Continued......
He eased the helmet off his throbbing head. He sat on the kerb. He looked at the wreck. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t think anything. He just looked. He could do that quite well. In those early days with Marie, when his emotions had been so overwhelming that he found neither words nor even thoughts to express them, he just looked at her. She read his face – and knew. Recently, he no longer looked for the words and she no longer looked into his face.
He didn’t know how long he sat there but suddenly roused himself when he heard running footsteps. Thank God – there was some help at hand. He waited until the man reached him. The man stopped, his chest heaving.
"Please!", he gasped, "please, you must help me!"
"Hold on a moment", he thought, "that’s my line. It’s me that needs help". He looked more closely. The man’s dark, curly hair was wet with rain and sweat. His brownish skin glistened and the funny sort of cloak he wore hung sodden over his skinny frame. "Oh God!", he muttered, "one of those bloody immigrants. At this point in time I definitely do not need some Pakky from Karachi and his silly little problems". The man repeated his plea.
"Look, Abdul", he snapped, "I’ve just pulled myself out of a hedge after going arse over tip into it. I’m feeling as sick as a dog. My bike is a wreck. I’ve got a loving wife waiting for me at home", he lied, "and I’m not in the mood for helping anyone. I don’t think I can even help myself".
"But you have to help. Not me, but my wife. She in bad real trouble."
"Abd…". Then he stopped. He studied the man more closely. What was that magnetic, persuasive tone in his voice? He initial reaction began to soften. Then, with well practised skill in such demanding situations, he pulled himself together. "Nah! Sorry, Abdul. I’ve got to sort myself out."
"Please!"
"You bastard!", he thought. "How can you get the same tone that Marie often had in her voice, in her eyes?" Please! That one word. Such a common word. He’d got so used to avoiding it that Marie rarely said it now – except when asking for the salt. How could this runt turn a supplication into an imperative? As he hurried after the flapping figure he reckoned that he must have got a knock on the head.
On reaching the tatty Mini in the lay-by he could immediately see the problem. The man had been changing a flat tyre, but had not checked the ground beforehand. The jack had simply slipped out and it was now caught under the naked hub. He was about to kneel down to suss it out when the man pulled him to the back of the car. There lay a woman, her leg caught under the rear chassis, her eyes closed.
"This is a problem", muttered the motorcyclist standing over to the woman and seeing, for a moment, Marie on that beach. But hey, wait a moment! Was this the fellow’s wife? She was not a woman but just a child. What was she? Fifteen, sixteen? God! What these wogs get away with. It shouldn’t be allowed.