Catch (37 page)

"You will inform me if there is any change to her condition?"

"We're not exactly sure what we're dealing with at the moment, Mr Solomon.
 
But I can assure you, her husband will be kept fully up to date with any progress." She gave him another one of those looks that made him feel small. "Him being next-of-kin."
 

She was right – it was time for him to leave, he decided, before the temptation to shove her mouse where the sun didn't shine overtook him.

Tamsen couldn't understand it at all.
 
Some voodoo curse perhaps?
 
Or maybe she'd inadvertently hexed someone. Lord knows, she'd been tempted with Matt's mother.
 

She looked with some anguish at the last of the goldfish in the aquarium in Matt's foyer.
 
The poor little guy was struggling to stay upright, swimming for dear life, the way fish do when there's little hope of making it through a few more hours.
 
Her heart lay heavy in her chest.

Tamsen had already been filled in on the sorry aquarium history by Gina's replacement - a tall willowy blonde, heroin chic.
 
The kind who should be traipsing catwalks in Milan, designer clothes hanging off her bones, and the latest electric pink blusher radiating from her high cheekbones.
 
Her perfect teeth and impossibly high fuck-me heels were wasted on today's batch of pensioners sporting orthopedic underwear who lounged in reception.

She was still deciding whether or not to just pluck the poor dying creature from the aquarium and have done with it when Matt arrived.
 
He was all she needed.
 
She'd hoped to get in and out before running into him but the universe continued to crap on her.

"Tamsen.
 
Thank God - a friendly face."

He looked pale, flustered and anxious.
 
Not himself at all.
 
"What's the problem?"
 
Her concern for him, she realized, was genuine.
 
No matter about his mother, her feelings for Matt hadn't changed.
 
He was a victim of circumstances just as much as she.
 
Besides - even after all they'd been through she still felt her heart lift at the sound of his voice.

He pulled her to him, hugging her.
 
Her response to him - the scent and touch of him - was automatic.
 
He said, "It's Danni. She's collapsed.
 
She's in hospital in isolation.
 
They've got no idea what's wrong with her.
 
I don't know how I'm going to cope.
 
I can't take much more, Tams."

"Is someone with her?"

He nodded.
 
"Her husband arrived just before I left.
 
He's going to keep me up to date with what's happening.

"Matt, you really look awful.
 
Maybe you should go home."
 
Although, she thought, with the mother from hell still in residence maybe that wasn't a great idea.

"No, I've got a deal here that's falling apart.
 
But what I do need is coffee.
 
I'll send out for a couple.
 
Would you come down to my office where we can talk?"

She sorely didn't want to spend time with him, but the pleading look on his face and the horrible circumstances he found himself in made her accept.
 
With a heavy heart she followed him down the corridor to his office.

"It's wall to wall paper in here." She couldn't help contrasting the everything-in-it's-place Matt she'd come to know and love with the mess she found herself standing in.
 
"Is it always like this?"

Matt pulled another grim face.
 
"Not normally.
 
I just don't seem to have been able to get to grips with anything lately though Danni's been doing her best."
 
He ran his finger around the neck of his shirt, trying to loosen the firm grip it had on his throat.
 
A sign Tamsen associated with his feeling trapped - which seemed to be happening with monotonous regularity.

The emaciated receptionist arrived with two coffees and just as Matt gestured for her to put them on the desk his cell phone rang.
 
He took the call, barely making more than a couple of grunting sounds.
 

Tamsen busied herself with the steaming coffee, conscious of her already increased caffeine intake and making a mental note to cut back.
 
No wonder her anxiety levels were up.
 
She sugared Matt's for him, out of habit more than anything else, and felt a small pang of grief tug at her heart.
 
What might have happened if everyone could have just left them alone to get on with it?

"That was Danni's husband."
 

Tamsen handed him the coffee and he instinctively reached for the sugar.

"I've sugared it for you."

He looked surprised.
 
"Bless."
 

An awkwardness surfaced between them, and Tamsen felt the strain of not quite knowing how to behave around him anymore. She asked, "How's Danni?"

"She's in a coma."

"Oh, Matt."
 
Tamsen was shocked.
 
"That's terrible.
 
Do they know what's wrong?"

If it was possible, Matt's features took on an even grimmer look.
 
"I think you should sit down, Tamsen."

"Why?"
 
She felt uneasy.
 
Another life-changing moment bearing down, she just knew it.
 

Tamsen put her coffee down on a tiny piece of uncluttered desk.
 
No need to compound a lousy situation by spilling coffee everywhere.

"The hospital has done blood tests.
 
Danni's got a streptococcal A infection.
 
Her internal organs are shutting down so they've given her massive doses of powerful antibiotics and put her into a drug-induced coma to give her body a chance to recover.
 
However there's a good chance she might not come out of it."
 

"Oh, God!
 
Oh, Matt!
 
Why does this stuff keep happening?"

The look on his face was dire.
 
He was nearly as pale as the foreboding piles of paper on his desk.
 
"They think she picked it up from your aquarium, Tams."

"What?
 
That's ridiculous!"

"Is it?
 
Really?
 
She's been pulling dead and dying fish from that aquarium for over a week now."
 
He dropped his head in his hands; he seemed somehow battered, beaten even.
 
"Fuck!
 
It looks like I could be losing Danni as well."

