Charis (6 page)

As she told her story, she occasionally hesitated, but he encouraged
her with questions and comments until she’d told him everything. He wanted to
ask more questions, to know more about her life, but he knew she was exhausted
so he stroked her hair until she fell asleep in his arms. He wished she’d
confided in him, if only she’d told him, he would’ve taken her home, taken her
out of here. But she'd been so insistent. He realised now it was because she
had been so scared, terrified of what was to come.

Ben lay awake for a long time. He’d made love to many women before
but he knew it was different with Charis. He’d never had as much physical pleasure
with anyone as he’d had with her, but it was so much more than that. The
emotional feelings he had when he thought about Charis were entirely new to
him. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to protect her and keep her safe, and
to cherish her. He knew he was beginning to fall in love for the first time in
his life.

*****

It was five in the morning before he finally fell asleep. He awoke
suddenly, hours later, and Charis was gone. For a moment or two he felt the
beginning of panic, and then he heard her. She was in the bathroom and she was
singing. Her voice was sweet and pure and he recognised the words - a song he
remembered from his days in Sunday School.

“All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All
things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.”

He smiled at the memory and the joy it brought him to hear her
singing. He waited until he heard her come out of the bathroom and go through
to the dressing room before he got out of bed.  When he joined her she was
bending over her suitcase taking out and sorting her clothes, dressed in what
was obviously her own dressing gown. Her hair was still damp from the shower and
she’d clipped it back into what his sisters called a half pony tail, then it
tumbled over her shoulders in soft curls. An unfamiliar lurch in the pit of his
stomach startled him and he felt as though his heart was working overtime. He
stood still for a minute or two to pull himself together before he spoke.

“Good morning – you're up bright and early after the night you had.”

She stood up, turned and smiled at him. “It's not early! It's nine
o'clock.” She stepped closer to him and looked into his eyes. “I want to
apologise to you for my being such a baby last night. I'm sure you would rather
have gone to sleep than listen to me carry on about my problems and life
story.” 

He took her into his arms and kissed her. It was as sweet as the
first time.   “I wouldn't change last night for anything the world has to offer
because I found something very special. I found you."

She was embarrassed and suddenly very shy.

“I would like to have you in bed again,” he said softly as he kissed
her neck and thinking to himself,
This time it will be different - this
time, I love her.
Convinced more than ever, fate was taking him somewhere
important. Now there was no turning back.

“Well, I'm not going anywhere,” she whispered back as he took a step
away and headed to the bathroom.

When he returned to the bedroom she was once more standing by the
window looking into the courtyard with its fountain and ornamental pool. Ben
climbed into the bed and held out his hand to her. “Come,” he said. 

She smiled and walked towards him, undoing the buttons on her gown. “Look,”
she grinned. “No ribbons,” as it dropped to the floor.

He was gentle with her but after a few minutes she raised herself
onto her elbow and spoke sharply to him. “Ben! You don't have to treat me like
a delicate piece of porcelain. I'm not fragile. I won't break.”

“I don't want to hurt you again,” he explained.

“You don't understand,” she told him. “It's not about me…it's about
you. Last night you saved my life. You have no idea how terrified I was and
then you came and I knew I was safe…and you were so kind.” Her voice broke. She
hesitated for just a moment and then went on. “You're my knight in shining
armour.”

“You mean I'm not the villain in the story then?” he asked,
surprised.

“Of course not! You're the hero. You made me feel special. You let
me talk and exorcise the ghosts from my past. You saved me from the evil
monsters and the dragons that have been plaguing me for years and I have
nothing to give in return but myself.” She took his hand in hers and lifted it
to her lips and kissed his palm and at that moment he knew. He knew that not
only was he was in love with her, but that she was the love of his life. He
moved his hand and caressed her cheek then gently bent her head to his, kissed
her and gathered her in his arms and held her close, wanting never to let her
go and thinking,
This is what it has been all about. I’ve found my love.

