Bloodthirst Read online

  ‘Go away,’ she repeated. ‘Or I’ll shout for help.’

  He laughed, stood up and looked down at her.

  ‘I’m going to give you what you want, English whore.’ He took his hand from his pocket. There was a snap and a murderous switch-blade reflected the moon like a slender icicle.

  ‘Do as I say or I mark you,’ he hissed.

  Holly tried to rise to her feet but he sent her sprawling with his left hand. He stood straddling her and laughing quietly. Carefully he folded back the blade and unbuckled his belt.

  * * *

  Lying on the sand Holly was hardly conscious of the rhythmic shock to her body as the Gypsy squirmed on top of her. His breath rasped in her ear, his long oily hair lay across his mouth, beneath his chest his hands tore at her. As the rape continued — no, it could not be called rape, there was no resistance from the dummy spread-eagled by the sea’s murmuring margin — her mind was liberated from the confusion, fears and doubts which had tormented her for so long.

  If, during a space-walk, an astronaut’s umbilical line broke and he drifted away in the grip of some gravitational current he would have the impression his spacecraft was falling from him into black infinity. So Holly felt the world fall from her, leaving her scattered thoughts weightless to crystallize into a new dimension of awareness. And, as she suddenly understood, a cry forced itself from her throat.

  The pumping of the automaton stopped. The Gypsy looked down at her with a sneer of victory on his sharp features.

  ‘So, after all you like it,’ he said. ‘You like a Gypsy lover, eh? I give you more yet.’

  She sat up and regarded him in the merciless moonlight. No longer a creature of menace, he had shrunk in her eyes to something pathetic. ‘Boy, now it is my turn,’ she said.

  He glanced about, half fearful of the unexpected strange vitality radiating from the English girl. Still holding his hand she led him back along the beach. By now the street crowds had melted away and as they approached the hotel they were seen by only a couple of tipsy violinists making their instruments lament beneath a street lamp.

  ‘Wait,’ said Holly at the hotel door.

  She walked into the foyer and found it still deserted. She returned for the Gypsy, confident he would still be there. Now his bravado was gone, he was hers.

  In her bedroom She calmly picked up the headless cat and threw it through the window. The Gypsy looked round nervously as though he was unused to rooms. Holly stood by the bed.

  ‘Come, Gypsy.’

  He stepped forward obediently and faced her. In the glow of the bedside light he had a mesmerized look.

  Holly smiled at him and ran her fingers softly over his face. They tightened on the sticking plaster and tore it off. The Gypsy gave a grunt of pain, and with the gash reopened blood trickled down the brown skin.

  Holly put her arms round his neck, pulled his head to her and began to kiss his cheek. As she did she felt his body tremble, then shake convulsively as though racked by fever. He raised his arms and embraced her. Together they rolled in slow motion on the bed, Holly’s mouth still caressing his wound.

  Chapter 14

  The dark statue of Saint Sara stood on a platform constructed against the church wall. Smiling Gypsies milled before her. This was their occasion. This afternoon they ceased to be stateless vagabonds wandering from fairground to fairground, they were an ancient people united in the adoration of their saint. Townsfolk and tourist sensed this and kept in the background. Hot silence filled the square.

  With sibilant encouragement from her mother and aunts, a small Gypsy girl climbed the platform steps and stood before the image with a pink cape. She held it for Sara to see, then placed it about her shoulders.

  A shout and hand-clapping followed, and the ceremony of dressing Sara had begun. The child kissed the kiss-worn face, which was level with hers, and scampered to her family. A little boy, bearing a mass of embroidered blue, was pushed forward.

  ‘I don’t see Holly anywhere,’ said Peter to Anne-Marie on the edge of the crowd. ‘You’d have thought she’d have found us if only to hear how Bruno is getting on. When I told him he’d have to stay in for observation he asked me to drive her over to Arles, but how can I if she’s disappeared?’

  ‘There’s probably some explanation,’ Anne-Marie said, on tiptoe to see above the heads of the crowd. ‘Perhaps she has taken a bus to Arles and is with him now.’

  On the platform the face of the saint took on a pink hue from the lipstick of the Gypsy girls and women as they gave her their annual salutation.

