Losing It
Chapter 25 – Blood, Sweat and Tears
May 15, 2005
Martin picked up his post on the way in with the shopping. After stowing his purchases and making himself a cup of coffee, he took his letters to the dining table to peruse.
The first was a large business envelope bearing something he'd been waiting for – his certificate from the Royal College of General Practitioners. He already knew that he had passed his exams, even the clinical practicum and case studies, so the certificate was merely a formal confirmation. Still, it was the one piece of necessary documentation remaining for the application dossiers he was submitting to the various search committees. He was thrilled it had come today as he was very interested in a practice Chris Parsons had asked him to apply for in Cornwall. The GP in Portwenn had died, and the PCT of which Chris was the Executive Director was conducting a search for the replacement. Martin's happiest childhood memories were of the handful of summers he had spent in Portwenn with his Auntie Joan and Uncle Phil. Phil was dead now, of course, but that was all the more reason to consider moving closer to Auntie Joan.
The second envelope held a note from Dr. Marjorie Larchmont, the indomitable head of the GP Training Programme at St. Mary's. She was dropping him a line to let him know that she had sent a letter of recommendation on his behalf to the NHS, to be included in his various PCT applications. He smiled as he tried to imagine what she had written.
Marjorie was a shrewd judge of character and an excellent teacher, but even she had been unsure what to make of Martin when he arrived at St. Mary's, morose and oh so arrogant, with a chip on his shoulder that threatened to topple him over. She had called him on the carpet at the end of the first week and insisted that he stop calling his fellow students stupid and that he treat his tutors with more respect. A chastened Martin had flushed red when she reminded him none too gently of what he had demanded of his own juniors when he was in charge.
Marjorie had also denied his request to join Ned Little's team. Ned was a renowned diagnostician for whom Martin had at least a grudging admiration. She knew that with Martin's intelligence and other talents, he would be an excellent diagnostician, maybe even one to surpass Ned, regardless of who his teacher was. She had assigned him instead to Sylvia Weston, a woman five years Martin's junior who had made caring an art and was widely-agreed to have the ideal bedside manner for a GP. Not only would Sylvia prove an understanding and tolerant mentor to Martin, as Marjorie had predicted, she also smoothed as best she could the rough edges of his people skills. There had been no doubt in Marjorie's mind that Martin could master the medical skills necessary to practice primary care medicine. But direct patient care involved interpersonal skills she hadn't been sure he possessed. In the end, though, both Sylvia and Marjorie had been proud of his success.
It hadn't been easy for him. Many of the senior doctors were younger than he was and were defensive about proving themselves superior to this once mighty consultant. He had little in common with his fellow students, who all were at least a decade younger than he was. They were fresher from medical school and, he eventually had to admit, they did know some things he didn't know – about AIDS and MRSA and HPV's link to cancer – things that hadn't been taught back when dinosaurs like him had completed their studies. None of them had to battle with a handicap as debilitating to a doctor as his haemophobia either. His struggle became widely known only a month into the course, to his chagrin, when he had actually vomited ON a patient suffering a nosebleed. He'd wanted to quit that day, sure he could never get over this hurdle. But Marjorie had sat him down and really listened to his issues. She had worked with Odd to organize a regime of desensitization training for Martin. She had also put him in contact with a phlebotomist she knew who had lost most of his eyesight but who had continued working after teaching himself to draw blood by touch. Slowly but surely Martin had found his way.
The third letter was from the search committee in Cornwall with the details of his upcoming interview. He would fly to Newquay just after the spring Bank Holiday to meet with them. They had thoughtfully included the biographies of the members of the committee. There were professional photos of all save one – a Miss Louisa Glasson of Portwenn Primary School, lay member of the committee. He idly wondered about her, picturing the village busybody – some contemporary of his Auntie Joan's, he guessed - with a weathered face and her spectacles on a chain around her neck. Surely his academic credentials would be sufficient to impress the likes of her.
The last item in the post was a square ivory envelope made of heavy laid paper. Inside was a formal invitation and as he opened it, another, smaller sheet of notepaper flutter out.
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Fairfax
Request the honour of your presence
At the marriage of their daughter
Hope Vivian
To
Michael Allan Mitchell
On June 11
At half after eleven o'clock
St. Stephen's Church
Landsdown Road
Bath
The favour of a reply is requested.
He looked at the invitation carefully before setting it aside and unfolding the note paper.
Dearest Martin –
I know when you receive this, your instinct will be to sit down and write a very proper note with your regrets. If I'm lucky, you might even send a suitably Martin-like gift with your congratulations (I'm addicted to satsumas now, thanks to you). But Martin, please do come. It may seem selfish of me, but I really want to have all of my favorite people around me when I take the plunge. It just won't be the same if you aren't there.
I have often wondered what the future might have held if we had confessed our feelings for each other under ordinary circumstances instead of in the midst of the myriad of personal, professional, medical and other crises that swirled around us. I guess we will never know. But please know that no matter what I will always admire you as a doctor and as a human being and that I treasure the friendship we eventually were able to salvage from the rubble.
I would so love for you to meet Mick. He's a barrister – a widower with two young girls so I'm becoming a wife and a mum in one fell swoop. Wish me luck; I think I'll need it! We are deliriously happy and looking forward eagerly to building our future together.
Martin, I know you've applied for a GP post in Cornwall – Chris Parsons called and asked me for a letter of reference. You can rest assured that I wrote a glowing one. Your new patients will be lucky to have you. I hope as you embark on this new chapter in your life, you will promise to leave yourself open to finding happiness of your own in your personal life. You are an extraordinary man, Martin, and you deserve all the joy life has to offer.
With love,
Hope
He was happy for her – he had to be. She deserved to be happy more than anyone he knew. And maybe she was right. Maybe after all he had been through, all the pain and humiliation and loss – it was time for something new.
THE END
Author's Note:
Thanks to Buffalo Pictures for lending me your character for the last couple months. I think I am returning him to you in nearly the same shape as I got him.
Thanks to all you readers for sticking with me and this very long story. I couldn't have imagined how hard this story would be to write when I first had the idea of exploring the origins of Martin's haemophobia. I am especially grateful to those of you who wrote such nice reviews and encouraged me to continue writing. It meant the world to me to get those little nuggets of praise (which my 9 year old adorably calls my fan mail) whenever I sent my latest chapter out into cyberspace.
And thanks to my husband, who let me bounce ideas off of him and who agreed to read chapters for me and comment, even though he reached his Doc Martin tolerance limit months ago. He is the one who insisted that Hope needed her own happy ending and I am so glad he did.
See you around Portwenn!
Jane