by Anne Weale
But that was a long time ago and better forgotten, which was why he had decided an apartment in the haveli was the best location for starting this new phase of life. Then, with the best intentions, Kesri had scotched that plan and here they were, stuck in a situation that was plainly accentuating Nicole’s first-night nerves.
Why, at her age, with plenty of evidence that they would be good together, she was palpably jumpy, he wasn’t sure. It must have something to do with her previous experiences. It annoyed him to think of anyone treating her badly, even if only from thoughtlessness. Despite her professional assurance, in most other respects she seemed to him curiously vulnerable.
Nicole came round the corner of the big tent and saw Alex with his arms folded and an expression she could only describe as grim hardening his strongly marked features. It disturbed her that, thinking himself unobserved, he looked anything but happy. Though the grim look vanished when he saw her, she had an uneasy feeling he might already be regretting this precipitate marriage.
She debated asking him point-blank what was on his mind. But she doubted if he would tell her. It seemed best to behave as if she hadn’t noticed him looking like the dour Scot of popular myth.
‘The people who come here after us won’t be able to find fault with the washing facilities. Considering where we are, they’re amazing,’ she said brightly.
‘Good, I’m glad you approve,’ said Alex.
It seemed to her that, far from being that of an impatient bridegroom, his tone sounded more like a seasoned traveller on the first night of one of the package tours she had been on with her father. Polite but slightly wary of being trapped by the tour bore.
Wondering how they were going to get through the hours till bedtime, she was relieved when a small procession appeared and began the ritual of serving afternoon tea.
Tea was followed by drinks while watching the sun set. Then more drinks were served while they listened to old-fashioned records played on a wind-up gramophone that Kesri thought would amuse the sophisticated clientele he hoped would enjoy a return to the pleasures of the past.
They ate their dinner by candlelight, discussing the books they had read as children and teenagers. It wasn’t a strained conversation, but nor was it wholly relaxed, at least not on her side.
Alex ate his food slowly, savouring the subtle flavours of the dishes served to them on a thali, a round silver tray with various smaller containers arranged round its edge. Crested silver forks and spoons had been provided and they used them.
The best way to eat Indian food is with the fingers,’ he said. ‘Using cutlery is like drinking wine from a mug or through a straw. It doesn’t taste the same as it does from a wine glass. Some westerners aren’t comfortable eating moist food with their fingers. It’s a far more sensual experience and that makes them uneasy.’
‘Perhaps they were told off as children for having sticky fingers.’
‘You could be right. Most hang-ups do start that way. One of my sisters liked running around with bare feet. Then someone we had staying with us put it into her head that the heather was alive with snakes. There are snakes in that kind of terrain, but the risk of treading on an adder is minimal. But once a fear is implanted, it’s hard to get rid of it.’
‘I know. My mother was afraid of spiders and I’ve inherited that. But when Dan was little I made a big effort to control my revulsion so that he wouldn’t pick it up. Do you have any hang-ups, Alex?’
‘I’m not keen on caving. I’ve tried it a couple of times and was glad to get back above ground.’
She liked him for admitting to something he could have kept quiet about.
‘You are rather big for squirming through narrow tunnels. I wouldn’t like the dark and the danger of getting stuck. One of the masters at Marsden is mad keen on speleology. I’m praying he doesn’t make Dan want to try it. I don’t want to hold him back from anything he wants to do, but the thought of him trapped somewhere in the bowels of the earth...’
She gave an expressive shiver, at the same time wondering if it was tactless to keep bringing her son into the conversation when, tonight of all nights, her mind should be focussed on her husband.
‘I shouldn’t worry about it. At the moment he’s set his sights on learning to fly. That wouldn’t worry you, would it?’
‘Not at all. Flying, gliding, para-gliding...all those things seem more natural than burrowing under the earth.’
After dinner, coffee was served. At last the servants withdrew and they were really alone.
‘More music?’ Alex asked.
‘Fine by me,’ she agreed.
Instead of winding up the gramophone, he went to another section of the tent and came back with a transistor radio and a tape. As soon as it began to play, she recognised it as a favourite tape she had had to leave behind in England.
‘I have this too,’ she said, smiling.
‘Two unashamed middlebrows... that seems a good augury.’
By the time the tape finished, they had also used up all the coffee.
‘The showpiece of the desert is the sunrise,’ said Alex. ‘If we’re going to be up in time to see it, perhaps we should call it a day.’
‘I’ll go and brush my teeth.’ Nicole knew that her nightgown and robe had already been draped over a chair in the ablutions tent by whoever had unpacked her belongings.
In her early days at Karangarh, she had found it strange to have someone else handling her most personal belongings, but now she was accustomed to it. It wouldn’t have surprised her if Tara had been among their entourage, but it seemed that all their attendants were men.
A large vacuum jug was now by the basin on the washstand. She did not have to wash in cold water.
