The Hornbeam Tree (5 page)

Frowning, she looked around. ‘For how long?’ she asked, unsure whether she was pleased or worried, only knowing that Katie was expecting her, and it might be easier to get this parting over with now.

‘I’ll go and find out,’ Sajid offered, rising to his feet.

‘I have to get back,’ Michelle said, looking at Tom. ‘I told Katie I’d be there today. I can’t let her down.’

‘It’s probably only half an hour or so,’ he assured her.

She nodded, and pushed a hand through her short dark hair that until a week ago had been shoulder-length and blonde. In the camps, and in town, she generally covered it with a scarf or shawl, but here at the airport the rules were more lax, though she still wore a voluminous dress that effectively disguised the litheness of her figure. ‘You don’t have to wait with me,’ she told him. ‘I know you, so I’m sure you’ve got a thousand people to see, or a hundred different places to go.’

His eyebrows arched. ‘Why did you cut your hair?’ he asked.

She shrugged, not wanting to tell him that she suspected Katie had lost hers, so it was a probably silly attempt at solidarity. ‘A whim, I guess,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t realize it would change colour.’

‘I like it. It makes you look younger.’

She smiled. ‘What would you say if I told you I’m forty today?’ she asked, a playful light appearing in her eyes.

‘Are you serious?’

She nodded, not surprised he’d forgotten, but a little disappointed.

His expression turned suspicious. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ he said.

‘Now you’re just being gentlemanly,’ she accused.

He shook his head, as though in wonderment. ‘Forty’s a good age for a woman,’ he told her.

‘And why is that?’

‘I don’t know. I just heard someone say it once.’

She laughed and looked up as Sajid came back. ‘They say plane no go until half past nine tonight,’ he told her.

Her smile fled. ‘But that’s the next flight,’ she protested. ‘What happened to the eleven o’clock?’

‘Is cancelled. They give you seat on next one,’ he answered. ‘You make change at Karachi and arrive in London at one forty-five tomorrow.’

‘Oh no!’ she cried.

‘Katie’ll understand,’ Tom said. ‘And what’s one more day when she wrote the letter two weeks ago?’

‘You don’t know Katie. She’ll think I’ve done it on purpose.’

‘She didn’t seem that unreasonable to me when we met,’ he responded.

‘Because you’re not me. She’s all right with everyone else, it’s just me she has the problem with.’

‘Well, flights get delayed, especially in this part of the world, so she’s probably expecting it.’

‘I’ll have to call her. What time is it there?’ She looked at her watch, and groaned. ‘Four o’clock in the morning.’

He got to his feet. ‘Let’s go find out exactly what the story is here,’ he said, ‘and if it’s really going to be that delayed, you should come back to my place. You can use the phone there.’

Half an hour later they were in a taxi bumping back along the main road into Lahore, swerving to avoid cyclists and ox carts, faces covered to protect them from the dust that was rushing in through the open windows. It was either that, or suffocate in the insufferable heat. Sajid was in the front, yabbering away with the driver, while Tom spoke to someone on his mobile in a torturous form of Punjabi.

Michelle gazed out at the passing tenements
where
washing hung limply over balconies, and skinny children hawked stolen bangles and sweets on the roadside. She tried to imagine what life was going to be like back in England, but her thoughts kept returning to Tom, and how they might spend these extra few hours they’d been given. His schedule would probably be full of meetings he couldn’t miss, and she almost hoped it was, for there could hardly be a worse time than now to be considering breaking their agreement never to spoil a beautiful friendship by confessing how she really felt.

‘So, forty, eh?’ he said, clicking off his phone.

She laughed. ‘You’re making me feel old,’ she accused, ‘and I believe you’ve got a three-year advance on me.’

He drew his breath in sharply. ‘Two,’ he corrected.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I think it’s three.’

‘OK, you win, but I think we should celebrate. God knows where we get any champagne in this town, but I’m going to trust Sajid to find some.’

She was about to respond when a car sped out of a side street, forcing their driver to slam on the brakes. She shot forward, hitting the back of Sajid’s seat hard, and as the car slewed to one side, the door next to her flew open. If Tom hadn’t grabbed her she’d have been thrown out on to the street. There was a howling cry as a cyclist hit the door and soared up over the top of it to land sprawling in the dust beyond.

