Set a couple of months after Louisa accepted Martin's proposal. They haven't set a date for getting married yet, they are just getting to know each other as an engaged couple, with no baby on the way.
Disclaimer: Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures. I own nothing except my imagination.
Forgive and Forget?
Chapter 1
Life was pretty good, in fact it was pretty much perfect, Martin thought to himself. He had no regrets whatsoever in having pushed himself to the limit in proposing to Louisa. He'd felt so vulnerable, waiting for her answer, hardly daring to hope that she would agree to be his wife. But she had. And now things were pretty damn good between them. He looked forward to seeing her every evening that they could, and really missed her on the occasions that they couldn't meet up, which was usually because of work commitments. His weekends had been transformed - instead of spending them by himself, studying and researching medical matters, he now spent at least part of the time with her. They went for walks, cooked meals together or went out to interesting places they had read about and had a meal there. It was bliss as far as he was concerned - because of Louisa.
His wonderful, darling Louisa. He looked at her now, lying next to him in bed, and couldn't imagine life without her. As usual, just being in close proximity to her meant that he felt the stirrings of desire. She brought out a side to his nature that he hadn't dared to let loose before. Although they'd both been a little shy and inhibited to start with, she had encouraged him to explore his sexuality with her, and Martin discovered to his surprise that he was rather good in bed. After all the men who had consulted him regarding 'erectile dysfunction' over the years, he'd assumed that it was a very common problem, and that he might struggle too – he was no longer a teenager after all. But he never had any problems, in fact most of the time he only had to look at Louisa to become aroused. She was rather flattered by this, and so now she was confident enough to be quite cheeky and suggestive with him, leading to some very 'interesting' scenarios that he would never have dreamt possible just a few months before. It really was no wonder that he was very content with how things were, and he certainly had no desire to go back to his previous solitary and lonely existence.
He'd mentioned several times to Louisa about setting a date for their wedding because he really wanted her to be his wife, to make things permanent and official between them, but she told him to relax and that there was no rush at the moment. She wisely felt that they should spend some time getting to know each other better before setting the date, but she had suggested that maybe they would tie the knot next summer, which Martin was fine with.
The village had soon got used to the fact that they were a couple, and that they stayed over at each other's houses. It was old news now, and no one made much comment if Martin was seen coming out of Louisa's cottage in the morning by Dave the postie, or if Louisa was seen in her dressing gown at the Doc's house at the weekend by Bert. It made the Doc seem almost normal, and they rather liked it. He was still as grumpy and brusque as ever when they consulted him, but now they knew that he was actually human – thanks to their Miss Glasson.
So when there was a knock at the door of Louisa's cottage early one morning while Martin was there, he didn't worry too much about opening the door while wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown. Louisa had only just got out of the shower, and had shouted out to him,
"Can you get that, it's probably Dave, I'm expecting a parcel."
Martin opened the door, and was surprised to see a woman standing there, who was maybe just a few years older than him, but was still very beautiful. She looked familiar, although Martin couldn't immediately quite say why.
"Good Morning. Sorry to call round so early," the woman said, smirking as she eyed Martin's dressing gown.
"What do you want? If you require a doctor, I'm afraid you will have to wait until my surgery opens at 9am, unless it's an emergency, of course," Martin told her tersely, now feeling rather uncomfortable. It wouldn't be the first time that a villager had tracked him down, wanting his professional services, interruptions were a very common occurrence for them, unfortunately.
"Ah, so you must be the Doc…..Doc Martin, isn't it?" the woman enquired as she continued to study him closely, much to Martin's discomfort.
"It's Doctor Ellingham actually," Martin stated in his usual abrupt manner. At this point, Louisa came downstairs, having heard a woman's voice rather than the postman at the door.
She stared at the woman.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Louisa demanded to know, her voice cold and hard.
Martin turned to look at her, surprised. He didn't think he had ever heard that tone of voice from her, not even when she was lecturing a class of very badly behaved children.
"Louisa, my dear. How are you?" the woman asked, a slight smile now playing on her lips. She didn't seem surprised or upset at the unwelcoming tone of voice.
"What do you care? You haven't been interested to know for the last however many years," Louisa stated abruptly.
"Would somebody mind filling me in? Clearly you two know each other…" Martin asked, confused.
"You could say that, Martin. This is my mother. The one that walked out when I was a little girl, the one that I don't see from one years' end to the next," Louisa stated, folding her arms and staring at her mother.
