Disclaimer: Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures.
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"Young man, come here at once!" I hear the angry voice of Louisa while I'm on my way to the kitchen to get a cup of tea in between patients.
It's not James' lucky day it seems, as in his attempt to run away, he bumps into me. I take our son by the hand and lead him to his mother. There must be something going on, after all.
The moment I enter the kitchen, I see part of the problem. Louisa's favourite vase lies shattered on the ground.
"Is that the problem?" I ask while checking if the kettle contains enough water.
"It certainly is." Louisa glowers at our son. "What were you thinking?!" She asks him sternly.
I am a bit astonished, as usually matters like this are not a problem in this household.
"Everyone can drop something, we all have our share of clumsiness." I try to calm Louisa down, while putting the kettle on.
"But that's just the point." She diverts her eyes to talk to me now, while James looks like a picture of misery. "He smashed it on purpose!"
I spin around and give my son a warning look. "What's this all about? Did you really do it on purpose?"
James stands sheepishly around, looking from one to the other. "Uhm, well, it sorta happened."
"Nothing like this 'sort of' happens. Did you do it or didn't you?" I demand to know.
"I did." He admits meekly.
"Whatever for?"
Louisa shortly informs me that there had been a disagreement over the importance of a football game in comparison with attending Ruth's birthday on Saturday. Mother and son had talked themselves into a rage, until James wanted to prove to his mother how it is to lose something you love, crashing the vase to prove his point.
One thing's for certain, our son has got quite a temper. Maybe that had to be expected with parents like us.
"You will immediately hand me your game station, young man. And no telly for the rest of the week!" Louisa sternly declares.
James grumbles under his breath about unfairness, and despotism. Finally he trots off, nodding into my direction: "I hate that you're my parents. I bet you've never been treated like this! Tyrant"
I take my cup and while passing my son I simply and truthfully state that I would have been beaten thoroughly for that, or shut under the stairs and my parents would have thrown away the key. Or both.
James looks at me with big eyes. "No, they wouldn't."
"They certainly have done." I leave the domestic scene behind to focus my concentration on the whining of the malingerers again, which they honestly do not deserve.
When I finished my last patient's notes hours later, I hear a soft knock on the door. When it opens, James' small frame slips into the room.
"Are you busy?" He asks.
I look around, but I have finished things by now. I close the files. "No."
"Did you mean that earlier?"
"What?"
"About the cupboard, and the beating. I don't think so, but Mum said..."
"You're Mum's right."
James looks sheepishly down, then he tilts his head. "How was it? In the cupboard, I mean?" This concept of punishment is thankfully alien to our son. The more my comment has intrigued his curiosity.
"Dark."
"For how long would you have been in there?"
I motion my son to come closer and sit him on my knee. "An hour, maybe. Sometimes more, but I think they just forgot to get me out, then."
"Who?"
"My parents. Mum, mostly. Dad usually beat me."
"Did you do something really bad?"
"No, not really. Sometimes I dropped things, but involuntarily, not like you did. Or I came home a bit later than allowed. Or maybe I was just annoying in asking too many questions, or questioning what my parents had said."
"But that's no reason for...anything like that?"
"For my parents it was a good enough reason."
I could see my son thinking. "Were you afraid, in the dark cupboard?"
I try to remember. By now it seems like a different life, as it had been someone else who had been locked in there.
"I must have been, at first. After a couple of times you get used to it. You find mechanisms to tune out where you are. You build your own world inside of you."
"Really?"
"Yes." I stroke his head, thankful that he can't relate to this experience. "The beatings had been worse, especially when Dad used the belt or the table tennis bat. Dad loved sports."
James looks at me with big eyes. "Why did your Mum allow that?"
"She didn't really care. She wasn't like your Mum, not one bit."
"You mean, she didn't give you a cuddle when you were hurt?" James asked incredulously.
The thought alone makes me cringe. "No, my mother never gave me a cuddle, not once."
James is quiet for a moment and his little brow furrows. Finally he declares sternly. "I would have run away."
"I didn't. I never even thought about it."
"Why?" He tilts his little head.
"I thought it was normal. I thought I deserved it."
"Didn't your friends tell you it wasn't normal?"
"I didn't have any friends."
James shifts on my knee. "Bollocks. Everyone has friends."
"I didn't."
"But who did you play with."
"I didn't play much, and if I did, I did it on my own."
James looks at me sceptically. "What did you do?"
"I learned a lot. Read a lot. For some time I was quite interested in butterflies, but I gave that up."
"Why?"
"I had caught one in a jar and wanted to show it to Dad, but he yelled at me and I dropped the jar, and it killed the butterfly. After that I thought my idle fun wasn't worth the pain I was causing. I felt really guilty about it."
"But it wasn't your fault."
"Maybe not, but I didn't see it that way. I'd rather repair clocks afterwards."
"Cool. How old were you?"
"About your age. Yes, about seven."
"Who taught you?"
"No one. I read some books, and I tried and fiddled around until it fit." I remember rather fondly.
James is quiet for a moment and I expected the inquisition to be over.
"Who did you catch butterflies with?"
"I did that on my own."
"Did you do anything with anyone?"
"No, not really." James paused again, then bites his lower lip. A habit he has picked up from his mother.
"Were you lonely?" My son asks me serenely and in the way he looks at me just now I recognise Louisa's trait in him.
I stroke his hair. "Yes, I guess I was."
"How is it to be lonely?"
"It's ok, as long as you don't know anything else. If you don't know any better, it's fine. You know, I had the feeling..." I gulp, and it hits me that I confess more to him than I have ever told anyone. "...I had the feeling that nobody liked me, so I kept to myself."
"But there must have been someone who liked you?"
I put my arm firmer around his shoulder. "There had been one person. My Aunty Joan."