"Matt..." There really wasn't a thing she could say.
 
She didn't have a handle on life anymore. "If there's anything I can do."

"I really think you've done enough!"
 
His angry tone jolted her out of her stupor.

Her own anger blazed, meeting his.
 
"I don't think you can blame this on me!"

"I'm not blaming anyone, Tamsen.
 
I just think you should go home."

"The aquarium?"

"Don't touch it.
 
The health authorities are sending someone to take some samples.
 
I think it's best that you go.
 
Now."

From experience she knew it was useless to argue when he used that tone of voice. "I'll be at home.
 
Just call me when you know something.
 
Would you do that much for me?"

He nodded.
 
"I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I hear."

Collecting her things from by the aquarium, Tamsen couldn't help noticing the little guy who had been struggling had died.
 
Again, the decision had been taken out of her hands.
 

It wasn't lost on her that this was the fish she'd put in the aquarium the day she met Matthew.

Matt, in more shit than he cared to admit, was beginning to realize he didn't have a hope of arranging the financing for the Sinclair deal.
 
He would have been pushing it uphill even with Danni on board.
 
He needed time to think, but time was a scarce commodity.

The new girl on reception seemed next to useless, but continued copy-typing forms he'd drafted by hand.
 
He'd forgotten how pedantic banks were about full disclosure information and hadn't drafted a trustee resolution in years.
 
Talk about winging it.

"I can't read this word, Mr Solomon."
 
Emily pointed to the page.

"It's 'insurance', Emily."
 
How the hell had she'd gotten through secretarial college? He could barely keep a civil tone; it must have been the tenth or eleventh time she'd come back into his office over his handwriting.
 
"The same as the one three lines above it."

"Oh.
 
Yes, I see that now."

She scurried back down the hallway and Matt despaired.
 
At this rate there wasn't a chance of him having the documentation in the bank's hands in time to meet settlement.
 
He had barely an hour and needed an alternative plan.
 
The trouble was, there wasn't one.

Tamsen's stomach lurched as she listened to the health official. "I see.
 
You're sure about that now?"
 

She hadn't lost enough it seemed.
 
A week after Danni's hospital admission she was out of the coma and making progress, but still very ill.
 
Everything seemed surreal.
 

Tamsen stood in the remains of her flat. Packing cases were everywhere, and now her business being stripped from her too.
 

The official warbled on about safe and sanitary practice but she only listened out of a sense of duty.
 
Really, it was all over.
 
Packing up and running away.
 
Nothing left here for her now.

"No, that's fine.
 
I'll have someone supervise the closing down of the business.
 
Really.
 
You won't have to worry about it happening again."
 
Her voice sounded like a stranger’s, she'd become so disassociated from herself.
 
Like this was all happening in someone else's life.
 
Denial, she thought.

Tamsen sighed.
 
Hopefully this was the last telephone discussion she'd have to have with anyone related to the Department of Health.

Gina's final gift.

Weed.

Weed that harbored a virulent strain of Strep A.
 
Tamsen had felt like a witch faced with the Inquisition when the Department questioned her, expecting them to pull out branding irons or start shaving her head to check for marks of the devil.
 
She shuddered, just thinking about it all.

It's behind you now, she reminded herself and turned her attention to the boxed contents of her life.
 
Neatly stacked, all awaiting the removal men.
 
Everything indexed and labeled for when she wanted to walk back into the trappings of a "normal" existence.
 
Was there such a thing, she wondered.
 
The only normal she knew was a setting on her washing machine.

A buzz from the intercom shattered her thoughts and announced the arrival of the carriers.
 
Pressing the button to open the gate and let them in, she cast a glance again over the stacked boxes.
 
Amazing how a life so out of control could look so organized and orderly when packed.
 
Everything to be tidily stowed in a 12x12 storage shed.
 
A sobering thought.

On the positive side, she felt lightness in her being she hadn't experienced for quite some time.
 
An inner confidence that, stripped of material responsibilities and goods, she could take the time to go and find herself again. She’d spent far too much time looking after everyone around her, and in the process had lost her inner spark and flame.
 
Her soul had gone walkabout.
 

Now the universe had issued its challenge and she was facing the demons come home to haunt her, squaring for the fight.

Opening the door, her eyes fell upon a young, virile, powerfully built Maori boy.
 
Obviously a great physique was the upside to humping furniture all day for a living.
 
His deep brown eyes shone, evoking a spirit of youth and hope - of a soul that hadn't yet been bruised and jaded by life.

"Hi.
 
We've come for your stuff."
 
Direct and to the point, she liked that.
 

She liked even more when something inside of her stretched, as if her soul were warming itself, basking in the heat of adolescence and optimism, and the marvel of living.

Wonder Boy strolled past her - a lolling gait, almost like a puppy who hadn't quite grown into its legs yet.
 
He loaded a couple of boxes on his trolley and flashed her a smile. "Shouldn't be too long," he said as he headed for the front door.

"Not a worry.
 
I'm on my way now.
 
Just close the door behind you when you've got everything."

Wonder Boy looked perplexed.
 
"Youse not going to stay?
 
Check up on us?
 
Make sure none'a the boys take off with anything?"

Tamsen smiled. She'd lost so much; a few trinkets in boxes didn't seem to matter much anymore. "I'm sure you can be trusted."