by Trish Morey
Instead she tried to focus on the young woman’s story, and why she was here now, travelling across the desert with such a tiny infant. It was not ideal, the woman acknowledged, but necessary, as her husband’s mother was seriously ill in hospital in Shafar, and they had promised to take their new baby, named Maisha in her honour, to meet her. But her husband was impatient, and had been pushing their aging vehicle too hard. It was lucky they had made it as far as the oasis before the radiator had blown completely.
The toddlers, no more than eighteen months old, had been content to wait at their mother’s side while she fed the baby, but now demanded more of their mother’s attention. They wanted to paddle in the shallows, and they wanted their mother to take them. Both of them.
Their mother looked lost, though the babe at her breast had thankfully finished feeding and was now sleeping, and Sera could see the woman was trying to work out how to juggle them all.
‘Mama, plee-ease,’ the toddlers insisted, and their mother looked more conflicted than ever.
‘I could hold the baby,’ Sera suggested, ‘if it might help?’
And the mother looked at her briefly, taking less than a second to decide whether to entrust this stranger with her tiny baby before making up her mind. She smiled, propping the baby up on her shoulder and patting its back. ‘Bless you,’ she said.
The baby joined in with a loud burp that set the girls off with a fresh round of giggles. The girls’ laughter was infectious, and Sera found herself joining in the glee before the mother passed the baby over to her waiting arms. The infant squirmed as it settled into the crook of her arm, nestled into her lap, while the mother swooped her robe over one arm and kicked off her sandals, her own smile broadening. She held a twin’s hand securely in each of her own, and the trio ventured gingerly into the water, the girls shrieking with delight as they splashed in the shallows.
In her arms the baby stirred and sighed a sigh, blowing milky bubbles before settling down into sleep, one little arm raised, the hand curled into a tiny fist. So tiny. So perfect. Sera touched the pad of one finger to its downy cheek. So soft.
She smiled in spite of the sadness that shrouded her own heart—sadness for the missed opportunities, the children she’d never borne and maybe now never would, and ran her fingers over the baby’s already thick black hair, drinking in the child’s perfect features, the sooty lashes resting on her cheeks, the tiny nose, the delicate cupid’s bow mouth squeezed amidst the plump cheeks.
So utterly defenceless. So innocent. And then her mind made sense of it all. Maybe it was better that she’d never had children. After all, she’d proved incapable of even taking care of her own tiny kittens.
The children laughed and splashed and squealed in the shallows, and the baby slept on, safe in Sera’s arms.
When one of the drivers laid out a blanket with refreshments for them, and the children whooped and fell on the picnic, their hunger now paramount, Sera told the mother to look after the girls first. Once again the mother smiled her thanks as she helped her hungry toddlers feast.
Not long after, with the radiator cooled and refilled, their car was pronounced fit to go and the mother thanked Sera as she scooped her sleeping infant back into her arms. ‘But you haven’t had anything to eat yourself yet,’ she protested, as the remains of their quick repast were already being cleared away.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sera replied honestly, for the woman had given her a greater gift—the feel of a newborn in her arms and the sweet scent of baby breath.
Although that gift had come with a cost, she realised, as she waved the mother and her children goodbye, smiling as she wished them well in spite of the tears in her eyes. She’d almost forgotten in the past few years how much she’d wanted children. She’d almost come to terms with the fact she might never have them.
And right now that reawakened pain was almost more than she could bear.
She turned and walked slowly towards the pool again, the sadness squeezing her heart until she was sure it would bleed tears.
She sniffed down on her disappointment, willing it back into the box where she’d kept it locked away until now. They would be resuming their journey shortly; the drivers were already making their final checks of the vehicles and re-stowing their gear. Rafiq had thankfully kept his distance while the woman and her children were here, but soon she would have to put up with his thundercloud-dark presence again. She needed to get herself under control before then.
Rafiq looked at the map one more time, trying to focus, trying to assimilate what the father of the small family, a local, had informed them—that the mountain track up to Marrash had suffered in recent landslips and that progress could be slower than they expected.
It was news Rafiq hadn’t wanted to hear, for it meant that there was a chance they mightn’t make Marrash tonight. The local man had advised that it would be madness to try to negotiate the treacherous mountain road in the dark. Both drivers had agreed, suggesting that perhaps they should make use of the camp at the coast. The truck that had set out earlier would have prepared for their arrival, and the camp was even now being readied for them.
But he didn’t want this trip taking any longer than one night, and if they stopped tonight and negotiations in Marrash took too much time they might well have to spend a second night at the camp, so he’d argued that if they cut their break short and pressed on now they could still be in Marrash by nightfall.
He didn’t want to run the risk of having to spend two nights away from the palace.
And it wasn’t only because he had to get back for the state banquet being held in Kareef’s honour.
He gave up pretending to study the map and looked over to the pool, where the real source of his irritation sat at the edge, gazing fixedly at…
He tried to follow her line of sight, but there was nothing but sand beyond the fringe of trees and nothing to see.
