A Kind of Longing (2)
And Roy, guessing what she meant, knew it was not the kind of thing you could shout about above the noise of the wind and the engine.
After a few miles the girl said, 'My name's Kay, mister.'
Roy said his own name. It sounded strange to him.
'Well, Roy, you going to buy me a cup of coffee when we get to the next town?'
'Sure,' Roy said. 'Sure thing, Kay.'
They dropped their speed and rode into the town. It was quiet on a Sunday evening. They found the place they wanted, and got off the bike.
Her hair was long and fair and blown about by the wind. In the coffee shop he saw her face for the first time, and he felt that kind of longing from way back, and he sat down beside her, knowing what it was.
'How long were you walking back there?' Her voice was soft and pleasant after the shouted conversation on the road.
'Perhaps five or six miles,' Roy said. 'Nobody was interested.'
'They never are.'
'It's not the kind of thing you worry about,' he said.
'No.' They sat drinking their coffee, watching and listening, getting the idea of each other.
'You go fishing a lot?' she said.
'Sure. Fishing. Moving around.'
'Always travel alone?'
'My friend got killed,' Roy said. It came out like that. There was not much else that he could say. He felt a kind of softness in her eyes that took him by the heart.
'What about you?' he said.
'What about me?'
'I mean, you can tell me about your brother.' He saw her eyes - their softness, the quiet hurt as his words hit her.
'Ross got killed in the army,' she said. 'It was his first week - just a stupid accident. He was only twenty. He fell off the back of a truck and hit his head. He used to do wild, crazy things all the time - but then what killed him was just a stupid accident...'
He played with his spoon in the coffee.
'What about your friend?' she asked after a while.
'Plane,' Roy said. 'Another thing that just couldn't happen.'
He saw it in his mind - the broken plane, that moment he could never forget for the rest of his life. This was something they both knew, he and this girl: a death that you couldn't believe. And that feeling was always with you, everywhere, like a voice that whispers in your ear, 'There will never be enough road any more, enough water, enough air...'
But beyond the feelings of hurt, old and new, he knew that they were telling each other the truth about themselves, not hiding things. Was he choosing the right words? It didn't matter. Now he asked, 'Where've you been today then, on your big bike?'
'Tauranga.'
'Stay the weekend?'
'Down this morning. It's only two hundred and sixty miles there and back,' she said. 'My father's in a kind of hospital down there. I don't stay because one visit each time is all I can do.'
'I'm sorry,' Roy said.
It was all in her eyes. In his mind, Roy saw a strong man broken - the father who would never get old, never die. How could you believe it, live with it?
Maybe he taught them to fish, Roy thought, this girl and her brother, dead at twenty from his accident. Maybe he taught them all those good things and they all had fun together, and then suddenly she looked around and she was the only one left. Maybe that's why she rides the big bike.
The time was starting to get heavy now.
'What do you say we get on the road?' Kay said.
'Sure.'
They went out and Roy felt the heaviness going. It was all right if you knew when to get up and go. They put on their crash helmets and the tall leggy girl started her bike. Roy climbed on behind her, and they went away laughing. They rode gently out of the sleepy town; then they reached the highway and the bike roared away into the night.
Roy felt all right about riding on the back. Sometimes, if you weren't sure about the rider, you weren't happy when he went fast, but this girl was okay. They rode, not talking, enjoying the night ride on their big fast machine. Roy thought about the things they were passing - the cattle in the fields, the night sounds of the farms. Lights appeared and cars sped past, and he thought about all the people going places. He felt Kay close to him, with her long friendly shoulders and her fair hair flying back from under her helmet. He could go on and on. He didn't care about the people who hated you before they saw you, or enjoyed watching you in trouble on the road, or let you walk because they didn't want to think about you. He felt that none of it could touch him now, or ever, that all the hurt had gone, and the shock from the deaths of friends and the bad feelings that came from people's unkind words.
A notice warned of bends in the road, and Kay cut their speed, and they rode the big bike down into the first bend.
Cars came up from down below, their lights showing the narrow road and the banks on each side. Most of the cars seemed to be in too much of a hurry, Roy thought.
They reached the bottom of the narrow valley, where he knew the river ran close to the road. He thought about that clear mountain water among the trees. Then they started to climb. They rode up the hill and into the first bend. And death came down to meet them on the wrong side of the road.
The lights of the car were right in front of them. They had nowhere to go, and not enough time to hate the guy who was killing them. Roy put his arms round Kay. He felt his face against her shoulder, their helmets close together. Then they were off the road and into the ditch as the car went past, moving too late to its own side of the road. They went on and on, fighting the ditch, crashing into the bank, and then they were over the bank and sailing, a moment's space before the hurt that was coming. They crashed down the bank, and Roy held tight to Kay, and they were off the bike and dying together, and the ground came up to knock the life out of his body, and he reached for Kay as he fell. Impossibly, he was still alive, but as he fell, crashed, broke, he didn't care - he only reached for Kay, longed for her.
He came to rest; there was a taste of blood and a whisper of pain through the shock, and he felt cold water around him. He lay in the icy water of the ditch, and knew he was still alive. Then he was moving along the ditch on hands and knees, searching for Kay through the pain and shock.
He pulled himself along the ditch until he found her. She was lying face down. He touched her, and turned her over as gently as he could.
Time had stopped. It was like a bad dream, made of all the deaths that had gone before. He said her name, and it came thick and strange through his painful lips. She looked at him and he waited for an impossible moment, and then she began to cry as the shock hit her, and that was all the hope he needed.
He took off her helmet, and gently pushed her hair back, and somewhere above them, he heard voices and a crashing sound as help came. The pain in his legs began to come alive. He put his arm around Kay, loving the life that returned as she cried life and pain coming together. And that was all the hope he needed. He guessed it must be all the hope in the world.
Because, for all the time that it lasted, they would have it together.
- THE END -