After spending the afternoon unloading a trailer full of barley straw, Joan was weary. As determined as she was to try and out run it, middle-age had definitely caught up with her; the dull ache in her ankles and knees was testament to that and she grimaced as she lowered herself onto the lumpy sofa. At least she could relax somewhat, now that the strawberries were planted and mulched, and the new blackberry canes were secured in place. Extricating the thorns from her hands, nasty, vicious, little blighters that they were, would take a bit longer she thought as she examined her gnarled, calloused fingers, her jerry-built reading glasses perched haphazardly on the end of her nose. My mother's hands, Joan thought with sadness, remembering how the poor woman's joints were swollen and painful despite never having done a day's manual labour in her life. Something else to look forward too, she lamented, and turned her attention to the morning's post.
There were, as always, the usual selection of brown envelopes which she tossed aside without bothering to open. A farm equipment catalogue looked promising; Joan had been toying with the idea of an automated chicken plucker but was hesitating, ever cautious of the expense. There was just so much maintenance on the farm buildings that she had been forced to defer simply because her bank account never seemed to climb very far out of the red. In an even more worrying turn of events, the last time she had visited the bank, there had been a new manager, and he'd listened to her pleas and promises with an impatient air and a very small mouth. It had come as a bit of a shock to Joan and it had both concerned and unsettled her. And, now, she'd spent the last of her wool cheque by diversifying into strawberries, and the risk was playing heavily on her mind. She took a fortifying sip of tea, and tossed a reminder note from her dentist straight into the kindling box, likewise a circular from the local vet, promoting deals on sheep anthelmintics had rapidly followed suit. No need for lamb drenches now, she thought grimly.
She winced as she remembered the horrible day she'd had to send all her in-lamb ewes to market. Watching the packed stock trailer bounce down the driveway had been a grim reminder that she was, at best, a subsistence farmer these days. Selling your breeding stock is always a last resort but her hand had been forced; Joan couldn't afford to have the phone cut off, not living out here alone, and her insurances were all due soon as well. So, now, she just had a small flock of wethers and, as a farmer, it had just about broken her heart. Thirty years of breeding and selection, all for nothing. Thank god Phil hadn't been around to witness it. She sighed again, more heavily, feeling she'd somehow failed him. Now her future, and her ability to retain ownership of the farm, lay not in livestock but in fresh vegetables destined for local tables, and the burgeoning London market for Cornish strawberries.
At the bottom of her bundle of post was a pale lavender-coloured envelope with a typewritten address and a London postmark and, after peering at it thoughtfully for a few seconds, Joan tore it open. Inside was an invitation, with her name handwritten across the top in a bold, florid calligraphic hand. It only took her a moment to read it and she snorted in incredulous laughter as she took in the details. Her sixth form class was having a reunion and, somehow, they had tracked her down in Cornwall.
"Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!" She exclaimed loudly, and for the first time all day, a smile spread across her ruddy, windburned face.
With an uncommon surname like Ellingham, Joan presumed they would have located her through Ruth, because she was certain her miserable brother would have been of no assistance to the reunion organisers whatsoever. She read it again and her mouth formed itself into her characteristic upside-down smile; she recalled her time at St. Margery's with exceptional fondness and, even if she hadn't quite reached the academic heights of her sister, she'd had a jolly good time while she were there. Happy memories were all very well and good though but could she really be bothered travelling all the way to London to attend? Of course, curiosity always was a fine motivator to attend events such as this, and Joan's interest was most definitely piqued.
She checked the date again and frowned, one month wasn't exactly a lot of notice to have been provided but she assumed that most of the invitees still lived in and around London, and, unlike them, forJoan even simply getting there was an ordeal. Of course, always pragmatic, she decided that she could always accept now, and change her mind later if need be. There would be no harm done. It bothered her that there was a lot to do on the farm at the moment but a little voice inside her head reminded her that wasn't there always? She also knew, with some confidence that, if she mentioned the opportunity of a few days away to Helen Pratt, her friend would immediately volunteer her husband's assistance in managing the place while Joan was away. And getting away might be just what she needed. It had been an arduous year and perhaps putting some distance between herself and the farm might provide both some rest and relaxation, and some perspective on her current, slightly dire circumstances.
