Read Online Rosa and the Veil of Gold by Kim Wilkins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kim Wilkins
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university.”
The car pulled out, cold air rushed through the open window, and Daniel watched Rosa in the rear-view mirror until she disappeared from sight.
FIVE
Five hours out of St Petersburg, Em was concerned about the car. The steering had felt loose and wobbly since their near-miss with the truck on the way from Novgorod, but the problem was worsening. Speeding around a tight bend, the steering dropped out altogether momentarily, threatening to send them into nearby trees. Then it engaged again, and she was back on track. The adrenalin burst was over as quickly as it had come.
Daniel snapped his attention to her. He must have noticed. “Is everything okay?” he said.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Just took the corner too quickly.” She deliberately slowed, aware of how the car steered around the next bend. Soft, but still there. Given they had hundreds of miles yet to travel, Em decided they would be better off changing cars in Vologda. In the meantime, two things were important: drive carefully, and don’t let Daniel know how carefully.
“Sorry I’m such a nervous passenger,” he was saying. “I hope it doesn’t put you off.”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s quite rational to be afraid of driving. Many people die in cars.” Em wondered if this might be the wrong thing to say, and tried to fix it with a light teasing tone. “Much less safe than aeroplanes.”
Daniel mumbled something about fear of flying being very common. Em couldn’t hear him clearly over the radio. They had been listening to it for hours, chasing stations across the dial as distance made them drop out and drop in. Now they were on a local news channel, which was helping Em build her Russian vocabulary. Wordsfound their way into her head, lodged there and began to resonate with meaning. A few she asked Daniel about, but many she could deduce from context. The grammatical aspects were becoming clearer now too. The language was seeping into her consciousness: not a word at a time as teachers taught it, but rather like a symphony, where all the elements made sense only in relation to each other.
Em turned the radio down and said, “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the radio.”
“I said that fear of flying is extremely common, but people always treat me as though I’m really odd for being afraid.”
“It’s common, but most people fly anyway,” Em said. The trees racing past in turn obscured and revealed the sun, casting flickering shadows in the car.
“Then they’re not really afraid.”
“I expect it’s all about probability. Plane crashes are rare.”
“But they do happen. You can’t deny that people do die in plane crashes.”
Em shrugged. “I suppose so. So you’ve never flown?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve flown.”
“You weren’t always afraid to?”
“It’s a long story.”
Em indicated the road ahead of her, the miles of coniferous woodland around them. “It’s a long trip.”
“Well, I was never a really comfortable flyer,” he said, taking a deep breath and shifting in his seat. He took on the serious countenance of a seasoned storyteller working through some trauma by telling it over and over again. “I could always manage to get on the plane, especially if I’d had a drink or two. A few years ago, I was coming home from Australia. I’d been there working my way around in pubs and bars. We’d left Sydney, everything was fine. We stopped in Bangkok and a huge thunderstorm blew in. Everyone was uneasy getting back on the plane. It wasn’t just me.” He lifted his hands apart, make-believe wings which landed in his lap a second later. “Anyway, as we’re taxiing along the runway the storm is buffeting the wings, everyone’s getting more and more nervous. The flight attendants are still chatting in low voices, strapping themselves in for takeoff. Then the plane leaves the ground and twenty seconds later: bang !”
“What happened?”
“I still don’t know for sure. Maybe
The car pulled out, cold air rushed through the open window, and Daniel watched Rosa in the rear-view mirror until she disappeared from sight.
FIVE
Five hours out of St Petersburg, Em was concerned about the car. The steering had felt loose and wobbly since their near-miss with the truck on the way from Novgorod, but the problem was worsening. Speeding around a tight bend, the steering dropped out altogether momentarily, threatening to send them into nearby trees. Then it engaged again, and she was back on track. The adrenalin burst was over as quickly as it had come.
Daniel snapped his attention to her. He must have noticed. “Is everything okay?” he said.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Just took the corner too quickly.” She deliberately slowed, aware of how the car steered around the next bend. Soft, but still there. Given they had hundreds of miles yet to travel, Em decided they would be better off changing cars in Vologda. In the meantime, two things were important: drive carefully, and don’t let Daniel know how carefully.
“Sorry I’m such a nervous passenger,” he was saying. “I hope it doesn’t put you off.”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s quite rational to be afraid of driving. Many people die in cars.” Em wondered if this might be the wrong thing to say, and tried to fix it with a light teasing tone. “Much less safe than aeroplanes.”
Daniel mumbled something about fear of flying being very common. Em couldn’t hear him clearly over the radio. They had been listening to it for hours, chasing stations across the dial as distance made them drop out and drop in. Now they were on a local news channel, which was helping Em build her Russian vocabulary. Wordsfound their way into her head, lodged there and began to resonate with meaning. A few she asked Daniel about, but many she could deduce from context. The grammatical aspects were becoming clearer now too. The language was seeping into her consciousness: not a word at a time as teachers taught it, but rather like a symphony, where all the elements made sense only in relation to each other.
Em turned the radio down and said, “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the radio.”
“I said that fear of flying is extremely common, but people always treat me as though I’m really odd for being afraid.”
“It’s common, but most people fly anyway,” Em said. The trees racing past in turn obscured and revealed the sun, casting flickering shadows in the car.
“Then they’re not really afraid.”
“I expect it’s all about probability. Plane crashes are rare.”
“But they do happen. You can’t deny that people do die in plane crashes.”
Em shrugged. “I suppose so. So you’ve never flown?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve flown.”
“You weren’t always afraid to?”
“It’s a long story.”
Em indicated the road ahead of her, the miles of coniferous woodland around them. “It’s a long trip.”
“Well, I was never a really comfortable flyer,” he said, taking a deep breath and shifting in his seat. He took on the serious countenance of a seasoned storyteller working through some trauma by telling it over and over again. “I could always manage to get on the plane, especially if I’d had a drink or two. A few years ago, I was coming home from Australia. I’d been there working my way around in pubs and bars. We’d left Sydney, everything was fine. We stopped in Bangkok and a huge thunderstorm blew in. Everyone was uneasy getting back on the plane. It wasn’t just me.” He lifted his hands apart, make-believe wings which landed in his lap a second later. “Anyway, as we’re taxiing along the runway the storm is buffeting the wings, everyone’s getting more and more nervous. The flight attendants are still chatting in low voices, strapping themselves in for takeoff. Then the plane leaves the ground and twenty seconds later: bang !”
“What happened?”
“I still don’t know for sure. Maybe
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