Look into the Eye

by Jennifer Barrett

  “Some sobering issues to consider there.” She nodded at the screen. “But thank you, dear, for the research you undertook and for the proposal you made. Let’s open the discussion to the floor now.” She reconsidered then. “Actually, I have a question myself to start us off if I may?” She looked around, and the heads of the board members all bobbed their assent.

  Yep – here we go, I thought. It’s never bloody simple with you, is it, Fenella?

  “While I do understand, Melanie dear, that we have a very considerable amount of money to raise, to be honest I would have to question the proposal of hiring an expensive external consultancy firm to run this campaign. We have so many prospective donors right at our fingertips, and I would be quite certain that, even around this table, between us we would have dozens of contacts we could approach. Marcus has a lot of experience of this work from the Millennium Centre’s Phase One campaign, and I am very confident in your abilities too, Melanie dear.” She flashed me one of her toothy smiles.

  If she calls me ‘dear’ one more time . . .

  “I know that you would do a wonderful job in coordinating our efforts,” she was saying, “without the need to recruit additional expertise.”

  I stared at her. Was this woman for real? For a start, the only one with any halfway-decent contacts around the table was Fenella herself, and no doubt she’d be too busy instructing Marcus on how to deliver the new artistic programme to raise as much as another brass cent for the project. And for another thing, where the bloody hell was I to get the time to raise fifteen million euro and run the marketing and development department? Especially as I had been lumbered with her dimwit, useless niece as my right-hand person for the last six months?

  I was just about to put some of these thoughts into some vaguely more diplomatic words, when Marcus finally relocated his backbone. He raised his hand, and Fenella nodded, graciously allowing him to speak.

  “With the greatest of respect, Madam Chairwoman –” He sat forward, but bowed his head in deference as he spoke.

  I couldn’t believe what a crawler he was.

  “I wouldn’t be entirely sure that we could manage this campaign internally within existing resources to be honest,” he said, almost afraid to look at Fenella. “The staff are quite overworked as it is – I’m not sure we can ask any more of them.”

  I nodded vigorously, but Fenella shot him a look and he immediately recoiled into his seat.

  Fenella gathered herself then, lifted her chin and looked around at the other board members as she said: “The time has come now to put aside any individual concerns, to come together for a much greater purpose. This is a once-off opportunity for the Dublin Millennium Centre of the Arts to shine on the world stage. We are all going to have to pull together on this – the staff included.”

  I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  Who did she think she was? She wasn’t going to be pulling together on anything – we were the ones who were going to end up in early graves from trying to keep the place afloat.

  Yes, please do excuse those individual concerns of ours, Fenella – those of pure exhaustion and almost certain failure. How very selfish of us.

  I was absolutely fuming. I stared at Marcus, willing him to speak up for the staff, but he just coughed and sat back in his seat.

  Gah! He was so bloody spineless. Well, if he wasn’t going to fight our corner, I’d just have to do it myself.

  I took a deep breath, then spoke. “Just to be clear, The Mill’s staff certainly do not have the capacity at the moment to manage a fundraising programme of this scale in-house without additional resources. The reason I proposed the use of professional fundraising consultants was because we have to raise such a significant amount of private funding in a relatively short space of time. This may be expensive, but each of the firms proposed for our consideration have an excellent track record of success in major campaign fundraising. I would question our capacity to do the job ourselves whilst maintaining current activity levels. It would at a minimum require the recruitment of additional professional development staff, which we know from recent experience are very difficult to find.”

  Marcus shuffled in his seat, giving me a filthy look. He clearly wasn’t happy with me pushing, but I didn’t care – we couldn’t take any more on.

  “All in all, I believe bringing in consultants would be our most sensible option,” I went on, “and that the costs involved will be recouped many times over by the significant funds they will raise for the campaign.”

  But Fenella was not going to back down in front of her board. “Yes. I understand what you’re saying, dear.”

  Argh! All right, stay calm, I told myself. Do not lose it now. Breathe in. Breeeeathe . . .

  “But to reiterate my point,” my nemesis was saying, “we have all of the necessary contacts ourselves. That is a fact. I myself can right now think of at least four or five people who would be prepared to support this project. In fact, who are looking for a project just like this as a vehicle for their philanthropy. Really now, how difficult can it be to ask a few people for donations for such a wonderful cause?” She smiled, displaying every one of her whitened teeth, and looked around the table at the other board members for their support.

  They looked uncomfortable, unsure what to do or say. A few pairs were mumbling to each other around the table.

  I was just about to speak again to try to persuade them, when I heard Father O’Mara’s voice. “Through the Chair?”

  Fenella gave him a sickly sweet smile. “Yes, Brendan?”

  “I believe it is one thing to raise a few hundred thousand euro for a charity project,” he said, “but it is quite another thing entirely to raise fifteen million euro within three years for a building project of this scale. It took us over seven years to raise the ten-million-euro funding to co-fund the public funds needed to build the first phase of the Millennium Centre, and that was even before we had an existing artistic programme to promote and sell. I have learnt just how challenging it can be to raise large funds from other fundraising initiatives I’ve been involved in over the years. I think as a board we must listen to the suggestions and the concerns of our management team. They are the experts in this area.”

