Miracle Woman (14 page)

‘What would you truly like, Cass, if I could click my heels and give you a wish?'

‘I'd like a new heart so I could go back home, to Mom and Dad and Billy and Jay and my dog Samson,' she murmured softly, turning over on her side, her face pressed against the pillow.

Martha, not trusting herself to speak, just kept on reading.

Beth Armstrong had phoned her at home later that night, breathless and excited.

‘Martha, thank you so much for coming by the hospital to visit Cass today. I'm sure it helped. I'm just sure it did.'

Martha bit her lip.

‘I went out to get some fresh air and pick up some things for Cass in the store so I'm really sorry that we missed each other, but I do appreciate you seeing her.'

‘I'd promised.'

‘Anyways I know I shouldn't say it but Dr Hopkins is very hopeful of getting an organ soon. Cass is top of the list. Top of the list, that's what they keep saying.'

Martha could hear the fear and hope in Beth's voice, the expectation that her only daughter would be returned to normal life again.

‘That's great, Beth. Really great!'

‘Why, Martha, she could be having her operation any day now, tomorrow even. That soon, imagine!'

Beth was doing her best to appear upbeat and positive and ignore the risks of such an operation, and Martha hadn't the heart to worry her.

Getting off the phone about five minutes later Martha said a silent prayer for the child and her mother.

DAN KENDRICK TOOK
a practice swing with his new titanium putter, the plastic ball rolling perfectly across his office floor and towards the bright yellow hole. Perfect! He tried it again, this time stepping back further. His elbow felt good; the stiffness and throbbing tight pain he'd experienced before had almost disappeared. He moved his arm backwards and forwards gingerly, noticing that the swelling had certainly gone down. Sitting in his high-backed black leather chair he punched in the number of the private clinic he attended. The secretary put his call through to Dr Phil Turner.

‘I tell you, Phil, my arm and elbow it's way better!' he insisted. ‘Even the size of the swelling has gone down.'

‘That's because you're resting it!' was the reply.

‘Look, Phil, you know how important playing in the Valley tournament is to me. Surely if the
swelling has gone down and the joint is a bit looser I might get out.'

‘Dan, both your specialist and I have recommended you to rest it and that's the advice I still stand by.'

Dan Kendrick could barely disguise his annoyance.

‘I'm telling you it's improved.'

Phil Turner was used to dealing with people like Kendrick, with more money than sense, who bent the rules, paid for good advice and more often than not refused to follow it, but he knew he had to be polite and seem to give the correct answer.

‘Perhaps you should come by the office and get it X-rayed and have somebody here check it over,' he suggested.

‘I have a business breakfast at eight and will swing by here after but I should be with you by ten thirty.'

‘That's fine by me! So I'll see you myself then.'

The girl with the Aussie accent and the friendly attitude took the X-rays and sent him in to Phil straight away. The physician examined his arm, moving it gently; the Aussie talked to him on the phone a few minutes later.

‘Well, there definitely has been a slight improvement, Dan, but I wouldn't be happy to let you take on any exercise till Gus himself sees it and gives the go-ahead.'

‘Gus is in Hawaii, for Christ sakes!'

‘He gets back in a few days and you're already scheduled for a biopsy of the lump, but my secretary will set up an appointment with him for the minute he gets back. That's all I can do.'

Disgruntled, Dan Kendrick left the expensive San Jose medical centre and drove back to Powerhouse's corporate headquarters, the flagship building with its curving glass and stone, shimmering in the bright sunlight.

Phil Turner looked at the X-rays again. There most definitely had been an improvement and a noticeable decline in the size of the suspicious tissue which had suggested some form of tumour. He'd speak to Gus the minute he got back from Maui: perhaps there had been a mistake in the original X-ray and the scheduled biopsy surgery might not now be necessary.

