Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (32 page)

This far out, the shore was a low dark green rind, above the shaded
green and limpid blues of the water. In the blue distance, the
mountains were blue on the blue of the sky and above them, the
thunderheads piled dazzling silver, tall and arrogant enough to dwarf
the very earth.

‘
This must be the most beautiful land in the world,
’
she said, moving her
board so that her knee lay against his thigh.

‘
Because you are here,
’
he told her.

Under them, the green water breathed like a living thing, rising and
falling, the swells long and glassy, sliding away towards the land.

Growing impatient, one of the inexperienced riders would move to catch a
bad swell, kneeling on the board and paddling with both hands, coming up
unsteadily on to his feet and then toppling and falling as the water
left him, and the taunts and friendly catcalls of his peers greeted him
as he surfaced, grinning sheepishly, and crawled back on to his board.

Then the ripple of excitement, and a voice calling,
‘
A three set!
’
the
boards quickly rearranging themselves, sculled by cupped bare hands,
spacing out for running room, the riders peering back eagerly over their
dark burned shoulders, laughing and kidding each other as the wave set
bumped up on the horizon, still four miles out at sea, but big enough so
that they could count the individual swells that made up the set.

Running at fifty miles an hour, the swells took nearly five minutes,
from the moment when they were sighted, to reach the line, and during
that time Samantha. had a little ritual of preparation, First, she
hoisted the bottom of her bikini which had usually slipped down to
expose a pair of dimples and a little of the deep cleft of her buttocks,
then she tightened her top hamper, pulling open the brassiere of her
costume and cupping each breast in turn, settling it firmly in its
sheath of thin green cloth, grinning at Nick as she did it.

‘
You're not supposed to watch.

‘
I know, it's bad for my heart.
’

Then she
plucked out a pair of hairpins and held them in her mouth as she twisted
the wrist-thick plait of hair tighter until it hung down between her
shoulder blades and pinned back the wisps over her ears.

‘
All set?
’
he called, and she nodded and answered,

‘
Ride three?
’

The third
wave in the set was traditionally the big one, and they let the first
one swing them high and drop them again into its trough. Half the other
riders were up and away, only their heads still visible above the peak
of the wave, the land obscured by the moving wall of water.

The second wave came through, bigger, more powerful, but swooping up and
over the crest and most of the other riders went on it, two or three
tumbling on the steep front of water, losing their boards, dragged under
as the ankle lines came up taut.

‘
Here we go!
’
exulted Samantha, and three came rustling, green and
peaking, and in the transparent wall of water four big bottle-nosed
porpoises were framed, in perfect motion, racing in the wave, pumping
their flat delta shaped tails and grinning that fixed porpoise grin of
delight.

‘
Oh look!
’
sang Samantha.
‘
Just look at them, Nicholas!
’

Then the wave
was upon them and they sculled frantically, weight high on the board,
the heart-stopping moment when it seemed the water would sweep away and
leave them, then suddenly the boards coming alive under them and
starting to run, tipping steeply forward, with the hiss of the waxed
fibre-glass through the water.

Then they were both up and laughing in the sunlight, dancing the
intricate steps that balanced and controlled the boards, lifted high on
the crest, so they could see the sweep of the beach three miles ahead,
and the ranks of other riders on the twin waves that had gone before
them.

One of the porpoises frolicked with them on the racing crest, ducking
under the flying boards, turning on its side to grin up at Samantha, so
she stooped and stretched out a hand to touch him, lost her balance, and
almost fell while the porpoise grinned at her mischievously and flipped
away to rise fin
up on her far side.

Now, out on their right hand, the wave was feeling the reef and starting
to curl over on itself, the crest arching forwards, holding that lovely
shape for long moments, then slowly collapsing.

‘
Go left
,’
Nick called urgently to her, and they kicked the boards around
and danced up on to the stubby prows, bending at the knees to ride the
hurtling craft, their speed rocketing as they cut across the green face
of the wave, but behind them the arching wave spread rapidly towards
them, faster than they could run before it.

Now at their left shoulders, the water formed a steep vertical wall,
and, glancing at it, Samantha found the porpoise swimming head-high
beside her, his great tail pumping; powerfully, and she was afraid, for
the majesty and strength of that wave belittled her.

‘
Nicholas!
’
she screamed, and the wave fanned out over her head, arcing
across the sky, cutting out the sunlight, and now they flew down a long
perfectly rounded tunnel of roaring water. The sides were smooth as
blown glass, and the light was green and luminous and weird as though
they sped through a deep submarine cavern, only ahead of them was the
perfect round opening at the mouth of the tunnel - while behind her,
close behind her, the tunnel was collapsing in a furious thunder of
murderous white water, and she was as terrified and as exulted as she
had ever been in her life.

