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?’
‘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.’
‘It’s all right, Gina, that won’t be necessary. All I need is for you to maybe lie down somewhere. What about the couch over there in the sunroom?’
A magnificent rattan recliner couch, covered in luxurious pale mauve and cream cushions lay between an enormous terracotta pot and a coordinating low table. Martha followed Gina over and sat down near her, trying to talk to her and discover what her expectations of the healing truly were.
‘Martha, all I want is a baby, a child of our own!’
Martha drew back, realizing that this middle-aged woman was literally hoping for some sort of miraculous conception, for Martha to wave her arms around, say a few words of hocus-pocus and create a child, pure bloody magic! Did she actually really believe that Martha could do that! She almost giggled aloud.
‘Gina, I can’t give you a child, make you pregnant, if that’s what you are after!’
‘No, Martha, I didn’t expect . . .’ she protested.
‘It’s better I’m honest with you,’ Martha said. ‘But I will try to discover the reasons why you haven’t yet conceived, try to ease them if that is at all possible. Now show me the area where you’ve had your medical problems and hopefully I’ll pick up something from there.’
‘Do you think I’m just far too old and menopausal?’
‘Ssshh now! My hands might feel kind of warm when I touch you.’
Gina lay down, with a look of concentration on her face, as the palms of Martha’s hands touched the firm taut skin and stomach muscles that were tanned a perfect honey gold. On the outside her body looked young and perfect but Martha felt the unease almost at once. On one side there was so little sense of female energy. It was as if everything had stopped there and fresh tissue had hardened and died away.
‘I had an ovarian cyst when I was about seventeen,’ Gina confided, ‘and when it burst the pain was so bad I’d thought I’d die but my mother drove me to the hospital and demanded they got me the best doctor in town, an old guy called Sheldon. He told me I might have problems in the future but I guess when you’re young you don’t like to think about those things and manage to push them to the back of your mind, hoping they’re so far back that eventually the problem will have disappeared.’
‘Problems tend not to go away.’
‘Tell me about it. We’ve spent a fortune, and I mean a fortune trying to . . .’ Gina’s voice wavered, her eyes filling up.
‘Hush, Gina, just let me work,’ advised Martha, stretching her hands into circles and moving them around and around and around, circles of warm pulsing energy, flooding the area. She watched as Gina closed her eyes, her lips moving soundlessly.
Martha moved her hands to the other side, feeling a normal rhythmic pulse, and smoothed her fingers along the other woman’s ribs and chest. There was tightness around her throat, a suppression of thoughts and anxiety, something which was pretty unexpected in someone so articulate and outgoing. She tried to ease it, to draw out that pain. She smoothed Gina’s forehead and, concentrating on her head, tried to create balance, feeling Gina’s energy almost bounce off her own.
‘That’s it!’ she whispered softly.
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
Gina seemed puzzled.
‘Didn’t you feel anything?’ Martha asked.
‘I could feel the warmth of your hands, and this strange pulling inside me as if things were unravelling and unwinding, like you were untying knots and tangles and stretching me all at the same time.’
Martha smiled. It was a good description of what she had experienced during the healing too. ‘Did you pray?’ she asked.
‘When I closed my eyes I could feel that warmth, and for some reason my mother came into my thoughts and I asked her to help me,’ Gina said.
‘Do you pray to her often?’
Gina looked embarrassed.
‘I’m not a religious woman, Martha, I don’t hold with churchgoing and bible thumping, but my mother was a saint, a truly good person. She never said a bad word or hurt anyone during her lifetime. That woman lived the Bible every day of her life.’
Martha helped Gina sit up.
‘Take it easy for the rest of the day. People often feel sort of tired and sleepy after a healing. It’s just that your body needs to rest.’
‘I was going to have a game of tennis but I guess I’ll phone and cancel it.’
‘That’d be wise.’
‘Is that it?’
Martha shrugged. ‘I’m afraid so, Gina, that’s all it is.’ She could see a look of disappointment flash across the other woman’s features.
‘Would you like to stay for lunch? I could fix us up a nice chicken salad or a little pasta.’
‘Thanks but no, I really have to go. I need to get to the market and get some food before my lot get in from school. Patrick’s eating me out of house and home at the moment. He’s on some sort of high protein diet and I promised I’d try out this braised beef and garlic recipe for dinner.’
‘I’d say you are a great mom, Martha, your kids are very lucky.’
Gina stood up and they began to walk back out to the hallway.
‘You have such a beautiful home, Gina,’ Martha said.
‘A home!’ She took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Where you and your children live, Martha, that is a home. I live in a beautiful, beautiful house, but it’s not a home, not really.’
There was such a poignancy in Gina Forrester’s words that Martha was tempted to abandon her plans and turn on her heel and march back into that gleaming perfect kitchen and sit herself right down at the table, eat the chicken salad and just talk to the woman, but one look at her tilted face and fixed smile was enough to determine Martha to admire her pride.