An Arabian Courtship

by Lynne Graham

  To say the very least, Raschid’s behaviour had been erratic since they had received the news of her father’s heart attack. Then, when he had talked of a more normal relationship, he had withdrawn from her in every way. He had stayed away, maintaining a contact of skeletal cool…and then the flowers. If there was an explicable pattern there, Polly was darned if she could see it.

  She wakened to grey light and the bloodcurdling roar of an angry camel. Around her the covers were undisturbed. Raschid hadn’t slept beside her. As soon as she sat up, a slender Bedouin girl appeared with water for her to wash. She must have been sitting outside the tent listening for the first sound. Giggling shyly at Polly’s halting attempts to communicate, she gave her name as Hirfa. It took considerable dumbshow to request her need for a pair of scissors. Polly put on her loosest dress and then cut the top off the aba, dropping the butchered garment over her shoulders to cover her bare legs. She was pleased to have solved the clothing problem so easily.

  When she finally left the tent, half a dozen chattering women converged on it. The camp had almost vanished but for the tent roof under which Raschid’s oversleeping wife had rested. The men were congregated round the fires drinking tea in relaxation while their wives and daughters laboured to pack every possession.

  Nearby Raschid lifted a hand, motioning Polly over.

  ‘Join us,’ he invited. ‘Do you want some tea?’

  In some surprise she sank down beside him. His companions were noticeably quiet at the unconventional development. ‘It’s cool, isn’t it?’ she remarked, a conversational opener that only had Mahmoud dispatched to fetch her a rug she didn’t need.

  At Raschid’s signal, the teamaker served her first with the next round. Smiles were in evidence as Raschid said something.

  ‘What did you say?’ Polly wanted to know.

  ‘Never mind. You are accepted because I accept you here.’

  Acceptance was a dubious honour. The strong tea, thick with sugar, was served without milk and most of the men were smoking. The fumes were taxing on her sensitive stomach, and she dimly wondered why; smoke had never bothered her until recently. But, listening to the melodic rise and fall of voices, a kind of peace embraced her. The confrontation over, perhaps the talking would come soon.

  ‘I thought desert travel was all down to trucks these days,’ she confided when some of the men had drifted away.

  ‘This is deep dune country,’ Raschid explained. ‘The four-wheel-drive which may traverse this terrain has not yet been invented, and even if it was, these Bedouin could not afford it. There are no roads in the interior—the sands would soon swallow them up. In summer when the tribe stay by the borewells they use old trucks to transport water to their livestock, but they leave them with settled relatives or sell them when it is time for the winter migration. I agree that this background is not for you.’

  Polly tensed. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  He shrugged. ‘At this time of year I usually spend some time in the desert. When we had been apart for so long, I could not let you return to the palace.’

  ‘I’m quite happy here,’ she assured him.

  ‘Conditions are spartan,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ Polly was starting to get annoyed.

  His narrowed eyes rested on her. ‘Perhaps I do.’

  ‘Perhaps you just don’t want me here!’

  He sighed. ‘You are over-sensitive this morning, and that is also my fault.’ He sprang up and moved a rueful hand. ‘Everyone awaits us.’

  Cocooned back within the litter, she reflected on his calm, uninformative manner. Was he thinking over what she had said? Having mastered his temper, was he now seeing reason? At least he was speaking to her again. Great, Polly, you can read a lot into that, she thought. Why aren’t you angry with him? You have every right to be angry.

  The long, winding cavalcade trailed steadily out into the desert wastes. As the burning crimson orb of the sun ascended, the brilliance of the colours shed on the sands fascinated her. Occasionally strange formations of volcanic rock interrupted the vast landscape, but as the sun reached its zenith, the glare sapped the earth beneath of life. Polly was nearly asleep sitting up when the caravan came to a sluggish halt.

  Moving her cramped limbs was agony, and Raschid came to her assistance. As his arms released her, her head swam dizzily. Everything blurred into formless shades of grey and she passed out cold.

  Woozily meeting the stark azure eyes above hers, she mumbled, ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know what…’

  The concern harshening his features eased. ‘This journey is too taxing for you.’

