One Secret Summer (41 page)

‘I … I thought you’d gone to town with the others.’

‘I did. I came back early. No, don’t move.’ She drew in her breath sharply. His fingers were marking out a light, teasing
dance across her skin. She looked down and saw the muscles of her stomach quiver. ‘Rafe …’ she protested weakly. ‘Someone
might see …’

‘Yeah? Who? There’s no one here.’ He slid a finger inside her; she had to bite down on the urge to pull her legs up underneath
her and draw him in. ‘Sshh.’ His finger continued its slow, teasing stroke, turning her insides to jelly. She watched in fascination
as he began building her gently but firmly towards a climax. He was in total and perfect command of her body. Her abdomen
began its slow rhythmic shaking; her nipples were
hard, standing firm against the skimpy fabric … she took in a deep breath, and then another, and then the delicious, slow
shuddering began. She closed her eyes, utterly content to let him orchestrate things – to build her up, slow her down, bring
her to the edge of pleasure and then hold back suddenly, letting the whole symphony begin again. He was teasing her; taking
his time. She opened her eyes. He was watching her, the hint of a smile playing around his lips. She tried to resist, pulling
herself back to show him that he wasn’t the only one capable of control. ‘Why don’t you guys ever talk about Josh?’ she asked
suddenly. The question had been on her lips for days.

She felt his hand move away from her as if she’d physically pushed him away. He stood up abruptly, withdrawing himself. He
looked as if he’d been slapped. His face was suddenly dark. He glanced down at her, as if he was about to say something, and
then turned on his heel. ‘Rafe!’ she called out as he strode away from her. ‘Rafe!’ She stared after him. The bushes parted
to let him in and just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone. She lay back, stunned. Her right breast had pushed itself
clear of her bikini cup and her bottoms were half undone. She struggled upright, hurriedly readjusting strings and straps,
covering herself as quickly as she could. She felt naked and horribly alone. She’d done it again, she thought to herself as
a tear began to slide its way down her cheek. She’d said something wrong. Made the wrong comment. Spoken out of turn. But
how would she ever work out what was the right thing to say and when to say it when she didn’t understand the problem? She’d
asked about Josh … what on earth was wrong with that? What the hell had happened in this family to cause everyone such pain?

NIELA

London/Paris, August 1997

Niela woke first, dragged out of sleep by the unfamiliar presence of someone else in her bed. In her flat. She turned her
head to look at Josh; he slept deeply, as if he might never wake. Her gaze slid past him to the room beyond. Her jeans lay
discarded on the floor – a boot here, her sweater there, his shirt crumpled into a ball and flung across the chair. Reminders
of the haste with which he’d pulled off her clothing the night before, presenting himself to her with such tremendous need
that the tears formed thickly in her throat the minute he touched her. If he noticed, he said nothing. There was tension in
him, like oil under the earth, welling constantly. She’d seen the evidence of it – and his temper – more often than she cared
to admit. But there was another side to him; a half-buried, half-suppressed spirit of generosity, a lightness and charm that
others often sensed and responded to … but as soon as he began to reach out, he withdrew, like a child who has received one
too many blows and dare not risk another. She had never met anyone like him. Something had happened to make him turn from
what she guessed was his true nature – easy, light, generous – into something else, more guarded, closed down and sealed off.
Josh revealed himself agonisingly slowly, layer by layer, incident by incident, fact by isolated fact. It would take her a
while to piece it all together, she saw, to fully understand him. Everything about him – the quicksilver moods, the flashes
of anger, the sudden laughter, his enormous wit and his withdrawals – these were his weapons that kept the world at bay. She
recognised it in him because she knew something of it in herself. He nursed a secret, just as she did, though she had no idea
what. As she lay in the growing light beside him, listening to the slow, steady sound of his breathing, feeling the rise and
fall of his chest
against her arm, it came to her slowly, very slowly, that perhaps healing him might be her own healing as well.

