In Bed With Lord Byron

worst pair of pyjamas, a
horrific tartan-checkered pair; he’d discovered I turned into a banshee if I didn’t get my beauty sleep. He’d also discovered I could, if provoked, be a bit of a flirt.
    I say a
bit
of a flirt because that is the truth. I never meant any harm by it. I didn’t walk around wearing tops cut to my navel, giving blokes come-hither smiles and fluttering
heavily mascaraed eyelashes. It was more that I loved being friendly; I loved meeting new people; I loved slashing past superficial chit-chat and slicing to the heart of them. And I suppose in my
fascination for this I sometimes became what Anthony called ‘flirty’.
    Anthony
never
flirted. If we went anywhere, he had no interest in anyone else at all. We existed in a cocoon. Literally. We could go out to dinner and be served by the world’s
sexiest waitress and he wouldn’t even give her a second glance, let alone a first; in fact, he’d just stare at the menu, giving orders, utterly determined to show his disinterest. It
made me feel loved and cherished and beautiful because I knew no other woman in the room mattered to him but me.
    But sometimes, when we were travelling, I grew a little tired of his desire for us to always be a twosome, doing our own private thing. Though he had been brought up in America, sometimes he
could be terribly British: this is your space, this is ours. And sometimes, when I chatted to people, I noticed little tell-tale signs of his annoyance: a flicker in his jaw, in his eyes. But I
never worried much.
    Until India.
    Our first few weeks in India were utterly euphoric. Everyone had warned me that I would suffer from culture shock when I hit India, but I immediately fell in love with the
country and felt completely at home. I fell in love with its messiness and its chaos. I fell in love with the people; when they weren’t trying to scam us for an extra rupee, I was amazed by
their warmth and generosity. On the train from Delhi to Agra, Anthony and I shared a compartment with some Indians who shared their nuts and bananas with us and, at the end of the journey, embraced
us, declaring we were family. It was certainly a big change from the coldness of London commuting. I loved the temples, too. One day we stumbled on a
yagya
taking place and surreptitiously
watched Brahmin priests performing sacred offerings to the devas to erase a person’s bad karma and bring them good fortune. The sound of their chanting reverberated in my heart all day.
    I noticed that Anthony was a little tense on the odd occasion. But for much of the time we were dreamy and happy and hazily in love. We drifted through temples, took siestas in the afternoon,
came down for meals and then spent giddy nights walking by the Yamuna river, watching the full moon on the dark water. We could see the Taj Mahal from behind, and while it burned a bright white
during the day, under the glow of the moon it turned golden and seemed to float above the river like a heavenly palace in a fairy tale.
    One night we stopped by the river, gazing down. The moon hovered and the water swirled and cut different expressions across her face, but the main one seemed to me to be one of serenity. The
light shone down on us like a hot embrace, sealing our love; the air was tinted with the scent of sandalwood Anthony had dabbed on his skin; in the distance a saringi tingled sweetly. This was
India at its most beautiful; this was a perfect moment. I turned to Anthony and it was as though our hearts trembled in recognition of the same feeling; we stared at each other like two children
who had just discovered the existence of love. As he held me, my heart swooped with ecstasy and peace and pride. All my life, I’d suffered failed love affairs, love that seemed more hate than
love, affairs that had left my heart scratched or shrunken. I was beginning to worry that I would never find love, that I was unlovable. And now I had found it. It made me feel grown-up in the most
fulfilled way. This, I thought, as we kissed, this sweetness is all there is in life.
    That night, as we lay in bed together, whispering and kissing and giggling, I felt truly cherished, wrapped up in love. For being in love softens the heart, cushions and confirms your sense of
identity: the knowledge that for all your faults and neuroses and dysfunctional upbringing, someone aches to be with you. At the same time, there was a feeling of astonished fear. A sense that this
couldn’t