Miracle Woman (12 page)

‘Martha is a healer. A very fine healer, by all accounts.'

‘Oh my God, are you that woman that saved the little boy's life and got him back from the dead?'

‘She is, she is!' insisted Gina Forrester.

Conversation had ceased and Martha could see the glance of wariness that crossed her husband's face.

‘I just try to help people, that's all,' she said simply.

Bob Forrester beamed at her from the top of the table and she suddenly felt like a dancing bear who was expected to perform for its supper as the other guests stared at her expectantly. Did they want her to grab the crystal water jug and change it to wine before their very eyes?

It amazed her that people's opinion of her could change so radically at any mention of the healing. Some like the Stillmans were clearly sceptical, while others were both curious and fascinated. All through the rest of the meal as the array of tortes and berries and crème concoctions were savoured, the other dinner guests reached over to talk, some even tried to touch her. Unembarrassed, sitting beside her, Dan Kendrick suddenly rolled up his sleeve, showing her a hard fleshy swelling just under the skin on his elbow, which was giving him problems with playing sports.

‘I've had X-rays and anti-inflammatories and steroids and God knows what, it's giving me hell but I guess I've just got to put up with it like Gus Stephens my ortho says!'

Martha stared at his muscled and freckled arm. Touching it automatically, she cupped her fingers around the elbow. Half joking and half serious, she laid her hands on the joint itself and could see his eyes widen as heat spread through it. The lump felt solid and deep, its tentacles weaving through the surrounding muscle and tissue. It felt bruised, something dirty that did not belong in the body of a strong and healthy man. The others watched them as she worked, trying to draw it out and away. Gina gave a little clap when she'd finished as Dan let down the shirt-sleeve, and re-buttoned his cuff. The lump was still there but Martha hoped that she had eased the pain a little.

Coffee and liqueurs were served in the drawing room, Martha enjoying the glass of Bailey's Irish liqueur that Bob insisted she have. Its creamy warmth spread through her. It had been a delicious meal and she could see the relief in Gina's face that it had been such a success. The caterers would most definitely be used again. The men stood around the fireplace cupping glasses of brandy and whisky and talking mostly sport and business, while the women pulled their chairs close to each other and chatted easily about their own concerns. The soft firelight made them all seem more relaxed and at ease with each other
and Martha was prepared for the onslaught of questions about her new calling.

Natalie with her admission of irritable gut, Kaye whispering of the cystitis that had plagued her since she was about nineteen years old and Gina patting the couch beside her and asking her all sorts of questions about healing and how it worked. Martha admitted she hadn't a clue but that the power just seemed to come naturally to her.

Doe eyed, Megan Harris stared at her, telling her of the terrible migraines that stalked her.

‘Have you seen someone about them?' enquired Martha rather naively.

‘Of course I have,' retorted Megan. ‘The two top neurologists in Boston, though little good they've done.'

‘Slowing down and taking some time out sometimes helps with migraine,' Martha suggested, seeing immediately that this was not the answer Megan Harris wished to hear.

‘Do a bit of your healing!' urged Natalie Leonard, who turned out to be one of Gina's friends who had only recently divorced. ‘Go on and have a go with one of us! Poor Megan having to lie in a darkened room. Surely your healing could do something to help her?'

Martha was dismayed. She couldn't produce a cure out of thin air, if that's what they wanted.

‘Couldn't you help her, Martha?' asked Gina softly.

‘It doesn't always work like that,' she tried to explain. ‘I can't tell what the outcome will be, as it's something from outside that works through me. I'm just the conductor of this energy or power that makes the healing happen.'

Gina seemed disappointed.

‘Someone talking conductors and power over here!' interrupted Bob, taking in the look of despondency that had flitted across his wife's face. ‘Kendrick's your man for that!'

Martha was relieved when Mike and the others pulled in the chairs and joined them. Dan, glass of whiskey in hand, regaled them with tales of his tough Chicago Catholic childhood and boyhood money-making schemes.

