After ward rounds on Monday morning, we are scheduled to report to one of the larger meeting rooms; a cold, commodious, pink and grey auditorium with appalling acoustics and grimly barred windows. The vascular department, interventional radiology, the theatre managers, and the anaesthetists who make up our surgical teams, standing around like idiots, waiting impatiently for the department heads to grace us with their presence. Meanwhile, some of the finest minds in British medicine, lean against walls, kick the legs of chairs and laugh raucously, like a group of rebellious teenagers, detained in the hall after school assembly.
This seemingly pointless intrusion into our hectic schedules apparently does have a point. Changes are afoot, and our attendance has been requested so that we can be informed of yet another new rostering system. It seems we all need to be present so that we can be told how future elective surgeries are to be managed, all in the name of more efficient use of the theatre resources we have at our disposal. I suspect that most of my assembled colleagues would agree with me when I think that perhaps, initially, a memo may have sufficed, followed by the opportunity to present submissions and provide our own insights, if indeed we have any. However, it's not to be, bureaucracy rules, and so here we all are.
I sigh repeatedly, in annoyance, standing up straight beside the back wall, arms folded, a frustrated glare contorting my face. I detest my time being wasted and it sorely tests what little patience I possess. One of the radiologists wanders over and we briefly discuss the ridiculousness of the situation. We worked together on a presentation earlier in the year and I respect his skill and intelligence. The man also has a darkly caustic wit and I rather enjoy his particularly eviscerating invective for several minutes, until one of the large doors opens slightly and everyone turns around in the vain hope that, at last, something may be about to happen.
But it's only the pink, shiny face of Chris Parsons that emerges through the gap and a ripple of frustration passes through the room. He notices me and immediately he directs a broad, beaming smile at me. I nod at him by way of greeting but, by virtue of the fact that he must effusively greet everyone he passes, with a clasping, double handed handshake, it takes him some time to eventually make his way across to where I am standing. He bustles alongside me, forgoing a handshake and instead opting for a playful one-two punch aimed at my bicep. It's an odd gesture and I can't help but raise an eyebrow at him querulously.
"Mart! Good weekend mate?" He barks enthusiastically, chortling with satisfaction at his own joke.
"Chris." I respond drily, determined to give him nothing.
"Tedium of the admin team not stultifying enough for you, Parsons?" The radiologist asks, shaking his hand and peering at him speculatively over the top of his glasses. "You want to experience the slow suffocating hell of our meetings as well, hmm?"
"Clearly there's no limit to my self-flagellation, Ronnie old man." Chris replies cheerfully. "But, actually, I just wanted to catch up with Mart. Tried over the weekend but he was otherwise occupied."
I am aware that this gentle teasing is what Chris calls humour but I'm not in the mood. I fix him with a flinty-eyed, venomous stare, known to be so affective that, even when I am masked up, it may have occasionally reduced nurses to tears and junior doctors to terrified bowel evacuations. Though his gleeful expression doesn't change, I sense that Chris has more than understood my meaning.
Clearly he does know something of me, and I of him, enough to consider him to be a friend, even within my own, rather limited context. Our coexistence goes back over ten years now and I will admit to having a level of trust in him that I don't feel in any other of my acquaintances. In a familiar scenario, Chris forced himself into my consciousness when I was determined that no one would but, in his case, it was more a total refusal to be cowed, a disinclination to be put off, that saw me eventually lessen my guard. I admit that, despite my initial misgivings, and reluctance to engage with my fellow students, I came to appreciate the collaborative process when applied to research and study. And, until Edith came along, my collaborator was Chris.
He became my tentative ally and project partner through sheer force of attrition; despite the disinterested and aloof front that I presented to the world. Undemanding, unpretentious and informal, Chris was unlike anyone else I had ever really known. He called me 'mate', he casually included me in his social gatherings, and he took no umbrage when I refused his invitations, which was almost always. Early in our first year of Med School, I observed that he wasn't the most brilliant of students, nor was he ambitious or competitive, nor, mercifully for him, subject to enormous pressure from his family to achieve.