  An improvised shelter had been erected to provide her with shade. Self-pity overcame her and the tears welled up. She was hot and sweaty and miserable, and Raschid was giving her a look that said she must have been feeling ill to faint and why hadn’t she mentioned it sooner? But she hadn’t been feeling ill.

  ‘Don’t cry. Of all the female weapons I abhor, tears are the most unfair,’ he muttered. ‘And it is worse that it is not a weapon with you.’

  Since there wasn’t a weapon in her armoury that she wouldn’t use to hang on to him, the exasperating gush continued. What was wrong with her? Of late she had emulated a wet weekend all too often and all too easily.

  ‘Polly…I beg of you.’ Presented with a tissue, she guiltily mopped up.

  Unnerved by the brooding gravity of his appraisal, she looked away, and he sighed. ‘In marrying you I have caused you great unhappiness.’ His deep, dark drawl was very low-pitched. ‘Sometimes, as the sun at noon, you can make me a little crazy…or a lot crazy, like last night. Unlike you, I do not share my feelings easily, and some, believe me, are more wisely kept private. But I must ask your pardon for doubting your loyalty. I did not have sufficient cause to condemn you unheard.’

  She was weighted by the funereal atmosphere. ‘It’s forgotten,’ she hastened to tell him.

  ‘You are too forgiving. I have not treated you as I promised.’

  Polly had to gulp inelegantly into the tissue to fend off another flood. By then Raschid was already rising and helping her up. ‘The tent is prepared and you must rest. I had hoped that today we might travel on to Aldeza, but you are too tired. You have still to sleep off your jetlag.’

  ‘What’s at Aldeza?’

  He said something in incomprehensible Arabic and his mouth tightened wryly. ‘The Palace of the Fountains. You will be comfortable there at least.’

  She awoke to soft, artificial light. Once more Hirfa magically appeared. Unfortunately Polly couldn’t understand what the girl was asking her and she left again. When she returned with Raschid, Polly was wretchedly conscious of her bedraggled appearance.

  ‘Hirfa wishes to know if you want a bath,’ he explained.

  ‘A bath?’ she echoed.

  He laughed huskily. ‘We are near a well. I bathed earlier. Even if the legendary luxury of an Arab prince’s desert dwelling must fall far short of popular and romantic expectation,’ he added wryly, ‘at least you may be clean.’

  An antiquated tin bath was carted in. It took buckets and buckets of lightly steaming water to fill it. Embarrassed by the labour involved, Polly only stopped feeling conscience-stricken when she was free to luxuriate in water for once more than an inch deep. It was heavenly! She thought of Raschid’s smile, his laughter. Later, she mused dizzily, with a wicked little shiver of anticipation, later he would make love to her. Even as she dried herself, her skin moistened and her cheeks warmed. She was a prey to the thousand erotic images imprinted on her memory bank.

  But dinner was not to be the cosy twosome she had innocently pictured. After helping her to dress, Hirfa ushered her outside. In the centre of the camp, a large fire was burning. Round it the men were gathered. On its environs the womenfolk were cooking on small fires and in between the children were running about, noisy in their excitement.

  As she settled beside Raschid he explained that since they were leaving the ca
mp in the morning, he was playing host to thank the Bedouin for their hospitality. Private conversation was impossible, and when the men rested back to smoke and recite the long, tall stories and legends that richly endowed their spoken heritage, Polly bowed out, recognising that her presence was acting as something of a dampener. She drifted back to the tent and got ready for bed.

  It was ages before Raschid followed suit. Shyly she kept her eyes closed while he undressed. When he slid in beside her, the minutes slowly passed and he made no move to touch her. She had feigned sleep too well.

  ‘I’m awake,’ she muttered, then flushed.

  ‘Count chickens,’ he advised shortly.

  ‘It’s sheep, not chickens.’

  ‘Sleep, Polly.’ The message was succinct.

  Rejection bit deep. Although pride urged her to silence, she could not maintain it. ‘Are you still suspicious about Chris?’ she asked him.

