I rolled my eyes, although Bernard took no notice. I suppose he must have suffered since leaving England. There had been a few nice young things in the offing when we’d been travelling by train, but I’d made sure my charge steered well clear of them. Once on the boat, my vice-like grip on the man’s morals had loosened, as all the females aboard had been at least fifty. He’d been reduced to staring out at the islands, no doubt trying to imagine what graceful examples of femininity were tripping sinuously among the village streets or preparing sweetmeats for their loved ones.
Where there were women to be seen, none seemed to be within touching distance and it was sending him crazy, which wasn’t really what his mother had intended. Camels and women—they were enough to plague any man.
“I bet they have as few women as possible on site because they only ever cause trouble. You should know that fact better than most. Six months without their company, that’s what the doctor, or rather your mother, ordered. And I’m the chump who has to see that’s what you get.”
I hoped that would prove true and we could spend our stay with no females in sight, except those depicted on some mural. I rode into the camp with all my fingers and toes crossed.
Dr. Parks, who owned the operation camp, wasn’t there to greet us, being—as his steward Yaseem explained—called away to be lowered on a rope down a hole, trying to find out whether they’d discovered a treasure cache or just some rubbish pit. So, we enjoyed the welcoming tour, showed appropriate surprise and delight at the spaciousness of our apartments, lunched on watermelons and flatbreads, and appreciated the contrast of cool and sweet with warm and salty.
Yaseem implored us to make ourselves at home, so fervently I wondered whether he knew how big a douceur Mrs. Mottram had given to the operation which employed him. That money would ensure we’d have pretty well free run of the place as long as we kept to the rules, both those governing the site and the one which would have come as a stipulation with the donation. No women in the vicinity of Bernard.
As we explored the camp, I began to build up a picture of Andrew Parks, who was evidently a man with his heart well and truly set among the Seleucid Empire. Bertram asked Yaseem a string of questions about our host, by which we learned that although he’d had a legacy from a maiden aunt, he viewed visitors as a necessary part of keeping afloat. They and their money kept the expedition well supplied, allowing him to indulge his enthusiasm for artefacts and hieroglyphs to the maximum and usually brought him the English newspapers. In that regard we’d failed.
“Dr. Parks will forgive you your lack of The Times,” Yaseem said, with an enigmatic smile. “You’ll meet him tonight, while we banquet.”
“Banquet?” Bernard’s ears pricked up. He liked his food as much as he liked his women.
“Yes, eating under the stars around a campfire. Dr. Parks says the occasion smacks of penny dreadfuls, but our paying guests appreciate it, especially the ladies. Alas, there are none of those present to enjoy this evening.”
I couldn’t help smiling at Bernard’s disappointment. As for dinner under the stars, it would be something new. So long as I wasn’t made to eat sheep’s eyes, I might just have a chance of enjoying myself.
***
Andrew Parks—he insisted we called him Andrew—was as much of a surprise as his camp had been. Small, neat, as brown as a berry under a thatch of blond hair, with piercing sea-grey eyes and an intelligent smile. Perhaps I should add he was possibly the most handsome man I’d ever met, but I tried not to let that show as the three of us exchanged pleasantries and discussed the latest news from the Mottram household, Andrew’s mother having been an old friend of Mrs. Mottram.
The parochial chit-chat allowed me to sink into the background and try to get my thoughts together. Andrew was the sort of chap who got right under my skin. Or, more accurately, right below my waistline. I didn’t share Bernard’s enthusiasm for girls, but where a man like Andrew was concerned…
“Why did you come here?” Bernard’s question to our host jogged me out of my thoughts.
“Client kings. I studied them for my doctorate. Came out here once and couldn’t wait to get back again.” I could tell there was more to the story, but Andrew wasn’t forthcoming.
Odd.
“I’m sorry we didn’t think to bring the newspapers from home,” I said, feeling I had to say something, and uncomfortable at the thought of having disappointed him.