But I always had a sense of something very decent about him, and his genuine interest in people had already set him on the path of becoming a highly efficient networker: Chris knew everyone and everyone knew Chris. Personally, it was my idea of hell but it seemed to be his modus operandi and it must have worked for him because he was relentlessly cheerful and really rather popular, neither virtue being one I could claim for myself. In hindsight, it was probably mutually beneficial but at the time I was mystified when, with hundreds of bright, sociable, optimistic, young people around him, he chose me to be his lab partner and, subsequently, his friend.
The social interaction he forced upon me was probably enough just to keep me just on the right side of becoming a complete recluse. Despite our utterly disparate personalities, he persevered with me despite my indifference to social norms and my distaste for the behaviour that almost every other med student seemed to consider de rigeur. In turn, I tried to help him where I could. Although I could not convince him that brown shoes should never be worn with black suits and that alcohol was not a food group, I hope I did successfully exert a little positive influence on his woeful study habits and his undisciplined exam prep.
As someone who has always known where my future lay, and having always had a vocation from which I never deviated, I admit that I have found his career vacillations confounding and, often, frustrating. Now though, considering his recent declaration that he sees his future being in administration, I suppose that, as he is soon to be married, his priorities and his view on his workload must inevitably change. Reluctantly, I do see that his particular set of skills do lend themselves to this end even if ,personally, I could think of nothing worse. But, as he chirrups pleasantly to all and sundry, I remind myself that Chris is not me. He is by nature an extrovert who thrives on interaction with his fellow human beings, relishes being involved in absolutely everything, and actively seeks out social events; the rowdier the better as far as I can see.
Disappointingly, the radiologist catches sight of someone he needs to speak to, and he slips away, leaving me to Chris and his knowing smirk. I know exactly what is coming though, and I'm prepared, as a pre-emptive flinty-eyed stare spreads darkly across my face. To my surprise, he holds up his hand as some sort of conciliatory gesture and looks at me somewhat abashed.
"Sorry, Mart." He says, and for a moment his face takes on a serious expression. "On Saturday, umm, I didn't mean to come across as, ahh, disrespectful. It's just that it was, well, you know, one hell of a surprise actually."
I'm momentarily taken aback and I hear myself muttering a few vaguely acquiescing, uncomfortable grunts.
"It dawned on me afterwards that, of course if Martin Ellingham is out in public with a woman, it must be pretty serious. So, umm, I'm sorry if I sounded, you know, a bit leery. That was unforgivable of me."
I take in his chastened expression and I suddenly feel as if the air is trapped in my lungs and my throat had closed over. Why do I find his statement to be so abjectly terrifying? Worse still, as I feel the surge of a vehement denial threatening to overtake me, why do I feel such a strong need to deny his version and repel his foray into my private affairs?
I know that I exhibit an almost pathological desire to keep my professional and personal lives separate, so I can't help but resent his intrusion, this blurring of my own clear lines of demarcation. It is bad enough having Louisa completely hijack my imagination in my moments of leisure but I cannot, I will not, allow her to intrude into my working hours. It would just be impossible to manage. It is bad enough allowing my mind to wander as I shower or as I drink my coffee. I just cannot countenance that sort of distraction when I am within these walls.
Before I get the chance to respond, however, the double doors are heaved open and the Dean sweeps in, accompanied by a gaggle of faceless administrators, and followed closely behind by the various heads of departments, my own chief bringing up the rear, sporting his usual vaguely vexed and impatient expression. Immediately, we make our way forward and crumple resignedly into the neatly laid out seats. I find a neutral spot in the middle rows and Chris follows me, silently. I'm not even vaguely curious about the new arrangements. I've always been content to work whatever rosters I am set, in fact I will often volunteer for extra shifts and I see no reason to change this. I'm not even sure if any of the decisions that are about to be announced will have any bearing on me at all and I can only hope that the Dean, who is famous for enjoying the sound of his own voice, gets to the point as quickly and succinctly as possible.
Time ticks by and I begin to feel agitated. I glance at my watch and I'm conscious that, all around me, grown men and women are fidgeting like children in church, as the same earnest voices drone on with their endless questions, unlikely scenarios and ridiculous permutations. Chris pulls his handkerchief from his pocket and begins to polish his glasses while, behind me, a young anaesthetist whose name escapes me has developed a persistent and annoying throat irritation, and clears her throat repeatedly. I'm not even listening anymore and I feel my eyelids droop. My mind wanders, firstly to Chris and what on earth could possibly be so tempting about a career in Administration that he is prepared to devote his life to endless, tedious gatherings such as this.
