Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [146]
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Chapter 18
While I would be messing about trying to avoid having to face Satthralope, the Doctor just marches into the lion's den to confront her. Do unto those what they would do unto you before they get the chance to do it. One of the reasons I like the Seventh Doctor is that because he appears so unassuming, his defiance and even foolhardiness appear much more dynamic and brave.
The House portrait - the Lungbarrovian version of the dreaded annual school photo. At Eastbourne College in the late sixties, this meant five hundred boys with beautifully brushed hair, V-signs behind the headmaster's head and one wag dashing round the back to appear at both ends simultaneously (just like the cover to Happy Endings.) But in Lungbarrow, it means forty-four suspects and one victim for Chris, and one suspect and forty four victims for Innocet.
The walls of the House of Lungbarrow are thronged with portraits of the Doctor's ancestral Cousins. Years ago, many were bought as a job lot by the Arts Council and distributed throughout the galleries, castles and stately homes of England. They're usual y disguised with labels attributing them to one Old Master or another. But don't be fooled, these are really the Doctor's relations. Innocet by Hans Holbein or Satthralope by Rembrandt. So go on, join the National Trust and see how many you can spot! And don't forget that every Cousin can have thirteen faces. So there are plenty to choose from!
The "Quences disinheriting the Doctor" scene made a much edited reappearance in the script of Auld Mortality.
Derren Nesbitt recorded it too, but due to time constraints, it was the only major cut from the final CD version. It languishes metaphorically on Alistair Lock's cutting room floor.
Having bad dreams is bad enough. There are times when I've had dreams that make me afraid of going back to sleep (often involving crocodiles in the weirdest locations.) Dreams are uncontrollable. But having someone else's bad dreams is even worse, particularly when you're not even asleep.
Chapter 19
Terrapin-Maiden from Chris's FreakWarrior mags is a close relative of Rosa Caiman's Jaguar Maiden in Loups-Garoux.
Chris is realising how little he real y knows about his friend, the Doctor. It's as if the Doctor that we see, or are allowed to see, is just the tip of the most monumental iceberg ever. What lurks in the murky depths below the surface is anyone's guess. Even the Doctor isn't sure.
The living Houses of Gallifrey are as much a part of the Families as the Cousins who inhabit them. Satthralope's task as Lungbarrow's Housekeeper is not unlike a lone sea captain, trying to steer a grumpy ocean liner that gets in a strop if it's woken up too quickly. The House has been drowsing uneasily on automatic pilot for centuries, but now a very large iceberg has just changed course and is heading in the its direction.
The catafalque, the funeral carriage that guards Quences's glass coffin, is another of Lungbarrow's fairy tale references - the dragon that guards the treasure hoard. Anyway, it was time for a big rampaging monster. Like all the furniture in the House, the catafalque has basic instincts and reflexes of its own. It protects its master. I imagined it as an elaborate bier in a vaguely oriental style, its black lacquered flanks adorned by the writhing statues of legendary beasts. Gal ifreyan Chinoiserie/Japanesery. It's also really an excuse for Badger to make a dramatic entrance.
Chapter 20
Not so much a chapter, more a couple of important moments which move on events outside the aegis of either Chris or the Doctor. Battle lines are being drawn. Knives are being sharpened. Defences are being reinforced. But like the fragmented railway network after privatisation, no one is talking to each other. All the protagonists have their own private grudges to settle.
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