When she returned to the main tent, Alex was there before her. He was also wearing a robe of dark blue silk but without, she guessed, anything underneath it. There was a vee of bare chest showing between the lapels of the robe and his ankles were bare. On his feet he was wearing leather jootis, the decorative slippers worn by many Rajasthani men.
As she entered, he moved to the entrance to the inner tent and drew the flap aside. Feeling uncharacteristically nervous and shy, she moved past him into their bedroom.
Kesri had told her that, to attract and satisfy the richer tourists, it was necessary to provide a high degree of comfort with good camp beds and washing facilities that were not going to offend the most fastidious tourists.
Normally the sleeping tents were doubles equipped with twin beds. But in this tent a large divan had been prepared. It looked as if it were made from three single mattresses laid alongside each other and covered with specially woven sheets and an extra-large custom-made quilt.
Uncertain what to do, she stood with clasped hands looking at the thick candles inside glass shades that gave off a soft glow from the low tables placed on either side of the divan.
‘It’s been a long day. I expect what you’d really like is to curl up and go to sleep,’ Alex said quietly.
He had closed the flap and was standing with his hands thrust into the two patch pockets on the front of his robe.
The truthful answer would have been, ‘Yes, I would.’
But how could she say that to him?
She was his wife now. Even if the western world had moved on since the days when people talked about a husband’s ‘rights’, the fact remained that men on their wedding night expected their brides to be willing participants in the pleasures of the nuptial bed.
Alex moved to where she was standing. Withdrawing his hands from his pockets, he placed them lightly on her shoulders. ‘Let’s try to be honest and open with each other, Nicole. This isn’t an ordinary marriage. We’ve played the parts required of us in public. It’s up to us how we deal with our private life. There are no rules, no “musts”. Let’s ignore the conventions and follow our instincts. My instinct tells me you need to relax and rest. So let’s both do that, shall we?’
Taking her by the hand, he led her to one
side of the bed where he stooped to turn back the covers. As if she were a child, he unfastened the sash of her robe, then moved round behind her to peel it back from her shoulders. When her arms were free of the sleeves, he said, ‘Hop in. The sheets won’t be cold. There are old-fashioned metal hot-water bottles between them.’
While she was climbing in, he put her robe over a camp chair before removing the shade from the candle and pinching out the flame between his finger and thumb.
Unable to believe he was willing to forego what usually happened on a wedding night, Nicole pulled the covers up to her chin and watched him walk round the divan to the other side. As he unfastened his own robe, she averted her eyes.
He got into bed before he extinguished the candle on his side of the bed. Then the tent was plunged into total darkness.
With her lying close to one side and him on the other, there was quite a large area of no man’s land between them.
‘Goodnight, my dear. Sleep well.’
‘Goodnight.’
Perversely, now that she had been let off the hook, she felt disappointed, even resentful. All he had done by postponing their first congress was to prolong the tension. Goodnight, my dear. How middle-aged it sounded. The sort of thing men of her father’s age said to wives for whom sex was a duty, not a delight.
She wondered how he would react if she were to take off her nightdress, wriggle across the empty territory between them and snuggle invitingly against him. But she didn’t have the courage to find out. Which, for a woman of her age who had some experience, if not much, was ridiculous. If you could believe all you read, there were girls still in their teens who would deal with this situation without turning a hair. So why was she in such a dither about it?
Some time in the night, she woke up to find that while she had been sleeping the situation had changed. There was now an arm round her waist and her back was in close contact with a warm male chest.
It felt good. It felt very good. But how had it come about? Had he wrapped himself round her knowingly? Or could he have done it in his sleep? The latter didn’t seem likely, considering how much space had separated them earlier.
As she lay considering the situation, there was a movement behind her. He lifted his head from the pillow and she felt his mouth touching the top of her shoulder, placing a row of feather-light kisses along it.
Nicole stayed very still, feigning sleep, which was hard to do while her heart was beginning to pound. Did he know she was awake? Or was he hoping to wake her?
He retraced the row of kisses, moving in the direction of her neck. At the same time, the arm round her waist drew back so that his hand was no longer resting somewhere on the bed in front of her but was beginning to explore her midriff. Instinctively Nicole tightened her tummy muscles and was glad she had when his hand strayed down past her navel and gently caressed the area between her hipbones.
She waited, her breathing arrested, for the exploration of her body to continue in a downwards direction. Instead of which it changed course and moved upwards.
As she often did, she had been sleeping with one hand under the pillow and her uppermost arm crossing her chest with the hand hooked round the outer end of her shoulder. This made it easy for his hand to make a leisurely reconnaissance of the soft curves of her breasts. Which in turn made it harder for her to lie motionless and keep her breathing steady.
His mouth was moving up the side of her neck now. When it reached the sensitive place behind her ear, she knew she couldn’t pretend to be sleeping any longer. It was time to go through the motions of waking up. Slowly she straightened her legs and made a slight flexing movement of her shoulders.
The warm mouth moved to her nape and lingered there, sending slow ripples of pleasure down her spine.
