by Lucy Clark
The mother was getting tired, standing up, doing the manual work, especially if her body was still recovering from a traumatic birth. Dart manoeuvred his way through the gaggle of children and with a gentle hand urged the mother away, sitting her down before handing her sleeping baby over. The woman smiled at him with gratitude, which he accepted with a simple nod of his head before turning to finish cutting up the fruit and giving it out to the children.
‘He is a man who always gives.’ Meeree had sat down quietly beside Emmy, startling her.
‘Huh? Sorry?’ She quickly tore her gaze away from the man who seemed able to captivate her thoughts.
‘Dartagnan.’ Meeree gestured in Dart’s direction.
Emmy was confused for a split second longer then her eyes widened in surprise. ‘That’s his name? Dartagnan? I didn’t realise.’ She paused then said his name again. ‘Dartagnan.’ She allowed the sound of his name to roll around in her mouth, teasing her tongue. She liked it. It was a strong, brave name and it suited him perfectly. Another thought popped into her mind. ‘Wait. The baby is called J’tagnan.’
Meeree nodded, her kind wise face highlighted in the glow from the fire. ‘He delivered the babe. Rescued the babe. Made it breathe again. The mother was filled with gratitude. She mixed the name of my par machkai, Jalak, with that of her rescuer and protector of her first child, Dartagnan. Jalak means protector and Dartagnan means leader. J’tagnan will grow to be a strong man for his village.’
‘Leader.’ Emmy spoke the word softly and couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips as she turned to once more look at Dart. He had finished his job of handing out fruit and was now crouched down beside J’tagnan’s mother, making sure she was feeling all right. ‘He’s quite a man, isn’t he, Meeree?’
‘Yes, he is. Our village is more rich when he is here. He gives to all. It doesn’t matter if people are high up in their village or not. He gives to all but, Emmy…’ There was a hint of sadness in Meeree’s tone. ‘Dartagnan has no one to give to him.’
‘You care about him more than the other PMA staff, yes?’
Meeree’s smile was calm and natural. ‘People come for many reasons. Some to help, some to seek, some for solace. It is the ones who come for solace who need the most love.’
‘Dart needs solace?’ Emmy was surprised at that.
Meeree stretched out a hand and lightly touched Emmy’s cheek. ‘He is not the only one. You have much in common.’
Emmy held the woman’s gaze, unsure for a brief moment what she meant. She didn’t have long to wait as Meeree continued.
‘I see you look at him across the fire. You feel him. You do not know why. He is like someone you once knew from a dream but on waking, you have forgotten.’
To say Emmy was completely stunned by the other woman’s words was an understatement. It was true. Even though Dart had been a touch brash and a bit standoffish since they’d met earlier that day, Emmy hadn’t been able to shake the connection she felt with him. She couldn’t explain it, she couldn’t describe it, but it was just as Meeree had said. It was like she knew Dart but from a dream where life was all fuzzy and mixed up.
‘How can you know that?’ Emmy was quietly stunned. She was by no means disputing the words the wise woman spoke.
Meeree shrugged her shoulders with natural modesty. ‘I have insights.’
‘Like a psychic?’
‘No. I look at people and I see them.’ She waved her hands as though it really wasn’t relevant. ‘You have a space in your heart filled with loneliness. Everything you have been given does not fill this emptiness.’
‘It’s so true,’ Emmy breathed.
Meeree pointed to where Dart now stood, talking to Jalak and a few of the other men in the village. He was standing in profile so she couldn’t quite make out his features but the vision of the tall, handsome man shrouded in shadows from the night was just like the man who had come to her in her dreams.
Of course, she’d been dreaming of a tall, dark and handsome stranger since she’d been about twelve, a man who had good morals and ethics, a man who put others first, a man who would look into her eyes, see into her soul and love her for who she was deep down inside. That man from her dreams, her knight in shining armour, had always been a bit faceless…until now.
Over the years, as she’d grown wise to the ways of the world, as she’d tried one relationship after another only to find that their main motive was her extensive family fortune, Emmy had started to become cynical, doubting she’d ever find her Mr Right.
‘Dart has such a space, an emptiness, like yours. A void. He is filled with loneliness. It is why he gives. Giving helps to cover up the hole in his heart, but it does not heal it.’
Emmy nodded slowly, her throat dry and constricting slightly with Meeree’s soft words. Dart was lonely. Just like her. Apparently they had something in common after all. They could fill their worlds with people, with experiences that made them feel less alone, but at the end of the day it was just them and their void, trying to sleep, telling themselves that tomorrow was another day where they could once more do good work in order to try and keep the dark hunger of sadness from consuming them.
She took a sip from her drink, swallowing over the lump in her larynx, taking in a healing breath and nodding. ‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t exactly sure what she was thanking Meeree for but it didn’t seem to matter. The world, her life back in Australia, the ebbs and flows of her parents’ constant nagging for her to take her rightful place in society, the need to do more than just throw money at the poor—everything seemed to pale in comparison to knowing there was someone else out there, feeling the same as her.
