Page 4 of Kiwi Sin
The woman focused on me, then. “You got me out,” she said, her voice still jerky with shock. “You pulled me out. When the car was burning. You saved my life. My baby’s life.”
Well, this was embarrassing. “No worries,” I said. “Anybody would’ve done the same.”
“What’s your name?” she asked. “Because I want to name the baby after you.”
“Gabriel,” I said. “But, ah …”
“An angel’s name,” she said. “Oh, my God. You’re an angel. That’s why you’re so beautiful. You’re anangel.”
“Archangel,” Drew said, the corner of his mouth tugging upward as if he thought this was funny. It wasn’t funny!
I said, “Pretty odd name, if the baby’s a girl. And I’m not an angel, no worries. It’s just a name.” Now, my face was as hot as my back.
“Gabrielle,” she said. “Sean, we’re naming her Gabrielle. If she’s all right. She has to be all right. Hesavedus. That has to mean something.”
Her husband looked even more miserable. In fact, he was nearly crying. Here he was, thinking he’d nearly killed his wife and baby, and she wanted to name the baby after another bloke? Yeh, not too good. I didn’t know much about naming babies—the Prophet did that, as I’ve mentioned—but I had a feeling this wasn’t the best way. I said, “You’ll want to name her after your husband, surely. What’s your name, mate?”
“Sean,” he said. “You’re not getting a girl’s name out of that. Her name’s supposed to be Scarlett.”
“Fire-wise,” Drew said, “possibly problematic.”
“What?” Sean stared at him. “And, yes, we’re American. We should’ve gotten a better car. I had an airbag, but why wasn’t there one on the passenger side? Who’d rent out a car without a passenger airbag? How is that even legal?”
Drew said, “My wife’s American, as it happens. She says it terrified her, learning to drive on the left. Where are you from, in the States?” Keeping them talking, keeping them calm, and possibly changing the subject. Good idea.
I said, “I’m going to check the other car.” I didn’t even know if anybody’d done that, and I didn’t want to hear any more about this poor bloke having his baby named after me.
I jogged down the road, the sting on my back increasing, and found him. The bonnet was smashed and steam was coming out of the radiator, but the man, barely more than a boy, was sitting in the driver’s seat, his hands still on the wheel, staring straight ahead as if he were about to drive it out of there. Shock, that would be. I crouched beside the window and asked, “All right, mate?”
He stared at me, his pupils dilated so far that his eyes looked black, and said, “Why the hell were they stopping in the road? What were they playing at? I couldn’t stop fast enough, by the time I realized.” The kind of bloke who hasn’t seen enough things go wrong, who still didn’t believe it had happened to him.
“American,” I said. “Pulled into the wrong lane.”
“Bloody Americans, Are they …” He stared at the two of them, sitting on the verge. “She isn’t pregnant, is she?”
“Yeh,” I said. “Got any water?”
“What? No. Oh, my God. Is she all right?”
“I think so,” I said. “Sit there until somebody comes, I guess.”
A voice from behind me. “Do you realize that your shirt’s scorched in back? And that half of it’s burned away?”
“What?” I asked, turning.
It was a woman. Older, wearing jeans, her hair close-cropped. It was hard for me even to register her, and harder to categorize her. Women out here just looked so …different.They spoke to you, for one thing, andstaredat you. She said, “You’ve burned yourself. Hang on. I’m getting water.”
They gave you orders, too.
Up ahead, Drew had the woman passenger leaning back against the grassy bank and had taken off his jacket to put over her, even though the car was still merrily burning away, heating the morning air and giving off the stink of burning metal. Shock again, making her cold. I thought,We should put them into Drew’s car,and was about to go suggest it when the woman came back with a huge plastic bottle of water and said, “Take off your shirt.”
I gaped at her. I couldn’t comprehend this request. I said, “They need that water over there. That couple.”
“Already took them a bottle. Unbutton your shirt and take it off. We need some cloth to cool those burns, and if we don’t use your shirt, we’ll have to use mine. I don’t mind, but it might startle the animals and small children, eh. Come on, then. I don’t have all day.” She smiled cheerfully, and it was all, more and more, seeming like a dream.
I could never have imagined unbuttoning my shirt in front of a crowd, because therewasa crowd here now, but I did it. I stripped off, and realized that it did indeed have some holes in it, or more like one big hole where the back had used to be, and that the singlet underneath was nothing but a rag. I watched the woman soak the pieces with the water from the bottle, after which she laid them over my back and tucked the edges under my braces. She said, “Good thing it was cotton. A synthetic would’ve melted, and you don’t want that. You need to be sitting down with that on you, though. Or lying down, even better. Which one’s your car? Let’s get you into it, unless it’s the burnt one.”
I said, “I’m all right. Those others …” I gestured at the couple up ahead, with Drew. “They’re the ones hurt. The woman, especially.”
