I never paid much attention to the strange man in the leather jacket. Not to begin with, anyway.
He started turning up at the shop one week. Ha. One week. One week out of the endless weeks in the life of a checkout operator, each one melting away into the next, and all of them identical.
Five days out of every seven, I wake up too early and roll out of bed. I wash (sometimes, I kid you not, with warm water when the boiler's working), I eat (when there's food in the flat) and I catch the bus (if it turns up) at seven each morning. I get to work, on the other side of town, at eight sharp (unless, I've had to walk, on account of the absent bus). I then work for eight hours a day. I've got nothing much to say about my work. I'm the checkout girl. One of a dozen checkout operators. Ever been to a supermarket? Yes? Well then, you'll know what I do all day.
That's what I was doing, the first time I met the leather jacket guy...
20th November 2020
So I was on my till, at eleven in the morning. I'd done three hours of my shift, but I had five left to go. On account of that, I was in a pretty poor mood. And it was about to get worse;
Along came customer number seventeen-trillion, pushing a shopping trolley which was loaded to the brim. Inwardly, I sighed. Outwardly, I smiled.
"Hello there!" I said outwardly as the customer (a porky, bearded old gentleman) began unloading his goods onto the conveyor belt. Just sod off I said inwardly.
Now, here, most customers would brightly reply; "hi!" They would then make a comment about the weather. This is Britain after all. We might have a chat. We might not. I'm not a chatty person, and if the customers aren't either, the rest of the tedious transaction passes in mostly silence. I'll toss the stuff through the scanner, the customer will pack it (sometimes with my help), and then I'll take payment, hand over the receipt, and bid them a grateful farewell. Other times, it might be a Chatterbox Charlie on the other side of the till. In which case, we'll have a chat. By that, I mean that they'll talk, whilst I pretend to listen, nod, and say "yeah" at random intervals. The point I'm trying to make here is that most customers, by far most, are entirely pleasant and reasonable individuals. They'll be polite, they'll be reasonably patient if problems arise, they'll treat you good.
That's most customers. But only most. Now and again you get a moron.
The porky, bearded gentleman, I soon discovered, was a Grade-A Moron. He didn't respond to my (entirely pretend) cheerful greeting. That was the first sign of trouble. Not a word. Just looked at me with two wet, piggy blue eyes and carried on tossing his garbage onto the conveyor belt. Yes, I said garbage. Without naming names, I work for a horrible little supermarket chain. We sell a load of trash. Correction - we are a wonderful, cost-effective supermarket! Good quality food, good quality prices!
Anyway, things quickly went from bad to worse. Want to know why? One word - soup. Carrot. Soup.
I picked it up off the conveyor belt and held it against the scanner. It gave that familiar, dream haunting beep that it usually makes, as opposed to a longer booop and an error message, which signals trouble of some description. Till crash, item out of date, product recalled, something like that. Well, no. It went through fine, and so I tossed it down towards the mug I was serving, and reached for the next item (a sack of spuds, some of them shaped remarkably like their new, soon to be owner.
"Oi!" Came a gravelly, whinging voice. I dropped the spuds and turned to the man, shocked to discover his angry red face rather close to my own.
"Eighty-five pence?" He demanded, nodding at the price indicator to my left. This was, I realized, one of those infuriating muppets who scrutinizes the price indicator each time an item goes through.
I shrugged. "That's what it says."
"Yeah, well it's wrong." The moron barked. He thrust the soup back at me. "It said seventy pence on the shelf."
"Did it?" I asked, without interest. "Want me to call the supervisor?"
"No, no, no," the mug snapped angrily, "I ain't got all day, love. I wanna pay seventy pence for it."
"Yep," I replied wearily, "which means I need to call the supervisor. The till won't let me change the price myself." Without asking him again, I reached underneath the till and pressed the "assistance" key which might (or might not) summon a supervisor to help.
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" The man exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the aluminium surface of the packing area. "Just do something about it quickly!"
I sighed. "What do you suggest?"
"I work for a rival company," the man boasted, "and we don't keep our customers waiting for anything."
"Is that right?" I asked flatly. I almost laughed - the guy was literally boasting about working in a shop, albeit a different one. I'd seen it all now. Nothing wrong with working in a shop, of course. But it's certainly not something to boast about. It's just a neat little way of paying the bills, providing you can tolerate the customers.
"Look, sir, it's fine," I assured him, putting as much contempt on the "sir" as possible, "we'll leave it to one side 'til the supervisor gets here. I'll put your other items through while we wait."
