Disclaimer – Doc Martin and its characters, places and themes and everything else belong to Buffalo Pictures. I am responsible only for my own imagination.
Snapshots
Chapter 1
It is a perfect Portwenn summer day. The sky is as clear a blue as you can imagine, and its colour is echoed in the slightly deeper tones of the sea spreading below it. Louisa sits in a chair on the terrace at White Rose Cottage, smiling up at me, looking like nothing else but a Renaissance Madonna in her blue dress with her son - OUR son - cradled expertly in the crook of her elbow. Her hair is blown slightly by the breeze and she laughs and brushes it away. I stand looking at her, speechless as I often am with her, and realize I need to capture this – to have this moment permanently. I snap a picture as she smiles and I notice the hint of a smile on Will's face. Medically, I know he is too young to smile voluntarily and that his expression is no doubt wind, but it pleases me to see him with the look of a smile, which is so like his mother's it takes my breath away. My heart fills with love. As I gaze at them, the telephone rings. I am puzzled that neither Louisa nor Will reacts or even changes expression. The telephone rings again and I jolt awake, realizing I have been daydreaming. I am not in Portwenn. Louisa's smile, and Will's, are looking back at me from the snap I took that day, now framed in leather in my desk drawer in London. My heart, and doubtlessly my face as well, fall.
The phone rings a third time. I close the drawer and lift the receiver. "Ellingham" I growl, perhaps more sharply than necessary, fueled by my frustration at having my happy memory interrupted. The scheduler with her vaguely Geordie accent informs me that the procedure preceding mine has been completed and that they are preparing Theatre Four for me now. "Right. I will be there directly."
Hanging up the phone, I glance around my office. The desktop is tidy with little to give away the identity of the occupant, but there is a plaque by the door "Martin C. Ellingham, M.D., FRCS, Chief of Vascular Surgery". There are, however, several boxes of books and other belongings not yet unpacked upon my arrival here four weeks ago, after my hastily arranged parental leave. I slip my arms into the sleeves of my white coat and head out the door.
I try to put Louisa and Will out of my mind and run through the meditations that I rely on keep my haemophobia at bay but it is not working as well today as it should and I am distracted. As I dash down the hall towards the changing rooms, a young woman comes round the corner and bangs smack into me, spilling her cardboard cup of nasty hospital coffee on my shirt.
"Watch where you're going" I shout over my shoulder. I hear her mutter "Tosser!" as she looks at the spilt coffee on the floor. Some things never change.
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The baby is crying and nothing I do is soothing him. He arches his back away from me and wails, pushing with his feet as if to say "take me away from this incompetent mum". Tears are sticky on his face as I pat his back and lay him across my shoulder, hoping to perhaps coax a belch out of his poor tummy and ease his misery. As I pace, I notice what a tip the cottage looks and sigh. There is wet laundry laid across every surface since the clothes dryer picked this morning to break and the rain pouring down outside precluded a clothesline in the back garden. After bringing up wind and quite a lot of milk all over my shirt in a belch reminiscent of a football hooligan after a pub crawl, Will quiets a bit. I stop and risk sitting down, hoping to rest my eyes for just a moment but the instant I stop walking, he starts up howling again. With another sigh I resume pacing, stopping to look for a dry tea towel to wipe the spit up off my shirt.
As the pacing continues, the doorbell rings. I open the door to the welcome sign of Al Large and his toolbox, come to fix the dryer, with his father in tow.
"Hullo, Louisa, Hullo little man" says Bert with a smile. Al just nods, "Louisa" but he smiles at the baby just the same.
"Thanks for coming – I'm at my wit's end in the rain without the dryer."
"Now you just let Al get started on the dryer, and I'll put these things in your fridge – a few tidbits to tempt your appetite" says Bert, pointing to a basket over his elbow.
"Thanks, Bert" I respond "I haven't been to the market, what with the rain and the baby and the dryer."
"Never you mind, Louisa. We'll get you sorted." Bert replies.
"Look, there, he's gone to sleep, innt he" says Al. "What a good boy, he is."
I look down and see that Will has indeed fallen asleep, blessedly and peacefully asleep.
"Can you just peek at the dryer – it's through there – while I see if I can put him down?"
"That's just great, Louisa" says Bert in an exaggerated whisper, making a big show of tiptoeing to the fridge with his basket. In his effort to make certain I notice him being quiet, he topples a chair which creates a loud bang.
