MAKING love in the morning, Mel decided as she stood in the large shower with Arun making soapy circles on her back, was probably one of the nicest things in the whole wide world. She had set aside her worries about the future and what it might hold, refusing to think about Arun’s suggestions until she was on her own and could think clearly. So right now she was relaxed and at ease and ready to take on whatever the world had to offer her right here and now, although if he kept soaping there, taking on stuff might be a bit delayed.
‘I have to get to work,’ she scolded him, and he laughed, then turned her so she faced him.
‘You do not have to go to work!’ he told her sternly, although the words lost a little of their firmness with the hot water streaming all around them.
‘But I do—there are things to organise if we’re operating here, and the baby to see. I do wish he had a name—Oh!’
The thought was so shocking she forgot about playing with Arun in the shower and stepped out, winding one towel around her hair and drying herself on another.
‘Do you think,’ she asked, as Arun turned off the water and stepped out himself, ‘that she doesn’t want to give him the name they chose because she’s still uncertain that he’ll live? How awful if she’s thinking that way. How unhappy she must be!’
Arun shook his head.
‘Despite a plenitude of sisters, I have not and will not ever understand women. How could you be thinking of Tia’s happiness or otherwise while we were in the shower?’
Mel smiled at his disbelief.
‘Multi-tasking?’ she responded, tucking one towel around her body then taking the one off her hair to rub at the wet tangled mess. ‘It’s a woman thing! See, I can dry my hair, wonder how long it will take to get the tangles out, plan out the day—I’ll see Tia’s baby first but later I’m going to need to work out exactly how we’ll do the operation. And when do you work? See patients? You seemed to be looking after me most of yesterday.’
He stared at her for a little longer, then shook his head, wrapped a towel around his waist and left the bathroom, poking his head back in long enough to say, ‘I’ll tell Olara breakfast in ten minutes—does that suit your schedule?’
Mel’s towel had slipped so she wadded it and threw it at him, then saw the desire leap again in his eyes and knew it was a mistake. But easing that desire would have to wait—there was so much to be done.
A young man was in the ICU room with the baby—a doctor from A and E, Arun explained, relieving Sarah until another paediatric registrar could be brought on staff. Arun took Tia to one side as Mel examined her small patient, smiling as she realised the little one was doing well.
‘How can you tell? What do you look for?’ Tia asked, and before Mel could explain, Arun took the chart and carefully pointed out to his sister the different measurements and what they meant, assuring her the baby was more than holding his own.
‘See,’ he said, gently, ‘he has even gained some weight.’
Tia hugged him hard, then hugged Mel as well, before changing the subject to ask about the party. Had Mel enjoyed it? Had Jenny looked beautiful?
‘It was great and Jenny looked gorgeous,’ Mel assured her, happy that Tia was showing an interest in things other than the baby. They talked for a while, Zaffra, the nurse, returning to take over as the baby-watcher.
The young doctor from A and E remained near the door, hovering with some purpose, Mel suspected. Then Arun spoke to him and frowned at the young man’s reply.
‘What is it?’ Mel asked.
‘He was wondering if you could spare some time to go down to the A and E department,’ Arun replied, although he still looked perplexed.
‘If he and the other doctors sharing duty with Sarah are from there, they might want to know more about the baby’s condition,’ Mel suggested. ‘I’m only too happy to go down, but someone will have to point the way. I’ve a feeling I could get lost in this place for ever if left on my own.’
‘I shall be your guide,’ Arun said, investing the words with a deeper meaning so Mel found herself not only shivering but thinking thoughts that should be far from her head in a hospital situation.
‘Don’t you have a job to go to?’ she teased, hoping to hide her reaction.
‘It will wait for me,’ he said easily, then added, ‘Though not for much longer. Come, the baby is being well cared for. We will go.’
Mel followed him, trying to take note of the corridors along which they passed, feeling she no longer knew which way was up and which down.
Feeling she no longer knew where she was in other ways as well. Was Arun serious about marriage?
She watched him as he paused to exchange words with a colleague.
Would it work?
As he’d said, marriages of convenience had worked in his country for centuries so he saw no reason for it not to work.
Yet he’d married Hussa for love…
‘Now, this one takes us down,’ he said, ushering her inside, and nodding to those already packed in the lift.
