The boy nodded, staring at all their things lying out in the street. He wasn’t really sure what was happening at all. Daddy was in jail, he knew that much. He’d gone away just a couple of days ago. Not for nothing really bad. Just something to do with a bad check, that was all; the really criminal thing, Mama said, was that he had to go away as a result of it. There were worse people out there than Daddy, but she guessed that was the law. Mama and the boy would just have to struggle on by themselves for a little while.

  But now they were losing the house.

  ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘So long as we’re still together, nothing else matters.’

  Mama looked like she was about to burst into tears at that.

  Then a skinny man in a long coat, suit and sneakers came running along the street like he was being chased by something awful. He jumped the fence and held his finger to his lip to keep them quiet. The boy looked at his mama.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked the stranger. ‘You in trouble?’

  ‘Usually. You haven’t seen anyone covered in green fur with sort of crystalline extrusions coming out of their foreheads, have you?’ The man mimed lumpy bodies while looking worriedly along the street. This guy had amazing hair, standing up on end just about, and great sideburns. Was that what they were called?

  ‘These creatures,’ the stranger went on, ‘they were messing around with technology they really, really shouldn’t have had.’ He pulled out two grey boxes from his coat pocket. ‘Turns out they’d nicked some super-secret souped-up communicators from a Drahvin tech camp on the outer rim of Galaxy Four.’

  ‘Communicators?’ said Mama.

  ‘Yeah, like telephones. Telephones that work in space and do all sorts of other stuff. Weird who-knows-what stuff! Some of those Drahvin boffins, oh, they’re smart. Smart as paint! Sentient paint, with an IQ of—’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘So, anyway, I stepped in pretty sharpish and confiscated the communicators and ooh, look! What a lovely gramophone player!’

  Mama was carrying the record player as if it was the most precious thing that the family owned. Which it was, the boy realised. It was fancy and expensive but it was also his favourite thing. He had been in awe of that machine and the music that came out of it for as long as he could remember.

  Mama frowned at the stranger and looked him up and down. ‘Look, Mister …’

  ‘Doctor.’

  ‘Doctor. Look, I haven’t been following a word you been saying to me, but would you carry these suitcases for me to our new home? It’s only about twelve blocks south.’

  ‘Like a removals man! Good cover. Blend in. Clever!’

  ‘I’d be much obliged, sir.’

  The Doctor beamed at her. ‘It would be a pleasure! And all the rest of this stuff?’ He surveyed their belongings, which all looked a bit worn and like poor people’s stuff lying there in the yard. ‘Do you want it all carrying over to the new place?’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘If it’ll all fit. It’s only a room at the back of my sister-in-law’s place we’re goin’ to, but beggars can’t be choosers.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ The Doctor dropped his little grey boxes into an old carpet bag, and started chatting away again. ‘Anyway, turns out these green furry fellas have programmed a pair of drone assassins to pinch back the comms tech and obliterate me. So, here’s the thing, if I could maybe just leave the communicators with you for a bit? Just while I lead the assassins off-world so they can’t hurt anyone here …’

  The boy was listening more attentively than his mother, carrying a box load of records with his toy guitar balanced on top. ‘You mean like outer space men?’ he asked the stranger suddenly. ‘Is that who you’re talking about?’

  The man with the gigantic quiff in his hair looked delighted. ‘Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what I’m talking about!’

  But Mama was getting impatient now. ‘Come on, you guys. We gotta get all this stuff moved tonight. Stop dawdling, now!’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Course.’ The man looked pained. ‘But if you could just—’

  ‘No wasting time chatting about outer space nonsense!’ Mama ambled ahead, up the sidewalk, through the slanting rays of the evening sun. It was late autumn and still warm. The air was like molasses and everything was slow, apart from this bustling, capable woman, trying to maintain her dignity as she carried that old record player to her relatives’ house. ‘Come on, now.’

  ‘All right, Mama,’ shrugged the boy.

  ‘Good boy, Elvis,’ she smiled.

  ‘Come on, Doctor,’ the boy said.