"Dad, you're hopeless" mutters Al, shaking his head.
Thankfully Will hasn't noticed the ruckus. I silently mouth "Thank you, Al" and take Will up the stairs to the nursery.
I manage to transfer him to his cot without waking him and without stumbling in the dark. I sink into the rocker in the corner and my eyes fall on the photo on the top of the table. It shows the three of us, Will, Martin and me, on that wonderful midsummer evening when Will was born. We've arrived at hospital and I am propped up in bed in a hospital gown with Will swaddled and sleepy in my arms. Martin stands awkwardly next to the bed, looking as disheveled as I have ever seen him- in his shirtsleeves with his tie loosened- and somewhat dazed. He didn't manage quite a smile for the camera Joan was pointing at us, but if you know him and his expressions, it is a tender look. Poor Martin - that was a banner day for him, for all of us but especially him. Instead of driving to London and putting Portwenn behind him as he planned, he ended up stopping to save several lives, declaring his love for me while I gave birth to his son in a pub, and deciding he did in fact want to be a dad who did more than write cheques.
We had quite an ambulance ride to hospital that afternoon. Martin insisted on going with me and while we rode there, companionably, he wanted to snap a photo of the baby for Joan. When he pulled out his mobile, he was surprised to find a dead battery. I remember him saying to me "This baby needs a family" and my response "This baby has a family – what he needs is a name."
I wasn't sure how to respond when he replied "Yes, I guess he does. Have you chosen one?" Was he saying he didn't care what the baby's name was? Or was it something else – a reluctance to interfere or a simple ignorance of baby names? He had stayed as far away as he could from all baby preparations, but it seemed to me important that he voice an opinion on the baby's name. I held my breath and waded in.
"Well I don't want to name him after my dad, and from what Joan's told me of your dad, I don't think we should use his name either" I began.
"Good lord, no" he said with a vehemence that surprised me. "There is no need for another Christopher Ellingham in this world if that is what you mean."
"Good, that's agreed then." I smiled, then took a deep breath. "Does that mean you want his surname to be Ellingham?" I ventured.
The expression on his face was guarded, in that patented Martin manner, but I saw hurt in his eyes.
"Well, Glasson is fine too, if that's what you want Louisa" he said quickly but I knew somehow that wasn't what he wanted. I was buoyed by the fact that perhaps I might be cracking the code of communicating with him.
"I had hoped you'd want him to be an Ellingham" I started, cautiously "but I wouldn't have used that in the village without your consent."
The look in his eyes was one of relief and regret and most of all of love, and it was at that moment, more than any other one, that it seemed to me he became a father.
"My grandfather was William" I mentioned, knowing as I did that his Portwenn grandfather had been William as well. "William Glasson".
"William" he said thoughtfully "yes, that's it."
I agreed "He looks like a William, I think. William Ellingham has a nice ring to it."
"William Glasson Ellingham" he whispered in that soft tone I long to hear, looking at our sleeping son. "We're your family." My hand squeezed his in agreement.
When the ambulance reached the hospital, our happy trio was disrupted immediately. I handed the baby to Martin while the gurney I was on was pulled out of the ambulance. He handed Will to a nurse who quickly whisked him to an isolette and we were all rushed into the Casualty department for evaluation.
Much later, after I'd been checked over and rehydrated and Will had been pronounced healthy on all counts, and Martin had terrorized the staff barking orders about checking for anemia and strep B and all manner of medial maladies, Joan had arrived, bearing an armload of flowers from her garden and a camera to snap herself the picture that Martin had promised her.
As Will stirred in his cot, I was pulled back to the present. I set the photo back on the table, smiling at the memory of how quickly we became a family that day. And despite everything else, despite Edith and Mr. Strain and Portwenn's new GP and even despite bloody Imperial College Hospital, a family we remain.
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I am dozing in the rocker when Al taps on the door frame.
"Sorry to wake you, but I found the problem with the dryer." He holds up a tiny sock "This was wound round the rotor and causing a problem but yer all set now."
"Thanks, Al. I'll just get my bag and my chequebook"
"No charge for this, Louisa. I insist. It's just neighborly, like."
"But I mean to pay you, Al. You can't just fix things for free, that's not a good use of your plumbing knowledge."
