Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  A coldness crept over her.

  ‘How long does a transfer take to come through?’ she asked.

  Imogen grimaced. ‘He’s told you?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘I didn’t know how to. It’s to Jaipur, a promotion too, to major. Tom’s tried, but Edward has to go. His ship leaves tomorrow night.’

  Olivia sat quite still. She couldn’t take it in. A couple of hours ago they’d been in bed, yet this time tomorrow she would be about to lose him for ever. Like Clara. It was all too brutal, too soon. She couldn’t bear it, wouldn’t accept it. She’d never imagined it would be so immediate.

  ‘He won’t go,’ she said.

  ‘He has to,’ said Imogen. ‘I’m sorry, darling. He has absolutely no choice.’

  Jeremy held a dinner after the service. There were seventeen of them, not including Mildred, who stayed inside pleading a headache or tiredness or grief or some such. Olivia had done her best not to hear her excuses. (‘Cold gel,’ Mildred had said as she stalked off.)

  They sat at a table out on the lawn. The scent of Clara’s orange trees carried in the air; her beautiful roses swayed in their beds. Olivia sat beside Edward. She eyed the lit nursery window upstairs, thinking of Ralph, due to set sail with Mildred in just two days. She hadn’t spoken more than a few words to him; there hadn’t been an opportunity. She hadn’t spoken to Edward either. She didn’t know what to say to him, or rather she knew what to say, just not if she could say it. Her eyes ached even thinking about it.

  ‘There, there,’ said a man whose name Olivia couldn’t recall. He caught her eye with a gaze made veiny from years cigar-puffing around the clubs of the colonial circuit. ‘Chin up, old girl.’ He nudged his own indistinct jaw. ‘You’ll feel better once they’re hanged. Take my word.’

  ‘You have experience in such matters?’ she asked.

  ‘I have experience,’ he said with a sympathetic smile.

  ‘How fortunate for you.’

  She felt Edward’s leg press against hers.

  A discussion ensued on whether hanging was or was not too good for the two men in captivity. Jeremy was assured he’d done the right thing, not giving into the threats. God only knew who’d have been next if he had. Bloody barbarians, ending an innocent woman’s life…

  Jeremy said nothing.

  Olivia excused herself. She pushed her chair back on the lawn, shot Jeremy a look of sincere loathing (he had the good grace to colour), and walked away.

  ‘Poor girl’s overwrought,’ said one of the men behind her.

  ‘It’s been hard on her,’ said Jeremy.

  There was a clinking of cutlery as knives and forks were once again taken in hand. Olivia made a silent pledge to herself to go to Giles Morton’s office first thing. She heard someone say, ‘She’ll be happier when Sheldon’s back,’ as she climbed the terrace steps. ‘A lady needs her husband…’ She slid through the drawing room door. ‘I’ll say,’ said another.

  Edward told them all to fuck off. Or maybe he didn’t. Perhaps Olivia just imagined he had. He was real enough, anyway, as he joined her inside and slammed the terrace door shut behind him.

  He ran his hand behind her neck and pulled her towards him. She leant against him. If he let her go, she’d fall.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘for you, to Jaipur.’

  He frowned. ‘Bloody Imogen. I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t know how to, with everything going on. I couldn’t find the words to ask.’

  ‘Ask?’

  Edward placed his finger under her chin, tilted her face so she was looking at him. ‘Come with me, Olly. Divorce Alistair, plead violence, get him to sue you for adultery for all I care…’

  ‘He never will…’

  ‘We’ll make him. I’m not leaving you with him. I’ll take care of you, I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. Come.’

  She didn’t know what to say to that.

  They went to bed together again that night. Olivia had no idea what Ada thought, she was sure the rest of the servants were appalled. She didn’t care. If she could bring herself to let Edward go without her, stay behind to be an aunt to her nephews, she wanted to make the most of the time they had left. If she was going to go too, as she so badly wanted to, what did it matter anyway?

  Could she do it to him, though? Subject him to the scandal? Wouldn’t it be unspeakably selfish?

  She agreed to nothing, but as she lay in his arms she thought of how it would be to leave this hellish wonderland with him, spend a lifetime feeling cherished, safe. How splendid.

  ‘I’d ruin you,’ she said. ‘I’d be your scarlet woman.’

