"You know, I've been thinking…" She says, and I wonder immediately how she's had the time.
She has greeted almost every person we have passed on the street. A nod here, a salutation there; even as she speaks to me now, she gives a small pre-occupied wave through the side window of the car, her face lighting up with most refulgent of smiles.
"And?" I ask, touching the horn, my irritation mounting with a large, hairy dog that stand oblivious in the middle of the road.
Louisa, apparently on the side of the filthy creature, utters a soft groan of sympathy, tapping me lightly on the thigh almost in reproach, as if we should be content just to sit here with the engine idling, until the stupid thing decides it has somewhere else to go.
"Don't scare the poor thing Martin, you never know, he might be lost…"
"You were thinking?" I remind her briskly, determined to steer her back toward her original line of thought, as my concern begins to mount. Heaven help me if, as well as chickens, she is thinking about assuming ownership of a brainless, flea-ridden cur as well.
"What? Oh…yeah…well it's about this new G.P really." She replies distractedly. "I suppose I was just thinking that, when we're living in Portwenn, whoever Chris chooses…I mean, the thing is…they're going to be our G.P, aren't they? You know…our family doctor…"
For a moment, I hold my breath. She's right of course and yet it hadn't even occurred to me. The children that she hopes to have, and her own medical needs especially; of course she will be required to be registered with a practice somewhere near the village. And the truth is, I'm not all that enamoured with the man she sees in London, but god forbid that I am ever allowed to express an opinion or contradict the advice he provides. Fortunately, she is fit, and at the peak of health, so her demands upon him are almost non existent but, if some serious event occurred, I'm not sure I'd want her life to be in his ponderous hands. However, I have been reassured by the fact that, in London, should such an incident occur, she is never far from a highly rated hospital. Glancing across at her now though, I feel somehow quite perturbed. The Royal Cornwall nearly an hour away and god knows the distance to the infamous Wadebridge surgery; if urgent medical intervention is ever needed, will the distance to specialist care be the difference between Louisa's life and death?
Lost in thought, I almost miss the turn off but she cries out just in time, alerting me to my error, shooting me a look of surprise, almost of disbelief. We are both aware of some minor deficiencies in my sense of direction but, she is right, I should know this route like the back of my hand. How many times have I travelled this way, bouncing up and down uncomfortably in whatever death trap of a vehicle my aunt had at her disposal. And all the times I have ferried Louisa along this route too, more often than I can remember. In all her guises too: the stroppy, rather terrifying teenager, the wary young woman whom I had wounded so deeply, and now my wife, whom I love more than anything else in the world. She turns to face the road ahead and she is radiant, her outlook so positive, her expression so self-assured. I stare too long at the perfection of her profile and, in my chest, I feel the return of a familiar ache. She is so sure of the road we need to follow, the journey we should be on. I only wish I could understand my reluctance to follow her, to take her hand without trepidation.
"Careful Martin!" She gasps, as we come up behind a tractor, in a narrow part of the lane.
"Yes." I reply briskly, startled from my thoughts and irritated beyond reason at the impediment to our progress.
Clods of damp soil fly from his tyres, tall hedges rise up on either side of us and the car is filled with a strange, sickly sweet, organic scent. There is no getting around him and my hands grip the wheel in frustration.
"Silage. " Louisa explains breathlessly, as I wrinkle my nose in disgust. "Martin, I love that smell, I 'spose co, actually, it always reminds me a little bit of my grandad's brand of tobacco."
"Of course it does…" I reply disapprovingly, flipping the sun visor down as we are blinded temporarily by the shaft of morning sunlight.
"I remember he used to keep it in a little leather pouch…" She continues dreamily, as if recalling some halcyon childhood I know never existed. "Funny how, when you're a kid, you're so totally fascinated by things that adults do. After he finished his morning rounds, we'd go to the Crab, and he'd have a pint and I'd have a lemonade, and I'd watch him roll his own cigarettes and line them up across the table…"
I frown at her suspiciously. "Morning rounds?" I ask, surprised that he, too, might have undertaken a similar daybreak routine to that which has featured so prominently in my own profession.
