Chapter 41 - Need

I pressed on with packing until my mobile rang. The number was not one I recognized, but it was likely someone who needed medical advice, and I was fully prepared to tell them to call the surgery Monday when the new GP arrived. I still did not know who that was. But it didn't concern me at all.

I flipped open the phone and answered. "Ellingham!"

"Mart!" It was Chris Parsons,a classmate from medical school days and head of the Primary Care Trust. "How are things going? How is the master diagnostician? Need any words of wisdom from me?"

"Fine. I'm fine. No." I'd just finished packing most of my clothing and had started on the downstairs bookshelves. I had quite a lot of books and plenty to pack away.

"Well, I was thinking, would you like to come into Wadebridge tomorrow and have lunch?"

"No. The removal vans will be here late morning."

"Oh," his voice fell. "I just, well, uhm, we didn't have a chance to say… that is…"

"Goodbye, Chris? It's not like I'm going off to Sri Lanka, for God's sake!"

"Well, I thought we could have a talk. There's quite a nice little pizza place nearby."

"Too many carbs, Chris! You know that. The last time I saw you, you must have gained two or three kilos from the looks of you. Too much pizza, then?"

He sighed. "Mart, must you be so damn…"

"Factual?" I injected. I really didn't know where this conversation was going.

"There is that." He paused and I heard whispering in the background.

"What's that? Who else is there?"

Chris sighed. "My wife. She says that we'll look you up in London when we visit, probably in two months or so."

"Ah. Well I'm certain I will be very busy at Imperial. Getting up to speed. All that."

"Sounds like you don't want visitors, then."

"Chris, that's not what I said! Hell, man, I'm not going round the planet - just to London!"

He took an intake of air and I heard more whispering. "Here you talk to him!"

A female voice came on the line. "Martin?"

It was Parson's wife, Julia or Janet, or was it Jan? Yes, Jan. "Hello, Jan," I said warily. Now what did she want?

"Well, Chris and I were wondering, well I was really badgering Chris to ask you and he was afraid too." She paused and I heard Chris in the background muttering. "About the erh, the…"

"You want to know about Louisa." I sighed and shook my head.

"Yes! Louisa Glasson! How is she?" A longer pause from the woman. "I was anxious to ask you."

"She's pregnant and she's fine." I shook my head at my mobile. Daft conversation! "She's fine and so am I." I might as well say it, even if I didn't feel it.

"You're both fine? Oh really."

"I just told you! Louisa Glasson and the baby are fine. Due in four weeks or so, but in a first pregnancy the tightness of the tissues can prolong the pre-labor phase. Due to inability of the oxytocin to properly influence tissues in the primagravida…"

She cut me off. "Yes, Martin! I am a mum! I've had two children. And I'm married to a bloody doctor! No need to lecture me!"

"Oh." I was at a loss what to say, but the woman clearly wanted to know more than I was willing to tell her.

She badgered on. "So Louisa is fine, then?"

"I said that, Jan! Give it a rest!"

"With the move and all?"

"Yes. She is. She wished me luck with my move."

I heard a little gasp, some fumbled noises and Chris came back on the line.

"Still there, Mart?"

I sighed. "Yes, Chris." I could hear his wife mumbling and also snuffling in the background. "What's that your wife is saying?"

"Nothing." He must have covered the mouthpiece with has hand but I could still hear him though he tried to whisper. "Jan! Shush! I don't care that you think he is an unfeeling tosser! He is still my friend! Now shut it!"

It was time to end this awkward call. "Chris, is there anything else? I have things to do."

He sighed. "No, Mart. You take care in London is all."

"I will Chris." I reflected on the trust Parsons had to have in me when he helped me get the GP spot in Portwenn. "Chris I need to tell you…"

He cut me off saying, "Then bye and Jan sends her love! Call you soon!" He rang off in a rush.

My words of thanks stayed in my throat. How I was glad to have been given the chance. How he'd bucked me up when my days were darkest. How… damn it! Chris was my oldest, and dare I say it, best friend. He knew the hell I'd gone through with the haemophobia and before that when Edith left for Canada. He's seen me drunker than a Lord; totally out of it. But he'd never given up on me. He reminded me of Pauline, and yes even Louisa, at the best of times.

I stood there stupidly thinking these things, then slipped the mobile into my pocket and went to the kitchen to pack the cooking things. I'd just started when the rear door opened and Auntie Joan barged in.

"Thought you could use some company and something to eat." She held up a casserole of some type. I smelled chicken and veg of course. She smiled hesitantly.

"Just finishing up." I rolled some pots in bubble wrap and stuffed them into a carton.

"I was hoping to spend some time with you - before you go, Marty."

"Didn't mean it like that." I had a way of speaking harsher to Joan then I meant to and today was one of those days. I didn't mean to hurt her but I clearly had.

"Strange to think that tomorrow at this time you'll be in London." This came from her sadly.

I shook my head. "It's not that strange."

Joan sighed and I knew I was in for a lecture. Coming on the heels of the Chris and Jan show I was not in the mood.

She bit her lip. "Will you miss us?"

"I'll miss you of course… and I'm concerned for your finances."

She nodded. "Well hopefully the bed and breakfast business will help with that."

"Well, if it doesn't and you'd like some assistance…"

She cut me off. "I've been through worse and come out smiling." Now she did smile, a little. "That's life isn't it, Marty?" The last was a leading question.

I knew next was where her lecture would start and it did.

"Sometimes we have to face up to our responsibilities, no matter how difficult they seem," she added.

I dared not look her full in the face. "I take it you're talking about Louisa."

She nodded her head slowly. "Yes, I am. When are you planning on coming back to see her?"

I didn't want to hear the rest but she pushed on. She was like my conscience and I didn't want to hear it, especially from her.

"It won't be long until the baby's born."

She stressed the word baby in the oddest way, almost like it was in need – need of my presence. Yet Louisa had stood in front of my cottage and told me she would take care of it. Now here was Joan telling to get involved, when Louisa forbade me. Why the woman had stood in that very kitchen doorway and told me that she needed me for nothing. Not a shred of help! "What I don't need and will never need from you is any kind of help!" were her exact words.

I rushed around the table and unplugged the red lamp on the counter and wrapped the cord about it, merely to have something to look at, and not at Joan. Damn it! Didn't she know that these thoughts were in my head? "Not sure when I can get away."

"Surely you want to see your own child – as soon as possible?"

She just kept prying and prodding. I wound bubble paper about the lamp. "I really must get on with my packing."

Auntie Joan, the woman who would have been a far better mother to me than my own, gave me a resigned look. "Alright," she said softly. "I won't say another word. I'll just pop this into the oven and we'll have our own little last supper."

I nodded and she bustled about with the cooker and pulled out plates and silverware. She was true to her word. We ate and drank water and the sun set and we spoke not a word. But her words – the baby words and the Louisa words – ate at my soul like fire.

At the end, lips quivering she washed the plates and glasses while I dried them. It hardly made sense to run the dishwasher for such a small load.

Joan Norton, the strongest woman I know, well all but one perhaps, stood at the door, her baking dish in hand and her lips quivered. She gave me a long and hard look, peered into the darkness beyond the window and then opened her mouth. "Don't forget us, Marty. You will need us far more than we need you I fear."

Before I could react, she threw open the door and bolted. I dumbly stumbled after her to see her truck go into reverse, back into the lane and drive away.

I watched her drive off, another woman receding from me down this damn hill. Need? She said need? That was a word I dared not think of. I rushed back inside before I was tempted to cast my gaze across the harbor at Louisa's cottage.