by Primula Bond
By now they could be humping in the huge bed in our Upper West Side penthouse, New York City spread out beneath them. Have they packed up her whips and bottles and scarves and toys and brought them uptown from her seedy apartment?
I think of Gustav’s big hands, cupping Margot’s buttocks as she rides him. His hardness pushing into her, making her clap her hands in total, joyous triumph.
The thought has even crept across my mind that Gustav sent their old friend, Maria Memsahib, not to look after me but to distract me while they kept their earth-shattering rendezvous in London.
‘So you’ve broken your vow of silence to offer me this ridiculous theory?’ Polly grumbled when I shook her awake this morning. ‘Maria has told me that she and Gustav were friends in the bad old London days. So I reckon Gustav was more anxious about being separated from you than he admitted. Maria was the obvious person to keep a lookout as she co-owns the ashram. She can pitch up here for R and R without explanation. The cherry on the cake was that she got to introduce you to some earthly delights while the rest of us were scrubbing our souls. And I daresay she got Gustav’s blessing for that, too.’
‘Whatever. I don’t want to talk about him any more.’
I sank into the bed beside Polly. A sharp object dug into my side as I lay down. Polly whisked her hand away, but not before I’d spotted her phone.
‘It’s barely dawn, Rena. Go back to bed!’ Polly shoved the phone under her pillow and lay back, closing her eyes. ‘Look. Everything will be OK, I promise. But I can’t say anything more. I’m not allowed—’
‘Allowed? Who’s told you to be so bloody mean? Who’s pulling your strings? Who keeps texting you? This is a different phone. Is that how you’ve suddenly got a signal?’ I tried to roll her sideways to get at the phone. ‘It’s Pierre, isn’t it? I need to speak to him. Or are you – you’re not thinking of getting back with him, are you?’
‘Last man on earth. And I’ve told you. No men in here. No signal,’ Polly mumbled sleepily, pushing me away. ‘Rena. Please. I shouldn’t have said anything. In any case, I can’t talk to you when you’re so paranoid. No, don’t you dare get cross with me. You’re distraught after what you’ve seen, and I understand that. But trust me on this. Everything will be all right in the end.’
Now I’m stretched out in the sun, melting into the stones.
Maria Memsahib chuckles softly in the air above me. ‘It will soon be time to go. You have to find the answers that are waiting for you on the other side of that gate. And Angelique needs that little room for some new recruits who are arriving this evening.’
A shadow crosses my closed eyelids.
‘Everyone’s life goes on, even when mine is falling apart.’ I lift my hand wearily in greeting. ‘I can’t stay here for ever. I know that. Maybe a gentle but firm dose of reality is the medicine I need.’
The snap of a sunshade tells me I’ve hit the nail on the head. A cool hand drifts across my forehead. I smell the fragrant oil the ashram produces from Angelique’s crop of jasmine and roses, alongside her potent wine. I don’t open my eyes, but I know it’s Maria, and she’s sitting very close. If I stretch my hand I can stroke her silky sari.
‘Not one mosquito bite,’ she murmurs, lifting my hand. ‘Such perfect, creamy skin.’
I blush as her fingers run over me. ‘They hate my blood.’
‘And mine.’ Her fingers pause. ‘I’m leaving today, too.’
I frown, and sit up as a thought strikes me. ‘You’d have thought after living here for six years Margot would have sorted out insect repellent. Yet she had bites all up her arms. So bad it was like a rash. All evening she kept scratching at herself.’
‘You’re going to make yourself ill again talking about her, but I do have a theory.’ Maria pours out a glass of cranberry juice. ‘It’s an allergic reaction to all that medication.’
I take the glass and stare into it, remembering the horrible drink Tomas gave me. ‘She had buckets of pills. But how did you know?’
Maria tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘She was already an addict when I knew her back in London. She was a piece of work anyway, but the drugs only exacerbate the problem, especially as age catches up with her.’
‘Well, Gustav will be her carer now.’ I hold my glass out for more. ‘I need to speak to Angelique. If I leave today, I need to know when I can come back.’
