Balance
"Now, don't forget Martin, the school holiday performance begins at 3 PM." Louisa's words rang in his head the whole day. Even though he had, at Louisa's insistence, blocked out the final patient visit hours for Wednesday, that was like wearing a 'kick me' sign in secondary school on your back. The Fates were unkind to the GP that day. The deluge of sick people were lined up at nine when surgery opened. It was the usual coughs and sniffles, along with influenza (why, he seethed, did people not get their flu vaccinations?) and earaches. That was just by nine.
He dealt with the coughs and colds quickly, along with the influenza cases. How many times would he have to recite, "Rest, fluids, eat moderately and take paracetamol" today?
After lunch he was staring at a sprained ankle which looked ugly. Hugely swollen and purple with a slight twist and offset. "How did this happen?"
Mrs. Ruff answered for her aged husband. "Fell off the ladder. Bloody fool."
Her husband blanched. "Just rigging up more lights."
"Well, for God's sake you have three hundred up already?" she protested.
"Just getting into the Christmas spirit Ellie." The old man shifted on the exam table. "Can't let the spirit die, right Doc?"
Martin just cleared his throat. "When did this happen?"
"Oh, yesterday, 'bout noon," the man answered.
"I told this old fool to wait until our boy came by, but he wouldn't wait," the wife fumed.
"Tom, was running late you see, Doc. Lives up in Delabole." Mr. Ruff coughed. "Lost my balance."
Martin gingerly squeezed the joint. "Yes. Can you bend it? No, I see." Mr. Ruff had come hobbling into surgery, supported by both Pauline and his wife. Martin recalled that the wife had been using only her right arm, the other tucked inside her coat pocket. He turned to her. "Let me see you left hand."
"Nuthin' Doc," Mrs. Rud said, backing away from Martin, and shielding her hidden left arm with her right.
"Oh, she don't like doctors, Doc. Not you personally, just she don't hold to medicine."
"And in an epidemic you would be the first to die," muttered Martin, half under his breath. Then Martin snapped his fingers. "Let me see you arm."
"No. Yer not touching ME! You deal with the mister."
Mr. Ruff laughed. "Good luck, Doc. When she birth to our Tom, that was it, I figure."
"How old is your son?" Martin asked.
Mr. Ruff chuckled. "Oh, forty-five, no forty-six last July."
Martin bit off what he might have said. "You are holding your arm, cradling it in your pocket. What is wrong with it? If you won't show me then t\ell me."
Mr. Ruff coughed. "Ellie was holdin' the ladder… when I come down."
Martin was alarmed. "You hand." He noticed she had been sweating all the while.
Mr. Ruff said, "Ellie, just let Doc look at it at least."
The woman pulled her left arm out of her pocket and Martin nearly gasped. He could see that one, no, two fingers – the third and fourth ones - were dislocated at the metacarpophalangeal joints, bent away from the thumb in a plane of about 45 degrees. The entire hand was swollen and red. It was a classic over stressing deformity, like as seen in arthritis, but this was from an injury. Martin had to swallow hard. "That must be painful."
Stoically, she replied, "Little bit, maybe." Then her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
Martin checked her vitals, and they were fine, so he assumed that she just fainted, which was correct as she soon started to regain awareness.
"Wot?" she muttered.
"You collapsed. Mrs. Ruff, your hand requires medical treatment, and your husband also would benefit from X-ray exam of his sprained ankle. Does your head hurt?" He took out his phone. "I'll call for an ambulance."
"No. Head's fine… all good… don't you call… ambulance," she muttered, still dazed.
"Can't you fix her here?" Mr. Ruff asked sorrowfully.
Martin protested. "No. Her hand requires surgery – a hand specialist - and from the looks of your ankle a boot and crutches may also be required. Mrs. Ruff… I'll give you a local anesthetic in your hand for the… um, injury."
Mrs. Ruff now lay on his floor, quite still while he gave her three injections in her injured hand; one at each damaged knuckle and one in the palm. "This will help. Better?"
"Yeah… um, a lot," she replied. "Maybe I will let you fix me, Doc."
"Right." Martin dialed 999 and waited for an answer, guessing that after dealing with these two, there were a lot more cases to come today, and it was already one thirty.
Across the harbor, Louisa was prepping for the performance. Each class would sing first, then the all-school choir, and then the tableaux. First was the tribute to the earth and sea followed by a short Christmas presentation. She was wincing as a teary second grader was reporting that her dad was working, and her mum now lived away, and they would not be able to see her onstage in the school show. The little girl had the part of one of the starfish, but clearly was quite sad. Louisa knew, from her childhood, how she was frequently disappointed by her parents and their absences.
