Indian Summer (short story)

Indian Summer was the second short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Snapshots. It was written by James Goss. It featured the First Doctor and Susan.

Summary
Suresh Parekh begins working at Rawson's hotel in 1816. Rawson tells him about the "ghost" that sometimes sits at one of the tables.

Over the next few years, Suresh occasionally sees the ghost sitting at the table with other patrons. Soon after these visits, one of the patrons present ends up dying: a soldier, a duchess's daughter, a mining engineer, and a small child.

As the decades pass, Suresh rises up through the ranks in the restaurant, becoming manager. He marries and has children. He does not visibly age. Every now and then, he sees the same young girl come into the restaurant looking for her grandfather.

Rawson retires, and when he dies Suresh keeps in contact with Rawson's sister, who leaves the restaurant to Suresh when she dies (after sitting at the same table as the "ghost"). Miss Rawson also leaves him a message — telling him how to talk to the "ghost".

Suresh learns from the "ghost" that he is actually a time traveller named the Doctor, and the young girl, his granddaughter, is named Susan. They got separated, the Doctor being displaced in time, and the Doctor's time machine keeps bringing him to the restaurant. Suresh thinks the Doctor caused all those deaths, but the Doctor assures him that the time anomaly merely brings him to important moments in time, which often happen to be deaths.

Suresh eventually sells the restaurant, but stays on as manager. He has outlived his wife, children and even some grandchildren. One day in 1924, the Doctor and Susan visit the restaurant, the Doctor having freed himself from the temporal displacement.

Characters

 * First Doctor
 * Susan
 * Suresh Parekh
 * Rawson
 * Brown
 * Davis
 * Partridge
 * Duchess
 * Daughter
 * Dick Stapley
 * William Ashton
 * Miss Rawson
 * Phillip
 * Phillip's wife
 * Phillip's child
 * Mr McGuire

Continuity
to be added