  ‘I’d rather have you scarlet than not at all.’ He leant on his elbow, staring down at her in the silver half-light. ‘We’d get by, people forget, and even if they don’t, sod them, sod them all, we’d be happy.’

  ‘Would we?’

  It was a pleasant fantasy.

  The dark had the stillness of deep night when shouting in the garden awoke her. She rolled over to see if Edward had heard it, but he was no longer by her side.

  She crossed to the window slowly, not at all sure that she wanted to see what was out there. She frowned as she pulled back the curtain and pushed the shutter wide, trying to make sense of the strange shadows before her.

  The Bedouin mother was sobbing, Edward was in his trousers and shirt-tails shouting.

  And the Bedouin brothers were being manhandled into a cart by two uniformed members of the Egyptian police.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Nailah returned home when they released her from the barracks. Isa edged around her, barely speaking; Nailah wasn’t sure whether it was guilt that made her act so – shame at the way she’d remained hidden whilst Nailah and Kafele were arrested – or anger at Nailah for all she’d done, her part in Jahi being in jail. Perhaps it was simply grief. Either way, for the first time in Nailah’s living memory, her mother was speechless.

  ‘I wish Hassan hadn’t done it,’ Cleo whispered to Nailah as they went to bed, ‘but he can’t have been really bad, can he? Not if Umi loved him. He did it for her, I think.’

  Nailah tried for a smile. ‘He shouldn’t have, little one. It wasn’t the way.’

  ‘What was the way?’

  ‘I’m not sure there ever was one. Maybe if Sir Gray was poor, lowly.’ She shrugged. There was no point turning it all over again. What was done was done, the past was dead. And if she couldn’t think of a way to stop it, so would Kafele and Jahi be. I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death. Out of all the strangeness in the whirling, winding book that Ma’am Sheldon had given Nailah, that was the sentence that had lodged in her memory, scaring her almost as much as Kafele’s pledge of his life for hers.

  ‘The trial’s at ten,’ said Isa when she returned from the market the next morning, shock apparently making her remember how to talk. ‘Kafele’s being sentenced alongside Jahi, the sons of that Bedouin man they had flogged for Tabia’s death too. Sweet Mother.’ Isa raised her hand to her head. She didn’t have any rings on, no bracelets, she must have forgotten to wear them. ‘I feel as though I’m rotting inside, just thinking about them all. They say Jahi wrote a note to Ma’am Sheldon, they’re using it to show he meant Ma’am Sheldon mischief.’ Nailah groaned, thinking of how she’d refused to pen Hassan’s note herself. ‘That’s not all,’ said Isa, ‘they’ve accused him of murdering Hassan, as well as helping Hassan murder Ma’am Gray. No matter what, Jahi hangs. And those white men walk free.’ Isa shook her head. ‘It’s already in the papers. The things they’re saying, that Jahi and all of them were after Sir Gray’s money, Sir Sheldon’s too, common criminals who’d stop at nothing. Sir Sheldon had worked it all out apparently, and was riding to your Ma’am Sheldon’s aid.’

  ‘Is there any mention of Tabia?’ Nailah asked it without any hope.r />
  ‘Not a sniff,’ said Isa, ‘or of how Jahi brought Ma’am Sheldon home.’ She threw down her basket and slumped to the floor. She sank her head against her knees. ‘My heart is breaking, breaking. I keep seeing him in his cell, in shackles. My brother. He’s worked so hard his whole life, been so proud.’ Her voice shook. ‘He’s always cared for you children, you know, in his way, passing his money to me, to Tabia. And now he’s in prison. And poor Kafele. Kafele who’s done nothing, nothing. I can picture him as a boy, running around after you, Nailah. I dreamt of it last night.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Nailah, ‘please.’ It made her dizzy with pain, just thinking about him. It was all wrong, so wrong. She felt as if the ground had become the deck of a tilting boat and the sea was moving to take the place of the sky. She couldn’t just sit here, let it all come to pass.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Isa as she made for the door.

  ‘There’s something I have to do.’

  Olivia packed. Edward was out, although she didn’t know where he’d gone; she presumed the court. She kept thinking of the Bedouin boys standing trial. That they’d even been taken made her seethe. They were children, little older than Ralph. Her movements jerked as she folded her underclothes. Her newly acquired cat (she’d named her Dinah) sat on a cushion and watched her. (The camel was still in the stables; no one seemed to know what to do with it.)