"He was a postman, Martin." She explains happily. "He was usually home by dinnertime and mum would leave me with him most afternoons… that is, until I was old enough to go to school…"
I sigh heavily. While Louisa being left in the care of her grandfather was not, in itself, unreasonable, once again she was placed in an environment patently inappropriate for a small child. To this very day it still sickens me, remembering the squalid little cottage of her childhood. Often I had wondered how frequently her mother held those raucous weekend-long parties? How much damage had the cacophonous popular music done to the delicate hearing of a little girl? I grimace now when I think of the second hand smoke she must have been exposed to; the cold, the damp, the dust mites, and the mould. No child should have to endure such an upbringing, treated like an afterthought and passed from pillar to post. The lack of parental responsibility exhibited by Louisa's so-called family was nothing less than appalling; I grip the steering wheel and thank god no offspring of ours will ever suffer the same appalling childhood
Without warning, the tractor pulls into a driveway to the right, scattering large clumps of organic material all over the road as the trailer bounces across the tarmac wildly. Louisa, of course, waves to the farmer and, bent over the steering wheel, he responds by raising his thumb lazily as we pass. How she identifies them all is really quite beyond me. Brown plaid is like a uniform down here and this farmer is no exception, anonymous in a woollen hat pulled low over his brow, a battered oilskin gillet, and discoloured, shapeless jeans. I have long since stopped asking her if she knows them; of course I do or that's not the point the only two responses I am ever likely to receive. It's about being part of a community, Martin, I recall her telling me as I stared back at her, her attitude so utterly perplexing. It's about making sure that everyone in the village is taken care of, that people feel like they belong.
Honestly, Louisa's sense of affinity with those who live around her is something I've never understood. Contrary to her need to be on first name terms with all and sundry, I couldn't care less about the other residents of our building, or our street or indeed most of the seven million people with whom we share the city. Yet, within her school too, and even in my department, she is so determinedly interested in everybody there; never forgetting a name or failing to recognise a face. In sharp contrast, I have little regard for either location or community, other than relishing the relatively quiet position of our flat, the Kensington Borough's high standards of sanitation, and the convenient proximity to my workplace. Knowing the name of the postman means nothing to me, it certainly doesn't provide me with any sense of belonging, if indeed I am even capable of that feeling outside of an operating theatre. Any sense of satisfaction I feel comes from extension of medical knowledge, the improvement of ones skills. If I do experience moments of contentment, of acceptance, of security, it originates solely from waking every morning with Louisa as my wife. Locality will never mean anything to me ever; it's simply the four walls that surround us, a front door and a roof.
As we ascend the hill, though, I am momentarily distracted from my thoughts. We are back above the sea again, a brilliant shimmering expanse that merges indistinctly with the haze on the horizon. Just off-shore, a small yacht bobs along, virtually becalmed, barely disturbing the silky surface of the water. As locations go, it is hard to imagine ever tiring of this prospect; a patchwork of rolling hills, and a turquoise ocean stretching apparently to infinity. Certainly, as a boy I looked forward to my visits here, mainly because they were such a respite from the misery of prep school. I suppose, too, I did feel welcome perhaps even wanted when I came to Cornwall. There was always someone there to meet me at the station, my aunt would never have dreamed of leaving me waiting for hours on an empty platform, chilled by the wind until my legs turned blue and I could not feel my feet.
Inevitably, as I alighted the carriage, there would be vigorous hugs which I barely tolerated, biding my time, aware that substantial refreshments always awaited me in the car. Fresh fruit, chicken sandwiches, and generous wedges of cheese; a gastronomic heaven after the inedible fare of the boarding house. And so, like anyone hungry and now fortified by nutrition, understandably my spirits began to lift. The sun did always seem to be shining and, buoyed, I would pepper my poor Aunt with questions, usually faster than she could answer them. On reflection, it can only have been my need for predictability and structure that saw me quiz her so. When could we go to the rock pools? When might I explore the stream? Could we look for sticklebacks down at the lake? Were there any late lambs to feed? I'd dreamed of a White Letter Hairstreak for months, fluttering obliviously in the meadows, just waiting for me to net it, and pin it to my board.
