by Lilian Darcy
‘Laird, there’s a huge crush of people here, and she’s hurting so much. She doesn’t want to be found. She has several minutes’ head start on us already. I admit she stands out in a crowd, but how easy do you think this is going to be?’
Kelly and Liz would be worried.
It wasn’t too hard to hide at the Melbourne Cup. There were so many people here. Tammy could easily have spent the whole day at Flemington Racecourse and never chanced to cross paths once with Laird and the gorgeous woman on his arm. She could have gone for weeks without knowing the truth, thinking there was still a chance, kidding herself that Laird staying away from her would make him realise how much he wanted to be with her. Permanently.
Fate had decreed otherwise.
‘It’s good that I saw them,’ she mouthed to herself. ‘It’s good. It’s for the best. It’s over with, now. Short and sweet.’
But, oh, she didn’t want to see them again!
She wanted to hide from Laird and his model, from Kelly and Liz, from the whole world and her own Lairdless future, and just lick her aching wounds. She found the quietest corner of the parade ring and stood there, watching the strappers walking their horses around before each race. She lined up at a drink kiosk for some iced water to cool her dry mouth. She hid out in front of the mirrors in several different ladies’ rooms, soaking her handkerchief under the tap in order to press it to her tear-swollen eyes.
Which was where Laird’s thin, gorgeous friend eventually found her and tried to tell her that she had it all wrong.
‘Tammy, he and I are not involved. I promise. You must believe it. I’ve never seen him so distressed. You’re the woman he wants. He’s here with me today because I asked him to come with me as a favour, that’s all.’
She explained about their past involvement, and the fact that she needed a man on her arm at important functions. She seemed genuine and sympathetic and urgent about all of it.
‘I believe you,’ Tammy said eventually. The strength had returned to her legs. Her chest no longer ached like a knife wound every time she breathed. Life could go on. ‘But it doesn’t make any real difference.’ Because she knew it didn’t.
‘How can it not make a difference?’ Laird’s friend had begun to sound a little impatient by this point.
Her name was Tarsha. She seemed extremely nice, but she had the brittle, fast-paced confidence of a successful and sophisticated woman who didn’t have time to sit around on Cup Day while a suburban mum cried on her shoulder. The ladies’ room had begun to empty out…Tammy couldn’t think why…and they had it almost to themselves, apart from a cleaning team filling the air with the pungent scents of disinfectant and lemon.
It was the most ludicrous place for a heart-to-heart, and yet somehow they were having one.
‘Because there’s always going to be a thin, single, gorgeous, socially appropriate woman,’ Tammy said. ‘Whether she’s real, or a misunderstanding, like you turned out to be, or just my own stupid imagination, she’s going to be there, somewhere, ready and waiting. She’s the woman Laird should find to fall in love with, and I’ll always know it, I’ll always be waiting for it and it will always get in the way. If Laird and I…If by some miracle he did decide he was serious about me…’
‘Tammy, he is serious about you.’
‘I’d never be able to believe it with my whole heart. Some part of me would always be waiting for the thin, single, appropriate woman to show up and ruin my life.’
‘He’s had enough of those in the past. I know his mother. If he wanted a woman like that, he would have picked one by now.’
‘A woman he could have his own children with, Tarsha. One who’d look as good on his arm as you do. One whose only baggage is her designer wardrobe.’
Tarsha fixed her with a critical eye. ‘Tammy, you look damned fantastic in that ridiculous outfit, let me tell you. It’s only women who think that women should be thin as rakes, not men. And can’t he have his own children with you?’
‘I—I…’ She hadn’t even considered it.
‘I mean, have you had some gynae thing done, or something so you can’t? Sorry to pry!’
‘No, but—’
‘You already have five, including triplets…’
‘Oh, he’s told you?’
‘Trust me, he talks about you. And from what he’s said, he’s thoroughly enjoying your baggage.’
‘Oh.’
‘So would another couple of babies really make things so much harder? He has that property. Hobby farm, he always calls it now.’
