Megan trudged across the well-manicured lawn, sliding down the steep slope to the edge of the woodlands beyond, where Jaye’s father was shovelling clumps of sticky earth into a wheelbarrow.
‘Megan...’ Raj Perera straightened up, leaning on his spade as she approached. ‘You’ve decided on a walk?’
‘No.’ Megan pulled the piece of paper from her coat pocket. ‘I was wondering if you could help me with something.’
‘Of course. That’s my role as your group leader this weekend. And I could do with a break.’
Megan handed over the paper, and Raj looked at it. ‘John’s set us all a challenge. We all have to give a five-minute talk about one of our charity’s programmes. I’ve been given the Western Province Free Clinic in Sri Lanka.’
‘That’s a place very close to my heart.’ Raj’s way of making an observation, then watching and waiting to see what you’d do with it, was a lot like Jaye’s. A little less disturbing maybe, because Megan didn’t have to contend with her own quickening heartbeat, which happened whenever Jaye was around.
‘I heard that you and your wife were the ones who started it.’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘Well... I asked John if there were any restrictions on how we could get the information we needed and he said there weren’t. And since you were there, right at the start...’
Raj thought for a moment, and then nodded. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I thought maybe a short interview, if you could spare the time.’ Megan gestured towards the spade. ‘I can do some digging in return...’
Raj’s smile reminded her of Jaye’s too, but it was a lot more freely given. ‘Very well. What would you like to know?’
‘Why you founded the clinic.’ Megan took the spade and started to dig.
‘Caroline and I were in Sri Lanka, visiting relatives, when the tsunami hit in 2005. Many people needed medical aid, and we immediately gave what help we could. I set up a clinic in a tent, under a tree.’
‘And people came...?’ The earth was sticky and unyielding and Megan heaved her weight onto the spade to sink it into the ground.
‘Yes, they came. There were so many, and sometimes they only had the clothes they stood up in. Caroline helped organise the effort to feed and clothe them and give them some kind of roof over their heads.’
‘It must have been...heartbreaking.’ Megan had worked in areas of great need, but never in a disaster zone.
‘It was. And yet it warmed my heart too. Jaye is my oldest son, I have three more. All four of them came, for six weeks, to give what help they could.’
‘That must have made you very proud.’
‘It did. Each of them has followed their own path, but Jaye... In that six weeks he found his calling.’
Until recently, Megan would have thought that Jaye Perera’s only calling in life was to make money, and exercise the power that he had inherited. Raj was clearly not referring to either of those things.
‘His calling? To be a doctor, you mean?’
Raj smiled. ‘He’d already walked that path—Jaye had just qualified as a doctor. He was evaluating his next step, and had a number of very good options available to him here in the UK. But he gave them up and stayed in Sri Lanka for a year, working with me to build the clinic.’
‘He raised funds?’ This was a new side of Jaye, which Megan hadn’t seen before.
‘No, he built the clinic. He helped dig the foundations, and then poured concrete and laid bricks. And every afternoon he cleaned up and worked at our ramshackle surgery. Accuse me of bias if you wish, but I’ve never seen a man work so hard.’
This definitely wasn’t the Jaye that Megan knew. She’d come to terms with the idea of him as someone who made things happen, and that many of those things were for the benefit of others. But getting his hands dirty? Megan had never, even in her wildest dreams, pictured that.
‘I didn’t realise. He seems...so different.’
‘Maybe you just don’t know him very well.’
Maybe, maybe not. But the tantalising glimpses of what Jaye had been put a new and puzzling perspective on the man that he seemed to be now.
‘Tell me about the challenges.’ Megan straightened, surveying her handiwork. The small dent in the ground put the task of digging foundations sharply into perspective. ‘Um... Medical first. Then social...’
JAYE SAT AT the back of the group of chairs in the room that had been set aside for the conference activities. Everyone had done well, and each of the five-minute talks was obviously carefully crafted.
Megan stood up, clutching her laptop, and walked to the front of the group, plugging in the cable that led to the screen behind her. A number of people had already displayed photographs to accompany their talks, and Jaye wondered which ones she’d chosen.
‘I’ve decided to make my presentation in the form of an interview. I’d like to thank Dr and Mrs Perera for all the help they’ve given me, and for agreeing to talk about the early days of the Western Province Free Clinic...’
Jaye could hardly suppress a grin. There was no better way to tell the story of the clinic than to use his father and mother’s own words.
‘I’m not sure that’s quite what was intended.’ A voice sounded from the centre of the group.
Jaye was pretty sure that was exactly what was intended. The tasks that John had set here weren’t quite as straightforward as they looked, and this one was clearly about methods, just as much as results.
Megan looked around the audience, reddening a little, and Jaye suppressed the urge to come to her defence.
‘Our remit was to find out as much as we could. Which I’ve done.’
‘You’re missing the point...’ Rob was the young doctor whose voice was always loudest in the group discussions, which was a shame, because his vision seemed always the most limited.
‘Which point?’ Megan softened her question with a smile, and Jaye wondered privately what Rob had done to deserve that particular burst of sunshine.
‘You have to do the research and come up with your own answers. You can’t just ask someone else, that’s not in the rules...’ Rob gave a sigh of exasperation, as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child.
Enough. If Rob wanted to throw his weight around, he could do it with him, not Megan. Jaye moved to intervene but Megan was already replying.
‘Isn’t asking someone who was there the best kind of research there is? I’m not aware of any rule against it.’