Odd how, at this point in the road, I'd be almost giddy with anticipation, undoubtedly because Auntie Joan had agreed to a day trip north to Boscastle to search the cliffs for goniatites. Surely adding fossilised fish and plant remains to one's collection was enough to make any small boy excited? I mean, what sort of child wouldn't be thrilled by weeks of endless natural history, of devising one's own experiments, of reading Gray's Anatomy long into the night? Fresh air, freedom and undisturbed ablutions. Three delicious meals a day and falling into bed, physically exhausted. And, the holidays drew to a close, there'd be the usual ceremony; to see how much I'd grown, the religious marking of my height on the door jamb by the stove.
"Here, Martin!" Louisa barks suddenly, waving her arms emphatically to the right.
Jamming my foot on the brake, in a hail of gravel we pull into a sweeping drive, the view only becoming more spectacular as it is revealed before us. Overgrown hydrangeas jostle for space, their huge mop heads hanging heavy with dew, scraping against the car like cobalt coloured pom-poms as I navigate the narrow bend. But there is no time to wince at the damage to my paintwork; Louisa has her safety belt detached and is opening the door before we have even come to a stop. Of course, I recognise it straight away, the ugly porch alone enough to transport me back twenty years in time. While the prospect is certainly impressive, and the house itself a handsome, sturdy looking pile, I can't help but wonder at Louisa's eagerness and anticipation, such a contrast to that reluctant adolescent I recall as too fearful to even leave the car. In fact, her demeanour here was one of immeasurable distress, not a time I imagine anyone might look back on with nostalgic sentiment.
"Louisa, the agent isn't even here yet…" I point out. "I think it's better we wait in the car…."
She smirks at me through the open window. "And here was me just thinking: I bet the key's still hidden in the same place…"
"Louisa!" I call out reproachfully, but she is no longer listening, striding toward the front door, swinging her bag back and forth in a manner which makes me realise that there is no point in attempting reason.
Her hands are on her hips now as she gazes around, chin raised, her expression gratified, as if every single detail meets with her approval. That ill-advised glass porch was certainly where she'd collapsed. As fiercely defiant as she was, Louisa had been obviously pale and prone to syncope; yet another victim of the local GP's incompetence, when it was clear she was exhibiting symptoms of iron-deficiency anaemia. It seems pertinent to reflect now on how many other women in the village were similarly undiagnosed? Pregnancy complications, tachycardia, susceptibility to infections; all treatable yet, frustratingly, all I can think of is how the breadth of suffering is only going to get much much worse. Truly, the amount of undiagnosed illness I've noticed on just a brief visit to the village is bordering on outrageous; good grief, how many other ticking medical time-bombs are resident in Portwenn?
Louisa folds her arms impatiently and I glance down at my watch. I've a good mind to telephone Chris Parsons right now and put a rocket up him. For God's sake, as a physician of sorts, he should be as appalled as I am by the thought of so many ailments left untreated, so much preventable illness taking hold. And it's clearly his responsibility, I feel duty bound to point that out. Obviously, there are significant chasms in the provision of healthcare in these disadvantaged corners of the country and he isn't doing enough to fill the gaps. Need I remind him of the fact that the NHS exists as a health service based on a person's clinical need, not their ability to pay? The fact is that the responsibility for the health of the community falls squarely on his shoulders, and he is neglecting his obligations, in his duty of care he is failing the people of Portwenn.
"Louisa." I call out to her. "I have a telephone call to make."
Even from here, I can see how she frowns at me, that frustrated roll of her eyes. "Really?" She cries. "It's honestly that important, is it, this phone call, that you've got to make it now?"
"Yes. Absolutely. " I tell her firmly, closing the window and feeling in my pocket for my phone.