‘Does he?’
That’s because of me.
Like the fact that he’d talked about her to Tarsha, the realisation gave Tammy a flicker of something she didn’t dare to call hope.
‘And he has enough money for fleets of help. Tell me.’ Tarsha fixed her with gorgeous, impatient, dark-eyed scrutiny. ‘Wouldn’t you have a child with Laird, if he wanted one?’
‘Yes, any time he said the word,’ Tammy confessed, and flushed.
‘As for the thin and gorgeous part…’ She took a sweeping look over Tammy’s generous figure and the bold chilli colours that mocked her emotional state of mind. ‘He wants you, Tammy. Trust it.’
‘I—I can’t.’
Trust? After Tom? The very word scared her. Trust was only a code word for ‘no safety net’, and Tammy felt like a tightrope walker still only halfway across, with Niagara Falls gushing below. She hadn’t had a safety net since Tom had left and she was just about managing, just about used to it, just about ready to think that as long as she had Mum and her own determined strength, a safety net wasn’t required…
How could she dare to lose all that hard-won strength and self-reliance now?
She couldn’t. The thought scared her too much.
‘Well, I can’t do any more to convince you,’ Tarsha said. ‘Except to say life can be short.’ She sighed. ‘If you see a chance at happiness, grab it before something happens. Don’t wait, Tammy. Don’t say no to it just because you’re scared it might not always stay as rosy and beautiful as it is at first. And don’t say no because you’ve been hurt. There’s always the chance that life will hurt. Because none of us, even the luckiest and most blessed, ever know what’s around the corner, do we?’ She brushed something that might have been a crooked eyelash from the corner of one eye, and then blinked. She was…
‘Tarsha, I’m sorry, are you…?’ Crying.
‘My make-up.’
It wasn’t. She had tears in her eyes, and for the first time Tammy managed to look beyond her own turbulent emotions to discover that Tarsha had problems, too. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Really. We’re just about to miss the big race.’
‘Do you care about the big race?’ Tammy asked gently.
‘No, not in the slightest.’
‘And you’ve just wangled my darkest emotional secrets out of me when we don’t even know each other. Couldn’t I return the favour?’
‘Where do you want me to start?’ Tarsha asked. ‘With the man in Europe who’s just left his wife, but doesn’t know how I feel about him? Or the new modelling agency I don’t know if I can manage to get off the ground? Or the—?’ She stopped. Looked at Tammy. Narrowed her eyes. Pressed her lips together, then opened them again. ‘You’re a nurse,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You know about this stuff.’ She brushed her fingers across the underside of her left breast and grimaced. ‘I haven’t told Laird. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, or if it means anything. Tammy, I—I— Why the hell am I telling you? I’ve got to tell someone. I felt a lump in my breast in the shower this morning.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LAIRD had lost Tarsha, now, too.
She’d missed the past two rendezvous they’d scheduled at L’Occidentale’s marquee, and he couldn’t see her anywhere in the crowd. Somehow, she just didn’t stand out the way Tammy did.
Race 6 had been run and the winner had been paraded in all his sleek and rug-bedecked glory before the crowd. Twenty-four horses were now being loaded into the barriers for the Cup itself.
And Laird didn’t remotely care.
He pushed through the crush of people, scanning the bobbing hats for the only one at the whole of Flemington Racecourse that was covered in red plastic chillies, cursing his own impatience, Tarsha’s unpunctuality and the fact that he’d ever agreed to the role of escort in the first place.
The race caller began reeling out the details of the race. The horses were off and running. A string of early leaders gave way to new hopes. One lacklustre performer could ‘see them all’ five lengths in the rear. The crowd’s focus was noisy and electric, but surely Tammy and Tarsha weren’t among all those people watching the track when they knew he was looking for them. He realised he was searching in the wrong place.
Away from the course, scanning for them was easier. He caught sight of Tarsha at last, after only a couple of minutes, and even though Tammy wasn’t with her, he hurried up to her in a rush of relief. ‘Where have you been? Did you find her? You must have, surely!’