That light spark of knowledge helped Emmy to feel less alone than she’d felt in years. Even though she had no idea what had caused Dart’s loneliness, at the moment it didn’t matter.
‘I was given everything I ever wanted when I was growing up,’ she said quietly to Meeree. ‘My parents are very wealthy,’ she added as clarification. ‘Yet they were so busy giving charity to others that they seemed to forget about my brother and I.’
‘Money can bring so much happiness but only when it is used with wisdom. Your brother? He is older?’
Emmy’s smile was natural as she thought of Tristan. ‘He is. He was very wild as a teenager and about ten years ago he ended up in hospital after a bad car accident. It took him over a year to recover properly but it changed him.’
‘He is happy?’
She sighed. ‘He tells me he is but…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I think he is. He is in charge of one of my father’s businesses. The accident helped him to find a clear direction, just as medicine helped me to find a direction.’
‘I feel, maybe, that this direction was not what you hoped it would be. It did not give you the peace you still seek.’
Emmy laughed without humour. ‘You are extremely perceptive, Meeree. When my parents realised I was serious about studying medicine, they donated a lot of money to the hospital where I was doing my training. There’s even a building named after my family—the Jofille Wing.’
‘This brought you special treatment you did not want.’
‘Exactly. I insisted my professors treat me like every other student, that they grade me accordingly.’
‘Did they?’
She shrugged and spread her hands wide. ‘I don’t know. I achieved high marks in most of my subjects, I’d been treated fairly during my intern rotations and then I had one job after the next handed to me on a silver platter.’
‘And yet you wonder if you are a good doctor?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. All these years later and I’m still questioning myself. Did the hospitals I worked at keep me happy so my parents would continue to donate money? Did I earn my grades or was I awarded them simply because I was a Jofille?’
‘Is the answer important?’
Emmy frowned as she considered Meeree’s question. ‘Well, I like helping people. I was taught very early in my
life the benefits of public relations and when I was offered the job at the television station—which my father setup for me in an effort to get me to do more “public profile” work—I thought it might give me the opportunity to combine these areas.’
‘So you came here.’
‘Yes. I can use my connections and PR skills as well as help out in a medical capacity. My crew and I have already done a few television pieces on doctors who work in the Australian outback, showing the incredible work they do, showing the viewers the unsung heroes, highlighting topics that have been ignored for far too long.’
Meeree patted her hand. ‘Doubt has no meaning when you know you are doing good work.’
Emmy thought back over her day, how when Hunklu had come into the village, his hand bleeding from the gash, Dart hadn’t wanted her help. It had hurt to be turned away but in the end she’d been able to give Hunklu the after-treatment care he deserved and even though she didn’t speak Tarparnese, she knew how to offer compassion.
When the clinic had started, she’d again felt doubt as to what she was meant to do, until Dart had needed her assistance. Even though she hadn’t had an official role, it had still been great to help out. She’d been trained as a GP with a fair knowledge of emergency medicine but working at a TV network didn’t give her much opportunity to practise medicine.
Doubt has no meaning when you know you are doing good work. Meeree’s words floated around in her head and filled her heart with hope.
Perhaps Tarparnii might do more to help her than she could do to help it. If she could discover the answers to her questions, to continue to move forward to find out more about herself, then surely everything would be worth it. Her loneliness had been with her for as long as she could remember, sparking to life when she’d been kidnap—No. She wouldn’t think about that. Not now.
‘Dart. Dart.’ Emmy looked to where some of the young children were running towards him, wide grins on their faces. ‘Puppets,’ they called, their words sounding strangely guttural as they spoke in English. ‘Puppets, please.’
Emmy turned to Meeree to ask what the children meant but found the woman had left her side as quietly as she’d arrived. She looked around and spotted Meeree coming out of a hut with a large white sheet. Jalak and the rest of the men were collecting long sticks from the ground and right before her very eyes the sheet was erected like a screen.
‘Puppets?’ she asked herself softly, and stood to go closer, to find out what was going on. Everyone else was gathering around, wide beaming smiles on their faces. Emmy was transfixed by what was happening and within a few minutes Dart took his place behind the sheet, the firelight coming from behind him making shadows on the white sheet.
In wonderment, she watched as two hands formed the shape of an eagle, coming down to settle at the lower part of the sheet. The eagle fluttered his wings and then a soft, ethereal sound came from Meeree, who was standing near. She lifted her voice in sweet song, not singing any words but a lilting melody of pure beauty as Dart continued to contort his hands into different shapes, animals, flowers, trees and sometimes humans walking along.
The children were quiet, watching intently. In fact, everyone was quiet as they sat, spellbound by the wonderful skill Dart was exhibiting. Meeree had already mentioned that they didn’t usually have big bonfires unless it was a special occasion and tonight the occasion had been a small gathering to welcome her and her crew. That meant that the shadow puppets were a rare treat and something Dart was extremely good at. No wonder the children had begged him for this treat. Emmy was mesmerised.
Those hands. Those clever, clever hands. They worked quickly and effectively to help and heal people, they lovingly cradled a baby, they created enjoyment for everyone…And Emmy couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have those clever hands holding hers, touching her arms, her body, threading those long fingers into her hair.
