After they shared a relatively quiet and contemplative breakfast, Martin waited patiently, ensuring that Louisa ate everything he'd prepared for her, before excusing himself and slipping upstairs. She had offered to take care of the dishes and covertly watched him walk away as she dealt unenthusiastically with eggshells, toast crumbs and the dregs from the teapot.
Martin slipped upstairs, disconcerted and now more than a little annoyed, to search his room for the missing Medical journals. He wasn't in the habit of misplacing things, and he knew that he'd had them when he arrived because he had marked an article from the Keynote speaker at the Brighton conference that he and Edith had attended several months ago. In hindsight, it had been a very strange and discomfiting weekend and he still found the circumstances rather baffling. Initially, he had not been particularly keen to attend but Edith had demanded that he accompany her. Then, at the last minute, she had suggested that they have separate rooms and, though surprised, Martin was more than happy to oblige; solitude and isolation had always been his preference.
They had travelled down separately and he'd only seen her briefly at the registration stage on the first evening before she'd disappeared again. The next morning, he'd sat through one tedious and one mildly interesting presentation alone but had fully expected her to join him for the key note speaker, late on the first afternoon. When there was no sign of her, he became slightly annoyed and rather resentful until the speaker turned out to be first-rate and the subject matter actually quite fascinating. After eating dinner alone in his room, Martin was preparing for an early night when she knocked insistently on his door, demanding to be let in. He was perturbed to discover that she appeared slightly inebriated, which was unusual and disturbing especially as Edith was not known to imbibe. Worse still, she was a both a bit dishevelled and in a heightened state of amorous intent. Completely repulsed, he told her so in no uncertain terms, and coldly sent her on her way. It was quite an unpleasant situation, he reflected later and, undoubtedly, the catalyst for the subsequent decline of their relationship. The next morning, uncomfortable and aggrieved, he checked out early and was on the first train home.
Later, Edith had claimed it was all just a misunderstanding and attempted, half-heartedly to patch things up with him but the seed of doubt had been sown in Martin's mind. Yet, when he had seen the article in his medical journal, detailing the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre's historic human embryo transfer success, which had been referenced extensively at the Brighton conference by the Keynote speaker, his immediate reaction was to share it with her. He'd marked it and set it aside but, now, both Edith and the journals were gone and he felt a surprising pang of regret. Because, despite the fact that he no longer trusted her, nor desired any sort of physical closeness between them, intellectually she had fulfilled a need within him and it pained him to think that he would never again experience the rigorous and challenging cut and thrust of their medical debates. Immediately, a tiny voice in his head told him that it was a small price to pay and, recalling her increasingly distasteful and lascivious behaviour over the last few months, he chose, this time, to listen.
Standing in his childhood bedroom, he recalled the Brighton conference, and suddenly felt compelled to change the sheets on the bed Edith had taken from him. He folded the counter pane and placed it on the chair, and was in the process of removing the linen when he heard the phone ring downstairs. He stood for a moment, wondering if he should run downstairs until, with relief, he heard Louisa answer, and he relaxed. His attention was drawn immediately to smears of what he assumed was lipstick across Auntie Joan's crisp white pillow slips. He scowled in annoyance, the marks only serving to cement his dislike for what he considered to be the abhorrent practice of women painting their faces. Why, he raged to himself, would any woman choose to use such pore-clogging chemicals on their skin, especially when most were of such dubious benefit and came at ridiculous expense. Bundling the bed linen into his arms, Martin marched downstairs, wondering with some annoyance just how he was going to return them to their formerly pristine, white state.
As the train approached Newton Abbot station, the official wranglers retrieved their clipboards and began to position themselves at the exit doors. The excited thrum that reverberated through the carriages increased in intensity as, for most, their final destination approached. Edith ignored the growing commotion as she ignored everything that was unpalatable or uninteresting; she stared pointedly out of window, thinking about herself. Her fond reverie was only disturbed when she was hit, brutally, in the ankle by the leg of a walking frame. Spinning her head around, she looked daggers at the offender and was about to fire off a salvo of insults until she realised that the woman with the walking frame was obviously deaf
"Despicable old crone." Edith thought to herself churlishly, as she leaned down to rub her bruised flesh.
