Ellingham Yule
by robspace54
Doc Martin is owned by Buffalo Pictures. This story is a work of fanfiction and in no way presumes any ownership of or intrusion upon the rights of the copyright holders of Doc Martin, the characters, or story lines.
Chapter 1
"Daddy," I asked, "is there really a Father Christmas?" I looked up at my father and saw him flinch.
Daddy cleared his throat. "Well, it is a custom…" he wiggled under my weight, for I was sitting on his lap. We were nearly done with my second bedtime book, having had a bath, and gotten into pyjamas.
"I know about customs, Daddy. But does he? Really?"
"Why do you ask?" Daddy asked uneasily.
I cleared my throat, in a near copy of Daddy's manner. "Suzie Timmons says there is, but Tommy Crutchford said there isn't. He says that his sister said so. She's eight, so she should know."
"What's all this?" Mummy asked, coming out of the kitchen, as she wiped her hands on a towel.
I looked solemnly at Mummy. "I was just asking Daddy if there really is a Father Christmas. So is there?"
I watched as Mummy and Daddy gave each other a certain look. I knew that look; it was the one that meant they would talk about it later – just the two of them. Sometimes they went into the other room and whispered back and forth until they decided what the answer would be.
"Uhm, if you two need to leave the room and talk about it, go ahead," I told them. "Buddy and me can wait, can't we boy?"
Buddy lay at the feet of Daddy's chair, pressed against his brilliantly shined shoes. My dog thumped his tail against the floor, as if he agreed.
Mummy got down on one knee, but I could tell it was hard for her, with her belly all sticky out with the new baby in there. She smiled and smoothed my hair. "Oh sweetie. Mar-tin?" Mummy asked. "What did you tell him?"
When she said Daddy's name that way I could tell she wasn't happy with him.
Daddy watched me with a blank look. "Nothing."
Mummy shook her head. "And who, young man, has been tellin' you there isn't a Father Christmas?"
"Oh…" it was a common thing me and my friends talked about. We'd tried to puzzle it out. "Kids."
"Who?"
I shrugged. "Tommy… and some others." I didn't think she wanted a list. All us kids wondered about the answer. Some kids said that they knew he was real and the others? Well, it was almost too horrible to imagine. No Father Christmas? What if there was a Father Christmas and you didn't believe in him? Did that mean you got nothing in your stocking? But if he didn't exist? Hm.
Mummy cocked her head. "Well who do you think will come in a few days and fill your stocking?"
I turned towards the mantle and there were our stockings. Five of them nailed to the board. One for Daddy, Mummy, me, the baby, and Buddy. "Well… I… I'm not sure."
Daddy coughed. "You saw him over in Truro in his grotto, yes?"
Mummy smiled. "Wasn't that nice? So see? That was Father Christmas."
Father Christmas had this awesome place in a building on the town square. There were singing animals (I knew they were 'lectronical 'cause Daddy explained it to me), and flashing lights on plastic trees, and big round snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. Then after a long, long wait in a really long line I got to sit on Father Christmas's lap and tell him about myself and what I wanted for the holiday. Then I got a sweet and a tiny toy lorry, the same one I held in my hand. It had a red body, and a white tipper box on the back, and it was fun to run it back and forth 'cause it made a rrrrrh noise when you turned the wheels. Daddy explained that too. He showed me a clock he was working on. There were little wheels inside with teeth on 'em, and when they turned that rubbed against a metal piece, and that made the sound. He told me the clock pushed the metal piece up and down (he called it a lever) and that made a little arm swing around and hit a bell. That's how it struck on the hours and the half hours. The truck was kinda the same, just without a bell.
I'd enjoyed the trip to the Christmas Market, but that too had set me thinking after we left Father Christmas's Grotto. Mummy and I shared a toffee apple, and then we drank hot spiced apple juice. Mummy and Daddy had a 'scussion about sweets and stuff, but then Daddy had a 'spesso coffee instead and that made him happy.
