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They followed their footsteps back to the TARDIS. Here and there, little paw prints belonging to some unknown animal crossed their path, but otherwise the snow was untouched. No humans, or even near-humans, lived in this land. Their visit had been a short one – a search for the minerals needed to power a machine that the Doctor was working on, that was all. A success, for once, with no danger to complicate matters.

‘Pine needles and crisp, clean air. It smells of Christmas!’ Ian said wistfully.

Barbara didn’t look at Ian as he spoke. Her eyes were focused on something that wasn’t there, some sort of distant memory. ‘Do you remember the smell of Stir-up Sunday? Warm spices and brandy.’

‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord,’ said Ian, and the two schoolteachers smiled, but their smiles had sadness underneath.

The young girl walking between them turned from one to the other, frowning. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

Of course it was Barbara who answered. She could never resist a chance to educate. ‘A custom of our time, Vicki,’ she said. ‘When you heard those words in the prayer for the day at church, you knew it was time to make the Christmas pudding.’

‘Oh,’ said Vicki. ‘I see.’ Then she paused for a second and added, almost casually, ‘What’s a Christmas pudding?’

‘Vicki!’ both Barbara and Ian cried out in astonishment.

‘Oh, I’ve heard of Christmas,’ the girl said, oblivious to their horror. ‘But I’m not quite sure what a pudding is.’

So Barbara told her, with Ian joining in. The making of the Christmas pudding: nutmeg and cinnamon and sugar, orange zest and candied peel, almonds and suet and breadcrumbs, all mixed together with a good dollop of brandy.

‘You’d put in a sixpence too,’ said Ian. ‘Then everyone would stir the mixture and make a wish.’

Barbara smiled. ‘My mum had a sixpence, a proper silver one, with Queen Victoria’s head on it. That went into the pudding every year, but the finder didn’t get to keep it. Dad would give out a new one instead, the ones with only a bit of silver in them.’

‘Of course, since the war, sixpences don’t have any silver in them at all,’ said Ian. ‘They’re made of cupro-nickel now.’ And, because he could never pass up an opportunity to share his knowledge with a pupil either, whether in school or not, he added, ‘That’s an alloy of copper and nickel.’ He didn’t seem to notice he was still talking about ‘now’ – meaning the early 1960s – when in fact they were on a planet that could have been millions of years in the past or the future from then.

The memories were flowing, and neither Ian nor Barbara could turn them off. Visions of Christmases long gone danced in their heads.

‘Mum and Dad would decorate the tree overnight with paper chains and candles.’ That was Ian again. ‘You just had to hope that the candles wouldn’t set fire to the paper chains.’

‘Did you ever have a snapdragon?’ Barbara cut in. ‘We used to love snatching almonds and raisins from the flames. Your fingers got burned, but it was worth it!

‘There was one time, during the war, I didn’t think there’d be anything in my stocking. Mum had explained how even Santa didn’t have enough coupons to get sweets for everyone on his list. And then, on Christmas morning, there it was! An apple, nuts, a peg doll and a huge bag of barley sugar. Oh, I’d known for years that there was no Santa, just Mum and Dad play-acting, but all the same I believed in magic, then, for a while.’

‘We’d watch the queen’s speech – or listen to the king on the radio, before that – then play games. Charades, consequences, and blind man’s buff!’

Vicki listened, enthralled. ‘It all sounds marvellous!’ she said.

‘Yes, it was,’ said Barbara wistfully. ‘I wonder if we will ever see Christmas again. If I had one wish –’

‘Don’t say it!’ Ian cried out. ‘Remember what happens when you stir the pudding! If you tell people your wish, it won’t come true!’ And, although he was laughing, and although a man of science obviously couldn’t believe in wishes, it sounded for a second as though he really meant it.

The Doctor was already at the controls when they entered the TARDIS.

Barbara shook the snow off her boots and hung up her woollen coat. ‘Time for bed, Vicki,’ she said.

