Doctor Who_ Ghost Ship - Keith Topping [8]
But the night had seen me in a bleak and desolate place. In more senses than one.
I was still greatly troubled by those questions of fate and predetermination and, simultaneously, overwhelmed by the sense of impending doom that I had felt earlier in the atmosphere of the lower decks. I could not even begin to explain these feelings, but I had been particularly shaken by the sight of wooden partitions between the Second and First Class cabins as I left Simpkins and looked for a way out. Literal barriers erected to keep out the unwanted. It seemed like a metaphor for my feelings about the entire ship.
Dawn brought, also, a realisation that my salvation lay in a simple act of departure. The TARDIS, my oasis, was but one deck below me. Just to turn my back on the vicious sea and return to a ship of my own. A safe ship. That was all it would take to banish these feelings of depression forever.
Perhaps.
Oh, if only it were that simple.
The forward bar was a panorama of red velvet and polished oak and gleaming brass fittings. Out of the curved picture window, the view was slightly distorted by a thickening of the glass towards the bottom as protection against decades of North Atlantic storms. The window, still splattered with the final onslaught of the night's bitter rain, offered a view of grey waters, flat and becalmed, stretching away as far as the eye could see. A world in dull monochrome.
I needed company. Badly. I needed to meet people who were young and lively. People who could lift me from the pit of despair and depression into which I had allowed myself to fall. I looked about the lounge, seeing groups of people in small knots, eating breakfast and chatting happily amongst themselves. Those whose faces didn't betray the pale tint of seasickness wore broad smiles. Perhaps they were relieved to have survived everything that the storm had to throw at them. Whatever the case, I needed to reattach myself to humanity.
There was a larger group than most at a central, circular table. Some six persons, the men in smart suits, starched collars and staid shirts, the women in bright summer dresses, hair bands and ankle socks. It was only as I approached them that I realised that one of the group was the lady in distress from the previous evening.
With a self-consciousness that I had not experienced in some while, I made eye contact with Miss Lamb. Her wide brown eyes were as lonely and sad as they had been when we had last met, the morning light having, seemingly, offered her no salvation or sanctuary from the demons of the dark that plagued her. She gave a little half-smile, partly in recognition of me and partly because one of her companions at breakfast, a loud and ruddy-faced man, was just coming to the end of a story. There was some ribald laughter from the group.
'I hope you are feeling better,' I found myself saying. 'The night terrors can seem fearfully real. Or so I am led to believe.'
Before Miss Lamb could speak, the heads of her five companions all turned, simultaneously, in my direction. I felt like an amoeba under a microscope.
No one spoke for what seemed like forever but was, in reality, mere seconds. There was no formal guideline as to how this conversation should progress. No information. No rules. I felt that I should take the initiative.
'I'm very sorry,' I said. 'How desperately rude of me. We haven't been introduced properly. I am the Doctor.'
'Ship's sawbones, eh?' asked the ruddy-faced man, bellowing a brief and self-indulgent laugh. It was, somewhat sycophantically, followed by five others, including that of Miss Lamb. 'Then we're obviously in safe hands here,' the man continued, patting the seat of a spare chair next to him. 'Please Doctor, won't you join us as my guest?'
'Oh yes, please do,' added a chorus of voices. Formality had been established, it seemed. I sat in the empty space between the man and Miss Lamb. I observed that Miss Lamb did not seem to want to look at me directly. She had, seemingly, found something very interesting