  Peter and Anne-Marie watched for a while, then he said: ‘I think I’ve seen enough, darling. Let’s go to our cafe and have a beer.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to say that.’

  After the intense light of the early afternoon, the interior of the cafe was dim and cool. As they pushed through the multicoloured strips of plastic door curtain Peter and Anne-Marie found it had a strange underwater quality and, because of the ritual outside the church, it was almost empty. Thankfully they sat at a corner table and two glasses of Stella Artois were brought.

  ‘I’ll bet poor Bruno is furious at having to miss this,’ said Anne-Marie, dabbing froth from her lips.

  ‘In the ward he begged me to bring him back,’ Peter said. ‘I had to explain very carefully about the danger of delayed concussion. I’ll find out how he’s progressing.’

  At the zinc-topped bar he bought jetons and at the wall telephone put a call through to Arles. After some erratic work by the hospital switchboard, he spoke to the sister of Bruno’s ward. There was a puzzled look on his face as he returned to the table.

  ‘Was your French up to it?’ she asked.

  ‘Only just. The sister said he was out in the grounds but he’d left a message for me. Would I take Holly to see him. So, she hasn’t gone to Arles.’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘That girl worries me, taking those damn tranquillizers with alcohol. Remember how she was when we picked her up on the road? She’s on the verge of something nasty.’

  Anne-Marie gave a little shrug.

  ‘You are not your brother’s — or your sister’s — keeper even if you are a doctor.’

  ‘I know. It’s just that in the few days we have been here we all seem to click together like some sort of temporary family.’

  ‘You’re right. Buy me another drink and then we’ll go to Holly’s hotel.’

  Later when she rejoined Peter outside the hotel, it was Anne-Marie’s turn to look puzzled.

  ‘She’s not there. They were so guarded I think something strange is going on.’

  ‘Ugh,’ she exclaimed a moment later.’ What’s that?’ With her shoe she indicated the bloated body of a headless cat in the gutter.

  * * *

  Friday arrived, and the fervour generated by the previous heat-dazed days of the festival seemed to explode in a crescendo of emotion. Just before midday the procession began to form in front of the church door. In one corner aloof gardiens in their finest black suits patted the necks of restless horses. In another a score of small choir girls in mediaeval costume were marshalled by their teacher. Their role was to follow the mounted guard of honour singing ancient chants of the festival.

  ‘Did you ever see anything like it, Peter?’ asked Anne-Marie as they surveyed the sweating block of humanity. To get the procession organized seemed to require a babble of advice and curses. A fierce argument raged as to who would have the honour of earning the saint. Tourists edged dangerously along wall tops to get photographs and there was uproar as one fell on the packed bodies below.

  Bells boomed in the church tower and Peter and Anne-Marie heard a universal gasp of delight as Saint Sara — a black be-diademed head above a bundle of silken mantles — was borne into unaccustomed sunlight on a litter. Gardiens swung into their cowboy saddles and walked their mounts forward, the choir fell in behind and miraculously the procession began to wind away down a street. The litter was followed by
hundreds of sweating Gypsies so tightly pressed there was danger of some being pushed through shop windows.

  ‘Sara … Sara … Sara … ’ they shouted in unison. Sometimes there were scuffles as devotees struggled to touch the saint’s silk cloaks as the litter swayed past.

  By cutting through an alley Peter and Anne-Marie were able to take up a position in a neighbouring street to watch the procession approach. As the gardiens jingled past, a man with his left arm in a sling moved out and, holding a camera in his right hand, knelt to photograph the little girls in their black and white-lace gowns.

  ‘Bruno!’ cried Peter. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  He skipped out of the way of the advancing litter-bearers and smiled. ‘I broke parole.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Peter. ‘After that crack … ’

  ‘I’m all right, doctor,’ Bruno said. ‘A bit weak I admit, but okay. I had to come today otherwise the assignment would be lost’

  ‘It takes nearly an hour for the procession to go round the town,’ said Anne-Marie. ‘Let’s take Bruno somewhere to rest. He’ll need to be steady to get his shots on the shore.’

