The Near Miss (2 page)

Eddy flung open his door. The hot air pushed in as he leapt out into the heat.

Skipper slept in Melody's lap, his feet up on the hard plastic bench. An elderly man inched past, placing a walking frame ahead of himself and shuffling his feet to catch up to it. A woman in uniform stopped to straighten the sheets on a stretcher. She refolded a blanket, and strapped it in with a safety belt, pulling the straps tight over the cotton weave. She pushed the stretcher away, and fluorescent lights glinted along its rails. Nurses walked past wearing blue pyjama outfits and pocket belts loaded with pens and small tools.

Melody plucked a toy train out of Skipper's loose fingers and turned it over. She pushed the engine along the palm of her hand and the coupling rods rose and fell. Under the train's belly was a movable piston, and a key.

The man from the accident sat one seat away. He rested upright with his eyes closed, his cheeks hollow and slightly flushed, lips fluttering as he breathed. His coat hung open; his wallet peeked from the pocket and displayed the edges of a wad of fifty-dollar bills, close enough to smell.

He should be more careful. Someone could take advantage of that.

And where was the woman? Melody had not seen her since they had arrived at the hospital. Melody herself had been crouching down to Skip's level when the mother put the little girl down on the ground. The child had rubbed her hands with satisfaction, as if brushing off her mother's touch. She looked at the road as if it were a great opportunity, and then she ran straight onto it.

Melody was amazed, later, at how much she could fit into a fraction of a second. She had dropped Skipper's hand and turned into the wake carved through the hot air by the little girl. She took giant strides, calculating the exact point at which she would have to stop and centre her weight, to pull them both back from the path of traffic. She squatted slightly amid the blur of
wheels moving and the exhaust of cars and she snatched at the white of the child's dress. She brushed it, then she got a handful of broderie and yanked it back, scrambling with her other hand to get a purchase on more than the cotton fabric; she would not stop until she felt warm flesh. The red car was upon them. She met the man's eyes, saw their whites. She seized the girl's upper arm, frail as a chicken bone, and she yanked it hard, knowing she might break it, and that it didn't matter.

There was a tap as the car hit something, the child's foot, just the tip of her sandal, and the little girl released a fire-engine scream.

Melody had the whole child now, her arms wrapped around her warm belly, tyres burning and shuddering all around them on the hot bitumen. She whisked the girl up and away. A white car swerved to miss the red car, and hit a parked car; a third car hit the white car. The child screamed, each chainsaw howl ending in a
hoo-hoo-hoo!
before winding up again.

She was writhing in Melody's arms, and Melody carried her back to the footpath and the crowd of breathless onlookers, and the ashen-faced mother. On the road, people stood beside smashed fenders and waved their arms, then tapped each other's insurance details into their mobile phones. Melody had handed the child to her mother and everyone sighed. Death had blown through them like a cinder-laden wind on a bushfire day, but he had missed his chance.

‘Nice train.' The man blinked in the glare of the hospital lights, cheeks pink with sleep. He was tall and lean, his head cut back to the one-degree shave favoured by balding men of her generation. She envied anyone who could fall asleep where they chose. It showed an admirable level of comfort in your own skin. His stooping posture indicated that he was one to lean towards the world, as if curious and concerned about it. Even his bent nose followed his forward lean. His suit pants were too loose, and higher than was fashionable, like those of an older man. He had been quick to run from his car, the one to comfort the mother and take them to the hospital.

She held out the train and he took it, and tried the key.

‘It doesn't work,' he said.

‘I know. I bought it on eBay.'

‘I think I could fix it.'

She shrugged. ‘We like old things.'

‘Old doesn't have to mean broken.' His big fingers pushed the coupling rods so the wheels turned. Melody leaned her head back and exhaled. Her father had been like this, trying to fix everything. If she opened her eyes just a narrow slit, she could see the cash peeking from the man's coat pocket.

There really were a lot of fifties there. He couldn't possibly need them all.

‘You must be hot in that jacket,' she said.

He smiled and absently shrugged off the jacket. He laid it on the seat between them.

Grace stood at the door of the waiting room and watched these three strangers, man, woman and child, and breathed a fresher air than the air she had left behind in the ward, where blue face masks and plastic tubing absorbed all the oxygen. Around them here, families gathered in little clumps, some staring at her with surly envy. They wanted in. Children wailed and coughed and grizzled. Grace went over to the man and woman.

‘She's going to be okay,' she told them. ‘She's strained a ligament and bruised her foot. But it's relatively minor.'

‘Lucky,' said the woman. She had extraordinary blue eyes.

‘Lucky you were there,' said Grace steadily. ‘What's your name?'

‘Melody. We just moved here last week. From up north.'

‘Where up north?'

‘A commune. Tuntable Falls. Have you heard of Nimbin?'

‘Of course,' said Grace. Drop-out 'sixties scene, up in the rainforest mountains. Explained the dreds. ‘I didn't think there was anyone up there under sixty.'

