1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway by James Hadley Chase Page B

movement ahead of him. He stopped short, tense, as he peered into the darkness. He was sure that someone ahead of him had moved into the shadows by his cabin. He stepped swiftly and silently off the path and flattened himself against the trunk of a tree. He waited, his eyes searching the shadows.
    He heard the scratch of a match and a tiny flame flared up. In the light of the flame he saw Nina’s face, framed by her black, glistening hair. She lit a cigarette, then dropped the match.
    Harry hesitated, then stepped back onto the path and walked towards the red, glowing end of her cigarette.
    As he came up to her, he smelt the subtle perfume she was wearing. It was too dark to see much of her, but he could just make out her shadowy outline. Again he felt the violent stab of desire go through him: something he had hoped was to torment him no longer.
    ‘I want to talk to you,’ she said out of the darkness.
    ‘I’m good at listening.’ His voice was scarcely a murmur. ‘Go ahead . . . talk.’
    She dropped the cigarette. It fell on the sand, its glowing tip flared, then died.
    ‘We can’t talk here.’ He was aware her voice was husky and breathless ‘Come with me . . . give me your hand.’
    He felt a sense of sharp disappointment. Her rage and her contempt had been important to him. You cowardly thug. She had called him that. Calling him that had been at least something different which he had welcomed: something completely different from the sickening love names he had been called by the sex-starved women who had groaned and squirmed under him, their fingernails digging into his back.
    He put out his hand. In the darkness, she failed for a moment to find contact, then her dry, burning fingers closed around his wrist. Leading him, she moved off into the darkness. He went without eagerness, but without hesitation. His heart seemed to be beating more slowly and with difficulty as if his blood had thickened.
    Finally, they reached a clump of palm trees, surrounded by sand dunes: a narrow channel between the dunes gave them a direct view of the sea which looked like a black mirror as it reflected the moon.
    She released his hand and dropped down on her knees: there was now enough light for him to see her distinctly. Her scarlet pyjamas appeared to be black; her skin sharply white by contrast. He stood beside her, looking down at her. Impatiently, she caught hold of his hand and pulled him down so he too was kneeling, facing her.
    ‘That was the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me,’ she said fiercely, ‘when you knocked that fat old swine off his feet.’
    He felt a tiny explosion of shock inside him. This was the last thing he was expecting to hear from her. He stiffened, resting his clenched fists on his thighs.
    ‘If you knew the times I had hoped and prayed that some man would do it,’ she went on. ‘If you could know how much I needed proof that he really wasn’t the godhead and wasn’t utterly invincible as he told my mother, told my brother and told me until we began to believe it. I watched you play with him. Three times you let him hit at you. Then . . .! It was the most beautiful, satisfying thing that has ever happened to me!’
    Still he said nothing: still he stared at her.
    ‘I hate him!’ The passionate vehemence in her voice made him flinch. ‘He is crushing me and ruining my life as he ruined my mother’s life, as he tried to ruin Sam’s life. But Sam had the guts to clear out and join the army. He looks on me as his chattel as he looked on mother as his chattel: a neuter creature who must have no feelings, no thoughts, no ambitions: who must never have a husband nor a lover. If I hadn’t told him I wanted you to go, he would never have let me out of his sight so long as you remain here. But I’ve fooled him! He really believes I hate you because you knocked him down. You are the first real man, after Sam, who has come here. Others have come and gone: too scared even to look at