Later as they sat eating a very late breakfast, or early lunch,
Charis wasn't sure which, Ben asked if she’d like to go up the river to Cairo.
He said they could go to dinner and to a nightclub if she'd like and spend the
night in a hotel and tomorrow he could take her to the pyramids on their way back.
He knew her answer immediately as her eyes sparkled with delight. 

“Oh, could we? Oh, yes please! I’d love to. There is a boat?” she
asked.

“Ravi has a boat. We'll use that.”

“He might not like us taking his boat.”

“I don't care if he likes it or not,” Ben replied, his anger at Ravi
still apparent. “He'll be lucky if I don't take his life.”

*****

Ravi's boat turned out to be a luxury yacht. Charis thought it
looked like one pictured in a glossy magazine. There were two crew members that
took care of the trip to Cairo. Ben and Charis had sat in the front of the boat
for some time watching the river and the river bank when he asked about her
mother. “Did you ever miss having a mother?”

“Not when I was little,” she replied. “Not when I had my Dad. You
see, I never had a mother so I didn't understand what I was missing. And when
my father died I was so busy missing him...” Her voice trailed off as memories
of her father came flooding back.

“Did you
never
miss her?” he wanted to know.

“Oh yes, very much…when I got older…when I began to notice other
girls with their mothers.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don't want to bore you with more of my
childhood stories.”

“I can assure you I won't be bored,” he smiled.

So she told him.

It had started when Jennifer came to the school in September, the
year after Charis turned ten in August. Although Jennifer was a year older than
Charis they were in most of the same classes and their cubicles were next to
each other in their dormitory. Very soon they were best friends and it didn't
take Jennifer very long to discover that Charis only went home in the school
holidays - never for half term or weekends, so she invited Charis to her home
whenever she could.

The first time Charis visited Jennifer's home she was overwhelmed
with the house and with the family. The house was Victorian and seemed positively
huge to Charis. Later, she realized that her own home, Meadow Lea Hall, was
probably bigger, but as the rooms were smaller, except for the hall itself, and
darker with the oak panelling, it
seemed
smaller. In Jennifer’s home, the
rooms were large and full of light and there were always so many people!
Jennifer was the youngest of six children and to Charis, an only child, it was
an overpowering experience. But the house was full of love and of happiness and
laughter - tangible - she could feel it all around her. In the beginning she
revelled in it. They’d made her feel so welcome, almost like one of the family,
and yet she was not. Soon, although she looked forward to her visits, Charis
sometimes wished she’d never been invited, as it had caused her to realise what
she’d been missing all those years.

“It was like I was in one of those Christmas cards,” she explained
to Ben. “You know the ones with the pictures of children standing outside a
shop window, faces pressed against the glass, seeing but not being able to
touch…wanting and hoping to get a special gift for Christmas. But I knew I
would never get the gift I wanted.” She had yearned for a family of her own.

And then she’d watched Jennifer with her mother. At school, if
something special or unusual happened, the first thing Jennifer wanted to do
was to tell her mother, and when she saw her the next time she’d run into her
mother's arms full of news and say, “Mummy, guess what happened?” or, “Guess what
I did this week?” and Charis knew she would never have anyone who wanted, or
cared, to know what she’d done or what she’d achieved. “Guess what I did this
week? That Mozart piece I've been learning? It took six weeks but I can play it
right through now,” or, “Mummy, I got one hundred percent in my maths test,”
(Charis wasn't very good at maths) or “This week I got chosen to play on the
rounders team.” (Charis wasn't very good at sport either!) Or the first time
she was asked to sing a solo at the school concert, or the first time she went
to Europe on a school trip and had no one to tell about the adventure of it
all. Oh yes! Charis had learned what it was like to have a mother, and how
badly she missed hers.