She was making breakfast a couple of hours later, expertly cracking eggs into a bowl and whisking them in preparation for
an omelette, when she heard him enter the kitchen and come to stand behind her. He wrapped his arms around her, burying his
face in her hair. It was moments like these she would miss, she thought to herself, her throat suddenly aching. He’d been
in London all of a fortnight; in a few days’ time, he would leave. His next assignment had come through – Yemen. He would
be gone for almost three months. She tried not to think about it or what it would mean. He would be gone – would he come back?
They seldom spoke about the future, as if by some private silent admission that it was too precious to risk. His arms tightened
about her. She smiled. ‘I’m trying to make breakfast,’ she murmured, pointing with her spoon to the open flame. ‘You said
you were hungry.’ She felt his lips move against the curly mass of her hair. He said something indistinct. ‘What?’ she asked,
turning down the flame.

‘I said, this works, doesn’t it?’ There was a note of surprise in his voice.

‘What does?’ She switched off the flame and turned in his arms.

‘This. You and me.’ He made a small movement with his head that seemed to encompass not just their own presence in the room
but something beyond.

‘I … I suppose so,’ she said hesitantly. Josh’s quicksilver changes in mood were often precipitated by a question that wasn’t
really a question at all, more a statement of intent.

‘You don’t sound sure.’ He pulled back from her for a moment. ‘Any regrets?’ He looked down into her eyes. His were dark and
unreadable. His tone was light but he was anything but – she knew that about him now.

‘No. No regrets.’

‘So …’ He paused, carefully pushing a strand of curls away from her cheek. ‘How about it?’

‘How about what?’

‘How about we do this properly.’

She looked up at him, the breath catching in her throat. What was he asking her? She studied his lovely profile – the long,
straight nose, tapering to two finely etched points above his lips; the sharply bevelled edge of his mouth and the strong
jaw line in which the faint tremor of a muscle could always be seen, moving in secret time to some emotion he struggled to
keep in check. She was amazed at the speed with which he had become familiar to her – she knew every shadow, every hollow,
every surface of his body and face in a way she’d never known anyone before. ‘Do what properly?’ she asked.

‘This. Us. You and me.’

She gave a short, almost embarrassed laugh. ‘What are you talking about, Josh?’ There was a moment’s carefully held silence.
‘You’re not … ? Are … are you asking me to
marry
you?’ she asked incredulously. She stared into his coal-black eyes, plumbing some unfathomable depth. His expression was
neutral, but she could feel the tension in his whole body concentrated in his grip. His lips moved; he gave a wry, sardonic
smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His hand moved; it plunged into the thick dark tangle of his hair. ‘Christ,’ he murmured,
his whole face breaking into a perplexed grin. ‘I suppose I am.’

‘Ma’am, is your seat belt fastened?’ The flight attendant moved smoothly down the aisle, her blonde ponytail bobbing from
side to side as she performed the usual last-minute rites before descent. Niela sat next to Josh, conscious of his hand on
her thigh, the fingers tightening every once in a while in response to some private thought, his concentration elsewhere,
only peripherally on her. She looked out of the convex bulge of the window. Beneath them, spreading in tight, neat circles
towards the distant horizon, she could see the city of Paris unfolding,
mile after mile, boulevard after boulevard, the occasional flash and patch of green. She felt her stomach lurch and not just
in time with the turbulence. Her palms were sweating, despite the cool of the plane’s interior. It had been a week since his
proposal, which had seemed to surprise him as much as it had surprised her. In another, he would leave for Yemen. An old friend
from university had given them the run of his Paris flat; it was Josh’s idea. ‘Let’s get married in Paris. Let’s not do it
here.’ That was the moment in which she ought to have said
I can’t. I can’t marry you anywhere, Josh, because I’m already married
. She didn’t. She kept silent and the words she’d never uttered to anyone, ever, remained where they were – locked up, hidden
from view, even her own. Her silence he took for consent. Before she properly understood what was happening, he’d taken charge.

And now here they were, descending through a grey, windy sky, huge swathes of angry cloud dissipating as they were reached
to reveal flashes of summer sun. A series of bumps and shudders, a sideways lurch and then they were upon the ground once
more. In a few hours’ time she would be married. Again. She followed him out of the terminal building, her whole body flooded
with a mixture of anticipation and dread. The last time she had been in Paris she’d been in flight, on the run from a future
she’d done her best to forget. Now she was heading towards something, another kind of future, and one she desperately wanted.
But the dread coursing through her veins couldn’t be quite as easily dismissed. She would be found out. There would be some
record, somewhere … someone would know. A letter would be sent; a phone call, an interruption in the happy event. Something
official to say that Ms Niela Aden couldn’t possibly become Mrs Josh Keeler because she was Mrs Hamid Osman.
Look. Do you see? Here it is
.
The
Heiratsurkunde.
Certificate of marriage
.
Here’s the date, the place, the time. She signed it. See?
Her heart flipped back and forth between her mouth and her stomach as she waited beside Josh for their bags. Any moment now
she would be found out. Any moment now.