I run the glass over my hot cheek and gaze out over the garden and out to the vineyards, wavering in the heat haze.
‘This isn’t the right place for you and me. We have too much to do.’
I shake my head, hot tears rising in my eyes like bubbles in a boiling pan. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
Maria’s fingers close around mine. There’s no sound except the fountain splashing at the end of the pool and a couple of lovebirds swooping out of a tree with a whirring of feathers and a flutter of disturbed leaves. A bell starts chiming in the courtyard over the wall, signalling the end of meditation, but neither of us moves, or speaks.
‘We’ve left you alone as long as we could, but now you’re ready. Polly’s waiting for you.’ Maria stands up and pulls me with her. ‘Time for the next part of your life to begin.’
The late-afternoon sun is sliding behind the palm trees that guard the garden as I step outside the beaten-metal gates of the fortress with my bags.
Polly has agreed to travel back to London with me. We’ll go and huddle in her little flat near Tower Bridge until I get my bearings and work out what to do with my life. But instead of the scratched taxi that brought me here, she’s sitting in the driving seat of a silver Land Rover Discovery.
‘This is a bit swanky just to take us to the airport, Pol. Where did you get this?’
‘Who said anything about the airport?’ She drums her fingers on the steering wheel and I notice that she’s still wearing her pale-blue meditation sari, rather than clothes for London. ‘The car belongs to Angelique. She doesn’t just lounge about twanging her harp all day, you know. How do you think she markets and sells the wine?’
As I throw my bags in the trunk, I see Maria standing in the shadows of the gate, watching me. I move out of the burning sun and into her embrace and stand there for a long time.
‘Will you be OK?’ she murmurs into my hair.
‘I would be if I could stay here.’ I nod, sniffing the heady scent wafting off her. ‘But I’ll manage. I always have. I’m not hysterical or crazy any more. I was so alive when I first came here two weeks ago, but in these last three days or so since you rescued me from the riad I’ve just become numb. That way no one can hurt me. It’s my default position when things are too terrible to contemplate. I learned the hard way when I was a kid, hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.’
‘That’s what worries me.’ Maria strokes my hair. ‘You’re in your cave, licking your wounds, but you know you can’t withdraw completely. You need to get your mojo back.’
‘I want to pretend like the past year never happened. Polly’s been trying to talk me out of it, but if I can’t stay here I’m thinking of going back to that enclosed convent in Venice. At least see if they’ll let me stay for a while.’
‘You can’t do that. And they won’t accept you. There’s too much light inside you. Your beauty, your talent. Your smile, when you find it again.’ Maria pulls away. ‘And there’s so much joy waiting for you out there.’
I catch a glimpse of anxiety in her face before she resurrects her wide, sexy grin.
‘You’ve been fantastic, Maria, but you’re wrong. I can’t imagine ever feeling happy again.’
‘If this wasn’t supposed to be a holy kind of place, I would offer you gambling odds on that right now.’ She kisses me on the lips. No tongue this time. ‘You will be happy, Serena. Sooner than you think.’
Polly shifts the car into gear and roars away from the kasbah while I’m still buckling my seatbelt. I watch the red and pink adobe battlements and walls receding through the dust cloud she’s created. Even the palm tr
ees seem to be waving. And, nearly hidden by the haze, Angelique comes to stand beside Maria and raises her hand in farewell.
‘I’d forgotten what a lousy driver you are. We’ll be dead before we’ve even taken off.’ I sit back in the comfortable leather seat, and then something strikes me. ‘Polly, what’s going on? Where’s your luggage?’
She turns on to the main road and checks her reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘I hate horses.’
‘Who said anything about horses?’
She accelerates along the smooth surface for several miles. I stare at her, not at the passing landscape, until she explains herself.
‘OK, I admit it. It’s a trick. You’ve been so scarily inside yourself that we reckoned we had to fool you into leaving, although it was true that Angelique needed the space for some new recruits. And before you get angry and say I’m ditching you when you need me the most, I’m doing this for your own good. You need to get back in the saddle, Rena, and the sooner the better.’