He’d thought this trip would be so easy, that he would be the one irritating her, but her presence was akin to the rub of sandpaper against flesh, the continual abrasion stinging and ferocious on flesh raw and weeping, and he wondered about the sanity of making this journey at all. Would not his business survive without his hunting down a fabric made by some village high up in the mountains? And it could still be a wild goose chase. He didn’t even know at this stage if he was all that interested.
It was bad enough that he would be forced to spend the next twenty-four hours with her. The last thing he needed was to spend more because of the parlous state of the roads. He would speak to Kareef about those. For all Qusay’s wealth from its emerald mines, and the wide highways leading out of the city, there remained plenty of places where money could be used. The roads in this part of the desert were definitely one of them.
He growled his irritation and looked back at the map. Just as quickly he looked back again, frowning this time. For she looked sad again, her expression hauntingly beautiful, but sad all the same.
He’d seen her smile when she’d been holding the child, and he’d even heard her laughing—or had he just imagined that? But she’d definitely smiled. He had seen her face light up, filled with love as she had rocked the sleeping baby in her arms.
It had been hard to look away then, because for a moment, just a moment, he had seen the face of the girl he had fallen in love with.
‘She is not the girl you once knew.’
Like a blow to the body, his mother’s words came back to him in a rush.
No, she was not the girl he’d known before. She was a widow now.
Hussein’s widow.
Impatiently he tossed the map aside. Regardless of the advice from their visitor, they would have to get going. He was determined to make Marrash this evening.
She started as he drew close, her eyes widening in surprise as he approached, before her head dipped, her gaze once again going to the ground. ‘Is it time?’
Her voice was serenity itself, and he knew the shutters were back, slammed eve
r so meekly and serenely, but nevertheless slammed effectively in his face. What would it take to shake her up? What would it take to shake her out of that comfort zone she retreated to every time he so much as looked at her?
‘I always thought you wanted a big family—six children at least.’
There was a rapid intake of breath, a pause, and he wondered if she was remembering that very same day, when they’d raced their horses along the beach, hot rushing air accompanied by the splash of foam and the flick of sand, their mounts neck and neck along the long sweep of coast. And finally, with both horses and riders panting, they’d collapsed from their mounts’ backs onto the warm sand and shared their dreams for their future together. ‘A big family,’ she’d said, laughing, her black hair rippling against the arm her head had nestled against. ‘Two boys and two girls, and then maybe one or two more, because four will surely not be enough to love.’
And he’d pretended to be horrified. ‘So many children to provide for! So many children to love. Who will have time to love me?’
And she’d leaned over him and brushed a lock of hair from his brow, her hand resting on his cheek. ‘I will always love you.’
He still remembered the kiss that had followed, the feel of his heart swelling in his chest with so much joy that there had been no room left in his lungs for air. But he hadn’t needed air then—not with her love to sustain him.
More fool him.
‘Maybe,’ the woman before him finally admitted, dragging him back to the present. ‘Maybe once.’
‘And yet you never had children of your own.’
Her hands wrung together, her bowed head moving from side to side, agitated, as if his line of questioning was too uncomfortable, as if looking for a means of escape. He wasn’t about to provide it, not when he needed so many answers himself.
‘Why not?’
Now the movement of her head turned into a shake. One hand lifted to her forehead to quell it, and her voice, when it came, was nowhere near as steady as she would no doubt wish. ‘It… It didn’t happen.’
‘Didn’t Hussein want children?’
Her agitation increased; her eyes were raised now, and appealing for him to desist. ‘Why does it matter to you? Why can’t you accept it? It just didn’t happen!’
‘What a waste,’ he said, not prepared to give up yet—not when there were so many unanswered questions and when she looked so uncomfortable. ‘Because I saw you with that baby.’ She looked up at him, her eyes wide, suddenly vulnerable, as if wondering at this change of tone. ‘You looked good with it. I always thought you would make the perfect mother.’
Her mouth opened on a cry, and she snapped it shut, turning her head away, but not quickly enough that he could miss the moisture springing onto her lashes.
‘Did you love him?’ Anger surged in his veins like a flood tide. Was that why she was crying? Because she’d wanted her husband’s children so desperately and she would forever mourn not having them? It pained him to ask, but he was here with her now, and somehow it was more important than ever that he know the truth. ‘Did you love Hussein?’
She squeezed her eyes together, and then near exploded with her answer. ‘He was my husband!’
Her words sparked a short-circuit in his brain. ‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ he said, snapping back with equal ferocity, his voice as raw as his emotions. ‘I was there—remember? One year in the desert I had to endure, to learn the skills to be a man, but one month in and all I learned was that I couldn’t survive without you, that I needed to be with you. But you couldn’t wait one year. In fact, you couldn’t even wait four short weeks!’
She dropped her face into her hands. ‘Rafiq, please—’
‘And I found my would-be bride, all dressed up in her wedding finery, the most beautiful bride I could ever imagine, and for a moment—just one short, pathetic moment—I thought that you had somehow known I was returning. And that this was to be the day we would be bound together as man and wife for ever.’ He looked down at her, his fury rising, seeing only the vision of her back at the palace, a gown of spun gold clinging to her slim form, row after row of gold chains around her neck, her dark kohl-rimmed eyes wide with shock as he appeared in the doorway, the cry rent from his lungs, the cry of a beast in agony. ‘But it was not to be our day, was it? Not when you were standing at the altar ready to marry another man!’