"So, what are you doing back here now? Actually, I don't want to know, don't bother to explain. Just sod off back to wherever you came from. Last I heard, it was somewhere in Scotland, you'd got yourself a nice Scottish fella to shack up with. Thrown you out just like all the others before him has he, finally come to his senses?"
The look Louisa gave her mother was glacially cold in its intensity, Martin saw.
"You really haven't changed one bit, have you Louisa? Still the little spitfire, full of spirit," the woman laughed. "Look, I really do need to talk to you, I thought maybe I'd catch you before you went to work, but I can see that now is not a good time, so I'll catch you later, when you're dressed at least. I'm staying at the pub, come and find me after work perhaps," Louisa's mother suggested, still smiling her knowing little smile as she looked at both of them in their dressing gowns, before she turned and slowly walked away.
Louisa slammed the door and stormed into the kitchen, Martin following behind her.
"Always turns up like a bad penny, just when things are finally looking up, she's here to spoil things. Well I'm not going to let it happen this time. I'm not getting sucked in, I'm not going to see her, or meet up with her, she can go to hell," Louisa spat the words out as she banged the kettle down on the worktop, supposedly for making her morning pot of tea.
"OK, OK, calm down," Martin tried to tell her as he watched her getting some cups out, thinking that she was going to break them if she slammed them down too in the same manner.
"Don't tell me to calm down, I'm perfectly calm."
Martin took the cups out of her hands, put them down and then pulled Louisa into his arms and held her tight against his chest to try to soothe her.
"You have no idea what's she's like Martin," Louisa said angrily.
"Then tell me. Help me to understand why she is having this affect on you. I know she left you and your father when you were young, but I don't know much else," Martin said, upset that their perfect little idyll seemed to have been shattered by the arrival of this woman.
"I don't want to waste my breath Martin. Suffice to say that she is trouble, and the sooner she goes, the better. I don't know why she's here, probably because she hasn't got a man in her life at the moment – she has to have a man, goes from one unsuitable relationship to another, that's how she's spent her whole life, my dad was just one man in a very long line of them. Probably scouting round the pub right now for her latest victim to get her claws into. She's very good at sucking them in, using her feminine wiles. Given half the chance she'll probably try them out on you Martin, I'll warn you right now," Louisa shot him a glance at her confession, realising that he must be horrified at her description of his future mother in law.
"Louisa, I think maybe you're overreacting," Martin stated, trying to calm things down, but actually making them worse, as he soon found out.
"Overreacting? Actually I think I'm being pretty restrained, if you knew even a fraction of the things she's done. I thought you'd be on my side, thought you'd understand, especially given your parental problems," Louisa was getting more upset by the minute.
"Of course I'm on your side! Don't take this out on me! I don't know anything about the woman, except maybe that you look a lot like her."As soon as the words left his lips, Martin realised that it probably wasn't the best thing that he could have said. Why did he always manage to do that, he wondered, think just after the words escaped rather than just before?
"Oh great, I look just like that…that…trollop who happens to be my mother by some misfortune of nature. Thanks for that!"
Martin decided it was probably safer if he didn't say anything more for the minute. He watched as Louisa now slammed things round the kitchen as she made her breakfast with a face like thunder, until she gave a big sigh and stopped what she was doing.
"I'm so sorry. None of this is your fault, and you're right, I shouldn't take it out on you," she said, coming over and cuddling up to him.
"That's OK. Just wish I understood why she upsets you so much. But if you say you don't want anything to do with her, then I'll respect your wishes, of course," Martin told her, relieved that he seemed to be off the hook now. He certainly had no desire to get involved with any unwanted relative of Louisa's. He was more than happy with just the two of them, with no other outside interference. He could just about tolerate Joan giving her opinions from time to time, but that was the limit of any familial obligations in his book.
xXx
"And what is your problem?" Martin didn't look up as he finished off writing up the notes from the last patient.
"Martin. Sorry we seemed to have got off on the wrong foot the other morning, so I thought I'd come and get to know you a bit, seeing as we're going to be family."
Martin looked up to see Louisa's mother sitting in the chair opposite him, smiling that little smile again. He glanced down at the medical card – it was one of the ones used for temporary patients who were not actually registered with him. The name filled in was Fiona Bennett.
