*
Cairo was oppressive, dusty and colourless. Trams ran in all directions hooting, limp little donkeys loaded with fruit trailed along the gutters surrounded by horseflies. The pavements were crowded, women with frizzy black hair hurried along on taloned cork sandals, and tarbooshed men shuffled with limp arms or stood picking their noses and spitting into the dust. Gary carts drawn along by bony, glistening horses clopped by full of American soldiers on leave.
We were dumped at the Airways and our luggage flung onto the pavement. Feeling lost and miserable, I rang the Embassy and was put through to the cipher room. An elderly voice told me to get into a taxi but, apparently, I wasn’t expected.
The Embassy was grey and deserted. The cipher room was on the ground floor with steel bars across the windows. I was greeted by a skeletal old lady who said it was lucky I had arrived at such an hour, as the room was usually filled with over twenty people. Lipsticky cups of half-drunk tea were scattered about amongst used carbons, despatch books, partly chewed slabs of chocolate and countless cigarette ends. Then, I was put into another taxi and driven to the Continental Hotel where another cipherine showed me to my room. After providing a lot of information with a benevolent half-smile, she went off to work and I observed my surroundings. For one thing, there was a fearful noise outside. My verandah looked onto a square where everything revolved round the statue of a man in a tarboosh, striking an imposing attitude with one arm raised and on one side was a line of gary carts with a taxi rank on the other. The drivers from both ranks congregated in a spitting huddle at the foot of the statue, their whips resting on the big toe. Below my window was a terrace. Moustached men in uniform sat about in basket chairs drinking iced lemonade. On the fringe of the terrace were several Egyptians sleepily eyeing girls’ legs as they hurried past. One or two pretty girls sat surrounded by Americans, or in couples with spry Frenchmen in képis. I pulled down the blinds, lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
The following morning, I presented myself at the Embassy. Rufus, a red-faced young man with a lisp, wearing an old Etonian tie, a pale blue shirt and white flannels, asked me when I would like to start work. Then, jerking back a strand of red hair that had been obliterating his sight, he moved away and went on sorting papers. Days later, when I strolled in I was put to work with a phenomenally fat ex-naval commander who sat surrounded by tiny dish-cloths used to mop the sweat from his eyes. Each day, fresh mops were brought to work in a satchel containing pencils, pens and an India rubber attached to a string. We worked on shifts and got picked up and taken to work in a kind of cattle truck.
The first day, I was taken to lunch at the Gezira Sporting Club, where I was introduced to a bumptious major who became a guide and companion for several weeks until the relationship ended abruptly one night in a taxi.
The second week, Ramadan began. All Arab pursuits were slowed down to an imperceptible pace. The absent-mindedness of the boys at table drove one to despair, so that after watching them standing idly rolling up napkins or picking their teeth, one rose in desperation and, snatching at a fig, hurried off to await the horsebox which became as unreliable as the lunch. There were occasions on the tennis court, when the ball boy stated it was too much of an effort for him to stroll across the court that day.