A polite man, but used to command.
If they did marry, then her biggest—and most irrational, she had to admit—fear would be allayed. Should something happen to her, her child would have Jenny to be a mother to him or her, and that was a far better option than leaving Charlie holding the baby…
It would, in fact, be the perfect solution.
‘And down this corridor.’
He pushed open the double doors into the A and E department. And for a moment Mel could only stare, for the room in front of her was jam-packed with people, women, she now saw, women and children. Some babies in arms, some older children, but everywhere black-clad women, most of them with their faces masked or veiled, holding children.
A young man in a short white coat, stethoscope dangling from his pocket, rushed towards them, speaking not to her but to Arun.
‘We didn’t tell them,’ he said helplessly. ‘Somehow word just got around that there was a baby doctor in the city. They’ve come from everywhere, even desert people. There are camels parked outside.’
‘Camels?’ she said, the thought making her turn and smile at Arun, but he was staring at the crowd and shaking his head, a look of profound sadness on his face.
‘What is it, Arun?’ she demanded as the young man moved away to speak to a woman who was bringing her baby forward.
‘It is shame, Melissa, that I did not know—we did not know, Kam and I—how very bad things are here. We thought we had time to fix the wrongs, but look at this. I must get help here quickly, must get onto the other paediatricians we have contracted to start shortly. The list is back in my office. Come, it is not your problem.’
‘Not my problem? Women with sick children are not my problem? Of course they are. Now, where’s that young man gone? He needs to get them organised. Do the nurses understand triage? I’ll be more use to children with heart problems, so maybe if I see them first while the other doctors on duty do the initial examination of the others and pass on anything serious to me. Can we get Sarah Craig down here? As long as I’m in the hospital, she doesn’t need to be with Tia’s baby.’
Arun stared at her in disbelief.
‘You can’t do this!’ he said.
She shook her head and smiled.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. This is one thing I can do, and if I’m staying here for two weeks to operate on Tia’s baby, I can work here for the next two weeks, maybe four because I can’t leave straight after the op. That should give you and Kam time to set up your paeds ward and get it staffed, OK? Now, find me the young man, and a nurse who can translate for me, and let me get to work.’
It was Arun’s turn to shake his head, but Mel knew there wasn’t a moment to be wasted if she wanted to see even half of these women today and still get to Jenny’s wedding.
‘Shoo!’ she said, and made a pushing motion with her hands.
He stared at her, his chin tilting upward as if to defy her order. Who, after all, was she to be giving orders to a sheikh? Then he smiled.
‘I’m shooing,’ he said quietly, but his eyes said something else. His eyes said, Thank you, though the gratitude was still tinged with shame.
And seeing that expression, knowing the beating his pride must be taking as he realised the extent to which his people had been neglected, her heart ached for him…
By lunchtime she had seven children lined up for radiological examinations but because the radiology staff had been hired for their skills with adults, not children, she wanted to be in the room with the children being scanned.
‘I need to see for myself,’ she explained to Arun, who had appeared from nowhere to insist she stop working to eat lunch. ‘And I won’t get them all done this afternoon because we have to get to the wedding. As well as that, some of the little ones might need to be sedated, so maybe in the morning, if I could have time in the radiology rooms and whatever staff are available, we can work through the day.’
He sighed and shook his head.
‘I don’t want you doing this,’ he said, and she smiled at him.
‘Liar! What you mean is that you feel bad that it is me doing it when I came over for a week of fun and celebration of Jenny’s wedding. But, in fact, you’re delighted to have someone who can do this.’
‘And mortified to see the extent of the need,’ he said quietly, the pain in his words so clear she could feel it. ‘My father was ill for a long time before he died, but he kept control of what he could. He allowed the foreigners to spend their money where and how they wanted but he actively discouraged the local people from using any of these facilities. The wealthy families, of course, weren’t swayed by this, and instead of going to Europe for their medical and dental treatment, they welcomed the new hospital and its attendant services, but we have always been a people who have shared whatever we’ve had, so this division between those who have the best and those who have nothing is very much against our traditional ways.’
Mel thought of the compound with huge houses encircling the inner courtyard and wondered about traditional ways, and Arun, perhaps guessing her thoughts, continued.
