The Weeping Desert Page 7

  There was a pause and he could sense her struggle. But she had been brought up too strictly, for too long, in the Arabic custom of complete obedience. Silently she pointed at the cases she wished to keep, and then shook her head at the remainder. John noticed that the Diorling perfume and rose-leaf jam were accompanying them to Pinethorpe, but the ink horns and pieces of ambergris were destined to remain in store. For a moment John felt a fleeting admiration for Khadija. She was behaving in a brave and dignified manner. She had arrived in a foreign country, with a strange man to whom she had given her trust, and was now being made to part with half of her belongings. John promised himself that he would buy her something really frivolous and feminine to make up for his harshness.

  “We’ll go and find a taxi into London,” said John heartily, trying to lift the atmosphere of gloom. Khadija padded silently behind him. John stopped and turned to her.

  “This is England,” he said. “You don’t have to walk behind me. You walk at my side, like this.”

  He took her arm and steered her through the crowds.

  Khadija’s sadness lifted a little as she walked beside the tall, sunburnt Englishman. So many things in the last few hours had dismayed and frightened her. Many times she dearly wished herself back in the cushioned familiarity and safety of the royal harem. Then her young, struggling spirit that yearned to be free looked around at the European women with their bare faces and short skirts, and she realised that if she wanted to taste these freedoms, then she must conform to other Western customs, however strange and heartbreaking they might be.

  They had to take two taxis into London, for there were still ten pieces of luggage. John saw his savings disappearing as fast as ice under the desert sun, if this was a sample of how much Khadija was going to cost him.

  “Is this still London?” she asked every few minutes, hardly taking her eyes off the busy streets.

  John nodded. “It’s a big place.”

  He booked into a hotel near Marble Arch and took two rooms for the night. Khadija was obviously flagging. The long flight had been tiring and neither of them had had any sleep the previous night.

  Khadija looked round the foyer of the hotel, at the modern decor and deep, comfortable furniture. Her appearance had caused very little stir, for the hotel staff were used to a cosmopolitan clientele.

  “Is this your palace?” she asked, impressed.

  “I have already told you, I do not live in a palace,” said John, steering her towards the lift. “Glen Craven House is large but by no means a palace. My father has his surgery, a waiting room and an office downstairs. There are four bedrooms, and two more bedrooms above them in the roof, which my brother and I used to have when we were kids.”

  The lift doors clanged shut, and with a faint whir the lift shot upwards. Khadija would have fallen if John had not caught her arm.

  “What is happening?” she gasped.

  John explained the function of a lift. “We can always walk down if you don’t like it,” he sighed.

  Khadija did not like it, and once she had reached the safety of her bedroom on the sixth floor, she refused to leave it. John tried to persuade her to join him in the dining room for a meal, but she was adamant. In the end he rang room service and ordered a light supper for her on a tray. Perhaps it was just as well. He supposed Arab women removed their masks in order to eat, and Khadija did not seem ready to do that in public yet. She liked her room and the adjoining private bathroom, although she remarked that it was the size for a doll. John explained that his room was next door, but Khadija did not answer.

  John left her when the supper trolley arrived. Khadija looked at it distastefully, and John knew what she was thinking.

  “You’ll just have to get used to using other people’s cups,” he said, which sounded unhygienic even to his ears.

  When John knocked at her door early next morning, Khadija appeared, very subdued. She had not found it easy without Is-if to tend to her needs, and everywhere was in wild disorder. Half her cases were open, and sandals and dresses and jars and combs littered the room. John strode into the bathroom and turned off the taps, which she had left running.

  “I’d better help you pack or we shall miss the train,” he said, and he began scooping up garments before Khadija could object.

  “It is not fitting,” she began in a wifely tone, but she had been a leisurely princess for far longer and so allowed John to re-pack her possessions.

