. It was with mixed emotions that I clambered onto the boat that would take me to the mainland to a new life with my girlfriend and our Dalek child.