First and Last and Always

I would imagine I first saw it as love on the bus from Port Said to
Cairo. We had been allocated seats by virtue of our schools, and I had
prayed all night that he would be placed on the same one as I. Not so,
and as I stared at the passing desert, at the huge ships effortlessly
gliding through the endless sand, I felt a numbing sense of loss at his
absence.

There must have been six or seven buses - including one spare in case
of accident or faulty mechanics - so the odds, I suppose, were against
us. It mattered not that, had we been lucky enough to ride the same
bus, we would doubtless have been seats apart; to be only that close
was enough, enough to keep the hunger growing.

As it happened, I saw precious little of him that day. Our respective
guides seemed to purposefully keep us apart, as they led us through a
maze of classic Egyptian hawkers toward one of the world's greatest
mysteries. The pyramids at Giza: what more romantic a place to fall in
love?

And yet the majesty of these great edifices and their guardian, the
scaffold-plated Sphinx, was lost on me as I followed my Twentieth
Century caravan of schoolchildren through the dusty leftovers of long
lost millennia. Had his countenance truly overwhelmed my sense of
wonder? Or had countless school texts and breathless tales of Egypt
tarnished the truth, painted the Sphinx a great deal bigger and allowed
her the grace of standing unaided? I had been obsessed with this
country since the age of six, when our teacher had taught us to spell
its name as a precursor to a stunning initiation into antiquity. That
year we drew, painted and crayoned hundreds of pictures of pharaohs,
longboats and snakes. We constructed a classroom-sized pyramid with a
papier-m?ch? sphinx, and even went so far as to learn the hieroglyphs,
though to this day I am unable to recall how well. It was a love and a
passion from that day forward, so much so that, to this day,
discussions of reincarnation fill me with the conviction that I was
once born of Egypt.

Naturally enough, eight years on when the opportunity arose to walk
those fabled sands, I was excited beyond belief. Aged fourteen, I was
about to visit a country that I had never been certain was real. Like
some delicate Oz, Egypt held far too much magic to exist in the same
world as Thatcherite London. And there I was, a young girl well-versed
in the works of Louis Carroll, who had suddenly found the looking
glass.

The visit formed part of a ten day voyage, a tour of the Mediterranean
on a ship of five hundred schoolchildren. It was, I appreciate, nothing
short of the chance of a lifetime, a dream from which I never truly
awoke and something that tweaked many a jealous brow in the years that
followed. At the time, this sort of journey was unheard of. Sadly, as
the ship was to sink the following year, it is also unlikely to be
repeated.

We had started in Athens, boarding the vessel with uneasy excitement,
each of us afraid to believe that this could all be real. At the time,
school trips traditionally involved a weekend at some country mansion,
converted with bunks though still happily riddled with crannies and
supposedly secret passages. On rare occasions, a group would go skiing
in the mountains of France or Italy, but nothing so grand as this.
Africa was uncharted territory.

I say Africa, but I have never been able to reconcile Egypt with that
mysterious continent. Too dry, too arid, and its populace far too
Arabic; the land of Moses bears little or no resemblance to the
leopard-filled jungles and lion-hunted plains of my imagination. The
backdrop to Out of Africa and Edgar Rice Borroughs is entirely
incongruous with the dusty mosques of Cairo and the hordes of
middle-Eastern men selling carpets and camel whips in the Port Said
bazaar. Without gazelles and Negroes, there can be no childhood
Africa.

If the Acropolis is indeed a wonder of the ancient world, then together
we saw three in those ten days. If not, then to finally truly find each
other more than makes up for the difference. That we would witness a
great deal more together was something I could only wish for.

I've often wondered when it was that he first felt love in return. Were
I forced to guess, I would choose that glorious moment in Turkey, when
we almost missed departure after losing our way in the winding streets
of another foreign town. The memory is blurred now. Knowing as much of
schools as I do, it seems ridiculous to me that, at such a young age,
we should be allowed to wander without supervision through the alleys
of Eastern cities. And yet, that is the way I remember it - total
freedom to explore the mysteries of the Balkans and the alien lands
beyond.

At last we had spent the day together. Far harder than escaping the
eyes of my teachers was casting aside friends who would have liked
nothing more than to while away the hours with a boy almost twelve
months their senior. A year was a long time back then, playground
politics being heavily dependent on age. I suppose that was why he
seemed so mature, so full of knowledge of a world to me steeped in
mysticism - films, the arts, everything - while I clung for buoyancy to
the hidden secrets of Egypt.

