Bloodthirst

by Alexander, Marc

  Anne-Marie cast a furious glance at Peter. The artist stood up and thrust his hands into his back pockets.

  ‘I do not know who you are, sir,’ he said in Sorbonne English. ‘But you seem to be acquainted with my wife.’

  ‘What?’ Peter said stupidly.

  ‘It looks to me,’ said the artist, picking his straw hat from the bench, ‘that there’s going to be an embarrassing scene so I’ll stroll back to town. Goodnight, Anne-Marie, I was starting to enjoy our little chat, but we’ll meet again. Goodnight, Mr — er … I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced.’

  Fie walked whistling down the drive.

  ‘Peter!’ Anne-Marie cried.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a lot of calvados. I don’t seem to be taking this in.’

  ‘Listen while I explain … ’

  ‘Tell me, Anne-Marie, is it true what he said?’

  ‘Yes, Peter, I am married to Alain.’

  He stood blinking at her in the soft light from a lamp on the wall. He kept rubbing his mouth which seemed to be suddenly parched.

  ‘That seems to be that, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Peter, listen … ’

  ‘It is no use saying “Peter, listen”, Madame whoever-vou-are. I’ve enjoyed your company since I’ve been taking you out but I’m sorry you could not have been more honest with me. I suppose I was useful as an escort while you were in London.’

  ‘Peter, Peter,’ she interjected, coming up and holding his arms hard above the elbows. ‘You must listen to me. It’s very important you do, otherwise … ’

  With the slow-motion dignity of a drunk he pushed her away, and said: ‘No, you listen to me, Anne-Marie Clair … is it Clair? Whatever you are going to say will not alter anything. I don’t give a damn that you got married before we met. What I can’t bear is the thought you never told me. Your bloody silence lied. You knew what I was feeling and you never said a word. No wonder you never wanted to talk about the future.’

  He was so distraught he turned from her.

  ‘Peter, I know what you were feeling. I felt it too, I still do. It was because of that I didn’t tell you. I was afraid it would make some difference. I wanted to get it sorted out, get my divorce so I would be free to marry you — supposing you would have asked me.’

  ‘You talk about divorce, but why did he follow you to the Camargue?’

  ‘You must understand, I’ve known Alain since I was a girl. Through my teens I worshipped him. He was a romantic student and he began taking me out when I was sixteen. He was the only boyfriend I ever had. I thought I was in heaven when he asked me to marry him. Then … ’

  ‘Save me the bleeding-heart stuff,’ Peter sneered. ‘Whatever you say, he still came down here.’

  ‘I am probably richer than you realize, Peter. At least, my father has made a lot of money. Alain’s only interest is in money. His parents had none, and as a painter he makes nothing. He found out I was here and came to ask for cash to get out of debt. And he told me how much he would accept for a divorce. He wants to open an art gallery … ’

  The calvados was burning in Peter’s throat and stomach, his pulses throbbed angrily, adrenalin secreted into his blood stream added to his sense of intoxication. There was something so reminiscent about this scene he found breathing difficult. Above all he suffered with a sense of outrage. Why did she have to hurt him?

  For a while they talked at each other, neither listening, while a ballet of moths danced about the lamp.

  Suddenly Peter said: ‘No more talk. I’m going.’

  He strode towards the house. She tried to pull his arm. He swung his right hand and hit her on the side of the face. She looked at him with horror. The act filled him with horror, too. It symbolized something snapping between them. Whatever the explanations, things could never be the same now.

  Angry with her for causing him to act so boorishly, he stumbled up the steps to his room, flung clothes into his suitcase and panted to the Citroen. There was no sign of Anne-Marie. He put the suitcase in the boot, scrambled behind the wheel and turned the key. He reversed so fiercely the car nearly hit the wall, then he straightened the wheel and accelerated down the drive with gravel spraying from the tyres.

  Reaching the road he swung north, only just remembering to drive on the right As the minutes passed he calmed slightly and tried to concentrate on driving. All he wanted to do was escape back to England. He would think about it all then.