Driving home in the cab at about 1.30 a.m. Martha listened to Mike's boasting about the discussions he'd enjoyed with Kendrick and his boss. She stared out the window, already regretting the alcohol that had loosened her own inhibitions and made her behave like some sideshow freak. Mike had surprised her with his view that the only reason they had been invited to the head of the Institute's dinner party was in order that Gina Forrester and her cronies could meet Martha.

‘Mike! Don't say such things,' she retorted, not having the heart to admit she had already come to that conclusion herself.

GINA FORRESTER HAD
called about four days later. Martha was in the middle of cooking a huge dish of bolognese sauce, half of which she intended freezing, when Patrick passed her the phone.

Wiping her hands on the apron, she mentally thanked heaven that she had already sent a ‘thank you' card for the lovely evening.

‘Hi, Martha, it's Gina, Gina Forrester, Bob's wife.'

‘Oh, hi, Gina, thanks so much for the wonderful dinner last week. Mike and I had a really great time.'

‘Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Bob and I love having company. This big old house of ours it's just made for parties!'

‘You have some lovely friends,' added Martha.

‘Actually, Martha, that's part of the reason I'm phoning you. I hope I didn't embarrass you too much. I shouldn't have put you in a spot like that, with everyone trying to get you to lay your hands
on them. I couldn't help myself, it just slipped out about you being a healer, and well you know what people are like! I hope that you're not too vexed with me.'

‘It's all right, Gina, don't worry about it.'

She could sense Gina's reluctance to finish their conversation and turned off the pan on the stove, to give the other woman her full attention.

‘Did you like the cushion?' she enquired gently.

‘Why, that was one of the most thoughtful gifts I've received in a long time. You know, I have a thing for roses. My mother used to grow them. The colours that we had in our garden when we were young, every variety of rose – hybrid, tea, rambling, every kind, and I can still remember the scent of them.'

‘I'm glad you like it. One of my friends has an embroidery store up near the station and it's a real treasure trove for finding special things.'

‘Well, thank you for choosing it for me.'

She could sense the hesitation in Gina's voice.

‘Martha, I don't suppose you'd be free to meet up for lunch or to come over to the house some day later this week? There's something I'd like to discuss with you.' There it was, what she'd been expecting: the true reason for the call.

She waited, but realized that Gina Forrester was not about to divulge the nature of her problems over the phone.

‘Yeah, that would be great, Gina. I'll come over to you. What day would suit?'

‘What about Thursday?'

‘Morning?'

‘Are you free then?'

‘Yes, and I'll be over to you about eleven.'

‘See you then, Martha, and thanks a lot, I sure do appreciate it.'

Martha cradled the receiver in her hand long after Gina had rung off. Was she stupid to let herself get involved with Bob Forrester's wife? She wasn't much of a one for secrets but hiding the fact that she was meeting his boss's wife was bound to cause bad feeling between them, something she sure didn't want to experience any more of.

She pulled on a pale mauve button-thru cardigan with mid-length sleeves and a pair of clean cream pedal-pushers, applying a light coating of mascara to her sun-bleached eyelashes and a slick of raspberry-coloured lipstick, before setting off to meet Gina Forrester. Listening to her favourite Van Morrison CD, she drove to Newton, passing Boston College and the surrounding leafy suburbs. She pressed the button on the security panel on the gate, realizing just what a magnificent home Rockhall truly was as she swung into the driveway and parked in front of a rather ancient cherry tree.

Gina came out to greet her, dressed in tailored pale cream trousers and a co-ordinating shirt. Martha was glad that she had made a bit of effort
about her own appearance. They passed quickly through the hall and Gina led her into the kitchen, which was fitted with a vast array of cabinets and an enormous hutch in a hand-painted off-white beech wood. A state of the art cooker stood in one section and a cosy wood-burning stove in another. Expensive glass and china vied with old-fashioned ceramic ducks and hens.