I try to swallow the fear surging inside me. I slap at her slim white arm, making her bangles jingle. ‘Very funny. Very symbolic.’
‘Oh, no, this is for real. Real horses. Real saddles. That’s why I’m not joining you on this particular safari.’ She peers at the road ahead, whistling tunelessly. ‘Now, open the glove compartment, will you? There’s a little present in there. So I won’t ever lose you again.’
A neat little iPhone is in there, with the Pollyesque touch of a jade-green leather cover which will match the leather jacket I have in my luggage ready for the English weather. I scroll through the contacts. My phone is still in the riad, but somehow Polly has managed to put in most of my old numbers. All except Gustav’s.
‘So does that mean you’re not coming to London with me, either?’
‘Honey, this is my home now. Apart from when I’m with you, I’ve never been happier. Angelique’s going to train me up to be one of her guru counsellors. But it won’t be long before I see you again, will it? I’ve always had your back, and that hasn’t changed. I’ll be wherever you need me, whenever you need me, but—’
‘I can’t do this alone, Polly. Can’t you just take me back?’ We can both hear the panic in my voice, but she keeps right on driving. ‘Pierre’s been a star, but I can’t have anything more to do with those Levis. It’s not just me who’s suffered. Pierre was a bastard to you, too. It was never meant to be. Gustav’s history, I know that. I need to get back to London, I know that. I need to get on with my life. I know that, too. Just not today, OK? I’m not ready.’
‘Rena. Listen. You know I love you and care about every single thing that happens to you.’ She glances in the mirror and indicates to turn off the main road. ‘But this is something I can’t do for you. Believe me, you’re more than ready for what’s ahead.’
‘The first step is to stop saying his name.’ I kick my feet up on the dashboard. ‘It’s like a dagger, every time.’
As I flatten my hands on my knees, the diamond ring sparkles defiantly in the westering sun. I reach to pull it off, as I have done every day. It starts to slip up towards my knuckle. But Polly reaches across and stops me.
‘Leave it on for now. And if after today everything is still as bad as you say it is, well, you can always sell it!’ She smirks as we drive up a long, bumpy track. We are winding through rocky hills which undulate like sand dunes, but we’re not in the Sahara. The landscape is hard grey stone with dry grass scoring the ground like thinning hair.
On the rise in front of us there’s another kasbah, similar to, but much smaller than, Angelique’s. Its sturdy walls and single tower are washed in the same dark pink, and pricked by windows latticed with the familiar Moroccan ironwork. A pathway winds between a collection of smaller buildings and one or two nomad tents, the colourful canvas flapping in the approaching evening breeze.
Polly stops the car, and we listen to the engine ticking for a moment.
‘OK, so this isn’t the airport.’ I peer through the windscreen. ‘And you’re not coming with me. So what is this encampment? Another retreat?’
‘It’s called La Paix. The place where you stop ranting and give yourself a break.’ She unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to me. She is smiling. ‘This is the part of the journey you have to make on your own.’
Now that I’m trying to savour every little detail in the moments before we’re parted again, I can see that my cousin looks a million times better than when I last saw her at the opening of my gallery in Manhattan back in March. Centuries ago, it feels like. Everything about Morocco, about life in Angelique’s ashram, suits her. And even though she knows I’m in such pain, and she’s tried to help me, she doesn’t share it. Not deep down. She is calm, and happy, and I can’t begrudge her that, however eccentric it seems to me. I’m being gently prised out of her new life. I can’t hang on her coat-tails any longer.
‘That stuff about making the journey on my own?’ I tease, coughing to ease the tightening of my throat. ‘Is that one of your new guru counsellor mantras?’
She slaps at my leg with the back of her hand. ‘Don’t take the piss. There’s nothing far out or funky about this next bit. What you’re about to experience is totally real. You’ll see. You’ll be bowled over. Now get out of the car. He’s waiting.’
I glance outside the windscreen. Sure enough, an old man in a long white robe has materialised beneath a palm tree and he’s holding the tasselled bridle of a beautiful Arab mare.
‘Your steed awaits. You’ve been lolling around with us for far too long.’ Polly puts on a kind of sergeant major’s voice. ‘We need to get the blood pumping again, girl!’