  Olivia wasn’t sure why she packed. She hadn’t decided to go to India, not fully, but she couldn’t resolve not to, either; she supposed it was better to be prepared. As soon as she had news of the trial, she’d go to The Times’ offices and see Morton about the story. She had a strong urge to visit Wilkins too; she couldn’t face Alistair, but she had to at least try to force Wilkins to admit what he and Alistair had done with that villager in Lixori.

  And whether it was them who had beaten Clara.

  Just the thought of them touching her made Olivia want to retch; she shook, physically, thinking of it. She didn’t know if Wilkins would ever confess – or what she could do if he did – she only knew that she couldn’t stand not knowing.

  A small voice told her she should stop, visit Clara’s grave, not leave her alone. But she wasn’t ready, and she couldn’t let herself stop moving, pause to think. Her mind kept trying to drag her back to that coffin, those curls, that waxy skin, thoughts of what Clara’s final moments had been like… She clenched her eyes shut. She was scared, too scared, of the sadness; the finality of it. She couldn’t seem to accept it. Not for Clara. Not yet.

  The hands of the carriage clock moved to time. Nine o’clock. Twelve minutes past. Half past… tick-tock.

  At twenty-nine minutes to ten a tight-lipped Ada poked her head around the door. Nailah was waiting downstairs; no, Ada couldn’t believe it either.

  ‘You have some nerve coming here,’ Olivia said as she joined Nailah in the hallway, Ada behind her. (‘Don’t try and dismiss me,’ Ada had said upstairs, ‘you’ll have to knock me out before I leave you alone with ’er.’ Olivia wasn’t sure how Ada could leave her to do anything if she was unconscious, but she didn’t press the matter.)

  Nailah stared at them both, her mouth half-open, as though waiting for words to come. She was back in her old robe, pulling at the frayed sleeve with nails bitten blunt.

  ‘What do you want?’ Olivia asked her.

  ‘Your…’ Her voice cracked. She coughed, tried again. ‘Your help, Ma’am Sheldon.’

  ‘My help?’ Olivia was incredulous. ‘What could you possibly want of me?’

  ‘You have to save Kafele, Jahi.’

  ‘How am I meant to do that?’

  ‘Money. Get Sir Gray to bribe the police. I know he can.’

  It wasn’t the worst idea. Now Nailah had put it to her, Olivia suspected Wilkins might even be expecting it, that he’d enjoyed his recent rise in income and was looking to maintain it. Perhaps it was why he’d insisted on hanging on to Kafele, had the two Bedouin arrested: he’d guessed they would try to save them. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for you, Nailah. I’m doing it for them, there are some boys too who need help.’

  ‘Please, just concentrate on Kafele and Jahi first.’

  ‘I’m sure Jeremy’s pocket can stretch.’

  ‘At least he’ll be paying,’ said Nailah quietly, ‘in a way.’

  Olivia laughed unhappily. ‘We’ve all of us paid,’ she said. ‘Just some more than others.’

  Nailah flushed.

  Olivia sighed. ‘You’d better leave this with me. I’ll go and see Jeremy now.’

  Jeremy wasn’t home. Accounts varied amongst the servants remaining as to whether he was at the police station, the courts, the club or the office.

  Olivia looked anxiously at the clock. It was after ten already, the court would be in session, who knew if the powers that were would wait until dawn to carry out the punishments? Not she. She couldn’t risk a delay hightailing around Alexandria. She’d have to go to Alistair at the hospital, get him to front the money. The idea of laying eyes on him, let alone asking for anything, sickened her, but there seemed little choice.

  She went up to the nursery before she left. She paused at the door, eyeing the wooden duck; she found herself imagining Clara placing it there, fingers tracing the wood. Olivia’s chest contracted; she took a deep breath, gathering herself, not yet, then went in. Sofia was feeding Gus from a glass bottle. She nodded in the direction of Ralph, hugging his knees in the window seat. Poor little lamb.

  Olivia went to him. He raised desultory eyes. ‘I only have one night left,’ he said. ‘We’re packing. And Mama’s dead. And I…’ He clenched his chubby fists and stretched his lips back across his teeth. ‘I… I…’ Olivia pulled him into her arms. ‘I wanted her to come home,’ he sobbed into her shoulder. ‘I thought she would be rescued.’

