Olivia shrugged. ‘Maybe he felt guilty.’
‘That’s what Benjy said. He claims the man burned the body on the beach, then panicked, turned himself in.’
‘There you go then.’
Imogen shook her head. ‘You should have seen Benjy’s face, darling. He looked just as he did when he’d got into trouble as a small boy. There’s more to it than he’s telling me. He got rather cross when I pushed him.’
‘It’s odd,’ Olivia conceded, ‘but still, what could it have to do with Clara?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing, perhaps everything.’
The waiter arrived with their lemon-scented platter of fish. As he served up delicate portions of couscous, beans, a citrus dressing, Olivia’s mind ticked over all she knew.
When, at last, the waiter was finished, she sat forward in her chair. ‘When did Tabia die?’
‘At the end of May, the night of Benjy’s ball.’
‘That’s when Elia said she and Nailah saw Clara heading into the dunes at Montazah.’
‘You’re right.’
‘A coincidence?’
Imogen narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t know. Ask Nailah about it. It’s all tied together somehow, I’m sure she knows how.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nailah hid in the window bay as Ma’am Sheldon approached ward twelve, skirts swishing on the floor, one gloved hand absent-mindedly skimming the bruise on her cheek. As soon as she had gone in, Nailah hastened towards the staircase, her footsteps echoing conspicuously in the long hallway. She held her breath, sure that at any moment she would hear that purring voice. Nailah? Where are you going? It didn’t come. Nailah realised it wasn’t going to. She had bought herself another night. And even though she felt sick at leaving Babu, even for a couple of hours, her pulse leapt with relief.
Behind her she could hear Ma’am Sheldon saying, ‘What do you mean she’s not here?’ Her exasperated words bounced from the ward, off the whitewashed walls, splashes of colour in the air. ‘She’s running away from me, you know.’ Nailah’s skin burnt at the accuracy of the observation. ‘I’ll stay anyway,’ said Ma’am Sheldon, ‘sit with Babu. He shouldn’t be left by himself.’
The kindness surprised Nailah, and didn’t, all at the same time. As she ran down the stairs, she breathed easier thinking of Ma’am Sheldon’s elfin eyes on her little cousin. Perhaps they would work a spell of health on him.
Nailah hoped so, she needed to get away, the children with her. She couldn’t dance this jig of avoidance for ever. As sure as rock broke glass, Ma’am Sheldon wasn’t going to let her. And nor was the captain. We should take Nailah in. She’s obviously lying. He’d do it as soon as he came back from the desert, she was sure. She frowned, thinking of him out there with his colonel.
She wondered, Have they spoken to Mahmood yet?
Edward squinted down at his compass, up at the cresting dunes, then across at the ordnance Tom had spread across the flank of his horse. The green and red lines of the grid blurred in the heat. Flies buzzed everywhere, around Edward and Tom’s muslin-wrapped heads, their sand-coated uniforms, the mouths and eyes of their horses; their hum grated the air, the only noise other than the frisking wind on the sand.
Edward clicked his compass shut. It was another three miles due west to Mahmood’s village. ‘We’ll make it by sundown.’
‘We’ll bunk down again after that,’ said Tom. ‘Ride hard for the city in the morning.’
Edward nodded, loath as he was to accept it. Alistair would be well on his way home by now.
They’d missed him in Lixori. All Edward and Tom had found when they arrived in that hamlet of mud dwellings, late yesterday afternoon, was some half-starved camels, a patch of barely arable land, and desert folk who’d studied them with wary eyes and told them that they weren’t the first white men to come: two more had been and gone, one fat, the other aloof, taking a villager away with them.
Edward, certain that the villager was the peasant farmer Jeremy had spoken of, asked what business Alistair and Wilkins had had with him. All he got in response was shaken heads, sealed lips, and furtive gazes that refused to meet his. He persisted, Tom did too. ‘Where did the white men take him?’ They asked it countless times. ‘What did they say?’
Still, no one answered. The women pulled their children to them, as though afraid.
Eventually, Edward and Tom had given up and set off on the long ride they were now almost at the end of, stopping only to sleep.
