Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  She was there now, smoking one of her sweet-smelling cigarettes as she creaked on a rocking chair between the boys’ beds. The mound of her starched apron moved up and down as she inhaled, exhaled. Her peppery hair was arranged in a caterpillar roll. Beneath it, she had the same olive skin and hooked nose that so many Greeks in Egypt shared. She had lived here her whole life, her grandparents having fled to Alex during the Greek War of Independence. Olivia didn’t know how old that made her, forty, maybe fifty. Sofia said it was rude to ask anyone with grey hairs for a number.

  Her eyes certainly looked old enough now. Swollen too, and full of worry. For all her brave words to Ralph earlier, it was clear she had been crying. Olivia wanted to say something to console her, but for the life of her couldn’t think what. Instead, as Angus let out a small cough, she looked dubiously at the smoke coiling over his cot.

  ‘Should you be…?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Sofia waved her hand distractedly. ‘I’m batting it away.’

  Another cough.

  ‘You might want to bat a bit harder.’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘He’s not fine.’ Olivia didn’t know why she snapped. It wasn’t poor old Sofia she was angry with, not at all. But still, she couldn’t help herself. ‘He’s not.’ Her voice came out strangled, halfway between a whisper and a shout. ‘He’s fit to choke. As if he didn’t have enough to be contending with already with his mother missing. Put it out.’

  Sofia’s eyes widened. She reached for her ashtray and stubbed her cigarette into it.

  Olivia took a breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have…’

  ‘No.’ Sofia gave her a sad smile. ‘That’s the sparky little miss I remember. It’s done me good to see you again.’

  Olivia shook her head. She raised her eyes to the dark ceiling. ‘Are the boys all right?’

  ‘The little lambs are fine. I’ve told them their mama’s on her way home to us.’ Sofia reached under her apron and pulled out a handkerchief. She blew her nose. ‘I’m glad you’re here, agapi mou. I was going to come and find you. I couldn’t talk earlier in front of the littlies…’ She paused, pressed her teeth to her lip. She was clearly fretting, deciding whether to go on.

  Olivia frowned, confused. What could be so hard for Sofia to say?

  ‘Sofia?’ she prompted. ‘What is it?’

  Sofia sighed, nodded. ‘You need to do something for your sister, just in case she isn’t back as soon as we’re praying. I saw her writing something this morning in the study that she tucked away when she spotted me looking. Go and get it, Mrs Livvy. I don’t think Mrs Clara would want Mr Jeremy to find it.’

  Slowly, Olivia digested this new piece of strangeness. So Clara was keeping secrets from Jeremy. It came as disturbingly unshocking. Nothing seemed to make proper sense any more – it was the only thing that made sense. Olivia felt as though she had fallen headlong into an upside-down wonderland; like Carroll’s Alice, she now wanted very much to go home. But unlike Alice, she didn’t have her sister by her side ready to wake her just at this point of her nightmare becoming overwhelming. No, she had absolutely no idea where Clara was, and was grimly certain of being wide awake already.

  ‘Can’t you fetch the letter yourself?’ she asked Sofia.

  ‘What if someone saw me? No, you have to do it.’

  ‘I can’t get in the study now, Jeremy’s in there with Alistair and Commissioner Wilkins.’ Whatever it was they were discussing.

  ‘Go tomorrow. Mr Jeremy won’t find it so quickly anyway. You need to know where to look.’

  ‘And you know?’

  ‘Second to top shelf, third book along.’

  ‘Did you read it yourself?’

  ‘No, agapi mou.’

  ‘You know what’s in it though. I can tell.’

  Sofia didn’t deny it. ‘Take my advice, Mrs Livvy, just get rid of it. If Mrs Clara wanted you to know what she was writing, she’d have told you.’

  Before Olivia could answer that Clara might well have been about to, Alistair’s voice calling, ‘Olivia, we’re going,’ echoed down the corridor and cooled her veins with dread.

  Reluctantly, she went off to find him.

  Chapter Six

  As Olivia followed Alistair out to fetch his horse, she asked him what he’d been speaking about with Wilkins. ‘Why were you even talking to him?’ She lifted her skirts from the hardened mud path, jogging to keep up. ‘What does this all have to do with you? Tell me, I won’t go home until you do.’

