by Anne Weale
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Nicole. ‘Who wouldn’t take to the bottle, being kept shut away like that? Can you imagine someone like Chandra herself confined to a zenana? It would have driven her mad.’
It was more than an hour later before she suddenly realised how the time had flown.
‘Goodness, I had no idea how late it was,’ she said, after glancing at her watch.
‘It’s not that late,’ Alex said lazily. He looked very relaxed, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one arm hanging over the side of his chair.
Tonight he reminded her not of a cheetah but a leopard. She had seen pictures of them stretched on the thick branches of trees, one front leg dangling like his arm. In that posture they looked as harmless as pussy cat. Not the lethal predators they could be.
Alex also had predatory instincts, even if he had kept them under wraps since their walk on the ramparts.
Part of her longed to linger, to have another small measure of the wonderfully smooth whisky, to continue a conversation that had already ranged over a broad spread of topics. But part of her knew that to stay was to risk giving the impression that, now they had known each other longer, she might be more responsive.
And in fact she was more responsive. The better she knew him, the more she liked him, the more potent his attraction became. It had been strong from the outset. Now it was even more powerful.
‘No, but I must go. I have things to do,’ she said, rising.
With the fluid ease of movement that went with his physical fitness, Alex stood up. ‘What sort of things?’
‘Oh...women’s things...nails and so on. You don’t know how lucky you are only having to shower and shave. It’s much harder work being a woman,’ she said, in a light-hearted tone. ‘Anyway thanks a lot for letting me use your PC, and for the whisky. Don’t bother to come to the door. Goodnight, Alex.’
But he came to the door and opened it for her. ‘Goodnight, Nicole. If we don’t meet during the day, I’ll see you tomorrow night.’
The problem with her computer remained unresolved for some days. One computer engineer agreed with Alex’s diagnosis. Another said no, it was a fault with the motherboard. Both took the view that it was not worth replacing the damaged parts. Both said the purchase of a new machine was the only sensible solution.
‘Before you do that, there’s someone else I can try,’ said Alex. ‘He’s the student son of a shopkeeper in the new town. The boy knows a lot about all electronic gadgets. I’ll ask him to take a look.’
‘I’m putting you to a great deal of trouble.’
‘No problem.’
His tone dismissed her concern as unnecessary. Yet instinct told her that he wasn’t pleased about something. Each night when she picked up her email, he offered her a glass of whisky and she accepted and they talked.
But each night she had the feeling that he wished he hadn’t started the ritual, an impression reinforced by the fact that when she got up to go he didn’t attempt to detain her.
As he waited for Nicole to emerge from his office after picking up her email, Alex had little doubt she was corresponding with a man. She wouldn’t look so pleased with herself if the emails were coming from girlfriends. They had to be coming from someone important to her. But for reasons best known to herself she was keeping quiet about it.
Perhaps the guy was someone who had picked her up in an Internet chat group and she didn’t like to admit to it. Or perhaps he was someone she had known before coming to India who was missing her more than he had expected to.
Whoever he was, his emails gave her a noticeable glow. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that she had taken this job mainly to bring him up to scratch. One of Alex’s sisters had done that: taken a job in London and pretended to be having a ball there because Rob McLaren wasn’t taking as much interest in her as she wanted him to. The strategy had worked. Within six months Rob had followed her to London and asked her to marry him. Which might never have happened if Alice hadn’t cut loose and stopped him taking her for granted.
If Nicole was trying the same thing, it would make him revise his initial opinion of her as someone straightforward and trustworthy. She had given the impression that she really wanted this job and was prepared to invest a sizeable chunk of her future in it.
Tonight, as on previous nights, she emerged from the office with the air of a woman who has just received at least one message of more than ordinary importance.
‘Is there any news about my laptop?’ she asked.
‘Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow.’
Alex watched her sit down, wondering how long it would be before she got up again, claiming urgent things to do but actually, he suspected, impatient to reread the email she had printed out.
As he poured out their drinks, she said, ‘Today it suddenly came to me what this whisky reminds me of...the old-fashioned butterscotch that a neighbour of ours used to make at Christmas time. Is it sacrilege to compare fine whisky with toffee?’
‘Not at all. Depending on the part of Scotland it comes from, whisky has been compared to all kinds of things...humbugs...peardrops...even ginger snaps.’ Watching her closely, he changed the subject. ‘Did you get a reply to that long message I heard you rattling out last night?’
She seemed surprised that he had noticed. Having nothing better to do, he had timed the sound of her fingers flying over his keyboard. She had typed without pause for three minutes and seventeen seconds, time enough to cover several pages for the recipient to print out Usually emails were brief, more like notes than letters.
‘Yes, I did, thank you,’ she said. ‘I—I was writing about Karangarh. There’s so much to describe.’
There was a perceptible awkwardness in her manner, as if she guessed he was curious and was nervous of being asked questions she would prefer not to answer.
