Читать книгу Could It Be Magic? - Melanie Rose - Страница 6

Frankie dragged me gleefully through the dusty car park onto the short grass of the Downs, where I paused to inhale the autumn air, grateful to be outdoors at last: away from the petrol fumes of the nearby road and the confines of my small flat. Bending to unclip the lead from her collar, I straightened up to watch as my three-year-old terrier streaked exuberantly away into the distance. Smiling, I found myself wishing I could run wildly after her with equal glorious abandonment.

Contenting myself with a brisk walk, I caught up with her eventually and we continued in companionable silence along a familiar track on the Epsom Downs, Frankie leading the way on her short businesslike legs. I allowed my mind to drift while the tensions of the week gradually subsided and my muscles slowly relaxed.

As we climbed a small rise, the sun slid behind a cloud and I glanced up, noticing how still the air had become. The sight and feel of it made me check in mid-stride. The Downs were still there, rolling away on either side of me, but the dry grass and distant trees, which a moment before had been green and brown in the early afternoon sunshine, had been touched by an eerie yellowish hue. Shivering, I pulled my sheepskin coat more closely around me and quickened my stride.

Frankie darted off towards some small trees and I cursed softly under my breath, hoping she wasn’t going to vanish just as I was thinking of starting the long walk back to the car. A sudden chill had descended from nowhere and the sky was turning as purple and black as a bruised plum. The landscape seemed bathed in an unnatural silence. I realised with trepidation that even the birds had stopped singing.

A deep rumble echoed across the distant hills and a few seconds later Frankie came racing back over the cropped turf, her hind legs going so fast with each panicked bound that they seemed almost to be sticking out from under her whiskery nose. She collided with my jean-clad shins and started to whine.

Stooping down, I picked her up and held her against me, ignoring the grubby marks her paws made on my coat. The feel of her warm living body and the scent of doggy breath on my face reassured me that I hadn’t stepped inadvertently into the stillness of an artist’s landscape painting. I stood and stared at the fearsome beauty of the picture around me with a feeling of awe. The strange light had brushed the autumnal trees on the far hilltop, tipping them with gold, yet the sky was growing blacker and more minous by the second.

And then the wind started. It hit with an audible ‘whoomp’, and with such force that I staggered back under the onslaught. It whisked my brown shoulder-length hair out behind me and clamped its cold hand over my face so that I had to gasp for breath. Frankie wriggled in my arms, but I was afraid to put her down in case she ran off again in fright.

Holding the terrier firmly under one arm, I struggled to clip the end of the lead to her tartan collar, and was lowering her to the ground when I saw the black Labrador rocketing towards us. She was almost upon us when the first streak of lightning split the heavens. The thunder-clap that followed seconds later had both dogs cowering against my legs, normal sniffing formalities forgotten. I hunkered down with them, remembering something I’d been told about lightning hitting the tallest point. I didn’t want it to be me.

We were still huddled together, heads bowed, my arms thrown protectively around both dogs, when a hand touched my shoulder. My head jerked up to see a man standing over us, dog lead dangling from his hand. ‘You okay?’ he shouted above the roar of the wind.

Heat flooded into my neck and cheeks with embarrassment. I struggled to my feet and found myself looking into the blue eyes of a man in his early thirties. I took a deep steadying breath, trying to pull my flapping coat together while keeping my balance against the buffeting gusts and Frankie’s insistent pulling.

A second flash of lightning crackled above us and we both flinched instinctively. Disjointed thoughts flickered through my mind, one of which was why did I have to meet every girl’s dream while being found huddled in a heap on the Downs with two muddy dogs in the middle of a thunderstorm?

‘Is she yours?’ I yelled, glancing at the black Lab, which was now bounding around the man in delight.

‘Yeah, she ran off. Thanks for stopping her.’

He seemed reluctant to walk away, and I found myself flipping wildly through possible excuses to keep him talking, but my lips seemed obstinately welded together. I watched helplessly as he clipped the lead to his dog’s collar smiled his thanks, and began to move off along the track. That would have been the end of it, I was sure, except that the rain started then: huge shimmering drops that smacked down, on and around us like small cannon balls, creating dark splotches on the dry earth where they fell. The man turned back in my direction, pulling up the collar of his jacket and bowing his head against the onslaught. As he drew level with Frankie and me the deluge increased in its ferocity until we couldn’t see more than an arm’s reach in any direction. It was like standing under a waterfall, and my eyes and mouth and nose were full of it. My sheepskin coat blackened and my hair was almost immediately reduced to stringy tendrils. We looked at one another, this stranger and I, and started to laugh. He had a lovely laugh, deep and throaty, and even with his short hair flattened against his head, and water dripping off the end of his nose, I think I realised he was someone special right there and then.

‘My car’s parked over there,’ he shouted, pointing vaguely in the direction he was heading. ‘Do you want to make a run for shelter?’

I nodded, and to my complete delight, he took my cold wet hand in his and pulled me along beside him, the two dogs, tails tucked miserably between their legs, trailing along in our wake.

Our breathing became laboured as we ran, increasing with the ferocity of the driving wind and rain. I could feel the blood pounding through my veins, and my fingers, entwined with his, were tingling in a kind of ecstasy that was something akin to pain.

We were almost at the car park when the lightning flashed again, illuminating the row of cars hunched in the mist ahead of us. As we drew closer I could see the sheeting rain bouncing off the sleek metal bodies and puddling on the ground beneath. The plunging drops created a misty upward spray, which was beautiful in its way, but not as wonderful as the feeling of belonging I had to this man I hardly knew, whose dripping fingers were burning holes in my palms. There was an electricity between us, something I’d never experienced before, a connection I couldn’t begin to put into words.

The rain pummelled our backs, pushing us onwards, our steps pounding in perfect unison, and as we neared the car, panting for breath, he looked into my eyes and a tremor of excitement ran through me. He dropped my hand for a moment to reach into his pocket for the car keys, and at that split second the whole sky lit up with a crackling roar. A shaft of lightning entered my body in a convulsive explosion of white noise.

The euphoria I had been feeling vanished as if someone had flicked off a giant switch. There was a searing pain through my shoulders. I watched, entranced, as the stranger’s eyes widened in horror. I could smell the sickening stench of burning flesh and knew with a detached sort of knowledge that it belonged to me. For a split second I felt as if I was hovering above myself, my earthly body engulfed in an aura of red. Then I shuddered and sank down onto the wet ground, closed my eyes, and knew only blackness and nothing.