Gently but firmly Alex turned her onto her back.
‘I don’t think you need a nightdress now you have me to keep you warm,’ he said, in a husky murmur, starting to remove it.
Nicole lifted her hips and then her shoulders, raising her arms above her head as he gathered the gossamer fabric and, when it was free, tossed it into the darkness. Then, for the first time, they were naked in each other’s arms.
In reality it was a hundred times more exciting than in her imagination. She clung to him, parting her lips when she felt the touch of his mouth, pressing herself against him, wanting to make him feel welcome. There was no point in holding back now. Even if he didn’t want her heart, at least she could be generous with her body.
When Nicole woke up it was light. She hadn’t noticed last night, but the inner tent had two ‘windows’ which now had their flaps tied back to let in the early sunlight. The openings were still covered by insect-proof netting but it was too fine to obscure her view of the sunrise filling the sky with opalescent colours.
She slid out of bed and reached for her robe. She felt a different person from the woman who had woken yesterday. What had happened during the night had been a revelation. Yesterday she would not have believed that a man could be so tender, so patient, so determined to defer his pleasure until he had made sure of hers.
The experience had been totally unlike her initiation. Then, although she had been, or thought herself, madly in love with Dan’s father, making love had been a traumatic disappointment. It had hurt. It had left her wondering what all the fuss was about. It had also made her pregnant. With convincing worldliness, Pete had said he would take care of things. But he hadn’t.
This time the issue hadn’t arisen. Alex wanted children and so did she. But, ironically, it was unlikely they had started a baby last night. It was the wrong time of her cycle.
Outside the tent’s main entrance, on a rug spread under the canopy, two chairs had been placed on either side of a table. Here Alex was drinking tea and watching the sky change.
He rose to his feet when she joined him and said a smiling, ‘Good morning. You’re up early. I thought you would sleep late.’
‘On my first day in the desert? I wish you had called me earlier. I wanted to see the whole sunrise...not just the last of it’
‘It will happen again tomorrow. Would you like some tea? They’ve only just brought it to me. Breakfast will come in about half an hour.’
‘I’d love a cup. But first I must brush my teeth. You’ve already shaved, I see.’
He ran a hand over his jaw. ‘I didn’t think you’d go for a scratchy chin.’
When she returned with her face washed and her hair combed, he filled the. other cup for her. ‘So tell me, Mrs Strathallen, how did you find your first night in the desert?’
The gleam of amusement in his eyes and the memory of all that had happened in the darkness of the inner tent brought a flood of colour to her cheeks.
‘It was...amazing.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘It was all and more than I hoped for. But I know I have a lot to learn about pleasing you. I’m not as au fait with these things as most women of my age. I haven’t had a lot of practice.’
The next night, after their meal, Alex suggested a walk.
It was a bright moonlit night. Even the patterns left by the wind on the dunes were visible.
When they were out of sight of the camp, she said, ‘The stars are brighter than I’ve ever seen them. I suppose that’s because there’s no light pollution. It seems a shame that children growing up in cities will never see stars as clearly as we can tonight.’
‘You’ll get a crick in your neck. Try star-gazing lying down.’
They were walking on hard stony ground but nearby were some dunes. Taking her hand, he led her towards them. Near the foot of a long slope of sand, he took off his fleece and spread it for her.
‘Alex, you’ll freeze,’ she objected.
At night the temperature dropped. She had her fleece zipped up though he had been wearing his open.
‘Not for five minutes, I won’t.’ He lowered himself to the sand, pulling her down
beside him.
It was a marvellous experience, lying with her head resting comfortably on his shoulder and uncountable near and distant stars shimmering in the mysterious vastness of the night sky.
‘I don’t know why I can’t get excited about space travel. Dan is longing to go. I suppose you are too,’ she murmured, the stillness making a lowered voice seem appropriate.
‘Not particularly. Dan is a child of the Space Age. Given the choice of an age to be born in, I’ve have preferred the pre-industrialised world.’ He paused. ‘Right now the only thing that excites me is you.’
Suddenly the night sky was blotted out by the shape of his head above hers. ‘I want you,’ he whispered fiercely against her mouth.
She knew that he meant here and now. For a second or two she was shocked, but also excited. There was something wild and primitive about making love in the open under the stars.
She put her arms round him. ‘Then take me. rm all yours.’
Afterwards, as they walked back, it seemed like something she had dreamed. Could she really have made love in that urgent, almost savage way with a man who found her desirable but didn’t pretend to love her? And how long would their mutual lust last when, on his side, there were no deeper feelings to support it?
Later, when they went to bed, Alex left the candle alight on his side of the bed. Lying on his back with one hand under his head, he searched for and found her hand.
‘Your appearance is deceptive. You look cool and self-contained. I always suspected you weren’t. Are you tired now?’
‘Not very.’ She tried not to smile. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’d like you to show me how much you know about making love to a man. What you don’t know, I’ll teach you.’