Free A man who cried by Yelena Kopylova Page B

involuntary one, was when her head fell to one side and the flow of blood oozing
    through her hair increased.
    He pulled himself to his feet and stood rubbing his chaffed wrist as he looked down on her. It
    could be just a surface scrape. . . . But what if there was a gash there and she bled to death ? He
    stepped back. Well, whatever happened to her he wasn’t staying to find out. He’d had enough,
    more than enough. Staggering now as if slightly drunk, he said, ”Come on, get your pack, we’re
    going.” Dick obeyed him immediately by grabbing up his rucksack and ramming his blanket into
    it; then he ran to the opening of the barn and there he waited, his body half turned as if on the
    point of a
    run.
    When Abel reached the barn door, his rucksack hitched high on his shoulders, he turned and gave
    one last look towards the figure lying now like a dead animal waiting to be carted away; then
    turning swiftly, his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he propelled him across the yard at a run. But
    having passed through the gate, he stopped. He did not look back but stared ahead. What if she
    didn’t recover and lay there all day, perhaps into the night and died of exposure ? They could
    have him up.
    Don’t be silly. He shook his head at himself. Nobody knew he had been here; it could be days
    before anyone looked in again. . . . Aye, it could, and she’d certainly be dead by then.
    It was as if the words had been spoken by somebody else and they brought his chin in to his
    chest, and when the boy’s hand gripped his and the small voice said, ”What’s the matter, Dad?”
    he took no notice but continued to stand, his head bent, until, giving another hitch to the
    rucksack, he walked on.
    Five minutes later he was standing on top of the hill looking into the distance down on to the
    cluster of houses he had noticed the night before last and to the left where lay a narrow strip of
    road leading to them. And now, so quickly did he go down the hill that the boy had to run to keep
    up with him.
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    The first cottage they came to was actually some three hundred yards from the village itself, and
    as he passed the gate the door opened and a man came out, evidently a farm worker. He stood on
    the step for a moment and gazed at the pair before saying, ”Mornin’.”
    ”Good mornin’.” Abel stopped and waited for the man to come to the gate and he definitely
    surprised the man by saying abruptly, ”Is there a doctor in that village, or ... or a polis . . .
    policeman?”
    ’Aye, there’s one but not t’other. Polis is a good two miles away but Doc Armstrong, he’s in the
    first house.” The man nodded along the road.
    ”Thanks, thanks.” Abel was about to hurry away when the man added, ”But you won’t find him
    there this mornin’, he’s over at young Phil Gallespie’s ; his wife’s havin’ her first, an’ hard goin’
    with her it is they say. Saw doc goin’ along there past the gate here with his buggy close on ten
    last night, hasn’t come back yet, else wife would have heard him. Light sleeper she is, wake half
    the night, sleeps half the day. You feelin’ bad or summat?”
    ”No, no.” Abel shook his head. ”It’s . . . it’s the lady over . . . over at the pig farm; she’s had an accident.”
    ”Ah, Miss Tilda.” The man smiled broadly now. ”What’s happened Tilly-the-touched now ?”
    Abel paused before answering. Tilly-the-touched, he had called her; it must be common
    knowledge that she was barmy. ”She . . . she had a fall.”
    ”Well, I shouldn’t worry about her, the doc will see to her when he gets back. Related he is to
    her, half-cousin he is ; the only one that bothers about her . . . ’cos he’s the only one she’ll allow to bother about her. Barmy, barmy for years. She should be locked up, everybody says so. ...
    Speak of the devil, there, look ! there’s the buggy. That’s the doc comin’ back. See, round the
    end of the road there. You’d better go and tell him,