  There was a rumble of approval. I looked around the table, this time relieved to see the other board members bobbing their heads in unison to the voice of reason.

  Fenella looked furious, Marcus was clearly uncomfortable beside her, but I was beyond caring about that pair.

  Unfortunately, though, there was one other board member not nodding – Hugh McWilliams, another honorary member of the Fenella Wright fan-club. A retired opera singer, Hugh ran the country’s largest music school and the Wrights were large benefactors.

  “With the greatest of respect to Brendan,” he said, “I think the chairwoman has a valid argument. We should explore all of the options. We have only been presented with one solution today, that of hiring an external fundraising consultancy. We need to consider all of the issues involved in doing this in-house, and there may indeed be other options that haven’t yet been presented. Perhaps Marcus’s team could research the matter further, and present us with a fuller picture of all of the options at the next board meeting?”

  “Yes, indeed – that makes sense,” Fenella interjected before anyone else had a chance to disagree. “All in favour?”

  The board bleated their approval.

  I couldn’t believe it: they were like bloody sheep.

  I caught Father O’Mara’s eye. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows in resignation. I gave him a faint smile, but all I could think of was that I was going to have to research and write another damned presentation, no doubt to bring us all back to the same conclusion I’d just presented.

  Arghhh!

  As soon as I could escape the boardroom I strode as fast as I could down the corridor outside, pushed open the dividing door and marched quickly down the main staircase, taking the steps two at a t
ime over the four flights of stairs. I walked through the foyer, not even saying hello to Gail on reception.

  My mind was so distracted that I didn’t enjoy the sounds of the baroque group through the open rehearsal-room doors, and I didn’t notice Dave, one of our lighting men, standing beside the backstage stairs with a drill. As I marched past the staircase, I tripped over a trailing drill cable and fell hard and fast, smacking both my knees off the cold stone floor.

  Dave rushed over. “Are you okay, Melanie? That looked nasty. I’m so sorry – I had no way of avoiding trailing the flex – there’s no power point this side of the stairs.”

  The pain was intense – it shot through my entire body, but I managed to shuffle myself around into a sitting position on the floor. I looked at Dave but couldn’t speak – just sat there in shock, gently rubbing my knees in a daze as the pain grew steadily worse. I drew in a sharp breath, and was very surprised to find that when I did finally manage to speak, my voice was barely audible.

  “I-it’s okay, Dave. I should have been watching where I was going.”

  Poor Dave looked pretty shaken. The Mill’s health and safety policy was very strict – he could get in serious trouble for trailing a cable across an access route. It was a big mistake, but he was just a young lad, a good guy, and he hadn’t been in the job too long.

  “Honestly, it’s fine, Dave. Don’t worry about it. I’m grand. Look.” I held onto the wall and stood up, very shakily.

  He stepped forward to support me. “Are you sure? You don’t look great, Melanie.”

  I managed a weak laugh. “Probably nothing to do with the fall, Dave. Just this place taking its toll.”

  “Are you sure? I could call a doctor for you? Or let Grace know?”

  “No, no, honestly, I’m grand thanks. Best get back to work.”

  I made a move to go. The pain shot through my legs with every step I took and I was still shaking, but I didn’t want to make too much of it in front of Dave, so I tried as hard as I could to walk through it. Thankfully, he let me go, and I made it as far as one of the ladies’ dressing rooms backstage.

  As soon as I walked in and made sure no one was there, I collapsed onto one of the dressing-table chairs in front of the mirrors. I held out my hands in front of me: they were shaking. I rolled up my suit trousers to survey the damage to my poor knees. They had already reddened and were starting to swell into lumps – it looked almost like I had four knees.

  I struggled to walk over to the tap in the corner of the room, pulled some paper towels off the dispenser on the wall and wet them under cold running water. As I moved, the pain in my knees caused me to gasp. I went and sat back down then in front of the mirror and held the cold, wet towels alternately to each of my knees. My back was aching too, so I tried to straighten up and stretch it out a bit.

  As I sat there the tears started to fall. At first just a trickle – but they quickly built up until I was sobbing uncontrollably, barely stopping to take a breath. When I finally did stop crying, I just sat staring straight ahead, holding one lump of soggy paper towels to my knee and another to my eyes.

  I got up and looked at my sorry reflection in the long mirror. It was truly pathetic.

  You know you can’t carry on like this, McQuaid, don’t you, I told myself as I stared at my image. Katy’s always telling you to get more balance in life, and the family are forever on at you to enjoy yourself more. Even that journalist Richie got you in one, months ago, wondering why you were putting off travelling and all those other things you wanted to do – and he didn’t even know you.

  So what did you do about it?

  Oh all right, so you tried for a few weeks, went out a couple more times than usual, but then when that didn’t work you just got swept back up in work again. Pretty soon you were back to normal – only this time pushing yourself even harder.

  Is it any wonder this is where you’ve ended up?

  There, in the mirror in front of me, stood a pitiful creature: a grown woman in rolled-up trousers, with swollen eyes and bruised, lumpy knees. I looked like a four-year-old who’d tripped in the school yard.

  Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

  It was like Father O’Mara said – I needed to enjoy the journey too, and I wasn’t – I was most definitely not enjoying it. In fact – I looked at my face in the mirror as the tears started again – I was absolutely miserable.

  Something had to change.

  And that’s when it came to me. That’s when I decided what to do.

  I took a few seconds more there staring at myself, before wiping my eyes, rolling my trousers back down, and limping back to my office to make the booking.

  I knew it wouldn’t solve everything, but it would be a good start.

  Chapter 8

  RICHARD

  I thought I would never get to Shimonoseki. A quick glance at the reflection in the mirror of my room at the Plaza Hotel in the Japanese city confirmed that I looked as bad as I felt after the journey – if possible, even worse.

  My one saving grace was that, as it was November, it wasn’t too hot in the city – just a mild twelve degrees. I switched on the shower and stood underneath the warm water to wash away some of the grime and exhaustion of my twenty-five-hour journey. All I could think of was bed – tomorrow morning I’d take the helicopter ride out to board the Illuminar at sea. But that night I was going to sleep – and sleep for a very long time.

  The sheets were soft and cool, and the hotel bed was one of the most comfortable I had ever laid on. I wanted to sink down deep into it, to sleep for a whole week.

  I turned over to find a comfortable position – just as my mobile started to ring.

  I didn’t budge.

  Should have turned that off, I thought – well, whoever it is can wait.

  The phone finally went dead, but five seconds later started ringing again.

  “Come on! What’s the bloody story?” I shouted out, still without moving.

  But the damn thing wouldn’t give up. It just kept ringing, stopping intermittently for a couple of seconds before starting again. “All right. All right!” I sat up and reached out to answer it.

  “Yes?” I said with as much frustration as I could convey in a single word.

  “Richard? Is that Richard Blake?”

  It was a bad line. I could just about make out the words.

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “Where are you? Sorry, it’s Ray here, Ray Kelly from Greenpeace. Have you arrived in Shimonoseki yet?”

  I sat up a bit. “Yeah, I’m here. Just arrived to the hotel. I’ll be out to the ship there in the morning. Helicopter’s booked for eight o’clock.” I rubbed my eyes.

  “Sorry, Richard, that’s just it. We expect to be on the move before then. We’ve received intelligence to say that the whaling fleet may in fact be pulling out to sea today at some stage. They usually have a big ceremony at the port first to wave the ship off, but we now expect them to pull out unannounced. They seem to want to make sure to deflect any international attention this time, not to mention try to catch us off-guard. Anyway, it means you gotta get yourself out here as soon as possible. Right away. Can you sort it?”

  I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.“Eh – I don’t know. Maybe I can reschedule the helicopter or something. I’ll give the guy a call.”

  “Good – well, this is where we are currently laying.” I grabbed a pen and wrote down the coordinates he gave me.

  “You have the ship’s number,” Ray went on. “Any problems, just ring through and ask for me. Good luck.” He hung up.

  Bollox. Fuck. Sheee-ite anyway!

  I rooted around in my hand luggage to find my itinerary and list of phone numbers, then rang the number of the helicopter charter company. The Illuminar was laying out at sea, well outside the port of Shimonoseki. Helicopter was the only way to get out to her.

  Thankfully the pilot was pretty amenable, and for a few extra dollars agreed to meet me at the helipad i
n an hour’s time.

  I got up and used every curse in the book as I got back into my travel clothes, threw my stuff back into my bag, and within two minutes was walking out the door.

  The helicopter circled as it came in to land. I looked down at the ship that was to be my home for the next few weeks – she was actually a lot bigger than I had expected her to be. The hull was painted a strong, royal blue. Over this, the familiar multicoloured Greenpeace rainbow symbol arched dramatically across the front of the hull from one side of the ship to the other. The words ‘Defending our Oceans’ were painted beside the rainbow on either side of the hull. The rest of the ship was painted white, save for a few blue whales painted here and there. I counted at least two orange inflatable boats tied up on deck. A tall mast stood high on the deck, and I noticed a big aerial-type structure at the front of the ship – or the bow. I should probably start using nautical terms, I thought.

  Overall, the ship actually looked to be in pretty good shape – from above, at least.

  I could make out a number of people milling around on deck below. One of them was waving a flag. We circled in to land and, when we touched down on the deck, the guy with the flag approached, bending down low to avoid the whirling helicopter blades.

  “Richard Blake, I presume?” He had to shout to be heard above the engine.

  “Yeah, in the flesh!” I shouted back.

  He waved me away from the helicopter to the side of the deck. We watched it take off again and disappear into the setting sun.

  “Welcome to the Illuminar. I’m Ray Kelly, communications officer for this expedition – we spoke earlier.” He held out his hand for me to shake.

  Ray looked younger than I’d expected – late twenties, I reckoned. He was wearing a dirty grey Billabong T-shirt and green board shorts. His ginger hair was escaping from underneath his baseball cap, and his face was covered in large freckles – there was no denying the guy’s Irish roots, but he actually looked surprisingly normal, not quite the hippy environmentalist I was expecting.