  The Doctor almost dropped the carpet bag and stared at him. ‘Elvis? Did she just call you Elvis?’

  It was years later. Mama and Daddy had a new house, in a slightly better part of town. Elvis was almost fully grown, and he was dressing like no one else in school. He combed back his dark hair with oil and wore tapered black pants with a pink stripe down them. No one walked about with a swagger like he did.

  But when he swaggered into Sun Records that day he was nervous.

  He had saved the four dollars he needed to hire the studio and record his song. He had taken ages, choosing which song to sing for his mama on her birthday. He still couldn’t believe that all he had to do was turn up with the money, and his guitar, sing his number and then they’d give him a real vinyl recording to play at home. It seemed like magic, or something from outer space.

  When he built up the nerve to go inside the building he found a perfectly ordinary office. There was a desk with a normal-looking middle-aged secretary sitting there. She was neat and smiling, and asking him what he wanted.

  Elvis managed to stammer out what it was he was after. He kept looking at the floor and his legs were trembling, as they always did when he was nervous.

  ‘What kind of singing is it you do?’ the lady asked. ‘Who are you like?’

  He shrugged. ‘I ain’t like anyone, ma’am.’

  As he said this, Elvis was aware of another young man, who was sitting in the waiting room and reading the funny papers. ‘Ha!’ he burst out. ‘How true! How true!’ When the man lowered the colourful pages, Elvis saw a bow tie and the most extravagant pompadour he’d ever seen a young man wear. How did he manage to get his hair like that? ‘Just you be yourself!’ the young stranger urged him. ‘You’ll show them! Haha!’

  Elvis had no idea who the young guy was, but he was talking like they were familiar somehow. Had they been at school together maybe? Elvis wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t remember ever meeting anyone with an English accent before. This guy sounded like someone from a war movie.

  ‘Elvis …?’ asked the secretary, standing up and gesturing with her clipboard for him to follow her. ‘If you’d like to come through to the studio now …?’

  His heart was thrumming like he had steel guitar strings inside of himself.

  ‘Just before you make your first ever record – and history! – it’s history I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.’ The young stranger grinned at him, also standing up. ‘I’ve left it a little while, I’m afraid, there’s always something needs doing. But do you remember a skinny man in a striped suit who left some funny telephones in little grey boxes round your house …?’

  Elvis frowned. He’d not thought of that day in years. ‘The Doctor?’

  ‘The Doctor!’ The young man straightened his bow tie with a bashful grin. ‘You see, the Doctor has sent me to collect those grey boxes …’

  But then the nice secretary lady was taking Elvis by the arm and dragging him into the recording studio. Elvis glanced at the stranger. ‘I have no idea. But I bet Mama knows.’

  ‘I’ll ask her!’ The Doctor nodded. ‘Splendid idea. Excellent. That’s what I’ll do!’

  In the meantime, Elvis had to go and record his first song – for his mama’s birthday – and all thoughts of that crazy stranger in the waiting room evaporated. Once Elvis emerged to wait for his recording to be pressed and to hold that actual disc in his hands, the stranger was gone.

  Three years later, everything had changed forever.

  Elvis was driving around in a Pink Cadillac. He was off somewhere in Arizona. If only his mama could see him, he thought. Speeding through the desert in his brand new car. Every cent of it paid for. Every cent of it earned in just a few months.

  He was on his way to being a star. He knew it. He’d always known it. Deep in his heart. He’d been nervous once or twice, sure, but he’d been brave and did what he knew how to do. He sang with all his heart and soul and did it the best he could. He always knew that people were going to listen to him in the end. And now they really were. Look! He had the car of his dreams already, and he was only twenty.

  He wished his mama could see this. But he’d soon be home. He’d bring this home to show her. See, Mama? The Colonel was right. All of this can be mine. Ours. He’s the right manager for me. He was right about that. It just means being away from home for longer periods. That’s all. You’ll understand, Mama. If I can make enough money, I can buy you a big house. When I have enough money I can stay home forever. We’ll be together in comfort, and never worry again.

