Slinking Off
By robspace54
"Oh, Marty! Let's face it! You piss people off wherever you go!" Chris Parson, head of the PCT, old school chum, and in some ways my boss and oldest friend squinted at me in the Cornwall sunlight.
I'd just told him that he'd backed the wrong horse. My coming to Portwenn was an absolute disaster. In one week I had destroyed everything before I really got started.
"I couldn't stand the sight of you myself for the first few years at school," he sighed. "I'm just saying what are you going to gain by moving on?" He threw his thumb over his shoulder at the tiny coastal Cornwall village of Portwenn. "And how is it going to help the people here if they lose the best medic they are ever likely to see? Because of some stupid," Chris looked to the ocean where his son was throwing stones at a beached boat so he shouted at the boy. "Oh, Dan! Can you please just…" he looked down his attention now on me. "So why don't we just sit tight and see if this whole thing blows over?"
"No." I was adamant. "I'll put things right as best I can, but then I'm calling it a day."
I left Chris and his ice cream smeared son behind me at the Portwenn Harbor and did as I said I would do. I'd put things right, best I could.
I had been the GP in this god-forsaken village of 996 backward souls for all of a week and found them to be irritating, insular, and stupid, as well as stuck somewhere in the 19th century. Jim Syms, their late terrible GP, had done them no favours at all – neither when he was alive or dead. Blood pressure all over the village was likely elevated, from their fat bejowled faces cholesterol and eating habits were in the bin, and their demeanor was narrow minded, self-seeking, and prejudiced against change – especially where their health was concerned.
Yet there were one or two not quite as backward – my Aunt Joan and the teacher Louisa Glasson. Those two, well there was hope for them.
I'm afraid I really got off on the wrong foot with Miss Glasson though. My behavior on the plane was quite forward, yet necessary when I saw her enlarged pupil and twitching eyelid. Acute glaucoma she had confirmed at their dinky Harbor Day fete, not that I needed any confirmation of my diagnosis.
As I had promised Parsons to set things straight, I phoned Lady Susan Brading and asked to meet with her in the largest and cleanest local pub, not that the local definition of clean was remotely close to any meaning of the word.
Susan and her husband Colonel Gilbert Spencer were odd ducks, although about as close to the local intelligentsia as there was. Doc Syms had lavishly overprescribed eostrogen laden cream for the woman. Then because of her heightened hormonal levels, or just that she was a rover, had treated both her husband Gilbert and a 19-year-old surfer named Ross to their own mounds of enlarged and growing breast tissue. An odd medical condition to be sure but known in the medical journals.
I had suspected something quite wrong – environmental or disease – yet Gilbert and Ross by loving the woman now both had gynecomastia, growing female-type breasts. In Ross's case his symptoms would likely resolve soon. Although Gilbert, considering his age, may require testosterone treatment, if not surgery as well.
So I sat down with Lady Brading to try and heal the rift I had produced in public, between her and her husband. There wasn't much I could do with Ross, as he'd likely file a formal complaint against me – but as I told Chris, I did not breach his patient confidentiality!
I told Susan that I thought if she and Gilbert sat down and talked, maybe things could be settled.
"No, Gilbert wants a divorce and I do love him you know. But he won't talk!" She said. "Told Ross it was over as well, but he won't accept it. Keeps calling me."
"You have to talk to them both. You know that, don't you?" I told her just as Gilbert walked in right on time.
Susan stood. "I don't think this is a good idea."
Gilbert glared at me. "I said I'd talk to you! Not her!"
"Please let me explain!" she said and ran to him.
But he'd have none of it. He told her off in an ugly way then turned to leave. "Don't tell me it was nothing," he ended with.
"Hang on there!" I shouted. "You love your wife?"
Gilbert admitted he did.
"And she loves you; told me herself! There you go, problem solved."
"You know nothing about relationships!" Gilbert blew out then got all puffed up as he shook a finger in my face.
"Oh no, you didn't!" said Susan gaping at Ross as the surfer walked in – the third side of this thorny triangle.
I nodded. "The three of you caused this problem. So it's only fit that the three of you should sort it out."
Words flew and the Colonel punched Ross square in the jaw. The surfer bounced off a table and came up swinging, just as I took hold of Gilbert's arms to stop further violence and Ross gave me a punch in the nose for my trouble.
Ross stomped out as Susan and Gilbert glared at each other while I hastened to the bar to get ice for my abused proboscis.
The moor was windy and cold the next day as I watched Al and Bert Large tow my Lexus from the boggy muck where I'd been run off the road by two mad fishermen.
"One stray punch and you're running off!" The words flew from my Aunt Joan's mouth with derision. She'd stopped by the surgery just as the Large boys came to get me, so I'd ridden up with her. She'd already got the word, gossipers very active, that I was leaving the village.
