Ivory (3 page)

Ivory had been
taken to the University College Hospital, a modern glass building
opposite the gothic orange brick Victorian façade of St Pancras.
Having two boys, it was a place that Martin was familiar with. He
sat with his head in his hands and stared down into the glassy
black surface of a cup of coffee. He had bought it from the A&E
department’s vending machine, but it was too hot to hold let alone
drink. He had bought a Mars bar too, more for comfort than for
hunger, but he hadn’t eaten it. It was in his pocket, he didn’t
want to be seen satiating his needs in these circumstances. He
wanted to get out of there and escape, he thought of King’s Cross
with its Platform 9¾ with the baggage trolley half-way through a
wall on it’s way to the train to Hogwart’s. Finley had made him
take him there countless times in the hope of spotting one of his
favourite characters. Martin liked the idea of having a magical
escape route, and not just tonight.

The
polystyrene cup sat on the scuffed linoleum floor at his feet,
staring back up at him with its well of black like one of the
girl’s eyes. Those fully black eyes. What did it mean? Had she been
on drugs? He had heard one of the nurse’s whisper ‘brain damage’.
There was no way of knowing for sure at the moment.

The ambulance
staff had found a medical bracelet on her wrist. Beneath a black
caduceus symbol and engraved statement that declared that it was
the patient’s wish not to receive any medical examination or
treatment whatsoever. There was a phone number that was to be
called in case of emergency, and this had been done. Although this
had made it difficult for the hospital staff to determine the
extent of her injuries, the attending doctor had ruled that the
patient’s wishes were to be respected and she would not receive an
x-ray or even a stitch. Besides a nasty gash to her head, which had
looked to Martin as if it really could do with a stitch, and some
other grazes and bruises she had seemingly escaped serious injury.
She was apparently responsive to a certain degree, with shakes and
nods of her head to questions and suggested examinations and
treatments. That had to rule out brain damage. Could her eyes
really be like that naturally?

She was now
sleeping off the shock within a curtained cubicle ahead of him,
although the nurses were convinced that she was feigning sleep. The
staff had found that the pockets of her three-quarter length white
Mackintosh coat had contained a supply of condoms and a fat roll of
money. There had been a business card printed with the word ‘EBONY’
with a mobile phone number beneath it. Martin had heard a nurse say
the number on the card matched the one on the medical bracelet, and
in response a nurse had mouthed, ‘Pimp?’ It struck Martin as
strange that a pimp would take such responsibility for her care.
Perhaps she was an illegal immigrant and her pimp wanted to ensure
that she didn’t get caught or escape him through an accident such
as this.

He struggled to accept that she was a prostitute. Curiously
it didn’t alter her allure. Her startlingly white hair and skin and
her contrasting black eyes were strangely engaging. He wondered
whether it was the peculiarity of her appearance that attracted the
porters, nurses and doctors to her side on what appeared to be a
busy night for the A&E department.

Martin’s
police questioning was already out of the way. He was relieved he
hadn’t been drinking. He didn’t understand why the police had kept
asking about a second vehicle, and was unsure exactly how many
points he would gain on his license, or whether the police were
going to charge him for dangerous driving. When the girl had
recovered they would take her statement to see if her version of
events corroborated with Martin’s explanation that she had run out
in front of the car. If their stories didn’t match then the police
would investigate the scene to determine his speed.

The girl had yet to speak. When the discomfort or pain
from the nurses handling of her overcame the resistance of her
pretend sleep she would shake or nod her head to questions. One of
the nurses surmised that she was foreign and couldn’t speak
English, and that fitted with Martin’s assumption that she was an
illegal sex worker, maybe trafficked. He had half-watched a
Panorama
documentary on it whilst
painting. Another nurse had suggested that to keep silent against
the pain she must be experiencing from her injuries she had to be a
mute. If that were the case then he didn’t understand what had
caused the sharp ululation that had seemed to be formed from more
than one voice when he had run her down.
He had never
imagined that tyres on tarmac could make such a human scream; one
full of terror and defiance, as if the world cried out in grief and
outrage at her being struck down.

The girl was clearly still in her teens, but the taboo
freshness of her youth was saved from being a vulgar guilty
attraction by her classical beauty, for with her eyes closed she
had the poised majesty of any sculpted Greek or Roman face that he
had studied in the British museum. He was unsure whether it was her
young age, her abhorrent job, her current situation, the innocence
that seemed to cling to her, or a combination of all these that
drew upon his sympathy. He took it as a point against society that
it had turned perfection into a whore, and corrupted such a rarity
as beauty into something that could be bought and used to satisfy
ones needs. He found some consolation in the fact that those that
used her would do so within some guilty dirty secret that could
only sully their experience, and they could ‘have’ her but never
own her. He caught his own naivety; her pimp
owned
her.

The painfully skinny and scruffy young male nurse that Martin
had relayed the incident to before the police had arrived, studied
him with a look of curiosity and disbelief. He stalked over to
Martin, a scarecrow in a tunic.

“
I think you’re all finished here.”

Martin stood and rubbed his closely cropped ginger beard as
he considered what he was going to ask from the nurse, knowing that
he was going to push his luck. “If you don’t mind, I would like to
see her.”

There
was the briefest twitch of the man’s long but sparse eye brows. “I
don’t think that’s appropriate, do you?” He suddenly wore a fixed
smile. “You have shown your concern by staying around. I am sure
it’s been noted.”

In the fantasy world that he only dared to play out in his
head he punched the cynical nurse to the floor. “Seriously, I just
want to see that she’s okay.”

“
So would we, but considering she would only let us clean her
up a little, even we don’t know how she is. And once her next of
kin collects her I doubt we will be seeing her for a follow up
exam.”