I can't help but drift back to his earlier statement, the one he gave by way of an apology for his rather overt appreciation of Louisa's admittedly long list of attributes. I'm not sure why his bald faced admiration angered me so much at the time but I had definitely let it get under my skin. Which was, in fact, rather hypocritical of me when I'd had similar thoughts from the moment I'd laid eyes on her in the restaurant with Auntie Joan. Believe me, I had tried very hard to keep those thoughts honourable but five minutes in a grassy knoll had changed everything. The possessiveness I'd felt towards her I'd been able to convince myself was a result of feeling a hangover of protectiveness, from when I'd been charged with the responsibility of taking care of her. And now Chris Parsons is telling me that he knows I must be serious. How can he know that when I barely understand what is going on myself? I can't bear the thought that my feelings are up for analysis by all and sundry, and my stomach churns at the idea that something so tenuous and fragile as whatever it is that Louisa and I have chanced upon should be anybody else's business but ours, especially considering the high probability of me destroying everything out of my own sheer clumsy incompetence.
A smattering of applause breaks out across the auditorium and it's enough to jolt me from my absent-mindedness. Everyone stands up and, as we begin to file like sheep towards the door, the Dean starts to speak again but I'm not taking any notice really, until I'm startled to hear him say 'Ellingham' and immediately both Chris and I jerk to attention, and swivel about to stare back at the stage. It is then I have a horrible dawning realisation that it is not me of which he speaks but the other Mr. Ellingham, the General Surgeon, whose retirement is apparently imminent. With a sickening sensation of disgust I realise that The Dean, of all people, is touting tickets for some sort of farewell function, spouting a line of insincere compliments and spurious achievements by way of encouragement, like some ghastly spiv outside a second rate theatre.
Just when I think I couldn't be more appalled, and I feel the pressing need to escape this farcical situation, Chris stops dead in front of me and I glance over the top of his rapidly disappearing head of hair and straight into the smugly self-satisfied face of my father. Having let himself in, he is standing by the door and it appears that we all have to channel past him obsequiously, as if he were some sort of sporting hero or minor royalty. I hear snippets of his conversation and it appears that he is here to invite my colleagues to his farewell; greeting people by name and uttering that hateful, gloating, superior laugh of his. I'm mortified to see that he actually seems to be exchanging money for the tickets to his own retirement function and, worse still, colleagues I thought had more sense seem to be enthusiastically pulling out their wallets and partaking in his nonsense. I can't help thinking my mother and her detestable charity events might have something to do with this.
Despite the fact that I'm taller than everyone around me, it starts to feel claustrophobic as people crowd towards the door. His disruptive presence only serves to back up the stream of impatient staff who, like me, are desperate to get back to work. But, because he is a self-centred, boorish windbag, he is oblivious to anything else other than his own importance and his own need for self-aggrandisement. Just when I suspect that I can't detest him more than I do, he seems to find new ways of humiliating me in front of my peers. I know Chris understands how I feel. He will never have forgotten the first time they were introduced; as med students when we were visiting a ward my father presided over like some sort of feudal lord. In front of at least half of my classmates I hear him loudly ask Chris if I am a 'Nancy Boy' since, seemingly, he thinks I have little interest in girls.
I'd wanted the earth to swallow me up, such was my complete and utter shame. It didn't matter to the eminent surgeon that, in our examination results of a few weeks earlier, I'd just topped the year; that I was studying hard and trying to live up to the great legacy my grandfather had created. Christopher Ellingham couldn't care less that I was applying myself diligently and with a ferocious intensity, that I was determined to be the best I could be; indeed my father's oft-changing and contradictory rules meant that because, unlike him, I didn't spend every waking minute in the lustful pursuit of dubious women, then I was nothing. A Nancy Boy. An impotent, inadequate misfit deserving only derision and contempt.