The Silicon Valley Golf Classic was one of the most important social-cum-business events in a very busy calendar: the head honchos from every rival technology and computer company in the state played golf at Pebble Beach – a group of good old buddies – with a dinner and raffle afterwards. Powerhouse had already booked five places at $400 a head for the golf alone, and Ken Franklin, his head of electronics, had been told that he was playing instead of his boss. Dan Kendrick picked up the phone, checking Franklin's number. He and his lovely wife were
more than welcome to join them at the $1,000 meal in the clubhouse afterwards but Ken's golfing ability was no longer needed now.

Under a clear blue Californian sky, in perfect light, the Nasdaq's favourite sons gathered along the lawns and courtyard of the Pebble Beach golf club. The greens were immaculate, the flags barely stirring in the slight breeze, and the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine filled the air as Dan Kendrick checked in. His caddy, Will, was standing over by the pergola checking his bag.

‘Hey, Dan! Heard you weren't playing – that you were off injured,' said Arnold David of Delan Digital.

‘Rumours of my demise have been much exaggerated,' quipped Dan, pulling his lucky plaid baseball cap over his balding head.

The PAs and PR people ran backwards and forwards offering drinks, checking itineraries, making sure sponsorships of prizes were clearly visible. Dan Kendrick ignored them and trusted that Brigid Lamanns, his own Girl Friday, was attending to everything and that all he and the Powerhouse boys had to do was play golf.

Two over on the first, par on the second, disaster on the third.

Pebble Beach might be the most beautiful baby on the West Coast but she sure was no pushover golf-wise, Dan Kendrick thought as he watched his ball land neatly on the fairway. His
team-mates were Ritchie Stevens, his CEO, a rock solid player, nothing fancy or foolish; Lewis Jansen his thirty-four-year-old knowall head of sales and marketing; and his new research and development designer Gary Wiseman. It was the younger two with their showing off that concerned him. Gary Wiseman had come first in his year in Stanford and had done five years with NASA and Dan and Arnold David had gone to a chequebook duel over him. Brigid's inspired choice of a gift of a Harley 1500T was a clincher, as the guy had a thing about motorbikes and worried about getting caught in some kind of nerd trap. Looking at him with his wispy fair hair down to his shoulders and all-black golf attire, Dan couldn't help but worry that he'd bought himself a fucking freak. The fact that his father was a golf pro down in San Diego had only been discovered long afterwards; and the fact that Gary Wiseman's other obsessive interest beside computers and bikes was golf, and that he played off four. Certainly a company asset!

Dan watched him drive: Gary's wiry frame almost corkscrewed itself around as the ball climbed higher and higher into the air, the beauty landing right on the green.

His own arm was holding out well, with only the slightest jarring sensation as he drove. Whatever that woman healer Martha had done after dinner, in Gina and Bob Forrester's a few weeks back, it had certainly done the trick.

Three to get on the green and a birdie putt! He certainly couldn't complain.

Will passed him a bottle of spring water, and drinking it he took time to look around and appreciate his surroundings. The course itself was a rich man's dream, an oasis in the desert of work and money and deals and concepts – green hills and trees and water features, bordering on the rolling Pacific Ocean. Paradise, a far cry from the working-class neighbourhood in Chicago where he grew up. His father had laboured in the auto shop on the corner of South Street till the cancer got him, leaving Dan's mother Lorretta to raise all seven of them on a minuscule pension and her part-time job as a classroom assistant. Times nearly as tough as that guy McCourt wrote about in that sad book of his! Danny Kendrick was only a know-nothing fat boy then, who could strip a car engine faster than anyone and, what's more, put it back together in double quick time, and who could run sets of multiple numbers in his head and keep a track of them all. Danny Kendrick who could put food on the table and still have a few dollars tucked away for himself. Paradise, my arse!

Ritchie was keeping score and felt they were playing well, but Dan warned them not to become complacent so near to home. Lewis Jansen, the suave Santa Cruz boy, ran his eye over the scorecard and flexing his shoulder muscles promised a
good finale. Dan was nervous again about the young bloods as they drove onto the fifteenth. Ritchie and he watched in amazement as the other two proceeded to burn up the course, Lewis's dark eyes flashing as he scored an eagle. Their youth and bold confidence amazed their elders. Dan was pleased to hit a par and a one under on the eighteenth.