Anyway, if Father Christmas brought the gifts, then why all those market stalls, and right before Christmas? Father Christmas was sorta scary; I mean he was big and old and had this bushy white beard, but his eyes twinkled, sort of like Grandpa Bert's did when he laughed. Bert wasn't my grandpa, that was Grandpa Terry, but he'd been away a long time. We went to visit Grandpa Terry once. He had to live in this big building with bars on the windows. That was scary; scarier than going to see Father Christmas. But Grandpa Bert lived down the hill and up the other side now of the village now. Mummy said Bert was sorta' my grandpa too 'cause he took care of her when she was a little girl.
Buddy interrupted my thinking by jumping up to his feet and putting his paws on Daddy's knee, which he brushed off.
Daddy grumbled. "Down, stupid dog!"
Daddy wasn't very fond of Buddy but he was my dog. "He's just wondering as well," I said. "Will Father Christmas bring presents for Buddy?"
Mummy grinned. "Oh yes. Count on it."
Daddy's lip curled.
"Ah. Good then. So there is a Father Christmas." I nodded, half not convinced.
Mummy kissed my brow. "See? All's good then. Right as rain."
Right as rain. Hm. But when it rains you get wet and Mummy gets mad if I jump in the big puddles when we walk to school, so how could rain be right? Even if you had on your wellies and your mack you'd still get wet. "If you say so," I muttered.
Daddy gave Mummy another one of those looks and she bit her lip. "James Henry, you know that we would never lie to you," he told me.
"I know." That was one thing I was sure of. Daddy always told the truth. He's a doctor and sometime what he says makes sick people angry, and then they might yell or cry; carry on, you know, when he says they have to do what he says to get better.
Now I know for a fact that people call him names behind his back. Mummy told me that does happen; can happen, if someone needs help and you give it. 'Cause sometimes when you help people they aren't really happy about gettin' help 'cause then that just makes 'em see that they weren't takin' their medicine they ought to or stop doin' all the wrong things that make them not well. Mummy says that's just the way people can be. But they really get happy in the end when they get over their sickness, but they sorta' take it out on my Daddy.
Mummy tousled my hair and grinned. "And we'll have a big feed Christmas Day when Aunt Ruth comes over, and Al and Morwenna, and their baby girl, and PC Penhale and Janice…"
Daddy groaned. "That many?"
"Yes," she snapped, "Oh and Grandpa Bert."
Daddy rolled his eyes. "Janice and Joe's baby is due any day."
"Shush," Mummy told him. "I called her the other day and she's fine, just getting big."
Daddy sighed and shook his head.
Janice was married to PC Penhale and they were having a baby as well. I remember when they got married last year and I got to go both to church and the Town Hall for the party after. PC Penhale asked Daddy to stand up in the front of the church with him. Bestest Man, he said. Daddy wasn't happy about doin' it, but Mummy made him be Bestest Man anyway. She put her foot down.
Now Mrs. Penhale (she lets me call her Janice 'cause she used to take care of me when I was a little baby) and Joe are gonna' have a baby and when it came then it, a boy or girl nobody said, would someday play with my new baby sister, when it came out. They'll be about the same age.
I looked over at Mummy's belly. I could tell her belly was bigger than last week. Her chest as well. Almost like she ate and ate and ate and was getting fat. Mummy said that that she and Daddy were gonna' have a baby and a little girl was now growing inside her. How did that happen? And how did they know it was a girl? Daddy had explained how animals, and even plants, and bugs were girls and boys. So when a girl rabbit met a boy rabbit… I sorta got confused about then 'cause Mummy came running into the room sorta' yellin' at him. Daddy quit talking so I didn't hear the end of his story about the rabbits.
I like it when Daddy tells me a story. His stories are about explorers, scientists, doctors, and sailing ship captains. They do great things to make the world a better place. The stories that Mummy tells me are more about history, like how she and Daddy came to be married, and what happened when she was little like me. I mean the way they each me tell things is different but interesting. I like Mummy's stories too because sometimes I'm part of the story.
But anyway, all I knew was that I was gonna' have a little sister in a while; spring they said. Sometime after Easter. So a girl rabbit meets a boy rabbit and then what? I wanted to know. It must be something pretty special because everything living thing gets born and lives and someday dies.
Daddy tries to keep the dying part away, long as he can, but it doesn't always work. Like his Aunt Joan. I never met her because she died on the day I was born. Sort of funny to think about an aunt that I never knew, but Mummy says that she loved me all the same.