"You can call me Doctor Ellingham, Ms Bennett," Martin informed her pointedly.
"Well I rather thought that I would be calling you Martin if you're going to be my son in law. I presume you do actually intend to marry my daughter, you're not just stringing her along are you? Oh, and sorry to have intruded the other morning, hope I wasn't interrupting anything?" she asked with a wink.
"Whilst you are in my consulting room, I am your doctor, so you can call me Doctor, or Doctor Ellingham," Martin told her frostily, ignoring her question. "I am assuming that you have come to my surgery to consult me on a medical matter. If that is not the case, the door is over there." Martin pointed with his pen in the direction of the way out.
He was irritated by her smug attitude, but couldn't help staring at her for a minute. She really did look like an older version of Louisa, she was still a very beautiful woman, and he had no doubt that many men would still be attracted to her. Fiona held his glance for a moment – she was very sure of herself, of her power over men, that was very apparent even to Martin, who was pretty clueless in these matters.
"So everything I've heard about you is true, Martin. Arrogant, rude, no time for niceties. Not sure just what it is my daughter sees in you, but then she always did have a thing about doctors, so maybe that explains it." Fiona looked Martin straight in the eye, enjoying trying to provoke him.
Martin threw his pen down on his desk, and sat back in his chair, looking hard at this woman whom Louisa had described as 'trouble'. He was beginning to realise it was a pretty accurate description. She was the kind of woman who liked to shock people, to get a reaction from them. Well, he wasn't going to play along with her little game.
"Unless you have a medical problem that you wish to consult me about, you can leave now," Martin told her coldly.
"No, nothing medical, I just came to check you out really. Anyway, I'm sure that I'll be seeing you again soon, Martin," Fiona told him as she got up to leave.
"Not if I have anything to do with it, you won't," muttered Martin as Fiona walked out, before bellowing,
"Next patient! Preferably one that actually has a genuine medical complaint."
xXx
"What's she playing at Louisa? Complete waste of my time, her calling in like that, just to 'check me out'. Bloody cheek of the woman."
Martin had told Louisa all about the visit Fiona had made to his surgery whilst they were having their evening meal, and now they were discussing it as they lay together in bed that night.
"I have no idea Martin. I told you, she's trouble. I'm sorry she wasted your time. Just ignore her, hopefully she'll soon get bored of her little game, whatever it is, and then she'll swan off to try her charms in some other part of the country," Louisa said. At least Martin was beginning to understand why she had not been pleased to see her mother.
"Anyway, let's not waste any more of our time discussing her. I'm sure we can think of a much better way to spend our time, can't we?" Louisa said as she kissed his cheek and ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, which she loved doing.
Martin didn't need asking twice, she noticed from his very obvious response. Louisa found herself once again surprised by the passionate nature of her fiancé when he proved to be very imaginative in showing her just how they should spend their time in bed together.
xXx
Despite what Louisa had told Martin about ignoring her mother, and not wanting anything to do with her, she found that she couldn't help herself, she just had to confront her, to find out why she was here – as her mother had known she would. So that was how Louisa found herself knocking on the bedroom door of one of the guest rooms of the pub the following morning. After a couple of minutes, the door was opened by John, the barman, tucking his shirt in his trousers and smiling at her mother, who was still lying in bed, clearly naked under the covers.
"See you later then, Fiona," John said as he left, with a huge grin on his face, but avoiding Louisa's eye as he squeezed passed her.
"You just can't help yourself, can you? You're old enough to be his mother," Louisa told her mother acidly.
"So? If it doesn't bother him, why should it bother you so much?" Fiona told her daughter, stretching out in the bed lazily. "Anyhow, I'm doing him a favour, he'll be a much better lover by the time I've finished with him. Actually, I'm doing his next girlfriend a favour if you think about it."
"I didn't come here to discuss your sex life. Why did you go to see Martin? He doesn't appreciate having his time wasted, he's very busy," Louisa told her haughtily.
"Ah yes, Martin. What on earth do you see in him? He clearly thinks he's God just because he's a doctor. I know doctors earn a fair whack these days, but honestly Louisa, surely you aren't serious about marrying a boring old stuffed shirt like him?" Fiona wasn't mincing her words.
"Mum! Don't talk about Martin like that, he's…he's…decent, and honest…and very loving actually," Louisa struggled to find the right words to defend Martin, knowing how he came across to other people, and imagining only too well how he had spoken to her mother in his surgery.
