Uncertainty
The rest of the morning was rotten for Louisa. One teacher was out sick, a smattering of students were coughing and hacking with the latest bug, her back was aching like all get out and Martin… well, Martin was off to London.
London, or Londinium, as the Romans named it so long ago when the founded a fort at a ford on the River Thames. That bit of history just floated into her head, like flotsam on the water. If another teacher called off sick tomorrow then she would have to go into a classroom and deal with the germs floating there. She had resolved to try to keep herself isolated as much as she could from the school kids – at least that was one bit of advice from Martin she was trying to heed. She had agreed to cut back her hours but with Martin away she thought she might as well go into school.
All the while she kept looking at her mobile, willing it to come alight with an incoming text. Finally, it did, as she was opening her lunch.
'Arrived 11:17,' the text said in a typical clipped message from her husband.
She held the mobile in her hands for a few seconds, before typing in reply. 'Okay. Take care of yourself.' She almost willed him to not reply but he did.
'Love you,' she next read.
Those two words sat Louisa back in her chair. For a man who was sparse in emotional responses, especially in pubic, it was positively earth shaking. "Well, if you love me, Martin," she whispered, "why in heaven's name have you gone to London on a fool's errand?"
She bit back a tiny sob. 'Love you too,' she managed to type, but did not add 'Good luck.' Before she could do more, Sally Chadwick burst through the door with an angry mum in tow.
The mum was Liza Townes, a pushy and bleached-haired woman of one child, a BMW, and an inflated sense of self-worth; both of herself and her child. Mr. Townes had made a pile in the last dotcom bubble and had recently bought a defunct B on the edge of the village. Word was they were going to restore it, but so far the property remained unopened as a business.
"Oh, hello, Mrs. Townes," Louisa managed to say, bracing herself for some demand or other. The Townes woman was full of demands, as well as other things.
"Mrs. Ellingham," the woman began, "Now about the end of term production for the village fete. Why is my Stacy only the second starfish? Certainly, given my daughter's talents, she ought to be FIRST starfish! Surely you must agree!"
Louisa forced a smile, rather than a grimace, as she tried to come up meaningless platitudes to get this unctuous woman off her back. If Mrs. Townes was not complaining about the school uniforms (too scratchy), books (old, tattered and out of date) or school lunches (too greasy) she was bent, it seemed to just make trouble; for there is one such person in every undertaking.
"Mrs. Townes, yes Stacy has singing talent, for a third year, but all the starfish in the piece are silent," Louisa told her.
"Well then you must let her sing a solo," came the angry reply.
In the distance, Louisa heard the school office phone ring, and she willed it to be for her. "Mrs. Townes, the establishment of roles is given out…" Right on cue, Louisa's desk phone rang. "Excuse me," she told her visitor. Picking up the handset, she cleared her throat. "Yes?"
Sally's voice told her, "Louisa, the Parish Council head, Stu MacKenzie, asked to speak to you. He says urgently."
"Ah, right." Louisa covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "I do apologize, Mrs. Townes, but I must take this call. So, if we might discuss this another time?"
Liza Townes turned on her heel and flounced away, slamming the door as she did.
"Thanks, Sally," Louisa said to the phone.
"Right, Louisa. It's Stu MacKenzie o the line."
"Oh… sure. Please put him on." Louisa heard a click, and the gravelly voice of Mr. MacKenzie was in her ear.
"Morning, Mrs. Ellingham. Sorry to ask, but… I understand that the Doc is considering leaving Portwenn and taking you with him?"
Bad news rides a fast horse, she thought. "No, I… well, I don't know."
"You don't know? I hear he went to London – job interview."
Thank you, Pauline, Louisa thought as she ground her teeth. "Stu, look, Martin – my husband – is just exploring options."
"Options?" he asked.
"Yeah."
She heard Stu sigh. "Louisa, we've known each other a very long time…" he paused. "So, don't give me a snow job."
Louisa laughed. "Snow? Heaven's Stu, when's the last time it snowed in the village?" Unlike right, now, as she mentally piled the snow high and deep.
"I was just calling to ask, is all. How are you?"
Pregnant, fat, have to wee, and will be very glad to have this baby born. "Fine."
"Look, Louisa, if… uhm… if things, a mean with the Doc, change and you are even thinking about pulling up stakes, then the Council will need to know. Finding a replacement for you will be hard, so the sooner the Council can get started looking all the better."
Louisa grimaced inwardly. "Oh, I am sure… I mean… I don't… I mean… just have to see how things work out, shall we?"
Stu laughed. "Like having kids, right?"
Just then a wave of belly tightness struck Louisa, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. "Yeah… tons of fun," she managed to say to him after a few seconds of extreme discomfort.