For one reason or another, it had been many many years since she had last been in London. In fact, if she were honest, she had done her best to avoid the place since she'd fled her parents all those years ago. There were definite positives to visiting now though; Ruth was living there and, as she had repeatedly and encouragingly hinted to Joan, was rattling around in her flat with the impressive river views and the comfortable guest room. And there was their nephew of course; despite her less-than-subtle inferences that he might visit her again, it had been six years since she had seen Martin and even speaking to him on the phone was still a rare and irregular occurrence. But, as the saying went, if the mountain won't come to Mohammed...and perhaps this visit would enable her to spend some time with him after all. With so many positives, the idea was growing on her rather quickly but, sadly, there was the rather large obstacle of finance and that might require some thought. It had been at the back of her mind for some time but this might now be the justification to start the painful process of selling off the dusty contents Phil's beloved workshop. She could start with his prized metal lathe; she knew there were several locals that had expressed interest and, realistically, it wasn't something she would ever use. She would just have to cross her fingers that the proceeds would cover the cost of her train fare, something new and nice to wear, and several crates of beer with which to barter for labour with Phil Pratt.
That evening, after supper, Joan telephoned Ruth and was both relieved and delighted when her sister actually answered. They usually corresponded via post and it was a truth universally acknowledged that Ruth was notoriously difficult to get hold of, being famously able to ignore a ringing telephone for days on end. Even if she did answer, she was especially reluctant to stay on the line for any longer than was absolutely necessary.
"To what do I owe this honour?" Ruth had said, in her usual sardonic tone, upon hearing her sister's greeting. "Has someone died?"
As blunt as the Ellingham sisters were in general conversation, Joan was still momentarily taken aback. Ruth seemed preoccupied, her responses were stilted, and things did not improve as the conversation became a brief exchange of facts, delivered in staccato sentences. Joan found herself fighting off a disconcerting, childish sense of disappointment.
"Sorry, my dear, I have a prior commitment." Ruth had replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I'm presenting a paper at a Conference in Vienna that weekend. Frontotemporal Activation in Homicidal Sexual Sadists. It's very good, groundbreaking stuff, even if I do say so myself. But you're welcome to stay here, use the flat and all that, while you're in town."
After Joan had regathered herself, they'd briefly discussed whether they could in fact spend any time together at all and, to her relief, had discovered that their time in London overlapped by at least one day. Ruth had calmly informed her what tube station she needed to get to, and dictated walking directions to her flat from there, which Joan had scribbled down on the back of an envelope, before her sister had bade her a crisp goodbye and rung off. Standing in her kitchen somewhat forlornly, it wasn't quite the exulted return to her home city that Joan had perhaps envisaged but, after all, Ruth was an Ellingham, just as Joan was, and Ellingham's did not make a fuss, whether you were the prodigal daughter or not.
During the week, she sent off her RSVP to the organisers and began to feel a bit more chipper after that. The fact that it had been forty years since she had walked out of St. Margery's for good played a bit on her mind. She decided that she must have reached that ridiculously mawkish age where you fret over where time has gone, and wonder wistfully about the friends you had in your youth; people you haven't given a second thought to in forty years but whom, bathed in a sentimental light, now seem significant and intriguing.
Joan waited a week or so in the vain hope that Ruth might decide that her sister's visit was a priority over yet another Psychiatry conference, and phone her back with an apology and a more encouraging and welcoming air of excitement. But, eventually, she realised that there would be no such call so she decided to go ahead and see if Martin would was available. After supper, she dialled his number, once more with a sense of anticipation and excitement only for her call to go directly to his coldly formal answer phone message.
As if speaking on those infernal machines wasn't appalling enough, she wondered crossly, was it really necessary for Marty to have such an intimidating and disdainful message? You couldn't even call it a greeting, she thought, because it was anything but. If she didn't know better Joan would have suspected that he was challenging anyone to be foolhardy and reckless enough to actually speak at all after his icily cold statement, and then that piercing, off-putting and ominous beep. She hesitated and shook her head in disbelief, once again cursing his wretched parents, and wordlessly replacing the receiver. Half an hour later, she tried again, with the same result, and then once more before she went to bed; just to hear that unwelcoming message and that ear-splitting beep.
Two days later, Joan summoned more courage and again dialled his number, spooked into hanging up before she heard the click of the machine, and feeling yet another stab of disappointment. Is this what London did to you, she wondered indignantly, reducing you to a state where actual contact with your fellow human beings was viewed as an irritating inconvenience? That even phone calls from your family were intrusive and unwelcome. As much as she tried to mask her disappointment by imagining her peeved admonishment to them both, she couldn't help feeling rather disgruntled. Waking up the next morning in a cantankerous frame of mind only reinforced her overnight decision to stubbornly resist attempting to telephone Marty again.
By the time the weekend had come around again though, she'd given herself a severe talking to, having realised that she was being a bit hard on the boy for simply not answering the telephone. After all, she realised that she hadn't actually left him a message and perhaps her feeling of hurt had emanated chiefly from her sister's response to her impending visit. So, this time Joan rang in the morning and finally had the wherewithal to leave him a short, rather terse, impersonal message asking him to contact her at his earliest convenience. When she hung up, she wondered whether she should have been a bit more forthcoming with her information but, loathe to ring him back yet again, the finer details would just have to wait until they actually spoke in person. Besides, she rationalised, the less forewarned Marty was, the less chance he had of thinking of an excuse to wriggle out of seeing her.
