Another hitch-hiking road-tale from my youth
I’m standing on the
hard-shoulder somewhere in the northern Free State with my backpack and my
thumb stuck out. It’s been a slow
morning so when I see the blinking light and the car pulling over my spirits
jump and I grab my pack and break into an awkward lurching run. I glance at the other hitcher thirty metres
down the road and notice with some irritation that he is sprinting to poach a
ride. He makes it and the driver, somewhat
grudgingly, agrees to give him a lift too.
I understand the
driver’s reluctance to take a second passenger because she’s alone driving long
distance and I wonder why she decided to stop for me in the first place. But I’m glad to be moving again.
She wears a suit and
has short blonde hair and glasses and I find her rather plain-looking. The woman is probably in her early thirties
so she’s out of my spectrum of interest which doesn’t go much older than
twenty-five. She asks me about my studies
and where I’m going and she tells me she’s a medical rep and her husband runs a
farm in the Free State. The winter-brown
grasslands slip by and the road points straight to the horizon and my progress
feels good again.
What do you do? She’s looking at the other
hitcher in the rear-view mirror. I’m
unemployed, he answers from the back seat.
For how long? I turn to see him
better. Five years, he says. Shew.
How come? She’s trying to work
out who she has in her car. I was in
gaol. A brief silence. For five years? Yes, he answers and I’m wondering what we’re into here with a lone
woman giving a lift to a two lone men and now this other guy has a history I’d
really prefer not to know about. What
were you in prison for, she’s asking him now and I’m thinking that maybe we
shouldn’t pry too much and he says murder.
He was in gaol for murder. We’re
all quiet after that.
We know nothing more
about the murder-hitcher when he gets out of the car twenty minutes later with
his little blue hold-all and his purposeful eyes. Some stories are best not heard from
strangers on long roads.
Her husband owns the
farm but it’s not profitable yet so she spends weekdays in Pretoria working for
a pharmaceutical company. He doesn’t
really understand her anyway so it’s a good thing she’s away all week. Their marriage hasn’t been going well for
some time. He’s emotionally
distant. She has needs. The last statement lingers heavily with her
pleasantly floral perfume. I notice how her
skirt has ridden up and I look quickly back at the road to avoid looking at her
nylon-clad thighs. I’m embarrassed and
now she’s telling me that they don’t really have much of a sex life which only
makes me feel more uncomfortable.
There’s a period of
tight silence, like I’m expected to contribute something in response to her
confessions of marital disharmony but I’m too young and inexperienced in
matters of relationships, let alone marriage.
I let the silence string out.
When time elapses enough
for me to start a new subject I say I’m really tired and in need of a shower because
I slept on the side of the road last night.
I don’t tell her that I was picked up by the cops for sleeping rough and
was made to sleep on a bench in the charge office in Trompsburg. I was irritated by that because the radio crackled
with police chatter all night and cops were coming and going and talking loudly
and even though it was warmer in the police station I would have been fine with
my sleeping bag and groundsheet where they’d found me in the grass next to the
petrol station. I would at least have
got some sleep. But I don’t tell her
that part. Just that I’m tired and in
need of a shower.
She nods in response
and there is some more silence. Then she
says, you could come back with me for a bath.
There’s no-one at home at this time of day. I share with my friend and her husband but
they’ll be at work. We’d have the place
to ourselves.
I say no I have to
meet friends in Zim and I need to stay on the road but really I can feel that I
may be getting out of my depth. Even
without the slight hint of ambiguity in her invitation I have a brief vision of
an irate husband bursting into the bathroom to find me, a stranger to him,
naked in the bath tub. And I try to
ignore any ambiguity in the invitation that might mean that this older woman
with the plain face and attractive thighs might be coming on to me.
I’m turning off at the
next exit, she says to me somewhere near Pretoria. Are you sure you don’t want to come back for
a bath? She says as the car comes to a halt.
Again I decline.
I shoulder my pack and
watch her car disappear up the road with a vague sense that I’ve just forfeited
an adventure of an entirely different nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment