‘Mondas Passing’ is a rather lovely, bittersweet little short story from the original ‘Short Trips’ collection from BBC books (1998). The author reunites Ben and Polly on New Year’s Eve 1986, meeting in a hotel room, away from their respective partners, while down in the South Pole, their younger selves are fighting the Cybermen and watching the Doctor change.
How to say this? 1986, the year in which ‘Tenth Planet’ is set, hmmm. To paraphrase the Doctor in ‘City of Death’ – not even a table wine, more a bottle of meths really. I wonder what the youngsters of the swinging sixties – young people like Ben and Polly and indeed the youngsters watching the show, thought it would be like? All shiny and gleaming, jetpacks, moonbases and flying cars? The reality near where I grew up, looked more like ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’! I’m sure by the time that generation got to 1986, many thought that it was all a bit disappointing really, the dreams of the 60’s not fulfilled. This story looks back at the fictional events of 1966 from the vantage point of a middle-aged Ben and Polly at end of 1986.
I’ve feel like I’ve known the two of them for a long time, well at least since the 1970’s- the grounded working class cockney sailor and the middle class secretary about town – ‘Duchess’ to Ben. ‘Doctor Who’s’ own Terrance Stamp and Julie Christie. It’s odd, but some companions I still feel slightly differently about, just because they were in Target books of my youth – Ian and Barbara (‘The Daleks’, ‘The Crusaders’, ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’, ‘The Zarbi’), Ben and Polly (‘Tenth Planet’ and ‘The Cybermen’) , Jamie and Victoria (‘Tomb of the Cybermen’, ‘The Abominable Snowmen’, ‘The Ice Warriors’, ‘Web of Fear’) – whereas the likes of Zoe or Steven were just in lists of companions or story synopses that I’d read. I didn’t really know them properly until the VHS and audio releases in the 1990’s, by which time I was an adult – or at least a rough approximation of one.
Anyway, I’ve thought about them a lot over the years, even as I was discovering the others. I think I’d always imagined that Ian and Barbara married after ‘The Chase’. They were so well suited to each other and were obviously in love. Ben and Polly though, I’ve never thought that it would work out between them. Ben slightly had a working class chip on his shoulder and you always imagined that Polly moved in very different circles. You could imagine them starting something after leaving the Doctor, but it not really working and them just slightly ‘missing’ each other – which is something that just happens in life, somethings just don’t work out. That is the scenario explored in this book. Both are married to different people and haven’t seen each other for years. There is clearly still unfinished business between them though and the connection that harks back to that first meeting in ‘The War Machines’ is still there.
In this excerpt, Ben waits for Polly in a hotel room and thinks about the year that is about to pass and the passage of time since his younger self was at snowcap base:
‘He couldn’t believe how quickly the year had gone, moving inexorably towards December, the time it had all happened – or rather would happen. The Zeus spacecrafts had started their launches early in the year. He’d even seen the Snowcap base and General Cutler on the news. Poor old Cutler…
The thoughts sent chills through his whole body. Ghosts from his past enacting events that were really only just happening. How many times had he had the nightmare of the Cyberman advancing on him in the Projection Room? Waking up in a sweat shouting, You didn’t leave me no alternative! Hard to explain to the wife… And if it wasn’t that, there were the dreams of ‘her’. He could hardly tell the wife about that, could he? Of course, he felt guilty leaving her alone tonight, but he just had to be here.
He told himself it was stupid: he knew the Cybermen didn’t win in 1986, just as they wouldn’t win on the Moon in 2070. Twenty years ago he had helped to save the world he lived in today. Now he was middle-aged and world-weary. His eyes had lost a lot of their cocky self assurance, and his expression now constantly seemed somehow troubled or slightly hurt.
God, he wanted his youth back. Wanted her. Somewhere at the South Pole around now they were together and he ached for that time. He couldn’t be sure exactly when it was; he remembered only that the calendar had said December 1986. But there had been no mention of a tenth planet lately, no reports of any energy drains, so it couldn’t have happened yet. Unless it had been covered up. Yeah, maybe.’