His air of maturity held me spellbound for years. Through our teens I
was perpetually afflicted with the belief that he knew infinitely more
than I of the ways of the world, of the seas of love and the
tantalising whirlpool of intimacy. In my eyes he was a man of a
thousand lovers, inexplicably smitten with me, while I was the captured
innocent, more ignorant of the flesh than I was of the heart and
destined only for embarrassment. He would lead me in these things, I
was sure, teach me what I needed to know and guide my shaking hand in
moments of nervous excitement.

But that was all for the future; for now all I wanted was to hold him,
entwine my fingers in his and perhaps, before we returned to London,
place a vulnerable kiss on those spell-binding lips. Fourteen years old
and unkissed - how my friends would have laughed, had kissing been
common at all.

And in Dubrovnik we so nearly did it. I could almost taste the salt of
the sea on his lips, but I never had the courage to lean that little
bit closer and steal the moment for our own. He bought me the most
beautiful earrings, slipping them to me in secret lest his curious
friends catch him out. Strange that he should fear ridicule when it was
clear his classmates were envious - those days and those schools were
slower when it came to affairs of the heart.

I still have the earrings today, rarely worn, seldom leaving the little
cardboard box in which they came. I take them out from time to time and
smile at what was, think of the snow and the ski lift and wonder how
the city looks now, tortured by war and no doubt crumbling into the
sea. Perhaps it, too, needs scaffold to keep it standing.

In London the future seemed bright - that we would continue unchecked
was so certain. Back in our respective schools, we spoke often, wrote
daily and were determined to make our love last. Not once did I think
we might fail, never had I prepared myself for the letter the
house-mistress brought one chill October afternoon. I tested my resolve
by leaving it unopened on the bed while I busied myself with chores.
But the anticipation soon burnt too much. I sliced it open, careful not
to damage the envelope, and seized those joyful pages. I can picture
myself now, night-dress crisply ironed, lying on my front on the bed
with my ankles crossed behind me in the air.

This was to be the letter in which his love would be revealed, emerging
as words from the dusty silence of Egypt - I was sure of it. I had made
my own feelings clear, thrusting my young heart into his path so that
he might be forced to take notice. As I held the page to my lips, I
could see him sat at his desk, feigning an industrious prep hour while
instead conjuring poems for me. Not once did it occur to me that this
beauty might end.

And yet there, on that page, it collapsed. Afraid of the unbridled
intensity, he had fled my affections and swaddled his rebuff in a
wealth of conflicting excuses. Naturally, at the time, I was certain I
would never recover.

When we were together again it was different. She had entered his life,
a girl with whom I could never compete. Several years his senior, she
could offer to teach, while I could but beg to learn. Foreign and
brimming with mystery, she could be his Egypt while I would always be
London. Of course, I saw her in passing. I watched the way they were
together. I imagined his hand in mine as they waved their goodnights
then departed for bed and all those things I envied. I would lay awake
through the stifling darkness, daring to imagine them loving, crying as
I pictured that look in his eye - the look I had thought was only for
me.

The nightmare continued for years, spanning a far greater distance than
that between our schools, and he and I grew apart once more. We
retreated to our dens and the exciting lives within, spending fewer and
fewer hours together beyond the usual festivities. Our letters grew
intermittent, our words turning inward and concerning only ourselves.
With time, our lives became mysteries once more as I buried my love in
the sand.

At eighteen I was engaged, wrapped in another man's love so tightly I
could scarce take a breath. There can be no doubt I adored him - with
emotions like mine these things are easily come by. What staggers me
now is how things might have turned out, how different my life would
have been. After all, I don't even know the boy now. I no longer
remember his birthday and often misplace even his name. And yet, back
then, I was so clearly convinced. If only I kept some species of diary.
Perhaps, with its help, I might understand my feelings for the stranger
I might well have married.

When I announced my engagement, his only response was 'Why?' No
heartfelt congratulations; no shock, or demand that I drop all this
nonsense at once, just the sincerest and shortest of questions. It
threw me completely and the engagement promptly collapsed.

As I sat in that small Camden pub, watching him fight for the bar, I
imagined him stood at the altar, pledging his devotion to another while
I struggled to hold back the tears, knowing it was all irrevocably
changed. Would I shout my objections? Or would I simply brave the
silence, cursing myself for being too late, for leaving my love to the
dust? Could I taint his imminent marriage with thoughts of what might
have been, ruin what could be perfection with the strangling weeds of
doubt? No. As he fetched us drinks on that dull April night, I promised
myself that I wouldn't. I would act in advance of that day, or leave
him to the love he had found. To do otherwise would be utterly
selfish.

