This was the tenor of Miss Radcliff’s conversation, a dry mocking wit of her life and associates and devil take the listener’s feelings. It was a difficult meeting for Julia who while repressing anger was aware of a sense of guilt. Why didn’t she know of Owen’s life here in Egypt? Who is this woman and why did he never tell of friends he had in Cairo or anywhere else, close friends in this case with whom he could apparently jest of death.
‘I had to move the dear boy, you understand.’ Kitty Radcliff lit a cigarette, defiance in her eyes ‘I couldn’t leave him there. He hated Ex-Pat cemeteries and their beastly concrete markers. ‘Don’t let me to stifle in one of those, Kitty,’ he’d say. ‘I’d sooner cook on a brazier than lie alongside stuffed pigs.’
‘Stuffed pigs?’ Julia stared in disbelief! The Owen Passmore she knew would never talk so scathingly of people whomsoever they are.
‘I know.’ Kitty Radcliff smiled. ‘Stuffed pigs is how he saw the pen-pushers hereabouts. The wives and the retired Colonels and their dainty tea-cups and their antimacassars. He had no time for bureaucracy. He said it smacked of India and other tyrannies.’
Unbelievable! Today is the anniversary of Owen’s death. It’s four years to the day since Julia received a telegram telling of the accident and his resting place. Today she learns he lies elsewhere, a stranger buried by another stranger.
It appears Miss Radcliff knew Owen from Cambridge. ‘I was there in ’92 before secondment to Cairo. I went to every one of his lectures. I thought him quite the most brilliant man, if a little disrespectful of female deities, in particular Lady Bast. He said he was a dog person. Cats lacked in affection.’
Julia listened with mounting indignation. Nothing she heard from this woman explained her highhanded behaviour. ‘Miss Radcliff, I don’t really care how you and Owen met. I just want to know why you thought to move his body.’
‘Because he would’ve wanted to be moved! His place is with the people of Egypt not those that profit by them, and his choice would have been the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Naturally the authorities won’t sanction interment of any private individual there but as you now know Owen found his way home with or without official approval.’
‘Why there?’
‘He said he came as a boy. He and his father were hunting a species of lotus that grows on the lakes of El-Fayyoum. He said it was during that trip they visited the Valley of the Kings and how seeing it his heart had burned.’
Julia’s heart burned. ‘He told you that?’
‘Owen believed the pyramid to be more than a burial chamber. He thought it a kind of receiver and a point somewhere in the stars the transmitter. He once spent the night there, you know, crawled down through to the King’s Chamber and lay in the empty sarcophagus hoping to learn of their intention.’
‘And did he?’
Kitty Radcliff laughed. ‘He learned of a million bugs and how to make a man itch, beyond that I couldn’t say. His last wish was to be buried there.’
‘His last wish? You were with him when he died?’
‘I was. We were on El Sabtia Street when it happened, though street is an optimistic term for that dirt track. I saw it.’ Kitty Radcliff pulled on the cigarette. ‘Of course I realise I should’ve spoken with you, Mrs Passmore.’
‘Then why didn’t you? Did you think it wouldn’t matter to me?’
‘I hoped you wouldn’t need to know.’
‘What!’
‘I thought you would never find out.’
‘You mean if this hadn’t come to light I’d still be visiting an empty grave? My word, that’s a dreadful thing to admit don’t you think.’
‘Yes it is but you’ve no idea the fuss that goes on these days! Digs here in Egypt are not what it used to be, the government is cracking down.’
‘And not before time I would say!’
‘Well you might say that but your husband wouldn’t. It was a matter of expediency. An archaeologist’s life these days is one piffling form after another. Aware of the fuss they’d make if I sought permission I went ahead and took a chance.’
‘A chance with what?’
‘Well,’ Kitty Radcliff shrugged. ‘Your feelings I suppose.’
