He bent down and kissed each of her eyelids. ‘Sleep,’ he told her and her lips tried to find a smile but failed. Almost immediately she was asleep, her breathing regular but too fast. Even in sleep her good hand held on to him and did not let go, so he gently slid into the bed beside her, wrapped her in his arms, and her body moulded to his. Her fingers found his and laced together, and their neediness pulled at his heart.
He lay there silently, hour after hour, listening to the rhythm of her breathing. She woke once, hot and fretful, clearly in pain, so he gave her a couple of the doctor’s pills and held the glass to her lips as she sipped some water. Her drowsy blue eyes looked up at him over the rim, examining his face as if seeking some missing key.
When he settled her back on the pillow, she murmured, ‘Tell me about you and Dr Scott.’
Now was not the time. But he didn’t argue.
‘Nothing much to tell. My father borrowed from him when the estate found itself on the financial skids. Borrowed heavily. Scott holds a mortgage on much of the land, including our village of Chamford, but my father believed he could trust him. He was wrong.’
Jessie’s finger soothed the hard muscle in his cheek. ‘And now?’
‘He is threatening to call in the loans. He wants to break up the estate, turf the villagers out of their houses where they have lived for generations, and intends to build factories.’ He said the words calmly, with no hint of the rage inside his chest at the mention of it.
‘Factories bring jobs,’ she murmured, her eyes already closing once more.
‘You’re right,’ he acknowledged.
But her eyelids lifted and she drew his head closer to hers until her lips could touch his. He remained beside her until the light started to darken as the sun sank below the desert hills. The air in the room grew cooler and he knew he would have to leave her.
‘Thank you for coming over,’ Monty said in a quiet voice, so as not to disturb Jessie in the bed.
‘Oh, I’m happy to sit with her. You know I want to lend a hand,’ Maisie said cheerfully. ‘Poor little mite, she looks …’ Her words stuttered to a halt.
‘What is it, Maisie?’
‘She has spirit, that one.’
‘Too much, sometimes.’
She nodded and rested her hand on her throat as though to quieten the pulse there. ‘She’s very pretty.’
It was such an odd thing to say just then. They both studied the face in the bed, its delicate lines unguarded in sleep, her hair a jumble of golden threads on the pillow. Her cheekbones were still burnt from the sun in the desert and the skin on her nose was peeling. It emphasised the vulnerability she took such pains to hide.
‘Is that brother of hers worth all this?’ Maisie asked. She was frowning, unhappy about something.
‘I hope so. I don’t know him.’
‘If you ask me, he’s a …’ The words dried up again. She turned away and shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘A blinkin’ burden to her,’ she finished.
‘I don’t think she ever sees him like that.’
‘Then he’s a lucky blighter.’
‘Yes,’ Monty agreed. ‘I think he is.’
45
Georgie
Egypt 1932
‘Control him.’
‘I try,’ you say. ‘But he is upset by the move.’
You are discussing me again, you and the Fat Man, and I hate it. The heat is bad today, made worse by the hot wind that whips up the sand and scours the skin. I am working under an awning this morning. It has a canvas roof and three canvas sides but the front is open to the elements and to the desert dwellers. A buff-coloured lizard scuttles in and hides behind one of my crates.
I chop one of Tim’s sieves in half and trap the creature in it, so that I can touch it and study its interesting toe-fringes. These are projecting spines, a modification of toe scales on sand lizards to improve their movement on slippery sand and to aid burrowing into it. A fascinating example of Darwin’s theory of evolution that I now hold in my hand. Two weeks ago I was hiding in my wardrobe. My mind fizzes at the speed of these changes.
You and the Fat Man are off to one side, so I cannot see you, but I can hear you. There is something about very dry air that allows sound to carry further – it is a phenomenon that I want to explore when I can. When I can. But I have no idea when that will be. I have no idea about anything any more, and the thought makes my hands start to shake so badly that I have to put down the bronze statuette I am packing. It is the beautiful goddess Isis, first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the sky, and with each piece that I wrap in tissue and cotton wool I am slow because I caress them. My fingers will not leave them alone.
