A new nickname
It was the week before Christmas. While in Portwenn, the villagers became jollier and happier with the upcoming festivities, Doctor Martin Ellingham seemed to be even grumpier than usual.
Everybody except the Doc enjoyed the view of the village, in the middle of the plat, the Christmas tree made out of Lobsterpots, decorated with a string of colourful lightbulbs and bells and stars made by the school children during the pre-holiday projects.
Most cottage doors were decorated with wreaths, all made by the villagers as well, as part of a "most beautiful Christmas wreath" contest, initiated by Bert Large, who arranged that several of the shops sponsored prices for the winners and who most generously promised a free Christmas dinner for the first price winner and his or her family. Only one house in the village was deprived of any form of decoration. No wreath on the surgery door, no Christmas tree on the terrace..
Everywhere in the village, you saw people with beautifully wrapped presents, sometimes hiding them hastily under their coats or behind their backs when a potential receiver of the present came across the street at the same time.
Pauline had decorated her desk with a tiny fake Christmas tree with pink and blue decorations and white flashing lights. The most distasteful thing Martin had ever seen in his life, but he had learnt in his relatively short time in Portwenn, that the more he would express his disgust, the more ugly kitsch objects would appear on her desk. Her clothes, already a horror throughout the year, if you asked him, had become more extravagant now. Martin really wondered where on earth one could buy knitted pullovers with reindeers, father Christmases, bells and even a plum pudding and little mince pies on it. He wasn't even surprised when she arrived at the surgery one morning, wearing Christmas tree decoration as earrings.
With all the cheer and happiness around him, Martin became even more secluded and during the medical visits at the surgery that some of them still needed to undergo, the villagers were even more than usual bombed with words like "Idiot" or "time waster".
As he didn't participate to any of the festivities like the tree lighting, the carol singing and the wreath-competition, the gang of teenaged girls that always seemed to hang around his surgery, started to call him Scrooge instead of tosser.
Although everybody always seemed to think that he wasn't aware of anything, he knew it and he felt really sad about it. Not that he would ever show it, of course. He just hid himself even more inside of the surgery and spent more time on repairing another clock.
Louisa Glasson, the beautiful headteacher of Portwenn primary school, was quite the opposite of Martin. She participated in every possible Christmas activity and her house was tastefully decorated with just one medium large Christmas tree with silver balls and some pretty angels made of blown glass. The wreath she had hung on her light blue front door, was one that would get many votes for the best one in town. Louisa had put a lot of effort in tying tiny silver and blue bows and ribbons to the pine branches that formed the wreath. It looked simple, but as each bow had been knotted manually, it showed the crafting skills of the maker.
Louisa also put a lot of time in finding the right Christmas present for each of her friends. Many of them were also fruits of her creative imagination and crafting skills. The most difficult person to find something special for, was Martin. Like the other villagers, she also had noticed that he became more and more sombre and even bitter lately. He had to be cheered up, but how?
After one of the first times Martin had heard his new nickname, it was nearly closing time for the surgery. It hit him like a slap in the face and he had difficulties to keep a straight face until after the last patient and Pauline had left. He slammed the door closed and locked it, transferred the telephone line to the Wadebridge surgery and just found the energy to sit down on the sofa in the dark living room, not even bothering to flip the lights on.
Suddenly feeling very tired, he ran his hand over his eyes. He just sat there for countless time, permitting his thoughts to wander away from the present. His memories brought him back to when he was a very young boy, about five or six and at home from boarding school for the Christmas holidays. Upon the orders of his demanding mother, the servants had been decorating the house and made it the most abundantly decorated house in the whole street.
The entire household was preparing the many dinners and parties that were about to take place in the coming weeks at the Ellingham residence. As young as he was, Martin knew that the best thing he could do was to stay out of the way and amuse himself one way or another in his own room. He decided to try some crafting and drawing, hoping to please his mother and father with the efforts he put in it.
He pulled out his colour pencils and paper and made the most beautiful Christmas drawing he had ever made. With a high tree full of colourful balls and stars and a happy family singing Christmas carols in front of it. A family of three persons, Daddy, Mummy and Martin. on the drawing, the little boy was smiling and holding hands with both of them. He worked on it for hours and was rather satisfied with the result. He also made a cover for it, addressed it "to Mummy and Daddy" and tied a red string around it. He wondered what would be the best way to give it to them and concluded that he should put it under the Christmas tree. Then they could open it on boxing day. Father Christmas surely won't mind me doing that, he reasoned. He felt happy and excited and looked forward to their surprised looks and even dared to imagine that his mother would give him a thankful hug and that he would get an encouraging pat on the shoulder from his father.