But as for when in advance I might act, I was lost. With its myriad of
accompanying problems, our love would perish on all but the most
fertile of grounds. That we were never simultaneously without partners
was one thing; that we now lived in different cities made it worse. We
would have to draw closer for my hopes to become a reality. How else
might our affinity and affection take root and come to full
bloom?

University saw him shake off one great love only to become embroiled in
another, still deeper, affair. For the first time I was truly fearful
that my deadline might be at hand, yet never did I see them apart.
Rarely did they visit London, the city of our birth, and rarely did I
read his words or hear his voice. And all the while, as my hopes waned,
my adoration swelled. His successes were mounting and his wisdom shone
forward into adulthood.

I, for my part, busied myself at home. I learned a trade I loved while
developing the artistic talent he had never tired of grooming. By the
time he returned, I was the capable manager of a suave suburban
restaurant with commendations from all the best sources. I was on the
verge of self-employment, hard at work on a business plan that would
bring me a place of my own, a riverside eatery that would indulge my
artistic leanings. Investment was a footstep away; success, it seemed,
would require nothing but hard work and diligence, and the future was
no longer a pipe dream. Never before had I felt such ambition; never
before had I been so convinced I'd been right to forsake
academia.

And then, at last, he returned. The three year romance now deceased, he
was filled with a new lease of life, an exuberance to which I had never
before been treated. He spoke for the first time of his lover's
admitted jealousy, of her fear of my humble influence and the way she
had kept him from home. He told me how much he had missed me, that he
was determined to make up the years. He rebuilt my heart in a
week.

We devoted countless hours to rejuvenating our past. We drank wine to
the rolling of years and laughed at the dubious fashions to which we
had subjected ourselves through a decade of twee self-invention. We
sifted through the remnants of relationships gone sour, picked morbidly
at life's fickle ironies, and let night after night trickle by as we
spoke of regrets though we claimed we had none.

But not once did we mention that ship; not once did we touch and not
once did I fall into those welcoming eyes. The fourteen year-old girl
was gone. Ten years on, I knew the risks all too well. To open up now
was to risk losing everything, from history to family to new-found
closeness. I wondered often if it would still be worth it; would I cast
it all aside for a moment's warm embrace, a single fevered kiss or a
night of all-consuming passion? Would I take a leaf from a friend who
had confronted her parents with the existence of her non-Moslem lover,
trusting in the path of true love to keep her family together? Or would
fear of losing it all overcome me, and return me to the desert once
more?

Taking soulless refuge in my femininity, I handed the baton to him.
Afraid that to confess would leave me disowned, I sought instead to
turn the tables, to have him profess love for me. For a year I was to
be disappointed. He dallied his way through a series of empty
encounters to which I could only bear witness - though, at times, I
mocked friendship by encouraging him to greater success.

It was a painful year and one I felt loathe to repeat, forced as I was
to watch again and again as he pressed his silken lips to another. The
fever that had burned within me for over a decade grew more furious
with every coupling. My jealousy sharpened, whetted by the sheer
physicality of it all, the satryric parody of love I saw before me. How
I hated to watch him scanning the women while we danced, how I wanted
to grasp that head and insist those eyes were for me. 'Look no
further,' I longed to scream over the thumping music. 'All you need is
here.'

And one night I almost did. One cold winter's night, as my mind clouded
over with shocking sincerity, I dropped the stone that soon became an
avalanche. Such a small compliment it seemed at the time, an innocent
call for attention that soon made a fool of my silence. But my
admission to pangs of jealousy fell on ears all too wise to
flippancy.

The months that followed were painful. As we grew steadily more aware
of each other's feelings, the sense of despondency deepened. It seemed
both of us wished I hadn't said those words, opened Pandora's awful box
and placed our happiness in jeopardy. Perhaps we should have continued
in silence, neither of us speaking our mind for fear of upsetting the
delicate balance. Perhaps we should have left the Sphinx her scaffold,
not swept it from her and cast her at the mercy of the wild desert
winds. Perhaps we should never have strayed into Egypt at all. Perhaps
then we would never have realised that our beloved pyramids were
nothing but glorious monuments to an elusive past. We might never have
gone in search of something deeper, the forbidden magic that lay
beneath the desert's shifting sands. I remember thinking then that we
should have been content in the classroom, learning our hieroglyphs and
the names of long dead pharaohs. Perhaps, but I for one would never
have been content in the drizzly confines of London, convinced as I was
that the magic of Egypt was real and that the Sphinx could stand on her
own.