  ‘No.’

  Stiff with hurt and bewilderment, she whispered, ‘Then why—?’

  In the gloom Raschid moved. A match was struck and a lamp shed unwelcome clarity on her hot face. ‘It is wiser this way.’

  Stunned, she dropped her head. ‘Yet when I wanted it this way, you wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘I was wrong.’ He seemed to be measuring his words carefully, and well he might have done, for her temper was starting to rise. ‘I am not afraid to admit myself at fault. The money…it was less than nothing to me. I should have let you sleep alone. I won’t take advantage of you in that fashion again.’

  Evading visual contact, Polly bit her lower lip. ‘And if I were to say that you wouldn’t be…er…taking advantage…?’

  ‘My answer would still be the same.’ As she flinched, his hand pressed her flat, forcing her to meet the charged glitter of his eyes. ‘Do you think that I no longer want you? That is not the case. But once you said that I demeaned you, and I did. How could I not? Our marriage goes nowhere. It can go nowhere,’ he spelt out harshly. ‘We have no future together.’

  ‘You never saw one!’ Polly was torn by an agony that was almost physical.

  His fingers slid slowly from her shoulder. ‘No, I did not. You love children, and I—I have been through that war once with a woman, and I know too well its end. Even with love it could not work.’

  In the chaos of those early days at Ladybright, it hadn’t occurred to her that Raschid was seeing her with children for the first time. But even registering that rare betrayal of his vulnerability, she was beaten back into a passion of pain by his concluding statement. He was talking about Berah—Berah, who exerted the same deep hold on him in death as she had alive, and that was the real reason in her opinion why he had no room for Polly in his life.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about her. She was weak and selfish, and she wasn’t a saint.’ As anger and hurt clawed cruelly at her, the last remnants of her control came crashing down. ‘And she’s ruined you for anybody else!’

  Perceptibly he curbed the anger hardening his facial muscles. ‘I know you mean no disrespect. Had you any real understanding of how desperately unhappy she was, you wouldn’t speak like that. She did not ruin me. If anything, it was I who destroyed her. I watched her change from a contented and uncomplicated girl into a bitterly insecure and disturbed woman.’

  ‘But I…am…not…her!’ Her throat was thick and full. ‘And I love you.’

  A profound silence enclosed the involuntary spill of her words. She shut her eyes tightly, physically willing the clock to turn back and reclaim her confession.

  ‘You are distraught. You do not know what you are saying.’ Raschid’s withdrawal was instantaneous, a cold wind across tender flesh.

  She was too bitterly upset to heed the warning. ‘Don’t I? It may be an emotion foreign to you in relation to me, but I know how I feel!’

  Dark blood had burnished his high cheekbones. Slashing a hand down in finality, he reached for his woollen tobe. ‘No more. In the morning you will regret this.’

  ‘All I regret,’ she framed with a shaky sincerity that had its own dignity, ‘is falling in love with a man who is afraid to feel anything for any woman. What did she do to you?’ she continued painfully.

  A tremor racked him. He lifted his clear, compelling eyes from the ground and challenged hers fiercely. She knew that he hated her for witnessing his naked emotion and probing clumsily at wounds that had never healed. After four years he couldn’t even bear to talk about Berah. In inflicting pain on him, Polly suffered doubly, for she felt his pain as if it was her own. In stark fear, she had lost her head, for if he shut her out of his bed, he shut her out altogether. Her heart belonged to him, but it was an unsolicited gift he had cast aside without hesitation. Then who wanted to find love where they felt none? Her love had no intrinsic value. What had she believed she might awaken with her foolish admission? Pity would have heaped coals of fire on her.

  What did she do to you? He hadn’t answered. Polly could have answered for him. She had died.

  Some timeless period on in that endless, hellish night, Raschid returned. In silence she lay there until dawn spread a grey pall of light. She must have slept then, for the racket of rotor blades rudely awakened her and the heat that had damply slicked her limbs told her the day must now be well advanced. As she sat up, she was disconcerted to find Raschid seated at the corner of the bed, his probing scrutiny mercilessly pinned to her.