  ‘Don’t be petulant.’ Alistair pushed the stable doors open. ‘It doesn’t suit you. As for what we were discussing, there’s absolutely nothing to tell. We were just… encouraging… Wilkins to take what’s happened seriously.’

  ‘Why? What do you know that he doesn’t?’

  ‘Leave this now.’

  ‘No.’ Olivia’s voice rang through the night air, bouncing off the haystacks; the horses shied in their stalls. Clara’s driver, Hassan, looked up from shovelling straw, curiosity writ large across his dark features.

  Alistair stopped. His square shoulders rose and fell in a breath. He turned and crossed back over to her. She jerked away as he made to touch her face. His blue eyes snapped. ‘Come now,’ he said in that quiet way of his, ‘you’ve had a long day.’

  ‘Stop talking to me like I’m a child.’

  ‘Stop behaving like one.’

  She flinched at his steely tone; it maddened her that she’d done so, and her anger pushed her on. ‘Clara’s been upset lately, although I never found out why. I think you might know though.’

  ‘How on earth would I?’

  ‘She said Jeremy’s angry at you, that he didn’t even want to come back.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Stop this.’

  A small voice told Olivia to listen, do as he says, don’t go too far. ‘Clara loathes you, you know.’ The words were out before she could swallow them. ‘She always has, even when you were trying to convince her to marry you instead of Jeremy.’

  ‘That’s more than enough.’

  ‘Don’t tell me when enough is —’

  ‘Olivia.’

  The word cracked. Olivia’s determination withered in her mouth. Alistair’s lips turned in a smile; he knew he’d won. She watched, eyes smarting with humiliation and frustration, as he strode from her, past Hassan, to the furthest stall. He untethered his hunter and pulled himself into the saddle.

  As she waited for him to ride over, she tried to steady herself with thoughts of Edward. For once it didn’t work. All she could conjure when she tried to picture him was the way he’d been the last time she saw him, head to head with Clara. She couldn’t let the image go. And he wasn’t here to help her. For all she knew, he might not even be home.

  She took a step back as Alistair came alongside her and held out his hand. She stared at his symmetrical face, his near-transparent skin, feeling her own cheeks flame. Ignoring his offer of help, she fetched a nearby crate to stand on, gripped his horse’s mane and hoisted herself up. She levered herself so hard that she lost her balance and nearly fell over the other side of the horse’s flank, headlong to the floor. She struggled to right herself, scrambling in a mess of petticoats and stockings to reach back and grab the girth. Alistair pulled her into place in front of him. ‘Be careful,’ he said.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She flicked her hair from her hot face.

  Alistair laughed quietly and kicked them into motion.

  Hassan stared after them as they left, his rake motionless in his hand.

  They rode in silence along the moonlit road. Olivia, tight in Alistair’s hold, took in the glinting sea, the swaying palms, and wondered whether she felt even worse because everything around them was so beautiful.

  The Bedouin were already asleep when they got home, their canvas home silent. The villa was swathed in darkness, the creeping jasmine nothing but sweetly scented shadows on its walls. There were no servants to be seen. The only noise came from Oliv
ia and Alistair’s heels on the staircase, the crackling candle in Alistair’s hand, and the screech of cicadas outside.

  Alistair didn’t speak as Olivia undressed, just watched. She swallowed against the shivers of anxiety building in her. Not tonight, surely? All she wanted was to lie silent, untouched; hold her fears for Clara close to her – a melancholy kind of company. Where are you? The question repeated itself over and over in her mind.

  As she crossed over to the bed, she’d never felt more scared, or more alone. She pulled back the gossamer folds of the mosquito nets, and climbed onto the mattress. She rolled onto her side, away from him. Her chest rose, fell. She heard a stealthy padding as, step by step, he came and leant over her, one hand either side of her body, almost, but not quite touching her.

  ‘Roll over,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’

  When she didn’t do as he asked, he rolled her himself. He had the candle in his hand.

