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Chapter Ten

Martin sat in the garden of High Trees, parked next to Louisa's favourite bench. Personally, he'd never been much of an outdoor person, despite the adventurous treks that his GP job had frequently taken him on. He'd prefer to sit by the window in the sun, reading without the glare of the sun on the white pages or the nuisance as they blew about in the wind.

But Louisa loved it out here in the garden. The lawns were kept neatly trimmed, the flower beds maintained and pretty. She loved the warmth of early summer, watching her grandchildren and those of various residents kicking balls around or playing 'It' – the simple pleasures she'd remembered from her own childhood. This bench gave a perfect view of it all, as well as the wide expanse of the sea.

Today though, she wasn't here. She'd driven to Truro with Joan for the day, shopping for a cot, a pram, car seat and various other paraphernalia that didn't leave space in the car for his wheelchair. Nevertheless, he'd sat down with them for half an hour before their departure and given his opinion of the best models based on safety, comfort and numerous other factors. Joan had added the notes he'd made to a similar pile given to her by Peter, who would have been with them had he not been called out on an urgent house call.

Tilting his head slightly to the right, he could no longer see the bench in his peripheral vision. Now she could be there with him, silently immersed in the summer day as always. Talkative though she was, she felt no need to constantly chatter away to him as she did in the company of others. In the early stages of their relationship, he'd almost lost her so many times through careless slips of the tongue, her gentle gaze unnerving him as he struggled to respond to her subtle steering towards small talk. He'd been determined that he was to make things work.

xxx

For a few weeks after Charlie's birth they'd both struggled through a period of sheer frustration. The pressures of raising a small yet demanding child combined with their opposing views on just about everything made for a relationship fraught with arguments. Martin added Louisa's post-natal hormone levels to the list of complications, though even he had the sense to keep that one to himself. Eventually one afternoon, Joan took the screaming, colicky bundle off of their hands and gave them the opportunity to make some noise of their own. They both were to cringe as they remembered that afternoon, at the way all emotions had come to a head as she'd screamed at him, and he'd responded with some fairly impressive volume of his own. Realising after a while the sheer pointlessness of the situation, Louisa had broken down at the realisation that they may just have ruined everything.

She had to give Martin credit for the way he'd simply accepted the turn of events, immediately turned off the sarcastic tone to his voice and held her as she cried. During a fairly teary conversation on her part, they'd eventually bonded over the one thing they had in common – the love and protective urges they felt for their young son. Though they were to have many more spats and rows over the years, never again would they torment themselves with such resentful ferocity.

After that, Louisa stopped trying to make him talk, explain himself, go over his feelings. It felt strange to be in a relationship where so little was said, but she soon realised that as a man of few words, he saw no point in pursuing idle chatter when their time could be spent in so much more interesting and intimate ways.

However, much as she learned that his quiet ways came naturally to him, she couldn't bring herself to accept them. She didn't mind at home during the day – she was often preoccupied looking after Charlie, who seemed to like to hear her talk and sing. Even Martin would talk to him, knowing how crucial it was to his development when all he heard as he travelled the village in the pram was gibberish. And she didn't mind when they were in the bedroom – she'd much rather his lips were planted firmly on hers than trying to make conversation. But when they were out, it just felt strange. They walked the village hand in hand, but trying to get conversation from him was like blood from a stone.

She soon realised that it wasn't working. This was driving her up the wall. They'd talk about Charlie, about his latest checkups, what he was eating, his height, his weight, but she needed just some escape from baby statistics. It wasn't like he couldn't be vocal when he wanted to – in fact excessively so according to his patients. And so one day, as they sat together on the sofa, she simply decided to confront him with it. Which led to one of the most meaningful and yet confusing revelations of her life. Martin was staying quiet because of her? Because of her threats in moments of hormonal hysteria?

To Martin, it made perfect sense. It didn't take a genius to make the connection between his blunt comments and their rows, her tears. As he'd observed before, whenever he spoke, it seemed to make things worse. She'd knocked this comment with contempt at the time, but as their relationship became ever more complicated he became more certain of the fact. As he'd lain on his bed after the fateful night at the concert, drifting in and out of consciousness and losing track of time, he'd wanted to kick himself. To turn back time, to take back that stupid remark. And yet still, he didn't learn. Looking back later, he felt ashamed at the way he'd overreacted during her pregnancy. He maintained that his opinions were valid, but did he really have to express them in such ways that could only make things worse?