‘Oh, but I want to hear more about Christmas!’ begged Vicki.

‘What’s all this about Christmas?’ asked the Doctor.

‘We were just indulging in a spot of nostalgia,’ Ian replied. ‘Reminiscing about long ago.’

‘The past is never long ago when you have a time machine!’ said the Doctor.

No one replied. But both Barbara and Ian were thinking the same thing: a childhood Christmas is further away than Ancient Rome, if your time machine can’t actually be controlled …

That night, Barbara dreamed of her mother, who she hoped to see again one day, and of her father, who she would never see again. How could she bear to, even if the Doctor could take her to a time when he was still alive? She always carried a photo of him, a studio portrait on a postcard, faded and tattered now. For a time, after she’d been snatched from her life, she’d looked at it every day, the only link to her family, a connection across the stars. Recently she gazed at it less and less, and now she felt obscurely guilty about that, as if her acceptance of their strange travels somehow meant she didn’t care any more about those she’d left behind.

When she awoke, she realised she’d been crying in her sleep. Vicki wasn’t in the next bed, which was good. The girl had lost so much: her mother, her father, her home, everything she’d ever known … Barbara knew that crying because her dad would never again put a sugar mouse into the toe of her stocking seemed an indulgence compared to Vicki’s much greater losses.

Barbara made her way to the control room, expecting to find Vicki there, or at least the Doctor, but it was empty. She could tell they weren’t in flight, and looked up at the scanner to see what was outside the ship. It just showed white snow gleaming in the darkness. No … a closer look revealed footprints. Footprints in the snow! They were still in the same place.

Vicki came running into the control room. ‘You’re up! At last! Come on!’ She took hold of Barbara’s arm, dragging her towards the main doors.

‘Why so excited?’ asked Barbara. ‘There’s nothing interesting out there. We saw that yesterday.’

Vicki dropped hold of her arm and looked at Barbara disappointedly, as though she was the teacher and Barbara the student. ‘We’re not there any more. Come and see. Now!’

Ian and the Doctor joined them – Ian from his own sleeping quarters further inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor through the doors from outside, which he closed behind him. ‘Nothing to see out there,’ he said. ‘We might as well take off.’

‘No!’ yelled Vicki, putting herself between the Doctor and the controls. ‘We have to go outside! We have to!’

‘But it’s just snow and trees,’ protested Ian. ‘I’m with the Doctor. There’s no point in staying here.’

‘It’s not the same place!’ Vicki insisted. ‘It’s somewhere new.’

‘No no, my child,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s just the same snow. Just the same trees.’

But Barbara had been watching the scanner. ‘I see something! I see lights!’ She turned to the Doctor suspiciously. ‘Why don’t you want us to see what’s really out there?’

‘Because we haven’t moved,’ the Doctor repeated tetchily. ‘There is nothing out there.’

But his bluster was unconvincing. Suddenly Barbara darted at the door control. ‘I need to see for myself!’ she said.

The doors swung open. Cold wind whipped through the control room, and brought other things with it.

A scent of spices and candlewax.

A peal of bells.

Voices, distant and sweet, singing of a baby in a manger.

Barbara ran through the doors. She didn’t stop for her coat or scarf. She just kept running towards the sound. There were lights now, the harlequin lights of flickering candle flames through stained glass. And suddenly she found herself outside a church: the source of the lights and the sounds and the scents. There was enough light through the windows to allow her to read the noticeboard outside the church doors:

ST SWITHUN’S. MIDNIGHT MASS.

11.30 P.M. TUESDAY 24 DECEMBER 1963.

1963.

The date struck Barbara like a blow.

This was her year – hers and Ian’s!

They were home!

Ian joined her. He’d brought her coat and now draped it over her shoulders, but it made no difference to Barbara, who hadn’t felt the cold. She pointed at the notice, unable to bring herself to speak.

‘Home …’ whispered Ian in amazement. Then he let out a loud cry of delight, dancing around in a circle. ‘Home! We’re home!’