The man thought it through a moment, before grunting his agreement. I could tell that he'd been itching to find fault with that plan, to find another reason to have a go at me - clearly, for reasons best known to himself, he'd been itching to have a go at someone since getting out of bed that morning. But he could find no reason to complain. The rest of the transaction took five minutes. And guess what? No supervisor. So...
"This is bloody stupid," the moron spat, "why can't you bloody well get of your backside and find the bloody manager? I'll go to another shop next time, mark my words."
"Okay." I said, wondering how he'd arrived at the conclusion that I cared a jot where he shopped in future. So long as they pay me, what do I care? Plenty more customers out there.
My flippant attitude wasn't helping matters, in all fairness. It was only making him more angry, something I took an odd sort of satisfaction from. By this time, a queue had formed behind the man. Next in line was an old lady, who was gazing at the furious man in quiet distaste. Behind her, a man with short, dark hair and a black leather jacket. He had a mole on his cheek, and a large pointy nose. His eyes were blue. Very blue.
And it was he who saved me that day. The first of many times.
"All right, mate?" The stranger said, edging past the old lady and clapping the angry man on the back cheerfully. He rounded on me. "Got a problem?" He beamed. His smile was wide, his teeth white. Yet his eyes startled me. They weren't smiling.
"Bit of till trouble," I explained. "Supervisor's coming." I assured him weakly - though it had been several minutes since I sent the first call out, and Delia (my least favourite supervisor) was still nowhere to be seen.
"She's been saying that for ages," the old idiot grumbled, "would be better if she knew how to do her own bloody job!"
"As I've said," I retorted tersely, "the system won't allow me to change the price. Gotta be a supervisor who does that."
The old man scoffed. The leather-jacket man, however, looked down at the till screen thoughtfully.
"Happen I could sort it," he said brightly.
"Er...you don't work here..." I replied.
"Nah, but I'm good with computers me," the man beamed, pulling a strange little grey tube from the pocket of his jacket. He pointed it at the back of the till's screen and pressed a button. The tube buzzed, and a blue bulb at the bottom illuminated. To my astonishment, the screen flicked instantly up onto the supervisor's screen, normally only accessible with a password.
"Go fer it," the man said brightly. His accent, I noticed, was northern. Salford, perhaps?
I chuckled lightly and, quickly as I could, altered the price of that wretched little tin of carrot soup. I watched in relief as it changed from eighty-five pence to seventy pence, reducing the man's total bill by a grand total of fifteen pence. "There." I said, thrusting the soup at him.
"About time." The old idiot snapped, jamming his bank card into the card machine. "Useless service. Says a lot when a customer has to sort it out for you."
The transaction was finally finished. I handed the man his receipt. "Please come again." I said sarcastically.
"Fat chance. Thanks for nothing." The man turned to leave. But as he did, the leather jacket guy's hand went back to his fleshy shoulder. The grip was different this time. Not warm and genial like before. Hard. His fingers dug into the man's fatty shoulder.
"Listen, pal." The man said, in a pleasant and reasonable voice. "I didn't appreciate that. The way you spoke to me new friend here," he shot me a little wink out of the corner of his eye.
"Oh, well!" The man retorted angrily. "Useless service! I'll have you know, I work for a rival supermarket and-"
The stranger's grip on the man's shoulder hardened.
"I didn't appreciate the way you spoke to her. Next time you wanna be rude to someone, don't make it a young lady who's jus' trying ta help ya. Okay?"
The man opened his mouth to argue back, but then he looked into the strangers eyes. I guess, like me, he saw something in those eyes that scared him...there was a power coming from this man, something I couldn't put my finger on at all...some sort of intense, angry energy, that might at any given time burst past that fake cheerful persona. And like me, it scared him.
"Well, I won't be back here, that's for sure," the moron said, shaking himself free of the stranger's grip.
"I think yep," the stranger said. "I think that's okay with you. So I guess the next time you wanna to be rude to someone, you'll kind of keep a look out for me, won't you? Are we good, pal?"
"Whatever you say." The old man said, pushing his trolley away and leaving the supermarket (and, thankfully, the story) forever. I watched in immense satisfaction as he went. Despite his defiant farewell, I could tell how rattled he was.
The stranger watched after him before shrugging his rather muscular, leather-dressed shoulders and moving back to his place in line, behind the old woman who throughout the whole exchange had seemed more interested in a magazine she'd picked up than the unpleasant scenes which had taken place right under her nose.
She came and went through the checkout in much the same way that ninety percent of customers do. We greeted each other, I apologized for the small delay, we lapsed into silence while I put the items through and she packed (and yes, I did offer to help her), before she paid, took her receipt and left with a cheery goodbye.