That idea made him want to see her even more. Martin
sighed. “I just want to apologise to her. She deserves that at
least. I want to let her know that I care that this has happened
and that I didn’t just leave her.” The nurse gave an exaggerated
nod, Martin was sure the nurse wanted to accompany the gesture with
a roll of his eyes as he readied himself to reject Martin’s
request. “Look if you’re worried I might put pressure on her to
corroborate my story or that I might
bribe
her in some way then stand in the cubicle
with me. I am not ashamed of someone seeing my guilt. If I
did
want to bribe her or intimidate
her then I could sneak back later. Hospitals aren’t known for their
security, you know.” Martin huffed a half-laugh, trying to make
himself sound reasonable. “Besides it looks like she earns more in
a night than I earn in a week. I don’t think that what I could
offer her would sway her when she can probably quite rightly sue my
arse off.” He hadn’t thought of that until he had said it and hoped
it wouldn’t come to that.

The nurse did roll his eyes now as he motioned Martin towards
the cubicle, as if Martin was going to give him cause for regret.
The nurse made a triangular parting in the curtain and poked a
thumb over his shoulder. “In you go then.”

Martin
jogged the few paces to the curtain, but was stopped by the nurse
holding up a cautioning hand. “You’re good at making a reasoned
point but you might want to remember that she might forgive you in
there, but I sincerely doubt her ‘next of kin’ will. Personally I
would not hang around for him to arrive.”

Martin’s
guts chilled and loosened and a sense of urgency overtook him. He
stepped hastily beyond the curtain, he would have to make this
quick – he didn’t relish the idea of that encounter.

He was
confronted with his victim.

The bare strip lighting lit her flesh, less than his car
headlights had, but her skin and hair still held a strikingly
brilliant luminescence. Her eyes were closed. Martin approached the
bed with a quietened step and measured pace. He realised there was
a reverence in his step that he hadn’t felt since the days when he
had followed his father up to the altar in church. He had abandoned
his father’s catholic faith in his teens mainly because he was an
atheist but also because it hurt his father. The powerful
architecture of ‘God’s’ houses of stone and coloured glass, and the
magical ritual thrall of the Eucharist had always created awe
within him, and he felt that same awe now. He threw a conscious
look at the nurse who stood watch over him, but found that the
nurse’s attention had been drawn in on the sleeping
girl.

Martin rested his hands on the raised chrome cot sides in the
same way his father had done with the brass rail around the Holy
Mother to support him as he dipped down to one knee and
genuflected, it was ridiculous that the moment seemed to conjure
the memory of such a gesture. He struggled with a need to laugh at
the connections his mind was making, especially now he had no God,
but all thought of laughter was banished as he realised the blue
and purple bruising on one side of her face and a puckered crimson
break in her skin that ran across half her forehead above one eye.
Martin stole himself against the realisation that he could have
been staring at a corpse – and it would have been his fault. He
clenched his hands against a tremor of guilt, which quickly became
a start as her gently rested eyes flicked open. Then there was fear
as her obsidian eyes stared into him.

Faced with the precipice of the deep fall into her
eyes, memories were conjured of how he had felt as a child when his
father had told him that God was not only watching over him but
could see
into
him, and all
his sins were made bare. Martin felt shame before those black eyes,
but it wasn’t the child’s guilt for touching himself and thinking
about Lilly Mcgreggor round the corner or Mrs Jenkins tight fitting
blouse, as an adult it was shame for driving angry and for not
seeing the poor girl in time.

“
I’m sorry…” his voice quavered. “I didn’t see
you…”

Her black raven stare fluttered as she blinked several times
in close succession as his words seem to bring her around to some
level of consciousness. Her head turned a little towards him and
her pale lips blushed with the faintest hint of pink, seemingly
delicate like petals, parted into a thin fragile smile. He was so
surprised that she might smile at him the gesture had an intimate
quality. Curiously she did seem genuinely warmed by the apology and
pleased to see him. Then he remembered the man in the alley.
Perhaps he had saved her from something worse than a car accident
tonight. The man had seemed to be chasing her.

This unexpected reaction to Martin’s presence appeared to
cause the nurse to shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
He didn’t understand the discomfort the young man seemed to
experience from this smile being aimed at Martin. Surely the
gesture exonerated him in some small way. Something blossomed in
his stomach in response to that smile. Something he didn’t
recognise. It was warm and light, yet dense like candy
floss.

The curtain was swept aside and Martin and the nurse both
spun guiltily on their heels.

A large black man filled the opening that had been
made. A large winter coat covered his broad barrel of a chest and
dropped to just below his knee, giving him the impression of an
immovable and imposing monolith.
The oversized thick
lapels were fastened close to his neck making his round head appear
like a boulder balanced on his shoulders.
His face was
chiselled with a hard scowl of brooding determination. Jet dark
curls of wiry hair clung neatly to his head like moss with a rich
weave of greys and silvers. His eyes squinted closed. He brandished
a long piece of intricately carved wood before him. It was too long
and thick to be a cane and too short to be a staff. He held it in a
commanding grip that angled the wood down to the floor without
allowing it to come into contact with it. He held a worn and
antiquated black leather Gladstone bag in the other
hand.

Martin swallowed against the constriction of his throat
and was thankful that the nurse broke the silence, as he was sure
he wouldn’t find his own voice. The young nurse’s objection to the
man’s presence started strong, having seemingly been startled by
the large man himself, but it began to trail off as the nurse
realised who the man was.

The black man’s face darkened, creasing around his words and
gathering shadows under the harsh lighting as he spoke. His voice
was deep, arrestingly commanding and well articulated, and he
possessed a curiously haunting undulating dialect that Martin
considered to be a mix of French and German. “I am fully aware this
is a private area, and yes; I am looking for someone, but it
appears that my search is now o-ver.” The authority the man
possessed was chilling.