‘People see our family—the houses we have—as wealthy, but our compound is like a city, housing maybe three hundred people, many families, all living together. And if some work at one thing, preparing food and serving it, others, like Miriam, work at other things. She has made the loose trousers the children wear for as long as I can remember. Even my mother, who thought herself a princess and above work, made perfumes for everyone in the family, including those you might see as servants. It is our way.’
It is our way! Such simple words, but like the pain she’d heard earlier it pierced Mel’s heart and for an instant she felt regret that he didn’t love her, for it would be so very easy for her to love him…
Especially if they were married…
Satisfied that she had eaten well, Arun escorted Melissa first to the ICU where the baby continued to do well then back to A and E where still more women waited with their children.
‘It’s impossible!’ he said. ‘You’ll never see them all. We’ll have to leave by four to drive out for the wedding and you need to wash and dress. You should stop now.’
She checked her watch then smiled at him.
‘Give me until three. I’ll leave then. And this is worse than it looks. I’ve seen a lot of these children, their mothers are just waiting for follow-up appointments or medication. The staff here have been overwhelmed but they’re doing a great job handling so many people at once—and the children, they are so good, waiting patiently with their mothers.’
‘We are good at patience,’ Arun told her, and knew by the flush that rose in her cheeks that she’d understood the double meaning in his words.
Would she marry him?
She hadn’t said no, which gave him hope, but she certainly hadn’t leapt at the idea.
And she was speaking in terms of staying four weeks, which wasn’t a good sign.
Although surely a woman as intelligent as she was would see all the positives of such a union?
So why hadn’t she said yes?
Was she fonder of this paragon Charlie than she admitted?
Anger fired and he knew he had to find a solution for it was unthinkable that another man should rear his child.
He set the subject aside, although he realised it must have been preying on his subconscious mind when, later, they settled into the car to take them back to the compound for the wedding.
Melissa was wearing a long gown in the palest blue, with darker blue flowers embroidered wildly all over it. A darker blue shawl hid her vibrant hair, making her eyes look bluer and her skin creamier. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, but saying it then asking her again about the marriage option might make the compliment sound hollow.
‘Jenny’s wedding,’ he began, wondering how to approach the subject again, and surprised at his own unfamiliar hesitation. ‘Has it made you think of my suggestion?’
Blue eyes studied him, and the smile he so enjoyed flitted momentarily across her lips.
‘No,’ she said, and smiled properly now. ‘That’s answering your question literally—Jenny’s wedding has made no difference to my thinking but yes to what you’re really asking. I have been giving your proposition some thought.’
Proposition?
‘It was a proposal,’ he said stiffly, angered that she seemed to be making a joke of a situation he found so difficult.
The smile disappeared.
‘I would have thought a proposal had an element of love in it, Arun,’ she said quietly, and once again he was struck by how little he understood the female half of the human race.
Which made him even more irritated.
‘You were willing to accept Charlie without love—without even attraction, from what you tell me,’ he snapped, then regretted opening his mouth for he’d sounded petty even to his own ears.
Once again she studied him, although now there was no hint of a smile.
‘That was intended to be a safeguard for the baby. I have no family and Jenny, my best friend, at the time I decided on it, was committed to travelling to far-off places. I needed to know there was someone to take care of the baby if anything happened to me.’
‘And you chose this Charlie, not the baby’s father!’
Had she heard the anger simmering close to rage that she put her hand on his and said his name? All she said was ‘Arun!’ but it was enough to calm him slightly.
‘I didn’t know you’d be interested,’ she added quietly. ‘When we met you’d been adamant children weren’t in your future. I had to make some contingency plans—just in case.’
He heard a quaver in her voice as she spoke and the uncertainty of it killed the remnants of his anger. Now it was his turn to study her, to remember something she’d said earlier—something about fear, about terror.
‘Why don’t you have a family?’ he asked, but knew the question had come too late. The car had stopped and the crowds gathered in the compound were looking expectantly towards it.
Today there even more people around, all obviously in their best attire, although a lot of the women wore black gowns over their colourful dresses, the purples, blues and richest greens peeping shyly at the hemlines or the sleeves.
‘This is the extended family, all of our people, come to celebrate with Kam and Jenny,’ Arun explained, taking Mel’s hand to lead her up the steps.