‘Plenty,' said Melody. ‘Their kids.'

‘You grew up there?'

‘No, here. Donvale. Most boring suburb in the world. Probably why I fled to Nimbin as soon as I could.'

Grace nodded. ‘Well, I for one am glad you came back! Hey, do you think you could both come for dinner one Saturday night? My husband Tom and I, and Lotte, we live just near the ice-cream shop. We would like to say thank you.'

The man beamed and looked absolutely delighted. ‘Can I bring my girlfriend?'

‘Of course.' She looked at Melody. ‘Do you want to bring someone? Besides your son?'

‘Uh. Maybe.'

‘Is your car alright?' It was the polite thing to ask, although Grace could not have cared less about the car.
I do hope my child's body didn't dent your fender?

Eddy blushed. ‘It's fine. We drove here in it, remember? From the scene of the crime.'

‘Oh, yes. Sorry.'

‘So to speak. Wasn't really a crime.' The man spoke hastily, as if sensing Grace's burning guilt, and the two women turned as one to study him for a moment.

‘I'm so sorry,' he said, his hand on his heart.

‘It wasn't your fault,' Grace said gloomily. It would have been nice to blame something other than her daughter's lunacy, but in this case it was not possible. ‘She's always been a runner.
I'm just lucky you both have quick reflexes.' She tore a corner from a magazine and wrote. ‘So here's my address. I'll see you.'

At her feet, the boy, who must have been Lotte's age, shrieked and pointed. A tiny tin train peeled away from his feet and skittered across the floor merrily, over the linoleum, under seats and between feet, carving a straight line through the lives it passed. The hippy looked accusingly at the man.

‘You fixed it.'

He looked sheepishly proud, and crouched by the squealing, delighted child.

‘Yeah.'

‘So this little girl, she was nearly killed.' Eddy followed Romy into the kitchen. He kept one hand in his pocket, cupped around the small velvet ring box, blocking it as if it might leap out of his pocket and propose of its own free will. Had Romy heard the first part of the story? ‘We were so lucky someone grabbed her in time. Are you listening, hon?'

‘We're out of coconut milk. When did we run out of coconut milk?'

‘I used the last can the other night, in the curry. Hey, did you take money from my wallet? I was sure I had about ten fifties, and now there's only one. It's okay, it's just that—'

Romy whirled and stabbed her finger at a piece of paper pinned to a wall. ‘You haven't added coconut milk to the list!' she said accusingly. Triumphantly, almost, Eddy could have said. Maybe she thought enough of these minor transgressions on his part would mount up to equal her infidelity. Maybe she was scrambling for the moral high ground. Oh God, what was he thinking? Romy was always like this. She had made love with some strange man without setting a foot off the moral high ground. He rubbed the velvet nap anxiously.

‘I'm trying to tell you about something that happened to me today,' he said mildly. ‘I wish you'd listen. This was huge. A little girl was nearly killed.'

‘And yet, she was fine,
si
?'

‘She was, well her foot was bruised and she strained a ligament, but it could have been so much worse— Oh God, there it is!' He crossed the room to the remote and turned up the television. ‘This is it!'

There it was, on some current affairs show! First Melody and her son, sitting eating ice cream, probably shot on someone's phone camera. Then something flashed white behind Melody and there was the little girl running into a river of moving cars, her head not much higher than a car bonnet.

‘That's me!' He pointed at the red Subaru, sliding into frame, Melody already spinning and flying after the child, in a whirl of green dress and golden dreadlocks and sunbeams.

‘Shit!' breathed Romy.

The brakes on his television car screeched, the camera frame wobbled, unseen people gasped and screamed. A broadcaster spoke solemnly over the top.

‘This near miss today in the Melbourne suburb of Meadowview graphically illustrates the dramatic findings from the government's newly released traffic accident report. If not for a quick-thinking bystander, this child would have become a statistic, one of the twenty per cent who . . .' The footage was replayed, in slow motion.

Romy shook her head. ‘Where were the kid's parents?'

‘The mother was there. She was so grateful.'

‘That you hit her kid?'

‘No, because I braked in time and it wasn't worse. And I took her to hospital. The kid is
okay. It's minor. And the mother has asked us to dinner. You, too.'

‘A thank-you-for-not-hitting-my-child-very-hard dinner? Kooky.'

‘You said you wanted to meet new people.'

‘Maybe.' She finally seemed to wake up to his presence and slid her arms around his waist. He exhaled and leaned back against her arms.

‘You sure you didn't take four-fifty from my wallet? I don't mind, I really don't. I'm just hoping I didn't lose it.'

Romy broke away from him and returned to staring into the pantry.

‘No, Eddy, I didn't.'

When Skipper said he was scared to start at the new kindy, Melody told him to bring his invisible friend, Mr Sumper. Mr Sumper varied in age. At times he was old enough to go to primary school and drive a car. He could teach Skip how to do things. But then Skipper would say that he remembered when Mr Sumper was a baby, when the only person he liked was Skipper.