He decided to put her on the spot by asking point-blank if it was her father she had written to at such length. He was certain it had not been her father and wanted to see if she would be frank or evasive.
To Nicole’s dismay, Alex asked, ‘Were you writing to your father?’
It would have been easy to say yes but, except to spare someone’s feelings, she didn’t like telling lies. For some reason lying to Alex was especially unacceptable.
‘I write to Dad on Sundays. He doesn’t have a computer, but another relative does and they print out my emails for him.’
‘So who is the lucky recipient of all the weekday emails?’
‘I write to several people.’
‘But mainly to one special person?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed uneasily, wondering why he was pressing her.
‘So the impression you gave in your answers to the questionnaire, that you had no personal commitments, wasn’t strictly true?’
Nicole began to lose her cool. ‘Are you implying that I lied?’
‘Did you?’
Like a brushful of pigment dropped into water, hot colour spread from her jawline to her cheekbones. ‘I have no commitments that prevent me doing a good job here. That was all you needed to know.’
When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘There are areas of people’s lives they’re entitled to keep to themselves. I’m sure you must have some in yours.’
In her anger at his probing questions, for an instant she had forgotten the deeply distressing nature of his most closely guarded feelings. She would have given a great deal to retrieve the last part of her hasty riposte, but the words had been spoken and could not be recalled.
His face took on the expression she remembered from when she had asked if his wife liked living in India, and again when she’d mentioned the Taj Mahal to him. He and the girl he had married must have been there together.
His tone cold as steel, he said, ‘Doesn’t your boyfriend mind playing second fiddle to your career?’
‘He isn’t my boyfriend.’
If he hadn’t been furious with her, she would have told him the truth. But clearly
this wasn’t the moment. Already alienated by her thoughtless remark, he would see her deception in the worst possible light.
‘He...he is someone I care for, but not in the way you’re implying.’
‘I hope you’ve made that clear to him. The frequency of your emails might make him think otherwise.’
‘It isn’t that sort of relationship.’
‘You mean he’s not interested in women?’
The design world was full of men who weren’t. It seemed an easy way out of a tricky situation.
‘No, he isn’t,’ she agreed.
At that point his telephone rang.
It was Kesri, asking if Alex was busy or if he could come and discuss an idea he’d had.
‘By all means,’ said Alex, pleased to find that his suspicion had been wide of the mark.
He didn’t tell Nicole that Kesri was about to join them. If he did, she would seize on it as a reason to gulp down her drink and take off. If Kesri’s idea was something confidential, he wouldn’t have to reveal it in front of her. If it was not, she might have some useful input to contribute.
In the time they had spent together since the crash of her laptop, she had put forward several unexpectedly original perspectives. On the whole he found that women—or at least the ones he encountered—didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the more serious issues confronting the human race. Unless they were academics with a professional interest, most women seemed to take the view that they couldn’t influence events so there wasn’t much point in working out their opinions.
Nicole wasn’t like that. She had opinions on most things. They didn’t always coincide with his own, but at least she knew why she held them and could back them up with sensible arguments. She was the most intelligent woman he had met in a long time. In fact she was the first woman whose mind he found as attractive as her body.
When Kesri joined them, Nicole would have left but he insisted she must stay.
‘I came to confer with Alex about my latest brainwave. Now I can confer with you both which is even better.’ He sat down on the sofa. ‘It’s good to relax. It has been one of those days when I haven’t had a moment’s peace. Yes, some whisky would be most welcome, Alex.’
Again Nicole thought how handsome he was with his black hair and burnished bronze skin. He was much better-looking than Alex, yet for her he was not as attractive.
‘What’s this brainwave?’ Alex asked him.
‘You know how successful the Desert Stars trips have proved. But they appeal mainly to older people who have the money and the time to spend on rather special holidays. I would like to attract younger people. They would also have to be well-heeled, but there are plenty of Thirtysomethings making a lot of money in the financial and electronic industries. What if we were to provide a Desert Honeymoon?’
‘On a two-at-a-time basis, it would only be economic if you charged a colossal price,’ said Alex. ‘Also, if you’re aiming it at the American and Euro markets, you’d better research the wedding statistics among your potential customers. The media give the impression that marriage as an institution is in its death throes. It would only be the so-called “power couples” who could afford that kind of extravagance. Do they get married these days? Or do they live together to spare themselves aggro when the inevitable split comes?’
‘That’s a terribly cynical outlook,’ Nicole protested. ‘I’m sure the statistics would show that most people still get married and a lot of them stay married. How would a Desert Honeymoon tour differ from the regular Stars tours, Kesri?’
‘The idea has only just come to me. I haven’t worked out the details. Perhaps we would give them a larger and more luxurious tent. Obviously their privacy would be more important than on the regular tours. It might even be possible to give them the illusion of being alone in the desert without loss of service and security. If you were getting married, would a honeymoon in the desert appeal to you, Nicole?’
