Resignation

The characters, places and situations of Doc Martin, are owned by Buffalo Pictures. This story makes no claim of remuneration or ownership, nor do I make any attempt to infringe upon any rights of the owners or producers.

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It had been a hell of a day fraught with all the usual - stupid and recalcitrant patients, a receptionist who at times seemed bent on driving me mad, and the row that Louisa and I had the night before. Yet the row had turned into a heart to heart that had been needed. I knew that Louisa worried, but the very idea of me being with Edith Montgomery made me sick to my stomach. Then the phone rang in the consulting room just after Pauline had left for the day.

Louisa was napping up stairs so I grabbed the phone quickly. "Portwenn Surgery. Doctor Ellingham speaking."

"Mart, I've spoken to Robert Dashwood," Chris Parsons said into my ear.

"I imagine he's preparing the boiling oil."

He laughed. "Hardly. He may be head of surgery but he's not part of the Inquisition."

I sighed. "Don't be so sure." When I was head of registrars I'd have skinned me alive.

"Martin look, Dashwood is prepared to withdraw his complaint."

"I know."

"You do? How?"

"I spoke to Robert three days ago."

"Bloody Hell! Mart, I practically went crawling to the man on my knees! And here you've…"

"I believe the words are 'made a clean breast of it'. That's what I've done."

He sighed into his phone. "Maybe that's for the best, then."

"I was reminded by someone that truth has a way of cutting to the quick - getting to the heart of the matter."

Chris chuckled again. "Figures you'd use a surgery metaphor. But what did you tell him?"

How to tell Parsons that I'd made an ass of myself? "I told him that my… issues… had not been resolved."

"How did he take it?"

I swallowed slowly. "He… was quite… cross."

"I imagine cross doesn't begin to cover it! He fairly screamed at me when I talked to him about you, old chum!"

Chum was hardly what I imagine Chris Parsons thought was our kind of connection. "Chris, if I have made things inconvenient for you…"

"Inconvenient! My God Mart! Do you have any idea of the trouble this has caused me and the PCT? Bad enough they think we're all a bunch of farmers, smugglers, and pirates out here! That we eat fried kippers at every meal and swill it down with cider or rum! MART! You made all of us look bad!"

It was worse than I feared. "Chris, you'll have my resignation in the morning."

"Resignation? Oh, no! You'll not get off that easy! After this…"

"Yeah?"

"You're stuck here with the rest of the rubes, Mart old boy; stuck good and proper!"

I gasped at the thought. "I… I… hadn't imagined."

To my horror Parsons started to laugh and it was the sort of laugh that went on and on.

"Chris!"

But he would not stop.

"Oh for God's sake!" I shouted into the phone. I didn't like to be laughed at, and especially not by a colleague, or by my boss. Jokes at my expense were all too painful; bringing back any number of bad memories.

"Sorry, Martin! I should have driven out to Portwenn and pulled this on you in person just so I could see your face!" He giggled. "Mart, the truth of the matter is that Dashwood was quite cordial."

"Oh really."

"Yep. Seems your call took the wind out of his sails. All the fire he might have sent my way was defused when you called and gave him the simple truth."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Great. Swell."

"But this much is true, you know Mart old boy, you are good and truly sentenced to Portwenn, like it or not."

I sighed.

"What was that Mart? I didn't catch that."

I heard footsteps on the stair then Louisa came through the door.

"Hi," she said in her soft voice. Louisa held out her left hand where the engagement ring circled her pinky finger and smiled at me.

In less than four weeks the baby was due and no matter what I might think or do the child would have a mum and a dad. Louisa's face lit up as she looked at me, and I suppose the row of the previous night must have cleared the air between us. The fact that she was wearing the engagement ring once more must mean something.

"I got that Chris - I'm stuck out here," I said into the phone.

"Resigned to your fate? But with Louisa it can't be that awful, can it?"

"No." I hung up and Louisa came around the desk and perched on the arm of my desk chair.

"You okay?"

"Fine," I told her, and I almost believed it myself, but the words resigned to my fate had such an awful ring to them.