"Well I'd hoped for a slightly more hospitable environment." My nose wore a strip of sticking tape to hold my cracked nasal bones in place. I'd not bothered with diagnostic X-rays, but from the pain and swelling I could tell that Ross had exacted his revenge, besides labeling me a tosser in front of the whole village.
"Oh, rubbish! If you wanted a chocolate-box village, go to the Isle of Wight! This is a real place with real people!" Joan shouted. Then she went on, her lips quivering. "When you stopped coming years ago… well, you know that he wouldn't send you?"
"Dad? Why?"
"Oh, doesn't matter now… but I just wanted you to know that you were always welcome."
As my car was towed to the village I pondered what Joan had told me. I'd always thought it wasn't convenient any more – my summer stays with her and my late Uncle Phil. Those summers with Phil and Joan were such a respite from the terrors of school and home. I think I'd have gone mad but for those summers. Those sunny months were a rock I had clung to many a time. But that was all in the past now. No chance of clinging to this corner of my boyhood any longer.
I'd hoped, well, I had hoped, that I could start over here in Portwenn. The village had not changed much in thirty years. It still smelled of salty sea air, fried kippers, and wind-blown grass on the headlands and moor. I would miss the village as well as the job. Where I might go and what I might do next was for the Fates now to decide. I guessed I could work as a locum, a temporary doctor, if they weren't too choosey.
The Large's dropped me off by the school where Miss Glasson taught. We'd had what I thought was a bit of a real connection on Harbor Day. I thought she looked quite handsome in her pirate costume, accented by a large eye patch – part of the treatment for glaucoma. But just then I had to intervene in the Susan – Gilbert – Ross love triangle and that was the end of me and Louisa getting to know each other.
The result of which now gave me a broken nose and no job, as I was quitting. Better to go somewhere else, start with as clean a slate as I could get as I clearly could not go on here. The embarrassment and hard feelings I'd stirred up would not be easily settled. The town was too small, tongues would wag, and when they found out the real reason for my coming… well I'd be done for then as well. They already thought I was a bit mad; they used the word Bodmin, and the other thing would make things far worse for dear old Doctor Martin Ellingham.
The truck towing the wounded Lexus left and I could see Miss Glasson teaching her class in one of the school's basement classrooms. She was wearing the fuscia colored fleece jumper I've seen her wear before over some sort of print dress. With her dark hair pulled up into a bun, she looked quite nice, even at work. From her body language and gestures I could see she was helping students with school work. She clearly cared much for her students, unlike most of the teachers I was used to. Those would rather hit me than look at me, let alone help.
I didn't mean to stare, but I felt like I was leaving just when things might get interesting. What did the colonel yell at me? "You know nothing about relationships!"
That is not true. I have seen my share of co-workers fail in their romantic ventures as they went crashing and burning left and right. I have learned a number of things from observation, outside of a few - very few - attempts to forge lasting connections, and not just to the opposite gender either.
Chris Parsons was correct. I did piss people off no matter where I went. Rather like a person with an incurable and visible disease I'd just have to slink off from here and hope I could get on somewhere else, until the next blowup.
Although Louisa Glasson I would remember. Perhaps I could visit Auntie Joan and see Louisa sometime in future. Did Louisa have a boyfriend? She wasn't married, I'd been told. And we did get on, if only for a few minutes at the harbor. This was an opportunity I would miss, at least for the foreseeable future. Nothing to be done for it, though. Damn! But she seemed very nice.
I walked from the school feeling eyes on my back. I was used to being stared at, but this feeling was not one of derision; more like curiosity. The feeling passed though as I kept walking.
I was hounded by some teenage girls as I went downhill.
One grabbed her chest and shouted "Help Doc! I'm growing breasts!"
I sneered at them. This seemed to be the local teenage sport – let's go make fun of the GP. Nasty kids.
The legend of Doctor Ellingham would grow in future, but I'd not be here to hear it, thankfully.
Elaine Denham sat slumped in defeat outside the surgery. Her little box of personal things sat there as she waited for a ride home. I'd found her to be thick, obstinate, uneducated, and nearly useless. Doctor Syms had found her useful but clearly he was a tosser too. Perhaps another GP could find her useful. The girl cried when I told her I was leaving and she'd have to see if she could get on with a new GP. I felt just a tiny bit sorry for the girl as I climbed the slate steps onto the terrace but it didn't last.
"So, Doc, you gonna pay me for this week, or not?"
"Not," I answered cruelly as I went inside.
The lounge at the front of the cottage was cluttered with boxes I'd not unpacked and now I was packing the ones I had unpacked. Piles of books were right where I'd put them and now… cartons were waiting to be refilled, I thought in disgust.
Chris Parsons phoned and argued again for me to stay. He knew full well the hell I'd gone through, or least part of it. He knew what made me take GP training, and bless the man he pulled a number of strings to get me this far. He'd also said that Louisa Glasson was the lone dissenting voice on the acceptance board, yet he had told them all straight out that I was the very best doctor for Portwenn. I told him no and rung off.