Julia returned to the hotel and that evening packing struggled to come to terms with the day. Who is Owen Passmore? She had thought she knew him. Now she realises she had no right to know him because she never tried. From the start he was a compromise, a home rather than a person, and when Matty came he was always secondary to his son. Any chance they had of learning about one another was lost with the tonsillectomy. Botched surgery came between them like the wall in Norfolk cutting off communication. That behind that wall was another Owen with different dreams and beloved of another woman never occurred to Julia. ‘And so what,’ she whispered. ‘Did you take your hopes to this Professor of Assyriology with the furious eyes? Did you die in her arms loving her and regretting me?’
How strange is the human condition? Before leaving England other questions of love occupied her mind. A frequent question, though never really uppermost, was how to fend off the Prince of Wales while retaining their friendship. The question is not new. It’s one she’s been asking these three years. There have been spats but no real issue. As Bertie gets older and his current favourites Lillie Langtry and Mrs Keppel hold tight his needs worry him and Julia less though like all hounds with an itch he can’t help scratching.
The night before she left England she dined at Marlborough House where he suggested she might like to comfort Caesar across the Hall having his claws clipped. There in the Salon with the dog in her arms Bertie asked was he, like Caesar, always to beg for her love. In answer she brought his hand to her lips, ‘you have my love, Sir, and always will.’ Smiling and fondling the dog’s ears he surrendered. ‘I’ll settle for that, Ju-ju, if only with hope of a change of heart.’
The issue that night was resolved with gentility. It’s doubtful she can do the same with Miss Radcliff who if not unhinged is surely unkind. Who meets with a widow and speaks of prior intimacies with the husband, and who, with any kindness, talks of being privy to a dying wish.
Tomorrow they go to the pyramid. Miss Radcliff was dismissive. ‘Are you sure? Women like you aren’t meant to crawl through tunnels.’ Julia lost her temper. ‘Do not presume to know me. You don’t know me and I certainly do not want to know you. I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself as I shall keep mine. You took it upon yourself to move him. To show me the new grave is the least you can do.’
‘I don’t think you want to come. It’s not exactly a walk in the park.’
‘You’ll take me. If you don’t I shall make a formal complaint to British Embassy and they, no doubt, will take it up the American Consulate. I imagine you’re here on a visa. I doubt you’ll want your affairs scrutinized. As you say authorities and their petty rules can make life difficult.’
There was a moment then when hatred burned in Kitty Radcliff’s eyes. Then she shrugged. ‘If we are going you’d better rethink your wardrobe. You’ll need trousers. Skirts are too much trouble, and as we are to climb in darkness I suggest you leave your wounded pride behind. I can lend you boots. We are about the same size. But you’ll have to bring your own courage.’
Furious, Julia stepped forward. ‘Don’t talk to me of wounding when for the last hour you’ve done your best to hurt me. I don’t know who you are or what you were to Owen and I don’t want to know. Beyond seeing his grave I have no wish to be in your company. You may dent my pride but you can’t touch my heart. No matter where he lies Owen is dead. There is no greater hurt.’
A duel of mute dislike they met at dawn. Julia had no need to borrow. With the help of the hotel concierge she was correctly attired. Still queasy of stomach Dorothy stayed behind. It took an age to cross the city, carts and wagons so thick. Last time Julia was in Egypt she was with Matty. They took a boat down the Nile. It was
dirty and foul-smelling and bodies floated in the river but there was also a magical haze on the water, and the snouts of Matty’s crocodiles, and graceful felucca boats. Owen was everywhere. Julia stood at the rail and felt his breath on her cheek. ‘Oh my dearest dears!’ he’d whispered, ‘don’t you think this the most marvellous place?’
Memories of the man in dispute there’ll be no voices today.
Time has moved on since he died and Julia another woman. Though never shaped for a king’s mistress, father and the Rectory having too long a reach, the company of princes and their followers proved a powerful education. She’s learned much and not always what she wanted to know. Throughout the first year she had an excellent tutor in Evie. With the launch of N and N, or the Nanny Tea Shop as it is now known, the past shimmered through the present as a series of colours interspersed by shadow, Evie the brightest colour, and, the darkest shadow.