He yelled at her,
‘
We must beat the curl
,’
and his voice was far away and
almost lost in the roar of water, but obediently she went forward on her
board until all her bare toes were curled over the leading edge.

For long moments they held their own, then slowly they began to gain,
and at last they shot out through the open mouth of the tunnel into the
sunlight again, and she laughed wildly, still high on the exultation of
fresh terror.

Then they were past the reef and the wave firmed up, leaving the white
water like lace on the surface far behind.

‘
Let's go right!
’
Samantha sang out to stay within the good structure
of the wave, and they turned and went back, swinging across the steep
face. The splatter of flung water sparkled on her belly and thighs, and
the plait of her hair stood out behind her head like the tail of an
angry lioness, her arms were extended and her hands held open,
unconsciously making the delicate finger gestures of a Balinese temple
dancer as she balanced; and miraculously the porpoise swam, fill up,
beside her, following like a trained dog.

Then at last, the wave felt the beach and ran berserk, tumbling wildly
upon itself, booming angrily, and churning the sand like gruel, and they
kicked out of the wave, falling back over the crest and dropping into
the sea beside the bobbing boards, laughing and panting at each other
with the excitement and terror and the joy of it.

Samantha was a sea-creature with a huge appetite for the fruits of the
sea, cracking open the crayfish legs in her fingers and sucking the
white sticks of flesh into her mouth with a noisy sensuality, while her
lips were polished with butter sauce, not taking her eyes from his face
as she ate.

Samantha in the candlelight gulping those huge Knysna oysters, and then
slurping the juice out of the shells.

‘
You're talking with your mouth full.
’

‘
It's just that I've still got so
much to tell you,
’
she explained.

Samantha was laughter, laughter in fifty different tones and
intensities, from the sleepy morning chortle when she awoke and found
him beside her, to the wild laughter yelled from the crest of a racing
wave.

Samantha was loving. With a face of thundering innocence and the
virginal, guileless green eyes of a child, she combined hands and a
mouth whose wiles and wicked cunning left Nick stunned and disbelieving.

‘
The reason I ran away without a word was that I did not want to have
your ravishment and violation on my conscience
,’
he shook his head at her
disbelievingly.

‘
I wrote my PhD thesis in those subjects
,’
she told him blithely, using
her forefinger to twist spit-curls in his sweat-dampened chest hairs.
‘
And what's more, buster, that was just the introductory offer - now we
sign you up for a full course of treatment.
’

Her delight in his body was
endless, she must touch and examine every inch of it, exclaiming and
revelling in it without a trace of self-consciousness, holding his hand
in her lap and bending her head studiously over it, tracing the lines of
his palm with her fingernail.

‘
You are going to meet a beautiful wanton blonde, give her fifteen babies
and live to be a hundred and fifty.
’
She touched the little chiselled
lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth with the tip of
her tongue, leaving cool damp smears of saliva on his skin.

‘
I always wanted a real craggy man all for myself.
’
Then, when her
examination became more intimate and clinical and he demurred, she told
him severely,
‘
Hold still, this is a private thing between me and
himself.
’

Then a little later.

‘
Oh wow! He's real poison! Poison?
’
his
demanded, his manhood
denigrated.

‘
Poison,
’
she sighed.
‘
Because he just slays me!
’

I
n fairness, she offered
herself for his touch and scrutiny, guiding his hands, displaying
herself eagerly.

‘
Look, touch, it's yours - all yours
,’
wanting his approval, not able to
give him sufficient to satisfy her own need to give.
‘
Do you like it,
Nicholas? Is this good for you? Is there anything else you want,
Nicholas, anything at all that I can give you?
’

And when he told her how
beautiful she was, when he told her how much he wanted her, when he
touched and marvelled over the gifts she brought to him, she glowed and
stretched and purred like a great golden cat so that when he learned
that the Zodiacal sign of her birthday was Leo, he was not at all
surprised.

Samantha was loving in the early slippery grey-pearl light of dawn, soft
sleepy loving, with small gasps and murmurs and chuckles of deep
contentment.

Samantha was loving in the sunlight, spread like a beautiful starfish in
the fierce reflected sunlight of the sculptured dunes. The sand coated
her body like crystals of sugar, and their cries rose together, high and
ecstatic as those of the curious seagulls that floated above them on
motionless white wings.

Samantha was loving in the green cool water, their two heads bobbing
beyond the first line of breakers, his toes only just touching the sandy
bottom and she twined about him like sea kelp about a submerged rock,
clutching both their swim suits in one hand and gurgling merrily.