  The scene with Anne-Marie brought back another scene; the scene when Marian told him she was leaving their flat to get married. She too had used him, used him as a crutch after her own marriage had collapsed. They had lived together, waiting for the time when she would be over her black depressions, waiting for her divorce, waiting for the good times to come. But when she could laugh again and the divorce was granted, she found someone else to share the good times with.

  Once again he had hoped for love, but again the work he had been building up was destroyed in one quick scene.

  ‘Marian … Anne-Marie … Marian … Anne-Marie … ’

  Endlessly their names passed through his mind in a monody as the road passed endlessly under the lights of the Citroen.

  Chapter 16

  The Gypsy slowly opened his eyes. Through the doorway of the hut he saw the sky had turned from blue to blood red. Silhouetted against it the woman smoked one of her black cigarettes.

  His body ached and in places there was pain, yet at the same time he enjoyed a voluptuous languor. He was not sure what had happened to him. As before, the memory of phrenetic love-making had become dreamlike. It had been more than love-making. He wondered if he had been drugged. Had she secretly given him something those hippies used?

  The Gypsy had had much experience with women. During the summer holiday periods there had never been a shortage of foreign girls anxious to learn what a Gypsy had to offer. He looked back on earnest Americans, cynical English and frantic Scandinavians, but none were anything like the strange woman who now sat smoking against the sunset sky. She was … reluctantly the word rose to the surface of his mind … upier!

  ‘It is over,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘What is over?’

  ‘The festival. Now they will come looking for us.’

  ‘You are afraid.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wait until tonight.’

  He lay on the roll of net and watched the sky magically change to indigo. Once the sun had gone night came quickly to the Camargue.

  ‘You have money with you?’ he asked in sudden panic. ‘They will be watching your hotel.’

  She nodded but said nothing.

  In the hot silence he tried to understand what had bewitched him. There was the bullring and the pain when his face hit the edge of the barrier. Then this woman with the flame hair had wiped his face and there was something about it which excited him. He had followed her along the shore and had taken her roughly, but after that memory became distorted. It was like looking at himself in old Gabriel’s tent of mirrors at the carnival. Everything seemed to swim into grotesque shapes. The only clear recollection was the screaming of his bitch of a wife when he tugged off his shirt in the caravan.

  ‘Come,’ said Holly. ‘It’s dark. We’ll be safe in the night.’

  He rose reluctantly, fastened his belt and felt in his pocket for the reassurance of his knife.

  * * *

  In the feeble lamplight the streets of Saintes Maries de la Mer were almost forlorn after the festival. A few remaining visitors at cafe tables saw groups of Gypsy men stalk past quiet and sullen. The carnival spirit had left them and strangely there was not a Gypsy girl or woman in sight.

  As Holly and the Gypsy walked the narrow thoroughfare towards the square where the bus departed, they were aware of a malign atmosphere. The Gypsy shuddered and glanced anxiously over his shoulder.

  ‘It is bad,’ he whispered. ‘It is bad.’

  ‘What can they do to you in the town?’ Holly demanded
.

  ‘You do not know. They would take us away.’

  As he spoke three Gypsies appeared at the far end of the street. They stopped, pointed to the couple and called: ‘Josef, Josef!’ There followed words in Romany which made the youth tremble.

  ‘Run,’ he cried to Holly and, grabbing her hand, began loping back down the street. The Gypsies shouted and gave chase. But Holly had only been dragged a few yards by her panic-stricken companion when a knot of men emerged from the shadows ahead of them.

  ‘Down here,’ Holly said, pointing to the mouth of a small alley. The Gypsy’s panic infected her and together they bolted over the cobbles.

  The alley curved and entered a square. They crossed it and raced down a dark street towards the shore. Houses dropped away and there was the crunch of sand beneath their feet. Small breakers washing the shore appeared as irregular lines of phosphorescence. Fortunately for the fugitives the moon had not yet risen, and beyond the town darkness pressed heavy on the flat landscape.

  They raced along the damp sand close to the water. After a few minutes Holly slowed.