  Roughly he folded the sumptuous gold brocade dresses and yards of gaudy silks. He wondered if she was going to flap down Pinethorpe High Street in her black gown and mask. She would certainly give the place something new to talk about, but his mother was not going to like it at all.

  John thought about his parents for most of the long train journey to the north. Khadija sat huddled in a corner seat, tracing their route with a finger on the small map of England John had bought for her at the station bookstall.

  “It is most amazing,” she said. “Never have I seen so many trees, so much grass, such abundance of cultivation. This is indeed a fortunate and provident land.”

  The English countryside was certainly a joy to look at after his months in the desert, and John saw it afresh through Khadija’s eyes. He was glad to be home, even though he felt chilly in his thin suit. He wondered if Khadija, in her many layers, was feeling the drop in temperature.

  The impact of Khadija’s arrival in Pinethorpe began as the train slowed down, crept into Pinethorpe station and stopped at platform one. A porter caught sight of Khadija’s masked face, and his mouth fell open with a look of utter amazement.

  John had become used to working with Arabs and living in the Persian Gulf, and London had always had nationalities of every kind fed into its veins daily; but Pinethorpe, a small, old-fashioned seaside town built with dignified restraint on the slopes to the sea, rarely saw anyone more exotic than the odd au pair girl, or foreign waiter in the summer season.

  The porter watched John helping Khadija to negotiate the steep step down from the train, and it was some minutes before he came to his senses and realised that the great pile of suitcases emerging was business for him.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Cameron himself,” said the porter. “You home already? It only seems yesterday that you were off to that Middle East place.”

  “I’m home on leave,” said John. “Then I go back for another tour to finish my contract.”

  “My goodness,” went on the old man, never taking his eyes off Khadija. “Where did yer get ’er? Did yer pick ’er up in one of ’em bizarrs?” He chuckled to himself.

  “The young lady is visiting England for the first time on a holiday,” was all the information John was going to give the old gossiper. He knew that a wildly inaccurate version would be round the town before they were halfway down to Market Hill.

  John went into the station yard to get the two taxis that normally met the London train. Only one old battered black car was there.

  “George has just taken Mrs. Armitage from the hotel into Scunthorpe to see her daughter in the maternity hospital,” the driver volunteered chattily. “We didn’t expect anybody on this train, it being mid-week.” He looked happily at the pile of luggage being wheeled unsteadily out of the station without any visible signs of propulsion. “I can come back for that lot.”

  The driver did not have to be told where John lived, but he made the most of the occasion by driving the long way round and slowing down at every road junction so that the townfolk of Pinethorpe could get a glimpse of his extraordinary passenger.

  Glen Craven House was a large double-fronted Victorian house built of grey brick and roofed with grey slates. It stood almost at the top of Market Hill, with a semi-circular in-and-out gravel drive and a crescent-shaped bed of flowering shrubs.

  John went up the steps and pushed open the glass-panelled front door. He could hear his parents’ voices in the dining room.

  Edith Cameron took one look at her tall, sunburnt son standing in
the doorway, and let out a small shriek of delight. In a moment, John was hugging her, and his mother was weeping weak tears of welcome.

  “Why didn’t you let us know when you were arriving, my boy?” said Dr. Cameron, pumping John’s hand up and down, and clapping him on the back. “We’d have come and met you.”

  “I didn’t want Mother to make a fuss. I knew she’d only start spring-cleaning the house and laundering the covers.” He grinned down at his mother. “You look marvellous,” he said, pretending to ruffle her elegantly set grey hair. “Young as ever.”

  “We have missed you,” she said. “I don’t know why you ever wanted to go to that dreadful foreign place when—”

  Mrs. Cameron broke off as she caught sight of the strange black-robed figure in the doorway behind John. She was lost for words as John led the Arab girl into the dining room.

  “This—er—young woman is the daughter of Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid, the Ruler of Shuqrat. She is—er—” John cleared his throat. “She’s visiting England for a short holiday. I thought perhaps she could stay here—for a while. Would that be all right, Mother?”