She’d never realised how clever a man’s hands could be before but knowing he could do so much with them, she wanted to know more. As he changed his hands to make another animal, Emmy sidled around to the rear of the sheet, ensuring she kept well away from the light he was using, and simply stood there watching him. From this angle, the way he contorted his hands just looked like gnarled knuckles and fingers intertwined in a big old mess yet the opposite side had revealed a perfect picture.
Wasn’t that how her life seemed sometimes? All gnarled knuckles on the inside but shining brightly on the outside? She wished her life was different. That she felt shiny on the inside as well as the outside. Hopefully here, in this world that seemed to be completely different from everything she’d ever experienced, she would find her inner shininess.
As Dart brought his show to a close, Meeree’s voice trailing off, the round of applause they received caused goose-bumps to spread over her body. Emmy was so overcome she was unable to clap. She just stood there, a little behind him and to the left and watched as he stood, took Meeree’s hand in his and took a bow.
He brought Meeree’s hand to his lips in a kiss of thanks before turning—and that’s when he saw her. They were surrounded by firelight, nothing between them except for the hazy smoke-filled air. It added to the effect of seeing her there, standing still, watching him intently. Her trim figure was outlined perfectly, her hair still hanging down her back in a long plait, but the loose tendrils, the way the breeze teased at them…she looked glorious. Such beauty.
No doubt she knew full well the effect she had on the male species but he seriously didn’t want to be one of those captured in her net.
Meeree and Jalak were folding up the sheet, Meeree shoving him gently out of the way in Emerson-Rose’s direction. Dart found himself looking down at her, the fire, already dying down, not too far away from them. Was the intense heat that surrounded him from the fire or from Emmy?
If he took one more step, he’d be almost toe to toe with her, stepping into her comfort zone, allowing her to break into his. Personal space. Personal barriers. He’d erected them a long time ago and that stopped him now from following through on the urge to draw closer to her. Like a moth to the flame, he thought, and shook his head with a hint of self-derision.
‘You didn’t enjoy the show?’ He broke the silence, not wanting to dwell on the way he’d thought she’d been looking at him. The irises of her eyes were almost completely covered by her pupils, giving her that wide-eyed innocent look that seemed to be drawing him in, begging him to come hither. The woman was creating a sense of uneasiness within him and he most certainly didn’t appreciate it.
‘Uh…on the contrary. You’re…’ Emmy swallowed and smiled brightly at him, her eyes wide with wonder ‘…amazing. I’ve never seen anyone do shadow puppets before. That’s quite a gift.’
Her tone was almost bursting with appreciation and Dart had to work hard not to be affected by her praise. He’d done shows before and been thanked before, people surprised at this strange skill he had, and, besides, it was only in places like this that he played around with making shadow puppets. So why was it that Emmy’s words made him feel all chuffed and happy inside? He hardly knew the woman yet her words, for some strange reason, meant so much.
‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘My father taught me.’
She smiled and nodded. ‘That’s wonderful.’
Dart shrugged. ‘We didn’t own a television when I was young and it passed the time.’
‘You didn’t own a television?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
‘I’ll bet you were raised in a house that had a television in every room.’ There was bitterness to his words and Emmy felt her hackles begin to rise.
‘Don’t go presuming you know anything about me, Dart Freeman,’ she said softly. Her tone was still controlled but her hands had gone from being relaxed at her sides into firm fists. ‘I would have gladly traded in every television in my home in order to spend some one-on-one time with my father. In fact, I’d have trad
ed in everything I owned.’
And that most certainly put him in his place. ‘You’re right, Emerson. I humbly apologise once more.’
They stood there for a moment longer, just staring at each other, before Dart inclined his head slightly in a bow of respect, then turned to help pack things away. Space, he needed space and distance from the woman who was starting to rile him faster than a child hitting a hornet’s nest with a stick. As he turned, he noticed the camera crew, equipment out, filming what was going on.
He’d temporarily forgotten about them and as he moved, he realised they were trailing their equipment after him. Anger bubbled inside him. They were here to film the villagers, not him. They were supposed to be highlighting the poverty in the area, the needs of this isolated community, not focusing on the lonely doctor who came to this small country, a country that was in the grips of civil unrest, in order to help out and not feel so lonely any more.
Making a scene was not his style. Ordering them to turn off the cameras was not his style. He’d speak to Emerson tomorrow about how they most certainly did not have his permission to include anything about him in their little documentary. Right now, though, as he continued to help pack things away, checking with Tarvon who had been monitoring Weyakuu, the gunshot victim, as well as ensuring J’tagnan and his mother were settled for the night, Dart prepared to turn in.
He was pleased to be sleeping in one of the huts that was already full of PMA personnel as it meant that Emerson-Rose and her crew would be sleeping in another. It meant he could put the socialite out of his mind. She may have shown some hidden depth, she may have proven herself to be adept at assisting in medical procedures, but she would always be part of the rich and famous set while he was definitely from the other end of the social spectrum.