New Australian Stories 2 by Aviva Tuffield Page B

couch. He would put his head on her stomach and look up at her face, and when he did this he reminded her of an ostrich. This is how he looked at her now.
    â€˜I’ll be back soon,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be all right. I love you. Don’t be scared.’
    He bent down to kiss her, bent his long, beautiful bird neck, and then began to run. Sarah was amazed at how quickly he vanished into the vanishing light. She looked at Mr Ronald. He wore corduroy trousers and a neat shirt, a woollen vest, and bulky glasses over thick eyebrows. He lay with his head thrown back and to the side, facing Sarah, and his facial expression was bemused and acquiescing. She felt again at his wrist. His legs were caught up with the buckled car, and it was impossible to tell what damage had been done. She sat on her side, looking into his face, and felt the faint breath that hung around his mouth. It smelled like a doctor’s waiting room: just-extinguished cigarettes and a human smell rising up through disinfectant. She heard David try the car again, and she heard the car fail. Then his footsteps on the road, and then nothing. Sarah felt loneliness fall over her quickly; and fear.
    â€˜The Queen of Sheba,’ she said.
    (Sheba paused in his tiger-walk, his head lifted towards the surgery door, waiting. No one came through the door, and he dropped his head again, letting out a low small sound that startled the macaws opposite into frantic cries.)
    Sarah was married and no one knew but herself and David, Peter and Clare. Her mother didn’t know. She wondered now about the secrecy — how childish it seemed. They only wanted privacy. They wanted a visa for Sarah, to match David’s student visa, and they didn’t want to bother about the fuss that went with weddings. The last of the vodka wound itself up against the side of Sarah’s head that tilted against the seat; it hung there in a vapour. Mr Ronald’s burned breath came in little gusts up against her face. Was he breathing more, or less?
    Sarah pulled the door as far as it would go behind her in order to feel safe, and to guard against the slight chill in the wind. This was summer, she thought. You waited for it all year, shoulders pushed up against the cold and the dark, and this was your gift: the sun and the bells, the smoke over Jesus Green, geese on the river. A midday wedding. A cat’s catheter, and Mr Ronald by the side of the road.
    Mr Ronald’s eyes opened, and Sarah pulled back from his face. They studied each other. His eyes were yellow at the edges. They were clever and lucid. They looked at Sarah with calm acceptance; they looked at the windscreen, shattered but half in place, and at the proximity of the tree.
    â€˜I’ve had an accident,’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, you have. How do you feel? Stay still,’ said Sarah. She felt composed. Everything she did felt smooth and immediate.
    â€˜I’m all here,’ said Mr Ronald. ‘Everything’s attached, at least.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘It happened so fast, as they say. I see I’ve hit the tree.’ He said the tree as if there were only one tree in the whole country; as if he had always known he would hit it.
    â€˜Good of you to stop,’ he said.
    â€˜Of course!’ cried Sarah.
    â€˜Plenty wouldn’t. Decent of you. I don’t suppose he even thought for a minute about stopping.’
    â€˜Who?’ asked Sarah. She looked into the back of the car in panic, as if there might be someone else crushed inside.
    â€˜The lout who swiped me.’
    Sarah remained quiet. Then she said, ‘My husband’s gone to find help.’
    She had been waiting to use this phrase: my husband . Her first time.
    â€˜Ah,’ said Mr Ronald. ‘I don’t suppose you happen to be a doctor. That would be convenient.’
    â€˜Not a human doctor,’ said Sarah. ‘An animal doctor, though.’
    â€˜My leg, you see. I