He left England at the first sign of spring, pre-empting secondment
with a brief tour of Asia. He wrote to me almost constantly and I found
my eyes opening with his. The lure of distant cultures coiled about my
heart with the tantalising warmth of that last fateful trip abroad.
Once more the mysteries beckoned. I found myself aching to join him, to
walk by his side through some distant paradise, sharing the adventures
about which he wrote in such ludicrous and beautiful detail. From the
saddhus of deepest India to the red-robed boy-monks on the streets of
Rangoon; from the mountain temples of Kashmir to the swamp-mosques of
Kalimantan, I was with him at every breath. And when the call finally
came to join him, my bag had been packed for months.

It was to be only an extended holiday, a respite from the rigours of
home, a last big outing before the future began, a future of careers
and industry, commitment and devotion to duty. It was a reunion, a
chance to see a world I had far too long neglected, to be reunited with
a distant being I had never ceased to love.

That we both had great hopes was clear. That we appreciated the risk
and belittled the importance of what we were doing was almost laughably
so. The repeated warnings to ourselves and each other not to
overestimate the outcome - not to assume that, after all this time
apart, our natural affinity would pave the way to perfection - all were
for nothing. How could either of us have hoped to dissuade ourselves
that fate was on our side? What could either of us have seen but the
helpful hand of destiny, guiding us through ten years of bazaars and
blinding sand storms toward a common goal?

When I arrived at dawn in a numbingly crowded airport, I was that
schoolgirl once more. Eleven years of progress had left me in an
instant, left me to the whorls of romantic chaos that swept me through
the masses with barely a thought for my luggage.

And, of course, he was there to meet me - far thinner than before and
different in many ways, but brandishing the same infectious smile as
the day we had waved goodbye. There was no room in that smile for
taking things slowly, for a sensible approach to our reunion. There was
no room in that smile for anything short of abandonment.

And so it was to be. Away from the prying eyes of our own invasive
culture, here we were able to explore our love with a fresh and
blameless perspective. Here we were free to indulge ourselves without
fear of recrimination in a place where past and future were ours to
create.

Naturally it was awkward at first, our senses battling with the
confusion of lust and long-standing kinship. It was days before things
became comfortable, before we could make love in the light and go naked
for unfettered eyes. That first uneasy night, when our hands broke a
hundred taboos and our minds fought with schooling and reason... A
flood of childhood memories, visions of exploring our awakening bodies
in the forbidden playground of our parents' spacious bed. Happy times,
before the great wrench of puberty that stole our infant closeness and
made near strangers of us through school and into our teens.

From that moment on, I was desperate to have it be more. As the weeks
drew on, I wished they were years, so determined was I to forge this
into the greatest of bonds, the strongest and most enviable of
alliances. I longed to furnish our new acquaintances with elaborate
stories, to convince them our union had spanned that tumultuous decade,
that there had been no other man in my life, nor woman in his - that,
as I'd felt true at the time, we had surrendered our virginities to
each other, shared our first kiss and never spared a thought for
another. And yet, in my heart, I knew I was wrong - that I would, in a
sense, be belittling the truth.

In time the years did pass by, our love only deepening, our tolerance
for each other's faults growing stronger with each confrontation. We
were accepted, as I had wanted, as one of life's great couples,
destined since birth and marked for unshakeable happiness. This was the
love I had dreamed of, the timeless mystery and eternal resilience of
which the Sphinx was born - with which she taunts the sweating
scaffolders as she basks unaided in the sun. We had no need of fiction
to qualify our union, no need of tales to convince the world of our
devotion. We were the perfect couple, the envy of all and immune to the
strongest temptation.

We made our new life there, burying the past and discarding worthless
memories. We forged lives of boundless vision and dreams that always
came true. Ours was the beginning and end, the culmination of over a
decade of procrastination.

And it was into this new world that we brought our ambitions, his the
need to sculpt, mine the burning desire to pass my days as both artist
and restaurateur. Success was far from inevitable - it took more than
hard work and diligence - but the future was no longer a pipe dream.
Never before had I felt such contentment; never before had I been so
convinced that I'd been right to forsake the approval of others.

It is four months now since we left that world, placing our lives there
on hold while we travel together once more. Four months since we set
out to find a new Egypt, to stir up the sands once more. A day out of
Delhi and I am watching the shadow of the Sphinx as it glides across
the off-white towers of the beautiful Taj Mahal.

Squinting through the blazing sun of a blistering Indian summer, I
place my hand in his and recall the teenage loneliness of that bus ride
from Port Said to Giza. I turn to him and smile, squeezing his fingers
tightly between my own. 'Together again,' I want to say. 'Allied as
never before. And together we walk through the desert: brother and
sister as one.'