“Not to worry,” Andrew replied, a touch too airily. “Ah, Yaseem. Time to eat?”
He led us out to a canopy under the stars, something which looked like it should have come from a cinematic set. Faux desert rather than real.
Andrew looked at me, with a smile and a shrug, as if to say, “See what I have to do to amuse my guests?” I could only shrug in return, tongue-tied.
When at last I could trust myself to speak, all I managed to ask was, “Do you miss home?”
“Of course I do. Although when I smell the air in this country, it makes England seem stale.” Andrew spread his hands, eloquently. “I’ll go back one day, when the time is right.”
“To choose the right time in life shows true wisdom.” I’d rarely done so, myself.
Andrew smiled. “That sounds like the sort of adage Yaseem saves for visitors. They lap them up.”
“I didn’t mean it as a platitude.”
“Of course not.” He looked concerned at having risked causing offence. “He’s very wise, Yaseem. People don’t always appreciate his skills, probably because of the colour of his skin.”
I remembered, with a shudder, my father’s scathing remarks about those with a touch of the tar brush about them. It was one of many things we disagreed on.
“He also says that often the times are chosen for you,” Andrew continued, eyes fixed on the fire. “I’ve become enchanted beyond all measure with this country. In a strange way it’s as though I’ve come home.”
“I expect you would either love or loathe this land. No half measures.”
“Yes,” he said, eyes reflecting the dancing flames. “Yaseem says the desert is like a woman. She captures your heart or she leaves you cold. She certainly captured mine.”
She. The word cut into me. Well, I shouldn’t have expected him to be any different than Bernard, should I? Not all men are made like me.
At the mention of women Bernard perked up, regaling the company with tales of his broken heart, so I simply stared into the fire, watching the pictures in those dancing flames, as I’d done when simply a boy and all the world had been in front of me, awash with potential. Many of those possibilities had been left behind, links severed and old friends despatched, but now something extraordinary had happened. The most striking man I’d ever met had walked into my life.
I wanted to etch the evening in my memory, filing everything Andrew had said or done safely away in a store of remembrance, where they couldn’t wither or fade. What would it feel like to have that tow-coloured head in my lap and run my fingers through the close cut locks?
I tried not to let my glance linger too long on Andrew’s face or hair or hands, or any of his other parts. While I held no hope that any attraction might be returned, his presence would at least make the next few months interesting.
***
The next morning Yaseem arrived with an old man—and his razor—in tow, to offer us a shave. I hadn’t had a decent one since I couldn’t quite pin down when, and had almost forgotten, when we’d got to the end, how much the sensation of being efficiently shaved added to one’s mood of wellbeing. Even Bernard looked more man than slightly bewildered monkey.
The next few days established a routine which became increasingly satisfying. Bertram had soon shown he’d no inclination to being lowered into caves or entering tombs, but turned out to have an unexpected interest in, and flair for, the cleaning and preserving of artefacts. The small team in charge of preservation welcomed him with open arms and he could use his new found talent as a channel for the energies he usually directed towards t
he fair sex. The ladies’ loss was Seleucid coinage’s gain.
I preferred to be active, accompanying Andrew—by some sort of unspoken agreement which had arisen between us—to whatever part of the venture he was visiting. Nobody raised an eyebrow at this. Apparently, it wasn’t unknown for ‘the boss’ to let some knowledgeable and sensible visitor accompany him on his daily business, especially—according to Yaseem, who was turning out to be the font of all knowledge—one who showed a genuine and intelligent interest in the work of the camp.
I’d come to Damahlia with so little knowledge of ancient times and empires it could all have been written on the back of a stamp, my own interest being the recent history of warfare, but I’d drunk in all the information given to me with an unquenchable thirst. I tried to make my questions to the point, never attempted to hide my ignorance and Andrew seemed to enjoy having me as a pupil. The fact that he made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck every time he smiled, was simply an exquisite bonus. I never forgot he’d called his beloved desert a woman, although if he had a wife or a girl, he never mentioned her.