Fiona looked hard at her daughter, and then a small smile crept over her face as she said,
"Do you mean he's good in bed? I've met his type before, all repressed and stuffy on the outside, but when you finally manage to get them to let go, they turn out to be the most fantastic lovers. And I did notice that he has very large hands, which in my experience usually indicates that a man is err...well endowed, shall we say?"
"For goodness sake mum!" Louisa exclaimed, highly embarrassed.
" And of course doctors do have a very through understanding of the female anatomy, and nerve endings, all that kind of stuff I suppose." From the blush creeping over Louisa's face, Fiona guessed that her assessment was pretty accurate.
"I'm right aren't I?" she laughed, "But is that enough? You'll have to live with him day in, day out, put up with that face that looks like he's sucking lemons, for the rest of your life."
"My relationship with Martin really is none of your business. What do you mean by coming back here after all this time, trying to meddle in my affairs and give me unwanted advice, hmm? All I want from you is to know why you've come here, why now?"
"Well let me get showered and dressed, then you can join me for breakfast while I tell you," Fiona suggested as she threw back the bed covers to reveal her naked body. As she reached over for her dressing gown, she noted with amusement that Louisa had averted her eyes. Why did her daughter have to be such a little prude, she thought to herself.
"I'll wait for you downstairs then. Don't be too long, I do have better things to do with my Saturday morning," Louisa told her as she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her. Why did her mother always have to be such an exhibitionist, she thought to herself.
xXx
"Mmm, good sex always gives me such an appetite," Fiona said as she tucked into her full English breakfast. She couldn't help smiling as she noticed that Louisa was also enjoying a hearty breakfast too.
"Why do you that?" Louisa asked, annoyed.
"What?"
"Say things to try to shock people, to provoke them."
"I don't. I just say what I'm thinking, which I think is a healthy attitude, it's just being honest," Fiona replied.
Louisa thought about Martin, who was also brutally honest, but didn't say things just to provoke a reaction as her mother did. She sighed, knowing from past experience that she would not win this argument with her mother.
"So you want to know why I'm here. That's why you've come to see me," Fiona said as she now tucked into her toast and marmalade.
"Yes. If it's money you're after, don't think that I'm the soft touch I used to be. I've learnt the hard way, both with you and Dad, that you have to be cruel to be kind. Any money I've ever given either of you has just been throwing good money after bad," Louisa lectured.
Fiona threw her head back and laughed,
"Talk about role reversal, isn't that the kind of lecture a parent is supposed to give their errant offspring?"
"Yes, exactly," Louisa said pointedly.
"I suppose you do have a point, I've never been what you could call a traditional mother, have I? And yes, I do want to see you about money, as it happens. Just not in the way that you imagine," Fiona explained.
"Oh? In what way then," Louisa enquired, unable to imagine anything other than a situation that required her to bail her mother out, yet again.
"Believe it or not, I've got a bit of spare cash for once, and I thought maybe you could help me to spend it. This could be a chance for us to go on a holiday or go travelling together, help to make up for all these years that I've neglected you – I know I've been a rubbish mother. Now that we are both grown women, I hoped that maybe we could get to know each other more as friends really. Especially when I heard that you'd got engaged, it made me realise that it was high time that we spent some time together before you settled down, and maybe started having babies, all that kind of thing."
"How did you hear about me and Martin? You haven't been in touch for years," Louisa was curious to know.
"I have my sources. I've always known what you were doing, what was going on in your life, even if I've been some distance away. I am still your mother, and whatever you may think of me, I do still care about you. Anyway, the point is, what do you think, would you like to help me spend some of my money?"
Louisa thought she would find out more later about her mother's 'sources', but for now she was intrigued to find out about this windfall.
"You really should save it rather than blow it all on a holiday. You could invest some money in a savings account, maybe an ISA, you'd get a better rate of interest that way. How much are we talking about anyway?" she asked.
"Around £5 million, give or take. I think that's over the limit for an ISA, isn't it?" Fiona coolly informed Louisa, who was now choking on her cup of tea, not quite sure that she had heard her mother correctly.
"Did you say £5 MILLION pounds?" she managed to splutter.
"Yes, that's right, £5 million quid. Pass the marmalade would you?" Fiona replied, enjoying the fact that for once, her usually rather opinionated daughter was speechless.