It seemed now that I had indeed let Chris down and that the too perceptive teacher was correct. Ross was right as well. I was a tosser and having made a good and thorough mess of things, per usual, I had to leave. If I could arrange some sort of fanciful time transport I'd go back in time and never have applied for this post. But no sci-fi rubbish could help!
This thought sat heavily on me as I packed cartons for my move. The boxes and my furniture were going into storage and I was going… well, Ellingham, where the hell are you going?
Bert Large came in through the end portal of the lounge able to serve either as window or door. He gave me my car keys, having nicely brought the car back from the motor garage where it had been put right.
He looked very sad. "Oh and Doc," he said, "I'm sorry things haven't worked out."
I nodded.
"It's certain then?" He saw me affirm my decision to leave the metropolis of Portwenn.
"That's your right then." The man was nervous – almost dancing from foot to foot as he stood by me. "Well… if you are leaving, I was thinking if you might see one or two people… just before you go?"
"Well…" not much harm then. I pulled a pad from my pocket and prepared to write. "Give me their names, I'll think about it."
"Well," he peered down at a crumpled note in his beefy hand. "There's old Jane Carpenter, she's got lumbago…" then proceeded to rattle off five or six names and ailments, all of them chronic and needing monitoring.
"Hang on a second! How long is this list?" I exploded.
Bert peered down through his reading glasses with an innocent look.
"Wait a minute! I know what this is all about! None of you lot can be bothered to travel to Wadebridge to see a doctor, can you?"
He pulled off his glasses. "It's a long way to Wadebridge," he said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah. Not really good enough, is it?"
The man turned in defeat and lumbered to the door but then he surprised me. Bert turned and spoke. "Well… the way I look at this way Doc is that you need patients and we need a doc." His jowls and huge double chin wobbled as he inspected me. "And we don't all have to love one another, do we?"
This was the man who not a week ago sat on an over-turned bucket in the surgery and told me that down here they tried to 'go with the flow.' Yet here he stood, deputized or not, speaking for the entire village. Not exactly going with the flow, now was he? Well the man had brass, I gave him that much.
Bert shuffled off leaving me to my thoughts. I didn't like them – the thoughts, that is. I stood at the front window and pondered both the view and my situation. It was a hell of my own making.
I considered what Bert had said. He said that they needed me. They needed me. A curious admission for the village. Mostly self-sufficient and standoffish, they were to me. I was the Bodmin doctor from London. Never mind that my aunt had lived here for over forty years. That connection likely cut no ice with them. I was a stranger – but one with skills – skills they needed.
I've admired the view across the narrow harbor. Each night this week I stood and looked at the waves, birds, boats, and the town. This time though, the houses and pubs, shops, the old school, even the fishing boats said something to me. Stay Doc, came an odd voice. Only imagination, of course.
If I slunk away now that would confirm their suspicions of me. Just a Bodmin townie creeped out by their insular village ways. It would be no different from the horrid day in London I crept from the hospital a broken man – a former surgeon.
Running again, Ellingham? said my nasty little internal voice.
The agent's 'For Sale' sign outside on the cottage terrace had resisted my efforts several times to pull it from the earth and dispose of it. It still stood there blocking my view and reporting to all and sundry that I had failed.
I dug about in a cardboard box and found just the tool I needed. I marched from the cottage and applied my considerable skills as a surgeon. With a few strokes of the saw I hacked the sign's post off and threw the whole thing off the cliff just feet away. For the first in a very long time, I actually felt some courage and pride as well.
As I turned with saw in hand, two fishermen, probably the two who had twice crowded me off narrow lanes with suicidal glee, walked past uphill in the road.
"Evening Doc," muttered one.
Not Doctor Ellingham or Mr. Ellingham - just Doc. Well… "Evening," I threw back. They continued up the narrow lane as I went to the surgery with my saw.
If I left Portwenn I'd not slink away like that. No – not ever again would I leave a place by sneaking out the back door. When I left this village, whenever that might be, it would be with head held high.
Ellingham, my little voice said, you get another chance. Use it!" I would do my best.
The setting sun lit up the village and for a few seconds, too short a time, I was happy.
Author's note:
While waiting for Season 5 to begin broadcasting, I am re-watching the first season of Doc Martin. I was struck by the last third or so of "Going Bodmin." Such a well-written and acted tale, and I felt I had to add a few thoughts to the Doc's early struggles in Cornwall, especially his courageous stand at the end of the debut story.
Doc Martin is owned entirely by Buffalo Productions. Thanks to them for creating this wonderful set of shows and characters and for them unofficially loaning them to me, if only for 3000 words or so!
Thanks for reading. See you in Portwenn!
Rob