Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [10]
Then the cloud passed and he was back in the fairground again. Released, he staggered slightly, then steadied himself with a hand on the TARDIS door. He looked around, half-expecting his senses to be snagged by something untoward, something not quite right. Sensing nothing, he took a deep breath, and hurried to catch up with his companions.
„This looks nice,‟ said Charlotte Maybury brightly, momentarily resting her suitcase on the pavement. Her father, Tony, glanced up at the yellow door and hanging baskets of Ambrosia Villa without enthusiasm.
„It‟d better be, the amount of money we‟ve wasted on it.‟
Charlotte‟s mother, Imogen, who had stoically maintained a brittle good humour throughout the hot and tedious train journey from Wolverhampton, suddenly snapped, „Wasted?
Don‟t you think we deserve this holiday? Don‟t you think we need it?‟
„It‟s not a case of needing it, ifs a case of bloody affording it,‟ said Tony, aggressive with the alcohol he had consumed on the train. „We‟d have been better off buying a car.‟
„One of those old boneshakers you always throw our money away on that fall to bits after three months, I suppose?‟
„If I had a car I could get a job,‟ retorted Tony.
„No, if you had some self-respect you could get a job. Look at the state of you. Ifs not even lunchtime yet and you‟re plastered.‟
„I‟m on holiday, woman. Or hadn‟t you noticed?‟
Before the argument could escalate into a full-scale slanging match on the pavement, Charlotte said placatingly,
„Come on, Dad, don‟t let‟s row. Not on the first day of our holiday.‟
„It‟s not me who wants a row,‟ Tony muttered, „I just want to have a good time.‟
„Yes, at everyone else‟s expense,‟ Imogen said sourly.
„Mum,‟ pleaded Charlotte.
„Sorry, love, it‟s just your father.‟
Charlotte sighed. Her parents‟ arguments had been getting more frequent and increasingly vituperative recently. With each passing day she saw further cracks appearing in their relationship. As far as she could recall it had started two years ago when Dad had lost his job at the ironworks, though their problems may well have been more deep-rooted than that. Indeed, as she grew older Charlotte was not only beginning to realise that her parents had been growing apart for years but was also more willing to admit it to herself.
In many ways she was viewing this holiday as a make-or-break period for all of them. Whatever happened between her parents, it would certainly be a watershed of sorts. This time next year she would be eighteen, and, if her suspicions were borne out, the mother of a child. She wasn‟t certain that she was pregnant, but she intended to pluck up the courage to take a test some time within the next few days. Here, away from the stifling familiarity of everyday life, she had assured herself that it would be easier to bear somehow. And if the test proved positive, she would tell Mum and Dad and take it from there.
She glanced at her brother, Chris, in the vain hope of a little moral support, but he was being his usual moody self.
He had hardly strung two words together since they had started out early this morning, and not for the first time Charlotte found herself wondering whether it was their parents‟ problems that were causing him to withdraw into himself or whether his behaviour was simply that of a typical acne-ridden, rebellious fourteen-year-old. Not so very long ago she and Chris had been quite close, but these days he was behaving as if she and their parents were the three people on the planet he‟d least like to be with.