The success of the Tea-Shop, and the life of the owner, might be likened to a runner in the Grand National, a cheer for every hurdle but the winning-post always around the bend. A second shop, the Nanny Too, is to be opened in Cambridge. Evelyn did agree to cut the ribbon but in the last year there’s been a cooling and no attempt on either side to rekindle affection. They meet at functions and are polite but Julia is wary and Evie evasive. Where before there was generosity and the sharing of possessions now there is silence especially with respect to Luke Roberts.
If Julia sought to keep a tight rein on her feelings then he most assuredly did the same. At least Evie pretends affability whereas nowadays a bow from Mister Wolf is all one can expect. Be that as it may neither distance nor reserve can stop Julia hoping for his happiness. Is Luke happy? Is Freddie or Evie? Oh please let someone be happy!
*
Luke is making his way back to the Villa. An evening at the Borghese is planned with Eve’s friends, Robert Scholtz and his wife. It’s now quarter to seven. No need to rush. They’re not to meet until eight-thirty which gives plenty time to bathe and change. Were it not for a chance encounter he would’ve been back sooner. Freddie in the Vatican City and Eve out in the hills painting he’d spent the better part of the day in the Piazza Navona just sitting.
It was good, the sun not too hot and a chance to write to Nan. Then as these things happen he thought to make note regarding windows here in the Piazza and a business proposition in Harrogate lately put his way. It was the lintels on a building opposite that drew his eye. He opened his notebook and the breeze took an article he’d been reading about Westminster Abbey and the many Flying Buttresses. A chap nearby retrieved it and interested in such things struck up a conversation.
Three hours they sat. In Italy it’s rare to talk of stone in any manner other than of statuary and Michelangelo. The chap in the square was an architect, thus their conversation was of the nuts and bolts of building rather than a sculptor’s art. Luke came away from the encounter pleased. Not only was he able to converse on a topic he knew and liked he’d done so in Italian.
The high-spot of this trip is the ease of conversation. Last year was the first on Italian soil. The Carringtons are experienced travellers and with Luke as passenger they toured the major cities. It was new and strange. Because of the familial connection he had hoped for a sense of belonging. What he got was an aching neck from gazing up at living history and the stupid brain-numbing exclusion that comes with not ‘understanding the lingo’ as Freddie puts it.
Magnificent though they are cities like Florence and Rome are not the Italy Luke came to revere. Earlier this year he came alone to Italy and to the Brenta Mountains and found a homeland. He’ll return again but alone. As far as he is concerned this trip is about trying to find freedom for Eve Carrington and Luke Roberts.
Their association is a mistake and their regret was mutual and immediate. Three years and still they struggle to like one another. If asked why it doesn’t work he’d say they were each and separately offered a gift that neither really wanted. They spend very little time together. So much work on hand, and little desire to be there, is seldom at Russell Square. Several building contracts on the go this trip is time away he can ill-afford. He can’t wait to get back.
Life with the Carringtons is noise. That’s it, noise. House-to-house and country-to-country they are forever on the move and they take their noise with them, a grating sound like rocks rubbing even when no one is speaking.
With the exception of Freddie’s pal, John Sargent, they feel no need to be still. Even when painting Eve’s moving and talking, ‘what does he think of this and what is his opinion on that.’ He used to respond to such questions but not now, his opinion scorned. Last night at dinner asked his thoughts on the Caravaggio Boy with Basket of Fruit he said the boy was unlike any child he knew but the fruit real, fungus and all. Evelyn had laughed. ‘That’s a typical snarl from a Wolf who only ever sees his lair as half empty.’ She was taken to task by Robert Scholtz, ‘Caravaggio was awful fond of pointing out a perceived defect, as it seems are you, Milady Carrington.’
