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After the freezing cold of the night outside, the sound of a well crackling fire was like music to Polly’s ears. Two minutes in front of the flame and the circulation had already begun to creep back into her fingers, relieving them of their pithy pale white and tinging them their proper crimson once again.
“There’s hot soup too, my dear, if you’d like some.” The housekeeper was a kindly woman, or so Jamie had told her when he’d dragged her out the snow, with round cheeks and sparkling blue eyes not unlike the Doctor’s.
Speaking of the man, “Have you heard anything from him?”
“Not for a few hours. He radioed in once he’d spotted the tower.” Ben answered, finger pricking up the antenna of the device as if it would catch his thoughts in the frozen air.
“He’ll be back soon enough.” The woman reassured softly; hands clasped together in front of her dress. “He seems to have good sense around him, and that’ll do him good in this weather.”
“He could be freezin’ tae death and we’d never know.” Jamie muttered glumly. He’d leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed like a child in defiance, face stormy in the flickering light.
She supposed Jamie would have a better knowledge of keeping warm in time & terrain like this than either her or Ben. A few months ago, her response to her fingers turning white would be attempting to find somewhere to plug in her space heater.
“Sit down, Duchess. You’ve been on your feet for plenty.”
Ben shuffled along the bench and patted the soft cloth on the wood beside him. She took a hesitant glance around the cottage before she took up the offer, in a hope to spot a surface that would allow her better sight out the window.
“I’ll try and go out again when it begins to get light, if the Doctor’s not back by then.” She gathered up her skirt – why was this section of the future so happy to preserve the most impractical things – as she sat down. An itchy knitted shawl soon joined her chilly shoulders.
“I’m not goin’ out there again, that’s for sure. I’ve nae seen snow that thick since I was a bairn.” said Jamie, gaze flicking to the window behind her for a fleeting second. The melted snow had caused his hair to stick to his forehead, and she could feel that her own was going to need some work back at the TARDIS if she wanted to preserve it the way she liked it.
“What do we do now, then?”
“Wait, I suppose.” She supported her head on her hand and let her free one explore the worn wood in front of her.
The table bore the marks of tell-tale marks of a household that had once been filled with numerous amounts of children. Chips, splintered, parts that had obviously been carved into and sanded down. Some things never changed.
“Looking sad and waiting for the world to burn never helped anyone, I’m afraid. You need something to occupy yourselves.” The woman – Cantara, Ben had called her before she’d rushed out the cottage door, it came back to her in full now – stated briskly. “I don’t have any of the fancy technology of the folks in the city, but I do have something that’s much more rewarding.”
Three sets of eyes watched as she bent over beside the fireplace to collect whatever it was. Polly found herself surprisingly interested, after the past few hours perhaps it would be good to have something to focus her mind on for a time. Cantara placed a woven wicker basket in front of them and Polly stood up to investigate its contents from above while Jamie reached in an explorative hand to bring out-
“A shirt?” His brow furrowed in confusion as he held it up in the dim light. Polly’s eyes were immediately drawn to the large rip at the front.
“Indeed. I have plenty of mending to do, but I have no time to do it in. Normally on cold nights like this I’d find myself doing it as there’s no more to tend to outside tonight, but for obvious reasons I haven’t been able to.” Cantara took out an old moth-eaten hat. “All children here are taught to sew from a young age. Was your home the same?”
Finally, something that put to use the skills she’d learnt at primary school that her seven-year-old self hadn’t been able to find the use to. “I was taught at school, actually, but my mum made some of my clothes, so she taught me too.”
Polly took the shirt gently from Jamie’s hands and began to inspect the rip despite the poor light. It was easily fixable; with a good needle and thread the job would take no time at all.
“I can darn.” Jamie said quickly. “And do basic repairs. My father dinnae approve but màthair insisted, said it would do me good tae learn.”
Jamie didn’t talk much about his family at all, not like she and Ben did; this was the first time he’d mentioned them in the three weeks he’d been in the TARDIS. Cantara passed him the hat and he also inspected it carefully.
“Aye, I can do this one.” He murmured.
“Good.” Cantara gave them all a warm smile before she turned back again to fiddle with a cabinet on the other side.
“Aren’t ye goin’ tae join in, Ben?”
Ben had been awfully quiet throughout the whole exchange, which was unusual for him. She glanced to find him staring at the basket like it had grown three legs and started singing the Supremes. It was only then that she remembered the difference in background between the two of them – the places they’d been to had helped reduce the class between in many ways, but Ben was from a working-class sea-faring family. His sisters would have been taught to sew but Ben would most likely have never held a needle in his life.
