Novel extract

“Yes, I know who you are,” she said and looked up at him with those large blue eyes, smiled and cocked her head towards the group of waiting dancers.

“They told me…”

“Told you?”

“Who you are.”

The need to ask her why she wanted to know was crowded out by an odd need, very odd, he later reflected, to rush out over the local hills and feel the touch of a breeze on the skin of his arms – a thoughtful touch, a caring touch, an affirming touch, an attentive touch, and he longed to put out his hand and touch her – a brief touch like a quick handshake, a quick pat on the arm or a stroke on the shoulder. She said:

“I am Carrie. I have escaped from England and I’m looking at my options.”

A knee-jerk question concerning the word “escape,” her outstretched hand and a strand of her hair dislodged from the ponytail, framing her face and skimming her throat. Tony stared at it, alarmed at the need to stroke the hair away and touch the skin by the jugular vein. He was only vaguely aware of her clothes. Soft and airy, billowing and cool, they fell over her body - suggesting, provoking and promising.

“And I’m staying with friends here – for the summer.”

There was a riot of movement, colour and bagginess. A blast of music from the house had aroused the waiting dancers and they now pushed through the terrace doors and crowded into the house. In a blink of an eye, Carrie had blown away and joined them, and he chased after her, stumbling over the transition bar, tripping into the house but losing sight of her, her hair and her throat, and there was nothing but the music, its thumping and shaking and the dancers now throwing themselves around in a frenzy of sound and vibration, and she seemed to have disappeared in a dizziness of big hair, faces and scarves, jackets and bangles flying.

Comments

[Richard Hitchcock]

Yes, why 'escape'??

[Robert Goddard]

The answer comes later in the book. The extract is from the book's opening.