I Can't Think Straight (10 page)

By the time they arrived back at the hotel, the final scrap of evidence was offered up to Lamia’s scrutiny when Tala confessed that she was nervous about the wedding. Not about the menu or her dress, but about whether it was the right move.

‘All brides have jitters,’ Lamia told her, walking up the steps to the lobby. She paused and looked directly into Tala’s eyes. They looked tired and flickered away from Lamia’s gaze. Lamia felt a momentary pang of pity for her sister.

‘You won’t find anyone like Hani ever again,’ Lamia told her.

‘And he adores you.’

‘Yes,’ said Tala.

‘You just need a good night’s sleep,’ Lamia said kindly. ‘Everything will look different in the morning.’

Chapter Seven

Everything already looked different this evening, Tala thought, as she walked into the hotel room that she and Leyla were sharing. When they had checked in that morning, the sun that flooded the cream walls and reproduction furniture had lent an air of light, of innocence, to the double bed sitting squarely in the centre of the room. But now, the summer light beyond the windows had faded under the dusk, and the lamp light in the room, together with the music – a sensual, Arabic voice – that issued from the CD player lent the whole place an air of romance that was not appropriate, Tala felt, but that was inviting all the same.

She could hear Leyla in the bathroom, could see the crack of light beneath the door. She rapped on it lightly.

‘I’m back,’ she called. ‘Make sure you’re decent!’

She winced. Why had she said that? Why imply the possibility of being indecent? Anyway, they were two girls together, what would it matter if Leyla appeared in her bra?

And so Tala reached into the mini bar for a bottle of water and sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, trying without success to erase the image of Leyla in her underwear from her mind.

Leyla emerged from the bathroom somewhat tense. She had missed Tala’s company for the couple of hours that she had been at the meeting, but as soon as she had heard her confident knock on the bathroom door, the announcement that she was back, Leyla suddenly felt a nervous energy clutch her stomach and was unable to think of anything normal to say. If she was to be honest with herself, the idea of sharing the bed with Tala, of sharing the night, had been looming in her mind, adding an unseemly edge of excitement to her afternoon’s activities, and yet leaving a knot in her stomach. Because the excitement was all on her side. And it would be – should be – unrequited. Tala was getting married, and she loved someone.

Someone else. But the emotions coursing through her veins would not turn off at a command, and Leyla knew she would have to get through the proximity, the long reach of dark hours together by keeping herself held in and quiet, so that Tala would never even be able to guess at the feelings that were hidden carefully away. She opened the bathroom door, and stepped out into the room, trying to appear natural and relaxed.

Tala looked up at Leyla, who was standing before her, waiting, trying to judge her mood, her feelings, as they both often did now, without words. Her hair was still damp from the shower. And she was dressed, but in a sleeveless t-shirt that clung distractingly to her stomach and chest and which showed the lean line of muscles in her arms. Tala stifled a sigh, and looked away, prompting Leyla to ask her what was wrong. She couldn’t think of an answer, so she stayed quiet.

‘Didn’t the meeting go well?’ Leyla asked, stepping forward. Tala leaned back slightly.

‘It went fine, thanks.’

Why did she keep moving forward like that? She was just concerned, obviously.

‘What’s wrong, Tala?’

‘Nothing, I’m fine.’ Tala shook herself. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘A little. Do you want to go out?’

‘If you’d like to.’

She could feel Leyla sit down beside her on the bed, could feel her eyes watching her, wondering, evaluating. But Tala could not look back. She felt strange, removed from herself, and she did not want to talk about it.

‘Why don’t I just order room service for us?’ the girl suggested.

‘Okay’.

And now, instead of getting up and using the phone across the room, by the chair, Leyla reached across Tala for the receiver that lay next to her, by the bed. Why did she have to do that? Tala wondered. The sudden, fresh scent of Leyla’s skin and hair distracted her and she found herself staring at the tanned, brown arm that stretched before her, and the long fingers that closed around the telephone. Tala felt herself lean forward, just slightly, felt her lips touch the arm, at the valley of the elbow, touch the cool, clean taste of Leyla’s skin against her mouth. She felt the arm tense slightly, but it did not draw away. She saw the phone drop back onto the table, felt Leyla’s other hand come up to caress her head and her cheek and she closed her eyes against any other thought, so that there was only this sensation, the touch of Leyla’s hand on her face, the recent memory of her skin still burning her mouth.