We squeeze each other until we can’t breathe, half giggling and half crying. I climb slowly out of the car, clutching my bags and my new phone. Polly doesn’t dawdle. She slams her foot down, waggles her fingers through the window and is gone.
The paralysis returns as soon as I’m alone. It’s creeping like ivy through my body.
‘Excusez-moi.’ The old man sniffs apologetically and takes my bags while I stand in the dust. I’ve shut down. It’s the best way to be. God knows what I’m supposed to do next, but being numb and dumb will do for now.
The palomino horse nudges my arm, and, as I stroke the curving bone of her aristocratic nose, hints of earlier sensations flow into my fingers, like blood into a wound. She bats her long eyelashes at me. Even the warm mammal smell of her pale crème Anglaise coat and the linseed oil on the polished leather of the tack relax me.
The man returns with a pair of riding gloves and a big scarf. He taps at the diamond ring before concealing it with the gloves, then makes a wrapping motion with the scarf around his head to indicate protection against the strong dusty breeze coming off the distant hills.
‘La bas,’ he says, pointing directly into the setting sun.
He holds the stirrup for me. I slide my foot in and swing my leg easily over the horse. I find my seating, thread the reins through my fingers, then the man clicks his teeth and the horse moves smartly from a standing start into a swift trot, her hooves striking the small stones of the track, which bounce and knock against the trees and bushes as we set off into the desert.
Once I’m settled in the saddle, I lean over the pommel. The mare starts to canter, lifting her head joyously, her white-blonde mane flowing like pale silk out to one side.
I try tweaking at first the right rein, then the left, just to see if I have any control, but the horse pays no attention. She just keeps right on ahead, aiming for the sun. Anyway, steering is useless when you have no idea where you’re going. The one-two-three, one-two-three rhythm of her canter is steady and soothing. The blood is pumping round my body. My knees and thighs are beginning to strain with gripping when the ground curves and rises into a steeper hill, forcing us to slow down.
The lowering sun is dazzling directly into my eyes now. All I can see is an orange flare spreading across the sky like fruit cordial spilt across a tablecloth. I can’t see the ground, onl
y feel it beneath us. My horse shifts back down to a fast trot, still barrelling upwards, still aiming directly for the sun as if the idea is to catch it before it falls.
Just as the ground becomes rockier and steeper and I assume we’ll slow or stop, or turn back, my horse tosses her head and lets out a greeting neigh, because there, silhouetted on the next horizon against the fiery sky, is another horse, and another rider.
I take the reins in one hand and shade my eyes with the other. There could be a group of riders around here somewhere for all I know, maybe on the other side of this hill, but the one in front of me seems oblivious to everyone. He could be one of those statues of an Army general about to lead his troops into war. The horse, also an Arab breed with shiny black coat, is pawing the ground impatiently.
I pull on the reins, desperate to turn my horse around. Desperate, also, to turn my back on the low, burning sun and rest my eyes. But the mare doesn’t respond. She just pushes on, her head dipping eagerly, like a rocking horse, as we approach her friends. So this is our destination. This must be where the horse was told to go.
We’re already within hailing distance, but the only people doing the talking are the two horses, who snuffle at each other. I decide to pretend I don’t understand if this other tourist tries to engage me with conversation. I don’t want to hurt my horse’s mouth, but I yank one last time on the reins. She slows down slightly, but the other horse rears on its back legs. It shoots out of view as if a crevasse has cracked open beneath it.
My screech of alarm makes things worse. It spurs on my horse. She quickens her pace, stretches her neck, and now we’re following, we’ve reached the place where they were standing and the ground does fall away on the other side, but not as steeply as I feared, which is a good thing as we have now broken into the rapid one-two, one-two relentless rhythm of a gallop and we’re flying into the dust thrown up by the other rider.
My heart is banging in my chest, in my ears, my knees locked against the sides of my horse as we follow the other two crazily rocketing towards the sun. My horse wants to be with them. No doubt about it. Maybe this is her mate up ahead. Her mate, and her master.
