Olive Targett was already packing up to leave for Bombay and England, to be married and become Lady Something-or-other to do with biscuits, and since she had not yet seen the Taj, Bob arranged a Last Weekend Visit to Agra as a farewell party for her. I’ve forgotten which of her many swains she chose to accompany her, but I remember that there were four car-loads of us, one driven by Mother, who had been asked to chaperon the party, and that we all put up at Lowry’s Hotel. Our visit coincided with the last full moon before the annual exodus to the hills began, and in addition to doing the rounds of all the obligatory Agra sights, such as the Fort, Akbar’s tomb at Sikandar, the tomb of Itima-ud-Daula and the deserted city of Fatehpur-Sîkrî, we spent an entire night, from sunset to sunrise, in the garden of the Taj. After wandering hand-in-hand with Bob through those romantic flower-scented and moon-drenched spaces, I received, in the shadow of the great dome, what I was to discover later was a remarkably chaste kiss (it was in fact the first I had received as a ‘grown-up’) and, somewhat naturally, I leapt to the conclusion that this must be Love.