Stu went on. "Me and the missus had three, you know. Each time, she was in labor for a couple days. Which she reminds me of when I get on her bad side," he laughed.
Was it necessary for everyone to tell her how much giving birth hurt? "Wonderful, thanks for that."
"So, when's the Doc coming home?"
"Tomorrow."
"Ah, well, best of luck then."
"Right. Sure. Fine. Thanks, Stu."
"Goodbye, Louisa."
"Bye. Bye." She set down the phone and rubbed her belly. "Damn, that hurt." She sighed. "On a couple of fronts." She opened her lunch bag to eat, but looking at the apple, sandwich, and carrot sticks made her stomach churn. She binned the whole and then opened a desk drawer and finding a packet of stale biscuits, munched on one.
0=0
Martin stood outside Imperial Hospital, after paying off the taxi, holding the handle of his overnight case in a sweaty hand. He blew air through his nose as he checked his watch. He was on time; early by ten minutes. He looked up at the edifice. He had been here before for seminars and for a consultation on an especially tricky kidney section.
He recalled that the tumor had been well encapsulated and not destroyed too much of the kidney structure. Fortunately, he remembered, pathology, using a quickly performed frozen section and microscopic inspection, confirmed the mass was benign. Thusly they could save the remainder of the kidney.
That was… what? Five years ago? A flash of the patient's wife embracing him in post-op, after he had reported the findings and a successful operation, brought a surge of nausea. He shook his head to clear it and then returned his attention to the building.
Six floors of a modern building, fronted by a neo-Classical facade faced him in limestone. Clearly the building had been recently cleaned for the stone shone brilliantly, free of dirt from rain, air pollution and auto exhaust. A handsome building he thought; one he'd be proud to work from. It made his Portwenn surgery look like a crumpled and dirty matchbox in comparison.
Portwenn… right. He looked down at his hand to inspect the gold wedding band, gleaming in the noon sunlight. Portwenn and Louisa; his wife carrying their child to be. He looked around the street, as his ears were assaulted by the din of traffic, auto horns, voices raised in anger where a taxi's mirror had clipped a bicyclist. Driver and biker were now launching loud curses at one another, as two bobbies on foot patrol moved to intervene.
Definitely not Portwenn, where you might have a real problem arranging for a taxi, although Tommy and his wife Tasha had just started another service. The air smelled of exhaust and not sea air. An ambulance screamed past, klaxon blaring as it raced to the emergency entrance.
Noisy, yes. Crowded, as someone brushed past him on the busy pavement. He craned his neck to look up and the sky was partly sunny. There was no sea breeze to keep the clouds away.
A woman stolled past with a pram, bearing a backpack, loaded no doubt, with the paraphernalia of modern parenthood, while a chubby child gurgled from the seat. A few months old, Martin guessed. He watched as a very pregnant woman entered the hospital door in front of him. He watched her rub her back, far advanced with the extreme lordosis of advanced pregnancy. Perhaps he was attracted by her long and dark ponytail, so he automatically followed her inside.
Beyond the portal, a typical three-story hospital atrium was revealed. Gleaming marble floor and walls, potted plants in the corners with an avant-garde wire sculpture lit by brilliant spotlights was suspended overhead. People were everywhere, heading to lifts and corridors, also queued at the desk that said Information, with another line to the side at Registration. He got into the Information line.
After a minute or so wait, during which he found himself sweating as his stomach was tied in a knot, he was finally waved forward.
"Yes?" a blond-haired older woman asked him.
Bleached hair, he noticed. She had dark roots and there was a dark mole in the part of her hair.
He drew a breath. "I have an appointment…" he said.
"With?" the clerk asked.
"Um, yes. Right. I'm here to see…"
"Who?" she asked in an irritated tone.
He could not speak. His tongue and mouth like dry sand. "Dash… wood." He finally managed to say.
"Yes. Dr. Dashwood. And you are?"
He leaned forward to peer at the top of her head more closely. "You have a mole; a dark spot," he waved to her hair. "In the part of your hair; you need to have that seen to. It may be melanoma."
"What?"
"I'm a doctor. Get that spot looked at. Soon."
The clerk's hand went to her head to feel the spot. "Don't feel anything."
"All the same…" he started to say but his pulse was pounding in his ears, his hands, feet, groin and armpits damp with sweat, his guts in an uproar.
"Now…" the flustered clerk stared at him. "You are?"
Martin thought about Louisa, her sad eyes that morning at Bodmin Station, their baby, his surgery and all the rest.
"Sir?" the clerk asked.
Martin cleared his throat. "I'm…" he started to say.
Note: I had not abandoned this tale. We were on a long trip. :) Thank you to those who asked about me by PM.