Things wear out, Daddy says; like an old clock the gears get worn, the bearings pack up, and the mainspring gets wonky. But people aren't like clocks, he reminds me. We're not machines, more like bology working like a machine. So I know people do wear out and when old and sick they die. Or sometimes they get really sick even when they're not so old and that's that Grandpa Bert says.
When that happens Daddy gets sad. Oh he doesn't cry the way Mummy does, but he gets sad all the same. When he loses a patient and I hear about it, I cuddle up to him, and the way that Daddy hugs me back I can feel how sad he really is. I think that Daddy just cries inside his head and not out loud like everybody else.
But how do things get started before they get born? About babies and bunnies? Where did my little sister that's not born yet come from? How did she start? I opened my mouth to ask that question, when Daddy stood up, picking me up in his strong arms.
"Bedtime young man. No more questions for now."
Mummy struggled up to her feet to hug me and Daddy. "No worries now, James Henry. You and Buddy off to bed, the both of you." She kissed my cheek and I smelled flour and butter from the cake she was baking.
"Come on, Buddy. Bed time!" I told him, and my dog happily ran ahead of us to the stairs. "Come on boy! Race us! Top of the stairs!"
Daddy muttered, "Must that dog sleep with the boy?"
"It's fine, Mar-tin," Mummy sighed.
"Full of germs and disease," Daddy grumbled but I knew that was just something he always talked about. Germs will eat you up if you're not careful so Daddy always worries about germs and stuff that'll kill you dead.
"Buddy has his own bed, so enough of that," Mummy told him.
Buddy really likes my Daddy; no loved I guess. Sorta' different from the way that people loved, but all the same Buddy loved my Daddy, and he loved me too. All the time Buddy wants to be with Daddy. Daddy isn't crazy about him at all, telling' him shoo. You see Buddy was Aunt Joan's dog before she died and went to Heaven so he got passed down to us, I guess. But I think maybe he chose us. You know dogs can go almost anywhere they want, except climb trees; only cats can do that. Somethin' about revolutions Daddy says.
Revolutions make everything living thing best fit for where they live, so it can do somethings really well. Others not so great. So a fish can swim real well in water, but has no clue what to do on dry land. But gulls can swoop right down in the water, grab a fish like that, then fly away with their supper. Birds live on the land, and they can fly, but for a little bit they can go underwater too, just like the skin divers that come to the village.
But about Buddy? He coulda' picked anybody in the whole village to live with but he chose us instead. Maybe because we're family?
"Come on Buddy!" I repeated and he ran up the stairs to the landing, stopped and turned, barking. He's really smart is Buddy. Sometimes I can almost hear him talk. I mean I can guess what he needs or likes or what he's about to do. "Alright, boy! Hold your horses," I told him.
Buddy scampered ahead of us and ran into my room.
"Do you need to use the toilet once more?" Daddy asked me when he tucked me under the covers.
"Nope."
"Teeth are brushed?"
"After my bath." I bared my teeth. "All bright and shiny."
"Well done." He sat down on the foot of the bed. "James, I want to thank you again."
"For?" I yawned.
"Finding that tiny screw I lost in my surgery the other day. I needed it for that… special project… I've been working on."
I sat up, put my arms around his neck and whispered into his ear. "It's for that watch you're fixing for Mummy."
"Yes, it's an antique…" He glanced at the open door, where footsteps approached. "Mummy's coming. Shh. Goodnight James."
"'Night Daddy. Love you."
"I love you too James." He kissed my cheek and that felt nice.
Mummy came in, without her apron on. "Goodnight sweetheart." She bent down to kiss me "Now don't you go worryin' about Father Christmas. He'll be here before you know it."
She and Daddy stood up, took hands and just looked at me. It was nice to see them together like that.
I yawned. "Love you Mummy and good night.
After they switched off my lamp, and closed my door, Buddy got into his little bed and circled around three times the way he always does, then settled down on the cushion to look at me.
I stretched out my right arm to pet his furry head. "Good night Buddy boy," I whispered to him. "Bet you dream about my dead Aunt Joan sometimes."
The little dog sighed and yawned.
That made me yawn again too. But I knew - just knew it - that I had to make sure that Father Christmas was really real.
