The Haunted Storm Read Free Page B

and streaming with rain, made his flesh burn with a strange blend of lust and compassion.
    Their eyes came together again and held each other for about half a minute, without a word passing between them. In that time a subtle weighing-up seemed to take place on both sides – Matthew with a dozen questions racing through his mind, and she, to judge from the look on her face, under a pressure at least as great as the one that burdened him.
    From the very beginning, too, there was a wild and tender eroticism in the air between them – an urge towards the flesh in the meeting of their eyes and also, because of the suddenness of the meeting and because of the intensity with which they both felt it, in the cold air itself, and the rain, and the hard pebbles beneath them.
    She shifted her weight on the shingle as if she were uncomfortable, and then, her eyes fixed on his with an expression half-mocking and half-pleading, she opened her legs a little and drew her knees up.
    This gesture jarred on Matthew; it seemed gross… but then, he realised several things at once, as she spoke.
    “You can touch me if you like,” she said.
    Their minds seemed to come into sudden contact. Firstly, this was an invitation, as he saw, which was meant to blunt the edge of his lust by its coarseness – as it had, for a second. He knew that it was deliberate, and knew that she knew that he knew; and knew, deeper than this, that there was a powerful magnetism between the two of them, deeper than any words on the surface, and that the invitation was really an admission of it – and really an invitation.
    His eyes on hers and his heart racing, he put out his hand towards her – and then she spoke again.
    “You can touch me with one hand only and you mustn’t come any closer than this. And you can put your hand anywhere you like and do what you like with it, but when I go, you mustn’t follow me.”
    He nodded, agreeing, and slowly reached out and put his hand on the bottom of her left shin. He was sitting tensely, with his knees drawn up like hers, a small stone tightly gripped and forgotten in his right hand.
    Their eyes hadn’t left each other for minutes. A multitude of expressions crossed hers; there was no mask between her and the world – or between her and Matthew – for he saw, instantly, all that possessed her. He sat tight, just looking at her, and said nothing. The suspicion gradually left her eyes.
    She put both hands to the side of her head as if she was trying to shut out the infinite noise of the storm and the clatter of the shingle, and shut her eyes and pushed the hair back from her face. Remote and frail and weary she looked in that gesture, and Matthew’s heart melted altogether.
    She looked suddenly at him, seemed to say “Shall I start?” and seemed to read agreement, for she settled herself more comfortably on the shingle, and started to speak.
    “You look just like him,” she said abruptly, and then paused a second; “my lover, I mean. Your eyes are the same as his but his are stronger. I don’t care if you don’t want to hear. I want to talk. Yes, just then when you put your hand on my leg, your expression was the same for a second, but it’s not now. I think I can feel what’s going on in your mind. But I’m going to tell you about my lover.”
    She spoke quietly, but her voice was so clear – and there was such urgency in it – that Matthew heard her quite distinctly over the storm. She sat leaning forward slightly, with both hands on the shingle at her sides, playing with it distractedly. He found himself wondering dazedly at the beauty, firstly of her face and figure, and secondly of her voice; of all strange things, this limpid trembling beauty of hers was the most unreal.
    “I was on my own on the moor – because behind the house and the church the moor comes right down, and you can leave our garden and walk straight on to it – I was on my own because it was a fine day and I was doing nothing, so I