The white onion-shaped domes of Sacré-Coeur dominated the landscape from every angle. Niela, Josh, Antonio and his girlfriend,
Jeanne, who were their witnesses, walked into the city hall in the 18th Arrondissement. The three of them were laughing; Niela
was not. Every second seemed an eternity – every fibre of her being attuned to the moment when someone would cough, interrupt
the proceedings, cast a quick, puzzled look at her and then the whole thing would grind to a halt. But the moment had not
yet come. The list of formalities was endless –
justificatifes de domicile, l’attestation d’hébergement sur l’honneur, l’extrait d’acte de naissance
. Niela looked on in bewilderment as Josh produced the necessary documents. Where had he found the time? His hand on her arm
was a quiet, steady reassurance. They passed through one office after another; papers were produced, stamped, signed … no
one even glanced at her. At last they were presented before the mayor, a tall, elegant woman who performed the simple ceremony
in minutes. No one questioned her. The ceremony that had taken place earlier in Vienna was forgotten, buried under stacks
of paperwork and computer files that no one would ever find or see. For the second time in her life, she held out her hand.
Josh hadn’t even had time to find an engagement ring. The simple silver band was all. It was done. They were married.

Jeanne knew of a restaurant a few blocks away. They hurried down the street. A summer storm was threatening. Niela was sweating,
but with relief. It was humid; the close, thick air hung over the city, waiting to be cleared. The four of them entered the
cool air of the restaurant, Antonio shouting for champagne as they walked in. The owner, a short, balding Algerian, was delighted.
‘
Un mariage? Très bon!
’ Champagne was brought to the table in four delicate flutes. They drank just as the first drops of rain began to fall, fat
and steady against the ground. The tension that had been building up in Niela for over a week had peaked; now it began to
fall. Under the sweet intoxication of
champagne, she found herself beginning to unwind. It helped that the two ceremonies were so dissimilar as to be two completely
separate things. She had almost no recollection of the marriage that had taken place in Meidling. She remembered it in snatches
– the sea of faces, the
nikkah
, the scratchy, starchy feel of the fabric of her pale lilac
dirac
, one of three, she remembered. She looked down at the pale blue linen shift Anna had helped her choose in Top Shop the previous
Saturday. It was very simple – a pretty piece of white lace embroidery at the neck and on the single front pocket, ‘Very Sharon
Stone,’ Anna had murmured, holding it against her. ‘In
Casino
,’ she added helpfully. Unfortunately Niela didn’t know either. ‘Yes, it’s a little bit fifties,’ Anna said. ‘But that’s a
good thing.’ It was hard to tell who was more surprised about the wedding, Anna or Niela herself. Anna had met Josh once,
though she’d been the shoulder on whom Niela leaned after her return from Djibouti. She was darkly suspicious. ‘I can see
why you like him,’ she said on the telephone the following morning. ‘He’s gorgeous. He reminds me a little of my brother,
you know. But … be careful, Niela. Please be careful. A man like that … he doesn’t need anyone, least of all you.’ But Anna
was wrong. She didn’t know Josh the way Niela did. Few people, she was beginning to understand, did. She looked at Josh; now,
in Antonio’s presence, he was animated and expansive. They were arguing fiercely, but there was laughter too. Antonio was
the first person she’d met from the unknown depths of his past. They’d studied architecture together; somehow they’d bucked
the trend and wound up doing almost the same thing – building camps rather than luxury homes, travelling to places most people
would rather not see, living a life far removed from the sorts of comforts their family backgrounds could so easily have provided.
It was funny, she thought to herself with a slight, wry smile – Anna often said she was an enigma no one could ever hope to
solve; it occurred to her now that she had married someone whose depths were perhaps even more hidden than her own.