‘I feel sick,’ said Tom, as he folded away the maps, ‘wondering what the hell Sheldon and Wilkins are about with that villager. I want to think they’ve taken him back to Alex for questioning, but I’m worried they’re trying to hide him, and whatever it is he’s seen.’
Edward frowned. He said the same fear had crossed his mind.
Tom ground his teeth, moustache twitching. ‘It’s Sheldon I don’t trust. I’m not sure he’s ever wanted Clara safely back, not with all she must know by now.’ He shook his head. ‘Too dangerous for him. He’d sell his mother’s soul before he’d let what’s been going on get out. Manipulative son of a bitch.’
‘One of a kind,’ said Edward, thinking of Olly’s livid scars. If he could, he’d scratch the memory of them from his mind, make them never have existed; for her more than anyone. But he couldn’t. And he was here, hours away from Alex, instead of where he should be: next to her.
He’d spoken to Ada before he left, cast caution to the wind and told her what he knew, asked her to help Olly. She’d told him that she wanted to, that she’d been trying. Try harder, he’d said. He could only hope it would be enough.
He sucked his breath through his teeth. ‘Let’s go. This Mahmood had better be worth the trip.’
The street outside Sana’s house was full when Nailah reached it. A gaggle of children were playing in the shadows of the tenements with Cleo. Kafele was there too, even though he should have been working. He had his jacket off, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up beneath his waistcoat, and his thick hair was scruffy. He was smiling, that face-cracking grin he’d used to give Nailah so freely.
They were deep in a game involving a leather football and much screaming. Isa sat on the pavement, swathed in purple silk and silver beads, bruises of tiredness on her face. Like a tarnished ornament. For the first time, Nailah saw how lined her once ageless skin had become, the grudging sag of her cheeks. How old was she? Nailah didn’t know, Isa considered age a dirty subject, but looking at her now, Nailah would bet money on her being older than most on stage. Was that why she was still here, not off on another tour? Nailah barely needed to ask. Much as she wanted to believe Isa was staying purely out of concern, love, she knew in her heart it was just as likely that Isa’s career ending was making her behave like a mother for the first time in her life.
Nailah watched her laugh and clap. Kafele tossed the ball up and down in the air, eyes so bright they might burst. He was acting too. Nailah saw it with a sickening thud. Only the children had been duped into believing the show was real.
‘Catch, Cleo, catch!’ yelled a small boy as Kafele cannoned the ball in Cleo’s direction.
Her eyes opened wide. She held out her hands, grabbing the ball before it hit her. Kafele swivelled, threw his head back and covered his face with his hands, feigning despair. Cleo burst out laughing, jumping around in a way that Nailah had all but forgotten she was capable of. ‘I got it, I got it. You’re out. My turn to throw.’
Nailah didn’t call out, she didn’t wave for anyone’s attention. A fiction it all might be, but she hadn’t the heart to ruin it. Instead she leant against the wall, and watched. Her eyes lingered on Kafele. For a second she let herself wonder what it would be like if the two of them were really married, about to go home to an evening meal, a soft mattress. What if it was their children scooting around the cobbles now, boys and girls with Kafele’s dancing face? Nailah pictured them all, she painted her children in. She saw chubby arms, strong legs. She heard their
voices. She gave them everything that was Kafele: his kindness, smart mind, whole soul. She granted them nothing of her. None of it came close to compare.
The image sat like a gossamer sheet over the real-life bodies in front of her. Nailah half-closed her eyes, struggling to hold on to it as Kafele caught Cleo in his arms and threw her into the air, making her dark hair fly. Clown.
Isa laughed, a deep peal that was almost believable, and then, as though sensing Nailah’s presence, turned. ‘Nailah,’ she called.
Nailah started, her children evaporated. Gone.
Cleo dropped the ball. It fell with a desultory bounce, then another, rolling along the ground. Everyone looked at Nailah as though she were a storm that had arrived unexpectedly on a sunny day, ruining everything. End of show. Grubby curtain down.
Cleo ran over, locking Nailah with eyes that were at once hopeful and scared. And as she asked, ‘Is he getting better? Is he mending?’ Nailah wondered if anything could ever be better or mended again.
