Page 28 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
2008
“I’m not going.”
“Well, someone’s got to, it’s either there or Canada next week,” Luke replied. “I thought I was doing you a favour by putting myself up for Canada, but I can’t do both.”
“We’ll just have to reschedule.”
“And let Anglo step in and win the contract? Its two nights—tops. Get Sasha to stay with her or send her to my nans.”
My jaw was so tense that I could feel it spasm intermittently and twitch.
“I can’t leave her, Luke. I won’t leave her.”
“Then we’ll just have to step aside this time. We can’t negotiate with them long distance. We need bums on seats around that table, otherwise we might as well just step aside and let Anglo Continental win the contract this time.”
“Fuck.” I attempted to massage some of the tension out of my own neck as I paced.
“It’s only Scotland, can’t you just take her with you?”
“She can’t lift her head without wanting to throw up.”
Sarah was four months pregnant and suffering from severe morning sickness. She was living on water, the occasional black tea, and rice cakes. She’d started this pregnancy glowing, but by early January, the odd feeling of nausea turned into throwing up every morning, which soon evolved into throwing up at any time of day.
She eventually went to the doctor for it, and he prescribed her some anti-sickness medication. Then her nan told her some horror story about how the anti-morning sickness drug that had been around in the sixties caused all kinds of birth defects, so she refused to take it.
Work for me was still busy, even more so since we started supplying labour to the rigs. We started out winning a huge contract in Australia, and since then we had been invited to tender for companies in both Canada and Scotland. Luke and I figured we needed at least one of us in each of these places to negotiate, but we figured thatbeforeSarah had gotten sick.
“We need to take on someone new.”
“Yeah, you’re right, we probably do, but that’s not gonna help us out right now.”
“We could call Shain to come back.”
“Call Shain back? Our only senior staff member based in Australia and ask him to fly all the way here so that you don’t have to fly to fucking Scotland for two days? Are you fucking shitting me right now, all this, over two fucking days away from home?”
“I just got back from a week in Joburg, Luke. Don’t forget the six or seven weeks I did back in Aus last year, leaving on my fucking wedding day.”
“Travel was always gonna be a part of the job. We knew that when we set this thing up. You were never supposed to be based here. You were supposed to be sitting pretty in the Perth or Sydney office. It’s not my fault you came here and chose to fall in love.”
Luke leaned back in the chair he was sitting in on the opposite side of my desk and propped his feet up, crossing his legs at the ankles.
“I didn’t choose. I had no say in the fucking matter, believe me.”
I watched the left side of his mouth twitch before he eventually broke out into a smile.
“That would be almost sweet if you weren’t being such a little pussy bitch about leaving her for two days.”
“A pussy bitch? Is that right, you prick? You wanna watch your mouth. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at Sasha, but never grown balls big enough to say or do anything about the way she’s got you all twisted.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’d like to.”
We were both quiet for a few long moments, lost in our thoughts. I knew he was pissed off that she was seeing Shain and had spent Christmas with him, but he never said a thing. I got nothing.
I stared at the photo on my desk of Sarah and me. It was taken at Hilary’s, a boat harbour, in Western Australia last year. She looked so happy and healthy. Her freckles were out in full force because of the sun, and her one-dimpled smile was on show. It hit me hard in that moment just how unwell she’d been looking.
“She’s so fucking sick, Luke. It’s not even funny. I just hate leaving her again so soon,” I told him very quietly.
