On the Beach Read Online Free PDF

a white face, the daughter of a grazier with a small property at a place called Harkaway near Berwick. She arrived at the station in a very smart four-wheeled trap, snatched from some junk yard and reconditioned at considerable expense a year before, with a good-looking, high spirited grey mare between the shafts. She was wearing slacks of the brightest red and a shirt of the same colour, with lips, fingernails, and toenails to match. She waved to Peter, who went to the horse’s head, got down from her outfit, and tied the reins loosely to a rail where once the passengers had stood in line before boarding the bus. “Morning, Peter,” she said. “Boy friend not turned up?”
    “He’ll be on this train coming now,” he said. “What time did you leave home?” She had driven twenty miles to Falmouth.
    “Eight o’clock. Ghastly.”
    “You’ve had breakfast?”
    She nodded. “Brandy. I’m going to have another one before I get up in that jinker again.”
    He was concerned for her. “Haven’t you had anything to eat?”
    “Eat? Bacon and eggs and all that muck? My dear child, the Symes had a party last night. I’d have sicked it up.”
    They turned to walk together to meet the train. “What time did you get to bed?” he asked. “About half past two.”
    “I don’t know how you can keep it up. I couldn’t.”
    “I can. I can keep it up as long as I’ve got to, and that’s not so long now. I mean, why waste time insleeping?” She laughed, a little shrilly. “Just doesn’t make sense.”
    He did not reply because she was quite right, only it wasn’t his own way. They stood and waited till the train came in, and met Commander Towers on the platform. He came in civilian clothes, a light grey jacket and fawn drill trousers, slightly American in cut, so that he stood out as a stranger in the crowd.
    Peter Holmes made the introductions. As they walked down the ramp from the platforms the American said, “I haven’t ridden a bicycle in years. I’ll probably fall off.”
    “We’re doing better for you than that,” Peter said. “Moira’s got her jinker here.”
    The other wrinkled his brows. “I didn’t get that?”
    “Sports car,” the girl said. “Jaguar XK 140. Thunderbird to you, I suppose. New model, only one horsepower, but she does a good eight miles an hour on the flat. Christ, I want a drink!”
    They came to the jinker with the grey standing in the shafts; she went to untie the reins. The American stood back and looked it over, gleaming in the sun and very smart. “Say,” he exclaimed, “this is quite a buggy you’ve got!”
    Moira stood back and laughed. “A buggy! That’s the word for it. It’s a buggy, isn’t it? All right, Peter—that’s not dirty. And anyway, it is. We’ve got a Customline sitting in the garage, Commander Towers, but I didn’t bring that. It’s a buggy. Come on and get up into it, and I’ll step on it and show you how she goes.”
    “I’ve got my bike here, sir,” Peter said. “I’ll ride that up and meet you at the house.”
    Commander Towers climbed up into the buggy and the girl got up beside him; she took the whip and turned thegrey and trotted up the road behind the bicycle. “One thing I’m going to do before we leave town,” she told her companion, “and that’s have a drink. Peter’s a dear, and Mary too, but they don’t drink enough. Mary says it gives the baby colic I hope you don’t mind. You can have a Coke or something if you’d rather.”
    Commander Towers felt a little dazed, but refreshed. It was a long time since he had had to deal with this sort of a young woman. “I’ll go along with you,” he said. “I’ve swallowed enough Cokes in the last year to float my ship, periscope depth. I could use a drink.”
    “Then there’s two of us,” she remarked. She steered her outfit into the main street, not unskilfully. A few cars stood abandoned, parked diagonally by the kerb; they had been there for over a year. So little