Chapter 101.
Being local, Joan knew where all the likely parking spots were and was able to get one close to the café. They went inside and ordered. They sat outside under an umbrella, waiting for their drinks to arrive.
Eventually two cups and a pot of tea were set before them. The waitress, Polly Williams, offered them a selection of cakes. Louisa picked the smallest chocolate cake, whilst Joan had a scone with cream and jam.
Joan poured the tea and they were soon chatting away about the happenings in the village. Once Louisa had finished her cake she leaned towards Joan and said quietly, "Have you heard any gossip about Martin?"
"Not really. No more than the grumblings about his diagnoses along the lines of 'he told me to lose weight' or 'he told me to stop drinking' – just the usual. Why?"
Louisa then told her what Mrs T had said. Joan was shocked! "The nerve of that woman! When I think about what's being said about her infatuation with Martin, she should just button it. Definitely pot and kettle there. Luckily, Martin is so bound up with you that he scarcely notices anything."
"She, told me she'd not spoken to anyone about it. If you've not heard anything by now, perhaps she was telling the truth, for a change."
"When was this, Louisa?"
"About two weeks ago now."
Joan thought for a minute. "There was a WI outing that weekend. Both Dawn Lamb and Mrs Poustie were on it. I bet it's because she didn't see them that she kept it to herself." Joan looked pleased with working this out.
Louisa sighed with relief. Hopefully Joan was correct and the threat hanging over them would retreat fully.
The chat moved on to other things and Louisa was telling Joan that Martin was teaching her how to cook! "You know how he likes to eat all these different fish, well the best I could offer is fish and chips, like we had the other night. That is just not going to work for us. Anyway while we were on holiday, I asked him to teach me a few of his more exotic dishes."
"I could show you how I do my chicken casserole, if you think that would help? Maybe even my Christmas cake! Mind, you'd be sworn to strict secrecy over that!" Joan giggled.
Louisa looked immensely grateful. "Joan, everyone in the village talks about your Christmas cake. It's famous."
Joan put her finger to her lips – "shush, you don't know who's listening."
They talked some more and finished their drinks. "Do you want a lift up to the surgery, Louisa?"
"No thanks, Joan. I need the exercise to work off those calories I've just ingested."
"Well, I'll get home to the chickens. Bye for now."
Louisa picked up her bag of books and made her way up the hill. When she got in, she dumped her books on the coffee table and went through to see how Martin had fared with the clock.
She opened the surgery door and when he looked up, gave him a big smile. His chest expanded as he looked at her glowing face. "I came to see how you were getting on with the clock? Did the cog work?"
"Well, it's definitely bigger than the original, but I need to put a few more pieces together before I can test it. Then we'll see."
"I had a cup of tea with Joan at the café. Do you want one now?"
Martin opened his mouth to query her ingestion of extraneous calories and then closed it again. "Er, yes please. That would be fine. Good."
She blew him a kiss. "Thank you," and went to get his drink.
When she returned the quiet ticking of the clock told her he'd been successful. "Martin! That's brilliant. Does it chime?" No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the clock rang with a low melody of bells.
He looked up at her, and smiled with enjoyment. "Got it!"
Louisa looked around the room. "Where are you going to put it?"
He indicated the chest of drawers behind him. "Here, next to the Buddha. It doesn't take up much room, and nor does it ring too loudly. Thank you again, Louisa. I'll just put away my tools and clean the desk, then I'll come and join you."
Louisa had placed her books on the shelf, put a load of washing into the machine and was clearing a space on the countertop, ready for her lesson.
"Come and have a sit down for a while. It's too early to begin cooking. What else did Joan have to say?"
Louisa explained about Mrs T's comments and then told him that Joan had worked out that the other chief gossips were away that weekend on a WI trip. "So maybe that's why Mrs T didn't tell anyone?"
"Seems logical," said Martin.
"Yes. I told Joan you were going to show me how to cook some more exotic dishes, and she said she'd show me how to do the chicken casserole. Not only that, she promised to show me how to make her Christmas cake! Although that would be strictly on a need-to-know basis. I've been sworn to absolute secrecy!" she twinkled at him.
With an enormous effort, Martin managed to keep quiet. Although he did say that Joan's Christmas cake was well-known in family circles as being the best one. "Are you going for a nap, Louisa? If you do, I'll take some of these leaflets and put them on display at strategic points."
