by Anne Weale
‘When they have something to cry about. I haven’t. I’m very happy.’
‘Maybe that’s why. I get the feeling you haven’t had enough of it.’
‘I expect I’ve had as much as most people. I don’t suppose your life has been all roses.’ She was remembering his reaction to Gérard’s remark at dinner.
‘My life has been OK. Some of the people I care for haven’t had it so good.’
He shifted his body from hers, switched on the head-torch and gave her a tissue from the pack on the table. ‘I’m going away for a minute. I’ll be right back.’
In his absence, Sarah mopped her eyes. He had been very sweet about her burst of emotion but she must take care not to let it happen again. Men didn’t like tearful women and by nature she wasn’t a weeper...except very occasionally, in private, when life was being more than usually difficult.
He came back. ‘Would you like some water?’
‘Yes, please.’ She sat up, trying not to shiver in the cold air outside the bags.
‘Put this round you, honey.’ Neal fetched his fleece and wrapped it round her like a shawl.
‘What about you?’
‘I’m tougher than you are.’ He opened the bottle of water he kept on the night table, filled two glasses brought from the bathroom and handed one of them to her.
Sarah drank the water quickly and snuggled down again. When Neal joined her she was lying on her back. He turned her onto her side and arranged himself close behind her, his hand on her hip.
‘Go to sleep now. Gvodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ she echoed.
As far as she could tell, he was asleep within minutes. But she didn’t want to sleep yet. She wanted to savour the primitive pleasure of being a female under the protection of a strong and resourceful male. Even as a child—least of all as a child—she had never known what it was to feel safe from everything bad. She did now. But it wasn’t going to last long. While it lasted she wanted to fix it in her mind: to remember when it was over and she had only herself to rely on.
Next morning they went for a walk. The tracks in the region surrounding the farm weren’t easy-walking. Every downhill stretch was followed by a steep incline. There were very few level areas.
‘You set the pace. Take it easy. We don’t need to go far. I don’t want you to get back exhausted,’ said Neal, as they set out.
Before leaving, he had spent some time with Maureen and was satisfied that her medication was working.
They walked for about an hour, then stopped for a rest which Sarah knew was more for her benefit than his. He had walked this kind of terrain many times and was in fine shape. Her life was mainly sedentary and, although she had done some fitness-training for the trip, she would need to train hard for months to be capable of keeping up with Neal moving at his natural pace.
He had a small pack with him containing a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate. The place where they were sitting had a fine view of the distant mountain tops.
Presently, glancing at him after a longer than usual pause in their conversation, Sarah sensed that he was thinking of whatever it was that had upset him at dinner the night before.
‘Neal... tell me to mind my own business if it’s something you don’t want to talk about, but the climber called Kennedy that Gérard mentioned last night...was he a member of your family?’
‘He was my elder brother.’
There was another pause, making her feel he was going to leave it at that.
Embarrassed, regretting her intrusion, she was surprised when he went on, ‘I love my parents and my sisters but Chris was special ... my hero... my closest friend. He left a massive hole in all our lives. We still can’t get used to the idea that he’s gone...forever.’
She knew the feeling, but she didn’t say so. It wouldn’t help him to know she had been through it too.
‘Was it another avalanche?’
‘No...a careless mistake that he ought not to have made...wouldn’t have made if his mind had been focused. But his personal life had gone wrong. What happened was most likely the result of thinking about that when he should have been concentrating on what he was doing.’
They were sitting on a rocky outcrop, Neal with his arms round his knees, one lean brown hand clasping his other wrist. The stainless steel strap of his watch winked in the sunlight.
‘Chris fell for a girl who knew the kind of man he was and pretended she could cope with that,’ he continued. ‘She couldn’t She tried to change him into the sort of husband she wanted. In the end the marriage broke down. Chris had inherited a lot of money from his godfather who had no one else to leave it to. Some shyster lawyer helped Cleo take Chris to the cleaners. He didn’t care about the money. It was facing the truth about Cleo that got to him.’
‘How did they ever get together if they were so different?’ Sarah asked.
‘It was the usual story...infatuation versus common sense with infatuation winning,’ Neal said cynically. ‘She was beautiful and very sexy and Chris spent most of his time in the company of climbers in a largely male environment. He was completely bowled over.’
And if he was anything like you, so was she, I expect, thought Sarah.
‘Were you alike...you and your brother?’ she asked.
‘He was much better-looking. They made a spectacular couple. Most of the nationals sent photographers to the church. Chances are Cleo invited them. She liked being the centre of attention. She did look wonderful on her wedding day,’ Neal conceded. ‘But her looks were strictly skin-deep. Under the surface she was a self-centred bitch.’
‘I wonder why she wanted him? Presumably she didn’t know he was rich until after they were married.’
‘A lot of women wanted Chris. Apart from his looks, he was an outstanding climber and a thoroughly nice guy. He could have married any number of girls who would have been happy to stay behind while he climbed, or maybe to set up home somewhere near the mountain he was tackling. He picked out the one who wasn’t. We all tried to make him see sense. But he was insanely in love. From what I’ve seen of it, love is a form of insanity.’