But when he was waylaid, someone touching his sleeve to attract his attention then talking to him urgently, she went on ahead, knowing there’d be someone somewhere to show her where she had to go.
Miriam rescued her, taking her arm and leading her to where Jenny was being prepared by a multitude of sisters.
‘Look,’ Jen said, holding up her hands to show a hennaed pattern on them.
‘That’s beautiful,’ Mel told her, seeing the delicacy of the tracing of leaves and buds.
‘We’d do it to you but it’s too late,’ Jen told her. ‘You have to mix it to a paste and put it on thickly then hold it near heat to dry it so it leaves the stain on the skin. See Miriam’s feet.’
Miriam lifted one foot to show the hennaed sole.
‘I didn’t do my feet because they’re too ticklish to have someone painting them,’ Jen explained.
Mel saw the happiness in her friend’s face and heard the delight in her voice and was so glad for her. That Jen, who’d suffered so much with the loss of her husband and unborn son, should find such joy again was a miracle, but while Mel was happy for her, she also felt a tiny twinge of not jealousy but regret that this joy had found Jen twice while somehow it had bypassed her completely.
She closed her eyes against the thought and found an image of Arun on the inside of her eyelids. Just his face, strong and clean-cut, the dark brows above his green eyes, the beautiful lips, moving, telling her they’d marry.
She blinked him away, although she knew in reality it would take more than a blink to get rid of him.
Especially now…
Then Jen was ready, her beautiful blue silk gown covered with a black one, her unbound golden hair covered with a black veil so she looked like a black parcel, wrapped ready for her husband to unwrap. The women escorted her out of the room into the big room where Jane and Bob Stapleton came forward to greet her with a kiss. Then everyone was shuffled into place, Mel beside Arun one step behind the bride and groom, and the ceremony began.
Had Kam explained what would be said to Jen before this started? Mel wondered, listening to the music of the words and understanding none of them, but what she did understand was a gasp from the crowd of people in the room, and she turned to Arun, eyebrows raised, hoping there was enough of a murmur going on behind them for him to explain.
Which he promptly did!
‘He is saying there might be another wedding in the family soon,’ he said, his eyes daring her to argue, to make a scene in front of what must have been several hundred people.
‘Yours?’ Her whisper might have been quiet but it was definitely a demand.
‘Of course,’ he said.
Mel looked around desperately. On one side white-gowned men stood, most with prayer beads clicking through their fingers. On the other side the women, like bright butterflies, their black veils dispensed with because all the men present counted as family.
There was no help at hand but she wasn’t going to give in just like that.
‘I’m not marrying you!’ she muttered at Arun, who turned with a smile and murmured,
‘He didn’t say who I was to marry.’
‘Oh!’
She felt flat—deflated—although she’d known he had to marry. He’d promised Jen…
Then his smile broadened and somehow sneaked beneath Mel’s guard, warming and exciting her at the same time.
‘But I haven’t given up on my first choice,’ he told her. ‘Have you not heard the legends? The stories of the desert sheikh who takes the woman of his desires and rides off with his bride across his saddle? Shall we ride in the morning?’
The question was as seductive as his touch had been the previous night, and Mel found her body trembling with remembered desire.
How could he do this to her, with no more than words and glances? And how could they be having this conversation in the middle of Jen’s wedding? All around them people were chanting now, rhythmic words Mel didn’t understand, while Arun alternately joined in and spoke to her, tormenting her with his special magic, moving close enough for their bodies to be touching.
And how could she fight him when he had such an effect on all her senses?
No, not all her senses—surely she retained some common sense!
‘I’m not the woman of your desires,’ Mel said, edging away from him to evade his touch. ‘And as for riding off across the desert, this is the twenty-first century in case you didn’t know.’
‘Oh, I know it,’ he said, still smiling and still exciting her traitorous body. ‘And I applaud what the new age has brought with it, but men and women still meet and are attracted. Can you deny that?’
‘Attraction’s not enough as the basis for a marriage,’ Mel muttered at him.
‘But attraction, combined with a baby on the way, surely is.’
Was that true?
Or was it a false presumption that would lead to certain disaster?
