Disclaimer: Doc Martin is the property of Buffalo Pictures. I own nothing except my imagination.

Chapter 3

Tears before bedtime

Luke didn't settle at nursery at all. He hated changes to his routine. For the first six months of his life, all he had known was being at home, with Louisa, or Martin, or Joan. For the most part he was perfectly happy and content with any of these people, the three most important people in his little world. Now all of a sudden, he was being abandoned, left with strange people, in a strange place. And there were other babies and children there too, and some of them were crying as well, which unsettled him even more. He didn't understand that his Mummy was only a short distance away, or that she would be coming back for him later on in the day. It didn't help that he had to be put for his sleep in a cot that he wasn't used to, because he'd outgrown his pram, and especially now that he could roll over, he had to be put in a proper cot. The Nursery Supervisor was determined to follow Health and Safety regulations to the letter – for all the children in her care, but especially with Doctor Ellingham's son – heaven help them if anything happened to him while he was in their care.

Louisa looked in at lunch time to check on Luke, and just as the staff were telling her that it had taken them all morning to settle him and it was probably best if he didn't see her just yet, Luke spotted her and started crying all over again. When she left again, he was inconsolable, finally sobbing himself to sleep for a while in the arms of a very experienced nursery nurse called Cheryl, who was looking after him that day.

Louisa had rung Martin for reassurance that she was doing the right thing in leaving Luke in the nursery, but unfortunately he'd been called out to a medical emergency, and by the time he had got back and returned her call, she was in a meeting – so he had no idea what had been happening.

That evening at home, Luke still clung to Louisa, even after she'd sorted him out and fed him. He'd started really crying again when she tried to put him down to start preparing their evening meal – normally he would happily sit and play for a while with some toys, but not today. She felt so guilty about leaving him that she felt she ought to cuddle and reassure him, so she carried him round as she tried to do everything. She had also brought home a lot of paperwork, she'd discovered that Neil Godwin had been 'cherry picking' what work he had chosen to do, leaving a lot of the harder, more complicated tasks for her return.

Finally Martin arrived home, later than usual, because his medical emergency had meant that everything had run behind at his surgery.

"Sorry I missed your call, I had to attend a patient with a myocardial infarction, complete waste of my time, already dead when I got there, but of course it meant that I had to complete all the wretched paperwork as the attending doctor. On the plus side, it got me away from all the imbecilic, prying, gossip mongers that seemed determined to invade my surgery in the hope of gleaning some morsel of information concerning our marital status," Martin grumbled as he came in. "So, how did everything go with you and Luke today?"

Looking round, he saw that Louisa was trying to prepare a meal while holding Luke, who was clinging very tightly to her, every now and then a shuddering little sob escaping from him. There was a large pile of papers and folders on the kitchen table, and Louisa looked flustered and upset.

"Things didn't go very well at all actually, Martin. Luke hated being left in the nursery, he cried so much that he made himself physically sick, so I had to collect him a little early in the end, straight after my meeting, meaning I got less work done," Louisa told him in a rather wobbly voice. "I couldn't cancel my meeting, but even if I had, it wouldn't really help in the long run, because if I take him out, or ask Joan to come and get him, I've still got to go through it all again next time. I made it worse when I looked in on him at lunch time, because it set him off twice as bad again. The staff were brilliant with him, it was their first day too, not much fun for them to have such an unhappy little boy to start with, but they were really kind and patient, they tried so hard to placate him, but you know what he's like once he gets upset and how he hates any changes to his routine."

"Well, I… I'm sure he'll get used to it … eventually," Martin said, not really sure what he could say to help. He felt a strong pang of empathy for his son, he had deep childhood memories of feeling abandoned and unloved. But he knew that this was completely different, Luke wasn't being abandoned and was very much loved – that was the problem in a way, he wasn't used to being left and he didn't understand.