That mightn’t mean a thing, of course. Nor the fact he had no hint of effeminacy about him, because the mirror told me that my own looks would never suggest my true nature. There’d been no real clues to latch onto either way and Andrew’s sexual inclinations remained as unreadable as some new version of the Rosetta stone in which all three languages were unknown.
The eighth night in camp—it felt like we’d been there months and I could have stayed forever—Andrew reached for the coffee pot which Yaseem always brought once the dinner had finished and asked if I was enjoying myself.
“I am. Much, I must admit, to my surprise.” I settled into my chair, the dinner things now cleared from the table and the pair of us alone. Bernard had gone off after dinner for a lesson in dating coins, one he’d approached with unexpected relish. His mother would give me a medal if I’d turned him off women and onto archaeology.
“Have we that bad a reputation?” Andrew asked, with a laugh, as he at last poured me a cup of coffee.
“No,” I said, taking the cup carefully, so as not to touch his hand. “I’d dreaded coming to this place—all bloody sand and the stink of the camels. Now I’m here, it’s like a pearl in the desert, a real oasis of calm and peace. And the archaeology isn’t as boring as I’d expected.”
“Thank you so much for your generous endorsement.” Andrew bowed, theatrically.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t being sarcastic.” I felt mortified that he might think me rude. “But I’ve never been one for shards and inscriptions. It’s a great surprise to find them interesting.”
“There aren’t a lot of camels around the camp, either. I suspect that adds to the allure for you.”
“That and the lack of women.” I relaxed again. “Not having to be constantly hovering over Bernard has allowed me to unwind. I can start to enjoy myself for the first time since we left England, what seems like years ago.”
“You must have been a magnet to all the ladies, two young men travelling all the way here unchaperoned.”
I drained my cup and took a second coffee, sweet and very strong. This one I would sip. “Bernard’s the one for the girls, not me.”
“That’s more than obvious. I have to be frank and say his mother forewarned me. She even made me supply her with an inventory of all the females who might be found near the camp, ages and all.” Andrew grinned. “I promise you, it’s not one word of a lie.”
“I never doubted it.” And who could miss the fact that on the rare occasions a woman appeared—usually in the form of a laundrywoman, sometimes toothless and older than Mrs. Mottram—Bertram’s eyes followed them with a hungry look.
“Has he always been like this?” Andrew cradled his coffee cup, although he’d ceased drinking.
“As long as I’ve known him. An absolute sucker for a pretty face or a sob story. And terribly naïve, or at least he always used to be. I remember him kissing one girl in the shrubbery at Kew and her swearing to him a fortnight later that the act had got her pregnant. I think that’s when his mother had to tell him the facts of life.”
“And send the girl off with a flea in her ear, or at least a letter from the solicitor?” Andrew grinned. A sweet, lopsided grin that made my stomach perform somersaults. “Did telling him the facts of life make matters any better?”
“Infinitely worse. He was mortified anyone should do such things, especially his own mother in the begetting of him, but then he discovered that actually they might be worth trying.” I shook my head over all the scrapes Bernard had managed to get himself into down the years. “He’d be better off in a chastity belt.”
“Yet it’s not as if he’s handsome, is it? Or would you say he’s the sort the ladies swoon over, like Irving or Du Maurier?” Andrew seemed to be choosing his words with care.
“I think he has a fatal combination of seeming innocence, a pleasant manner and a bank balance the size of the great pyramid of Cheops. I suspect women can detect the last item a mile away and come running.” This conversation was beginning to have potential. Maybe I could find out how Andrew felt about women, one way or the other. “He’d be a very nice catch and his mother is well aware of the fact. She’s keeping him clear of any inconvenient hooks until some plain heiress turns up with whom she’d be prepared to ally the Mottrams.”
“Mothers are like that. Mine soon got my older brother down the aisle with a suitable candidate. Filly from the right stable and all that.” Andrew twirled his cup thoughtfully. “She’s given up trying with me.”