  Olivia held him, pressing her lips to the crown of his head. ‘I wanted her to come back too.’ As she heard the hopelessness in her own words, for a moment her guard slipped, and before she could stop herself, she saw Clara dying, that moment when she must have given in, given up, and accepted that she’d never see her sons again, closed her eyes in crumpled agony on the sand… Such pain, all that pain, it made Olivia want to scream. It quickened her breath, tightened her arms around Ralph; the sheer, bloody pain of it.

  Ralph made a noise. Olivia realised she was squeezing him too hard. She pushed her awful thoughts down, and him out to arm’s length. His full eyes stared back at her. His cheeks were swollen and round, such a baby still. Olivia was reminded of how he’d looked that first night Clara was taken, asleep in his bed as Sofia spoke of Clara’s letter in the bookshelves. The one that had so mysteriously disappeared. Had he heard? Taken it himself to protect his mama, afraid that Olivia wouldn’t get to it in time?

  Olivia brushed his hair from his sweaty forehead. She dropped her voice to a whisper, and asked. ‘You can tell me, Ralph. I won’t be cross.’

  Slowly, he nodded. ‘I… it…’ He bit his lip. ‘It was to Mr Pasha, Aunt Livvy. I didn’t want anyone to know.’ His eyes welled again. ‘She wanted him to meet her. She said she’d get Hassan to take her. If I’d just showed it to you, or Teddy.’ His lip trembled. ‘I should have showed it.’

  ‘Oh, Ralph.’ Olivia pulled him back to her. She held him for what felt like a long time. Too long, considering all she had to do. She refused to think about the implications of what he’d done, or not done. What was the use now?

  At length, she kissed him. She said she was sorry but she really had to go. She went over to Gus, by now in a milk-sopped doze, and touched his cheek. Her nephew, Imogen’s too. Clara’s boy. Could she leave him, leave them? Didn’t she owe Clara more than that?

  ‘Can I speak to you, Mrs Livvy?’ Sofia stood, gestured at the adjoining bedroom, and bustled towards it.

  Olivia followed. She waited whilst Sofia laid Gus in his crib.

  ‘You looked li
ke you were saying your goodbyes just then,’ said Sofia.

  Olivia sighed.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Sofia. ‘We need to warn Ralphy, agapi mou. He doesn’t deserve to lose you just like that, too.’

  Olivia opened her arms helplessly. ‘I don’t know if he will.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  With one eye on the mantelpiece clock (five minutes to eleven), Olivia told Sofia what Edward had asked, how she hadn’t decided what to do, and she really didn’t know if she could leave Ralph and Gus, but before she did anything else she had to go and see Alistair, innocents were in trouble, relying on her, she mustn’t delay. Sofia asked her if she was going to tell Alistair that she might or might not be India-bound. Olivia said no, of course not, he’d only stop her. And besides, what was the point when she wasn’t definitely going? ‘Apart from anything, I’m worried about Edward’s career. He says it doesn’t matter, but… I don’t know. Does it matter? I want to go, Sofia, so much. Alistair is… cruel, so very cruel… And I… well, Edward, he… I can’t lose…’

  ‘You love him. I see it.’ Sofia sighed. ‘Oh, I’ve never liked it, you being married to that man. I can’t help suspecting he’s involved in what’s happened to poor Mrs Clara.’

  ‘Oh, Sofia, he was. In ways you can’t imagine. If you knew what he’s done, what else he might have. I’m going to go to the papers, tell them everything.’

  Sofia held up the flats of her hands. ‘I don’t think I can stand hearing it.’ She eased herself into her rocking chair. She didn’t reach for her cigarettes. ‘You have to leave, Mrs Livvy. Your mama would want you to. If only you could know how she’d want it, how she loved you and Mrs Clara.’ Sofia tugged a handkerchief from beneath the shelf of her bosom and blew her nose noisily. ‘She’d tell you to be happy now. There’s nothing left for you here. Ralphy’s off, and Mr Jeremy’s making noises about sending me and Gus with him for a spell. I’ll take care of them both. I can do that for you and your sister.’ She blew her nose again. ‘It’s little enough.’