*
PC Boot had been left in charge of the cottage. His letters arrived by Bag, and went like this …
‘How are you, Miss Skelton? PC Boot speaking. Everything at the farm quite OK. So sorry to hear of your dislike of Cairo and nature habits, etc. I had difficulty securing the front door the other day. Only one way out. Go home and get the necessary tools. Lo and behold! who should turn up in the intervening few hours but mother from Hythe. She had another young lady with her. They had come, apparently, for a couple of mirrors and a carpet that were in the sheds, and I was not carrying the keys. I felt a little pleased about that, as I don’t like letting anything go without your approval. I despatched two old razors to Mr Quennell but have not heard if he received them. Is Mr Topolski still in London? Give him my respects when you write. All your books are keeping in good condition. That creeper near the house was lifting up tiles so I have eliminated this by cutting offending strips away. The painting of the fat ram still gazes down as you light a fire. I’ve named him Sir Cuthbert de Mouton. Well, Miss Skelton, I must conclude, hope to see you soon. Best respects from Mrs Boot, baby and myself etc.…’
‘Dear Miss Skelton – Yours of no date safely to hand. Many thanks same. I have not heard from Mr Quennell. I suppose he got his razors alright. I was pleased to see Mr Topolski in this week’s Picture Post with our prominent friend Mr Bernard Shaw. Everything at the farm is in good order. The process of moth ball protection etc. and turning off of water is being steadily carried out by Mrs Boot. On Saturday, I noticed a disturbance of the rotted boards that cover the well in the rear of the house. On looking down I saw what appeared to be the body of a squirrel or a cat floating on the water. With the aid of a pole with a couple of nails at the end, I brought it up. It was a weasel measuring nearly two feet. I suppose he had been after rabbits and met his unfortunate end through trespassing. The past few days have seen the farmer very busy with the harvest … there is, I suppose, the greatest harvest in history and the least amount of labour to deal with it. However, I expect they will soon be singing in Elmstead Church “All is safely gathered in ere the winter storms begin.” The cottage still looks as inviting as ever. So does the shed where Miss Skelton is going to accommodate her cow. By the way, your Elmstead neighbours Mr Moody and Mrs Risdale wish to be remembered to you and hope to see you again one day. The war situation is pleasing to everyone; without undue optimism it does appear that the tide has turned. Oh, before I close, from the 17th August there is an intense tightening re. entry into the area. I only mention it so that if anyone intended to visit the cottage the said persons must be in possession of a police permit. So cheerio and kind regards from myself and Mrs Boot. I haven’t heard any more from mother. Well, Miss Skelton, I must conclude as I want to get your jodhpurs in the post. I would like to thank you again for the film you kindly obtained. I was able to let my sister at Blackpool have some excellent snaps of the baby etc….’
‘Just a line inquiring if your jodhpurs arrived safely. I mailed them several weeks ago. Everything at the farm is in good order. The exceptional severe weather has called for a little more attention. I’ve had a good fire going every week. The front door has its funny little ways of refusing to lock but I have put it right. You have a new Vicar at Elmstead, the Rev. Stevens. He is a younger man than his predecessor and takes a much greater interest in the parish. I expect you wonder why the hell I’m telling you all this, but I promised to keep you informed of all the village excitement. A crowd of gypsies recently encamped not far from the cottage and I was unable to move them as the owner of the land gave them permission to be there. A few complaints of poultry stealing etc. came to me … However, I used a little diplomacy. I told them I thought it only fair they should know that the lady at Oak Cottage had two very dangerous Bull Terriers. It worked all right … they fought very shy all the time they were there … Well, Miss Skelton, Mrs Boot wishes to be remembered, so does Mrs Risdale and Mr Moody. Best of luck … PC Boot …’
Throughout the Cairo era, Peter Quennell was an assiduous letter writer of gossip, sending scraps of information … that Cyril, though a Blitz hero, was very buzz-bomb conscious and took refuge under the stairway in Bedford Square … that a pink and grey Australian parrot given to him by the Picture Post tycoon, Edward Hulton, when let out of its cage, descended on people’s heads with raucous guttural squawks … that Brian Howard described his new young man as looking like a ‘tortured jaguar, my dear …’ And, at Tickerage, the choleric Major Dick Wyndham had hurled a hammer and murdered one of his geese because it had wandered onto a lettuce bed. Lee Millar wrote, ‘Hello honey, what an odd place you’ve chosen to live … say hello to my husband, Aziz Eloui Bey, Club Mohammed …
All love, Lee
From the Continental Hotel I moved to Zamalek. When Patrick Balfour* came to take me to a party, he thought the Villa Moskatelli, where I resided, looked suspiciously louche. In fact, it was owned by a respectable Italian family. The daughter of the house brought up breakfast and kept the room free of bedbugs. Though should there be a sandstorm, the sand seeped into everything.