  He put his foot down on the pedal and roared through the broiling canyons, with many, many hours still to go before he was anywhere near home.

  In Memphis, Gladys was fretting. She paced her living room, muttering to herself. She wept and moaned and tried to calm down. She just had a bad feeling about this new car business. She hated the fact that she didn’t know what he was up to. Out on the road, at his age. That Colonel Tom Parker and all his promises! It was pie in the sky. There was something about it all she didn’t like or trust. Her son was a good boy. He would always be a good boy if he listened to his conscience and remembered what his mama had told him.

  But still Gladys fretted and paced around wearing out the good new rug in her living room. If only she could be sure he was all right … Why didn’t he call?

  She was interrupted in her worrying by a knock at the front door. ‘Yes …?’

  ‘Mrs Presley?’ The gangly tall guy grinned at her. He was all in black, with a shock of white hair and black sunglasses. He looked like a grinning funeral director, except he was slightly unkempt. His tailcoat was dusty and singed in places and his shirt cuffs hung down raggedly.

  ‘I don’t need anything today,’ she smiled, starting to close the door. He was obviously a crazy salesperson. ‘I already got a vacuum cleaner.’

  ‘It’s actually you who have something I need, Mrs Presley.’ He peered at her. ‘Two little grey boxes to be precise. I’ve been meaning to call round for some time. They were left with you for safekeeping by a man in a pinstripe suit …’

  Gladys stiffened. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about those.’

  ‘Oh?’ The man’s smile seemed to be causing him a certain amount of suffering. ‘Only, I took some readings …’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve been reading. That was years ago. We’ve moved three times since then. That ratty old carpet bag and anything inside it must be long gone.’

  ‘Much like the assassin drones I lured into that supernova. Lost …’

  A bright, chiming noise from the closet jarred the awkward silence.

  Gladys tried to shut the door. ‘I have to go.’

  The man planted his foot in the door, his face grave. ‘Not, perhaps, as lost as you thought?’

  ‘Mama?’ Elvis’s voice burst from the closet. ‘You around? You gonna pick up?’

  The undertaker’s eyes were searching out hers. ‘You’ve kept this your secret? Nobody knows? Only, if those boxes were to fall into the wrong hands …’

  ‘Nobody.’ Gladys felt terror at the thought of the precious gift of being able to contact her boy any time and place being taken away from her. ‘Please, sir, you must know the man in the pinstripes who blessed us with them? Well, he said the boxes were secret and, me and Elvis, we’d never betray that secret. Neither of us would. You’ve got to believe me.’

  ‘Mama?’ Elvis’s voice again.

  ‘Every noise he makes is from the heart, isn’t it?’ The undertaker smiled, a real, genuine smile this time, at the sound of her son. ‘You know, I’m a big fan, whichever ears I’m wearing. I tell you what. Blind eye being turned, for now. Just for now. Not a word though, eh?’ And then, in a swirl of coat tails, the stranger was gone. ‘Until next time, Mrs Presley!’

  As soon as the door was closed, Gladys crossed to the closet and took the tiny machine and pressed the button. ‘Elvis …? Where are you, honey …?’

  ‘I’m in Arizona, Mama,’ her boy was telling her. For the hundredth time she marvelled at how clear his voice was. Once they’d figured out how the boxes let you talk across the air, they’d agreed only to use them in emergencies, in case the green furry fellas with the crystal horns ever came looking.

  ‘Mama, don’t go crazy but I had a little accident …’

  ‘An accident!’ she gasped.

  ‘The car caught fire …’ he mumbled sheepishly. ‘Yeah, my brand new pink Cadillac. The engine burst into flames. I’m sitting by the roadside here, waiting for the repair truck … I’m gonna be late. But I reckon the car will be just fine.’

  Gladys felt sad. It seemed like her boy was always gonna be so far away. His life and all his new success – it was going to take him far away from her all the time now, wasn’t it?

  ‘I’d better go. The tow-truck is here. I love you, Mama.’ There was a beep, and then he was gone.

