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By Root 450 0

the vast open square to where the ocean rolled greasily against the pylons of the dock. A battalion of British Army soldiers was waiting to embark on one of the ships. Their pennants fluttered limply in the breeze, their brightly coloured uniforms were already soaked in sweat, and one in three was yellow and wasted by malaria. Behind them the Deccan mountains pierced the pure blue membrane of the sky. I could almost believe that the sharp silhouette of their peaks against the sky was actually the coastline poking out into the waters of the Arabian Sea, and I was standing on the mountain tops, looking downwards, far away from where the Doctor would arrive.

Eventually I wandered across to the Ballard Pier, surrounded by eager shipping agents and harassed representatives from P&O, Bibby's and British India. I was clutching the Doctor's telegram in my hand. Every few minutes I unfolded it and checked again that I hadn't got the name of the ship wrong. Odd thoughts kept chasing their tails around my mind. What if there'd been a problem and the Doctor hadn't boarded in the end? What if I'd misinterpreted his instructions and I was supposed to be somewhere else? What if he was angry at me for wasting my time when I could have presented him with a solution to his problems, all wrapped up with a little pink bow? What if...?

I knew the real problem, of course. I was scared of seeing him again. No reason: just scared.

A beggar approached, imploring me for alms. His head was covered in running sores. His thick hair rippled gently in the breeze. I looked closer, and recoiled as some of it took flight, buzzing briefly around his head before settling again to feed. Flies - the ever-present curse of India. I waved him away, feeling a sudden knife-stab of guilt. There were tens of thousands of people in Bombay. I

couldn't help all of them. That was the true evil. Not Daleks, not Hoothi.

Poverty and powerlessness.

From the dock I gazed out across the Arabian Sea, out to where the heat haze and the waves merged to form an ambiguous boundary, neither sea nor sky, half in this universe and half somewhere else. I was hypnotized by it. My mind blurred like the landscape. The Matilda Briggs had grown into a cloud the size of a man's hand before I woke up. Within an hour it was a metal leviathan, belching steam as it wallowed up to the dock.

And there he was, on deck, waving his umbrella to attract my attention. He was exactly as I had remembered. I felt my breath catch in my throat. He was small and he was trouble, but I'd missed him.

Ropes were flung back and forth, and there was a lot of jostling and bustling, most of it unproductive. Eventually a gangplank was in place.

After he disembarked he scurried up as if to give me a great big hug, but skidded to a halt inches from me and raised his hat instead.

'Doctor Livingstone, I presume?' he said.

'Doctor Doctor, I presume?' I replied.

He gazed at me for a while, checking me out from head to toe and from side to side. Around us, disembarking families wandered like ducklings.

'There's something different about you. He frowned, and looked me over again. 'Don't tell me. Let me guess.'

'Doctor, I . .'

'It's the hair, isn't it? You've had your hair done.'

'No, I...'

'I know! You've lost weight'

I sighed.

'No Doctor, I'm disguised as a man.'

He checked again.

'Are you? How very Shakespearian. Well, I'm sure you've got a good reason.'

'I have,' I said. 'Have you got any idea how they treat women in this era?

You asked me to pretend to be one of the girls who comes out looking for a husband. It was so demeaning. Do you know what the men call those girls?

'The fishing fleet'. The ones who can't find husbands are called 'returned empties'. It's disgusting. I was going mad!'

He scowled.

'You were supposed to remain inconspicuous.'

'I knocked a man out in the hotel bar one night. After that, I decided I was more inconspicuous disguised as a man than as a woman.'

The Doctor winced.

'I'm sure I don't want to know,' he said, 'but