She stayed in the street long enough to be assured that Isa was managing the household’s breakfast, with help from Cleo, and to learn that Jahi had called at lunchtime. ‘I’ve never seen him so het up,’ said Isa. ‘He has Sana locking us in at night, says he doesn’t want us in the house in case the soldiers come back, or you trying to run off with Cleo, but he won’t tell me why.’ She shook her head, brow creasing.
Nailah felt her heart soften. Whatever Isa’s reasons for staying home, she really did seem to care now. Impulsively, she leant forward and hugged her mother, sinking her head onto her shoulder. She felt as though she could fall asleep standing.
‘What is this mess you’re in?’ Isa whispered. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nailah. ‘I really don’t know any more.’
Kafele walked her back to St Aloysius’. They held hands as they joined the wide avenues of the city centre. The roads teemed with carts and carriages, and men, so many men, hastening home, at the end of their day.
‘When you’re ready,’ said Kafele, ‘you’ll tell me everything about this trouble you’re in. You’ll tell me, and I’ll know how to help you.’
‘I’m not sure you can.’
‘Of course I can. This is a season of sadness, nothing more.’
‘It might be a long season.’
‘Then we’ll share it. I’ll always be here, remember that. I’d do anything for you, I would lay my life —’
‘Don’t say it. Please don’t.’
She simply couldn’t stand to hear him offering his life for hers again.
Babu was alone and asleep when she got back to him. His cheeks were flushed, but his breathing seemed steadier. His head was cooler too.
Ma’am Sheldon had left a pile of gifts at the foot of his bed: a clean robe, soap, a packet of cardamom biscuits, peaches, a book. Nailah thumbed the robe, a pale blue of the softest cotton she had ever owned, and looked down at the book. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She’d never heard of it. She turned back the cover and saw a short note folded inside.
I thought perhaps you could read this to your cousin. It’s a story that has been much on my mind in recent weeks. I’m sorry to have missed you today, I shall return tomorrow. If you are not here, I will come and find you at home. I simply cannot wait any longer.
I hope you manage to get some rest tonight, and that Babu rallies. He woke for a few minutes whilst you were gone and smiled. A good sign perhaps? I shall see you in the morning.
Nailah rested her cheek on Babu’s mattress, she took his soft hand in hers. ‘What shall l do, habibi?’ she asked his sleeping form. ‘I wish you could tell me what to do.’
Over in Ramleh, Olivia followed Fadil into the house. As she dropped her hat by the stand, a movement caught her eye in the drawing room: fingers drumming an armrest. Her lips stiffened, her throat constricted. Alistair’s head peered around from behind the chair.
‘Where have you been all day?’ he asked.
Olivia’s voice as she said, ‘With Imogen,’ came out strained, taut, like it belonged to someone else. She swallowed. ‘I didn’t expect you back.’
Alistair folded his newspaper and crossed over to her. She stayed rooted to the spot. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. With his other hand he touched his fingers to her cheekbone. ‘This looks ugly,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it on your face.’
Olivia stared at him, heart walloping within her. He stared down at her. His pale blue eyes twitched. It scared her in a way it hadn’t before. Had he somehow found out what she and Edward had done? Was that why he had come back, to punish her?
His expression, passive beneath his translucent skin, gave nothing away.
She knew she should ask him why he’d even gone off in the first place. Yet in the moment of her finding herself so very alone with him, she could think of nothing but getting away.
She looked to the stairs.
Alistair smiled, cocked his head to one side. ‘You should take a bath,’ he said. ‘I’ll come up. I like watching you.’
‘I’m rather tired.’
‘What do you have to do but lie there?’ He pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘It’s nice just being the two of us again, isn’t it?’
‘Not really,’ she said. Alistair smirked, as though her standing up for herself amused him. It made her angry that it should be a joke. Her anger gave her strength. She pulled away from him, took two steps back. ‘I’d much rather you’d stayed away,’ she said, her voice stronger with each word. ‘I wish you were anywhere but here. I wish you were…’
‘Dead?’
Olivia coloured.