She thought about it before answering. For her a honeymoon seemed as unlikely as a trip to the moon.
‘I don’t think I’d mind where we went. The only important thing would be to be together. But there are a lot of people for whom big weddings and honeymoons in glamorous locations are important status symbols. I’m sure there’s a market for your idea, Kesri.’
‘I think so too. But Alex has raised some valid points. rd like you both to give it more thought.’ To his friend, he added, ‘You made a lot of useful comments when we were planning the regular tours.’
Nicole drank the last of her whisky. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll say goodnight.’
Neither man tried to detain her. With their usual meticulous manners they both rose to their feet Alex came to the door with her.
As she walked along the corridor, she wondered if, now she had gone, they were talking about her and what they were saying. She felt reasonably sure that Kesri thought well of her. But she had an uneasy feeling that her relationship with Alex, having passed through a more comfortable phase, was now reverting to quicksand. Earlier, before Kesri joined them, they had been on the verge of a row.
It was Dan himself who forced Nicole to stop putting off the moment when she asked Kesri for permission to have her son with her for the holidays. Shortly after her laptop had been returned to her in perfect working order, Dan sent her an email telling her about a website on the Internet where amazingly cheap air fares were on offer.
There are some cool deals, Mum, he wrote. Have a look when you’re next online.
She did and knew he was right in urging her to snap up a bargain. She also knew it was foolish to go on delaying. But it wasn’t telling Kesri that worried her. It was how Alex would react that had made her procrastinate.
After writing a note to Kesri, saying there was something important she wanted to discuss with him, she gave it to Tara to deliver to one of the Maharaja’s attendants. Within the hour, one of them came to fetch her.
Kesri was in his office reading a document. He rose to greet her, leaving his desk and indicating two comfortable chairs with a low table in front of them.
‘How can I help you, Nicole?’
She waited until they were both seated before, looking directly at him and coming straight to the point, she said, ‘I have a son called Dan. He’s at boarding-school in England. I’d like your permission to bring him here for the holidays.’
As he seemed too taken aback to reply, she went on, ‘You may feel that I should have made this clear before. But I felt it might jeopardise my chance of being appointed and I wanted this job very much.’
Kesri recovered from his astonishment. He said, ‘How old is he?’
‘Just thirteen.’
‘I don’t remember your exact date of birth, but you must have been very young when he was born.’
‘I was nineteen.’
‘And his father?’
‘He was the same age as I was. Wa-we were never married.’
She hoped he would accept the way things were and not want to know all the details.
‘I see,’ he said, after a pause.
But Nicole felt that he couldn’t possibly see. What had happened to her was so alien to his own culture, at least as far as women were concerned. She had heard that in Bombay, the hub of the Indian film industry, there was a section of society where young women were more sexually emancipated than in other cities. But everywhere else there were strict rules which girls were content to obey. They included no sex before marriage.
‘Certainly you may have your son to stay with you,’ said Kesri.
Although he was giving permission, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Had she fallen in his estimation? Perhaps when he had been at university, in England, later going on to Harvard, he had had casual love affairs with British and American girls. But probably, in his heart, he had compared them unfavourably with the chaste girls of his own culture.
To her relief, all he said was, ‘Do you have a photo of your son?’
Luckily she had her small shoulder bag with her and was able to produce a snapshot of Dan taken during her last days at home.
Kesri studied it. ‘He looks a fine boy. Is he clever...athletic...or both?’
‘He’s average at everything but one thing...computer technology. He wants to be a software designer.’
‘You say he’s at boarding-school. That must be a strain on your resources, or does his father help you with his education?’
‘My father is paying for his education. We don’t have any contact with Dan’s father.’
Again Kesri said, ‘I see,’ but she felt sure he didn’t.
It wasn’t an understandable situation: a father and son who had nothing to do with each other. Dan knew his father’s name but not that now he was better known by another name.
Her father was adamantly opposed to his grandson being told that the man who had opted out of his parental responsibilities had become the idol of millions of teenagers and showed no sign of losing his appeal to the young even now that he was on the wrong side of thirty.
‘Please don’t think that, when he’s here, I won’t give my full attention to my work,’ Nicole went on. ‘Dan is a very independent boy. He’ll be perfectly happy to amuse himself while I’m busy. I’ve never had to organise a programme of entertainments for him in the holidays, the way some parents do. He loves reading. When he’s not got his nose in a book, he’ll be perfectly happy exploring.’
‘I’m sure you are far too conscientious, and too interested in your work, to neglect it,’ he said. ‘Does he ride? No? Then perhaps he would like to learn. It can be a useful accomplishment.’
At that point his secretary came in with a document the Maharaja had asked him to find. Nicole took the hint that it was a busy day and she had been fitted in but should not stay too long. She thanked Kesri and left, much relieved that her ‘secret’ was out and had been received more calmly than she had expected.