“And then suddenly I was fourteen and I wasn't a little girl anymore
and I needed my mother so much. I was so afraid of growing up all alone.” Charis’
voice broke and she tried to keep her emotions in check. Ben placed his arm
around her and held her close. Up until then he’d sat sideways, watching her
face as she spoke. “I longed for her to take me in her arms and tell me
everything would be alright, that the pain would go away and it wouldn't hurt
anymore. I wanted to ask her about boys and sex and what it felt like to have a
baby growing inside you and have her tell me all about her and my dad.” Charis
hesitated and brushed the tears from her eyes. “And then there was Ben. I
really needed to talk to her about Ben.”

“Who was Ben?” he asked quietly.

“Jennifer's brother,” she replied. “She had three brothers and Ben
was the youngest. He was twenty when I first went to their house and I knew he
was special the very first time I met him. He was in the hall when we arrived
and he smiled at me and said, ‘You must be Jen's little friend. Welcome to our
crazy house,’ and he ruffled my hair. I always felt so clumsy and shy when he
was around and I didn't feel like that with her other brothers…just Ben.” She paused
and took a deep breath. Charis told him that by the time she was fourteen she
had a full blown crush on him.     

He smiled. “Your first love in fact!”

“I don't think so – it was very one-sided. I was just a child and he
was all grown up. If he thought of me at all it was just as his sister's little
friend. But he was very kind.” If Ben had spoken to her she was in agony
because she became tongue tied and didn't know what to say. But if he wasn't
there on her visits, and he often wasn't because he was working in a London
hospital learning how to be a doctor, then she was in agony because of that. Then
looking up at Ben she smiled and said, “You remind me of him…you look like
him.”

He grinned and teased, “That good, huh?”

“He was absolutely drop dead gorgeous,” she sighed.

“Well, thank you, young lady,” he replied, laughing a little, feeling
somewhat embarrassed.

Charis told him how she would often sit a little apart from the
others just watching them all and feeling so envious of the love they obviously
felt for each other. How in the really nice weather they would go outside and
sit on the back lawn in the shade of the big oak tree for their afternoon tea. One
day Jennifer's father had stood up and admitted he'd eaten so much that he
needed to go for a walk and would Charis like to go with him? When she first
met Jennifer’s father she’d been a little afraid of him. He was a QC and had a very
important position in his law firm in London. He was also quite a big man and
somewhat austere in appearance, but when he smiled his expression changed and
he had very kind eyes. Over time Charis had come to like and respect him, so
when he’d asked her she’d said, “Yes please,” and jumped up from the grass.
Jennifer had stood up, too, and said, “I'll come as well,” and Sir Giles had
said quite seriously, “No. You were not invited. This is just an invitation for
Jane.” 

Ben's expression changed and he looked at her intently, realising
that the thoughts he'd had since she’d mentioned Jennifer were right. He had
known her as a child.  

“Jane?” he asked, sounding surprised. “You're Jane? I mean, your
name is Jane?”

“Well, one of my names,” Charis replied. “When I started at school I
didn't want anyone calling me Charis. I wanted to be someone different…not have
people call me by the name my father used for me. Jane was my grandmother's
name so I asked to be called that and the headmistress didn't mind so I became
Jane while I was at school. I thought that it would help somehow. It didn't. Maybe
because I was still Charis at home.”

His demeanour was intense…his expression serious. “And then?”

“Well we went for our walk. There's a small lake with woods beyond
and then some fields, so that's where we walked. It became something that we'd
do together, if he was home when I was there, which actually wasn't very often.
But when we did take our walk together, Sir Giles would point out the birds and
wild animals that I wouldn't have otherwise noticed. I really enjoyed our walks.
In a small way it reminded me of happy times with my Dad. And then one day, I
think it was soon after I turned fifteen, Ben was home when Sir Giles wasn't
and after tea Ben stood up and walked over and informed me that today he was
his father's deputy. He asked if I'd go with him instead. So I went and it was
wonderful. When I walked with Sir Giles he never touched me, but Ben did. He
helped me over the stile. He caught me when I jumped off a wall. He held my
hand when we crossed a little stream and after that I never felt shy with him
again. I thought he was the most wonderful person in the world.”