Continued......
"She was trying to help me. The car slipped when she tried to reach a nut that rolled underneath." The man knelt beside her. He cupped her face in his hands and started speaking to her so gently. The rider didn’t understand the words but strangely he suddenly recalled his grandfather. He was visiting the farm. He could feel the sun on his back as his long-dead Paps led him through the outhouses and paddocks talking in that same gentle voice. But what he remembered most of all was his grandfather putting a day-old chick into his cupped hands.
Standing there in the drizzling rain he flexed his hands as he felt again the soft down of the creature. He sensed again the intense care with which he held the chick. He heard himself saying the nonsense words of comfort to the fluttering bird. He then felt it settle, pacified in his hands. He thought this watching the man. That bump on the head – making him soft. Enough of that. "Hey, you there, Abdul. You’d better get back to that pub. They’ll send someone to help."
The man paused caressing the girl and looked up. His face, suddenly full of an eternity of sadness, stopped the biker dead. "I don’t think so … we want to stay the night there … take one vacant room. But when I ask, the bossman he very angry. He said someone must be forgetting the vacancy notice. No rooms free – not for me or the likes of me." He turned back to the girl.
Regaining movement, the motorcyclist reached down and pulled his shoulder round. "O.K., then. I’ll go back there." Then he swallowed hard, recalling how far it could be. How the hell had he got himself into this one? Only one thing to do, though. See it through. Because the man seemed so out of this world, he thought that he’d better check the girl over before reporting to the emergency services. He pushed the husband away and knelt down to look her over. He could see nothing untoward but … Blimey! … she was young. Even though her leg was trapped, even though she lay on the freezing wet ground, her face seemed so innocent, so … so … untouched.
"Hey, love. Wake up a minute. I’m going to get help. If I don’t get a lift it’ll take me about an hour. D’yer think you’ll be alright until then? Can you hear me? Do … you … understand … me?"
A second or two passed. The girl’s eyes fluttered – and opened. Peering close to see any signs, he was suddenly saw into those eyes, and beyond. The eyes of a kid? You must be joking! Drowning instantly, in those eyes he saw everything he had ever seen or imagined seeing in the eyes of a woman. Tenderness, care, love, eroticism, understanding, healing, knowing, eternity … Marie!
That bump on the head, the thoughts of Marie, the fever were all conspiring to mess up his marbles. He was on the point of cursing or screaming or whatever he did with Marie when he felt out of his depth when the girl spoke. But it wasn’t his ears that heard the words. It was somewhere deep inside. "No! Don’t go ... there is no time for that. I need you here."
He didn’t answer immediately. He felt the clutch-slip between his brain and his mouth that hung down. He couldn’t get his thoughts into gear. They spiralled down in confusion. "What have I done to deserve this? … I do not believe this … This is not happening to me!" All that came out was, "Jesus bloody Christ!" Those eyes, so full of light, flickered as a shadow passed across them. "Please don’t say that. Not good cursing God!"