‘And only a month since we left,’ said Barbara, forcing her mouth to form the words. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she was not someone who cried. Certainly not twice in one day, anyway.

The Doctor and Vicki came along too, now. Vicki was almost jumping with excitement, but the Doctor didn’t look happy. Barbara turned on him. ‘We’re home,’ she said. ‘Ian and I, we’re home. Is that why you didn’t want us to come out here? You didn’t want us to see? You didn’t want us to leave?’

The Doctor looked furious, which meant he was feeling defensive. ‘Not at all,’ he snapped. ‘I merely didn’t want you to get your hopes up.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Ian.

‘Well, all of this! Christmas! Christmas 1963! And in England, no less. You think it’s a coincidence we land here only hours after you’ve been talking of such things?’

‘Maybe the TARDIS heard us somehow,’ said Ian.

‘Or maybe someone did,’ added Barbara quietly. She knew that the wish she’d made last night – Oh please, let me have Christmas again, Christmas at home – had turned into a prayer halfway through.

‘Oh, very well,’ said the Doctor with a sniff. ‘Investigate if you must. But don’t lose sight of the idea that this may be a trap!’

‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ said Vicki.

Barbara pushed open the door of the church and they went in. Warmth enveloped them. A few faces turned to see the latecomers, but no one seemed shocked or surprised. Barbara picked up four hymn books from the pile near the door and handed them out, but Ian was already joining in with ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.

The hopes and fears of all the years. Barbara’s hopes had been realised; her fears were over. She was home.

At the end of the service, the four travellers lingered at the back of the church. As the vicar walked towards the door, Barbara moved to intercept him.

‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,’ the old man said. ‘Visiting for Christmas, are you?’

Barbara shook her head. ‘No. Trying to get home for Christmas, but …’

She couldn’t think how to finish that sentence, but the vicar finished it for her. ‘Snowed in, I assume? Yes, it’s such a shame. All the roads blocked, and the telephone lines down too.’

A deep breath. So near home, and yet so far. But what did it matter? Christmas was only a date. A further delay would only make their eventual homecoming all the sweeter.

‘Is there a hotel?’ Barbara asked. ‘Or a boarding house? Somewhere nearby we could stay?’

The vicar was shaking his head sadly as a man and woman joined them. Older than Barbara. Probably older than Barbara’s mother. ‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ the woman said. ‘Do I understand you’re stuck here, unable to get home?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Ian.

‘Would you allow me to make a suggestion? Our children and grandchildren were going to visit, but the snow has prevented them from coming. Would you and your friends consider spending Christmas Day with us?’

Barbara turned to Ian. Should they? But the Doctor spoke first. ‘Oh, you two can do what you like. But Vicki and I will return to the –’

Vicki jumped in. ‘No! I want to spend a proper Christmas with Ian and Barbara.’

‘Please, Doctor,’ said Barbara. ‘Christmas is a time for family. And, whether you like it or not, we have become a family, of sorts.’

‘Oh, very well, very well.’ The Doctor sounded grumpy, but there seemed to be a smile hiding in there somewhere.

‘Thank you,’ said Barbara to the elderly woman. ‘If you’re sure we wouldn’t be inconveniencing you …’

‘We would be very glad of the company,’ came the warm reply.

So they set off through the snow, the elderly couple – Mr and Mrs Robinson – leading the way, the four travellers following in their footprints. Their destination was a cottage, as cosy and welcoming as any Barbara had ever known. Inside, a fire burned in the grate, and a small fir tree sat nearby, just waiting to be transformed. Something about the living room struck Barbara as momentarily odd, but she quickly put it to the back of her mind as Mrs Robinson handed her a glass of mulled wine. Meanwhile, Vicki and Ian helped Mr Robinson to decorate the tree. ‘We had been wondering whether to bother,’ he told them. ‘Well, you do it for the kiddies, mainly, don’t you?’