"It probably would have been better if I had put him in a nursery right from the beginning, then he wouldn't have known any different would he? I've done it all wrong. Apparently around six months is when a baby can develop separation anxiety and a fear of strangers, so of course that's when I decide to leave him in the nursery for the first time, and because it's only just opened, I couldn't get him used to it gradually, poor little soul had to be thrown right in from day one, great mother I've turned out to be," Louisa was rambling on, as much to herself as to Martin, holding Luke on one hip while trying to put a pan of water on to cook some pasta.

"For goodness sake, the boy will get used to it, you're making too much of it, it's only the first day after all," Martin said in frustration, struggling to handle the situation.

"What do you mean 'the boy', Martin, we're talking about Luke, our son, not some patient whose name you can't remember," Louisa snapped at him. "How can you be so cold hearted, you don't feel upset for him at all, do you?"

"Don't presume to tell me how I feel, Louisa," Martin snapped back at her, and when Louisa looked up at his face, and saw the expression in his eyes, she realised that he was just as affected as she was, he simply wasn't vocalising it.

They looked at each other for a few seconds, before Louisa said,

"Look, I'm sorry. It's been a difficult day, on top of Luke being so unsettled, Neil's managed to leave me all sorts of crap that needs to be sorted out pretty urgently, and so many bloody people interrupted me wanting to know all the details about us getting married that I didn't get very much done. But I shouldn't take it out on you, I know, so I'm sorry."

"Mmm OK, well, the first day back was bound to be a bit stressful. Look, let me prepare the supper," Martin offered, feeling more comfortable doing something practical. He wasn't sorry that Neil Godwin had gone, he'd known instantly that he was a tosser when he'd met him, and now it turned out that he wasn't even the great teacher he was supposed to have been.

Luke was finally beginning to recover a bit from his 'difficult' day. Now that he was at home with Louisa and Martin, he managed a smile at Martin and reached out to him, babbling a bit more happily.

"Well it seems that Luke would like you to take him instead," said Louisa, gratefully handing him over.

Luke snuggled against his Daddy's chest, and Martin found himself instinctively putting his hand on the little boy's head protectively, maybe because he did understand just exactly how Luke felt, even if he couldn't admit it to anyone.

There could be absolutely no doubt that Luke was Martin's son. There were people in the village who had initially voiced doubts when Louisa had returned to the village about exactly who was the father of her baby - there had been rumours and whispers about her meeting up with Danny Steele in London (many of which seemed to emanate from a certain Chemist shop) spread about by the groups of bitchy, teenage girls that wandered around the streets of Portwenn. However, they were all silenced when they looked at Luke now. He was a 'mini me' of Martin. He was a big child, with white blonde hair that was growing in a natural spiky crew cut, in a very similar style to Martin's hair. He had cute ears, not exactly big, but they did stick out a little more than average. His big blue eyes were the same shade as Martin's. He would study anything he wasn't sure about with a very serious, studious little face that mimicked Martin's natural expression. It was only when he broke into a smile, which was Louisa's beautiful wide smile that her contribution to the mix showed.

Luke always felt safe when his big strong Daddy held him, and after he gave a final little shaky sigh, he crashed out and fell asleep in Martin's arms.

xXx

Much to Louisa's despair, Luke continued to cry every morning when he was left at nursery – it became apparent that he'd inherited a very stubborn streak from somewhere, which Louisa and Martin blamed each other for. Then, just as Luke was getting used to his new routine, he started teething, and began waking up crying several times in the night, which he didn't usually, and it made him grumpy and miserable during the day. Martin checked him over thoroughly to make sure there was nothing more seriously wrong, and gave him Calpol to ease his teething pains. Then Luke caught his first cold, meaning that he found it hard to feed because he was all blocked up. As Luke was at the age where he put everything in his mouth, Martin gave Louisa a long lecture about ensuring adequate hygiene standards at the nursery to minimise the spread of germs - he'd already undertaken his own very thorough inspection of the nursery before Luke had started there, not really being able to find fault at all, but still lecturing the staff to the point where some were actually quite scared of him.