‘Not always,’ Sarah said quietly.
‘No, not always. My parents are still together and my sisters’ marriages are working. But a helluva lot of our generation’s relationships end the same way Chris’s did.’
He had been staring at the mountains, his strong profile etched by the bright light. Now he tamed and gave her a long interrogative look.
She knew he was curious about her, but she didn’t want to unpack all the emotional baggage she kept in a locked boxroom at the back of her mind.
If this time with him were going to continue in real life, then she would have bared her soul to him. As things stood, was there any point?
She said, ‘My mother’s a widow. I was the only child of two only children, so I don’t have any relations.’
‘Are you close to your mother?’
‘Yes.’ It was true in one sense. Her mother was her dependant and always would be. But they had nothing in common except painful memories.
She looked at her watch. The meals at the farm were served at fixed times. ‘Ought we to be getting back?’
‘If you like.’ Neal rose, offering a hand to pull her to her feet.
Even that casual contact sent a current of excitement through her. All the time she was with him, her senses were in a permanent state of semi-arousal.
He must feel the same, she thought, as he let go her hand only to sweep an arm round her and kiss her hard on the mouth. There was anger as well as desire in that fierce fusion of lips.
Afrervvards, walking back, she felt that he’d wanted to take her then and there and, had they been anywhere else, would have done so. But here in Nepal the landscape wasn’t conducive to al fresco love-making and also such conduct would be shocking to any Nepalese who happened to see it. Not, from what she had read, that they were an inhibited race. Bhotia women, living in the highest regions near the Ti
betan border, sometimes had several husbands, usually brothers. But in their public behaviour the Nepalese were more modest and circumspect than Westerners.
Neal was annoyed with himself. He recognised the punitive element in the way he had kissed Sarah and he wasn’t used to feeling irrational emotions and didn’t like it.
Nor did he understand why he had told her about Chris. It would have been easy enough to deflect her curiosity.
It was a long time since his brother’s death and gradually the sense of loss had abated, at least for himself and his sisters. For his parents it was a different and deeper pain. They had had loving bonds with each of their children and had been equally proud of their different achievements. Being a united family had made everyone’s grief a bit more bearable than it would otherwise have been.
Inevitably, being near mountains made him think of Chris more than he did when he was in London, but why he had felt impelled to tell Sarah about him, and about Cleo, was something he didn’t understand.
Also it irked him that, having confided in her, she hadn’t trusted him with more than the most basic information about her family background.
Her ‘yes’ in reply to his question about her closeness to her mother had been close to a snub.
She was willing to permit the closest physical intimacies, but her past and most of her present life, apart from the here and now, was off limits.
He wasn’t accustomed to not being trusted by women. As a doctor, he was used to having them feel especially at ease with him, sometimes confiding more than he wished to hear. The barrier raised by Sarah was a new experience. He didn’t like the suspicion that she might be merely using him, the way men often used women, purely for sexual enjoyment.
He had never done that. He had always felt more than lust for the women in his life, although never anything approaching the consuming passion which had destroyed his brother.
In Neal’s view the West had a lot to learn from people like the Nepalese. Traditionally, their marriages were rooted in practical considerations. Now, in some areas, outside influences were changing that. Love matches were gaining ground and, very often, leading to the same unhappiness that afflicted more sophisticated cultures.
When—if—he married, it would be based on the solid foundation of friendship. As it happened, his attitude to marriage was undergoing a change, probably as a result of meeting Gérard and Maxine. Clearly they had a rocksolid partnership founded on their mutual passion for mountains. Talking to them had made him realise that having a permanent travelling companion must be good... better, in some ways, than being independent.
Sarah sat in the back of the taxi with Maureen and Delia, feeling relieved that they were leaving Nagarkot. She and Neal were being dropped off at Bhaktapur while the others went on to spend the rest of their visit in a comfortable hotel in Kathmandu.
Why she was glad to depart from a place where she had been happy was difficult to pin down. Outwardly nothing had changed, but inwardly she felt something had changed. Neal was not as open and relaxed as he had been at the beginning of their time there.
Was she beginning to bore him? she asked herself, looking at the back of his head as the car jolted downhill.
She and the two older women were sharing the back seat with Neal in front, talking to the driver. They were sharing a joke about something and, as Neal turned his head to grin at the smaller man, the angle of his cheekbone and the vertical crease that appeared when he was extremely amused sent a little shiver of wanting through her.
They had made love last night and again before breakfast On that score everything was fine between them. His appetite for her showed no sign of abating. He was beginning to convince her that she was as desirable as he told her she was.
It was on some other level that she couldn’t define that their relationship had changed. Could it possibly be that he sensed she had fallen for him and was concerned that, when the time came to say goodbye, she wouldn’t accept that what they had shared had just been a holiday romance to which there would be no sequel?
‘I must confess I am longing for a long hot bath,’ said Delia. The farm was delightful but a little short on creature comforts. You young things don’t mind that, but at our age beds and baths and food become increasingly important.’