He was used to quiet, anyway. As a child at home his parents hadn't spoken much. Their house was either quiet as a morgue, his father's bitter comments occasionally piercing the icy atmosphere, or lively and loud as his parents entertained in the sitting room. Unless he indulged his father's sense of self importance by enquiring about sports tournaments or medical procedures that he was to have no hope of understanding at such an age, he was to stay quiet.

At school he was intelligent – both from an academic and self-preservation perspective. His father had always encouraged him to speak out and show himself off, but he soon learned that the boarding schools Christopher Ellingham spoke of in his wistful, nostalgic tales were worlds apart from the one he attended. Or perhaps it was simply that he was worlds apart from his father. Either way, it was never a good idea among his peers to draw unwanted attention to himself. So he didn't.

Moving forward a few years, his domain was the operating theatre. He was in control. As he cut, sliced, manipulated and stitched the most delicate of blood vessels, he required the utmost quiet. Aside from the soft bleeping of nearby machines and his occasional muttered instructions, the room would be silent and you could hear a pin drop. He did not much like loud conventions and busy conferences that were a very interesting and necessary, yet meddlesome part of the job. He much preferred the serenity of the small room where his skilled fingers worked to fix and repair.

Now, in this noisy, intrusive village where you had to shout to make yourself heard above the moronic attitudes of people who always knew best, being with Louisa was a relief. With her, he could relax in the calm atmosphere of the home they shared. So long as Charlie was asleep, he added, with a rueful smile...

'Martin?'

He soon realised that in an ironic twist, he'd tailed off at the end of his in-depth explanation of his uncommunicative disposition – and fallen mute again. Yet Louisa was looking at him intently, a contented smile softening her face which had looked so tense at the beginning of the conversation.

'What?'

'That was all I wanted. For us to be able to sit here, the two of us, and have a conversation. No barriers. So I can know more about you, and vice versa. Like we just did.'

Conversation? Confrontation, more like. But just sat there in a neutral environment, the two of them on the sofa with no expectations... he'd just been able to talk and talk, and he was barely aware he'd been doing it.

xxx

After that few months, both of them felt much more comfortable in each other's company. Martin had learned after that afternoon that he was capable of holding conversations about things other than medicine. It didn't always go to plan – occasionally Martin would make some insensitive remark or other and earn a frosty glare, or Louisa would inadvertently chuckle at an unfortunate childhood mishap, causing him to clam up. But he soon realised how therapeutic it could be to get away from work for a while, to chat conversationally to someone who wasn't a medical colleague. Medicine frequently made an appearance of course, being such a big part of his life. He usually had to convert things in his head to Layman's terms before he spoke, but because in his enthusiasm he occasionally forgot – leading to her picking up some medical language too. He hadn't ever particularly specialised in paediatrics, but began taking a more active interest as Louisa could relate the common diseases and symptoms to things she saw in the playground and in her own children – it was always useful to know the signs to look out for.

Sometimes when they were both busy and Martin didn't feel like making conversational effort, he'd just sit quietly as he checked patient notes against various websites and journals, listening to the melodic sound of her voice as she changed or fed Charlie, or as she chattered happily away to him while preparing something to eat. Louisa no longer found his silence unnerving – she appreciated that he was listening, or at least pretending to listen for her sake. She sometimes zoned out whilst he was droning on about bacteria of the ileum or some other dull medical sub-topic, so accepted that he probably didn't much care about the latest staff room gossip.

Then there were the contented silences. The rare, peaceful times when they were able to sit together or wander down to the harbour with the sleeping baby in his pram, linked perhaps by joined hands or her head resting on his shoulder, but both lost in their own individual worlds of thought. Sometimes Martin would glance over to see a dreamy look on her face, or her brow furrowed, or her hair falling forward as she read. The glance invariably lingered to become a gaze, which would catch her attention and she would smile that beautiful smile, and he would remind himself yet again how lucky he was to be with her.

xxx

Refocusing and glancing across at the bench now, he remembered that she wasn't there, sighed and looked out to sea once more. Suddenly the silence was broken as he heard the trilling tone of his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he smiled as he saw Louisa's name and number on the screen.

'Hello?'

'Martin, I need your help, it's Joan. I think something's wrong.'

Martin froze.