Chapter 30 – Bridges
Al Large stood stolidly on my doorstep with a determined set to his jaw. He'd just challenged me to give Pauline Lamb a better reference, for the new GP.
I sneered at the man and tried to think of a response that would be factual, yet not offend Al too much. I liked Al, as much as I liked anyone I suppose, and I didn't want to offend him unnecessarily. I was burning any number of bridges the last few days and I didn't want to do more destruction than was needed. But Al would not stop hectoring away, chipping at my armor.
"Doc. Pauline's done a lot. She's worked for you for three years. Bled your patients when you couldn't. Covered your back. Kept you going." He rattled this laundry list off in his usual clipped tones.
Al was a no nonsense person, and I now realized that he was a person to whom I had counted on any number of times. He'd even intervened in the affair of the wayward explosives, saving Pauline, Louisa, and me from the depredations of Jonathan, Terry Glasson's mad accomplice. I should have been a better – dare I say it – friend to the man over the years. Now I feared I'd leave him with the awful taste of Martin Ellingham in his mouth, as I knew I'd leave most of Portwenn.
The reference I had given to Pauline said she was competent. I had struggled with that much. There was much about Pauline Lamb that I did not understand or care for. She was stubborn, headstrong, opinionated, and she tended to mutter under her breath, but always just loud enough so I could hear her. Now she'd sent her boyfriend to twist my arm.
Al stood right in front of me, and I could think of only one thing to say. "No." I closed the door on his surprised and stubbly face and I felt some satisfaction that I had solved my problem. I'd kept our exchange short, to the point, and direct.
Al asked me, "Don't you think you owe her a better reference?"
Owe her? Owe her? God no! I didn't owe Pauline a damn thing. She was the one who had steamed open my private mail, spread the news to the village that I was leaving, and likely was the source of half the gossip in this backward, ill begotten, rotten semblance of a village!
Yesterday Edith had forced me to slice open the ancient bag of blood and prove that I was over the haemophobia. I pretended it was a ruptured spleen, and the thought of Peter Cronk bleeding out in the ambulance flew before my eyes. That scene included the blanched face of Louisa Glasson, crying out "Martin!" in the ambulance rushing to Wadebridge. Peter had ruptured his spleen in a fall and coming on the heels of the airing of my secret problem to the village, that was a watershed event. Doc Martin had suddenly risen in stature in Portwenn. No longer that doctor afraid of blood; but the doctor afraid of blood who overcame it. I then became capable in their backward eyes.
Saving the precocious Peter Cronk had led Louisa and me to kiss for the first time. I replayed that sequence of events and sighed. That was good – jolly good. No Martin, you fool! Don't go wool-gathering away on all that!
If only, a surgical professor had once intoned a the body in the emergency department. The fireman had attended a conflagration, his ladder had collapsed, and he'd suffered a compound fracture. Although his fellows had quickly tended to him, and transported him to hospital, his blood pressure was too low without enough blood to maintain flow, and he'd stroked out. The man had gasped his last just moments after the team had mobilised for his care. It was the first fatality I had attended and it hurt. It was still a sore spot years later. If only…
By the same token, I regretted not being able to bring Pauline along better. That was my fault for not training her better, making clear my expectations, and making it stick. But my rudeness and prevented me from taking those steps.
PC Penhale came by and asked, "Is it true? You going to London?"
I could only affirm it. He'd had a ridiculous notion of applying to the London Metropolitan force. I disabused that idea swiftly.
His face fell and he said "I'll miss our little chats."
I left the consulting room, quite embarrassed inside by his sentiment.
Chats? Was that he thought our encounters were? Chats? The man was adequate for the minimal policing force in the village and environs, but not much more. Yet he apparently thought that he and I had a special relationship – the Dynamic Duo – he called us. I sneered at the thought. If I never saw Penhale again he would regret it for the rest of his life, yet I would gladly expunge him from my memory if that were possible.
You are a hard man, Ellingham! Many people have said that to me. Even Auntie Joan had once said that to me.
Yes, I was hard. Had to be. If I wasn't… wasn't hard, rude, and brusque, then people might see the true Martin. The Martin that even I did not want to acknowledge. Little Marty under the stairs…
I sighed as I thought of the conference that Edith Montgomery expected me to attend this afternoon in Exeter. Far enough away to require an overnight stay. I packed a small case with my needed things to have it in readiness. I dreaded being trotted about by Edith with her OB-GYN friends and associates. She had suggested that I mingle at her meeting. I sneered. I do not mingle.
This side of Edith I did not understand. A mystery that she blew kiss at me after I sliced open the blood bag, nor the actual kisses she had bestowed recently. If she was playing at something, it was beyond me.
I feared that Edith must have had some odd adventures in Canada to have made her change so much. She used to be so smart, so sharp in her studies and medicine, but now she was playing about in politics with hospital staffs and consultants.
She was no longer in the top tier, and her sneered at me for the haemophobia, I found distasteful. I did belong as a surgeon again. That was where I belonged, saving lives without passion or emotion. No more runny noses, lumbago, and rashes. No more malingering patients, cock-eyed policeman, and snotty Boards of Governors.
And no more seeing Louisa waddle past with the baby inside her - my baby, our baby. And each time she passed my eyes, or even my thoughts… my heart fell.
I squared my shoulders and pushed those thoughts aside. It is said that Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in his triumphal trek to Rome. It was his path of destiny. He had crossed that river and bridge, just I would cross mine.
Bridges – yes I'd burn a few more in my exit from Portwenn. But no more would I have to suffer each time Louisa walked past.