"Yes, I'll go upstairs and do that. Make sure you wake me when you come back in, please?"
He agreed and went into his surgery to get the leaflets. He locked the doors on his way out and set off down the hill.
Bert accosted him as he reached the stairs going down to the restaurant. "Here, Doc. Is it right you're shutting the surgery on a Saturday morning?"
"Yes Bert, but only the first and third Saturdays in the month. I'll be open the other days."
"Might cause a lot of upset, that, mind."
"Well, people will have to get used to it, Bert. I'll need my family time the same as everyone else, with the new baby and Louisa to consider."
Bert took that on board and could see that Martin was right. "OK Doc. I'll pass the word."
Martin was surprised to get such quick agreement from the chubby man. "Bye for now, Bert. I'm going to put some more of these up around the village." He didn't wait for an answer, but strode off and went down to the village hall.
He called in at the pub, supermarket and fish market, leaving leaflets wherever he could. Several people came up to him to protest, but could do nothing more when he told them he had the backing of the PCT.
Eventually he arrived back at the surgery and went upstairs to wake Louisa. She was laid on top of the bed, snoring gently. Kneeling down he kissed her cheek. "Come on Beauty. Time to get up." He told her.
Her eyes fluttered open. "Are you sure? I've only just got to sleep!"
"Hmm. You've had an hour. Come on, I'll make you some tea before we start on our meal."
When she got downstairs the drink was on the coffee table and Martin was sat on the couch with his.
"Did you get your posters up then?"
"Most of them. I'm leaving the one for the pharmacy until Monday. As you might have guessed, Bert was the first person I saw. He opined that this could cause trouble. However when I explained I needed time for my family, and I had the backing of the PCT he was much more receptive."
"How about you tell them the hours you actually do work? With the call-outs, hospital visits and your general surgery time? Then ask them if they put that many hours into their jobs?" Louisa was indignant on Martin's behalf.
He reached across and took her hand, "Easy there, tiger. It's not good for you or Junior if your blood pressure goes up too high, but thank you."
"Have you finished your tea, Louisa?"
"OK, come on we'll go and make a start. I'll put the oven on, 180°C in a fan oven. You get the veg. Potatoes, onion, tomatoes, half a lemon, 2 garlic cloves, some chopped fresh oregano, and small portion of fresh chopped parsley."
He got the pollock fillets out of the fridge. Eric had already removed the skin.
She washed and chopped the potatoes into wedges, halved and sliced the onion, roughly chopped the garlic, and added 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the roasting dish.
"Right, potatoes, onion, garlic, oregano and olive oil into this roasting pan. Mixing them up so they get coated with the oil. Season and mix again. Now, put it in the oven for 15 minutes."
They did that and sat down to talk about their everyday lives.
When the timer buzzed Louisa got up and mixed the vegetables up again before returning the pan to the oven for another 15 minutes. The timer went off again and she turned the mix once more before adding the wedges of lemon and halved tomatoes. That went back for another 10 minutes.
Eventually the fish steaks were placed on top of the vegetables and the whole lot went back in to the oven for a further 10 minutes, while the fish cooked.
Martin put the kettle on and made fresh tea. As soon as the time was up Louisa took the pan out and Martin checked that the fish was cooked. He showed her the moist white flakes which looked the same colour from top to bottom of the fillet.
Taking the warmed plates he served the meal and they sat down to eat it.
"I know this was relatively simple, Louisa, but start off slowly to get your confidence up and then we'll tackle a more in-depth recipe."
"Yes. It did seem very simple, but the taste is lovely. I'll be doing this again." She smiled over at him and he was struck yet again, by how lovely she was.
"I'll wash up – you go and rest," Martin picked up the plates and went to the sink. "What are we doing tomorrow? Any ideas?"
"If the weather's going to be good, how about we go up to Tintagel and have a look around there? Have you been?" Louisa just wanted to get away for the day. A run out seemed the perfect opportunity.
"You put the TV on and see if there's a forecast of the weather."
There wasn't one until later. "I'll go and get my laptop. There'll be one on there." She went and picked it up before searching the web to find a suitable site. Eventually she found out that the day would start with some showers but would gradually brighten to warm sunshine later on. She looked then at the Tintagel site and saw they would have to book to go into the castle.