"I feel sorry for Mrs Ellingham, fancy being married to that tyrant, and she's such a sweetie too, what on earth does she see in him? He scared me to death when I worked for him that time when Pauline went on her course," Poppy told the other staff – she was one of the lucky ones who had managed to secure a place as a trainee nursery nurse – competition for places had been very fierce. Proper jobs, with a professional qualification at the end of the training, were very hard to come by in Portwenn.

Martin may have started to reveal another side of himself to Louisa on occasions, but as far as everyone else was concerned, he hadn't changed at all, he was just the same pompous, grumpy, miserable old sod that he'd always been, although it was maybe just possible that he was ever so slightly more sympathetic when a parent consulted him about a baby that wouldn't stop crying, offering more constructive advice than the 'You're a mother now, your life has changed, so get used to it' advice that he'd given Louisa's young neighbour when she'd called him out to her crying baby. And maybe when he was consulted on matters of a sexual nature he was able to offer slightly more relevant and helpful advice than his previous 'generally in sexual activity one is keener than the other' type of answer.

Unfortunately, Louisa caught the same cold as Luke too, which really pulled her down. She was working every evening at home, once she had finally managed to get Luke settled, trying to catch up with all her paperwork. Martin tried to make her slow down and not over do things, but she kept saying,

"It's just for a few days, until I get it sorted out." But it had been several weeks now. He tried to help as much as he could, but he had to do extra 'on call' duties because another doctor had dropped out, and being winter time, there were a lot of extra calls due to the usual seasonal illnesses.

Martin was worried that Louisa wasn't eating properly, she told him that she had had breakfast, but he hadn't actually seen her eating any for a while, she was usually in a rush to get herself and Luke ready to leave in the morning. She often pushed her supper away half eaten saying that she wasn't that hungry, but really it was because she wanted to get on with other things, or because Luke was crying. Martin thought she had lost quite a lot of weight, although Louisa denied it and told him not to fuss.

The final straw for Martin came when he returned home from being called out one evening to find Louisa slumped asleep at the kitchen table with a pile of paperwork in front of her, trying to do some work once she had finally managed to get Luke to sleep – this was the second time he'd found her like this.

"Louisa, this is ridiculous. You're exhausted, you're no good to anyone, at home or at work like this," he lectured her. "You know you can't go on in this way, you're trying to do far more than you're capable of."

"Go on then, you must be itching to say it – 'I told you so' said Louisa, mimicking his deep voice and looking at him resentfully.

"What do you mean?" asked Martin, puzzled.

"Well, it turns out you were right when you said 'there are very few woman who are physically or mentally capable of looking after a small child and working full time, and that I wasn't one of them' I heard you say it, don't forget. You must be thrilled to have been proved right, you obviously think I can't cope," said Louisa as she burst into tears and ran upstairs.

Martin cursed as he remembered the conversation. Really what he'd meant by 'not mentally capable' was that he knew that she would be a very loving, caring, involved mother, and that she would find it very hard to leave her baby in some one else's care. Physically, there was her history of anaemia, and with all the demands now being made of her, he was concerned that she would have a re- occurrence. He'd been worried about Louisa taking on too much then, just as he was now, but he didn't want her to think that he didn't support her decision to go back to work – he understood Louisa well enough by now to realise that she needed the challenge of working and wouldn't be happy as a 'stay at home' mother. In the past, his attitude had been rather condescending towards her job, calling her a 'nursery teacher' in a rather derogatory manner when she'd called him in to examine young Peter Cronk after he had a fall. Another time he'd talked about the next lesson being 'face painting' when she'd told him that she had to get the pupils that were in her care back to school after she'd fainted. Neither had he contradicted her when she'd said she wasn't a 'proper professional' like him when she'd first got her Head Teachers role.