Just before midnight that very same day, Martin let himself into his flat. Even though he found it relatively easy to remain dispassionate and unaffected in the face of everything medicine threw at him, by his standards he'd had a difficult day, and an exceptionally long one. It had started early in his shift with a middle aged woman, in for a routine renal artery stent, which apparently had embolized into her IMA. Mr. Newton had performed the surgery but there were complications and Martin had found himself in the rather difficult situation of trying to remedy what he privately considered was his tutor's error of judgement. Then he and the on-call consultant had dealt with a young professional tennis player with acute compartment syndrome, all the time conscious of her irate and threatening father, who'd continually screamed at him in an unfamiliar yet terrifying foreign language. Eventually Martin had to have him escorted from the department by security, and it had shaken him. Before he had time to snatch an opportunity to compose himself, and take in some sustenance, he was back in theatre, undertaking an arduous and complicated surgery on a young man with stab wounds to the neck and, by the time Martin had emerged from theatre in the early evening, he found himself with a dull headache. As usual, they'd been short staffed all day but he had stayed surprisingly calm while juggling numerous phone calls, consultations, the usual frustrations of incompetent staff and avoidable injuries, and the part of his job he disliked the most: speaking with distressed family members. He was tired, hungry and, as his headache began to deepen and throb and he looked forward to the end of his shift, he was once again summoned to theatre and charged with the repair of a deep wrist injury on a suicidal young woman. Compared to what he had dealt with already that day, the surgery was relatively straight forward but he had been surprisingly disturbed when he'd read her notes to discover that she was only fourteen years old. He had quietly glanced in on her later, where she lay on the bed, unsupported by either family or friends, looking wretched and frail and so very very young, and it had bothered him.
When it had finally come time for him to make his way home, he'd decided to walk, in the hope that he might clear his head. He strode down the pavements, moving as quickly as he could without actually breaking into a jog. Late night revellers spilt out onto the footpaths in front of him and yet he dodged them without even breaking his stride. Skirting around the edge of the park and into the quieter residential streets, he slowed and attempted to stretch out the stiffness in his neck and shoulders. By the time he reached the entrance to his flat, the physical exertion had certainly made him feel marginally less tense but, as he jogged up the stairs, he realised that the walk had done nothing to address the sensation of disquiet he was now experiencing almost continuously as he found himself wrestling with his disquieted mind.
On Sunday morning, only marginally refreshed, Martin made his way downstairs for breakfast. His mind was already working hard as he processed his task list, in an attempt to effectively organise his day. As he made his way to the kitchen he noticed the flashing light on his answerphone with a disappointed groan. After seriously contemplating ignoring it he stabbed at the 'play' button more out of duty than interest, and listened with knotted brows to the familiar tone of his Auntie Joan. She actually sounded a bit cross but he was used to that. He always seemed to bring out the worst in people. Realising that it wasn't an emergency, he decided he would deal with her after he had taken care of his uncomfortably empty stomach.
Joan wasn't in the house when Martin returned her call that Sunday morning, nor was she there when he tried again later on in the afternoon. Her hens had not only discovered a way out of their coop but had also chanced upon the delights of Joan's gently ripening strawberries and the joy of scratching in her carefully spread straw. Twice they had escaped and twice she had rounded them up again, the second time with much less finesse than the first, and she had subsequently secured the rusty wire to the base of the hen house in a nailing frenzy. Reflecting that it was wrong to assume you were the superior species when you were continuously outsmarted by chickens, she'd been slowly making her way back to the house when the phone rang again but she had neither the energy nor the will to run to answer it. Probably just Moo, reporting in on the parish gossip, Joan thought, and she was bound to call back. Imparting her freshly discovered titbits was the highlight of Moo's week these days. Other than bragging endlessly about her marvellous son, it was all she had to maintain her air of superiority over her friends.
Growling with frustration, Martin once again hung up. He knew Auntie Joan to be a Luddite but surely something as simple as an answer phone would be beneficial when you were invariably outside, year round, dawn to dusk. He'd attempted to phone her at meal times and he was now at a loss. From half past six tomorrow morning, when he would start his rounds, his diary for the next month was terrifyingly full. Part of that was outside his control; his FRCS examinations were looming, he was co authoring a paper on vascular imaging with an interventional radiologist, there was an important conference in Aberdeen that he was keen to attend, and another internal training day at which he was presenting. On top of that he was still doing everything he could to spend extra time in theatre and, while it was certainly invaluable, he was beginning to feel the slow creep of exhaustion as the pressure on him steadily intensified. But, as profound and all-consuming as his work load was, it was still more preferable to those rare occurrences when he was alone with his thoughts. It was only those moments when he allowed himself to be silent and still, that the nebulous discord revealed itself. He'd given up trying to identify the cause, preferring as usual to immerse himself in his work; keeping busy had always been his salve in times of discontent and self-censure, and he was determined that this time would be no different.