‘Hurry, hurry,’ I mutter to myself, but my hands are shaking so much that I have to tuck them under my armpits to keep them still. I don’t want you to see them.
‘The move has upset all of us,’ the Fat Man grumbles, ‘but we don’t go around wailing and beating our heads against the ground.’
‘He is adjusting better, now that I’ve got him working again.’
‘Tell him to speed up.’
You say nothing. Not far behind my awning the two Egyptians who shared the house with us are also at work, crating up the heavier stone artefacts, and I hear them laugh.
Are they laughing at me?
I start to feel sick.
‘We’re leaving tomorrow night,’ the Fat Man tells you and I hear you gasp.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘So soon? There is so much we still have to extract from the tomb.’
‘Just drag the best stuff out and get it down here and into the crates. Tomorrow night we ship out of here.’
‘Why so soon?’ you ask. I can the anger in your voice.
‘It’s Fareed and his bloody nationalists. Making more trouble last night. We have to move faster and get out of here before he tracks us down.’
‘Is the transport arranged?’
‘Of course. We’re all waiting for you and that brother of yours. Look, I’ve brought you an extra pair of hands.’ He raised his voice. ‘Malak, over here, boy.’
‘Yes, sir bey, I come right now.’ The young voice comes closer and I sit down in the sand with my face in my hands to shut out all the people. ‘Good morning, excellent fine morning, sir Timothy, sir, I pleased much to help in many many ways, yes.’
You give the grunt you make when you are cross. ‘A bit young, I think.’
‘No, sir Timothy sir, you see I big strong.’
‘Get yourself a shovel from the pile, Malak.’
‘Immediately, sir, yes.’
After a pause you ask in a lower voice. ‘What good is a boy to me?’
‘Just put him to work, for God’s sake, Timothy. You and your imbecile are never satisfied. Get the tomb emptied fast and make damn sure you control him.’
I hear a big rush of air, like the winter wind but I know it has come from your mouth.
‘Georgie is not a dog. Nor a child. And he is certainly not an imbecile. He is my brother.’ You shout the last four words and I wrap tissue-paper around my head.
I watch the boy stride easily up the hills, even up the steep parts, balancing a wooden crate on his shoulders. It is far too big for him to carry, but he does it without effort. It is as much as I can do just to carry myself up the hills and even then I need your hand to get me up the steep parts. I am glad when he is swallowed by the purple shadows.
‘Don’t look at him like that, Georgie. He’s only a kid.’ You are under my awning with me.
‘Look at him like what?’
‘Like you could kill him.’
I turn away and meticulously start to wrap a set of gold and enamel amulets in tissue-paper. ‘Where did he come from?’
‘The boy? Oh, just someone Scott picked up in Luxor last night. An extra pair of hands and a tongue that doesn’t ask questions.’
‘Why choose a child?’
‘Because he does
what he’s told.’ You glance up at the silhouettes disappearing over a sandy ridge on the barren hill and you smile. ‘And because the boy is very engaging.’
I want you to look away from the hill. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that he’s easy to like.’
I think about that as I fold a thick layer of cotton wool around the tissue-paper. ‘You are engaging.’
‘Ah,’ you say. That is all.
But you come across the sand until you are standing close and I know you are staring at me, though I don’t look up from my work. Against all the rules you place your arm across my shoulders. You know and I know that it makes me nervous and can tip me into an episode, but we both let it lie there.
‘Thank you, Georgie.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Your manners are impeccable today.’ You squeeze my shoulder and it takes all my strength not to beg you to stop.
I glance sideways at you. The sun is behind you, turning your hair into a halo, and you are wearing your usual shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. I always dress in full-length trousers and long-sleeved shirts, whatever the heat, because I cannot bear this burning sun on my limbs. It makes them shrivel inside. I want to say something to you. To thank you for telling the Fat Man I am not an imbecile.