Vicki began making yard after yard of paper chains. ‘Can we hang up stockings later, please?’ she asked.

Barbara opened her mouth to say no, but Mr Robinson gave her a wink and a little nod of the head. ‘Oh, I think that could be arranged, young lady,’ he said, and Barbara smiled at him in gratitude.

While Barbara and Mrs Robinson played a friendly game of chess, Vicki took off one of her own knee-high socks and attached it to the mantelpiece with a drawing pin. She made Barbara and Ian follow suit, which they did with much laughter and joking. The Doctor refused to participate, so Vicki took off her other sock and pinned it up too. ‘That can be yours,’ she told the Doctor, who made a tsch sound but didn’t protest further.

Later, Barbara went to find Mrs Robinson, who was in the kitchen. ‘Is there anything I can help with?’ she asked.

‘No, thank you, my dear,’ said the older woman. ‘Time for us all to turn in, I think.’

‘There is just one more thing,’ said Barbara. ‘Could I possibly borrow a needle and thread from you?’

‘Of course, my dear,’ Mrs Robinson replied with a smile and directed her towards her sewing kit.

The cottage was roomier than it had seemed at first; the time travellers were given a bedroom each. Barbara did not go straight to bed. There was something she needed to do first.

She’d just finished her task when she heard the noise. She held her breath for a moment, waiting to see if it came again. It did. Someone was moving around downstairs. But who? The stairs had creaked loudly when everyone had come up to bed, and she’d been awake ever since; she’d have heard if any of the house’s other five occupants had ventured from their room.

She slipped on her shoes and opened her door slowly and softly. Even treading as warily as possible, the stairs creaked beneath her feet.

Carefully, so carefully, she pushed open the living-room door. The fire had died down to glowing embers, but there was light enough to see the figure standing beside the mantelpiece. A figure in robes of red, trimmed with white.

Barbara laughed with relief. Mr Robinson – or perhaps even the Doctor – playing Santa Claus. Making it a proper Christmas for Vicki: treats in their waiting stockings.

At the sound, the man turned towards her.

Barbara almost cried out, but it caught in her throat. She barely made a noise as she slid unconscious to the ground.

‘Barbara! Barbara! Wake up!’

Barbara heard the voice and obeyed, dragging herself back to consciousness. She was in bed, an ugly candlewick bedspread covering her. Something didn’t seem right. Was it because she was so used to waking up in the TARDIS? No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. Something she just couldn’t put her finger on. And there was no time to think about it, because Vicki was still saying ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ and sounding so excited.

‘Come on, sleepy head! It’s Christmas Day! A proper old Earth Christmas Day! And Ian says I’m not allowed to look in my stocking until you come down!’

Barbara followed Vicki downstairs. Everyone else was already there. The socks on the mantelpiece were lumpy and bumpy, empty no longer. Vicki dived for hers, pulling out each small item as though it was the most precious treasure. ‘An orange! And look, what are these? Walnuts? And an apple! And a tiny little teddy bear. What have you got, Barbara?’

Smiling, Barbara liberated her own stocking. She reached in and pulled out a small white paper bag. She opened it. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘It’s barley sugar!’ Then everything came flooding back. ‘It was my father,’ she said, turning to the only man she’d ever met who was as brave and strong as her father had been. ‘Oh, Ian, I saw my father last night! He was here!’

Ian put an arm round Barbara’s shoulder and led her to the uncomfortable horsehair-stuffed sofa. Vicki was looking confused. ‘But you said Santa was always your mum or dad,’ she said, after Barbara had explained.

‘Yes, Vicki, I know. But my father died in the war. He couldn’t have been here, in 1963.’ She turned to Mrs Robinson. ‘This is 1963, isn’t it?’

The old lady nodded. ‘Of course it is, dear. I think you must have been having a bad dream.’

‘Here, take this.’ Mr Robinson had vanished into the kitchen, and now returned with a glass of brandy. ‘Drink it all down, now. Don’t worry, there’s still plenty left for the pudding.’