At that moment, my fear of him was replaced with something close to hatred. I wasn't the son he wanted. I had no sporting interests and even less prowess. I had no inclination to chase women and even less to join the navy. All these things to him were the stamp of manliness and I had failed on all counts. I thought of my father's study, dark and heavily oak panelled, the only light emanating through the diamond shaped lead lights of the mullion window above his desk. The walls were adorned with awards and sporting memorabilia which detailed his own triumphant youth. Tennis trophies abounded, framed photographs of hearty youths in baggy trousers carrying a grinning cox aloft, a burnished epee alongside a yellowed fencing mask, a lacrosse stick, and even a polo mallet.
On the mantelpiece, more photographs: waves breaking across the bows of nameless naval frigates, women perched on motorbikes and yet more smiling faces, clustered around a cafe table in Paris, or sunburned and astride a camel, the epitome of British naval officers in Egypt. Where one might perhaps expect to see at least one image of his son, instead the space was filled with a battered, moth eaten selection of shuttlecocks, a mounted cricket ball and a small goat-skin drum. Lower down the walls, handier to his heavily carved chair, the dreaded table tennis paddles, with which he would batter me on the frequent but inconvenient occasions where I required punishing after he had dressed for dinner or already undressed for bed. With no belt on hand, the rubberised bats seemed to satisfy his need to bruise the flesh of my thin child's body without even a second thought.
When I was old enough to be aware of my father's disappointment in me, the room seemed like a monument to my lack of accomplishment, as if I were holding up a cruel mirror to my own failures; where Christopher Ellingham's achievements were displayed as if to magnify my own limitations, mistakes, vulnerabilities and failures. I suspect that there may be some truth to Bernard Newton's assumption that my fathers retirement was hastened along by the suggestion that his career was shortly to be eclipsed by that of his son. And I knew how much he would despise me for that, how bitter and twisted it would make him, and how vigilant I would need to be to avoid him in the interim until the inordinate relief of his final departure.
He is only metres away now and I feel myself assume the mantel of impenetrability that I'd successfully adopted after that horrendous encounter between he and Chris Parsons all those years ago. My chin goes up and I square my shoulders, as my face assumes an air of bored implacability. I watch as he passes, with a ridiculous flourish, two tickets to the man in front of us who guffawed loudly. Of course. It is that fumbling arse from Vascular, Dixon. I should have known he'd be falling over himself to attend, the indiscriminate brown noser that he is. Chris turns slightly and glances at me briefly, raising his eyebrows at me and grimacing. I hear my father make that braying sound I detest so much and I look up at him, hoping that the revulsion I feel isn't too obvious in my face. Our eyes meet and I hold his gaze; staring coldly back into those icy blue eyes with a determination fired only by the depth of disgust I feel for him.
"Here's someone who won't be needing two tickets!" He says loudly and to no one in particular. A few people around me titter obsequiously and I am furious with myself for feeling the stinging slap of his well aimed insult.
"Dad." I say as calmly as I can manage, feeling the bile rising in my throat.
"What's your excuse going to be this time eh Martin? Aprons need ironing? Stamp collection need dusting?" He smiles at me and my blood momentarily turns to ice. I stare back at him and, as I watch his eyes narrow, I notice the familiar salty taste of fear assail my dry, wordless mouth.
"Mwah, mwah, mwah." He is laughing at me now and I realise that others are joining in with him. Colleagues with whom I thought I had earned some modicum of professional respect are prepared to join in with my father's bullying and I experience a flash of shame. I clench my fists and glare at him, determined not respond, but all the time feeling more and more like the bed-wetting schoolboy, disgraced in front of his dorm.
There will be no way in hell that I will be attending his revolting, self-indulgent debacle of a farewell. At this moment, I truly hate him and everything he stands for. And, of course, not only is he cruel and vile but he is a narcissist and, with a willing audience and a victim in the crosshairs, there is no way he will show any restraint. I hear Chris say my name quietly but my pulse is pounding so hard in my ears that it is as if someone is using my head as a drum. I can feel my finger nails tearing into the soft flesh of my palms but I kept staring at him. He could do his absolute worst now, for I finally realise that our relationship is never going to recover and any last shred of respect I have for him is gone.
"Let me guess, mwah mwah mwah, you and a few of your boys going to gather round the piano and sing a few show tunes?" He says in a low, antagonistic tone, his eyes glittering and a disparaging sneer contorting his face. "Oh no, that's right, Saturday night is the night you spend sitting home by yourself, fixing sad, broken down, old clocks, isn't it?...mwah mwah mwah...never mind, the grown ups will carry on without you...who's next?"