‘Look at me,’ Leyla was whispering. ‘Look.’

She looked. But the movement brought their faces too close together, and Tala’s eyes held the crushed liquidity of Leyla’s gaze for a long moment, but then she dropped her glance down to the girl’s mouth, the lips slightly parted, and she felt herself move forward again, felt her own lips brush Leyla’s softly, very softly, a touch that she felt in every part of her body, arousing a desire she had denied at every moment. She pressed harder against Leyla, covering her mouth with her own till she felt the delicate trace of her tongue against hers. Softly, she moaned, a sound she had no control over, but she did not speak, for there was nothing more to say.

All she could feel was Leyla’s hands on her, slipping gently beneath her shirt, caressing her back and sides and sliding up to her breasts, cupping them, her thumb touching the nipples that strained stiffly against her bra. And Leyla’s mouth on her neck, weaving a soft line with her lips up to Tala’s ear where she could hear her breathing, quick and breathless. Leyla’s fingers were coaxing open the buttons of Tala’s shirt now, pulling it down over her shoulders, pulling down her bra, and Tala fell back onto the bed, with Leyla on top of her, her tongue tracing a path down to her breasts, her own hands moving over Leyla’s back and down, caressing a silken line between her thighs. Now Leyla gave an audible sigh, an intake of breath as Tala reached the centre of her, and together they began to move against each other in a rhythm that neither had to search for.

Pacing the uninspired carpet of her hotel room, Lamia listened to Reema’s voice, surprisingly clear on the mobile she held pressed to her ear.

‘I hope you got her colourful clothes?’ Reema demanded.

‘Tala thinks grey
is
a colour. And they got bored of shopping.’

It was a calculated move, this last sentence. Lamia bit at her thumbnail as she paced, glancing up at the muted television for support. Reema caught the reference at once.

‘They?’

‘Her friend is here with her. Leyla.’

‘The Indian Jewess?’

Lamia frowned, confused. ‘The Indian. I didn’t know she was Jewish. Anyway, I guess it’s nice for Tala to have such a close friend.’

‘Hmmm,’ replied Reema. ‘Good thing she’s coming back soon for the wedding.’

‘That’s the other thing…’ Lamia paused, hesitating. She could contrive to convince herself that she had only thrown Leyla’s name into the conversation by accident, not knowing it might concern her mother. But this next step would be a more active decision on her part, to give away information that Tala had shared with her confidentially. As a sister.

‘Lamia?’ coaxed Reema, at the other end of the phone. ‘You know sometimes Tala needs help to see what’s best for her.’ Lamia could hear an extended exhalation of breath, pictured her mother in her dressing room in Amman, smoking, waiting. Waiting.

Lamia sat down on her bed. ‘She said she wants to stay in London a while longer.’

Lamia could feel her mother’s eyes narrow. ‘She did that during her second engagement – or was it the first? And she never came back for the wedding!’

‘I’m sure it’s not exactly like that, Mama.’

But there was no reply. ‘Mama?’ Lamia tried again, a little panicked now, but nothing came except the click of the connection being cut with a soft finality. Tapping her heel up and down as she sat, Lamia felt a sudden suffusion of righteousness rise up inside her – for she was doing the right thing to save Tala from herself. Just as her mother had done for Lamia years before. Lamia could see now that her young, immature passion would have had little chance of lasting – such firecracker emotions rarely did – and that once the love had ceased to consume every part of her being, she would have been left fighting the ancient, wearing battles of Muslim against Christian. Although at the time she had been convinced that she had both the stomach and the armour for this fight, Reema had assured her that she did not, and then gave her no possible chance to try, and in retrospect, there was little Lamia could do for her own peace of mind but believe that her mother’s words were true.

Tala awoke from dreams suffused with warmth and heat and drowsy intimacy, and into a morning of harsh light and the insistent ring of her cell phone. Gently, she drew her hand away from Leyla’s sleeping form and reached for the phone, sitting up. She knew who it was, and moved quickly towards the bathroom as she answered.

‘Hi Hani. Yes, no, I’m fine. No, everything’s fine, I just woke up, that’s all.’