She pulled Sally aside. "Sally, would you please check the files? Call Edie Morgane's dad and anybody else on the contact list."
Sally thought. "She has an aunt, plus her dad." She looked at the sad little girl. "Right. I'm on it." She bent down and put her arm around the girl's shoulders. "What say you come with me to the office? I'll call your dad and maybe I have a sweet you might have. That okay?"
The child nodded.
"Don't you worry," Louisa told Edie. "Sally, tell them they must come? Somebody? Anybody?"
"Will do, boss." Sally left on her mission taking Edie in tow.
As Louisa watched Sally and Edie walk away she got a funny feeling; a sensation down there, and she had to put both her hands on her belly. What is that? Yes, she felt something. Light feathery brushes inside her. "Well," she said softly while looking down at her front. "Hello there."
Just then a phalanx of mothers arrived bearing cookies, cakes and treats for the school party so Louisa had to get busy.
Each class had done their musical bits and by and large they did brilliantly. Christmas songs, a sea shanty, songs about winter, and then each class got herded (that was the proper word, considering they were young children) all together as one.
She was pleased to see that both Edie's dad and aunt arrived just before things got started and the huge smile on the little girl's face when she saw them restored Louisa's faith in family and the bonds that were formed by them..
First up was the 'Happiness' song. Louisa quite liked that one. Standing to the side she gazed at the sea of young faces, thinking that in five years her child - girl or boy - would be standing up there; in the school gymnasium, singing their little heart out. She got weepy and had to fumble for a tissue.
Mr. Branning, the only male teacher this year, gallantly took out a pack and gave it to her. "You okay?" he asked quietly.
Louisa wiped her eyes, and just as she looked at the rear of the gym, past the heads of parents and others, the door opened, and Martin walked in. "Oh yes," she told Branning. "Now I am."
"Good old Doc Martin," Branning muttered. "Village GP."
Martin took a place by the back wall, standing next to Joe Penhale, who was resplendent in his formal police uniform. Good old Joe, she thought, as she looked at him and her husband. And good old Doc Martin, grumpy bugger, brusque and opinionated fellow that he was, had showed up at last.
Louisa wondered what if she had left for London? Holly had promised her a job so that was in place, and Louisa had scoped out a few bedsits for online listings. Trying to find one affordable in London was a fright, but she found two or three she could afford. She would sell her Ford, much as it would pain her, to get money to get started.
She imagined what one of those bedsits might be. On an upper floor, cracked and dingy walls, leaky roof most likely, with drafty windows, an ancient heating ring and a toilet that 'sang' constantly. Yes, much like her Uni days. Cheap, dirty and horrible, behind a cracked and aged blue door on a dirty landing.
She looked down at herself, her belly bulging beneath her skirt with her swollen baps proudly thrusting out her cardigan. She would have been single, thirty-seven, pregnant and in a bedsit. Cold and lonely at Christmas time. Hiding away from her village, her home of Portwenn. And why would she have run? Fear. But as she looked at Martin and felt that flutter again down in her pelvis, she had to smile.
Portwenn was better than London. Martin… well… she was adjusting and so was he. Marriage? Not easy at times. The sex was good, no great, or so she thought after many years living single. Living with another person, of course, needed accommodation; trying new things until a balance was reached.
Martin was staring at his wife, who shone like a brilliant star in a dark night sky to him.
"Quite a day, eh, Doc?" Penhale asked him. "Them kids are good singers."
Martin had been thinking that he hoped that he could keep her; Louisa that is. Her habits could be disordered; kitchen and bath at times looked like a bomb had gone off, but she was trying to be better at those things. He of course was precise and neat to a fault, so much so that could be obsessive, yet they say opposites attract, and there could be no more such than he and Louisa. But they got married anyway and sorted things out; a work in progress.
Martin cleared his throat as an answer to Penhale, then looked around the room, and all those there had been, or would be, his patients. He hoped that he'd be good enough to service their needs. He turned back to his wife. 'I love you' he said in his head to her. "I hope you love me as much as I love you.'
Just then Louisa turned her head a little to stare more fully at Martin, her eyes shining. He was a good man, and a brilliant doctor, and oh God right then she just wanted to run across the room and give him a big hug and a kiss. She'd save that until later, she thought.
The school kids sang about the harvest of the earth and sea, the birds of the air, the beauty of the hills and moors, the waving of trees in the winds, sunny days, starry nights, rain from showers and storms, and somehow like a miracle, it all balanced out.
Author's note:
I had hoped to write about the Ellingham's having Christmas at this point but, for obvious reasons, I had plenty of other things to keep me busy this month.
I wish all of you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
p.s. Can it be one whole year since the Doc Martin "Christmas Special" aired? Oh my how time has flown.