I was in front of him now, and I stood as close to him as I dared, drawing myself up to my full height and glowering down at him, every pore if my body exuding the venomous rage I felt at him. When I spoke I barely recognised my own voice, so distorted by pain and shame was it, and I could see the concerned expression on Chris's face as he laid a restraining hand in my arm.
"Two tickets" I say slowly, in a low growl. "Unless, Chris, you and Helen would like to join us?"
There was silence and then I hear Chris cough nervously. "Umm yes, yes of course."
"Make it four" I say, reaching for my wallet, throwing a wad of notes at my father and snatching the tickets from his hand. All I remember after that is stalking angrily from the room, throwing myself through the door as if I were a drowning man coming up for air, and Chris, after I'd charged halfway down the corridor, dragging me unceremoniously into the nearest gents, his face contorted with worry.
"I'm sorry mate." He says and I knew he means it. "Listen, you don't have to go, you know."
I breathe out heavily and shake my head at him.
"That's the point, Chris." I reply, with deceptive calmness. "I do."
I look around me resignedly. Of all the places to retreat to, I find myself forced into discussing my most private of issues in a hospital lavatory. No wonder I feel my life is descending into chaos. When I look back at him, Chris is gazing at me thoughtfully.
"Mart, if you don't mind me saying so, this might might not be as bad as you think."
I don't even want to dignify that with an answer.
"I've got work to do." I say grimly and turn to leave.
"I'll come with you." Chris replies and pushes past me to hold the door open. "I think we need to have a little chat."
As we stride down the corridor toward the lift that will take me to my floor, I turn and look at him with distaste. I never need to have a chat, little or otherwise. What I do need is to read some reports, glance at some patient notes, bury myself in some research data, anything that will distract me from the shameful sense of inadequacy that seems to be pulling at me, clawing at my legs and dragging me backwards, like some sort of desperately determined beggar.
I decide, instead of the lift, to run up the stairs but I have to admire Chris' doggedness; he stays with me and arrives at the fire door not far behind me, even if he is rather breathless and wheezing dramatically as if he were about to go into anaphylactic shock.
"I suppose you have your own office now you are a consultant?" He asks, raspingly, and, though I continue to ignore him, he trails behind me like an irritating puppy until I reach the sanctum of my small but mercifully private room, where he follows me in and shuts the door behind him firmly. When he sits on the corner of my desk, I have had enough.
"Chris, I really do have work to do. I appreciate your concern but I can manage. Now, surely, you have some...ahh...stationery to requisition or some light bulbs to count? Hmm?"
But he doesn't move and I can't ignore him, as he swings his leg rather pointedly, folds his arms and gazes at me fixedly.
"Bring Louisa." He says pleasantly, as if it were some sort of fait accompli. "I'm sure she and Helen will get along like a house on fire."
I knew this was coming yet I am woefully underprepared.
"No." I say shortly. "And can you get off my desk? It's unhygienic. Sit in the chair if you must."
But Chris knows me too well.
"Mart! Give me one good reason, and I mean a good reason, why you can't. Bring Louisa I mean."
I pause and my head begins to droop. I allow myself a moment to consider what he is suggesting, even though klaxons are going off, rather wildly, in my head. On one hand, it would feel as if I were throwing her to the lions. On the other, having her there with me would certainly be reassuring so, on balance, it would seem a selfish request, to ask her if she would like to come with me, just so I might enjoy some support. The risk seems too great.
"Even if I were to ask her, there is no guarantee that she would agree." I say eventually and as I listen to my voice, all I can hear is the abject misery of a man who has totally lost his way.
If I expected sympathy and a modicum of understanding from him, I am disappointed. He barks with incredulous laughter and I whip my head up and glare at him.
"What's so funny, Chris Parsons?" I growl, feeling surly and frustrated beyond belief, resentful that even he seems to view me as some sort of reluctant jester, the unwilling butt of everyone's cruel humour.
"You are, Martin Ellingham." He says, and there is a note of relish in his voice.