One evening at an embassy party, a smiling dark gentleman approached and introduced himself as ‘Freddie, a Copt who had been educated at Oxford and owned a Bentley’. Freddie introduced me to Cairo night-life. Another rich Coptic playboy, Mansour Wassaf Simaika, otherwise known as Victor, had been an international polo player, in the same team as Porfirio Rubirosa.† I went riding with Victor and, during one summer leave in Alexandria, he showed me all the class beaches. The lowest grade consisted of nothing but boulders. Victor had a beach hut amongst the wealthy Egyptians who never entered the sea, but were to be seen lunching on the sands under vast parasols, being served by white robed servants. Victor claimed his idea of bliss was to make love to a beautiful woman on a bed of tuber-roses. Now, with frizzy white hair, a carnation in his buttonhole and supported by a cane, he still hobnobs round Parisian café society every summer.
Many old friends turned up in Cairo, including Topolski in his role of war artist. We made a memorable trip to Luxor and had the tombs to ourselves but for a guide who brought along a donkey that I mounted when overcome with fatigue.
Anthony Steele, then a Captain in a Gurkha Parachute company, stationed in India, used to fly over on leave. He was a hearty, genial young man using expressions like ‘darned sticky’ as we lay on the fish slab of the Gezira swimming pool. Then the Bastard turned up on leave. In fact, it was while we were dining at the Auberge des Pyramides that I met Farouk. We had been put at a table next to the Royal entourage; an equerry came over and invited us to join them.
Then, Farouk’s permanent companion was a very beautiful Syrian girl whom the Bastard lost no time in whirling round the dance floor. Farouk was in one of his playful moods, flinging coloured pompoms at all the nearby tables; the stuffier the people, the more he enjoyed himself and roared with laughter. But I found his infantile side rather endearing, even this kind of thing … ‘What does a pullet call for when it’s just been hatched? … Ma-ma-lade.’ Followed by the comment, ‘That’s a good one, don’t you think!’
In fact, Egyptians, in general, were easily amused. One would see the fellaheen enveloped in blankets, huddled in doorways bent double with laughter at the expense of passing Europeans. A few days after dining at the Auberge des Pyramides, an equerry came to the Embassy with an invitation to join a Royal house party in the desert. I was picked up at the Villa Moskatelli by an Italian servant, Antonio Pulli, who became Farouk’s eminence grise and was given the title ‘Bey’. About twenty of us boarded a private train that ran like a centipede through the desert and on which we were given lunch. When we reached our destination, Farouk was the first person to step out of the train blowing a trumpet to summon us all together. A line of fellaheen stood either side of a track kowtowing and clapping as the convoy of cars drove toward the Summer Palace.
The first night, we were told we all had to sleep on the Palace rooftop where mattresses had been laid. Farouk never stopped chatting in Arabic and laughing with his underlings at his guests’ discomfort, as we all trooped onto the roof in our respective nightwear. When I appeared in a green dressing-gown he said I reminded him of a cabbage. At sunrise, we were awoken by the inevitable bugle call. I had a pair of earrings in the shape of curly fish that I had bought in the Moosky. Farouk took them, saying he was going to give me a surprise. One night, I was getting into bed when I found a jewel box tucked under the pillow; the curly fish had been copied in gold with emerald eyes, and a clip to go with them, that I treasured for years until, like anything I ever owned of value, they disappeared.
I was nicknamed ‘Kiwi’, after the famous boot black, as I always had a shiny face. Sometimes, we’d dine in the Abdin Palace and afterwards watched movies or swam in the vast Palace swimming pool. Farouk always drove me back to the Villa Moskatelli and, as we passed through the Palace gates, I had to duck so as not to be seen by the dozing nightwatchmen.
In spite of the rather dull sycophantic people surrounding the King, I must confess I was never bored. I was always treated with great courtesy and I never felt that I was amongst a ‘clique of corrupt lackeys’; ‘with a depraved ogre surfeited with sex and gourmandising’; ‘a paradigm of cupidity with gross features and bloated figure’ or observed that when he ate ‘he stoked himself with rich food’ and then ‘shambled with wobbling jowls’ as described in The Last Pharaoh. Farouk seemed to prefer rather simple food – he was very fond of chicken carcasses, claiming the parson’s nose to be the best part of the bird. He loved oysters and fruit, and wherever we went there were large platters of muscat grapes, figs and mangoes from his own plantation, and those delicious rose pink water melons with huge black pips that taste so good when eaten iced with fresh goat’s cheese.