  Elvis stayed indoors that day and cried and cried.

  Mama was gone forever, and he hadn’t been there at the end. Too busy on the road. Too busy working and getting lost in his music. She had begged him to come home, to stop working, and he just hadn’t listened. Now she was gone forever.

  He stayed on his bed in the army barracks. The grey box rested on his chest. He’d give anything for that old connection back. Just the thought of pressing that green button once more …

  Say, he didn’t even know where Mama’s phone was. After she died, where had it vanished to?

  He pressed the green button.

  There was ringing at the other end. Clicking.

  ‘Hello …?’

  It was her.

  It couldn’t be, but it was.

  It was impossible but somehow it was true.

  ‘M-Mama …?’

  ‘Hey, son. It’s lovely to hear your voice.’ She sounded so casual. So ordinary. She didn’t sound like someone who’d died.

  He sat up on the bed and his heart was racing. He was going crazy. The stress of the work was getting to him. He was going out of his mind …

  ‘Elvis …?’ she asked. ‘Are you OK …?’

  ‘Mama … what day is it?’

  She laughed. ‘Land sakes’ boy, but you’re losing your grip on the real world if you don’t remember the day … !’

  ‘It’s serious, Mama! What date is it?’

  A pause, and then she told him the day that it was at her end of the phone.

  It was the very date that she had died. A month ago.

  ‘W-what time is it, Mama …?’

  ‘Why, it’s early afternoon here, son. Which State are you in today? Your mind’s all in a whirl with the time difference, ain’t it?’

  The time difference. Yes. It had certainly put him in a whirl. ‘But Mama, you’re talking just naturally, just normally … like you ain’t even …’

  She broke in to his stammering flow of words: ‘Ain’t even what, son …?’

  Now he couldn’t say it. He could hardly tell her that she was supposed to be dead. He mumbled some excuses to cover himself, saying he’d only just woken up. His head was all in a muddle.

  ‘You get yourself some proper sleep,’ she warned him. ‘I don’t like hearing you sounding so confused!’

  He talked to her like it was all the most natural thing in the world, and in some ways it was. But as their call ended that afternoon he was left staring at that strange grey box and thinking: I was just talking to my mama on the very day of her death.

  That special connection. Somehow it’s still there between us.

  It was much later, and a different lifetime altogether. The Doctor and her three friends were aboard the TARDIS following their terrifying adventure with giant spiders in a luxury hotel in Sheffield.

  ‘I do not!’ she protested, laughing, just minutes after the four of them had pulled the dematerialisation switch together, sending the ship spinning into the time-space vortex.

  ‘But you do!’ Yasmin told her. ‘You namedrop all the time. We never know whether half the stuff you say is true.’

  ‘She’s right, Doc,’ Graham chuckled. ‘All these historical celebrities you reckon you’ve met. They can’t all be for real. There just isn’t time for you to have met them all!’

  The Doctor gave him a funny look. ‘There’s all the time in the world aboard the TARDIS.’

  A thought occurred to Ryan, as he stood there watching the dizzying lights of the console and the crystalline machinery as it rose and fell. ‘What about Elvis Presley, then? You said you gave him a mobile phone. Was that just a joke?’

  For a second the Doctor looked perturbed. ‘How else did we get hold of Sinatra in the 50s, eh? Knew he’d lend it out to ’Ol Blue Eyes. Genius move by me. Not at all dodgy.’

  Her three friends were looking at her as she busied herself at the console. ‘Why did you give him a mobile phone?’ asked Graham.

  ‘I didn’t! It was some experimental tech I pinched from some very notorious interstellar tech-thieves and hid round his place when he was small. Him and his mum worked out how to use them, though, and …’ The Doctor wrinkled her nose. ‘He could phone his mum when he was on the road touring, and she could phone him. She was very worried about him because he was so young and he’d never been away from home, and I felt sorry for her.’

  ‘Oh, bless!’ Yaz said. ‘I think that’s lovely.’

  ‘It’s kind of bending the laws of time a little,’ the Doctor admitted.