‘I did.’
‘So where is she now? Why isn’t she with you?’ He had to raise his voice to be heard, because the amplified race commentary had reached fever pitch, the sound booming and distorted and the caller not even pausing for breath. The horses were into the final straight and almost at the finish.
‘She’s gone back to her friends.’
‘But I wanted—’
Tarsha laid a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t you want to see who wins?’
‘No, damn it!’ It was over anyway. Some people cheered and hugged and laughed. Others tore up their betting slips with expressions of disgust. Laird had no clue about any of the placings, and cared even less. He was distantly aware that Tarsha looked exhausted, although she was trying to hide it. Probably the shoes pinching her feet. ‘Tell me about Tammy!’
‘She’s lovely, somewhat to my surprise,’ Tarsha said. ‘You do have some taste in women after all. We had a really good talk.’
‘Where? Where the hell did you go that I couldn’t find you and you took so long?’
‘In the ladies’ room. Sorry. Unintentionally inaccessible, as far as you’re concerned.’ She turned down her mouth. ‘Turned out we had a lot of ground to cover.’
‘So tell me what she said.’
Tarsha sighed. ‘She’s strong, Laird, but very vulnerable. If you ever hurt—’
‘Don’t you dare tell me not to hurt her!’ he exploded. ‘I don’t have the remotest intention of hurting her.’
‘The problem is, I’m not sure how you’re ever going to get her to believe that…’
She outlined what Tammy had said. And Laird’s understanding of how he felt about her and his frustration at not being able to find either her or Tarsha for two hours, along with the crowd-borne atmosphere of let-down now that the race was over, coalesced into a sensation of hopelessness that made him feel ill and almost paralysed.
‘Then it’s a lost cause,’ he said bleakly. ‘She wanted me to take time to think, but she’s done some thinking of her own, and this is what she’s come up with. And you’re right, I don’t know how to convince her. Words aren’t enough. I can’t think of anything that would be enough, if what you’ve said is true. Thin, single and gorgeous. Oh, hell!’
Tarsha touched his shoulder. ‘Hey, is this the Laird Burchell I know? The one who never had time to go out with me twelve years ago because coming a mere second in his exams wasn’t good enough? The one who turns babies into miracles every week? We’re not giving up on this without a fight.’
‘Tarsha—’
‘I’ve never seen you in such a mess. That means something. That tells me we have to take action.’
‘Does it?’
She did that tired, odd, upside-down smile again. ‘As a wise woman in a very strange hat said to me only recently, Laird…you’re not dead yet.’
‘You didn’t have to come with me. Go, if you need to. You must have…nappies to buy, or something.’
‘Four-year-olds aren’t still in nappies.’
Tarsha was unfamiliar with the finer details of child-rearing, and she was horribly, painfully, desperately nervous. Waiting for a fine-needle aspiration in the outpatients department at Yarra Hospital on Thursday morning, she sat beside Tammy with her knees locked tight together and her hands folded even tighter in her lap. The tart wit and tight pose were a poised ex-model’s version of falling completely apart, Tammy realised.
‘Of course I had to come with you,’ she told Tarsha, feeling an odd degree of protectiveness towards a woman facing the possibility of cancer whom she hadn’t even met this time two days ago. ‘You needed someone here. And since you’re stubbornly refusing to tell anyone else about this…’
‘Oh, please,’ Tarsha drawled. ‘As if stubbornness isn’t your middle name, too.’
They were running late that morning in Outpatients, and Tarsha had used the window of unexpected time as an opportunity to bring up the subject of Laird. Until Tammy had—shaky-voiced—begged her to stop. ‘It’s myself I doubt, Tarsha, far more than I doubt him.’
‘Has he phoned you since Tuesday?’
