Chapter 34 – Unkindest Cut

I barged into the hotel kitchen in pursuit of the waiter like the Red Baron after a Sopwith Camel and trailing a woman carrying a tray laden with dishes I saw my quarry. The large short waiter with my diagnosis of polymyalgia rheumatica was across the room behind some sort of slicing machine where a tall young chef was running it. I called out, "Oh, waiter!"

The blond female waiter I had followed inside turned her upper body, and the tray she was carrying on her shoulder grazed the chef. I saw him lurch forward then pull his hand from the machine with blood spurting. He started to scream at the sight of a missing distal phalanx.

I launched into action as the man stood there stupidly staring at his hand where obvious damage had been done. He fought me, but I managed to get him to listen, as something warm splashed my face and chest. I made him sit on the floor, roughly bandaged the missing finger, after his co-worker attempted to hand me a soiled napkin. Stupid fool I thought her, although in her own way she appeared to be prepared to wade in, telling me she was the first-aid provider.

"I am a doctor!" I yelled at her. "You!" I shouted at the fat waiter. "Come here!" He waddled to me and I forced his pudgy hands about the chef's bandaged hand, as the man sat slumped on the greasy red tile floor gasping.

"I think I'm going to be sick!" he'd shouted, so I forced his mouth open into an 'O.'

"Breathe through your mouth!" I looked at the waiter. "Now!" I looked down and his bulging temporal artery and the scene struck me like a blow. All else in the room went away as that focused my attention.

I quickly told him of my diagnosis based on my observations and a rapid questioning.

He started making excuses. "Well, I carry trays all day, so of course my shoulders do hurt!"

"You have a serious disease! You may lose your sight if untreated!" I pulled an order pad from his pocket and wrote the words polymyalgia rheumatica on it. "You must see your doctor immediately!"

I then turned my attention to the injured chef. "Now!" I shouted to the milling kitchen staff. "I need all of you to find that finger!" Extraordinarily they started poking about as they squatted low and looked high. "Quickly!" I shook my head as they blundered about.

Suddenly a strident voice broke into the hubbub. "Ellingham?"

It was Edith. "What are you doing?" she asked me with consternation.

"Looking for a finger!"

"You're bloody," she replied.

I looked down and my shirt was a charnel house. The sight did not affect me. "Yes."

"And not nauseous. Congratulations!"

"Found it!" came a worker's yell.

"Right, uhm… don't touch it!" I said. I looked around and picked up a clean china plate. "I need some ice and some cling film."

I was reaching to pick up the finger tip, which didn't look that badly damaged, when Edith spoke again.

"Your work here is done!" she urged.

"Not yet!"

"There's an ambulance on its way," she prodded more.

"I just called them!" came another answer from a dishwasher or such.

Edith gave me a hard stare and in a bossy tone said, "Go and change. Try not to be late." Her tone reminded me of my mother or one of my many past nannies giving me hell for wetting the bed. Her tone made me feel nine years old.

Edith whirled and left the chaotic scene. Right then her Hippocratic Oath to help the sick, she flushed away, more concerned about her damn paper than an injured person.

I ignored and scooped ice onto the fingertip then swathed the entire mass in cling film to keep the ice in contact with the severed digit. Luckily a repair should be fairly straightforward, the index finger, after the thumb, being the most useful of digits. In a few months' time, if all goes well, the chef will be back at work. I just hoped to God they'd clean the slicer thoroughly.

I attended until the ambulance arrived, gave them my name, contact information plus plenty of directions and then left to change my ruined clothing. I stripped off in Edith's hotel room bath, amazed that I wasn't retching at the sight. I stared at my face in the mirror after I'd washed and was further astonished that all the usual signs of my panic attacks – sweating, nausea, vomiting, shaking, and fainting – were completely absent.

Dr. Milligan had done wonders, or rather I had. Imagine you are in the operating theater – the tapes always began – had prepared me fully for the chaos in the kitchen. I blew out air and braced my shoulders and my image did the same. Ellingham, you are now a different person, my internal voice said.

"Yes," I said aloud. "That's one problem taken care of."

I dressed and tied my tie and emerging from the loo, found a maid replacing the bedclothes I'd strewn on the floor in my search for bedbugs. Edith must have called the desk to have the bed repaired.

"Shall I turn the bed down sir?"

I considered the question; one that was perfectly reasonable. "Uhm… yes," I answered.

The woman came round the bed and started to pull the duvet down and plump the pillows as I adjusted my shirt cuff.

I gave the bed a long look and in a split second I knew what I must do.

As I traveled down the corridor I could hear Edith starting her talk with the joke about the girl's pregnancy – the one I'd told her to delete. But of course, she had not taken my advice. Granted it was only advice, and it was her paper – but it could well have been the first joke Edith Montgomery willing told in her life.

I stood at the partly open door peering in and Edith stood there, taking in polite applause, and she looked up at me, a slight glimmer of apparent happiness that I was there at last. Just then a man pushed past me and the door swung wider as he slipped in and Edith's gaze swept downward and she saw my wheelie suitcase in front of me.

Her face fell as all her plans shattered. I stood there not wanting to hurt her, but it had to be. It was an unkind cut and far quicker and more effective than words could be.

I did not want Edith Montgomery. I wanted other things and not just London. I tried to keep a calm exterior as I turned to go, and to Edith's credit, I heard her voice go on with her talk after a moment's pause.

As I calmly climbed into the Lexus and pulled away, I felt certain that Edith would plow through her talk, smile at the appropriate points, as she had practiced so long and hard then stand proudly as the applause came at the end.

By now the unlucky chef would be having his finger evaluated and a vascular team put together to assess if the sliced off fingertip, luckily sawn through the joint, could be rejoined. He was likely to have a far easier time of it tonight with senses dulled by morphine, than Edith would in that solitary bed in Exeter.

I clearly had no more reasons to remain in Cornwall. The Imperial College job was in hand, literally, and I could go to my first love - surgery. That is where I belonged, back in London, from whence I came four years ago. The new GP, a locum perhaps, would start next week, and it was finally the time to sever my ties with Portwenn.

My drive from Exeter had helped me to sort the tragedies of the day. I'd overcome my haemophobia, but had cast aside the obvious attentions of one that I did not want and had also been spurned over the last months by another whom I did want.

In spite of that, London called to me as a beacon in the night of my unhappiness. I have been unhappy before, in fact miserable almost my entire life, but that quick look from Edith as she knew I was leaving was a distillate of so much – longing – it almost made me change my mind.

But no matter, in four years' time I'd caused too much pain in Portwenn – to Louisa – and to Edith. One I did not care that much if I had hurt, but the ache of hurting the other gnawed at me like that saw blade upon the chef's hand.

It was very late when I returned to Portwenn and my surgery, and entering the kitchen, began to pack my dishes in newsprint. As I wrapped each dish and placed it in a carton for transport, the strings of my heart stretched and then parted, one by one, as I knew what I could not pack and take with me.