‘I am proud,’ I say, looking down at the silver figure of Anubis with his handsome jackal’s head lying on my palm, ‘proud that you are my brother.’
You withdraw your arm abruptly. I try not to show my relief. I glance at you again and your eyes have gone small, your mouth is a strange shape and you are shaking your head from side to side. I have no idea what it means and I feel the edge of panic. I squeeze Anubis tight.
‘Georgie,’ you say in an odd voice, ‘how is it that you have the power to undo me?’
‘I know I am not engaging.’
You start to laugh, great billows of sound that buffet the canvas awning, and I don’t know why but I laugh with you.
The truck is filthy. I don’t like it. I refuse to climb in. We are meant to be loading more crates on board but I walk away and squat down in the cooler air of its shadow on the sand. I feel sick again.
I know why. It’s because the Fat Man won’t leave me alone. He goads me. With insults and with kicks every time your back is turned, the way a matador goads a wounded silent stupid bull. I want to trample him in the dirt and rip open his belly with sharp horns. Maybe beautiful Isis will lend me hers.
In front of him I remain silent and stupid.
You stand beside me, smoking a cigarette. You don’t offer me one, so I know you are cross with me.
‘Not helping us?’ you ask.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want to.’
You don’t bother to argue but you exhale heavily. We don’t speak. I am thinking of the tent I must sleep in tonight and the insects that will share it with me. I grit my teeth together, so that no noise will crawl out. Suddenly you grip my shoulder and haul me to my feet so roughly that my knees are unsteady.
‘Look!’ you say.
I look at your hand.
‘No.’ You point. ‘Look at the side of the truck.’
I stare wildly. See nothing but dirt.
‘Look there.’
You indicate a patch of dirt that has been disturbed near the rear wheel arch. I squint at it. It is a snake. Someone has drawn a short snake in the filth on the truck. My mouth drops open and a weird whooping noise comes out. You prod me in the ribs and I clamp my jaw shut.
‘Hush, Georgie!’
But you are grinning. We are both grinning. Because in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs a snake is the letter ‘J’. and ‘J’ stands for only one person.
Jessie.
46
Monty stood in a doorway in the dark street. He waited.
Nothing.
He listened for the soft footfalls.
Nothing.
Minutes passed. The night air grew colder. But still there was no sound, not even a match being struck or a smothered cough. Nothing. Whoever it was who was following him, he had the patience of the devil.
Monty had moved through the streets, treading with care because there were few lamps to show the way, just the lacy light of the moon, and you never knew what might be lying underfoot. He’d headed across town to the square in front of Luxor Temple where the ruins of the columns with their papyrus-form carvings rose eerie and unearthly into the darkness. The nearby souk was closed at this hour, but Monty had spotted a bar further down the road, its spill of yellow light picking out the rats that skulked along the wall.
The coffee houses in the streets of Luxor – the ones used by Egyptians, that is, not the smart cafés frequented by westerners – were not unwelcoming, but neither were they exactly welcoming. As soon as he set foot in one he became the focus of attention. Dark faces and darker eyes fixed on him with interest and curiosity, but he sensed little hostility and he took his time drifting from one place to another. Calling for a coffee here, a shisha pipe there until his brain was turning cartwheels. He fell into conversations. One with an old man who possessed only one eye and had fought fifty years earlier in the Battle of Tel-El-Keber, when General Sir Garnet Wolseley’s British victory had opened up the whole of Egypt to British occupation.
‘Some of them fought in skirts,’ the old man said, baying with laughter and wiping his good eye on the sleeve of his galabaya. ‘Soldiers in short skirts. Like girls.’
‘They would be Highlanders,’ Monty remarked.
‘One took my eye on his bayonet as a souvenir.’
Monty bought him a pipe of shisha. ‘It was war, my friend. Bad things happen.’