It strikes me, as a middle-aged man, that this is an entirely realistic reaction from Ben. It is difficult not to empathise with him here, a longing for younger, glory days and a young, beautiful woman you used to spend time with, but lost or never quite got together with. Regret, nostalgia, loss of youth and anticipation.
In this next excerpt, the detail of Ben holding his stomach in as he opens the door to Polly is rather cruel, but a very clever piece of character writing and sadly realistic. I wonder how many fans have done that instinctively when meeting Anneke over the years?
‘The knock came again, a presumptuous knock, familiar still after all these years. Breathing in deeply, stomach held firmly in, he opened the door.
‘Hello, Duchess.‘
‘Ben!’
The warmth of Polly’s hug surprised him. Maybe she had been dwelling on things as much as he had. Or maybe this was how she greeted everyone now; he hadn’t seen her for years… Her hair was still long, and almost the same colour blonde – must be dyed now, of course, he mused. And she smelt the same. That scent had brought so much warmth to the cold sterile air of the TARDIS. She’d kept her figure well, too – better than he had anyway. She was still the same Polly.
In the middle section of the story, Ben and Poll reminisce about their adventures and wonder what happened to Jamie and the Doctor. Wondering of their travels were all just a dream:
‘He walked over to the window and stared out into the clear, dark night. No tenth planet glowing and pulsing in the sky… ‘Course, you might not be able to see it from here anyway, being in the northern hemisphere…
‘Is it there, Mondas?’ Polly’s voice sounded almost childishly timid. Ben answered with reassuring brashness: “Course it ain’t. We ain’t heard nothing, ‘ave we? It’s been and gone, we sorted it… with the Doctor.‘
‘Just before he changed… yes.’
She joined him at the dark window and idly doodled on the huff she breathed on to the cold glass. ‘Did it ever really happen? Any of it?’
‘Guess so, Poll.‘
The Moon stared down at them, meeting their suspicious eyes with a baleful glare. Polly continued, almost dreamily. ‘Have we really walked on the Moon?’ Ben looked at her. ‘Dunno… How could we have? After all -‘ He attempted a broad Scottish accent: ‘The Moon is up in the sky!’
Ben has a slight note of bitterness and regret at their parting in the 60’s, which Polly admonishes him for. But as the evening progresses and they talk, they grow closer together. However, the moment is lost as midnight strikes and they are interrupted by a drunken reveller, perhaps for the best.
‘Duchess -‘
‘It’s over, Ben. It’s the past.’ She smiled, a little sadly. ‘We’ve only just saved the day out there at the South Pole, haven’t we? We can’t do it again now… not twenty years later.’ She picked up her bag from the bed and moved silently across the room.
‘You’re going?’
She nodded. ‘We can look forwards now.’
‘Will I see you -‘
Polly shook her head and opened the door. The noise of the partygoers flooded in, as if to emphasise the silence that had deadened the room. Pausing in the doorway, she turned to face him.
‘Somewhere out there, Ben, we’re still together. Still having those narrow escapes.’
He nodded, dumbly.
‘And, Ben…’
He looked up from the floor and into her eyes as she spoke.
‘…none of those escapes was any more difficult than this one.’
As the door clicked shut behind her, Ben walked back to the window. ‘What a bleedin’ melodrama!’ he muttered. The missus would be in floods if this was a film.’
I really rather love that, a beautiful little character-based story of the regret of lost love and youth that feels to me a bit like a “Doctor Who’ equivalent of ‘Brief Encounter’ all woven around the events of ‘The Tenth Planet’. A rather touching coda and the sort of gem, that the books, comic strips and audios occasionally provide.
‘Ahead of him now was a new year, together with all the promise it brought. Suddenly he felt very tired. It was only just gone midnight and he was tired! He grimaced. ‘I must be getting old…’ He closed his eyes. ‘See ya in 2070, Duchess.’
A Journal of Impossible Things 