She heard Leyla shift in the bed, knew she was awake and listening. Swiftly, Tala slipped on her robe.

‘Listen, can I call you later? When I’m up?’ She nodded, relieved.

‘OK, thanks Hani.’

And then came the ending to the call that she had been trying to avoid just now. But he loved her, and he couldn’t help saying it and she couldn’t blame him, and when she heard his strong, happy voice, she felt a rush of feeling towards him.

‘I love you too,’ she whispered. She hung up, washed over with guilt towards him, but also towards the girl lying in her bed. She rinsed her face, studiously avoiding its reflection in the mirror and brushed her teeth quickly, thinking about the night before. When she emerged from the bathroom, Leyla’s head was still on her pillow, but her eyes, so uncertain, were on her. Tala went to the bed and sat down, leaning to kiss the girl’s shoulder.

‘Have you ever done this before?’ Leyla asked her, shifting up in the bed.

Tala looked away. ‘Slept with a woman while my fiancé makes wedding preparations?’ She considered a moment then shook her head. ‘No. Never done that before.’

‘You know what I meant.’

Tala took in an audible breath. She disliked being forced into a place where she had to remember things, feelings, that she only recollected, infrequently, in the floating suspension of dreams. Things she had never spoken of openly to anyone. But she supposed that if ever there was a person who deserved to hear the things she preferred to keep private, it was this clear-eyed woman lying naked in her hotel room bed.

‘When I was eighteen,’ Tala said. ‘I fell madly in love with a girl, my first year in college.’ She could feel her cheeks flush crimson with the force of actually saying the words. ‘It lasted a few, wonderful, months. I never knew I could feel so..alive,’ she stammered. ‘So complete.’

‘Until now, obviously,’ said Leyla, dryly. Tala smiled and leaned in to kiss her hair, burying her face there, breathing in the soft scent of it, until her heart should stop racing quite so hard. Leyla’s hand came up to hold her head. She heard Leyla speak, quietly.

‘What happened?’

‘I broke it off. I was in pieces, but I told myself it was for the best. That I was away from home and lonely and…’ Tala stopped talking and pulled back, pulled away.

‘And now?’

‘This is not a way to live, Leyla,’ she said. ‘It’s not easy. It’s not acceptable.’

‘We didn’t break any rules last night, Tala.’

‘We did where I come from. Nobody lives like this. Not openly.’Leyla sighed. ‘You live in the West now.’

Tala looked down, her voice hoarse. ‘Yes, but I don’t think it’s acceptable to cheat on your fiancé anywhere in the world.’

The silence that sat in the room felt profound, with nothing to break it but the occasional passing car. Tala saw Leyla nod and close her eyes. Carefully, she moved closer to her on the bed, cradling the girl in her arms and kissing her head and face.

‘What happens now?’ Leyla whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Tala said, kissing away a tear that had escaped from Leyla’s tightly shut lids. ‘I really don’t know.’

Chapter Eight

There was very little talk between them in the car back to London. Even after they had dropped Lamia off in Sloane Street to shop, they both sat without speaking, the silence resting between them like an uninvited guest . Tala’s hand instinctively went to Leyla’s and she held it with a kind of desperation.

‘Stay the night with me,’ Tala said, quietly. ‘Please.’

‘And then what?’

Tala shook her head. There was a blank wall in her mind where the answer to that question ought to be. Leyla shifted in her seat and leaned to kiss Tala’s mouth.

‘Please stay,’ Tala asked again. ‘I can’t be away from you tonight.’

They pulled up outside her house.

‘It’ll just make it all worse,’ said Leyla.

Nevertheless, she opened the car door and got out, watching while Tala placed the key in the lock and swung open the heavy front door. She had stopped thinking for a while now, had been unable to focus on anything but Tala’s scent, her taste, the memories of the night before. It was a physical need pushing at her, and Leyla knew there were so many things to consider, so many possibilities to talk about, and yet, as soon as Tala closed the front door, she found herself crushed against her, kissing her with a passion that had no reason or control. All she could feel was the tension of Tala’s legs against and between her own, the touch of her lips on Tala’s neck, as they staggered together into the living room, where the sofa lay so wide and empty.