  Leaving the near-hysterical chanting, they found a small bar and Bruno gratefully sat on a metal chair.

  ‘Where’s Holly?’ he asked while Peter tapped the zinc counter with a coin.

  Anne-Marie raised her shoulders and said nothing.

  ‘She must be around somewhere working,’ muttered Bruno unhappily. ‘She’s on an assignment, too.’

  * * *

  At that moment Holly was in the almost deserted post office. Fumbling for her most valuable asset as a journalist — her contacts book — she said in French: ‘Please, I want to send a telegram.’

  When she had completed the message and paid the teller, she walked unsteadily down an empty street to the east end of town. The sound of the procession came faintly to her ears.

  It’s out of my hands now, she thought. I have found the strength, but it is out of my hands now.

  She left the town by a road which cut through the sandhills behind the wide shore. With her rumpled clothing and the sick pallor her Hampstead friends might have had difficulty in recognizing her. Only the halo of red-gold hair was the same. But she had no thoughts for them, only the Gypsy whom she had arranged to meet at an old fisherman’s hut far along the beach.

  * * *

  At the edge of the sea, a mile east of Saintes Maries de la Mer, the world went mad. As the procession wound over the quivering shore gardiens spurred into the waves and, when their horses were belly deep, turned and faced the land with their bull tridents raised. The children’s choir scattered as the tight column behind the saint suddenly dissolved and Gypsies rushed into the water with ecstatic faces. Still the shouting continued: ‘Sara … Sara … Sara … ’

  Stumbling over salt-encrusted sand, the delirious litter-bearers approached the sea. They paused only to adjust their grips, then waded into the water. Gypsies converged about them, splashing with their hands so droplets rained like diamonds on the figure of the saint.

  What pre-Christian ritual they perpetuated they knew not, all they cared was that this was the orgastic finale to the festival, the ultimate homage to Sara. Their cries of exultation sent gulls screaming out over the waves.

  For a minute the shouting and splashing continued and the saint’s outer cloak lost its sheen as it absorbed the spray.

  Then the bearers turned and reeled to the shore. Gardiens moved forward and flanked them.

  There was a sudden silence, a post-coital tristesse. Slowly men and women left the water and trudged back to their camp without speaking. Even the children were quiet.

  Saint Sara was borne back to the town but the procession had shrunk to a mere handful of people.

  * * *

  The warped hut smelled of tar and fish. Holly lay on a pile of netting and gazed at the vivid blue framed by doorway. Occasionally the breeze brought the sound of ‘Sara … Sara … Sara … With a trembling hand she opened her box of black cigarettes and lit one. Her hand might shake, but inside she felt calm, strong, and curiously content.

  The Gypsy appeared against the sky. He entered and crouched in the sunlight which streamed through the door. All he could see of Holly in the shadows was the tiny eye of her cigarette.

  ‘There is trouble,’ he said in French. ‘When I went to my caravan this morning my wife saw the marks you had left on my body. When I slept she crept out and told the old one, who is her aunt. They knew I had been with you. Someone must have seen us go to the hotel. Now the old crazies say I am upier, too.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘You do not know Gypsy custom. It is bad enough my wife’s father knows I have dishonoured her, but this … this … ’ He waved his hands weakly. ‘Why did you do this thing to me, woman?’

  Holly laughed.

  ‘Who took me at knife point, Gypsy?’

  ‘I am a good man to come and warn you. I should have left before the festival finishes. I am in terrible danger, and you are too. You have money. Perhaps you can get me away. I am poor.’

  ‘What is the danger?’

  ‘You from England would not believe. I know little of it, but once long ago in Italy … ’ He shuddered. ‘It is bad even to talk of it. Let us go away.’

  Holly drew on her Sobranie, and said nothing.

  ‘Of course I know it is all crazy,’ continued the Gypsy, afraid of the silence. ‘I do not believe this upier talk of the old ones. It is just that you have strange ways of making love. But the old crazies believe in it.’

  ‘Do you remember last night?’

  ‘I remember it as I would remember a dream.’

  ‘You found it exciting?’

  ‘As exciting as death,’ he answered and she laughed at his words.

  ‘I shall get you away, Gypsy, but you must earn your fare.’