  ‘Why did you speak to me like that earlier, Olivia?’ The candle dipped, a line of wax ran down its side. ‘Why did you go off on your own today?’ He shook his head. The flame shook with it. ‘What were you thinking? I wish I could hear your thoughts.’ He kissed her neck. ‘If I could, I’d know everything about you.’ He kissed her again. The wick crackled. ‘You can’t lock me out.’ His hand ran down her body. ‘You mustn’t.’

  ‘No, Alistair. I can’t stand it, not with Clara…’

  ‘Shhhh.’ He tightened his grip on her thigh, gathering her nightdress up. His fingers pressed into her. And even though she knew that it was futile, that it probably made things worse, still she struggled. Her limbs filled with panicked energy as she tried to push him away. He laughed shortly, as though the sport had just started. He brought his hand from beneath her gown, he raised it above her. Her eyes widened, and before she could move, or even beg him not to, he jerked his elbow sharply into her stomach, taking the breath and the words from her. She gasped, immobile with pain. Her eyes locked on the nets, a dead mosquito, anywhere but on him. The candle sizzling into the raw burn on her pelvis wasn’t a surprise, but it was a shock, and she must have screamed, because the pillow came down heavy on her face.

  He pushed her legs apart. She clenched her eyes shut.

  Edward saw their light go out from where he was standing in the front garden and thought, Let him be comforting her. Let her sleep now. It killed him to be back, so close at last that he could shout and she would hear, and not be able to hold her in his arms himself.

  He ran his hand down his face. With a sigh, he pulled his horse’s reins, leading him towards the stables at the back of the house. He opened the neck of his shirt as he walked, letting the cool night air onto his skin. He was exhausted, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tired. He’d been up since dawn, riding at pace across the dunes: the final stretch of a three-day journey triggered by that message. Give it up, you’ve searched long enough. The Grays are on their way back from Constantinople, you’re needed here now. All he’d wanted to do when he finally reached home was wash the sand from him, see Olly, then get to Tom to find out some more about why he and Fadil had been sent on that bloody wild goose chase into the desert in the first place. But when they got to the house, no one had known where Olly was, just that she had gone out with Clara.

  Edward had been furious; after the month he’d had, it beggared belief that Clara should swan around in such a way. He and Fadil had left in search of her and Olly: Fadil to the city centre whilst Edward hunted everywhere else. Edward shook his head, thinking of the futile hours he’d spent trawling Alex’s cafés and parks, how incandescent with rage he was by the time he gave up and went to find Tom at the parade ground. He’d had the words ready to berate him in his head. Do you think perhaps we might ask Clara that in future she informs someone of her plans before she goes off gallivanting around God knows where? That she has a care before dragging her sister along with her? I’m not a sodding babysitter. Stripes or no stripes, no matter his respect for Tom, he was ready to go for him. He was too angry, and too shattered, not to.

  But as soon as he’d entered Tom’s office and seen the shock on Tom’s face, the words had died on his lips. He’d listened in grim silence as Tom told him how Alistair and Jeremy had just left: the worst had happened, Clara was missing. ‘She didn’t know,’ said Tom. ‘They didn’t tell her how much danger she was in, even though they assured me they would. Just fed her some claptrap about nationalism in general being on the up. Sheldon claimed it should have been enough to keep her on her guard, said they didn’t want to worry her with the truth of it – or risk the gossip if she mentioned it all to anyone else.’ Tom’s tone was incredulous, full of as much anger as Edward felt. Grief too. Tom had known Clara even longer than Edward had, ever since she’d come to Alex as a newly-wed. As for Imogen… Tom would be dreading telling her what had happened. ‘Damned arrogance,’ Tom said. ‘The two of them are on their way to talk with that arsehole Wilkins now. Olivia called for him.’

  ‘Olly’s safe?’ Edward had managed to ask.

  ‘She is, thank God. For the moment.’

  For the moment. Never had three words turned Edward’s stomach with such force.

  He’d turned to leave, intent on getting to the Grays’ house, just to see Olly there. Tom had tried to keep him back, said they needed to speak of India, the papers had come through, Edward’s passage was in less than a fortnight; he needed to get ready, tell the men. Edward hadn’t wanted to hear it. He’d strode from the room, ridden hard for the Grays’. But he’d found the place empty, the drawing room dark, the study too. A servant had told him that everyone had left, Sir Gray was on the terrace if Captain Bertram wished to join him.