‘Are you OK?’ Tom barked, already jumping out of the car.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she answered, wincing at all the
shouting
and gesticulating that had erupted in the front as she got out too.

After checking the cyclist was only bruised, which was more than could be said for either his bike or the car door, they climbed back in to continue their journey, with Tom hanging on to the door to keep it closed.

‘It won’t be like this in England,’ he warned, as they approached the gate that would take them into the citadel.

She had to laugh, and let her head fall back against the seat as they began battling a route towards the Shahi Mohalla bazaar.

‘Sajid, we need champagne,’ Tom declared, suddenly remembering.

Sajid immediately turned round. ‘No problem, Mr Tom,’ he responded. ‘We take you to your home, then I go to find champagne. Fifty dollar.’

Tom’s tone was dry as he said, ‘That’s what I love about you, my friend. You never miss a trick.’

When they’d gone as far as they could by car, Michelle stepped out into the seething chaos of the bazaar, ducking to avoid a dangling brace of dead feathered birds, and managing to skid on a pile of rotting veg. Tom tossed Sajid and the driver some money, then came round to join her. The air was stifling, the noise a booming cacophony of music, voices, animal cries, car horns and bicycle bells. Thousands of people in colourful saris, drab shawls, lavishly embroidered waistcoats, head-scarves, karakul caps, shalwar kameez and various forms of Western garb were pressing to and from the narrow alleyways, leaving no space between them. The only way not to become separated was
for
her to hold on tightly to Tom’s hand and hope it caused no offence to the religious adherents amongst the crowd.

As they reached the first alley he suddenly stopped. ‘Birthdays need jewels,’ he declared, and began steering her towards a tiny stall where a tragically deformed young girl was holding out handfuls of silver jewellery studded with glittering stones of every colour and shape. Within seconds they were surrounded by so many sellers and their jewels it was as though the entire bazaar was a sea of glittering topaz and turquoise, with swathes of rubies, emeralds and amber bobbing wildly around it.

‘I must get some for Katie and Molly,’ Michelle cried, admiring one piece after another, after another. ‘Oh God, there’s so much to choose from.’

‘It’s all my treat,’ Tom told her as he selected bracelets, necklaces, ankle chains and earrings.

Laughing, Michelle somehow made her choices too, beautiful aquamarine earrings and choker for Katie, silver bracelets and shiny red and blue bangles for Molly. ‘I should take them some shawls and slippers too,’ she declared, wishing she’d thought of it before. ‘And kites,’ she cried, looking up at the azure sky where hundreds of colourful triangles swooped and soared like birds, while kids wove in and out of the rooftops, hanging on to the strings and somehow defying death.

Many dollars and rupees changed hands before they plunged on into the heart of the bazaar, twisting and turning through the network of ornate stone passageways and overloaded stalls until they
reached
Afshar’s dupatta shop. Spotting Tom, the old man jumped up and called out.

‘Mr Tom. I have package for you. It come by messenger.’

‘You’re a good man, Afshar,’ Tom told him, taking the flat brown envelope and sticking it under his arm, as he fished for some rupees to thank Afshar for his trouble.

Unable to resist Afshar’s exquisite shawls, Michelle bought two, then followed Tom up the dark, creaking staircase next to the shop, to a decrepit wooden landing where a broken window opened on to a maze of rooftops, and the pungent aroma of spices seemed to seep from the peeling walls.

‘I’d forgotten how to spend money,’ she laughed, as he unlocked a scratched wooden door.

‘It’ll all come back,’ he assured her, standing aside for her to go in ahead of him.

‘Heavens, is this where you were the last time I came?’ she asked, stopping in the middle of the shadowy, red-painted room. His unmade bed was pushed up in a corner, lavish, hand-woven rugs covered the floorboards and one wall, and an old desk with his laptop, telephone and a lamp sat in front of the huge arched window.

‘No. I was three streets away before,’ he answered, closing the door and going to dump his packages on the bed. ‘This place is normally home to Laila, who dances in one of the clubs, here in the Tarts’ Quarter, but she’s gone to visit her family for a couple of months, letting me take care of the place for her.’