‘Three times.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘No.’ To everything. To the dinner invitation. To the plea to talk. To the proposal of marriage, made in a moment of sheer frustration and accompanied by swearing. If I asked you to marry me right now, over the phone, damn it, would that make a difference? ‘I said no…’
‘Have you seen him at work?’
‘No, but I will this afternoon.’
‘Good! I hope it’s really uncomfortable for you!’
‘Thanks,’ Tammy smiled a little crookedly. ‘I like you, too, Tarsha.’
‘I’m too bloody terrified to be tactful right now. As for being stubborn, I’m just really good at believing that if you don’t talk about something it isn’t happening. And that, if the something is medical, talking about it to a nurse doesn’t count!’
‘Similar theory to the one that says that ice cream eaten while standing in front of the fridge doesn’t have any calories.’
‘There are some really good theories around these days, aren’t there?’ She gave a breathy, wobbly laugh.
‘There are, indeed. And there probably is nothing happening, Tarsha. If the ultrasound and manual exam had set off major alarm bells, they would have gone straight to a surgical biopsy.’
‘I did tell one other person…’ Tarsha said slowly.
‘Not Laird.’
‘No, not Laird. Someone in Europe. He says he’s coming out here to see me as soon as he can. That would be the best news in the world, if I didn’t have this hanging over me. As it is, I’m too scared to be happy, which feels—’ She broke off and changed tack. ‘Thanks, Tammy. For coming. For saying the right things.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘For putting up with me nagging you about Laird. Because I do suddenly understand how a woman can feel too scared to be happy, even when a man says he cares. I give you fair warning, though, I’m already planning how I’m going to pay you back for your time!’
‘I’m scared about that now…’
‘You wait,’ Tarsha threatened lightly, then her voice changed. ‘Tell me again why this is much better than a surgical biopsy, where I’d be nicely asleep and wouldn’t know it was happening.’
‘Because there’s very little risk of anything going wrong—infection or scarring. The needle is so fine, Tarsha, it should be no worse than a blood test. It’ll be over within a few minutes, and you’ll have the result in a couple of days. Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘No, because then you’ll see what a wimp I am.’
‘I can already see what a wimp you are.’
‘Oh, hell, I thought I was hiding it really well!’
At that moment, the doctor came out and
called Tarsha’s name.
On Thursday afternoon, Laird judged that baby Adam was ready to be extubated from the ventilator and put back onto CPAP. He’d responded well to treatment over the past three days, and his bowels and kidneys were both showing signs of better function.
Tammy arrived at one o’clock for an afternoon shift, and even though it was hardly a surprise to Laird to see her here, the way it had been two days ago at Flemington Racecourse, his reaction was the same—instinctive pleasure that made him feel almost giddy, coupled with a gut-level sense of hopelessness and frustration.
He and Tarsha had limped through the rest of their day at the races with conversation kept to superficial subjects. As much as he had, she’d had something on her mind, only she’d refused to talk about it. And on the subject of Tammy, there hadn’t been anything more to say.
He’d offered to find Tarsha more champagne and she’d said no. She’d clapped her hands when his chosen horse, backed for more than he usually put on, had placed second in the final race. ‘Fantastic, Laird! That’s three hundred dollars!’
But she hadn’t really been there.
If it had been Tammy holding him at such a preoccupied distance he’d have confronted her over it.
What’s wrong? Let’s talk about this.
He’d have held her by the shoulders and demanded answers from her and he knew she would have given them. He might have ended up angry with her, the way he’d been angry a few weeks ago when she’d kept refusing his coffee and dinner invitations—a torrid, undisciplined, demanding kind of anger that he’d barely recognised in himself then, but which seemed far more familiar now. He’d experienced it three times since Tuesday, over the phone.
There was no comparison between Tarsha and Tammy in his heart, only he didn’t yet know how he could get her to believe that.
The sight of her working beside baby Adam’s humidicrib sent every system in his body into overload. She was giving the little boy a dose of medication—a form of caffeine to keep him alert enough to prevent apnoea episodes, ready for his shift from the ventilator to the CPAP machine.