She held out for the first three years of her partnership with Monterey with nothing more than a mild disinterest in “that show with the hats”. She sneered when Monterey and his friends whooped over a newly salvaged episode. She deliberately fell asleep when he pawed drunkenly at his retroplayer in the middle of the night, looking for a fix of nostalgia to send him back to sleep. She ignored all invitations to costume parties. She learned to leave the canteen in a hurry when that dratted theme music started up on the large holo-screens. (It wasn’t only her partner who loved the ridiculous adventures of the privileged Wildegreen family and their vassals, it was literally everyone on campus.)
Lovelace rose above it all. She remained aloof.
Then, Monterey got sick.
Humans were such fragile, messy creatures. Medical science was supposed to compensate for that, but the human body would insist on finding new vulnerabilities in every generation. Even in the twenty-fourth century.
Monterey went down with a nasty strain of an especially messy virus only two days after he and Lovelace returned from a hop to 1919. Obviously, with all of the artificial antigens pumped into the travellers, and the rigorous research on what could and could not be transmitted via time hoop, they knew it wasn’t the Spanish flu. There was absolutely no way it could be the Spanish flu.
Melusine of Admin decided that it was a good idea to isolate both of them, just in case.
Lovelace was locked up with Monterey in a medical wing at the far end of the campus, with him all sniffly and feeling sorry for himself. Both of them were aware, though they never discussed it, that there was a minute fraction of a possibility that he might be about to die. (Of boredom, if nothing else.)
Lovelace weakened.
It started with Season 6, set in 1919 and featuring a plotline where Lady Sophia Wildegreen did indeed die of the Spanish flu. Then Season 7, because you couldn’t just stop your marathon there, apparently you had to at least watch as far as the Agatha Christie episode.1
Things got rather out of hand after that. Lovelace couldn’t stop watching the awful humans in their starchy costumes. The whole thing was ridiculous and terrible and somehow she was inhaling old black and white episodes even when Monterey was asleep. Once she found out there was a whole era of the show involving spies jumping in and out of vintage sports cars, she was sunk.
Stupid humans with their comfy blankets and TV shows.
Stupid manor houses that gave you a warm tingly feeling just because it was the location of a stupid human TV show.
Monterey must never know how excited Lovelace actually was to visit the location of the real Cramberleigh. No one must know her shame.
Monterey wasn’t here to know her shame. Lovelace would (almost) sacrifice her dignity to have him back. Fenella was no substitute.
Lovelace lingered under the table for a few moments while Fenella conversed with the Sid person. It wasn’t like she could aid the human conversation by revealing she was a talking cat in 1964.2
A little explore would hardly hurt anyone.
She set off for the house. Greenhouses were all very well (Lovelace enjoyed the Season with the Carnivorous Plants as much as the next feline), but inside was what it was all about.
In quick succession, Lovelace visited the butler’s pantry where Gladioli discovered Mr Bones was a vampire, the staircase that Lucy Wildegreen walked down in her wedding dress, and the pineapple parlour where Sir Victor was standing shortly before the house exploded in Season 11.
Cramberleigh exploded, that is, not Fenthorp Manor. Some sort of clever arrangement involving dollhouses and firecrackers, Lovelace imagined. Twentieth century media technology was so primitive.
A loud ringing sound from downstairs reverberated through the carpets. Lovelace leaped into the air in alarm, then quickly behaved as if that hadn’t happened before remembering that she was alone in the room, so no one had witnessed her startlement.
What was that noise?
As she trotted back down the stairs, she heard the ringing stop with a clatter. “Hello? Yes, Gordon, it’s Bunty.”
It bloody wasn’t Bunty, whatever a Bunty was. Lovelace knew that voice. She poked her head through the banisters and peered down. She could see a puffy blonde hairstyle — was it a beehive? Half a beehive? — and a fringed blouse. Glossy pale pink fingernails. Could it be?
“No,” said that very familiar voice. “Joan Buckingham can’t have high tea in the Long Library like she’s Lady Muck, that wing is off limits to the likes of us. She can have a cup of tea in a tin mug at Craft Services, or come down to the pub like everyone else. This isn’t a hotel. We’re barely supposed to be filming inside the house. There’s no one on site to make finger sandwiches. And we’re not allowed to touch the good china, it’s in the contracts… I could tell her, Gordon, but you’re the floor manager.”
A long pause. “Yes, I see it’s not in your job description, but do you think it’s in mine? I’m on production assistant wages. All right, do your best, love.”
There was a loud click, as the woman hung up what was clearly a rotary telephone. Lovelace didn’t have time to stop and marvel at the revolutionary concept of a telephone having its own distinct table. Next time Monterey had something to apologise for, she was demanding a telephone table of her very own.3
Lovelace scampered down the stairs and was confronted by a shocked blonde production assistant with high blonde hair and a knee-length dress, who promptly screamed.
“Oh my giddy aunt. Who let that cat in here?”
“Don’t piss about, Cressida,” Lovelace said impatiently. “It’s me, Lovelace. We’ve come to rescue you.”
Cressida Church, one of the most daring, adventurous and downright irresponsible time travellers that Chronos College had ever produced, stared at the talking cat in horror. Her eyes rolled up and she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Lovelace leaned over her body, frowning. It was Boswell’s Church. It had to be. But something was very, very wrong. Cressida Church would never be caught dead in kitten heels.
A door banged, and Fenella rushed in. “Lovelace, there you are! The sound crew have… oh.” She stared down at the body of her fallen sister. “What did you do to her?”
Usually Lovelace appreciated the fearsome reputation she had cultivated among the younger graduates, but this was just silly.
“Your sister is afraid of cats,” she said scornfully. “And she’s a production assistant called Bunty.” Not a sound engineer after all. Considering the gender restrictions of this decade, that wasn’t a surprise.
Fenella blinked rapidly. “Scattered?”
“Scattered,” Lovelace agreed.
That must be why Cressida had not activated her opal to let anyone know she was here. Mind you, it also suggested that the whole business about appearing on screen during the Unaired Pilot was a lucky accident, instead of a devilishly clever master plan. Lovelace did not believe in lucky accidents.
“We need to get her out of here,” she said. “Before 1964 becomes an Event.”
“Do you think that’s likely?” Fenella asked in alarm.
“Depends on how many of our fellow travellers come crashing in here — or how much mess we make on our way out.”
