by Lucy Gordon
He headed back to his apartment. Ran through his presentation.
Passion.
He rewrote and rewrote. Thinking of Mardie.
Tell me about Africa …
What was she doing now?
She was due to pick the dogs up at five. She had a cellphone. He’d ring …
She answered on the second ring, and he thought: how easy was that? He could have rung her any time over the past fifteen years.
Why hadn’t he?
He knew why.
‘We’re on the beach.’ She was yelling into the wind. ‘The dogs have spent all day in a cage. They have energy to spare.’
He wanted to be with them. Badly.
Not happening.
‘How’s Bessie coping?’
‘She’s running with Bounce, still just touching, but they’re going as fast as each other. They look fabulous. I think they’re in love.’
Love.
Don’t go there.
Mardie would look fabulous too, he thought. Her hair would be flying every which way. She’d have bare feet, he guessed. Jeans, T-shirt, freckles, curls …
He was standing in his great-aunt’s faded apartment.
He wanted to be on the beach with Mardie.
‘What did Colin say?’ he managed.
‘He’ll have the results of the blood tests back on Wednesday. There’s a couple of other things, but he’s really optimistic.’ She hesitated. ‘He’s willing to do both eyes at once, if you’d like.’
‘It’s not up to me.’
‘It is, because you’re paying.’
‘So pros and cons?’ His emotions were all over the place. He seized on the professional with gratitude.
‘It’s cheapest to do one eye only,’ she said. ‘Dogs manage well with one eye.’
‘They manage better with two. But if there’s infection …’
‘He said that. He said if he operates on two at once there’s a tiny chance of cross infection; that something going wrong with one can mess with the other. But he says the chances are minuscule; he’s almost willing to guarantee success in a dog as young and healthy as Bess. And here’s the thing. He also says it wouldn’t put her under additional stress. She’d have it done, it’d be over, I could take her home and she never need come here again.’
Excellent. But why did that make him feel … wrong?
‘So that’s that, then,’ he said, more harshly than he intended. ‘Two eyes. Decision made. Are you still coming tonight?’
‘I … Yes, if it’s okay.’
‘I’ve organised a ticket.’
‘I’ll come just as the dinner ends,’ she said. ‘I’d like to hear you speak but you don’t need to pay for my dinner.’
‘Speeches are through dinner. There’s no choice.’ ‘Then can I have a nice quiet seat down the back where I can sneak away?’
‘It’s all arranged,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you then.’
‘Then I’d best go and get the sand out from between my toes,’ she said. ‘Oo-er. And I just bet Irena will make me put on a frock.’
The dinner was formal. Very formal.
If Mardie had known how much the tickets cost, she’d never have agreed to come, Blake thought, as he greeted what seemed like the complete Who’s Who of Australia. Politicians. Celebrities. There were a few professionals who were here to learn, like the doctors from North Coast Rescue—a division of the Australian Flying Doctor service—but they were in the minority. Most people were here to see and be seen.
Maybe he should have warned her. Even sneaking into a dark corner, she wouldn’t want to look like a country mouse.
She was a country mouse.
She was also one of the most brilliant artists he’d ever met.
Mardie.
He felt like shouting it to the rooftops. Hey. The Mardie I knew … The Mardie I disparaged … She’s kind and loyal and clever—and she’s talented beyond belief.
She was nothing to do with him.
One of the most eminent politicians in the land was waiting to be introduced. He needed to get a grip. Work the room. Remember why he was here.
‘I’m very happy to meet you, ma’am. We certainly appreciate what you’ve done for us. Let me tell you about Sharik. She’s five years old—here’s her photograph. Through your funding, she can now see. If I could just tell you about the rest of the children in her village …’
* * *
She hadn’t thought this through.
They had fund-raising dinners at Banksia Bay. Yes, she knew it’d be a bigger deal than that, but this … This was breathtaking.
The venue was right on Sydney Harbour. There were queues of cars lining up. Rollers. Bentleys. Porsches. A Lamborghini!
Maybe there was something else on in the same building, she hoped nervously, thinking it was just as well she’d caught a cab. Imagine driving up in her truck.
A security guard was at the entrance. ‘Your ticket, ma’am?’
‘I … Dr Maddock said he’d leave a ticket for me at the entrance.’
‘You’re Miss Mardie Rainey?’
‘Yes.’ Aargh. Was it too late to cut and run?
It was too late. The man took her arm. ‘Take over, Pete,’ he called to his colleague. ‘Miss Rainey’s arrived.’
Had she decided against coming?
The head table needed to sit first. Guests of honour were seated before the riff-raff—if you could call two-thousand-dollar-a-head ticket holders riff-raff.
Regardless, Blake was being ushered to his seat and Mardie wasn’t here yet.
‘Sir …’
He turned and the security guard was guiding her forward.
Mardie.
But different.
She took his breath away.
He thought suddenly of the night years ago, of the premiere of the James Bond movie in Whale Cove. Etta had made Mardie a dress they both thought was the last word in sophistication.
This, though …
Every woman in the room was gowned in sophisticated splendour. Gowns that clung, satin, silks, sleek this-year’s fashion.