‘Laila the Tart,’ she laughed, shaking her head.
‘So
you,’ and dropping her parcels on the desk she pulled aside a beaded curtain to peer in. ‘A bathroom with a real bath,’ she declared.

‘And real water,’ he added drolly, going to the small kitchenette next to the window and taking a battered saucepan from a single electric ring. ‘I can make some tea,’ he offered.

‘No, I think I’ll wait for the champagne,’ she decided, and turned to the window as the haunting cry of the muezzin began warbling from the minarets that soared like candles into the kite-filled sky.

Coming to stand beside her, he slipped an arm round her shoulders and rested his head on hers. During the craziness of the last half an hour, they’d forgotten she was about to leave, and now, as the prospect returned, they became quiet again.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ he told her after a while.

‘I’m going to miss you too,’ she whispered.

He kissed the top of her head and drew her in closer. ‘I’m really sorry about Katie,’ he said, after a long time just watching the kites, and holding her next to him.

She sighed softly and felt her heart stirring with the fear of how bad Katie might already be. ‘I should call her,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Or maybe I should wait another hour.’

‘I could make the call for you,’ he offered. ‘I’d like to speak to her.’

Touched by his fondness for Katie, whom he’d felt an instant rapport with on the only occasion they’d actually met, Michelle wondered if it might be a good idea for him to call instead of her, when he could tell Katie she was actually on
her
way, rather than still in Pakistan and delayed.

‘It won’t have been easy for her to ask me to come,’ she said, thinking of how mixed and turbulent Katie’s emotions must be right now. ‘She’s got a lot of pride, and our relationship, as you know, hasn’t always been smooth.’

‘She obviously trusts you to take care of her daughter.’

Michelle’s smile was wry. ‘I don’t know about trust, there just isn’t anyone else, and considering what a great mother I’ve been to my own son …’

‘Hey,’ he said, gently cutting her off. ‘You did what was best for Robbie at the time, and he knows you’d be there for him in an instant if he needed you.’

It was true, she would, and the important thing was that he was happy with his father and stepmother, so she said no more, only wished that her life didn’t seem so full of painful partings. Thinking of how hard this next one was going to be, she rested her head on Tom’s shoulder, and tightened her arm around his waist.

‘I was thinking,’ he said, still gazing out at the rooftops and sky, ‘now you’re giving all this up to become respectable, and English …’

‘Go on,’ she prompted with a smile, when he stopped.

‘Well, I was wondering would this be a good time to tell you that my feelings for you have ventured a bit beyond the platonic? Actually, kind of a long way beyond.’

‘I would say now was a lousy time to tell me,’ she replied, as everything in her responded to the words.

‘That’s what I figured.’

Several seconds ticked by, then, without a word, he turned her to him and gazed deeply into her eyes. For a long time they merely looked at each other, as though drinking in every last detail of each other’s faces, until finally his mouth came to hers and so much longing and emotion seared through her that she almost couldn’t bear it.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,’ he told her, running his fingers over her neck and up into her hair.

‘So why didn’t you?’ she asked shakily.

‘I guess because we made some damned-fool pact way back when, no relationship, no complications.’

‘Does that mean you’re going to start a complicated relationship with me
now
, when I’m leaving?’ she teased.

He didn’t smile, only searched her eyes again, and this time, when he kissed her, his tongue found hers, so that she clung to him more tightly and felt the strength of his desire building as unrelentingly as her own.

‘Come,’ he murmured, and turning her away from the window, he stood her in the middle of the room and unfastened the loose, black robes that covered her long-sleeved shirt and jeans. ‘I bought you jewels,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘Now I want to see you wear them.’

She stayed where she was, heart pounding, anticipation rising as she watched him unwrap a beautiful necklace of multiple peridot and crystal strands. As he placed it against her neck, he kissed her softly on the lips, then walked behind her to
fasten
it. When he came back he arranged it inside the V of her shirt and stood aside to admire it.

‘It matches your eyes,’ he told her, running his fingertips over the stones.

Her breath was shallow and brief as she looked up into his face. His eyes found hers, and he kissed her lingeringly, deeply, before going to take a pair of gaudy fake sapphire earrings from their parcel. He clipped them to her ears, and let the sparkling drops slide through his fingers. He touched her lips, and seemed to drink in their fullness, before he covered them with his own.