Chapter 28

"I want to try something. We do have this meeting about the new research project next week. I do have a feeling that they rather wouldn't do without me, if I might say so."

"Surely not, you're their best man."

"Don't you think I'm entitled to some privileges then? I told you that we do this project in collaboration with Plymouth University…"

"You really would agree to go down to Plymouth? But Plymouth is a hell of a way? You wouldn't be able to commute? Or we've got to move to somewhere in the middle…"

"Shhh, Louisa. Let me. I gave it a lot of thought. We haven't really found a suitable surgeon down here yet. We weren't happy with what we had on offer. So we thought about transferring someone from London to the south-west anyhow. I guess Imperial wouldn't be happy for me to volunteer, but if they want to keep me in the project, I suppose they'd have to agree."

"But it's still fifty miles – one way. You'd be exhausted. I could never expect you…"

"Shhh. Let me finish. Plymouth is partnered with Truro."

Louisa's face lightens up.

"That's just 30 miles away, and there is no good reason whatsoever that the project has to be performed in Plymouth. We don't have the right people neither here nor there, so as we have to build up a team from scratch, it doesn't really matter where. And I wouldn't have to take the trip daily, either, as I could do the evaluation, writing of publications and preparation of presentations from home easily. It's just that I might have to go down to London sometimes for meetings, but that shouldn't be more than two days in a row."

"But you've worked so hard to finally get away from here, to go back to London."

"I know, and I am grateful to you that you let me do it, but what I honestly wanted was to get away from the GP post and get my hands on the thing again that I'm really good at. For me, being a surgeon has always automatically meant being in London. That's where the most prestigious hospitals are, after all. But everyone can be a supreme surgeon in London. You have the means, the money and the right people to form your team. Isn't it far more challenging to build up a team from scratch? To do it where no one else has ever operated at that level?"

"You mean…you would?" Tears are streaming from Louisa's eyes now.

I take her firmly into my arms. I hug her. I don't care that we are standing in the schoolyard and that the whole of Portwenn parades by and sees us. I feel tears prickling in my eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me? You really should have told me." I whisper into her hair.

"Told you what?"

"How unhappy you were in London. How much you missed Portwenn. I was so blind."

"It was my decision. I offered to go to London with you. I knew that I had never liked London. I knew what I had got myself into. I couldn't blame you. It wasn't your fault."

"I was just too bloody selfish. I was so content about me getting everything I ever wanted, I didn't even see that you were withering away."

"I was doing fine. Everything seemed to fall into place for you. I could see how happy you were. I didn't want you to lose that."

"Promise me, promise me never to keep anything like that away from me ever again. You've got to tell me what you need. I'm so blind."

"I wouldn't say that. How did you find out?"

"It was the distance, I suppose. I missed you so terribly, and whenever I closed my eyes, I saw your picture before me – but the only ones I remembered were from Portwenn. I never once saw you in London."

"I started thinking how that could be and I realised that I still loved Louisa Glasson, White Rose Cottage, Portwenn, not Louisa Ellingham, Kensington, London."

"We're not married, so I'm still Glasson."

"I made you an Ellingham more than I liked. It was more complete than by simply changing your surname. I made you unhappy, although I loved you for being anything but. Please, never leave me again."

"I never even once thought of leaving you."

"But you did. You didn't move out, but you drifted away. I want you back. Please, come back to me."

Louisa clings to my neck and still embracing her, I lift her up, just as I had when I had proposed all those years ago. I gently sway her as I had then and it feels so right.

When I put her down and look at her, I see the old twinkling in her eye. She pulls my head down.

"You're so sweet, I think you deserve a reward." She kisses me, and this is all the reward I need.

"Only if you're paying in kind." I tell her.

"Is there any other way?" She asks me and her mouth as well as her eyes are smiling now. "You know, one of my street kids told me what she'd done with her boyfriend recently." She pulls my head down and tells me in a whisper exactly what this teenage girl had done. I gasp.

"That's disgusting!"

"Yeah, I thought so, too, at first. I think she just told me to shock me. But come to think of it…if you're doing it with the right man…"

"But that's…that's…" I feel myself blushing. My throat is dry, my mouth agape, and I'm sure I've taken on a shade of deep crimson by now.

"I was quite shocked at first, too, but I have to confess, I can't get it out of my head."

"You're not suggesting…?!"

Louisa laughs. "Maybe not. Maybe I'm just teasing you. Maybe."

Now she did it again. For the first time in years. She took me completely by surprise. She caught me off-guard and I still don't know where I stand. She shocked me, embarrassed me and I love her for it. She had shaken my safe little world and made me feel alive. She put images in my head that I would have never dreamt of, but I also know that they will be hard to shake.

To be continued…