On Wednesday evening, somewhat fortuitously, the formal dinner with a visiting eminent Swiss researcher had been cancelled. Martin had spent all day with the man, discussing things that greatly interested him such as his recently published report on the clinical trials he'd been undertaking, based on a revolutionary technique developed by a team from St Mary's and instigated by Martin himself. What he didn't see the point of was to now have to sit in glowering silence all evening, listening to bores like Prof. Langan with his gloating superiority and petty oneupmanship, somehow try and reduce their guest's invaluable research to a point scoring exercise between Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
By seven o'clock, much to his inordinate relief, Martin was home and had eaten his supper. He'd selected Boccherini's string quartets for company and had stood in the middle of his kitchen, wavering between a re-examination of the difficult clock repair that had remained untouched for weeks, or wondering whether reading might relax him more quickly. As he prepared himself for the unexpected prize of an early night, the telephone caught his eye and, with the merest hint of guilt, he took a few hesitant steps toward it and, once again, placed a call to his Aunt.
He waited impatiently, wondering how many rings he should sit through, as he listened drowsily to the mesmerising buzz of the unanswered telephone. So hypnotic was it in fact that, when she finally answered, it was like a jarring and alarming jolt. Joan had been walking up the path, after shutting in her hens for the night, when she'd heard the telephone and, this time, she'd decided to run to answer it. She hadn't left the farm for a few days, and hadn't spoken to another human being for at least two, so the opportunity for conversation seemed irresistible. She snatched at the receiver, juggled it clumsily and, rendered off balance, bellowed her number into the mouthpiece at a most unfortunate volume.
"Auntie Joan." She heard a voice say coldly. "Was that really necessary?"
"Marty!" She cried, unable to hide her delight in hearing his voice, icy diction or not. "At last."
"Mmm." He replied, before thinking better of giving her a lecture on how precious his time was and how much of it he had wasted over the last few days, waiting in futility for her to answer. "How are you?"
"A bit breathless." Joan replied, trying to gather herself and recover her composure.
"Did you run for the phone? Is that wise? What if you fell?..."
"Oh, for God's sake Marty, don't be ridiculous, I'm just a bit out of condition, that's all." Joan interrupted crossly. "Anyway, I certainly don't want a lecture from you of all people..."
"What do you mean 'Me of all people'?" He replied tersely. "I..."
"Oh, do shut up, Marty!" Joan snapped, with an exasperated laugh. "I've decided to come up there for a visit and I was rather hoping you'd take your old Aunt out for lunch? What do you say?"
There was a prolonged silence before Martin cautiously responded.
"Right, when is this?"
"Let me see, a week next Thursday."
She heard him sigh loudly.
"Ummm, I'm afraid I can't. No chance of making it the following Friday?"
Joan felt yet another surge of disappointment.
"No, there isn't. And here was me thinking that you'd be happy to give up a few hours of your precious time. Just lunch with your aunt, thats all I asked. Six years Marty, six years it's been since you've been to see me."
And what a disaster that was, she thought angrily, as she drummed her fingers on the worktop.
He grimaced, flipping through his diary and staring at page after page of evidence of the incessant and unrelenting demands of his career. Of course she would choose the day he was rostered for elective surgery, in theatre with Bernard Newton, one of his last opportunities to work with his tutor prior to his impending examinations.
"Well, come on Auntie Joan, you haven't exactly given me a lot of notice." Martin said defensively.
"Would it honestly have made a blind bit of difference when I'd asked you Marty? First Ruth, and now you. Bloody Ellinghams through and through. Sod you both, I'll make other arrangements..."
"Auntie Joan, please..." Martin gasped. If only she'd try to understand. Twelve years of his life, twenty four if you counted that he'd wanted to be a doctor since he'd first dissected that frog aged just six. Everything he'd sacrificed to get to this point, and sometimes it honestly did really feel like everything; all the experiences he'd forfeited, all the relationships he had eschewed, his single-minded, all-consuming pursuit of his goal and it all boiled down to the next few extraordinary months. He opened his mouth to explain but he realised with horrible discomfort that she had hung up on him. His head slumped forward and he rubbed his eyes, slowly and regretfully. It didn't seem to matter what he did or what he said, or how hard he tried, he just had this knack of upsetting people and, honestly, he was used to that. But Auntie Joan was different. It hurt that she was upset with him, it hurt a lot but, even upon reflection there was absolutely nothing he could do to retrieve the situation. It was entirely out of his hands. Switching the light off, he made his way disconsolately upstairs.