a ball in play (2)

 Davie started to say something but stopped himself and stood up. He looked around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. He tucked his long hair behind his ears, turned and started walking the road out of town.

  He couldn’t get the sight of her lying across the pavement like that out of his head. It was an image of that very time Bingo had flattened her in Donaghie’s pub right in front of him and everyone else there. He remembered Bingo’s face: tight and brutal with disgust standing over her, till it relaxed as quickly as the violence had erupted and he turned and continued sipping at his pint of Snakebite. She had picked herself up off the floor and walked to the toilets. And Davie was feart, pure and simple. He didn’t know what to do except put down his drink and go home, where he lay awake all that night caged and tortured by his own impotence.

She didn't show up for work that Monday after Donachie's. Tuesday, she showed up with a black crust on her lower lip like hardened plastecine. She gave him a little flinch of a smile as she passed.
  He had avoided her for the rest of that week. Then, late on Friday night, as he lay in bed, the buzzer went in his flat. He heard Iain’s sleepy steps go down the hall and ask who it was. The change in Iain’s tone made his scalp prickle. A knock on his room door.
“It’s that lass frae your work you talk about. She wants to talk to you.”
  He met her at the front door unable to settle the chaos of ifs and buts and whys avalanching through his week of icy numbness. Her lip was a dull purple now with a little black archipelago of scabs. He stood there, his hair draping his face. He was managing to stay standing which was something at least, and briefly meet her gaze, keeking out through his hair.
Something awful swelled in his throat, and he could barely keep it down. He shook his head and looked to the floor, tears pricked at his eyes. She raised her hand and tucked his hair behind his ears to reveal his face. Her cool palm found his cheek and guided his eyes back to hers.
“It will be fine. Don’t worry”, she breathed and stretched up and kissed his other cheek, “there’s no need for you to worry.”
Her hand trailed away and she turned back downstairs.  He stood there listening to the sounds of her leaving echoing down the close.
Later in his room he found tiny little scraps of scab dotted on his cheek.

“Davie wait.”
He stopped and turned to see her walking up to him. She hadn’t let him walk far.
“Let’s go this way.” She pointed across a field to some trees on a hill.
 
Catherine ducked under the fence first and headed for some trees. He followed. He wasn’t going to let the false start to the day over-run his plans. Crows took to the air cawing in protest at their progress through the field. The trees were sparse and she walked a little way in. She let out a sigh.
“Okay then. Tell me.” Did she sound annoyed?

The words that he’d rehearsed forever seemed to have scattered to the air like the crows.