Not Mardie. She was dressed … as Mardie.
Her dress did cling. And yes, maybe it was silk, but that was where the comparison ended.
It was tiny, deceptively simple, and it was breathtakingly lovely.
It was a sheath of shimmering fabric that resembled nothing so much as a jewel box straight from the Ottoman Empire. Crimsons, purples, deep pinks, with threads of gold. Simple yet exquisite. It fitted her from breasts to just above the knee as if it was a second skin. It was as if she was wearing a perfect jewel.
She wore a dainty filigree choker around her throat, embedded with stones to match the dress. Enamelled? A Mardie Rainey original? He guessed it was.
Her legs were in shimmering silk stockings. Her stilettos made her legs look as if they went on for ever.
Her curls tumbled over her shoulders, arranged with simplicity and a style that made every other woman’s hairstyle seem overdone.
She smiled a greeting to him and he realised everyone in the room had stopped talking.
Why would they not, in the face of this smile?
Mardie … all grown up. Not a country mouse at all.
Mardie, grown past him?
‘I’m so glad you could come,’ he managed, and the politician’s wife he’d been speaking to gave a delighted cry.
‘It’s Mardie Rainey. Oh, my dear, your work’s divine. Are you here with Blake?’
‘She is,’ Blake said promptly, before Mardie could confirm or deny, and he stepped forward and took her hand.
‘Hi,’ he said and smiled. He felt like keeping on smiling. Not letting go of her hand.
‘Quiet corner?’ she said.
‘Top table’s the quietest.’
‘You didn’t …’
‘I hate going to these functions as a singleton. It messes with the seating plan. The organisers were relieved.’
‘Blake …’
‘So you’ve saved the day. Where did you get that dress?’
‘I made it.’
Of course. His breath was taken away all over again.
And … these people knew her?
The politician’s wife did, at least. ‘I’ve been trying to have Mardie make me some jewellery,’ she said. ‘Like the choker … Oh, my dear, it’s to die for.’
‘I’m caught up at the moment,’ Mardie said.
‘With the memorial wall for the pilot tragedy,’ the woman said. ‘Yes, but it won’t make you money. I’m prepared to pay …’
Mardie smiled politely, made some air promises, turned once again to look at the two empty seats at the top table.
‘They’re waiting for us,’ Blake said.
‘I can’t believe you did this.’
‘You don’t enjoy sitting between the gov …’
‘No. Don’t tell me who they are; I don’t want to know,’ she said. ‘The only way to survive this is to spend dinner telling myself everyone’s ordinary.’
He smiled, ushering her to her place. His hand touched the small of her back as she sat. It felt … It felt …
‘Blake?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Remember that time I let you try my bath-boat on the dam?’
‘I … Yes.’ He did remember.
Back to being eight years old. A wide dam in the back paddock. An ancient bathtub.
Mardie’s method of getting from one side of the dam to the other was to seal the bath’s open plughole with clay and paddle like crazy. She’d offered to let him try. She hadn’t actually told him that the clay plug disintegrated and time was of the essence.
He therefore paddled to the middle and paused to see if there were tadpoles.
The next moment he was neck-deep in tadpoles.
Her lips twitched as she watched him. ‘You can remember,’ she said.
‘I might just …’
‘I’m just thinking,’ she said, softly but surely. ‘Top table, huh? Is this revenge? I’m thinking there has to be an even better fate for you than tadpoles.’
She ate a magnificent dinner, feeling more than a little overwhelmed. Feeling a bit … as if she was pleased she’d dressed up. Initially she’d gone for simple, but when she’d emerged from the bedroom Irena had sent her straight back to change.
‘You go anywhere near a guy like that wearing a little black dress, you’re out of your mind. You have clothes that could knock his socks off.’
‘I don’t want to knock his socks off.’
‘Then there’ll be other women who do,’ Irena said bluntly. ‘Would you be happy to see him head off into the night with someone else?’
Of course she would. She had no claim on him.
But she’d changed anyway, and she didn’t regret it.
She was being treated as Blake’s partner. He didn’t have time to spend with her. Most of his attention was taken by the Very Important Persons on the far side of him. But every now and then he glanced at her, their eyes met, and it was enough.
He was still Blake. Her friend.
The guy she’d dressed up for.
The people around her—politicians, celebrities—were making small talk. Inanities.
Boring.
So … So why not help? Blake was here for a purpose, she thought suddenly, and she’d been given a free ticket. So why not work the room as Blake was doing?
‘I’ve come to Sydney this week to have my dog’s eyes operated on,’ she told the guy beside her, slipping the words neatly into a pause in the conversation. ‘Cataracts. It’s the most marvellous operation. My collie will be back to herding sheep, running on the farm, doing all the things she loves. It’s such an amazing operation. And did you know how little it costs in Africa, for a person? Compared to here, it’s tiny.’ She’d read this on the foundations’s website. She knew her facts.
‘How awesome would it be?’ she said softly. ‘To make a blind person see? To give the gift of sight …? How great must it feel to be able to give that gift?’
