Chapter 24 – Nadir
"What I don't need and will never need from you…" I gasped, "is any kind of help!" I threw my hands up to my face and tried to cover my eyes and mouth. My god Louisa, did you just say that AND mean it?
Yes, girl you do mean it! Once and for all and not at all happy about it. But there it was – the bald truth – full and entire. Strip all the bark away and there you have it exposed to the daylight.
Martin stood there with a concerned look, my forceful words clearly taking him off guard. When I gave him a blast about the way he'd been criticizing me before the Board of Governors, I had fire in my eyes. Unfortunately I was taken aback when I realized that Dr. Montgomery was there as well, and that took some of the wind from my sails.
His mouth moved and I braced myself for a typical Martin bombast.
"Then why are you crying?" he asked. He didn't shout or yell; just asked the question and I realized that it was his mostly all-too logical way of asking for information.
That was it, the very moment, looking back, when it all fell into place. Why was I crying? Was it for my pregnancy and lack of support from the father? That I wasn't married? That Martin and I would NEVER be together? My uncertain job situation? The smelly plumbing situation at the cottage? That was one huge worry but Al Large was sorting out the ancient piping, removing clogs, repairing the loo and the boiler. The price was right too, but I had a funny feeling that I might regret using his services. But I just did not have the money at the moment to hire a professional.
There were tears in my eyes, snot in my nose, and I was on the edge, right on the edge of letting it all go - all my worries, uncertainties, loneliness, fears, and a giant list of single things. Just let it all out, and ask him…
But the look of oh-so pompous and chauvinistic Doctor Martin Ellingham stopped me.
Besides, when I was shouting at Martin from the doorway, I realized that Edith was sitting at the kitchen table. Our table – the one where we first snogged; and it really got under my skin that she was sitting where I once had and should now be sitting. But I wasn't sitting there. I was toe-to-toe with Martin like boxers about to square off – as indeed we were.
I had shouted at him I never thought that you and I could be together! The words rang through my head. That was a lie, but a necessary one. It was no good to tell Martin about every tear I had shed about our failures – and they were many – too many to count.
But there was no way back. He had broken my trust. I had trusted that he would help me, at least in some way, but he clearly didn't care. Not about me. Maybe about the baby but it would be reduced to medical issues and how much monetary support he'd have to provide until the child was eighteen years old.
I didn't love him now, if I ever did. When I thought about it that way, it finally made sense. Martin was not a person I could love. Not forever. There were too many irritating and awful things about him that I would want to, no, need to change. And he would not change – he'd fight me every step of the bloody way. I didn't have the energy for it. I'd miss the snogging, and any infrequent love making, but not his critical and snarky remarks, but damn it I would cope. Dad had to be a single parent, and so could I. I was tough - tough as nails. So be it.
I dropped my hands, wiping a few tears from my cheeks, inhaled the snot from the nose and opened my mouth to answer him. "I'm not crying," I said, and this time it was true.
I left the cottage feeling like Martin and our failed engagement was jetsam from a ship – something I had to throw overboard and sail away from as fast as possible. And I'd sail faster and better for the loss. It hurt, but not as much as the hurt of trying to hang on to it.
The slam of the door as I pulled it closed behind me may have sounded like a door to him, but to me it was freedom.
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Edith popped in to my kitchen three days after the disastrous blow-up with Louisa. I was in no mood to see her, but she was all smiles and bright eyes. She'd brought a bottle of elderflower nonsense to celebrate the acceptance of her paper and they wanted her to be the keynote speaker to boot at some stuffy conference in Exeter.
The liquid was just as ghastly as I feared thusly proving that even non-alcoholic beverages can taste bloody awful. I'll stick to water from now on.
She was quite pleased when I told her that Robert at Imperial Hospital was going to interview me in two weeks' time.
She carried a small green and white collapsible cooler with her and I was floored, literally, as I squeezed the small bag inside.
Her ever so thoughtful gift was an expired unit of blood. I managed one quick look and next I knew I was flat on my back with Edith hovering over me. "Ellingham, you have to get this taken care of!"
The fuzziness of my faint passed away quickly and I knew she was right.
"If you ever wish to get to London…" she started as I levered myself off the slate and went out the front door for air and clarity.
I stood thus most evenings, looking over the harbor, the higgledy-piggledy houses with black and grey roofs and white-washed walls. This evening the sky was clear and blue, the ocean gentle, and as I looked across the way, to the cottage where Louisa was now living I knew it was over - the very end.