‘This is my favourite room in the house,' admitted Gina, gesturing for Martha to sit at the table as she set about making a pot of coffee. ‘Martha, I'm sorry for dragging you all the way out here, I know how busy you must be with three kids, but I – truth to tell I don't know where to start.'

Martha smiled lightly, knowing it was important for Gina herself to be able to voice what was troubling her.

‘I know you are going to think that it's really sad, someone like me having the nerve to ask you what I'm going to ask, but I promise I won't be annoyed or put out if you just say no, honest I won't.'

‘Gina, how can I say no, when I don't know what you want me to do!'

Colour flooded Gina's face.

‘I want to have a baby. There, I said it!'

Martha couldn't hide her surprise.

‘A baby!'

‘Yes, Martha. I know I might not look it but I was forty-four last June. Bob and I have been
married nine years. He has two boys by his first wife. They're all grown up now, the eldest has a little girl called Roma, she's a real sweetheart. Bob and I are nuts about that child.'

‘It's nice to have grandchildren . . . satisfying.'

‘That's just it, Martha. Seeing Roma makes me want to have a child of our own. Bob says it doesn't matter, but it does. The boys only see their father a few times a year, and I know that breaks his heart and little Roma is being raised in London. Robbie Junior has a big job over there with Merrill Lynch.'

‘Have you tried?'

‘Oh God we've tried, believe me we've tried. You name it and either Bob or I have done it: fertility clinics, insemination, test tube, hormone treatment, nothing works! It's been humiliating for both of us. And in the end it made no difference. I'm just some barren woman that fills her days doing things that are at the end of the day totally unimportant.'

‘Gina, don't say such things. Look at all the good you do helping people with your fund-raising, and charity benefits. Mike's always telling me what a Trojan worker you are for so many causes.'

‘Oh, that's just money, and Bob is such a generous man that everybody wants his wife on their committees.'

Martha heard the bitterness in her admission, and was doubtful about what to say. ‘What about
adoption?' she suggested, thinking of the wonderful home and life they could provide for some child.

‘No,' insisted Gina firmly. ‘We want a child of our own.'

Martha was shocked. She couldn't just produce a child for the Forresters no matter how much they wanted one.

‘Martha, do you think you
could
possibly help? I'll understand if you say no and think I'm just a vain, self-centred woman looking to satisfy some whim, but believe me, having a child of our own is the most important thing in both our lives at the moment. It's all either of us wants.'

Martha was uncomfortable and embarrassed by the fact that she had been made privy to such intimate details.

‘Will you try to help me, do one of your healing sessions on me?' Gina asked gently.

‘I'm not sure if I can be of any help, honest I'm not. My healing ability might not work for something like this, I . . .'

‘Please, Martha.'

‘Are you going to tell Bob?'

‘Maybe later, but for the moment no, I don't want to get his hopes up.'

Martha considered. It was ludicrous to believe that laying her hands on Gina could accomplish what doctors and fertility clinics and drugs had failed to do but she could see the hunger and need for a child of her own in the other woman's
eyes. She herself had always assumed her own fertility and remembered the joy and naturalness of discovering after about only three months of marriage that she was pregnant. Mike had swooped her up in his arms and kissed and hugged her as if she had achieved some complicated and amazing feat.

‘I can't promise anything,' she admitted, ‘but . . .'

‘Please, Martha, it would mean so much to me, to both of us. Dan told me what you did last week for his arm. I know this is something totally different and that I shouldn't expect or hope for anything but surely it can't do any harm.'

Gina Forrester was if anything persuasive and to tell the truth Martha could only imagine how hard it must be for a woman not to have children. Money and privilege were nothing in comparison to motherhood.

‘Of course I'll try, Gina, though I'm not sure that I can really do anything more than your doctors – but if it's what you want . . .'

‘Oh, thank you, Martha. Thank you!'

Gina's eyes were shining, triumphant as she embraced Martha.

‘Where do you do it?' she asked. ‘Is it like a massage, do you want me to lie down on the bed or couch or something like that? I'll show you upstairs to my room.'