Ivory Read Online Free
she was feigning sleep. The
staff had found that the pockets of her three-quarter length white
Mackintosh coat had contained a supply of condoms and a fat roll of
money. There had been a business card printed with the word ‘EBONY’
with a mobile phone number beneath it. Martin had heard a nurse say
the number on the card matched the one on the medical bracelet, and
in response a nurse had mouthed, ‘Pimp?’ It struck Martin as
strange that a pimp would take such responsibility for her care.
Perhaps she was an illegal immigrant and her pimp wanted to ensure
that she didn’t get caught or escape him through an accident such
as this.
He struggled to accept that she was a prostitute. Curiously
it didn’t alter her allure. Her startlingly white hair and skin and
her contrasting black eyes were strangely engaging. He wondered
whether it was the peculiarity of her appearance that attracted the
porters, nurses and doctors to her side on what appeared to be a
busy night for the A&E department.
Martin’s
police questioning was already out of the way. He was relieved he
hadn’t been drinking. He didn’t understand why the police had kept
asking about a second vehicle, and was unsure exactly how many
points he would gain on his license, or whether the police were
going to charge him for dangerous driving. When the girl had
recovered they would take her statement to see if her version of
events corroborated with Martin’s explanation that she had run out
in front of the car. If their stories didn’t match then the police
would investigate the scene to determine his speed.
The girl had yet to speak. When the discomfort or pain
from the nurses handling of her overcame the resistance of her
pretend sleep she would shake or nod her head to questions. One of
the nurses surmised that she was foreign and couldn’t speak
English, and that fitted with Martin’s assumption that she was an
illegal sex worker, maybe trafficked. He had half-watched a Panorama documentary on it whilst
painting. Another nurse had suggested that to keep silent against
the pain she must be experiencing from her injuries she had to be a
mute. If that were the case then he didn’t understand what had
caused the sharp ululation that had seemed to be formed from more
than one voice when he had run her down. He had never
imagined that tyres on tarmac could make such a human scream; one
full of terror and defiance, as if the world cried out in grief and
outrage at her being struck down.
The girl was clearly still in her teens, but the taboo
freshness of her youth was saved from being a vulgar guilty
attraction by her classical beauty, for with her eyes closed she
had the poised majesty of any sculpted Greek or Roman face that he
had studied in the British museum. He was unsure whether it was her
young age, her abhorrent job, her current situation, the innocence
that seemed to cling to her, or a combination of all these that
drew upon his sympathy. He took it as a point against society that
it had turned perfection into a whore, and corrupted such a rarity
as beauty into something that could be bought and used to satisfy
ones needs. He found some consolation in the fact that those that
used her would do so within some guilty dirty secret that could
only sully their experience, and they could ‘have’ her but never
own her. He caught his own naivety; her pimp owned her.
The painfully skinny and scruffy young male nurse that Martin
had relayed the incident to before the police had arrived, studied
him with a look of curiosity and disbelief. He stalked over to
Martin, a scarecrow in a tunic.
“ I think you’re all finished here.”
Martin stood and rubbed his closely cropped ginger beard as
he considered what he was going to ask from the nurse, knowing that
he was going to push his luck. “If you don’t mind, I would like to
see her.”
There
was the briefest twitch of the man’s long but sparse eye brows. “I
don’t think that’s appropriate, do
staff had found that the pockets of her three-quarter length white
Mackintosh coat had contained a supply of condoms and a fat roll of
money. There had been a business card printed with the word ‘EBONY’
with a mobile phone number beneath it. Martin had heard a nurse say
the number on the card matched the one on the medical bracelet, and
in response a nurse had mouthed, ‘Pimp?’ It struck Martin as
strange that a pimp would take such responsibility for her care.
Perhaps she was an illegal immigrant and her pimp wanted to ensure
that she didn’t get caught or escape him through an accident such
as this.
He struggled to accept that she was a prostitute. Curiously
it didn’t alter her allure. Her startlingly white hair and skin and
her contrasting black eyes were strangely engaging. He wondered
whether it was the peculiarity of her appearance that attracted the
porters, nurses and doctors to her side on what appeared to be a
busy night for the A&E department.
Martin’s
police questioning was already out of the way. He was relieved he
hadn’t been drinking. He didn’t understand why the police had kept
asking about a second vehicle, and was unsure exactly how many
points he would gain on his license, or whether the police were
going to charge him for dangerous driving. When the girl had
recovered they would take her statement to see if her version of
events corroborated with Martin’s explanation that she had run out
in front of the car. If their stories didn’t match then the police
would investigate the scene to determine his speed.
The girl had yet to speak. When the discomfort or pain
from the nurses handling of her overcame the resistance of her
pretend sleep she would shake or nod her head to questions. One of
the nurses surmised that she was foreign and couldn’t speak
English, and that fitted with Martin’s assumption that she was an
illegal sex worker, maybe trafficked. He had half-watched a Panorama documentary on it whilst
painting. Another nurse had suggested that to keep silent against
the pain she must be experiencing from her injuries she had to be a
mute. If that were the case then he didn’t understand what had
caused the sharp ululation that had seemed to be formed from more
than one voice when he had run her down. He had never
imagined that tyres on tarmac could make such a human scream; one
full of terror and defiance, as if the world cried out in grief and
outrage at her being struck down.
The girl was clearly still in her teens, but the taboo
freshness of her youth was saved from being a vulgar guilty
attraction by her classical beauty, for with her eyes closed she
had the poised majesty of any sculpted Greek or Roman face that he
had studied in the British museum. He was unsure whether it was her
young age, her abhorrent job, her current situation, the innocence
that seemed to cling to her, or a combination of all these that
drew upon his sympathy. He took it as a point against society that
it had turned perfection into a whore, and corrupted such a rarity
as beauty into something that could be bought and used to satisfy
ones needs. He found some consolation in the fact that those that
used her would do so within some guilty dirty secret that could
only sully their experience, and they could ‘have’ her but never
own her. He caught his own naivety; her pimp owned her.
The painfully skinny and scruffy young male nurse that Martin
had relayed the incident to before the police had arrived, studied
him with a look of curiosity and disbelief. He stalked over to
Martin, a scarecrow in a tunic.
“ I think you’re all finished here.”
Martin stood and rubbed his closely cropped ginger beard as
he considered what he was going to ask from the nurse, knowing that
he was going to push his luck. “If you don’t mind, I would like to
see her.”
There
was the briefest twitch of the man’s long but sparse eye brows. “I
don’t think that’s appropriate, do