Ivory Read Online Free Page B

rested eyes flicked open. Then there was fear
as her obsidian eyes stared into him.
    Faced with the precipice of the deep fall into her
eyes, memories were conjured of how he had felt as a child when his
father had told him that God was not only watching over him but
could see into him, and all
his sins were made bare. Martin felt shame before those black eyes,
but it wasn’t the child’s guilt for touching himself and thinking
about Lilly Mcgreggor round the corner or Mrs Jenkins tight fitting
blouse, as an adult it was shame for driving angry and for not
seeing the poor girl in time.
    “ I’m sorry…” his voice quavered. “I didn’t see
you…”
    Her black raven stare fluttered as she blinked several times
in close succession as his words seem to bring her around to some
level of consciousness. Her head turned a little towards him and
her pale lips blushed with the faintest hint of pink, seemingly
delicate like petals, parted into a thin fragile smile. He was so
surprised that she might smile at him the gesture had an intimate
quality. Curiously she did seem genuinely warmed by the apology and
pleased to see him. Then he remembered the man in the alley.
Perhaps he had saved her from something worse than a car accident
tonight. The man had seemed to be chasing her.
    This unexpected reaction to Martin’s presence appeared to
cause the nurse to shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
He didn’t understand the discomfort the young man seemed to
experience from this smile being aimed at Martin. Surely the
gesture exonerated him in some small way. Something blossomed in
his stomach in response to that smile. Something he didn’t
recognise. It was warm and light, yet dense like candy
floss.
    The curtain was swept aside and Martin and the nurse both
spun guiltily on their heels.
    A large black man filled the opening that had been
made. A large winter coat covered his broad barrel of a chest and
dropped to just below his knee, giving him the impression of an
immovable and imposing monolith. The oversized thick
lapels were fastened close to his neck making his round head appear
like a boulder balanced on his shoulders. His face was
chiselled with a hard scowl of brooding determination. Jet dark
curls of wiry hair clung neatly to his head like moss with a rich
weave of greys and silvers. His eyes squinted closed. He brandished
a long piece of intricately carved wood before him. It was too long
and thick to be a cane and too short to be a staff. He held it in a
commanding grip that angled the wood down to the floor without
allowing it to come into contact with it. He held a worn and
antiquated black leather Gladstone bag in the other
hand.
    Martin swallowed against the constriction of his throat
and was thankful that the nurse broke the silence, as he was sure
he wouldn’t find his own voice. The young nurse’s objection to the
man’s presence started strong, having seemingly been startled by
the large man himself, but it began to trail off as the nurse
realised who the man was.
    The black man’s face darkened, creasing around his words and
gathering shadows under the harsh lighting as he spoke. His voice
was deep, arrestingly commanding and well articulated, and he
possessed a curiously haunting undulating dialect that Martin
considered to be a mix of French and German. “I am fully aware this
is a private area, and yes; I am looking for someone, but it
appears that my search is now o-ver.” The authority the man
possessed was chilling.
    The
nurse and Martin looked to the girl, whose smile was suddenly more
definite and flickered with life. Not the greeting Martin was
expecting her to have for her pimp. He experienced a twinge of
jealousy that was both unexpected and uncomfortable in its clarity
and its inappropriateness.
    A tight smile briefly softened the black man’s features in
response to her smile, several gold teeth winked among his
yellowing originals. “She is my ward,” the man announced