  ‘The plane…?’ she queried.

  ‘Aldeza is a half-day’s ride from here. By air it will take less than half an hour.’

  She fiddled with the fringed edge of the rug. ‘You’re still speaking to me.’ It was a limp attempt at humour.

  ‘Strange as it may seem in the light of recent events, we are not, I hope, undisciplined children.’ The cool controlled politeness with the edge of satire she dreaded was back. A tortured sense of frustration consumed her. The barriers were erected again with a vengeance.

  * * *

  At first glimpse Aldeza stole Polly’s breath away. At the second it stole her heart. An exotically beautiful white marble palace of crowned domes and slender minarets, it shimmered a dozen tranquil reflections in the stilled waters of the silent stone fountains dotting its superb frontage. On every side lush gardens of shaded arbours and trellised walks beckoned and vibrant roses of every imaginable hue flourished against the oasis of greenery. The Palace of the Fountains was a polished jewel enhanced by an exquisite setting.

  Built four hundred years ago by an ancestor of Raschid’s, the hilltop palace had lain empty for over fifty years. Polly couldn’t understand why nobody in the family had previously mentioned its existence to her. Surely they must visit this beautiful place? Before they entered the building, she darted over to a glorious climbing rose and snapped off a single, unfurling bud.

  ‘Why don’t the fountains work?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe they must have fallen into disrepair. That can be rectified,’ Raschid assured her.

  ‘Oh, don’t make that effort on my account!’ she snapped.

  Doors stood wide on a huge, deserted entrance hall, lined by carved pillars. An army could have marched before them. Mosaic tiles in every shade from lapis lazuli to deepest emerald patterned every surface with spectacular effect. ‘This is out of this world,’ Polly said reverently, cricking her neck and turning slowly. ‘I’ve never seen anything…’

  ‘Quite so reminiscent of an Arabian Nights fantasy?’ As he watched her, an irreverent grin banished his austerity. ‘At last I have pleased!’

  Resenting his ability to tease her when she was employing conscious effort to conceal her absolute misery, she moved away. ‘Why is it empty?’

  ‘The situation is remote and not easily accessible. In the days before hunting was prohibited, my father would bring parties of guests here. But now Aldeza has become a white elephant. When the family desire a change of scene they head for the Costa del Sol and the nightlife. We have a villa there.’ He paused. ‘Did I tell you that Asif and Cha
ssa are in Spain at present?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I believe that their problems are at an end,’ he remarked.

  Polly folded her arms. ‘Good for them. Who last lived here?’

  She could feel his frown on her back. But his family were not her family, and he had slapped her down on the one occasion she had dared to believe otherwise. She would not be drawn now to invite another snub.

  ‘My grandmother, Louise. She lived here alone for many years.’

  She spun. ‘Louise? That’s not an Arabic name.’

  Raschid looked at her in surprise. ‘She was French. I thought you would have known that.’

  ‘It never fails to amaze me what you imagine I might magically know without being told,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Or me of what you might learn did you but ask.’

  Her teeth gritted. ‘I am asking. How did you acquire a French grandmother?’

  ‘Her father was an anthropologist, who came here to write a book on the nomadic culture. Louise worked as his assistant. My grandfather, Salim, only met her once to fall violently in love with her.’ His firm mouth curled dismissively. ‘Much happiness it brought to either of them!’

  ‘It sounds romantic to me,’ observed Polly.

  ‘They broke up within two years and spent the next fifteen living apart. Does that sound romantic?’ Raschid threw her a sardonic smile. ‘But of course I would not know what might fall within that category, would I?’

  ‘You said it, and if he was one bit like you, I’m not…’ The curious sound of a stick tapping across the tiled floor whipped her head around.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A WIZENED little old lady, shrunken by age into a bent bundle of black cloth, was approaching them, flapping a hand to harry the servants hurrying behind her. As she creaked down low before Raschid, he tried unsuccessfully to persuade her from the attempt, but down she went, jabbering in shrill excitement, her blackbird-bright eyes avidly pinned to them both.