  ‘Let me get my breath,’ she begged.

  He stopped, listening with his head cocked. The only sound was the hiss of the sea.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must keep going.’ But he too was winded and they continued at a walking pace for half an hour. Then the Gypsy paused.

  ‘Let us go inland before the moon comes,’ he said. ‘As soon as there is enough light they will ride along the beach on horses.’

  ‘But what will they do?’

  For an answer his finger crossed his throat, but in the darkness Holly did not see the gesture.

  Leaving the shoreline, they trudged up the sliding dunes until the ground became firmer and Holly found they were walking over coarse grass. The Gypsy gave a terrified cry as he blundered into an old fence of sagging barbed-wire. They climbed it and stumbled on. From the right came the murmur of water from a reed-bordered drainage dyke.

  A pale aurora heralded the moonrise. Beneath their feet the ground was becoming soft and marshy, and from it rose tall clumps of rushes. Several times water squelched into Holly’s shoes. As the moon edged above the horizon, they saw the water of a lagoon gleam ahead of them. A gentle breeze made marginal reeds sigh sorrowfully.

  ‘Over there,’ the Gypsy said, pointing to a low black shape which, as they approached it, materialized into a crude shelter opening on to the water. It was a hide for bird-watchers built on piles.

  Gratefully Holly climbed in while the Gypsy cut armfuls of rushes with his knife. These he laid on the plank floor to make a bed; Together they stretched out and, with their arms round each other like frightened children, drifted into uneasy sleep while tiny ripples from the lagoon whispered beneath them.

  When Holly woke the early sun was dyeing the lagoon pale pink. Wraiths of pearl mist drifted across its surface. To the right of the hide a group of black cattle were drinking. She was cold, stiff and hungry. Feeling in the pocket of her jacket, she was relieved to find she still had cigarettes. As she lit one the Gypsy opened his eyes and groaned.

  ‘We must go,’ he muttered, rubbing his eyes. ‘They will soon know we are here.’

  ‘How?’ Holly asked.

  ‘That old fat one. She has the sight.’

  Holly shrugged.

  Leaving the hide, they walked along the margin with wildfowl fluttering at their approach. Nearby was a low embankment with a narrow road running along the top. Some distance away they could see the grey outline of an angler, still as a Chinese figurine with his rod drooping over the water. His motor scooter was parked on the raised road.

  ‘Come,’ whispered the Gypsy. He led Holly up the slope towards the machine. On the other side of the embankment they saw a plain patterned with patches of dried salt; crossing it was a small band of horsemen, not gardiens on white horses but Gypsies astride Gypsy nags.

  Holly’s companion ran silently to the parked Vespa. Swearing under his breath, he turned the twist-grip throttle wide open and kicked the starter. After a couple of tries the two-stroke motor clattered into life.

  Pushing the scooter off its parking stand, he pulled Holly on to the pillion seat. He clicked into gear and, with the machine swaying alarmingly, they lurched down the rutted road. As the shouts of the angler came faintly to their ears, the Gypsy actually laughed.

  ‘We will beat them yet, he shouted into the cold air streaming past.

  For half an hour they jolted erratically over the narrow roads which snaked over the delta. When they reached a proper highway he turned eastwards and, with the speedo needle quivering round the 100 kph mark, raced towards Aries.

  After crossing the Rhone they entered the streets of the old city where the Gypsy skidded to a halt by an early pedestrian.

  ‘La gare, s’il vous plait?’

  With much gesticulation the old man explained three different routes, but as they approached the station the Gypsy braked with a suddenness which nearly threw Holly off. On the steps of the building lounged several Gypsies who, when they saw the Vespa, ran to where an old green Renault was parked.

  The Gypsy turned the machine and shot down a side street After jolting through a maze of pave thoroughfares, they found themselves on a minor road running into the countryside. The Vespa engine howled as the throttle was held open as far as it would go. Holly clung in physical terror to the grab handle in front of the pillion seat. Minutes later the motor coughed, died and the scooter rolled to a silent stop.

  Cursing, the Gypsy unscrewed the petrol cap.