The sun streams into the car, the day so bright now that I find myself reaching for my sunglasses. In the stillness, the silence hums and I watch transfixed as a dust devil dances across the drive. Leaves swirl in the vortex and Louisa's hand goes to her hair; grinning un-selfconsciously with the joy of a delighted child. In her favoured Cornish light, she is lovelier now than she has ever been; poised, self-possessed, altruistic. Gazing at her, my situation seems suddenly more dynamic yet somehow more resolved. A purpose so clear my life appears to me now as if I observe it through a microscope with all parts finally aligned; the coarse focus, the fine focus, the objective lenses adjusted to perfection, the appropriate ocular lens properly in place.
A car approaches but I ignore it, passing my phone thoughtfully from hand to hand. Playing devil's advocate, it occurs to me to wonder just what Henry Ellingham might think, whether he would consider the step I'm considering a shameful fall from grace. Would he though, when I was aware from a young age that my grandfather was never a man to stick to the well beaten track, never a physician to follow the path of least resistance? Hadn't he been a celebrated Harley Street surgeon, with a lucrative private practice, yet he had put it all on hold to join the war effort? True, what little I knew of that part of his career I had gleaned more from books and journals than any direct conversation with the man himself. But when Henry spoke, inevitably I had listened, loitering in the background, earwigging on conversations he had with nameless strangers over tumblers of brandy on Sunday afternoons. I can still hear him now, his booming Edwardian voice, his tone one of utter scorn.
Thousands of soldiers facing life with appalling disfigurements, yet the general medical consensus at the time was that there was nothing more that could be done. Damn fool army surgeons couldn't be trusted to sew up the turkey to keep the stuffing in! Someone had to step in and give the poor beggars a chance.
And what of the advice he had given me, finding me frozen to the spot in indecision, my mother's expensive cold cream jar in pieces in my hand? Tears had filled my eyes, how hard I had tried not to weep in terror as he had directed me into through the enormous oak door into his study. But, instead of punishment meted out, a tube of glue had been produced. Then he had sent me off, his finger to his lips, in pursuit of a raft of strange ingredients, vegetable oil from the cook's pantry, a sprig of Rosemary from beside the kitchen door. On his desk stood a jar of wax and a pot of aloe Vera and, after conducting a brisk and informative chemistry lesson, I was instructed to replace the jar quietly into her handbag. But, before the pat on the shoulder and the inevitable instruction that I must run along, he had gazed at me over the top of his horn-rimmed spectacles, his brow furrowed, his expression strangely adamant.
Let this be a lesson to you, young man. Never wait around with the expectation that some other fellow is going to come along and find a solution. Even if it stretches you to the limits of your abilities, you must step up, Martin, you are an Ellingham and you must find within yourself what it is that must be done.
Without a moment's hesitation, I find Chris' number in the speed dial section of my mobile phone. At first, as I expected, his response is one of utter incredulity but, as a battle-hardened administrator, the practicalities of the situation soon take precedence; retraining requirements, the formality of an interview, and the notice period I must provide the Head of Department at St. John's. But, when he enquires of my plan is to purchase the existing surgery and, awkwardly, what Louisa thinks of the move, I feel suddenly apprehensive and I find myself cutting the conversation short. Promising to telephone him back later in the evening, am I now too late to prevent her setting her heart so firmly on this house? Attempting to scramble from the car, I catch the toe of my shoe beneath the accelerator pedal. As I stumble over myself I fumble with the keys and drop them on the drive. And it is only when I stand up that the sickening realisation dawns on me, I have done it again, I have failed to consult her on a decision which affects us both significantly. My desperation grows to find her, to explain to her my reasoning but, glancing all around me, I realise she is nowhere to be seen.
Dear readers,
The number of reviews has dropped off massively over the last two chapters. The only conclusion I can draw is that interest in Wheezer has fallen away.
Because of this, I have decided to bring the story to a close once and for all. It takes up too much of my life to write if no one really cares about it any more.
Thank you for reading and I hope you have enjoyed the journey we've been on. I will comment a little more after I've published the final chapter.
thank you (-:
JAH