The two men still being engrossed in their conversation, Sarah said, ‘I’m not that young, Delia. I can’t wait to wallow in warm water.’
Maureen, who was sitting between them, patted her arm. ‘You look gloriously young to us. How I should love to be your age again. It’s such a bore getting old.’
‘Being young isn’t much fun either,’ said her sister.
‘One is so unsure of oneself, and falling in and out of love can be agony. Looking back, I didn’t enjoy my twenties much. I’d say between thirty and the menopause are a woman’s best years.’
‘Hear, hear,‘ Maureen agreed. She turned to Sarah. ’You’re in those “best years”, my dear. Make the most of them.’
Sarah guessed they were intrigued by her relationship with Neal but would consider it bad form to indulge their curiosity. For her part she couldn’t help wondering if they had ever experienced the wild bouts of sensual abandon she had had since arriving at Nagarkot. It was hard to guess what people were or had once been like in those private areas of their lives. At least now she wouldn’t grow old without knowing what ecstasy was.
But perhaps, if you could only have it for a short time, it was better not to know, she thought wryly. There was that old saying ‘What you never have, you never miss’. If she hadn’t met Neal, she wouldn’t have known how passionately she could respond to an ardent lover. She would have gone on subsisting on daydreams and fantasies, an unsatisfying substitute for the real thing, but better than nothing. Better than spending the rest of her life remembering this all too brief idyll.
No, she admonished herself. No, that was negative thinking. Any experience of love must always be better than missing it altogether.
By mid-morning she and Neal were having coffee on the terrace of a café in the ancient city’s main square and the others were continuing their journey to Kathmandu.
‘Come on, let’s go and pay our respects to King Bhupatrindra Malla,’ said Neal, when their cups were empty.
He paid the bill, then took Sarah’s hand and led her across the large square where tourists were outnumbered by local people, the women wearing distinctive saris of finely-woven black wool with scarlet borders, pleated in front and raised at the back to show off the patterns tattooed on their calves.
The statue of one of the city’s kings was perched on top of a pillar facing the most elaborate and beautiful gateway she had ever seen.
‘It’s one of the wonders of the world, but not many people bother to come and see it,’ said Neal. ‘All that gold tells you how fabulously rich the Malla kings were. We’ll go through and look at the kings’ bathing pool.’
She was grateful to him for taking the trouble to show her a place he had probably seen many times before. Inside the golden gate they were intercepted by a Gurkha soldier who insisted that Sarah should take a photograph of Neal and himself. Sarah was glad of the opportunity to snap Neal. She was eager to have some mementoes of their time together but sensed that he wouldn’t want to pose for snapshots, and it was difficult to take good ones when he was unaware of her doing it.
Compared with the sturdy little soldier, who seemed to feel it was his duty to oblige snap-happy foreigners even to the extent of flourishing his kukri, Neal looked very tall and lithe. Quickly, she took two shots in case one didn’t come out.
They had lunch on the roof of a guest-house where four American tourists asked Neal if he would take a picture of them. He obliged them with the easy charm that made people open up to him and must be an important asset in his work as a journalist, thought Sarah, watching him chatting to them.
When he rejoined her, he said, ‘We could stay here overnight but the lodgings are fairly basic and I heard w
hat you and Delia were saying about hot baths so we’ll make tracks for something a bit more de luxe...and from now on you’re my guest. No arguments, please.’
It was said in a tone of authority that would have raised some women’s hackles. Sarah wasn’t sure she was comfortable about staying somewhere luxurious at his expense. But she could see that he was determined and perhaps it was ungracious to deny him the generous gesture. She had no idea what columnists on national newspapers earned, but it was probably astronomical compared with her income.
‘It’s very kind of you, Neal.’
‘I’m being selfish, not kind,’ he said dryly. ‘A double sleeping bag has its uses, but it’s limiting. There are things I want to do with you that weren’t possible at Nargakot.’
A few hours later, he showed her what he meant.
As Sarah’s time ran out, the Everest Marathon organisers, observers and runners were starting to assemble at another of the city’s hotels.
Most afternoons, Neal would take Sarah over there and introduce her to people who would be his companions when she had gone. Several of them were doctors studying the effects of high altitude on various parts of the human body.
Among the runners was an attractive female Army officer. Sarah couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy, an emotion she had always despised and disliked recognising in herself.
The hotel where the runners were staying was an old Rana palace, not as comfortable inside as the Yak and Yeti, but with a romantic facade and a large lawn in front where tea and drinks were served in an atmosphere redolent of gracious eras long gone.
Sometimes, in the evening, she and Neal would go out for a meal with some of the other medical people. As the wine and beer flowed, anecdotes and jokes from their training days would surface, some of them nearer the knuckle than Sarah was used to but witty enough to be acceptable. Once, when one of the other men started telling a story, Neal stopped him. It was lightly and tactfully done, without putting a damper on the proceedings, and Sarah was grateful to him for sparing her blushes. It gave her a very warm feeling to know that he felt so protective towards her.
