Chapter 10 – Problem

Pauline came into my kitchen the next morning wearing the white coat she affects when she is playing at phlebotomist and attacked me as I was drinking coffee.

We had words; about me, about Louisa, and where our former head teacher was now staying and the exchange was bitter, high toned, and rancorous.

Pauline finished by saying, "Just cos a woman's strong doesn't mean for you it's alright to take advantage; that's all I'm sayin'!"

I wanted to tell her to bugger off, to get another job, to get out of my sight.

She had just drawn blood on a patient and the filled sample vial was sitting on the table in a tray. I picked it up and stared through it, sloshing the shocking red contents back and forth. I began to gag, the coffee I'd just drunk suddenly trying to launch from my throat.

Edith had prompted me to consider moving back to London and those wheels had already started to turn, before Louisa came back to Portwenn. Trying to suppress the sudden urge to spew my stomach's contents brought splendidly to mind my dilemma. At the moment the coffee was uncertain where it would reside. The coffee would either be in my stomach or spewed across the table.

Like the coffee, I was facing a decision. I could stay in Portwenn, the backwater biscuit-tin town that it was, or try to reenter surgery, in London the center of the UK medical universe.

Any vile words I may have sent the way of Pauline were drowned by used coffee as it rushed upwards in my gullet. I breathed deeply, forced the stuff back from whence it came and tried to regain composure.

I placed the vial back onto the instrument tray and stalked from the room. Would I be able to train myself to withstand the sight of blood? I considered this as my throat burned from stomach acid and nausea lingered as I paused in the hall.

The unpleasant taste made me sneer and as Pauline brushed past me she snorted.

"Well, you don't have to look so sour, Doc. After all, Louisa is back now and that must mean something to you!"

"Mean something? Mind you own business!" I snarled and tried to push past her but she turned on me.

"And her having that baby and all…"

"Quiet," I whispered, "there are patients in the uhm... now, Pauline, back to your desk!"

"Doc!" she whispered back at me. "What do we have to do to get you..."

"Get me to do what?"

"To see that…"

"To see what, exactly?"

She sighed. "Oh, never mind, then."

"Never mind what? Pauline. What the devil are we talking about?"

She looked me full in the face. "You really have no idea, do you?"

"No, I don't! Now get back to work."

"Poor doc, poor thing."

I gave her a harsh look and pointed towards the waiting room and began to speak quietly and slowly. "I… want… you… to… get… back … there… and stop this inane…"

"Are you calling me stupid?"

Now who was stupid? I was arguing round and round with my office clerk, over… Martin, you know damn well, what's going on!

Pauline had her mouth scrunched up and nose wrinkled, but there was something in her eyes. In her eyes, was the same glint of – sadness or something – that Louisa showed last night.

My god, was that just last night? I ran back over the hours since our meeting.

Edith came at 6:30 and Louisa shortly after. Edith left just after Louisa did, so then I locked up, and tried to read the BMJ. But all the words flowed together into a tangled mass on the page. I threw it to the floor and went to bed, that is I lay on it, not that I slept at all.

All I could see in my mind's eye, through every wretched hour, was the face of Louisa, a pregnant Louisa, standing at the door, saying "Hello Martin!"

Her face was glowing, eyes bright with promise and teeth flashing white. There was not a hair out of place on her head, but lordosis of pregnancy, the throwing back of the shoulders to counteract the weight of the pregnant uterus, was well advanced in the sixth month.

Her bust line was not overly developed yet, but given time the progestin and eostrogen will change her breasts to facilitate nursing. Her lips appeared full, as well as her face, from the increased blood volume of mid-pregnancy, and unless she had worn heavy makeup, no mask of pregnancy across her cheeks or neck was visible.

The green dress and white cardigan suited her, and the flat soled shoes were sensible for a pregnant woman to wear. A pregnant woman to wear… a pregnant woman.

And she came to my house to see me, to tell me this wonderful news, I suppose and then things went so wrong. News that she must have thought wonderful and you foolish Martin Ellingham, you drove her ship straight onto the rocks.

Louisa Glasson was pregnant. Louisa was going to have a baby; a baby that she and I conceived in October at her house in her bed. Our baby – my baby.

A baby started because I told Louisa I loved her and wished, no needed to marry her and she said yes. Then later we both said no, why? Because we were both afraid, I suppose.

I looked down at Pauline Lamb, her green eyes frustrated but now with a touch of concern in them. What did Louisa say?

I bared my teeth. "It's not your problem! Desk!" I shouted.