“Really?” I tried to curb my excitement. “I don’t think my mother would ever think of trying. She’s far too interested in her good works to waste time trying to fob me off with the right girl.”
“That doesn’t sound too promising.” Andrew smiled again. Maybe I should have left at that point, given the reaction that smile was producing below my belt, but I couldn’t.
“She’s no Mrs. Jellaby. I’ve been very lucky. She’s never intended to impose her wishes on me.” I returned the smile, with interest. “She keeps telling me to plough my own furrow. So I do…”
Andrew looked up sharply. “Then we’re both lucky to be in a position to do so. Not every man—or woman—can remain true to their dreams and aspirations.”
His golden hair, lit by the guttering flame of a lamp, was full of subtle tones and highlights. It took all my self-control not to reach out and stroke those locks. If I made a wrong move...
“It’s not been easy,” I said, just to have something else to concentrate on. “There’s the financial side of things for a start. That’s why I have to grab anything—like looking after Bernard—to keep me solvent while I get on with my writing.”
“Long may those commissions continue to support you.” Andrew raised his cup as if it were a glass. “I love books—well written, erudite books sprinkled with esoteric references that only a few people get. Are yours like that? If so, I’d like to read them.”
I shrugged and carried on studying the table. “I suppose you would say they match that description, although I’ve only had one published so far. The Times lauded my efforts, as did one or two rather academic tomes. The more popular press either ignored it or said it was heartily highbrow. Damned with faint praise.” I looked up, to find myself eye to eye with my host. That piercing gaze seemed to break down all barriers in its search for honesty. “Would you really like to read it? I have a copy with me. And before you think that’s vanity it’s just practicality. I’d hate to repeat myself in the next book and I can’t always remember offhand what descriptions I’ve used. I need to refer back…” I trailed off, feeling I’d prattled on too far.
“I really would like to read it. Even if it’s the slushiest romance.” Andrew looked away. “I promise I’ll give you my honest opinion on it.”
“I would value that. I’m afraid one’s friends tend either tend to be sycophantic or scathing, depending on whether they w
ant to butter you up or do you down. If you can be objective, it might help me find my way more clearly with my latest offering.” I pushed my cup away, having found my means of escaping temptation. “I’ll fetch the book now, if I may.”
“Please do. I could do with reading something new.”
Andrew gave very little away about his character in his spoken words, as did I. Perhaps my written ones would speak more clearly.
***
Those days in camp hadn’t all been about archaeology. Andrew had taught me the local names for all the constellations, as we sat out under those same stars, side by side in the firelight. Also, and despite the fact I’d never had much time for birds or animals before, inherently mistrusting nature and finding her a touch barbaric, I’d become rather sentimental over the pair of falcons that haunted the vicinity of the main set of buildings. Andrew had laughed and said he guessed they had the distinct advantage of not being camels.
I continued to weigh all the evidence from every minute we spent together, and concluded, to my delight, that Andrew’s interest in me and my writings might just be something more than friendship.
He’d clearly dived straight into the book I’d lent him, saying he’d found the first few chapters very well written, very interesting. Perhaps—I hoped—he’d picked out the tiny clues which I’d scattered through the text concerning the real explanation for my hero’s unhappiness, the reasons he’d volunteered for a mission in Peshawar which could only end up in his death. I’d made nothing obvious—credit me with not being stupid enough to take that risk—but if you knew the code, the little signs…
Maybe Andrew could read the language of attraction as plainly as he could read cuneiform.
We spent one morning out on site looking at potsherds, the sort of thing that looked like you could find them in any domestic midden, but which seemed to bear, for Andrew, as much hidden meaning as I’d put into my book. When he held up a finely polished piece of handle for me to examine, we drew close to each other, bare forearms touching. I couldn’t tell whether the sweat that suddenly broke out where our skin met was just due to the stifling heat or the close proximity of a pair of bodies beginning to recognise and explore their affinity for each other.
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