Mel looked around at the people gathered in the room, at the children, some standing quietly, others playing, also quietly, all of them happy and healthy, secure in this, to Mel, strange environment.
‘Secure’—that was the killer word. What Arun was offering was security for her baby, security that went far beyond anything else Mel could put in place—security that eased the terror hidden in her heart.
She slid a glance towards Arun, ignored the shivers of desire, and studied his face.
Given his own childhood, she knew beyond a doubt he would provide the best possible life for this child, and his best would be a wondrous thing. But he would also give it the love that had been missing from his own life.
He might not be able to give Mel love, but the child, she knew without a doubt, would always know his or her father’s love. That love tipped the scales.
She sighed.
‘Yes, I’ll ride with you in the morning,’ she said, thinking to tell him then, where she’d first told him of the baby.
He seemed startled and she realised it had been a long time since he’d asked the question, but then he smiled and she knew he’d guessed her thoughts.
People began moving, Jenny was whisked away. Mel wondered whether she should follow, but Arun gripped her arm.
‘Jenny will be dressed in the golden headdress and collar of the family now. It is very heavy but it is the bride’s gift, so to speak, her financial future should things not work out between her and Kam. She has to wear it for a short time so everyone can marvel at it, then she and Kam will leave. Normally, they would go to the bride room and stay there for a week.’
The look that accompanied these last words made Mel’s skin heat, but she hid her reaction as she was fascinated by this glimpse of a different culture.
‘And then,’ she asked, ‘does she live with Kam or in the women’s house?’
Arun smiled.
‘Can you imagine your friend wanting to live separate to her husband? If you can, I assure you I can’t imagine Kam wanting to spend any unavoidable time apart from Jenny. In the past, when men like my father had up to four wives, all the wives lived in the women’s house, having specific nights they spent with their husband. Their husband was supposed to treat all of them equally, but that didn’t always happen. Miriam was my father’s favourite and she could have played up to that, but she is a fine woman and made sure the other wives were happy, or at least contented with their lot. But as well as wives, there are aunts and grandmothers and women who may not be related but are friends from long ago. Many women live there—it is the hub of the compound. Everything is organised from there, as far as family is concerned, and that way the men are free for business dealings.’
‘It’s very different,’ Mel said, but she could understand how the tradition would have grown, the women crowded together for safety while their menfolk were away.
Then Jenny returned with such a weight of gold jewellery on her head and around her neck that she needed Kam’s support to walk.
‘Take a good look at it,’ she said to Mel, ‘because I’ll give it ten minutes at the most then it’s coming off. It’s a wonder all the married women don’t have tendonitis.’
Jenny paraded around the room, men and women nodding their approval, then she and Kam disappeared, to spend their first night as man and wife in a hotel in the city, and the partying began.
Mel was on a settee by the wall, listening to the Stapletons’ latest account of their exploration of Zaheer, when Arun approached.
He excused himself to the Stapletons, put out his hand and drew Mel to her feet, his eyes studying her face.
‘You are ready to leave?’ he said, surprising her, for although she was feeling exhausted after a night of love-making and a hard day’s work, she had doubted he would leave the party until it was finished.
‘I am,’ she admitted, ‘but there’s no need for you to leave as well. I’d like to go back to the hospital to check the baby before I go to bed, but all I need is a car and driver.’
‘And another in the morning to bring you back so you can ride?’ He smiled, not his seductive smile but the kind one that made her feel weak and woozy inside. ‘I have just returned from the hospital. The baby is doing well. Your clothes are still in Jenny’s house. You can spend the night there.’
Alone? she wondered, and was surprised by the spurt of disappointment she felt. But, of course, it would be alone. Arun would be unlikely to cause a scandal in this obviously close-knit community by spending the night with her.
So Mel did the only thing she could, she thanked him and allowed him to lead her out of the big building and across the courtyard towards Jenny and Kam’s house.
‘I can’t believe it’s only three days since I arrived and we walked through here,’ she said, looking up to where the full moon rode high in the sky, visible in spite of the lights in the compound.
‘Three days since I kissed you just here,’ Arun whispered, drawing her into the side passage where they’d talked—and kissed.
But not like this. Not with heat and passion and an intensity that burned through Mel, made hotter and brighter and harder because tonight they wouldn’t take their kisses to the logical conclusion…