I can't be bothered any more, I just want him to go away and leave me alone. Leave me to immerse myself in the certainty of science, allow me the assuredness, the security I feel in the practice of medicine. Take your vague emotional grey areas and leave me to what I do best, truthfully the only thing I am any good at. In frustration, I slam my diary shut and toss it into my in-tray, glaring at him; challenging him wordlessly to conclude whatever amusement he is enjoying at my expense, and bugger off out of my office.
"It's a genuine question." He says, still smiling at me. "Why do you think she wouldn't come if you asked her?"
"Why are you so convinced she would?" I bark back at him crossly. "When...what, I mean you must have met her for all of five minutes? How the hell would you know anything actually? That's right. You can't and you don't!"
I'm so angry now that I have risen to my feet. Angry and so bloody disillusioned, I just want to wipe the cocky, presumptuous smile from his irritating face. Everyone is always such an expert on my life. Always telling me what's wrong with me, what I do wrongly, what I say wrongly, how poorly I fit into society, how unconnected I am, how aloof, how I'm too much of this and not enough of that. Well everyone can go to hell as far as I am concerned, bloody Chris Parsons included.
He is still staring at me incredulously but I notice the smile has slipped from his face.
"Get out." I say quietly before adding, somewhat uncomfortably. "Please, Chris."
I watch with relief as gets up from my desk but it's short lived as he slides into the chair opposite me and folds his hands neatly on the desk in front of him.
"I had a bit of déjà vu on Saturday actually Mart." He says thoughtfully and I sigh impatiently. "You must remember those times when I was keen on a girl and I dragged you along for your moral support, such as it was?"
"Umm, yes, a couple of times." I agree curtly after a moment, unwilling to prolong the conversation any further but suddenly sensing a change in his tone that inexplicably makes me decide to hear him out.
"If you recall, on every single occasion, I was barking up the wrong tree. The girl didn't have to say anything either. We'd arrive at a party and there'd be some other fellow there. And I'd know right then and there that I had no chance..."
"Yes, right." I say gruffly.
"Put it this way, there's a look the girl would give me. The Hello-Chris-you're-a-nice-bloke-but-I-have-no-interest-in-you-whatsoever sort of look"
"Chris, please tell me there a point to this because I really must get on..."
"And there's the look that she would give the other bloke. Besotted, infatuated, smitten, call it what you will. Whoever the girl was, she could never hide it. I'd look on and, once again, my heart would sink, knowing I had no chance. Then I'd drink myself into a stupor and you'd eventually lose patience and drag me home."
Though I only recall that happening once, I do suddenly understand that there was more of a point to this story than I had lead myself to believe. We both sit in silence for a moment. In the distance I hear the pealing of telephones and the low hum of conversation. I notice that Chris has pulled a pen from his pocket and has started to draw tiny circles on the edge of my desk pad. I hate doodling, it irritates the dickens out of me but for some reason I don't say anything, I sit silently, looking at his hands, and waiting.
"The point is, Mart, that party, you know, the way those girls looked at those other blokes, so besotted, so captivated, like there wasn't another man in the world for them, and I didn't exist...that's the way, that's exactly the way Louisa looked at you in the restaurant on Saturday..."
His words hit me like a car slamming sideways into a wall. They seem to echo around the room and repeat in my mind over and over again but I can't quite take them in, and I feel myself swallowing repeatedly, unable to even look at him. I realise he is moving and I notice that he is now standing up, as he moves toward the door.
"So, I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm confident Louisa will say yes if you ask her nicely." He says and I can hear the smile return to his voice as he reaches out and clasps the door handle. "And, by the way, Mart, I'm also suggesting that arriving with her on your arm might go rather a long way toward making quite a few people look and feel rather stupid and ill-informed, your bloody father especially."
I glance up at him nervously.
"I don't want him anywhere near her, Chris." I say hoarsely and to my surprise he smiles at me.
"You won't be alone, Helen and I will be there. We'll all show our faces and then we can leave." He nods at me encouragingly. "I'm just being selfish here, Mart. I just want you stick it up the old bastard, once and for all."
He opens the door and smiles at me. "Yes?" He says, inclining his head.
"Umm, yes, I..."
"Don't overthink it Mart. And let's catch up for dinner this week when you've got your nerve back. Alright?"
He's still laughing as he closes the door behind him and, as I watch his silhouette disappear down the hallway, I have to admit, I almost believe him.