‘And for the snapdragon?’ asked Vicki.

‘Yes, and for that too.’

Barbara drank the brandy, and tried to tell herself it made her feel better. Of course it had been a dream. Of course she hadn’t really seen her long-dead, much-loved father.

But at the back of her mind she heard the Doctor’s words from the previous night: Don’t lose sight of the idea that this may be a trap!

When Vicki was out of earshot, she pulled the Doctor over to one side. ‘I was thinking about what you were saying,’ she told him, quietly. ‘About it being such a coincidence we landed on this planet at this time. About how it might be a trap.’

‘Oh, no no no,’ said the Doctor, waving her worries aside. ‘No, I spoke rashly. Forget everything I said and concentrate on having a happy Christmas.’

If the Doctor – as suspicious and sceptical as he was – thought things were fine, well, they probably were. Barbara tried to do as he said. She would enjoy Christmas Day.

Barbara offered once again to help Mrs Robinson in the kitchen, and was once more refused. ‘There’s so little to do,’ Mrs Robinson said, which was the exact opposite of what Barbara’s mother used to say every year at this time as she tried to juggle turkey and trimmings and pudding and brandy butter and all the many things that made up a traditional Christmas dinner.

The reason for Mrs Robinson’s attitude became clear when they sat down at the table and she produced the pudding. That was it. Just a pudding. No turkey, no stuffing, no Yorkshire puddings or sprouts. One pudding, soft blue flames flickering around it.

Ian and Barbara exchanged a look. ‘Not even custard!’ mouthed Ian silently, and Barbara shrugged in sympathy. No one else seemed to realise there was anything out of the ordinary.

Mr Robinson cut the pudding into six equal slices and bowls were passed round the table.

‘Oh!’ cried Ian, taking a mouthful. ‘I think I’ve got the sixpence!’ He removed the coin from his mouth and polished it clean with a napkin.

Barbara leaned over to look. ‘It’s got Queen Victoria’s head on it! It’s a proper old silver sixpence, just like the one we used at home.’

Ian turned the coin over in his hand. ‘Not quite like the one you had at home, I suspect.’

Barbara looked at it again. ‘It looks the same to me.’

‘Keep looking.’ He turned the coin over again. Now his meaning became obvious.

‘Oh! It’s a two-headed coin! How funny.’

‘Can we pull the crackers now?’ asked Vicki. Ian put the coin down as the colourful red-and-green crackers were handed out. Barbara took one and held it out to the Doctor. He pulled.

They were both knocked backwards by the explosion. As the Doctor staggered to his feet, eyebrows singed and face blackened, Barbara fought to keep down hysterical laughter.

‘I think,’ said the Doctor, with as much dignity as he could muster, ‘that the makers may have rather overdone the gunpowder. I suggest we forgo the rest of them.’

‘Anyway, it’s time for the queen’s speech,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘Everyone gather round!’

They all squashed together on the sofa, waiting for the tiny television set to warm up. Eventually a face began to take shape. Barbara stared at the blurry form. Once again, she had the distinct feeling that something was wrong. As the image became clearer, so did her thoughts. ‘But … that’s not the queen!’ she cried out.

The Robinsons looked puzzled. ‘Of course that’s the queen,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘She looks just like she looks on the sixpence.’

‘Exactly!’ said Barbara. ‘That’s Queen Victoria! It should be Queen Elizabeth!’

‘Just a bit of … time slippage,’ said the Doctor. ‘Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’

Vicki jumped up. ‘Let’s do presents. That’ll make everything better.’ She ran over to the living-room door and opened it wide. ‘Come on!’ she called.

Heavy footprints approached. Barbara looked on in horror as a giant crashed through the door. A thing out of a terrible nightmare – no, not out of a nightmare, out of a horror film …

‘No! Can’t you all see how wrong this is?’ she cried. ‘The Doctor was right. It is a trap! We have to get away!’

