Letters

"So what's uhm… in her letter?"

"You want to read it?"

"No, not really."

"Yup. I thought so. Doc, I can't that say that I want to read it either. I mean what if she was telling me 'it's been nice Chuck, see you around?' Or she might be telling me off good and proper, for turning her in."

"Did you?"

Mark looked at the floor. "No. Not really. I did write up that she had been seen in the area. Sent that off." He looked up me grimly then. "I didn't say that, I… erh, we…"

"Of course not." I sniffed. "Excuse me." Another tissue got used and binned. "Sorry."

Mark scooted the chair back fifteen centimeters or so. "Yeah."

"Mark, why did you come up here today? Pauline will be back in around twenty five minutes, so if you want real privacy, you should go by then. And I need to eat something."

"Doc, I just mean," he sighed, "it's not like I can go down the Crab and Lobster and banter this about, now can I?"

"No. I'd expect not."

"Doc, I don't know if you've noticed but it's not like I have a whole of friends in the village, being the policeman and all I can't very well get too close to people. Sort of like you."

"Thanks," I sneered. "So nice that my solitary nature is respected!"

"Now, Doc, don't get mad. I don't mean it that way! I mean that you have to be a bit apart from people. They talk to you and you can't then go blathering it about, is all. Confidential, like. Secrets."

"Right." If Mark only knew the secrets I get to keep in this community of 966 backwards, ill begotten villagers. Who is boffing who and who I've had to treat for sexually transmitted diseases, who is under a psychiatrist's care for severe depression or mania, who has untreated hernias and is afraid of surgery, and who has odd sexual preferences that cause them to be injured in strange ways.

Yes secrets. Secrets of the confessional, the surgery, the exam couch. Even the secrets that are my own; the ones I dare not even think of or I'd go stark barking Bodmin. I keep that mental compartment firmly closed, bolted, and barred.

"Mark. You can continue to beat about the bush, or you can tell me something that I may help you with. Otherwise…" I checked my watch. "I need lunch."

"Right. Well then, I think I'll have to let you read this." He stood and dropped the much discussed but little exposed envelope onto my desk. "I'll be back some time tomorrow so you can read it."

He left the surgery and the exam door closed. I shook my head. Love letters! I shook my head, but I slipped it into my pocket and then went to the kitchen to prepare soup.

The lobster bisque was heating nicely so with heavy heart took the envelope out and extracted several pages covered with looping purple ink. Another affectation of romantic writers. Why can't ink be blue or black? I'll never understand.

Four pages, two sides each. The first three pages were what I'd expect. Protestations of innocence, excuses for past misdeeds, obfuscations of happenings, dates, and places or at least so I perceived them to be. I continued to stir the soup as I flipped through the occasional misspellings and poor sentence structure. But I reminded myself that Emma had left home while a teenager, so her written language skills were not that perfect.

On page four it got more serious. She had written:

Marky, I didn't do any of those things to really hurt anyone, I've never taken a great deal of money along the way. And there have been times that I have had real jobs in offices and stores, and such.

My home life was really bad. For all that mum wanted to see me as she died, she was still the nasty, grasping piece of work she always has been. And she didn't really want to see me. It was just another way that she could have power over me, even if it was for the last time.

Mum had an awful lot of boyfriends about, after dad left when I was seven. And about the time that I started to turn from a gawky kid into a girl, well that's when I had to leave. There were nights I'd have to jam a chair under my door to keep night visitors out. Mum would be drugged up, and her latest friend would get ideas about visiting the daughter to 'check on her' - you know.

So I left home. I was fourteen. I won't tell you what I had to do to get on…

I sighed. Same old tale of drug and sexual abuse, plus forgotten and ill-used children. The bisque wasn't quite ready.

Some time after I'd gone through about four names, jobs, and towns, I wanted to get out of it. So I looked for a little place I could settle down. I found Portwenn after I heard a radio piece about the local men's singers, how they'd placed in some regional sing-thing.

First day here there you were. I'll admit that my heart took a flip when the local PC was so nice, and nice looking too. And things went from there.

I really thought that I could go straight. You're so straight – figured I could too. And I did like you straight off. And that feeling – well you knew. It grew on me.

As I write this I'm feeling kicks from my baby. The one that I tried to get you to think was yours. It's not, you know that, thanks to a number of things. But she will need a dad (it's a girl). But – I was thinking that if you were willing…

I sighed as I read her self-serving rubbish. An odor of scorching started to reach my nose. "Damn it!" My soup was ruined – a brown layer at the bottom of the pot. I dumped the ruined soup into the ferns out the door and dropped the pot into the sink followed by plenty of water and soap.

need a dad (it's a girl). But – I was thinking that if you were willing…

we could start again. You and me, Marky. Somewhere else. Where no one will care who I used to be. That is if you won't care who I used to be.

Love,

Julie

(If you want to call me Emma, you can do that, but you knew me as Julie – and Julie is who I wish to be – for you.)

I was munching on crackers when Pauline came back yelling from the waiting room.

"Doc! I'm back!" She clumped into my kitchen. "Ugh! What a stink!" She held her freckled nose.

"Burned the soup."

"Really," she looked amazed. "Doc Martin can't cook soup?"

"Yes, no, shut up!" I snarled.

She laughed and her clinking necklaces and bracelets made a racket as she clomped back to her desk.

Then my eyes fell to the last part of the letter, which was dashed off in a thick black pen.

I was going to give you this letter in person, but you were out, so I dashed off a note on a postcard and jammed it under your front door. No one saw me in the village.

I'm living in Newquay, obviously, and thought I'd have the guts to face you. I was just round the corner at the Aquarium, but I lost my nerve. When you were inside I put this on your car.

CALL ME? Cell : 173-313 2426

So here was Mark's invitation. Would he go for it?