Alistair laughed, a brittle chuckle. ‘Dead in the desert? I suppose it wouldn’t be the strangest end.’ He paused, still smiling. ‘Plenty go that way, of course.’
Olivia suspected he said it to be cruel about her parents, but it turned her cold for another reason, reminding her of her earlier foreboding about Edward’s going off, her sense of something bad waiting in the dunes.
She wished she could find something to say to Alistair, a dismissal to put him down, trivialise her own fears, but she had no words. All she could do was stare.
‘Run along,’ said Alistair. ‘Time for that bath.’
Ada was in the bedroom when Olivia got there. Olivia dropped down on the edge of the bed to steady her shaking legs. She pulled at her jacket, fingers fumbling on the buttons. Ada came over and silently pushed her hands away; her skin was cool, her touch calm. She removed Olivia’s jacket. Olivia pressed her palms to her neck. It was covered in sweat.
‘You need to wash,’ said Ada.
Olivia looked up at her. ‘I’m afraid to,’ she admitted, and then started shaking even more. She’d never said it out loud before.
‘Course you are.’ Ada patted her on the shoulder and went off to draw the bath.
Olivia heard the taps spluttering, the clank of copper pipes as the downstairs geyser fired into action and pumped hot water upwards. She stayed exactly where she was until Ada fetched her. She followed in Ada’s brown stuff-skirted wake, each step deliberate, heels then toes, heels then toes. She walked so as not to tumble. She was behaving like an invalid, she felt like one, disoriented by her own physical inadequacy, the menacing presence of Alistair downstairs. She had no idea why, having put up with his attentions for so long, they should suddenly feel so terrifying. Maybe the night with Edward had made her vulnerable, his tenderness had exposed her. Or perhaps it was the look Alistair had given her just now, like it was all about to get a lot worse. Run along. She couldn’t bear it any more, the hovering flames above her stomach, the teeth on her skin, the semen-soaked cloths in her mouth… She really thought it might kill her.
‘Let’s do this quickly,’ she said to Ada as she stepped into the soapy tub. ‘I just want to be quick.’ She didn’t want to be naked when he came.
Ada set to work scrubbing the heat of the day from her hair and skin, moving fast, methodically. She was alm
ost finished when the door handle turned. Olivia tensed.
‘I ain’t leaving you,’ Ada whispered.
Olivia looked up at her. Ada gave her a tight smile.
‘How can you not?’ Olivia asked.
‘Just watch. You’ll see.’
Ada was true to her word. She stood her ground, all five feet of her, batting away Alistair’s attempts to take the soap, telling him he wasn’t to worry, she was more than capable, best leave them to it, why not go downstairs and read the papers. As it became clear that she wasn’t going to be moved, Alistair ceased trying to force the matter. He was angry, Olivia could tell, it was that tick in his glare. But it seemed he was too much of a coward to confront Ada outright. He didn’t want to know that she was defending Olivia, not for certain, nor think about what that meant she’d seen. For him violence was a private pleasure, something to be kept within the sanctity of the marriage bed. Just the two of them.
A wife’s privilege.
‘He might just fire you for that,’ Olivia said to Ada as he left.
‘I was ’ired to do a job,’ said Ada. ‘I’m afraid I ain’t been doing it properly.’
‘You’re not really a lady’s maid, are you, Ada?’
Ada poured shampoo into her hand and said nothing.
‘Why are you here, in Egypt?’
‘I’ve been ’ere a while,’ Ada said. ‘I… well, I help watch over people. The way I grew up, I learnt a bit ’bout looking out for myself. I did try for a while to work in service, but I wasn’t best suited to it. It wasn’t long before I fell into this work instead, keeping an eye out for others.’ She rubbed the shampoo into Olivia’s head. ‘There’s always a man somewhere who’s got on the wrong side of another. They feel better knowing someone a bit savvy is watching their family, ready to raise a flag if anything untoward looks like occurring.’ She lathered up the soap. ‘I don’t normally ’ave to be so secretive ’bout what I’m doing, of course. Mr Sheldon wrote I must though, back when ’e asked me to come and keep an eye on things, on you…’
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