"Yes, I'd like to go," Martin seemed as keen as she was to get out of the village.
They relaxed together with Louisa reading one of her books while he searched his BMJ's.
Eventually she opted for a bath and he waited for her shout to come and get her out. She brushed her hair and climbed into bed. After his shower she just snuggled into him and before long they were fast asleep.
After breakfast they set out on the short journey to Tintagel. At only 12 miles distance from Portwenn Martin knew that it wouldn't take him very long to get back if he were to be called out. He'd put his medical bag in the boot of the car and was looking forwards to an unexpected relaxing day.
"Have you been before, Louisa?"
"I was with the school party which came here, before your time though. It was fascinating to realise how old the castle was. There's this statue, or sculpture rather, of a medieval Knight. They call it King Arthur. Looked at from one angle it appears so commanding, but when you move around him it looks tattered."
They pulled up into the carpark and set off for the castle. The walkway down was a bit steep in places and they were glad of their walking shoes. In places it was quite steep but levelled out before they reached the new bridge*. Looking down to the floor of the valley they could see the old steps going down, before equally steeply rising to the ruins of the castle. The bridge was a beautiful construction, cantilevered style. They walked along and came to the small gap in the middle. Looking down again into the ravine, the seawater looked almost turquoise. "Apparently there are a lot of copper deposits in the slate, so that when the sun shines on the water it shows up the colour of the copper salts," Martin explained.
He looked at Louisa and saw that she appeared to be somewhat tired. "I don't think we should go any further. We'll come back when Junior is old enough to walk around. I don't want to risk your health."
"But you haven't seen the rest of the castle, nor King Arthur's statue!" protested Louisa.
"None of which matters a jot, compared to you being ill through exhaustion. Come, sit down here and we'll admire the view for a while before returning to the car."
She eased herself down on the grass and internally was grateful for the rest. She hadn't realised how demanding the walk down had been. She was very glad they hadn't had to use those steep steps!
They returned to the car, in stages. Making sure to rest as they climbed back up.
"We'll go and have a meal at that King Arthur's pub we saw as we came in. As well as have something to drink." Martin declared.
The hostelry looked as if it passed basic hygiene standards, so they elected to sit outside with their sandwiches and a cold fruit juice drink.
"I'm sorry I spoiled our day, Martin. I was looking forward to going around the entire castle."
"It is not your fault, Louisa. If anything it is mine. I should have known that it was likely to be hilly and found somewhere else instead."
Louisa felt herself welling up and turned away to hide the tear slipping down her cheek.
He glanced across at her and saw she was emotional. "Hey, hey, hey. Don't get upset. We will come back, eventually."
Louisa gave a watery smile and nodded. "I know, it's just things sometimes get on top of me. I'll be fine in a couple of minutes," she explained.
"Have you had enough to eat? Go and visit the amenities and we'll go back to the car."
They stood up and they both went to the toilets.
Getting back into the car he knew she was still tired. "We'll go home and have a quiet afternoon. OK?"
They hadn't been travelling more than a few minutes and she was fast asleep. In no time at all they were back at home. "Louisa? Louisa, we're home again."
Startled she looked around. "Oh! That didn't take long!"
"No, the castle is actually not that far away, so we don't need to worry about returning there."
Martin retrieved his bag from the back of the car and followed her into the house. "Go upstairs and have a longer rest. I'll call you in an hour," he suggested.
Wearily, she went up to the bedroom, took off her boots, (not without some difficulty) and climbed onto the bed.
When he came to rouse her an hour later, he found her hot to the touch. Getting an aural thermometer he saw her temperature was elevated. She was sniffling and he thought she's got a cold. That's why she's tired.
"Louisa, wake up."
She woke up at his voice, but didn't feel rested. "What's the matter with me? I'm tired and I've had a sleep."
"I think you've got a cold coming on. Come downstairs and I'll make you a drink."
As the day went on, she just picked at her food and looked even more woebegone. She began to shiver and Martin ushered her back to bed. "I'll leave a drink here, Louisa. You just rest and we'll see what you are like in the morning." He bent and kissed her cheek before leaving the room.
*Bridge – the bridge was actually built in 2019, but I've taken the liberty of moving the build date to an earlier time. Sprintz