"The one living at the B&B?" James remembers from what we have told him, Louisa mostly.
"It wasn't a B&B then. It was a farm. A full running farm, and I was sent to spend my holidays there, when I was...yes, I was about your age. Until I was eleven, to be precise."
"Why did you stop visiting?"
"I didn't want to stop. I just wasn't allowed to visit anymore."
"But if she liked you, why didn't she let you come anymore?" James doesn't understand, which is understandable. I didn't understand for decades. "I don't think I like her." James declares defiantly.
"You would have liked her, and she would have loved you. You know, she died the day you were born. Never had a chance to see you, and she was so looking forward to you."
"I don't like her if she didn't want you around." James repeats.
"It wasn't like that. I was made to believe that she didn't want me anymore by my parents, but they had forbidden any contact between us."
"Why?"
"Who knows? I don't think they needed a reason to be mean." I sigh.
"Is that why I don't have any grandparents?"
"Partly. My Dad died when you were quite young, so you wouldn't have remembered anyway. Which is a blessing, actually, not remembering my father."
"My Mum's still alive, I believe. Although I cannot rule out that they simply wouldn't have bothered to inform me if it was otherwise. But she is really horrid, especially with children, so I wouldn't want you to be around her."
I can see James thinking, processing this information.
"I think I'd rather have you as my parents, then." He finally declares.
"Thank you." It's not that you can choose your parents or if the competition I presented to him is a particularly strong one, but it's nice to hear that your son accepts you as a parent anyway.
"Did you miss your Aunty?" James continues.
I give my son a cuddle. "Very much, I missed her very much. Again, I thought it was my fault. I thought I'd done something to annoy her, that she couldn't possibly want to see me again. I thought so until I was back here, just about twelve years ago. And I then still believed no one could like me. Then your mum came, and after a while, she seemed to like me. Really like me."
"You must have been happy."
"It's not that easy. If you've been alone all your life, you don't have the mechanism to cope with other people. I also didn't believe that she liked me. I refused to believe that for a very long time. If you're not used to something good, it can be as frightening as the idea of a dark cupboard is to you. We are scared of things we don't know. Thankfully, your Mum can be quite persistent, or we wouldn't have this. We wouldn't be a family. And I would have missed the only person who could love me."
My son hugs me back. "I love you too, Dad."
I bury my face in his hair. "That's nice. Thank you."
I try to collect myself. "I think tea will be ready soon. You'd better freshen up." James hops off my knee and runs towards the door. Before he leaves I shout after him. "And James. Be nice to your Mum. You did a rather bad thing. Try to make up for it."
"Alright, Dad."
I hear small feet running up the stairs. I wash my hands at the sink in the surgery and splash water onto my face.
Then I go into the kitchen, where Louisa is pottering about. I take a glass, fill it with tap water, and drown it with greedy gulps.
Louisa asks me over her shoulder. "What did James want? You've been in there quite a while."
"He was curious about the cupboard and the beating." I notice that Louisa freezes in her actions for a moment.
"Did you tell him?"
"Yes."
"Everything?"
"Practically."
Louisa puts the spoon away with which she had been stirring something. She turns towards me.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"Wasn't it too painful?"
"No."
"Martin?"
I turn around to assure her into her eyes that I am fine. "Actually, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected."
Not as bad as it had been six years ago. Not as bad as in therapy, after our almost split up, when I tried to sort myself out.
"They say that time is a great healer." Louisa declares and starts fiddling with our tea again. I put my arm around her.
"Time is a rubbish healer. Time didn't have anything to do with it." I give her shoulder a squeeze, hoping she realises that I give her credit for any wounds that aren't that sore anymore.
Louisa flashes me a smile and I know that she knows.
She stirs some more, while I am about to refill my glass.
"What did James say?" She asks me.
"He said he loves me." I drown the water quickly, mostly to wash the lump in my throat away.
Louisa has obviously finished whatever she had been doing and comes over to rinse the spoon.
"That's nice." She smiles and rubs my back. "Actually, we both love you."
I am about to lean forward to give her a peck on the cheek, when I hear those footsteps on the stairs again.
I slightly jump back, earning a smile from Louisa. She still thinks I'm too fussy about being caught showing signs of affection.
Our son storms in. "I'm starving. Tea's ready?"
"You can start laying out the table." Louisa tells him.
"OK." He quips. Then he winks at me, before turning to his mother again. "Mum?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry about the vase."
"You should be."
"It was wrong. Uhm..." He fingers in his pockets and gathers a handful of coins and notes. "This is all what's left of my pocket money. You can have it. For a new vase."
Louisa bites her lip, visibly moved.
"That's a nice gesture, James, but no. And it wasn't the vase itself that was valuable, it was the memories attached to it. You see, I bought it on the first holiday your Dad and I took, and the vase reminded me of it. If I buy another vase, then it's just a vase. There are things you can't set right with money."
James seems heartbroken. "So you don't want it?"
"Keep it." Louisa ruffles James' hair. "Just promise me that you will never destroy anything again on purpose. If you learned that lesson, then it's worth far more than all your pocket money is."
"Great."
James runs up, then drops on his knees and glides over to the cupboard to fetch the plates to lay the table. His mood is obviously better.
"But James..." Louisa watches our son, smiling.
"Yes?" James turns around, kneeling in front of the plates in the lower shelf of the cupboard.
"Telly's still off." Louisa states.
* . * . * . * . *
The end
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I thank all kind readers, especially those who take their time to comment.
My very special thanks goes, as always, to my proof reader, fanficfan71. All my errors are my own.
My last but not least thanks goes to Buffalo Pictures for creating such wonderful characters. As always, it had been fun to play with them for some time. I hope, I'll return them to you undamaged.