  ‘Merde!’ he cried. ‘It is almost empty. We have the reserve, but it is for a few kilometres only.’

  He bent and turned the emergency supply tap.

  ‘We will go up there,’ he said, pointing to a low mountain surmounted by the ruined citadel of Les Baux. Once a centre of rebellion, it had been blown up with gunpowder by order of the famous Cardinal Richelieu.

  Soon they were labouring up a steep road which led to the winding valley whose tortured rock formations were supposed to have inspired Dante to write his ‘Inferno’. The fuel ran out just before they reached the entrance to the desolate stronghold. Muttering with in potent anger, the Gypsy dismounted and pushed the machine over the edge of the road. It careered down the slope and smashed itself against a wind-worn boulder.

  Down the valley, where the road curved round a natural castle of rock, Holly caught a glimpse of the green Renault which had been parked by the Arles railway station.

  ‘Quick, up there,’ said the Gypsy, his face pale beneath his tan. ‘There are plenty of hiding places.’

  It was still early in the morning and Les Baux was deserted. At the top of the path leading between the tourist shops the turnstile was unmanned. Climbing past it, the couple began running up the slope towards the cream ruins. The breath hissed painfully through the Gypsy’s mouth.

  ‘I am so weak,’ he complained. ‘Where has my strength gone?’ Holly took him by the arm until they reached the towering rock from which the fortress had been hewn. They panted along old paths between roofless walls, to where steps led to the topmost ramparts.

  ‘We’ll be safest up there,’ said Holly. ‘If we can hide until tourists start arriving we’ll be all right. They can’t do anything once people are about.’

  He nodded and began to ascend, hauling his heaving frame by means of the rusted hand rail. They crouched low behind crumbled battlements so they would not show themselves against die sky, and traversed a section of block-built wall to a chamber hollowed out of a natural crag. Here the Gypsy slumped down with his back against the cold stone. On one side lay the ruins of the citadel; on the other an emerald stretch of grass sloped to the edge of a cliff which fell away to an ochre plain dotted with olive trees. Halfway between the wall and the cliff edge was a monument to the Provencal poet Mistral, surrounded by an iron railing. A strong wind blew across the plain from the Camargue and, deflected by the tremendous cliff, moaned eerily over t
he ramparts.

  Holly looked out of a small embrasure. Far below she observed six miniature figures and even at this distance she could see two carried guns and one held a pitchfork. Beneath her fascinated gaze they toiled up to the first tier of ruins and then halted. One looked up, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: ‘Josef! Josef! Josef!’

  In the little rock room the Gypsy shuddered as the echoes picked up the cry: ‘Josef … Josef … Josef … ’

  ‘We’ll be trapped here,’ he whimpered. ‘They can smell us out like dogs.’

  ‘Keep your cool,’ Holly said. ‘It’ll take them hours to search Les Baux.’

  Cautiously she looked down again. The man had vanished into the labyrinth of roofless buildings, cellars and shattered walls. Then she saw a black beret bobbing close to die steps which led up to their hideout. The Gypsy saw it too.

  ‘I’m not going to be trapped here,’ he muttered. ‘Look after yourself, woman.’ He ran out of the chamber and, forgetting in his fear to conceal himself below the crenellation, raced to the stairs. A cry echoed from below as the pursuers spotted him. The Gypsy disappeared from Holly’s view and for a few minutes everything was unnaturally quiet.

  When she saw him again he was on the outside of the wall, on the grass expanse which sloped towards the cliff edge.

  He halted by the monument to Mistral, clutched the railing and fought for breath. Then he turned and his knife flashed in the sunlight. BY leaning over the stone parapet, Holly saw a menacing semicircle of Gypsies move slowly towards the youth. As the six men drew close, he moved back from the obelisk and down the slope.

  He flourished his knife and shouted. Romany words came faintly to Holly, but a moment later his cries of defiance changed to pleas for mercy. The ring tightened, and step by step he retreated. Now he was in a crouched position, his knife held out in front of him. He dared not take his eyes off the pursuers.