  Khadija stepped forward and smiled gravely at the middle-aged English couple who looked at her with such astonishment. She brought her hands out of her gown, put them together, palms touching, as if in prayer.

  “I am Princess Khadija Safieh, favourite daughter of Sheikh Abd-ul Hamid, and now wife of John Cameron, purveyor of oil and provider of prosperity to Shuqrat. I salute and respect the honoured parents of my husband,” she said.

  To John’s horror, she sank down on her knees at their feet, her forehead touching her hands, in complete obeisance.

  Chapter Five

  They had to give John’s mother a large brandy. Mrs. Cameron took one look at the prostrate figure on the floor and collapsed into a chair, weeping afresh.

  John was not sure whether the weeping was grief or fury. His mother had a strong character and was not normally given to hysterical outbursts.

  Dr. Cameron tried to comfort her, a mixture of incredulity and disbelief on his face. He looked at John and said: “Well, I never. Fancy that, an Arab wife.”

  “If Mother would only stop crying, I could explain that Khadija is not my wife,” said John drily.

  Mrs. Cameron dabbed her face with a small embroidered handkerchief. “What do you mean, John? Not your wife. This young woman has just said that you are her husband. Oh no…” She broke into fresh tears as further complications occurred to her. “Is she pregnant?”

  “No, she isn’t, and will you please listen to me? It’s a long story, and I’m in no mood to keep repeating myself.”

  Dr. Cameron looked at his son sharply. “And that’s no way to talk to your mother.”

  John ran his hand through his thick sun-bleached hair. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad day, or two or three.”

  Khadija stood in the corner of the room, bewildered. She could not understand why the mother of John Cameron should have shrieked that way, as if her new daughter-in-law were a poisonous desert snake. She could not see what she had done wrong; she had spoken in the most respectful manner. But perhaps in this strange country there were special words she should have said to the parents of her husband. It was all most confusing.

  John described the events leading up to the marriage ceremony and the unexpected passenger on the plane. Dr. Cameron listened intently. His mother had her hand over her eyes and John could not see whether she was taking it all in.

  When John had finished, Dr. Cameron sighed deeply and thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know how these comparative religions stand in the eyes of British law. This is something we shall have to find out,” he said. “But obviously, as far as the young lady is concerned, she considers that you are legally married to her.”

  “Well, I don’t agree,” said John.

  “I had such wonderful plans,” Mrs. Cameron sniffed.

  “Khadija is just here on holiday, and that’s that,’ said John. “When I go back, she goes back to her father’s harem.”

  “You may deprive her of another chance to marry one of her own race if you send her back,” said his father.

  “Is that my fault?”

  Dr. Cameron rose from the arm of his wife’s chair and went over to Khadija, who was waiting uncertainly and silently.

  “Welcome, my dear. We must see that your first visit to England is a pleasant one,” he said. He took her small brown hand between his own, and patted it encouragingly.

  Khadija looked up at John’s father, with his kindly, lined face and tired grey hair, and from that moment she was his slave. Here was a man with John’s height and build and features, but instead of John’s resentment and impatience, there was warmth and kindness. When Dr. Cameron spoke, she could shut her eyes and imagine it was the younger man.

  “You will find it very quiet here,” Dr. Cameron went on. “But the guest room has a lovely big window overlooking the sea, and there are many pleasant walks.”

  “I shall like that,” said Khadija shyly.

  Dr. Cameron chuckled. “We might even give a little party for you. Er, nothing elaborate, Edith—I just thought a little sherry party would be nice. I’m sure it would do some of my patients the world of good to meet you.”

  “It’s certainly going to do me the world of good to meet you,” said a crisp young voice from the doorway. A young man strolled into the room, hands in pockets, a lazy smile on his good-looking face. “I asked John to bring me a local souvenir but I didn’t expect this.”

  “Greetings, James,” said John, nodding to his brother.

