A Wasted Hour

by Jeffrey Archer

Her father would drive her to the station on the first day of term, when she would hang around on the platform until she was certain he was on his way back home. She would then walk the couple of miles to the freeway.

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The next vehicle to pull over was a truck, but she didn’t even look up at the driver, just continued walking. He eventually drove off, honking his horn in disgust. The third was a pick-up truck, with a couple in the front who looked promising, until she saw a German shepherd lounging across the back seat that looked as if he hadn’t been fed in a while. Kelley politely told them she was allergic to dogs – well, except for Daisy, her cocker spaniel back home, whom she adored. And then she spotted a pre-war Studebaker slowly ambling along towards her. Kelley faced the oncoming

‘Thanks for stopping,’ she said. ‘My name’s Kelley.’ ‘John,’ he replied, taking one hand off the wheel to shake hands with her. The rough hands of a farm labourer, was her first thought. ‘What are you majoring in, Kelley?’ he asked. ‘Modern American literature.’ ‘There hasn’t been much of that lately,’ he suggested. ‘But then times are a changin’. When I was at Stanford, there were no women on the campus, even at night.’ Kelley was surprised that John had been to Stanford. ‘What degree did you take, sir?’ ‘John,’ he insisted. ‘It’s bad enough

Kelley gave him another look and wondered if the car would ever move out of third gear. She was just about to ask why he flunked out, when he said, ‘And who are now considered to be the modern giants of American literature, dare I ask?’

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‘So what did you do after you left Stanford?’ ‘My father wanted me to work on his farm back in Monterey, which I managed for a couple of years, but it just wasn’t me, so I rebelled and got a job as a tour guide at Lake Tahoe.’ ‘That must have been fun.’ ‘Sure was. Lots of dames, but the pay was lousy. So my friend Ed and I decided to travel up and down the California coast collecting biological specimens, but that didn’t turn out to be very

‘That was the problem. I got too close to the action and ended up with a whole barrel of shotgun up my backside, and had to be shipped back to the States.

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‘And to be fair,’ he continued, ‘I couldn’t disagree with them. And in any case, I was gettin’ more and more disillusioned by what was happening in ’Nam, and even began to question whether we still occupied the moral high ground.’

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