  ‘Anything, but let us go now.’

  ‘There is no hurry. The bus will not leave until tonight. And there is no other way. Wait with me, and when it is dark I will go with you to the bus and pay your fare and give you money.’

  He nodded gratefully.

  Slowly Holly stubbed out her cigarette on the dirt floor.

  ‘Come here,’ she commanded. ‘We will see if you remember last night’s games.’

  The Gypsy made a slight whimpering sound. ‘Please, I am exhausted. I have nothing more to give.’

  ‘That is not true,’ said Holly softly. ‘You have more to give me than you know.’

  He shuffled towards her on his knees. He kept his head bent and his ex es closed as she undid his shirt and ran her hands upwards over his ribs. A look of pain crossed his sharp features.

  ‘I still hurt,’ he murmured.

  ‘Pain can be pleasure,’ Holly answered. ‘It is something hard to learn, but you will see.’ The tip of her tongue dampened her dry lips.

  Chapter 15

  Anne-Marie rubbed her palm wearily across her forehead.

  ‘Headache?’ asked Peter.

  She nodded. ‘The heat I suppose, and the excitement.’

  ‘Like me to run you to the Maison?’

  ‘Oh no, you can’t leave Bruno by himself.’

  They were sitting on the side of a gaily painted fishing boat above the tideline opposite the town.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ said Bruno. ‘Who knows, Holly may turn up.’

  (At that second Holly was lying on the body of the sobbing Gypsy, her mouth unnaturally vivid.)

  ‘You stay in Saintes Maries with Bruno and have supper with him,’ said Anne-Marie, ‘and I’ll drive to the Maison for a couple of hours of sleep. I’ll pick you up at the restaurant near the church after supper.’

  Peter agreed and, with a smile at both men, Anne-Marie started in the direction of the Citroen. As they watched her slender figure dwindle over the sand Bruno said softly: ‘The doctor has much woman there.’

  ‘The doctor has,’ agreed Peter, ‘But the doctor i
s worried, there’s something the doctor doesn’t quite understand.’

  ‘That makes two of us. Signorina Holly cannot have left the town without seeing me.’

  (At that second the Gypsy was trying to free himself from Holly’s embrace, but in the stifling heat her moist flesh stayed glued to his. ‘You empty me,’ he moaned.)

  The two men sat in moody companionship, Bruno smoking Disque Bleu cigarettes and Peter making abstract patterns in the sand with his canvas shoe. Both had absorbed the melancholy which pervaded the town now the festival was over. When the sun neared the horizon and turned the lagoons of the Camargue into mirrors of blood, they quit the boat and went to the restaurant by the church for an early meal.

  Bruno ordered calvados and they continued to drink it after their meal. Since his arrival in France Peter had drunk much more than he was used to, but he was not prepared for the effect of the pungent spirit, unlike Bruno who took it in his stride.

  ‘It may be a while before Anne-Marie picks me up,’ Peter said. ‘I think I’ve more than had my ration, but you carry on.’

  ‘I’ll drive you home so you are not too drunk to keep her company,’ Bruno said. ‘My Fiat’s parked at my pension.’

  As he drove from the sad town they saw a group of Gypsies briefly illuminated by their headlights. Several carried shotguns.

  ‘Where can they be going at this time of night?’ Bruno asked.

  ‘Now the festival’s over they’re probably off poaching,’ Peter answered.

  A few minutes later Bruno pulled up at the two bougainvillaea-covered pillars flanking the drive which led to La Maison des Papillons. Peter walked unsteadily down it to the courtyard before the old house. As he stepped on to its paving he froze.

  Anne-Marie sat with downcast eyes on a wrought iron seat with the young artist Peter had noticed wearing the Van Gogh hat sprawled beside her, one hand on her shoulder while he talked low and persuasively. At the sound of Peter’s footsteps on the terracotta tiles she looked up.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded accusingly.

  There was such a note of guilt in her voice he felt the hairs on his neck prickle. It was ridiculous: he did not know what to say. Finally he asked: ‘Who have you got with you?’ It sounded so pompous, like a husband who had found his wife’s lover under the bed.