  “Hello, intrepid traveller. How does it feel to be back among the salt of the earth after your year of exotic Arabian nights? What’s the matter? Have I said the wrong thing? Why all the gloom? Mother, you should be out in the kitchen killing the fatted calf. Or does Dad do that in his surgery?”

  “This is John’s wife,” said Mrs. Cameron stiffly. “He’s got himself married out there in that terrible place.”

  James sauntered over to Khadija and his keen glance did not miss the beautiful brown eyes behind the mask, nor the rounded womanly figure under the heavy clothes.

  “On the contrary,” he said, intrigued. “I approve wholeheartedly. I hope I’m allowed to kiss my beautiful sister-in-law.”

  He put his hand on the edge of her mask to lift it. Khadija reacted as if it had been an electric shock. She screamed and ran to John, flinging herself against him, her hands holding her mask against her face.

  “What a stupid thing to do,” snapped John. “Khadija has lived nineteen years in the seclusion of the royal harem and has never taken her mask off before any man.” His features relaxed slightly as he remembered her sleeping, wrapped in a bath towel, the moisture glistening on her flawless face.

  “A royal harem?” James drawled, his eyes alight with amusement. “This gets more and more interesting. Why, you old devil, John. What were you doing in a royal harem? Thought you went out there to dig for oil?”

  “Khadija saved my life,” said John.

  “And that’s exactly why we must all be very nice to Katie—er, this young lady, and not involve her in family quarrels. I thought you two would have grown out of it by now,” Dr. Cameron grunted. He took Khadija by the hand. “I’ll show you to your room, my dear. I’m sure you will like it. Perhaps you’d like to freshen up after your long journey, and then my wife will make some refreshments.”

  “Hark at the old man. Sounds as if he’s fallen for your Arab piece.”

  John had to stop himself from hitting his brother. It had always been like this; their boyhood had been one long fight. Now they sparred with words, but John longed to give his brother a good old-fashioned fistful.

  There were heavy crashing noises coming from the hall.

  “Sounds as if Khadija’s luggage has arrived,” said John, relieved to have a diversion.

  It had indeed. The hallway was by no means small, but already Khadija’s cases were blocking
the way into the surgery and the cloakroom. Mrs. Cameron stood shaking her head, appalled by this further disruption into her orderly life.

  “My God,” said James.

  “You’ll have to help me carry them up,” said John. “Those two are mine. Am I still in my old room in the attic, Mother?”

  “Yes,” she said, in a small, stiff voice. “Nothing has changed. I’ve always kept your room exactly as it was.”

  James began to hum Hearts and Roses under his breath. John was paying off the taxi driver and trying to get rid of him, but the man was reluctant to go.

  “Young lady all right?” asked the taxi driver, dawdling on the front step. “Want me to drive ’er around?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know. I’ll ring you.”

  “Here’s my card. That’s the number. Night and day service,” he grinned.

  John returned to the crowded hall.

  “Why does everyone think Khadija is such a joke,” he asked, lifting up two suitcases and tucking the paper parcel from the souk under his arm.

  “Blame it on to the revival of The Desert Song,” said James. “The Red Shadow, Only a Rose, and all that, plus a couple of old slave-girl movies, on the telly. Half of Pinethorpe will be watching you and your wife through their binoculars tonight.”

  “She is not my wife,” said John, gritting his teeth as he hauled the heavy case up the stairs.

  “All the better as far as I’m concerned,” said James. “Are you helping me with this luggage?” said John. “If not, you can go away. I find your remarks offensive.”

  Khadija stood demurely in the guest room as John brought in her luggage. It was a pretty yellow and white room, with dainty sprigged curtains, an old-fashioned polished brass fender round the fireplace and a newly installed primrose washbasin in the corner.

  “Give me your keys and I’ll open the cases for you, but you’ll have to unpack yourself,” said John. “Decide what you will need for the moment, and then I can put the cases up in the loft.”