Comrades with half their brains blown out. Horses blind and screaming. Men hanging from barbed-wire, dripping blood for the rats to devour. A no-man’s land that was everyman’s hell. Yes, bad things happen.
With another he discussed the price of cotton and the disease brucellosis which had decimated his flock of goats, while another wanted to enthuse over the films of Mary Pickford and the greatness of King Fuad. Each coffee house brought new understanding to Monty and each bar a fresh perspective on Egyptian life, but no one wanted to talk about the caves in the hills or knew the first thing about a man called Fareed who wore black. Or so they said.
It was when he entered the bar near the souk that he glanced in the large mirror on the opposite wall, pitted and grainy but framing a perfect image of an Egyptian man standing on the opposite pavement. Behind Monty’s back he was staring hard at him. Then he was gone. Monty ordered a beer and tried to conjure up the man again – a slight figure in a white galabaya and dark jacket, an earnest-looking face and the soft movements of a cat.
This time he didn’t linger. He passed his beer to a man receiving a haircut by the door and strode up the street, past the shuttered shops and around the next corner. A tent-maker’s tiny establishment was still open, the owner seated on the floor and stitching a sheet of canvas held between his bare feet, but just beyond it was a deep-set doorway that lay in darkness.
Monty stepped into it. Anyone following him would have to pass through the patch of yellow light from the tent-maker’s workshop. So now he stood there, thinking and waiting. Listening for the devil on cat’s feet. From here he could smell the river odour of the Nile and caught the steady chug of a paddle-steamer manoeuvring to a new berth, preparing for its next day’s cargo of tourists. He breathed softly, stilling the clamour in his chest and letting his eyes focus on the shadows in the darkness. He could feel his feet eager to move, his head curious to peek out around the corner of the doorway, but he denied them both. His muscles remained tense and in his hand, flat against his leg, he carried a knife.
Bad things happen.
The white galabaya was not hard to spot when it crossed his field of vision in the doorway. It took barely a second to step out and put a blade to the man’s throat from behind. Instantly he froze and wisely offered no resistance
.
Monty drew him into the doorway.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am nobody, sir.’
‘Why are you following me?’
‘I am not following. I am going home. I mean no harm to you, sir.’
Monty hesitated. ‘Turn around.’
Slowly the Egyptian turned and Monty stepped back to inspect him. He was small-boned, his skin dark, with calm intelligent black eyes and a quiet inoffensive manner. ‘I mean no harm to you, sir,’ he said again. He turned his palms out to show he held no weapon.
Monty almost apologised, almost put away the knife with a respectful salaam. But in the split second that the words took to travel from his brain to his tongue, he drew breath, and that was when he smelt the warm and woody scent of cinnamon. It seemed to emanate from the man’s clothing, as if he ground up the spicy bark each day and its dust filtered into the material of his galabaya or into the creases of his skin. Instantly it brought back a memory. For a moment it hovered tantalisingly out of reach but Monty shook his head to jog it loose and abruptly it came to him.
‘The tomb,’ he said sharply. ‘King Tutankhamen’s tomb. You were there. You put a wrist-watch in Miss Kenton’s handbag.’
The dark eyes assessed him seriously. ‘Yes, I did. The watch was to show that she could trust me, though I didn’t risk telling her my name there.’
‘So who are you? What are you doing here – with the wrist-watch of Miss Kenton’s brother?’
The man nodded, as though debating with himself. ‘Come, let us drink tea.’
‘I am Ahmed Rashid. I am based in Cairo but I have travelled down to Luxor because I am interested in you and in Miss Kenton.’
The moment they sat down in the small chess café in a side-alleyway where the customers were too absorbed in their own ardent chess games to pay much attention to the newcomers, Monty noticed that Ahmed Rashid had shed his diffident manner. Though still polite, he became much more businesslike, the edges of his face somehow sharper. Monty had a grim sense of the situation slipping from bad to worse, and he kept a close eye on the door.
Shadows on the Nile Page 37