Honeymoon Nights

Ann and I left our wedding reception at about 11pm. The guests assembled themselves on the steps of Gray's Inn Hall to see us off; and Ann threw her corsage. My elder brother hadn't been paying attention and, as if piqued thereby, the little floral bundle floated over the field of waiting, waving wrists and fell with a peevish slap across his face. Indignant and utterly bewildered, he stood spitting petals from his mouth. As we climbed into the black cab that was to take us to our hotel in Russell Square, we heard him exclaim angrily.

"Who the bloody hell threw that? ...Could have had my eye out!"

The following day, we flew to Corsica for our honeymoon.

As the crow flies, Porto Pollo is about twenty miles from Ajaccio airport. However, fifteen years' ago, it was a three hour drive along the most twisted, indented, precipitous coast I had ever seen. At some points, the road appeared to be little more than a rock shelf cut into a sheer cliff. So it was that it was nearly midnight when Ann and I finally arrived at the romantic and remote auberge where we had chosen to spend our first Corsican night.

The pleasant, round-faced proprietress smiled indulgently when she learned that we were newly-wed. Beckoning and nodding, she insisted upon leading us along the beach and away from the mustard-yellow, crumbling building with its Juliette balconies draped with bougainvillea and jasmine.

Grandly, she gestured towards her 'bridal suite' and, as our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we saw the object of her pride. There, set high on spindly stilts, a wooden hut hovered precariously above the gently respiring Mediterranean.

The structure was accessed via a ladder and a trapdoor in the floor. A second ladder led directly into the sea from a rickety balcony. Tentatively, we followed Madame's ample rear as she clambered, grunted and snorted her way up and over the threshold.

The only real article of furniture in the room was an enormous, black bed. Its vast, spreading headboard sported an array of dials and switches that seemingly did nothing, but which obviously must once have controlled every aspect of some kitsch, seventies bachelor apartment. Ann and I looked at one another and grinned. We loved it.

Madame smiled in that particular, knowing way used exclusively by the elderly and religious on such occasions, before she retreated quietly back through the trapdoor.

A few minutes later, I went to collect our bags from the boot of our hired car. Weary from the journey, I was sadly unprepared for the weight of Ann's suitcase and staggered back into some shrubbery. Back in our little hut on stilts, I lay face down on the bed as Ann spent much of our first honeymoon night carefully plucking cactus spines from my back and buttocks.

Eventually, the task was complete.

"You need to let the sea get at these cuts," said Ann.

So, at two O'clock in the morning, we both descended the ladder from our rickety balcony and swam naked in the moonlight.

I wouldn't change one little thing about that night.