Next up - the leather jacket man.
"Hello again," I grinned, picking up his first item. A simple ham sandwich on white bread, costing only a pound. I suddenly realized that the man had nothing, and I mean nothing except sandwiches. There had to be at least fifty packaged sandwiches on my conveyor belt. I glanced up at him uncertainly.
"Is this a joke, mate?" I said, giggling.
"Naw," the stranger laughed, his northern burr ever so pleasant, "I love me sandwiches, me. Me an' a mate are 'aving a bit of a stakeout later tonight. Need to keep me energy up."
"Well, okay," I laughed. "Got your own bags?"
"They'll fit in my pockets." The man said.
I laughed, thinking it was a joke, and thrust a couple of plastic bags at him. He took them. My hand hovered briefly over the five-pence bag charge, but then dropped. I didn't want to charge him extra. Not after earlier.
"How'd you do that with the till earlier?" I asked him. "What was that thing?"
The man laughed again, and broke into an out of tune little song;
#Once the human didn't know all the things that they know now.
#But the 'uman they sure learnt a lot.
#Coz they ask the Time Lord "how?"
I smirked. "Peter Pan." The words were different, but I recognized the vaguely offensive yet hugely catchy little tune from Disney's Peter Pan, my favourite film as a kid.
"Got it on one," the stranger laughed. He peered at the name tag attached to the front of my uniform. "Lynsey, huh?"
"That's me," I agreed, "Lynsey Perron. What's your name?"
"The Doctor."
"The Doctor, huh...well, thanks buddy. For earlier, I mean."
"Nothing to it," the Doctor said, winking. "Never liked bullies ya see."
"Nor me, nor me," I said, continuing to rush his sandwiches through the till. It was now, and only now, that Delia the supervisor finally came over.
"Did you call?" She said innocently, as though I'd only send out the alert a second ago.
"We're good." I replied shortly, not looking up at her. She skulked away again. She didn't like me, and I didn't like her. And she knew I didn't like her. Nobody did. I had once; when I started working here, a hundred-trillion years ago (okay, four), she'd been a checkout drone like myself. She'd been fine; chatty, funny, a nice lady all round. But then she'd gotten a promotion to supervisor, and turned into an angry, pompous zombie. Sad really. A tiny amount of power can go a long way in some people's heads.
Finally, the sandwiches were through. After some confusion with the money, the man finally gave me the correct amount.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly, "not from round 'ere."
"They even got different money up north?" I asked incredulously.
"No. But...well, lot's of planet's 'ave a north."
"Okay," I said uncertainly, handing him his receipt.
He took it and winked. "I'll probably be seeing ya' round," he said, "I'm in the area for the foreseeable. Stakin' out the supermarket."
"Oh yeah?" I frowned. "Do you mind if I ask why?"
"Yep." The man said, grinning mischievously. "Top secret I'm afraid. See ya." And with that, he was gone.
It was only later that I noticed the bags I'd given him were still there, unused. I played over what he'd said in my head; "they'll fit in my pockets." I stared in disbelief at the bags, and then behind me, in the direction he'd walked away in, as though he might still be there. He wasn't. I looked back at the bags, and shook my head. "Couldn't be..." He must have had a bag of his own...
And that was how it all started. The start of my impossible journey with the Doctor and Rose Tyler.
The Doctor's Diary, Entry 1970
Well today's been a total write off, ain't it? Waste of time. Spent ages in that supermarket looking for any signs of the Whispering. Nothing. Nout, nada. Nuttin'. More clever than it looks. But he's gotta be here! We've been chasing him for long enough, and the Tardis is insistent that he came here after the incident at Locus Heights. So, after an hour skulking around, sonicking at regular intervals, I had to buy something. I think the bouncer was getting suspicious. Fancied some sandwiches for tonight's stakeout. Me and Rose (who spent the day clothes shopping!) are pulling an overnighter outside the store. We've got to find it, before it wipes out all life on Earth!
In short - just another day at the office.
Tell you what though, perhaps today wasn't a total write off after all. Met a nice girl on the checkouts, put some idiot in his place...I like to help where I can, even in tiny ways. It all helps...keeps my mind of things. Sometimes, lately - just sometimes, mind you - I feel happy again! Like I did before everything changed. Sometimes, when I'm with Rose, I feel like the old me again. Before the Time War. I swear it; those interludes of happiness are getting longer, and more frequent. One day, perhaps, I'll find the Doctor within me again.
I hope. I'm allowed to hope.