‘Rafiq,’ she said softly, and he recognised her trying to reason with him when he knew there was no reason. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. But… But I had no choice.’
‘You had a choice! You chose Hussein. You chose life as a wealthy ambassador’s wife over life with me.’
‘Please, that’s not true. You knew my father had promised me to him. You knew it could happen.’
‘While I was away? Yes, there was talk of an arrangement. But you saw me leave for the desert for a year. You let me go. You kissed me goodbye, promised that you would be waiting for me on my return and that we would overcome our families’ objections. I thought you would be strong enough to wait that long. But you were too much of a coward. I had no sooner disappeared from sight before you formalised the arrangements to marry Hussein behind my back.’
‘It wasn’t like that!’
‘No? Then what was it like?’
She raised her face to the sky and shook her head from side to side. ‘What did you expect me to do? I had seen what happened after my best friend Jasmine returned from the desert, close to death, because she and your brother had chosen to defy their parents’ wishes for their future.’
She paused, remembering Rafiq’s father and how he had laughed at her when she had protested at marrying Hussein, pleading that she had promised to marry Rafiq. ‘I will choose my sons’ brides,’ he had decreed. ‘Look at the mess Kareef has made of his life. That will not be allowed to happen to Rafiq.’ She swallowed back on the memories. How could Rafiq pretend not to understand?
‘How could I do the same to my family—to yours!—after that? How could I shame them that way when I had seen what it had cost everyone?’
He brushed her words aside. ‘You told me you loved me!’
‘I know, but—’
‘Which is why you married Hussein when I had been gone less than a month. Because you loved me! What a total fool you made of me.’
‘Rafiq, please, you must listen…’
‘Do you know how I felt standing there? Do you have any idea what it was like to have everyone’s eyes upon me, to have your father and Hussein openly sneering in victory, others filled with pity, feeling sorry for me, poor Rafiq, the last one to know what everyone else had known all along. That you never had any intention of marrying me.’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘But even that wasn’t enough for you, was it? Because, not content with simply humiliating me in front of the entire palace, you then had to grind my love into the dirt!’
She shook her head again, one hand at her brow, the other over her mouth, and he wanted to growl and shake her. If there was a prize for affectation, a prize for acting melodramatic, pretending that she cared, she would win it hands-down. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
He snorted his disbelief. ‘Like hell! You delighted in it. Because when I pleaded with you, when I begged you to halt the wedding, to tell me—to tell everyone—that it was me you loved and not Hussein, you looked me in the eye and told me and everyone else there that you had never loved me.’ His chest heaved, his breath ragged and rasping, as if the muscle that was his heart was remembering that day and the pain that had torn through it, leaving it in tattered shreds. ‘Tell me, then, that you didn’t love Hussein.’
Silence met his demands, with only the sound of their laboured breathing filling the space between them, the low rumble of the idling engines coming from the vehicles nearby. Under the shade of the palms the drivers squatted, waiting, sipping coffee and keeping their distance, knowing their business was not to interfere,
even though they could certainly hear their raised voices, and even though Rafiq himself had pressed upon them the urgency of moving on.
‘Oh, Rafiq,’ she whispered, reaching out a tentative hand to him, a hand that wavered in the air before it dared land on his skin.
He scowled at it as he might regard some annoying insect, ready to slap it away.
‘Rafiq. I…I’m so sorry.’
She was sorry? She had done all that she had done and all she could find to say to him was that she was sorry? She had humiliated him, stomped all over his teenaged hopes and dreams, thrown his life into total disarray, and she was sorry?
Blood pounded in his veins, crashed loud in his ears, and when he closed his eyes it was blood-red that he saw behind his lids. ‘You’re sorry? What exactly are you sorry for? That you lost your rich husband, your entrée to the party capitals of the world? Or that you married him and missed out on landing an even bigger fish? You could have been sister-in-law to the King if you’d waited like you’d promised and married me. How would that have been? All that prestige. All that pomp and ceremony to lap up.
‘Except back then you didn’t know my brother was going to be King, did you? So you chose someone older, someone rich. You chose Hussein and a guaranteed good life. The high life. Well, I hope you’re enjoying life, Sera, because I sure am. The last thing I needed was someone like you, no better than a gold-digger in search of a dynastic marriage. If Hussein were still alive I’d shake his hand right now. He saved me from a fate worse than death. Marriage to you.’
‘No! Rafiq, don’t say that!’ Her face was crumpled now, liquid flowing freely from her eyes, coursing down her cheeks, her hands useless at stemming the tide. ‘It wasn’t like that. I…I loved you.’
His fist smashed through the air, collided with his open palm with a crash. ‘It was exactly like that! You wanted a rich husband. You got one. It was just bad luck for you that you picked the wrong one. And as for your so-called love, it proved to be as worthless as you.’