Luke is not unduly bothered by criticism, Nan Roberts an expert at the game, compared to her Eve Carrington is an amateur. But constant nit-picking here in Rome - pointless since it is before servants who understand very little English- makes him feel like he is choking. Such noise and never alone! There are attendants, nameless and faceless, folding and pouring and carrying. Used to dealing for himself Luke finds it unnecessary. Under observation twenty four hours a day he drops a knife and a dozen elevated eyebrows stoop to pick it up. Same in the bedroom he yawns and a manservant asks what nightshirt he favours and how does he like his bath. He can’t blink without someone enquiring his need.
‘For the love of God back off and let a man breath!’
Grimacing, he kicked at a pebble. Miserable arse that he is making inventory of his woes! Albert would say, put up or shut up. He wants to call quits, wants to say goodbye Eve and thank you, but fettered by guilt he is a cripple waiting for a voice to say pick up thy bed and walk. Until he hears it he’s stuck.
Eve Carrington is a broken person. Things said and done these last years, the sharp tongue and slighting, the violence, most men would be long gone. He hangs on. After all you don’t throw away treasure because it’s damaged, you try using it gently. Trouble is you can’t be gentle with Eve; she recognises a curse rather than a kiss. So changeable he doesn’t know from one moment to the next who he’s with. She’ll give the coat off her back but then an inner voice from the past will see kindness as weakness and she’ll snatch the coat back and a layer of skin with it. Then there’s Freddie who is a drunk and spends his life running from the past. Sometimes he doesn’t run fast enough and wakes in the night screaming. Harm has been done to them both, terrible harm. It has made a counterfeit of Freddie, a poisonous albeit fragile blossom of Eve, and a coward of Luke.
Albert Roberts taught Luke never to lie. Now every day he lies if not to Eve then to himself. Below stairs he’s known as ‘Milady’s tame brute.’ Tamed he may be but he’s no brute thus he doesn’t know how to extricate his body while keeping his soul intact.
‘Mister Wolf, please don’t leave me. I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave me.’
This is her plea first thing in the morning and late at night, between times she rips at him heart and soul. In the early morning, a child knuckling her eyes, she seeks forgiveness nuzzling his neck and sighing, it’s the same before they sleep. There are times when he has almost escaped, when indifference has dulled his senses and his thoughts are so far from Russell Square his flesh may as well follow, that when her body does the talking.
That first night, the invitation tea-for-two, he came to her a virgin. It didn’t take her long to realise. Eyes flashing like those of a tigress she’d cried out. ‘You’ve not done this before! I am the first!’ With that she’d leapt from the bed returning to empty a bottle of champagne over his naked body.
Laughing she was, Jezebel, Queen of De
sire. ‘I name this ship Invincible. God bless this barque and all who sail in him.’ She thought it exciting, and so for a while did he, but then what man would not be excited by that first exquisite touch of mouth and hand. Her mouth a pump applied to his loins, passion, a dry underground river these thirty years, rushed to the surface.
Whatever happens, however long he lives, memories of that first dazzling explosion will remain.
Luke knows he is nothing to her. Other lovers call at the house but as with him they are distractions. Her love-making is random. She’s on the outside looking in. ‘Don’t think you’re the only one,’ says Nan. ‘She’ll have others in her bed. You’re a sweetie to suck until she gets bored and spits you out.’ Freddie hints a similar thing. ‘Don’t get too close, dear chap, she’ll do you harm.’ It’s too late for warnings! Harm was done the day he walked out of the N and N Tea Shop with Eve on his arm. What more harm can she now do?
Nan asks why he stays, can’t he find a better way to live and a better woman to love. There’s no clear answer unless it is one of pity and he does pity Eve because when she is happy she ablaze with joy a magnificent soul emptying beneficence upon the world. Other than that it is one endless noise.
Lately the noise is inside his head which is why he stays away. If she misses him she doesn’t say, her questions are always of Norfolk, has he been there and did he see Julianna. It’s all about Julianna and always will be. When he does go home he avoids the Tea Shop and the Nelson, too many questions to avoid, and too close to the woman he’s never stopped loving. As for the Forge he misses that so much that often in sleep he follows his soul homeward aboard the cart, his good old horse, Betty, clip-clopping through the mist.
Fragile Blossoms Page 23