When he arrived at the rank, there were no taxis.
After around ten minutes or so, this little, old lady shows up. She starts yakking on about her daughter and how she’s in hospital with something really nasty and nobody knows what it is and doctors are doing tests. In a way, he felt sorry for her, and to a degree, for her daughter, but he had problems of his own and would have preferred a quiet time at the rank with his own thoughts about the court case, the lawyer’s fees, the new evidence that’s about to be submitted by the prosecution, probably more of his customers coming down with food poisoning. He knew he’d been cutting corners when it came to food safety standards. Now this. He’d been trying to save money by not doing the right thing in his shop. Now, with so many of his customers falling ill, he could very well lose his business.
He was turning the potential consequences of all this over in his mind, when a taxi pulled in. They were both going into town, so he agreed they could share the ride. After all, the old girl was worried about her daughter and, knowing which hospital she was in, it was the least he could do. He knew there was only a couple of blocks between the hospital and the district court building. She would be dropped off first.
They both got in. She was still going on about how worried she was about her daughter. By this time, he had switched off. Her complaining was beginning to irritate. It wasn’t until the phrase ‘must have been something she ait’ came up, that their individual concerns about their circumstances came together in his mind.
As they pulled up at the hospital, she thanked him for letting her share the ride. He said he hoped that her daughter gets well soon.
He felt it was the least he could do!