Hit and Run - [8]

He stared at the wall opposite. Another row of polypropylene bucket chairs, a notice board with signs on reminding people of the hospital’s no smoking policy, of the cost of missed appointments, exhorting people to ring up if they couldn’t attend. He gazed at the fluorescent lights, at the vinyl flooring and the skirting board and the chairs opposite.

‘I should have held her hand,’ Debbie cried. ‘I always hold her hand to cross. I always make sure she holds my hand.’

‘Shhh, Debs, don’t.’ He put his hand on her leg and pressed. ‘Don’t.’

She stood impatiently, wrapped her arms across her stomach, took a few steps this way and that, then sat back down. He saw her fingers start to fret on the zip again.

He closed his eyes and prayed.

*****

Marta had woken in the night, unsure what had disturbed her. The room was dark, impossible to see anything. In the summer months the light shone through the thin curtains, making it hard to sleep late. She couldn’t hear Rosa. She switched on the small bedside lamp. The other bed was empty. Her watch read three-thirty. Rosa should be back by now. The club closed at two. Was she downstairs? Marta listened. It was quiet, so quiet. A lone car in the distance but nothing else.

At home, the nights had carried different sounds. Her father’s coughing had punctuated the house, night and day. And beyond that there was the noise from the steelworks, the droning of machinery, the screech and clang of metal, the shriek of hooters signalling the change of shifts and the rumble of heavy plant machinery. Round the clock, continuous production until the place was closed in the mid-nineties. Her father was thrown out of work like so many others. Her mother the only one with a wage. Her father would sit about the house or escape to the café and spend the day there with the other men, their arms pockmarked with silvery scars, the burns left by flying scraps of molten metal. When he coughed Marta imagined his lungs full of wire wool, threads twisting with each breath.

One night, after they’d silenced the machines, she had heard the howl of a wolf, her blood thrilling at the sound and a prickle of fear at the nape of her neck. She’d never seen a wolf, though her babka, her grandmother, swore they were still there if you looked carefully. Not so many, of course. A lot of the forest had gone now; they’d cut back the tall, dark green conifers, and the wolves and the bears had retreated to the wild places in the mountains.

Marta remembered a trip to the forest for her name day when she was small. She had woken to presents and flowers and cards and her father had borrowed the car from the schoolteacher. The three of them, plus Babka, had travelled for an hour and a half to one of the big lakes. A rare adventure for, apart from that day, Marta couldn’t remember any other such family outings. Sometimes she wondered if it had been a dream. Babka had brought food: soft pierogis filled with lamb and blintz dusted with sugar. When she bit into the blintz and the jam oozed out the wasps had come whining around. Her parents had lit cigarettes and blown smoke at the pests.

They had been able to swim in the lake, the ones closer to home weren’t safe. ‘Chemical soup,’ her father always said. ‘Strip you to the bone and melt your eyes.’ But here the water was clear and silky, achingly cold. As she struggled in, her feet slipping on the muddy stones, Marta felt the cold stun her feet and her calves. She stumbled and fell in, losing her breath at the shock of the icy wave on her back. The lake was filled by the melted ice from the mountains.

The chill water had set her father coughing and she’d had a sudden flight of fear. What if he collapsed? How would they get home? But he smiled at her, through the spasms, nodding his creased red face in reassurance.

Marta’s mother was careful not to get her hair wet, sticking her neck up like a swan and moving her arms gently without breaking the surface. She was the picture of elegance, scolding Marta if she came too close with her whooping and flailing about.

Afterwards, her fingers blue and her teeth chattering, Marta sat wrapped in a scratchy towel eating the last blintz while the adults argued about the government.

Later, she went for a walk with her father, along the lakeside. The air was rich with the sharp scent of pine, the trunks of the trees dotted with the honey-brown clusters of resin. She rolled a piece between her fingers, sticky and crunchy like melting sugar, and sniffed at it.

There was one point where the undergrowth was thicker and a couple of boulders offered a stopping place. Her father paused, leaning his hand on one of the rocks. He tested the air. ‘Smell that.’

Marta breathed in. A foul smell, like fly-blown meat. She felt her gorge rise.

‘Bear.’

Her eyes had widened and her nerves started. What if the bear heard her father coughing? She didn’t want to get eaten by a bear. Not on her name day of all things. Her father obviously agreed and they had made their way back to the women and told them there was a bear about.