“I saw my mother sewing, she sewed a lot with my sisters and my aunts, but I could never join in. Dad wouldn’t let me.” He muttered.
“I’m sure we can teach ye.” said Jamie, his expression belaying that he wasn’t surprised. “It’s not that hard.”
“It really isn’t, Ben.” Polly affirmed. “Very simple once you get the hand of it, and very useful too.”
She rose to her feet once again and began to dig through the pile of clothing in the basket, looking for anything that required the most simple and easy of repairs. A mud brown waistcoat with two missing buttons looked to be about right, and Jamie gave her a quick smile when she held it up for his approval.
Cantara placed a small fabric case of needles in the centre. “I had to order these in specially, but they’ve done me a fine ten years. If you lose even one, you’ll be paying for it.”
The Doctor probably kept thousands of needles in the TARDIS. He had an entire cupboard dedicated to boots, for goodness sake. If either of them dropped a needle they’d been fine, except for if they stepped on it by mistake with bare feet. Which she wouldn’t put too far past Jamie or the Doctor to do when he finally joined them.
Ben looked at the sliver of silver as if it had just called him a rude word. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Sewing a button on is the easiest skill to learn if you’re a beginner.” Polly plucked the needle from his fingers, Jamie handed her a prepared piece of thread and leaned in to watch the action unfold. Not that it was particularly interesting.
“You need to thread the needle – there’s a couple of ways to do it.” She attempted to thread the needle in her normal way, but the light just wasn’t good enough – it kept missing the miniscule hole and not even holding it closer to the fire could make it work.
“Let me try.” Said Jamie. “Ye haven’t even licked the end of the thread.”
“You lick the end of the thread?” Ben looked a little aghast. “I mean, you lick it and then you sew with it? Isn’t that unhygienic or something.”
“I suppose it could be.” Polly conceded. She hadn’t considered it before.
“Lickin’ the thread keeps it together so it’s easier tae thread.” Jamie replied simply. “And if ye hold it so only a tiny bit’s stickin’ out ye thumb it also helps.”
Come to think of it, that was how her grandmother had done it. She couldn’t remember who had told her that holding the needle upright and attempting to stick it through had been the right way. Jamie handed it back to her and she waved Ben to look over her shoulder.
“You stick the needle through the fabric and make sure it also goes through the buttonhole, and pull until it reaches the knot.” She demonstrated for him. “Then you put it back through the other hole, so it secures it, preferably the needle comes out somewhere close to where it came in.”
She hadn’t sewn a button for quite some time, but it wasn’t too much of a shoddy job if she said so herself. She demonstrated a couple more times before handing it to Ben to have a try. He glanced up at four sets of beady eyes watching with interest and carefully tried to do exactly as Polly had done. The thread promptly fell out of the needle.
“I can’t do it, Duchess.”
She handed the needle to Jamie for rethreading and rested her hand reassuringly on his shoulder.
“It takes time to learn a new skill. It’s fine if you don’t get it first time.” She smiled warmly at him. “It takes years of practice to master some parts of sewing; people used to have to do it all the time before sewing machines were invented so they had a lot more practice than we do.”
“Ye have machines that can sew?” Jamie’s interest had been perked.
“Yes.” Polly grinned. “How do you think we’ve got so many pieces of clothing?”
“I thought ye were just a good an’ quick sewer. Màthair could make things as nice as that.” He shrugged and sat backwards against the wall.
“Our clothes are produced in factories now.” Ben explained. “Polly was taught to sew as that’s what girls are expected to do but it’s becoming a bit of an outdated skill now.”
“It’s a shame. It’s good to learn.” She returned to the task at hand. “Have another go. Make sure you’re careful of your fingers and hold onto the thread this time.”
“I’m not going to make that mistake again.” murmured Ben.
His movements were more precise this time, perhaps a little more fluid. As the needle popped out the other side, she noticed him smile slightly to himself. It widened more as he got it back to where it had started.
“That wasn’t so hard at all.” He said softly.
“See? Keep going, then.” She gathered the ripped shirt in her hands. “And once you’re done you can try doing the next one yourself.”
Satisfied that Ben now had the confidence to continue without so much of her interference, she plucked another needle from the case and threw it at Jamie. He gave a fake groan and grinned.
“Tell me more about these factories. Do they produce other things as well?”
In a few hours, they’d be in the tower fighting yet another battle for innocent people, but for now she was content with the quiet conversation and focus distracting them from their surroundings with a man from the past, a man from the present and a woman from the future. She felt almost at home for the first time in months – perhaps since she’d joined the TARDIS in the first place.
“Oh, aye. But if they’re wee beasties, how do they hold those wooden violins?”
Even if she did have to explain to Jamie who the Beatles were.