  Edward hadn’t. He’d come straight home. To where she was.

  He flexed his fingers now on the reins, examining them in the moonlight. They were trembling. His whole body was jumpy with fear. He clenched his hand, tight. He needed to get hold of himself. He’d never been scared like this before, not during his brutal training at Sandhurst, the early days in Egypt, those desert patrols into hostile territory during the Sudanese war… The emotion shocked him.

  He led his stallion into the stables, past the empty stall where Fadil’s hunter should be. Not back, then. Edward hadn’t seen him since they’d separated that morning. He hoped to God he was out chasing a lead.

  He paused by Olly’s horse. He ran his hand around her silky neck, clicking his tongue as she nestled into him. He breathed deep, thinking of all those riding lessons, the hours in that field. The memories had kept him company whilst he’d been away. Olly’s smile, her laugh, the guiding touches to her calf, her waist.

  He closed his eyes. Get a grip, man.

  He went to the terrace from the stables. There was no point going to bed, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had spoken to Fadil. He climbed the wooden steps, struck a match on a cigarette, and turned to look out at the sea. His lips shuddered as he inhaled.

  He thought about Olly asleep upstairs, her body curled beneath the sheets. He thought about Clara too: where she was, what she might be enduring, and how they might begin to find her.

  He hated that the last time they’d spoken she had been so upset. He’d been sharp, too sharp with her, that night on the club’s terrace. How could you be that selfish, Clara? What use would telling do now? Think about someone other than yourself. God, but she’d looked crestfallen.

  He took another drag on his cigarette. His legs twitched. He couldn’t just stand here as he was, doing nothing. Where the hell had Fadil got to? He decided to go out in search of him. He was just about to, when the click of the terrace doors opening stopped him in his tracks.

  He turned. The instant he saw her, the tension in his muscles eased. He realised that until that moment, he hadn’t quite been able to accept that she was safe.

  She didn’t notice him straight away. Her expression, as she stared out across the garden, was distant. He watched the way her brown curls moved in the breeze, how sh
e wrapped her arms around her body, gathering her nightgown close. She started, as if in pain, and seeing it, knowing how she must be thinking of Clara, Edward took a step towards her. A floorboard creaked.

  Her whole body went still. She held her breath.

  ‘Hello, Olly.’

  Her smile nearly ripped him in two. So sad, so relieved. ‘You’re back.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  They stood for a moment, looking at one another. By an effort of will Edward kept his arms by his side. It has to come from her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘for the way I went. I’d have written, but we were in villages. It was hard. And I didn’t want Alistair seeing.’

  She nodded slowly, then made her way across the terrace, stopping just short of where he stood. He could smell lavender on her skin.

  He offered her his cigarette.

  She took it and inhaled. It crackled, tip glowing.

  Their arms rested on the rail, inches away from one another.

  She asked if he knew about Clara. He confirmed that he did.

  ‘I saw Fadil in the street,’ she said, ‘just before Clara went.’

  ‘You did?’ Edward frowned, taken aback. ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘No. I tried to find him. I sent Clara away on her own so I could.’ Her voice cracked. ‘She might still be here had I not.’

  ‘Olly…’

  ‘Why was Fadil there, Edward? Why did you both go away?’ She turned to him. ‘And why are you back, on today of all days?’

  He hesitated before answering, unsure how much to reveal. It wasn’t that he agreed with Jeremy and Alistair concealing the threats that had been made (if ever there was proof that forewarned was forearmed, today was it), but their secrecy unsettled him. Tom said they’d never even shown him the blackmail letter Jeremy had received before he’d gone to Constantinople, just told him that men were after company money, planning to hurt Clara or the children if Jeremy didn’t pay up, and could well target Alistair next. (‘We’ll do what we can whilst the Grays are away,’ Tom had said to Edward that night at the Sporting Club, ‘interview the usual suspects, search the desert villages, find out who’s playing foul. But I wish Sheldon hadn’t ripped up that damned blackmail note, however insulting he found it. It might have given us some clues.’) Edward couldn’t help but wonder why Alistair, a considered bastard if ever there was one, had done something so stupid. Tom said the same conundrum was bothering him.