Yams
Set within Season 3 Episode 2 "The Morning After" ("Movement" in the UK) and between seasons 3 & 4
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I don't own any rights to "Doc Martin," and aren't making any money off it.
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Chapter 1
Martin 's brain was swarming with thoughts vying for his attention as he silently walked down the street, hardly noticing the glances and snickers he received from bystanders noting his awkward gait and his furrowed brow.
One of his patients, a young 15-year old girl, had asked him for the birth control pill. She seemed to think it would make her develop faster. Where did people get these ideas anyway. Though he thought she was an idiot, he couldn't help but worry about her. The mobs of teenage girls in the village could be cruel, and he remembered being bullied as a child. And who knows what a desperate 15-year old might do to prove her 'maturity.'
Then there was Bert Large. A plumber-and one whose ineptitude for cooking he had had seen firsthand-running a restaurant? No doubt he didn't even follow basic food safety procedures. And who would be left to deal with the dozens of miserable patients infected with botulism and salmonella?
And then...there was Louisa. His expression softened somewhat at the thought. After he had met her profession of love with the implication that she was a serial stalker, called her father a thief, clumsily mishandled the recent hostage crisis, and nearly drove her to switch to the Wadebridge clinic through his inquisitiveness, he'd thought he'd probably blown it. Then, a few days ago-almost out of the blue-she'd hinted that she wanted a relationship with him. But Louisa was so changeable, and he told himself that perhaps he had misunderstood. For a few days there had been nothing but a glance now and then, each person waiting for the other to make a move that never came.
And then, this morning, Louisa had managed to fandangle him into having dinner at her place. His heart skipped a beat at the thought. Finally, he would be able to spend some time with Louisa, with no children running around, no patients haranguing them, no Bert Large complaining about his midlife crisis. Just him and Louisa. It was quite a pleasant feeling.
A sign in the window of the grocer's caught his eye. "Purple Yams for Sale."
Purple yams? In Portwenn? He had to see for himself. He marched through the door and straight to a bin of purple-hued tubers slightly longer than a potato. "Dioscorea alata," he said to himself. When he was in South East Asia he had run across this delicious variety of yam, much smaller than the bulky African yams often sold in Caribbean markets in the UK, and bearing very little relation to the orange "sweet potatoes" favored by Americans. Truth be told, it was one of his favorite foods, exotic though it was. But Martin rarely indulged in luxuries he couldn't justify as part of his job.
Suddenly, it occurred to him. Louisa! Yams are rich in nutrients, especially Potassium but also a fair amount of Iron. She was trying to eat Iron-rich foods because of her anemia-yams would be perfect!
He carefully selected a few choice yams, bagged them and brought them to the cashier.
"Buying some yams for yourself I see," the cashier inquired, to Martin's chagrin. "Not many as like those, Doc, so I'm glad to get rid of them, if you catch my drift."
The statement irritated Martin. Louisa was not like many of the people in the village, he told himself. Surely she would appreciate the yams.
"They're not for me. They're for a friend..." His voice faded out as he realized his mistake.
"Oh, for Miss Glasson, then?" The cashier laughed. "Nothing more romantic than a couple of yams."
"That's none of your business."
"All I'm sayin' Doc is that you'd be better off buying her a bouquet or some chocolates." He lowered his voice to a whisper "The girl is partial to her chocolates, she is."
Martin's face wrinkled in disgust at what he could only interpret as a sales ploy. "Empty calories!" he said, dismissively. "Just the yams...please."
He paid and marched out the door, heading straight to the Surgery.
As he approached the bottom of the hill, he slowed down. Perhaps the cashier was right. Yams were rather an ugly-looking vegetable, and he'd always heard that flowers and chocolates, overly-flamboyant and decadent though they might be, were a classic romantic gift favored by women across the socioeconomic spectrum. And Louisa was a woman.
"Hmmph," he grunted and marched back up the hill.