How utterly disappointing had it been, the moment he had so much been looking forward to… On Boxing day morning, his parents had apparently just found the energy to come out of their bed, clearly still suffering from the hangover of the previous evening, but with just enough sense of parental responsibility to be present when their son would open his expensive gifts.
Martin enthusiastically handed them the present he made for them, thrilled and nearly jumping up and down from excitement. Disdainful, his mother took it from him and nearly tore it apart by pulling to roughly on the ribbon.
When she finally managed to get the drawing out of the sleeve, she looked at it with disgust and said in a screeching tone: "What a disgraceful attempt of a drawing this is! Don't they teach you anything at that expensive school we sent you to? It doesn't even look like a Christmas tree and who are these poor creatures supposed to be?" and then she took the painting and threw it in the fire place. Flames immediately started licking the paper and soon it was nothing more than ashes..
Expecting everything but this reaction, Martin stood in shock in front of his parents, tears in his eyes and not capable to say anything. Then his father managed to shatter in thousand pieces his belief in the magic of Christmas by saying "So, you gave us something now. It certainly means that all the time you knew it was us who put presents under the tree? Well you are right son, there is no Father Christmas and because you upset your mother so much, we will return all your presents to the shop!" he shook his head and added "You could have spent some of your pocket money to buy us some decent presents, but all you did was this! You'll end up like Scrooge, you little miser! Now go to your room and stay there! I'll arrange that you can go back to school tomorrow".
Oblivious of the world around him and totally absorbed by the unpleasant reverie of the past, Martin didn't notice that someone was peeking into his dark living room from one of the windows. It was Louisa, who had hoped to get in contact with Martin and find out what he would wish as a Christmas present. The first part of her mission failed, because both the front door and the backdoor were hermetically locked, but what she saw through the window helped her with her goal anyway. Somehow, she had always had a weak spot in her heart for this tall, grumpy and ever so lonely man. In many ways they were different, but although handling it in a totally different way, she concluded that celebrating Christmas was emotionally very difficult for both of them and she was determined to do something about it. Without making any noise, she moved back from the window and returned home.
Martin shook his head and said to himself that he didn't want to be called Scrooge. "Ellingham, do something about it then!", he encouraged himself. The first step he took was to drink a glass of water and to prepare himself a simple supper, consisting of some cold salmon left overs that he turned in a salad. He ate it with a slice of toast and he drank another glass of water.
Then he installed himself at his desk and started to dress a list of names and things, presents, he had to purchase for them. He couldn't possible buy something for the whole village, but that could easily be solved with a check for the RNLI. The RNLI could always use extra funds and it would serve the whole community as well. He would send the check to Nicky B, owner of the pasty shop, who was also member of the Portwenn RNLI rescue team.
On his list of persons for whom he would buy a more personal gift, were Pauline, AL and then of course he had to add Bert as well, Penhale and Mrs. Tishell – he couldn't bypass her, it would probably kill her… He searched on the Internet for appropriate presents and was rather pleased with the results. Mrs. Tishel would get a book entitled "The most professional way of customer care". For Pauline, he also bought a book. Knowing that she was interested in becoming a nurse or a midwife, he bought her a book from the Call the midwife series. Al was an easy person to find a present for. He had noticed that Al looked jealously to the toolset he used for his clock and bought him a similar set that Al could use for his computer repair activities. Bert would get a book with healthy recipes like salads and fish stews. Finding something for Joe Penhale was the most difficult part of the exercise. Finally he bought him a yoga mat and a book with yoga exercises, hoping that it would take away a bit of the man's ever present stress.
His Aunt Joan wasn't in Portwenn this Christmas, because she was visiting her sister, but he had already fulfilled their expectations and sent something at the address of his aunt Ruth in London. Last but not least Louisa, the most beautiful girl of the world that hardly ever was out of his thoughts. He already knew what he would give her. It wasn't for nothing that he had worked so hard on the small antique standing clock that would be perfect on her mantelpiece.
Organizing all these presents and placing the orders online, took the whole evening, but once the job done, Martin felt contented. He prepared for bed and for the first time since the start of December, he fell asleep immediately and slept like a log.
To be continued
I know that some of you are looking forward to the next chapter of How to deal.., but this short story popped up in m imagination and I wanted to share it with all of you. A Merry Christmas to you all!