‘No, not yet!’ pleaded Vicki. ‘There’s still the snapdragon!’

Barbara was almost unsurprised to see a dragon fly through the window, a dragon wreathed in blue flame, dropping almonds and raisins as it went. She grabbed hold of Vicki with one hand and Ian with the other, trying to drag them away.

The dragon breathed fire, and the cottage began to burn. But there was no warmth from the flames. Mr and Mrs Robinson were burning too, but still smiling, unconcerned.

‘All right, then, games!’ said Vicki anxiously. ‘Blind man’s buff! Come on, Barbara, you be it!’

The world suddenly went dark.

‘I can’t see!’ exclaimed Barbara. ‘I can’t see! Please! Ian! Vicki! Doctor! We have to get out of here!’ But their hands slipped from hers as she lurched forward, desperate, scared, determined …

… and then suddenly able to see again.

She was in the TARDIS, on her bed. She’d never left her bed.

‘Not a dream,’ she said aloud. ‘It was too real to be a dream.’

A muffled sob from the other bed. ‘I’m so sorry!’ cried Vicki.

There was a knock on the door. ‘Are you decent?’ called Ian. He and the Doctor came in.

The Doctor put an arm round Vicki’s shoulders. ‘Don’t cry, child. You meant it for the best.’

‘You know?’ said Vicki sadly, quietly.

‘Not at first. But I worked it out. Oh, you silly girl!’

‘Explain,’ demanded a confused Barbara. ‘Will someone please explain!’

‘It was meant to be my Christmas present to you,’ said Vicki. ‘When we got the minerals to run the Doctor’s machine, I decided to try it. I wanted to give you the Christmas you wished for. But I think I might have got some elements wrong.’

‘Like exploding crackers and a real snapping dragon instead of the Victorian parlour game?’ said Ian. ‘No, it wasn’t a fully accurate representation of England in 1963. And what was that giant who crashed through the door?’

‘Oh, did I get that wrong too? I thought that was one of the gifts you traditionally gave at Christmas: gold, Frankenstein and myrrh.’

Ian raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Frankincense – not Frankenstein! What do they teach you at school?’

‘What was the machine, Doctor?’ asked Barbara. ‘What does it do?’

‘It creates a shared dream,’ the Doctor replied, ‘which can be shaped by the operator to help those recovering from mental trauma to heal.’

‘I think it’s caused more trauma than it’s healed,’ began Barbara, but when she saw Vicki’s tragic expression she changed what she had been about to say. ‘But it was a very kind thought, Vicki. We have a saying in our time: “It’s the thought that counts”. Thank you.’

‘Well, let’s see where we’ve landed,’ the Doctor said. ‘Come along, child.’ He left, and Vicki followed. Ian and Barbara were alone.

‘She meant well,’ Ian said after a short silence.

‘I know she did. I’m not angry. It was just … seeing my father again,’ Barbara said as a tear ran down her cheek. She reached into a pocket for a handkerchief. ‘Oh!’

Barbara held out the thing she’d found. A man’s large white handkerchief with a monogram in one corner: the initials I. C. ‘It was to be my Christmas present to you,’ she said. ‘I borrowed a needle and thread from Mrs Robinson and embroidered it. But how on earth did it get in my pocket? It was only a dream.’

‘I don’t know, but I’m glad it did. Thank you.’ Ian took it from her, smiled and put it in his own pocket. Then he too looked puzzled as he held out his palm to show what he’d found there.

‘The silver sixpence! From the pudding!’ Barbara exclaimed.

Ian nodded. ‘The sixpence that brings luck to the one who finds it. Maybe it’s a sign that we will soon be home after all.’

Barbara smiled. ‘Yes, perhaps we will. But I already count myself lucky. Lucky to have such good friends.’ She leaned forward and kissed Ian on the cheek. ‘Happy Christmas, Ian – whatever day it may be.’

Contents

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

A COMEDY OF TERRORS