Yellow Signs

Yellow Signs

Eight days before his fortieth birthday, Rod snapped his gut into the
elastic of his shorts and pulled on squeaky new hundred quid trainers.
His hands shook as he tied the laces, even though it was two days since
the incident on the Kingsway. He couldn't see what all the fuss was
about but Sheila had ordered him to "shape up or ship out". She was
like that, Sheila, she liked clich?s.

It wasn't that big a deal. A few drinks with the lads after work and
he'd sat down on the steps of an office block to plan his journey home.
A couple of city seccies started fussing and the guy who sold the Big
Issue was trying to act macho to impress them. Rod hadn't spoken
because he didn't want eight pints of Stella and a quart of vodka to
pour out of his mouth onto his designer threads. There wasn't anything
wrong with him but they took it upon themselves to hail him a cab
anyway, and it wasn't like he had no cash, he was just having trouble
remembering his PIN code. If they'd have left him alone he'd have found
his way. He always did.

Rod remembered the Big Issue guy palming him the cab fare in pound
coins and silver and cringed. He despised men who carried small change.
"Easy come, easy go" the guy said, desperately flirting with the two
birds as he poured Rod into the cab. Sheila was livid. "Three strikes
and you're out, I said" she said, "and that was a year ago". And he
didn't even tell her about taking money from the beggar.

Still, he thought he might give the clean living thing a go. Couldn't
do any harm. He set out slowly, huffing down the path and up the
suburban street. Overnight rain had made the pavement reflective and
the air smelled of sweat. Blossom flowers lay like dead flies around
the bottom of the trees and a streak of dog piss curled its way down
the flag stones.

At the corner of the street lay a lump. As Rod grew closer he saw that
the dark trail he was following hadn't come from a dog but from the
mound blocking the path. As he approached the liquid turned darker and
redder, staining the pavement and fanning out pale in the puddles. The
body belonged to a young woman, her face turned slightly towards the
sky, as if waiting for a lover's kiss. She was breathing, he could tell
from the cloud emitting from her nostrils every few seconds, but she
was bleeding heavily from her mouth and temples. Her heavy winter coat
was crusted with mud and blood and she clutched the fur-lined collar
with a bluish hand.

Rod fumbled with the tiny mobile phone that he'd tucked in his shorts
pocket in case of cardiac arrest on the common and called emergency.
They'd know what was needed. He pulled the woman's coat around her and
sat on a neighbouring wall. Best not to touch. She wasn't English, he
could tell that. Her hair was dark but her skin was pale and freckled,
lips purple like plums. As he waited on his wall for help to arrive he
played a game with himself, choosing combinations of different
nationalities that could make up such a beautiful face without an
owner. By the time he heard the sirens he was fantasising about
Icelandic mothers and Pakistani fathers.

The policewoman searched in the girl's pocket and pulled out a dog
eared bus pass. "Jane Charlton", she read aloud. They set up a
workstation around the girl and draped a blanket around Rod as if he
was a marathon finisher. A policeman escorted him back down the hill to
home, warning that they would return in a few hours for his
statement.

By the time they got there, Rod was on his second gin and tonic. He'd
left the lemon out so that they would still be of the opinion that he
was every bit the athlete that he looked. When he'd got back, Sheila
had shouted down from the bedroom but he'd told her not to worry and
she'd gone quiet again. He'd poured himself a strong one and sat at the
table, still wrapped in his winner's blanket, and thought about Jane
Charlton and how she'd come to block his path.

When the police had finished with their questions and left, Rod went
upstairs, showered, changed and headed out for a fresh bottle of gin.
At the end of the road was a yellow sign. 'Witness appeal' it said.
'Serious assault'. Only then did he remember that he hadn't asked the
policeman how the girl was.

Back home, he cracked seal around the neck of the gin bottle. He always
found the music of drinking satisfying. The glug of good wine poured
down crystal glasses, the pop of champagne corks, the fizz of tonic
sloshed into a tumbler of gin. Today the noise sickened him. It sounded
like the snap of a neck, of bones being broken. Perhaps Sheila was
right, perhaps he had heard it a bit too often lately. He replaced the
cap and placed the bottle in the cupboard under the sink, along with
bleach and washing detergent and a couple of empties.

She'd been taken to St. Thomas's, he was pretty sure of that. He called
and enquired after her but they wouldn't tell him. In the car on the
way there he played Pergolesi's Stabat Mater out of reverence and
thought about the beautiful face lying in a pool of gore on the
pavement.

She looked younger, shrouded in hospital linen and sustained by beeps
and tubes. She must be less than half his age. Her coat was thrown
hastily on a chair. They must have ripped it from her as they tried to
capture her life and give it back to her. It was a fun coat. A coat for
a girl with no cares in the world. A garment carelessly thrown on in
anticipation of a good night out. A coat that thought it would be back
on its own peg by morning.

Despite her injuries, her expression was peaceful. Rod looked at his
own ravaged reflection in the glass of the intensive care room. Her
face hadn't yet been carved by success and limitations. He stayed there
until the light coming through the corridor window turned angrily puce
and then left for home.

***

The following morning, seven days before his fortieth birthday, Rod
tucked his belly once again into his shorts and pulled on his trainers.
There was a spring in his step. His head felt clear and hydrated, no
breakfast of alka seltzer and coffee for him today. He turned left out
of the house and ran up the road. Last night's rain had cleared all
signs of Jane Charlton from the street. He thanked her mentally. The
yellow sign shone beacon-like from the spot where she'd lain, not
twenty four hours previously. A memorial to the day she changed Rod's
life for the better. Someone had visited the sign overnight. A pathetic
bunch of service station flowers lay at its feet and a police label
reading "Murder Investigation" had been slapped across its top.