Refreshments were served in a flower-bedecked pergola. Dan put his arm around his team, commending them all on a game well played, as the rest of the teams came in. Iced beers, chilled champagne and cool sodas were served by the club's waiters as the men congratulated themselves on the day's outing. Tom Ryland of New World was checking the scores and putting them up on the board.

‘Hey, Dan, look at that!' called Lewis. ‘We're well up there, and there's only two teams left.'

‘Guys!' yelled Wiseman. ‘We won!'

Dan put down his glass of Napa's best and walked over to check with Tom. It had been more than five years since Powerhouse had won, and the last two years they'd missed making it into the final three.

Jeez, the freak was right, there it was up in black and white. ‘Winning Team: Powerhouse. Captain: Daniel Kendrick'!

He jumped so high with delight he almost knocked Wiseman over. As Tom and David, Bruce Carling and Bill Fortune, all came over to
shake his hand, Dan basked in the glory of it all and introduced the rest of the team. Wiseman like a little kid was on a cell phone to his father with the news.

Out of nowhere Brigid suddenly appeared with the trademark ‘Powerhouse' baseball caps. Dan gave her his sweat-soaked plaid one to mind with her life as he pulled on the other, just as the press journalists appeared across the courtyard.

‘Mr Kendrick! Mr Kendrick! How does it feel to be a winner?'

‘How does it feel to beat all your competitors for the industry prize?'

He smiled magnanimously. ‘We all have our good days.'

‘And what is the secret of your team's success?' asked the business journalist from
Corporate Magazine
.

‘We have a good team. We all work well together both on the field and in the office, and young Wiseman here was an unexpected find, you might say.' He laughed, catching Arnold David's eye.

‘We heard that you weren't meant to play today, that your doctors had advised against it,' joked Nick Mandleberg. ‘Though you look fine to me.'

‘I had a problem with my arm and elbow there a few weeks back. The doctors and experts told me I was out of golf for a while but I was lucky when I was visiting Boston to meet by chance a
wonderful healer called Martha McGill with a rare gift of healing and she put me right, got me back in the swing as they say.'

‘So you made a miraculous recovery?'

‘I suppose you could say that!'

Brigid nodded at him as Tom Ryland announced the presentation of the prizes. Dan Kendrick donated the $10,000 worth of high tech computer equipment they'd won to the local charity, St Vincent's, which aided needy families and ran back to work and necessary skills courses for those who were less fortunate. His peers cheered loudly as he ordered champagne for everyone.

Lara Chadwick scanned the San Francisco paper. There it was in print – another reference to the McGill woman. It had to be her! She'd phone Nick Mandleberg, the journalist who'd covered the golf tournament, determined to ask him more about it.

Mike McGill groaned, reading the latest edition of
Corporate Magazine.
There was a full-length interview with Daniel Kendrick, his photo on the front of the magazine beaming in a pale blue Lacoste shirt after winning the Silicon Valley's annual industry golf prize. Martha's name and where she came from were mentioned about halfway through the piece.

Martha ran to get the door: she could see the black delivery van parked outside.

‘M'am, please sign for this,' requested the driver.

Martha obliged. Lifting the heavy cardboard box inside, she grabbed the kitchen scissors to open it, discovering a half-dozen bottles of the best champagne wrapped in protective sheets of bubble plastic. She opened the accompanying card, wondering who it could possibly be from, smiling to herself as she read:

THIS TIME REPORTS
of her healing did make the front page, the local newspapers dubbing her ‘The Miracle Woman'. Martha reeled with absolute fury as Lara Chadwick's article highlighted her meeting with Dan Kendrick and implied that he had given her some vast payment in return for a healing; it also mentioned a few of the people who had visited her home and whom she had successfully worked on.

‘What am I going to do?' she wailed to Mike. ‘Why can't she leave me alone! The people who come to me deserve their privacy: they've had enough bad things happen to them without seeing their names and faces plastered over the newspaper.'