As the train screeched to a standstill, the doors opened and the passengers spewed out onto the platform. Edith gave an audible sigh of relief, retrieving her bag from the floor and placing it, territorially, on the seat opposite. As the carriage filled again, a middle aged woman, accompanied by two young children, had the temerity to attempt to sit down but Edith hissed at the smallest one and it started, plaintively, to wail. The woman stared at Edith in horror, bundling the distraught child into her arms, and moved rapidly away down the carriage, eventually mouthing a few choice phrases back at her when she retreated to a safe distance.
Having reclaimed her personal space, Edith reached into her bag and pulled out the BMJ's that she had uplifted from the cottage. Scanning the table of contents indifferently, she yawned and tossed the first copy on to the seat next to her. On the cover of the second, she was intrigued to see her name written across the top right hand corner, and her interest was piqued. As she flipped it open, a small, neatly folded piece of paper, also sporting her name, fell into her lap. Absently, she picked it up, holding it between her thin bony fingers as she skimmed the articles. Clearly, Ellingham had wanted her input on one of the published studies and had marked it for her attention, but which one?
* Female sexual deviance: A theoretical and empirical analysis.
* The effect of age on the competitive C- and N-oxidative pathways of methaqualone in women
She glanced at the titles, the first eliciting a sly smile, and the second an alarmed raising of the eyebrows and a marked sensation of discomfort. An unpleasant thought occurred to her. Did Ellingham know? She had made a mistake going to his room at that bloody conference but she had still been floating along on the pills that the gorgeous American plastic surgeon had encouraged her to try. As fabulous and mind-broadening as it had all been, she mused with regret, it was probably now time to call it a day.
* Dopamine and serotonin metabolites in rat cerebroventricular fluid following withdrawal of haloperidol or electroshock treatment
* Cellulolytic activity of moulds. IV. Evaluation of the utility of cellulosic wastes for biosynthesis of cellulases and xylanase by Aspergillus terreus F-413
The next two didn't seem to have any significance to her other so she ruled them out immediately. Firstly she knew exactly how to encourage her adrenal glands to release dopamine and, secondly, she felt her chances of coming into contact with anyone exposed to the Aspergillus fungus were probably zero.
* Airway mucus: composition and regulation of its secretion by neuropeptides in vitro
* Surgical treatment of rectovaginal fistulae (a review of the literature)
She glanced at the next two titles; to Edith, airway mucus sounded quite unpleasant but also rather careless. She smirked at her own joke before twitching nervously and squirming slightly in her seat. A rectovaginal fistulae sounded even more dire; quite interesting if you were repairing someone else's but truly mortifying if it were ones own.
* Nonsurgical ovum transfer as a treatment for intractable infertility: what effectiveness can we realistically expect?
"Hmmm," she thought with chagrin. "The keynote speaker at Brighton. Apparently a brilliant presentation and I slept through it. "
Making the assumption that this was indeed the article that Ellingham had wanted to discuss with her, Edith attempted to focus on the abstract with the hope that she could use it as her opening gambit when she attempted to ingratiate herself with him again. But the excessive warmth of the carriage, the foetid and malodorous Eau de Geriatric that still blanketed the air, and the gentle rocking motion only served to overwhelm her with tiredness. She threw the magazine on top of the other and watched with annoyance as they both slid to the floor. Bending down to pick them up, she realised that she was still clutching Ellingham's book mark. Idly, she unfolded it and saw that seemed to be a few lines written faintly in pencil, then overwritten in ink in a hand that she definitely recognised as his. The paper was torn and badly creased but she could make out what appeared to be a poem of sorts.
'On my own no more.
The beat of my heart echoes
In time with another.
And now, sore with longing,
it runs like a child to its mother'
'What utter tosh!" Edith exclaimed, laughing scornfully, as she read it twice. "It doesn't even rhyme."
How excruciatingly embarrassing of Ellingham to want to write poetry for her. She leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes and folded her arms contemplatively. What on earth was he thinking? And, more importantly, what did it mean? This was not the Ellingham she knew. Edith was well aware, often to her great amusement, that he was excruciatingly socially inept but poetry? Really? What an absolute new low he had plummeted to.
But, after a few minutes of repose, her appalled expression was gradually transformed by a mean smirk and, when she opened her eyes, they were gleaming triumphantly. Taking care to fold it neatly, she slipped the poem into her purse, and searched for her powder compact in the bottom her handbag.
"One just never knows when it might be useful." She said, giving herself an admiring stare, and smiling wickedly into the tiny little mirror, feeling like she may just have won the lottery.