Now, however, he appreciated that her job was very demanding, and also crucial to the welfare of the local community. Since the article about her had been in 'The Times', she had had contact with several Government officials, some of whom wanted to come and visit her school in the new term, to use her knowledge and experience to help shape educational policy. With these contacts, if she had chosen to, she could have risen up through the ranks pretty quickly to become a leading figure in education. However, she had no desire to leave behind her school, because what she really found most rewarding was the contact with the children. She was already finding it very frustrating that she had to spend so much time on paperwork and administrative tasks, rather than teaching, which is what she really loved.

He went after her, finding her sitting on her bed crying.

"Just go away Martin, if you've come to crow over me and tell me how useless I am. I know that already. I'm a rubbish mother, and a rubbish Head too." Louisa said through her sobs.

"Don't be ridiculous…" Martin started to say, still not very skilled at dealing with an upset, crying woman. Of course this wasn't the right thing to say.

"Might as well resign my job now, be one of those mothers who slobs about all day in their pyjamas, and never washes their hair. That's about all I'm good for, I'm not coping with anything properly, I'm letting everyone down." Louisa said in despair.

Martin was flummoxed because, as usual, he didn't know how he should handle this, but he did know that it was important. He was deeply affected by seeing Louisa crying and so distressed.

He took a deep breath and said as calmly as he could,

"Look Louisa, anyone would be struggling to cope with everything you've been going through recently, whoever they were. I'm not criticising, really I'm not. Believe it or not, I'm actually quite proud of what you've achieved at work, but maybe you need to learn to delegate a bit more. Wouldn't it be good experience for your deputy and some of the other more ambitious staff to take on some of the admin and paperwork or other tasks? Don't feel that you have to do everything yourself. Luke will get used to his new routine eventually, and he won't be teething or have a cold forever, but in the meantime let Joan have him more often and spoil him a bit by cuddling him too much – as long as he only expects it from her, that's OK isn't it? I'll make sure they get another doctor for the 'on call' rota as soon as possible, so that I can support you more as well." He looked at her to see if his words were having any impact.

Louisa was sitting looking at him, no longer crying, just wracked by the occasional sob.

"So when did you get to be all sensitive and caring then," she joked weakly "Where's Martin Ellingham and what have you done to him?"

"Do you really still think of me as an uncaring bastard, Louisa?" he asked her, as he handed her some tissues. He was really quite hurt if she did still think that, after all these months together.

"No, I know better now. I'm sorry, forgive me for blowing up like that?" Louisa asked him, leaning over and hugging him, burying her face in his neck.

"So you'll think about what I said, about delegating more?" Martin pushed her for an answer.

"Yes, I promise," came a muffled answer as she stayed buried in his neck. "But just hold me for now, this feels so nice." Martin completely agreed with her on this point, so they just sat holding each other for quite some time.

"I love you very much Martin," she whispered in his ear.

"I…I love you too," he whispered back, very, very quietly.

xXx

Luke did eventually settle at nursery, after a few weeks. He accepted his new routine once he realised that his Mummy did always came back for him. He found that being with the other people and babies could actually be quite fun and interesting – he took after Louisa in that he had a friendly and sociable nature once he felt happy and secure. His cold cleared up and his teeth came through, so he felt a lot happier in himself. Louisa accepted that she didn't have to prove to anyone that she was some kind of SuperWoman, so she relaxed and started to delegate some tasks, which the other staff appreciated because they knew that the experience that it gave them it would help to advance their careers. Joan was thrilled to have Luke a bit more often, and Luke enjoyed all his cuddles with her. Extra doctors joined the 'on call' rota system, taking the pressure off Martin to some degree, enabling him to be at home a bit more.

Martin and Louisa grew closer as a result of his showing his 'sensitive and caring' side to her - if to no one else. This would give him more confidence in handling things next time – because there was always going to be a 'next time', he was beginning to realise.