She sensed, rather than saw, Blake’s body stiffen beside her. Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been her taking up the cause.
But she was getting little response. The people around her were hardened to appeals.
The politician’s wife was still looking at her choker with longing.
Okay, go sideways. Ignore Blake’s stiffening. Do what seems right.
She thought of the pictures of Blake in Africa. The work that could be done …
‘My next piece of jewellery …’ she said, thinking out loud, eyeing the wife of the Very Important Politician, ‘is a choker like this one. If I sell it, I’m thinking that might raise enough for thirty eye-operations. Or more.’
‘I’d buy it,’ the woman said. ‘In a heartbeat.’
‘I’ll pay more,’ the woman opposite said.
‘Raffle it,’ her partner said, looking amused.
‘You’d get more if you auctioned it,’ another man said. ‘If you’re serious?’
‘I … Yes.’ And she discovered she was.
‘How long would it take you to make one?’ the politician asked, pushing inexorably forward. ‘My wife’s been looking at it since you walked in. If I covered the basic cost …’
‘I’m donating it,’ Mardie said.
Conversation at the far end of the table had stopped. Blake put a hand on her arm. A warning? ‘Mardie …’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said. She returned to the politician doing the dealing. ‘I need to complete a project I’m working on, but I could easily have the choker made by November.’
‘Deal,’ the guy said. ‘Blake, it’s time for you to tell us what we need to know. I’m thinking your lady’s offer comes afterwards.’
‘Knock ‘em dead,’ Mardie said and managed to give Blake a smile.
This was what she’d come for. Tell me about Africa.
The people around her faded to nothing. She wanted to know.
He’d never been much of a public speaker at school. Was he nervous?
She was nervous on his behalf.
He smiled back at her. Then he touched the choker lightly, a feather touch, and his finger just grazed her neck. Sending a shiver … ‘This is to do it justice,’ he said and that was exactly what he did.
And she needn’t have worried, for this was a Blake she’d never met before.
He greeted his audience with ease, he made a wry observation about the day’s political events which made everyone smile—and then he took them to Africa.
Tell me about Africa.
She’d asked and he’d been curt to the point of rudeness. But not because he didn’t care. Not because he couldn’t tell it.
Because it was a part of him?
He had a screen behind him, a half-hour documentary where a cameraman had filmed Blake treating children’s eyes.
Sound had been recorded along with sight, and the moment the video started the sound of the wind echoed through the room.
They were working in a makeshift tent under a canopy of half-dead trees. The wind sounded appalling. What had he called it? Arifi …
It made her shudder. She could feel it through the flimsy fabric of the children’s sparse clothing. She could sense it, blasting sand into those vulnerable eyes.
She watched as Blake and his assistants fought to keep the equipment clean, fought to keep the sand at bay, fought to help.
The people … the kids … the damage … That was all he’d said to her when she’d asked. It was practically all he said here. His words were an aside to what was happening on the screen—simple explanations, nothing more.
The cameraman was focusing on the children’s faces, and then closer. To eyes that were so damaged …
Blake’s commentary was a word at a time, saying what was necessary. Nothing more.
‘This is Afi. She’s better now, practically a hundred per cent vision in her left eye. Moswen’s not so good. Look at
the scarring. We’re hoping for funding for complex surgery for her but we’re not holding our breath. Here’s Tawia. Four years old. We caught her early, but where she lives … the flies … She gets infection after infection …’
She was, she discovered, crying. She groped for a tissue and the politician’s wife handed her one. The woman had a handful and was using them herself.
Blake was touching these people—influential, wealthy people who could make a difference.
This was Blake fighting for what he was passionate about.
How could she ever have thought he’d gone to medical school to make money?
The presentation finished. Every person in the room was still in Africa.
Blake cleared his papers from the rostrum. Prepared to step down.
A thought …
There was this one moment before people turned back to their wine, their social conversations, before they returned from where they’d been taken.
She slipped the choker from her neck and pushed it to the man who’d asked if it was for sale.
‘Take this,’ she said simply. ‘I should have thought of it. Auction it now.’
‘What are you doing?’ Blake demanded.
‘What I want to do.’
There was no better time …
If these people left, their world would catch up with them. The dinner itself had raised money. Blake’s presentation would raise more. But if she could find an outlet for the distress in the room right now …
‘There’s more where that came from,’ she told Blake. He looked as if he’d protest and she reached out and took his hand. Linked her fingers in his.
‘Hush,’ she said. ‘I want to do this.’
So he hushed. They both hushed, while a small and beautiful choker, of copper and semi-precious stones, maybe three hundred dollars of materials and a week of Mardie’s work, was sold for an amount that took her breath away.
For Africa.
‘And there’s another for the losing bidder in November, if she wants it,’ she whispered to the auctioneer as the room applauded. ‘The same but different. I’m happy to consult on colour and style.’
Bemused, the auctioneer made the offer and the woman accepted, signing a cheque on the spot.
Leaving Mardie hornswoggled.
She’d just sold jewellery for a sum she could scarcely comprehend.
Only Blake’s hand was holding her to earth.