Guy Smith - Snakes

'We'd better go somewhere where we can talk.' Her voice faltered and she stared straight ahead of her.

'All right.' His stomach was churning. Hell, that wasn't easy, not only was he almost out of petrol but half a mile further on there was a police road block. 'Let me think ... I know, the sandpit.'

She nodded but did not speak. The 'sandpit' was a played-out sand quarry just to the rear of the churchyard. It had not been quarried for twenty years and up until a few years ago the village bikers used to scramble there at weekends. There had been complaints about the noise, a petition, and nowadays nobody went there except teenage courting couples who did not have transport to take them further afield.

A bridle path, just wide enough to take a car, led off from where the wall bordering the cemetery ended. A hundred yards, rutted and dipping sharply, terminating in five acres of overgrown scrubland surrounded by high precarious sandcliffs, thorn bushes and saplings somehow securing a hold and serving to create an atmosphere of dank loneliness. Even in the heat of summer it was cool in here.

It was obvious to Keith that the snake hunters had beaten the place out thoroughly, bracken and grass flattened, even some of the low-growing bushes on the steep face had been ripped out. At least there was no danger here.

He switched the engine off, was aware of the silence, the gathering dusk down in this desolate place, the tension in the van. We'd better go somewhere where we can talk. We're here, so let's talk.

'Well?' Unless he said something they might sit here like this all night.

'I'm pregnant.' She stifled a sob.

'Oh.'

'What d'you mean, 'oh'?'

He didn't reply. What the hell did she expect him to say, what do other guys say when their girlfriends inform them they're in the club?

'You've had it confirmed?'

'No, not yet, it's too early.'

'Then how the hell d'you know?'

'I know,' her voice rose, almost a scream of frustration, 'girls know those sort of things long before they're confirmed.'

Keith fell silent. Mixed feelings, jubilation, you can't walk out on me now, darling. Apprehension because it was too involved even to start to comprehend at this stage.

'I'm not running away.' His tone was low when he spoke at last. 'I'll stand by you, you know that.'

'That's not the point.' Kirsten was back on the verge of tears. 'You haven't run away, but .' have.'

'What . . . whatever arc you talking about?'

'Mum and Dad decided it was best if we left Stainforth for a while, at least until the snakes had been rounded up. They insisted that I went with them. As you know, Dad has a flat in the city and we all squashed into that. They wanted to get me away from you, thought that if I didn't see you for a bit and that if I was introduced to one or two of Dad's eligible bachelor business associates, or their sons, they could persuade me to finish with you. Oh God, Keith, it was awful. The pressure they put on me ... all snobbery . . .'

She was crying, shaking with constricted sobs, and he slipped an arm around her.

'I walked out on them this morning.' It was a couple of minutes before she was able to continue. 'We had a fearful row at breakfast. Mum must have guessed something because she accused me of being pregnant. So I stormed out, caught a bus and walked the rest of the way. I had a bit of bother at the checkpoint but in the end the police sent an army cadet to escort me home. Now I'm in a fine mess. I've left home, I've nowhere to go, and I've also lost my job. Mrs Holloway has sacked me for not turning in for work. Oh, Keith . . .' Her tears came in a flood, her face buried against his chest. 'Whatever are we going to do?'

'We're going to get married.' He tried to keep the jubilation out of his voice. Sod your folks, they can take a running jump. Then a sudden awful thought occurred to him and he added, 'If you want to get married, that is.'

'Of course, I do.' She squeezed his hand. 'It's just that it all seems such a frightful, awful mess, that's all.'

Silence again. Dusk had merged into near-darkness down in the quarry. Only by craning his neck could Keith see the evening sky up above them, the remnants of a summer sunset. For some reason he remembered the date—21 June, the Summer Solstice. The longest day. This was one midsummer night he would never forget.

'What's that?' Kirsten's head was suddenly erect, listening.

'What's what?' He didn't want to be in a hurry to go.

Savour every second, you'll remember this night for the rest of your life.

'I heard something.' She was staring into the sandpit darkness, trying to make out shapes and silhouettes that would be gone in a matter of minutes. 'Like something's round the front of the van.'

Probably rats, he thought, but you don't tell emotional girls that. 'A rabbit maybe,' he sighed, 'there are lots of them in here. The sand is full of their burrows.'

'There it is again.' She was tense, holding on to him. T can feel it vibrating on the .. . Keith!' A piercing scream; she was clutching at him, almost hysterical. 'There, do you see it?'

He saw it all right, felt his stomach heave up, tasted something sharp and sour at the back of his throat, recalled a TV documentary he had once watched about snake-charming, the way the snake came up out of a wicker basket, a wriggling revolting creature mastering a vertical stance with a body that had no backbone. And the snake was doing just that now, rising up from somewhere in the region of the radiator grille, uncoiling, going up and up; aware of the two humans inside the vehicle, its tiny eyes fixed on them, scenting their terror and mocking them with open jaws that seemed to laugh.

'It can't get at us,' Keith Doyle whispered hoarsely. 'No way. We're safe.'

'Let's get away from here,' she pleaded, shuddered and closed her eyes. 'Oh Keith, take me home.'

'No problem.' He laughed but it sounded forced and the fingers that rested on the ignition key trembled. 'No problem at all, we can swing round, drive right back on to the road, and if we don't dislodge this bugger on the way then there are loads of police and soldiers in the village who will be only too delighted to shoot it.'

Seconds later he knew that he did have a problem, a very frightening one. The starter-motor whirred but did not fire, vibrated hollowly beneath the bonnet. He tried it again, much slower this time, they felt it groaning, stopping. A third time; it would not even turn over.

'Keith!' Kirsten was on the verge of panic. He gripped her wrist hard, was not taking any chances on her opening the door and trying to make a run for it. He recalled his own flight three days ago. He had only made it to the garage by the grace of God. Kirsten certainly would not make it back to the road.

'Don't worry.' He tried to sound convincing. 'She'll go in a minute.' But he knew it wouldn't because it had been reluctant to start even on these hot summer mornings. It was the battery, sure enough, possibly the same one that was on this S-registered vehicle from new, now old and tired. Dying, maybe dead already. There was just a faint chance that if they waited a few minutes it might fire. A very faint chance, the kind you only relied on when there was nothing else left. The snake was on the bonnet now, coils of it. Keith would not even attempt to guess at its length but in the fading daylight he was just able to make out its colouring; a ringed body, red, black and white rings, the fearsome snout jet-black. Colourful, deadly, its head only inches from the glass of the windscreen, staring inside intently. 'Keith, I don't want to look!' 'You don't have to. Close your eyes.' 'I can't, it's like I've 'got to look!'

A thought crossed his mind, one that would have been funny in any other situation except this. You paid a quid or so to go into a reptile house and gawp at snakes through glass but this bugger was getting a close-up of humans in a cage for free! Jesus, that was rich, it kind of put things in perspective, made you realise that when it came down to the law of the jungle Man counted for nothing. 'Keith, I can't stand it any longer!'