Dealing with obtuse and ignorant patients, who were far more interested in spreading rumors than helping one another; who didn't seem to give a whit about medical care for themselves. Seemed a waste of time.
I sighed. My words haunted me. Louisa, marry me, I can't live without you. I must have been mad to ask her, and she was equally mad to reply in the affirmative. Bodmin both of us. Well when I was in London I'd not ever use that backward bumpkin word again.
London - the capital of the nation - and heart of my former world. I took another breath to clear the cobwebs and regret from my mind. Some would not readily clear out though.
Images of the village, blood on a slate floor with Delf bleeding out from a torn brachial artery, Peter Cronk in the ambulance, Mark Mylow and Julie, Pauline snogging with Al on my kitchen table, Bert Large sitting on a bucket and holding forth with his home grown philosophy as the surgery flooded, a smiling Auntie Joan holding her smelly dog, cockamamie Penhale, plus images of Louisa flew through my head.
Louisa scowling, crying, yelling, on her bike, smiling, hiking past the surgery, laughing, pregnant at the surgery door, flashed away like some manic PowerPoint presentation superimposed on the sunny harbor below.
And Louisa with a stricken look coming into the surgery in her wedding dress, her regretful look as she walked away, telling me that she loved me, in my arms, and later that she didn't need me – not for anything. The Ellingham armor flew into place trapping in the pain I felt. A more emotional man would have screamed or cried or rushed headlong off the cliff mere steps before me.
But no. That was not what I would or could do. If Louisa had no wish for any aspect of help in any way from me, then she would have it. I would acquiesce to her wishes, having no further desire to hurt her. I owed her that much.
I had heard that she was now the permanent head teacher from Sally Chadwick, that stupid woman who had paid good money to receive a tattoo, then had tried to scrub it off giving herself an infection in the process. Thus her odd rash and strange respiratory symptoms. The Board of Governors had cunningly worked their schedule to exclude me from their vote. So be it. I should have no worries then on Louisa's need for more than basic child support in the money department. The Portwenn school paid the head quite well and I was certain, in spite of my qualms about her health, she would be a superb head teacher, unlike the unfortunate Mr. Strain. Whether she would have the strength to do both job and perform as a single parent I doubted.
There was only one thing to be done. All I had to do was to retrain myself to stay calm and not faint, puke, or get the shakes when I saw a perfectly natural thing – human circulatory fluid. Something every doctor and surgeon needed to see. There was no doubt that Imperial would offer me a job. I just had to steel myself to the task.
I came to realize that Edith stood beside me.
"Ellingham," she held out a card, which I took. "This is the therapist I spoke of."
I took the card from her and she leaned over and kissed me. Quite a surprise and I stood dumbfounded as she drove away. Too many times I have watched women walk or drive away down this bloody hill. No more. I hefted the card and read the name. I sighed. Probably rubbish but if there was a ghost of a chance I would take it.
Edith's cautious invitation I should attend her talk in Exeter seemed innocuous enough. But this was the second time she'd kissed me. And lately when she spoke to me in person, she'd developed a habit of lowering the volume of her voice and leaning towards me, taking a half step in the process. Strange. And when I was editing her presentation she kept brushing her hand against my leg. Awkward and embarrassing.
Surely she wasn't… no, not possible. Not Edith Montgomery. I had no interest in her at all that way, in spite of our dalliances long ago. Rubbish!
The harbor was quiet, even the seagulls stilling their cries this evening. The village was filled with walkers heading to the cliffs or to pubs but something was missing. It wasn't the air, or the sea, or the people. Not the houses or Large's Restaurant or Penhale's Rover on the Platt. I took a breath and the air smelled the same.
The difference was in me. I no longer felt the chance of possibility.
Portwenn didn't feel like home anymore. It was time to leave.
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I was in the street talking to Al and Pauline as they sat on Pauline's new motor scooter. Al had apologized for allowing rumors about the two of us (absolutely absurd) to swirl, and even Pauline was mollified that it was just mean gossip. More girl-pack in action.
We were standing there laughing, although Al's aside about me being fat, I corrected him as enormous, did sting. But that's way these things go.
A car approached – Edith's black Audi. It slowed as it crept past and Edith peered out at me with an odd little smile as it went by. I caught another glimpse in her rearview mirror, and her smile smacked of triumph.
Now what was that supposed to mean? I'd felt a chill as she drove off, and it wasn't from a cool breeze.