One day I was summoned by the first secretary at the Embassy, Bernard Burrows,‡ who said that if I went on seeing Farouk I would have to leave Egypt. Then Burrows gave me two weeks’ leave which I spent hitchhiking round the Middle East.
Diary
I am now dining alone in a dim Ismalia hotel. A strange contrast to my dinner of last night with the Monarch! Have just eaten a nasty meal which I tried to disguise with ketchup. It is amusing being alone, people come up and talk as though I were an old friend. I have a room overlooking a railway terminus, trains rumble past the window, there is a screech of children’s voices and a clatter of plates from the kitchen below. I am deadly tired and ache all over from a flogging of last night on the steps of the Royal Palace. I would have preferred a splayed cane, but instead had to suffer a dressing-gown cord which created a gentle thudding sound over an interminable period.
*
The first evening in Jerusalem was spent drinking with a small lecherous Frenchman who had picked me up in a taxi just outside Gaza. Very spry and talkative with many amorous little gestures and references to his bottle of whisky at his maison, which made me increasingly anxious to escape. A very bad dinner, rations are very small here. After each meal little men appear with trayloads of assorted nuts. Managed to abandon the Frenchman after a slight tussle in the taxi when he received two sharp raps on his head with my Virginia Woolf.
*
I am already very fond of Jerusalem. Bells chime continuously. Donkeys, a tougher breed than the wiry Egyptian ones, pad up and down the streets loaded with small packs. The women are big and strong with ruddy complexions, and wear long, loose, flowing robes with square embroidered fronts. They carry large baskets of fruit on their heads as opposed to the inevitable Cairo cowpats. Such relief getting out of Egypt, with its consistent flatness and colourlessness. ‘How did you like the old city?’ I asked my cell companion. ‘OOOH!’ she said, pulling a face. ‘What a good thing they built that wall round them.’ She told me that the Allies had entered Paris two days ago.
*
Tiberias seemed to be a popular swimming resort. It is a sweet place reclining on the slopes overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In its centre is a motherly old mosque like a Queen Bee. It was deserted but for two ancient bearded Arabs eating water melons and spitting the pips into a yard. Carrying his Bible, a bespectacled UNRRA enthusiast with an SCF (Suffering Children’s Friend) on his uniform took me out in a rowing boat and pointed out all the biblical landmarks. I joked with the boatman to try and forget his existence. We dined on the promenade under a flamboyant tree and ate quite the most disgusting fish, tasting of drains, called musct. Rose early, determined to escape SCF. But there he was, waiting to see me off. He insisted on getting me breakfast, a stale roll with local jam wrapped in a newspaper, greatly attractive to flies, that I found myself carrying around for the rest of the day. Eventually, I left it behind in a lorry which took me along the
shores of the Galilee. Then, in another lorry, we climbed into the hills, where I ate some eggs, bacon and real butter. Later, rejoined my luggage to find a thoughtful driver had carefully lain the discarded fly-blown roll on top of my suitcase.
At the frontier, after making friends with the Military Police, I was put into a taxi full of sick women bound for Damascus and dropped in the main square at one o’clock. Great difficulty in making myself understood, so in desperation I got someone to take me to the YWCA (four magic words in the Middle East). They were helpful and sent me off to the Church Army hostel. Woke up next to a roomful of sergeants, having been kept awake most of the night by Arab wailing which seemed to come from a mosque on the roof. Had the usual guided tour and made friends with a tiny hunchback corporal, suffering from an idolatrous worship of Monty. He later took me to an Eddie Cantor film, made several attempts to hold my hand, then walked me back to the hostel with the words, ‘Pleased to have met you.’ The big mosque was like a market square, full of Arabs engaged in every activity bar prayers. Some were sitting cross-legged counting out their money on the mosaic floor, and a great number were just leaning against the pillars spitting and picking their noses. After buying some Syrian silk stockings, I boarded a car loaded with WRENS who never stopped chattering about their mothers’ dogs, other WRENS’ young men, or dances. The driver and I exchanged desperate glances.
'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More' Page 8