Disclaimer: Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures. I own nothing except my imagination.
Back To The Real World
Louisa walked into her office at Portwenn Primary School at the start of the term in January, and looked round. It felt familiar and yet strange at the same time. It didn't look as if the Acting Head - Neil Godwin - had changed too many things – she had seen him here on several occasions when she'd popped in to help with various queries, and she'd had to resist the temptation to interfere too much – she knew that she had to let him get on with it. It would have been very easy for her to have called in to the school nearly every day, she could have brought Luke with her after all. But she was on maternity leave and she had her nursery project to work on, so she had resisted the temptation. She was now reaping the benefits of that project, as she had just left Luke in the nursery this morning for the first time. It had been such a wrench leaving him, especially as he had cried. She really wasn't sure how he was going to take to this change to his routine, but he was just going to have to get used to it. He was very near by after all, with fantastic staff that she had personally helped to recruit and a very well equipped nursery unit. It was the best arrangement that she could possibly have hoped for. And she really was looking forward to getting back to her job, which she loved.
She was disturbed from her reverie by Sally Chadwick, the school secretary, coming in to her office, holding various folders and papers.
"Welcome back, Miss Glasson," Sally said.
"Ah right yes, err… please could you advise all the staff that with immediate effect the pupils should call me 'Mrs Ellingham'," Louisa said with a little smile on her face. "I'm sorry if this means changing any of the paperwork that you've already prepared. I thought that we could include this update in the next newsletter that goes out?"
"You mean…that you and Doctor Ellingham have got married? I'm sorry, nobody told me or I would have got everything prepared and changed already," Sally said, taken completely by surprise.
"Yes, we are married, we got married just before Christmas actually, and by some miracle we've managed to keep it to ourselves for a little while. So, it's not just you Sally, nobody in the village knows yet – well apart from Joan of course. We didn't want any fuss, not after last time…" Louisa explained.
"Ah well yes, I suppose after that fiasco…So, congratulations Mrs Ellingham!" Sally beamed at her, noticing now that Louisa was wearing a wedding ring. She hurried out of the office to go and tell as many people as she could find about this latest piece of valuable news.
Louisa gave a little sigh. The cat was out of the bag now – she knew that the news would be all round the village in a matter of minutes. Everything had been so lovely and private up to now, she and Martin had known that they could trust Joan and Chris and Jenny Parsons to keep quiet about their Wedding, as they had asked them.
Louisa smiled to herself as she thought about their lovely first Christmas together, with Luke … but then the very raw memory of leaving him crying this morning jolted her out of her daydreaming. She'd been pretty close to tears herself as she'd walked away. The staff had assured her that most babies were like this to start with, but that they soon settled and it was best just to leave him with them without prolonging the goodbye.
"This is no good, Luke will be just fine. I must concentrate on getting back into the swing of things again. Right, let's see what kind of a job Neil actually did while I was away," she told herself sternly.
xXx
Pauline screamed out in amazement at the news being conveyed to her on the telephone in the surgery reception that same morning, before any patients had arrived.
"You're kidding me – you sure this isn't some kind of joke, Al Large, the Doc hasn't said a word to me about getting married, and you're saying it happened before Christmas? Even if it's true, he'd at least told me when we came back to work after the break, he'd want me to know," Pauline insisted. In her mind, she believed that Martin relied on her completely to support him both in and out of the surgery so she was sure that he would've taken her into his confidence on such an important matter.
"I'm telling you Pauline, this is straight from the school, everyone's talking about it. On her first day back as Head Teacher, Louisa coolly announces that she is now Mrs Ellingham – first anyone knew about it, apparently they sneaked off and got married before Christmas then just kept it quiet. Dad's pretty miffed, but he still thinks he might be able to persuade them to have a belated reception do at the restaurant," Al told Pauline.
"Right, well I'll talk to you later, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. Makes me look a right pillock if I didn't know the Doc was married." Pauline put down the phone and hurried in to the surgery to confront Martin.
As she marched in, she glanced at Martin's left hand and cursed herself for not noticing sooner that Martin was wearing a ring on his left hand, instead of his right – why hadn't she noticed before? Then she saw, on his desk, a double photo frame. Actually Martin had only brought this into work today, on Louisa's insistence. On one side of it was a photo of Luke, looking very cute with a big smile on his face. On the other side was a photo of Martin and Louisa – she was wearing a simple but beautiful cream silk knee length dress with a red rose corsage, and Martin was wearing his grey pin stripe suit (Louisa's favourite), also with a red rose corsage.
"I want you to have these pictures with you so that you don't completely forget about us while you're at work," Louisa had told him. She was taking an identical frame to put in her office too.
"Don't be ridiculous, Louisa, I think I am just about capable of remembering you both for the few hours that I am at work," Martin had replied gruffly, but really rather liking the idea of having the photos with him. He had decided that he would have them on his desk, where he could easily see them, not hidden away from view, even if it did mean that his incredibly nosy patients might see them as well. He could deal with them.
Pauline did a double take at the photo because she could swear that the Doc seemed to be smiling in it – 'I'm surprised the camera lens didn't crack if he was actually smiling,' she thought to herself.
"It's true then – you and Miss Glasson have sneaked off and got married?" Pauline quizzed him.
"It really is none of your business Pauline, but for future reference, yes, Miss Glasson and I are now married," Martin briefly answered, not looking up as he carried on reading his patient notes in preparation for surgery. He had no intention of discussing any further details, but Pauline wasn't giving up that easily.
"So why didn't you tell anyone, especially me – I could've been bridesmaid again, I've still got the dress from last time, it hardly got worn after all… Al could've been Best Man, Bert would've done you another lovely reception – why would you want to miss out on all that?" Pauline asked Martin, genuinely puzzled.
Martin looked up at her in sheer horror and disbelief, not quite believing what he was hearing.
Seeing his expression, Pauline exclaimed,
"Ah, I get it, it was because you thought she might jilt you again, wasn't it? What did you do, take her to the Wedding yourself to make sure she turned up this time? And then you wanted to be sure she wasn't gonna run off again, so you waited a while before letting on, to be sure, like? Suppose I can't really blame you, sooo embarrassing for you last time, you poor thing," she said sympathetically.
Most people in the village didn't really believe that it had been a mutual decision to call off their previous wedding, they thought that it was Louisa who had come to her senses about marrying the old misery guts. Well except maybe Mrs Tishell and Mrs Wilson, who thought that it was Martin who had had a lucky escape when he'd finally realised that Louisa wasn't good enough for him. However, now that they had a baby together, things were different, was the general consensus.
"For God's sake Pauline, get back to your desk and MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS," Martin barked at her. "And make sure that you warn all of my patients that they had better have a genuine medical reason for attending my surgery. I will not be discussing my private life, and I will eject any moronic, intrusive time wasters who attempt to elicit any kind of personal information from me."
"Aww, I think it's really sweet that you actually managed to get her to marry you this time. I guess she must've decided she could live with the whole 'Bi' thing after all."
Pauline sighed happily as she went back to her desk. She'd never believed that he been 'researching' for a patient when she'd caught him looking at the bi- sexual and gay web sites that time. Well, whatever rocked his boat...
The Chemist shop remained closed all day. Mrs Tishell was seen only briefly, dressed completely in black as if in mourning.