"I won't hear of it and neither would Paul. She misses him, ya know, the doc I mean."
"How's it going with the new doc – for Pauline I mean?"
"Well he's not Doc Martin, that's for sure. She says there's something queer about him but she can't put her finger on it. It's early days, though, innit?"
"I'll have to call round to see her and catch up on the news."
"She'd like that. We'd all like to see you come round, and bring his nibs in there when he's awake."
"I'll do that. Thanks again, Al. Give my best to Pauline. And thank your dad for the treats – that was kind of him."
"Oh you know him, always fussing, innt he. We'll see ourselves out – you catch a little rest while the baby's asleep."
As I watch him go down the stairs and out the door, I contemplate that advice and then realize that even more than a nap I want a bath. Looking in the mirror, I am sure I stink of sweat and wet nappies and sour milk and talcum. I check Will again and figure I have 20 minutes before he wants to feed again. I run the bath quickly with the baby monitor balanced precariously on the towel warmer.
Sinking into the bubbles, I remember our routine during the brief four weeks of Martin's parental leave. He'd arrive from Joan's with the marketing done around 4 and we'd have a cup of tea and a chat about the baby and how he was doing. I'd pop up for a bath like this while he tended to Will and fixed our supper. He really is a wonderful cook and he was so sweetly concerned about how I was eating to keep up my strength, provide optimal nutrition to Will and stave off anemia. After supper I might have a short nap before Will needed to feed and then Will and I would go off to sleep. Martin would tidy up and read his medical journals or fiddle with his clock. He'd keep an eye and an ear on Will until he woke to feed again. If I'd had the chance to pump, he'd give him a bottle; otherwise he'd bring him to me and I'd wake just enough to feed him before letting Martin take him away to change his nappy and wind him and walk the floor with him, letting me get some blissful rest. I think Martin's medical training stood him in good stead those long nights. In the morning, he'd bring our breakfast up on a tray along with the baby. We'd have a lovely long visit, and then Martin would go back to Joan's to sleep. It was an odd arrangement – I couldn't persuade him to sleep in my bed while I tended the baby during the day - but I also know we couldn't have made it through those early days as well as we did without him as my partner in baby rearing.
This all came to a halt when he reluctantly went back to London to take up his post as Chief of Vascular Surgery at Imperial. I insisted he go. Not because it didn't break my heart to have him leave or because I was particularly ready to soldier on as a single mum. Rather, I recalled that night in the ambulance with Peter Cronk when he'd so wistfully recounted how surgery was the one thing he was good at. He worked so hard to conquer his haemophobia too. I couldn't deny him the chance to prove it to himself that he COULD do this again if he wanted to. I desperately wanted him not to want to. If I could have kept him in Portwenn while allowing him to be a surgeon, I would have. But all I could do was hope that he missed us as much as I missed him, and he would realize there was more in his life, and he was good at many things, besides surgery.
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The stents have been placed in the appropriate arteries and the patient's leg should heal nicely. A success, I think, as I toss my discarded gloves in the bin and pull down my mask. As I look at my scrubs, dotted with blood, I realized the progress I have made in conquering the haemophobia and wonder why I don't feel more satisfied. I still have to talk to the patient's wife, a nervous woman who I am sure has an undiagnosed Bell's palsy. I wonder if I can persuade her to see a consultant about that. I decide I am too bloody to see her in scrubs and return to the changing rooms, where I remember too late that my shirt is dripping with coffee from that careless woman in the hallway. I rummage in my locker for a spare shirt and come up empty, then reach for new scrubs. As I transfer my keys from one pocket to the other, I pick up my mobile from the locker. It's four o'clock. Will should be sleeping if Louisa has kept him on his schedule. Should I call her? Or will that seem like checking up and not trusting her with this most precious responsibility? Will she welcome my call or curse me for waking the baby? I am not used to dithering. I weigh the fact that the baby needs sleep and Louisa needs the baby to sleep against my own need for them which is like the need for air to breathe. I punch her number, and the photo associated with it, a candid of her laughing that tinkling sweet laugh of her that lightens my heart, fills the tiny screen. I push send. The phone rings a couple times and then the answerphone picks up. "Erm, hello, uh, Louisa. It's me. Martin, I mean. Just calling to see how Will's colic is doing. I am out of the theatre now if you have a chance to call. Erm. Goodbye."