Last Train to Retreat by Gustav Preller Page B

They were bad omens.
    •
     
    Not only did she not cry, she hardly talked. She felt awkward and stiff as he carried her through the streets to the safety of his flat. He put her down on his bed so that he could remove his belt and her bloodied jeans but when he touched her she shied away like a wild cat. When he tried to take her to the bathroom she resisted fiercely until he told her sharply that if the wound was not washed properly she would regret it. It started bleeding again the second he released the belt and he made her press a clean towel on the puncture to stop the flow while he carried her. She knelt under the tap in the bath dressed only in her bra and panties. He rinsed the wound for at least three minutes and then washed it with soap. She had nice long legs and for a breathless moment he wondered what she looked like naked. He gave her a big towel to put around her and another small clean towel to press on the gash and carried her back to his bed where he put lounge cushions under her leg to raise it as high as possible. Her breath was short and she was shivering uncontrollably. When he tried to feel her pulse she pulled her hand away.
    ‘Take off what you’re wearing, it’s wet. Come on! I won’t look. Here’s a T-shirt.’ With his head turned away he gave her ten seconds and then threw a blanket over her. He fetched another from the cupboard and put that on her as well. ‘Now keep that towel pressed on the wound. If the bleeding doesn’t stop soon I’m going to have to take you to hospital, you understand?’ To Zane the possibility of her dying in his flat outweighed all other considerations. She said nothing but her eyes told him
no.
    He thought of the time he was learning to ride Malaki’s longboard at Strandfontein Beach, how the board’s fin gashed his ankle and the life guards had to give him first aid. He had to go to hospital for stitches. The only trouble was that the wound became infected from the polluted water and he had to have an intravenous antibiotic drip until it cleared. He was fortunate that BAT’s medical aid had covered the expenses. Tonight he had no dressing, bandages, or antibiotics of any kind.
    She fell asleep. He lifted the blanket, only up to the wound, resisting the temptation to see all of her and feeling ashamed of his rampant thoughts. Her hand was still pressing on the wound. No fresh blood was seeping through the towel. He gently removed her hand, cut the towel away around the wound leaving the part that was still sticking to it. Then he snipped a strip of cloth from a cotton T-shirt and used it as a crude bandage. Her leg twitched as he worked but her face under her squarely-cut fringe told him she was still asleep. How strange that a girl like this could kill a man without a moment’s hesitation and not cry afterwards. As he gazed at her he realised he didn’t know her name and that he had not told her his.
    •
     
    Zane waited on platform 1 for the 7.20 am train that would take him to work, his eyeballs feeling as if they’d been wrapped in fine sandpaper, his arm stiff and aching. Fortunately the blade had not cut through any blood vessels but it did damage the muscle on his forearm. More concerning was his appearance – his teeth had split open his lips which were now swollen and blue. He’d sustained karate injuries to his face before but they had been from strikes and punches pulled too late. Curly had had no intention of pulling
his
punch.
    The girl had called from the bedroom at 5 am asking for something to eat. Zane brought her a huge helping of ProNutro with warm milk, sliced banana, and honey. She ate four slices of toast, two with Marmite, and two with peanut butter and honey, washing them down with cups of Rooibos tea. He commented on how much she could eat considering she was so slender. What he really meant was how amazing it was that she could eat at all after escaping rape then calmly killing a man. He asked her name and she wouldn’t tell