The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  ‘Lucy, I’ll be frank: he scarcely notices! That’s how well I’ve performed my task.’ She laughed. ‘Before, it was a little – how shall I put this – overcrowded? Its effect on your father was oppressive; not everything here was to his taste, you know.’ She paused; the flicker of amusement vanished and her face became grave. ‘However, I’m not a fool, Lucy, as you’ll realise when you know me better. So please understand: when I made these little changes, moved a few things here and there – I wasn’t thinking only of your father, I was thinking of you. A young girl, whom I’d never met – a girl who’d been subjected to sudden, tragic change. A child who was far away, experiencing the excitements and uncertainties of a foreign country. A traveller from an antique land.’

  She waited to see if I’d pick up the Shelley quotation, made in a testing tone; when she saw that I did, she continued in a warm, confiding way: ‘I knew that this girl would be expecting to return to a familiar place. And I was torn, yes, torn, Lucy, between your father’s needs and yours. So in the end, I decided to take the middle way: I made changes, yes – but I also preserved. Everything belonging to your late mother, all her bits and bobs, her paintings and books and little trinkets: I’ve packed them up with the greatest care, Lucy, and I’ve kept them for you.’

  I think she was expecting thanks. I think she actually was expecting thanks. If so, she was not as clever as she imagined herself. At that moment, I’d sooner have thrust my hand into the fire than utter one syllable of gratitude.

  There was a long, lethal silence. Less than a year since my mother died: I was imagining Frances’s reaction, the outburst that these actions and this explanation would have provoked from her. A part of me longed to speak out as Frances would have done, but there were other ways of dealing with a woman like Nicola Dunsire, more indirect ways, as Frances had also shown me. Besides, old habits die hard.

  So I rose and merely told her that I was tired from the long journey, and thought I’d go to bed now. The flatness of my voice, maybe some mutiny in my eyes, disconcerted her momentarily. She was a woman who was rarely flustered, as I’d learn – but she was flustered then. She rose, fiddled with the cushions on her chair, began suggesting that I should have something to eat: she’d prepared a light supper. I took the opportunity to glance at the book she’d put down when my father and I entered the room; both title and author were unfamiliar to me: Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.

  ‘I’m not hungry, but I am tired. I’d really prefer to go straight to bed. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course. You must be exhausted – all those ferryboats, all those trains. May I bring something up for you? Warm milk? Hot chocolate? I make the best hot chocolate.’ She gave me a conspiratorial smile. ‘It was our great treat at Girton. The food in women’s colleges is vile, Lucy – not like the men’s. We undergraduates were always starving, we used to meet up in one another’s rooms in the evening, and make cocoa and chocolate on a little gas-ring. Then talk about books until the wee hours!’

  The sudden girlishness was unconvincing. ‘No, thank you,’ I replied. ‘I don’t really like hot chocolate. Or cocoa. Where have you put my mother’s things, by the way?’

  ‘By the way, I have put them in a spare room,’ she answered, with emphasis, and after a fractional pause. Her gaze met mine. With three small words, a gauntlet had been thrown down – and instantly picked up. When she could see from my face that I understood this as well as she did, Nicola Dunsire turned away.

  ‘In the spare room next to your own bedroom,’ she continued, her tone hardening. ‘The overspill is in the loft. It can be brought down for you, should you wish it. Breakfast will be at eight o’clock sharp – I should warn you, I’m a fiend for punctuality, Lucy. We’ll begin our lessons, and I’ll show you the curriculum I’ve drawn up for you, the day after tomorrow. You’ll need twenty-four hours to rest and adjust, and I’ve allowed for that. Meanwhile, is there anything else you need?’

  Not that you can provide, I thought.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I replied and, resisting her attempts to help me with my overnight case, went upstairs to the top floor.

  My attic room was unchanged. There were the same sprigged curtains at the dormer window, the same brass bedstead and rosebud-patterned eiderdown; the wallpaper, blowsy with faded poppies, the pattern that I’d pleaded for and my mother had smilingly allowed, was unmolested. When I’d last seen this room, I’d been ill; now I was cured. I lit the small gas fire and, shivering, unpacked and undressed in front of it; but I had become used to the heat of Egypt by then, and the room remained breath-catchingly cold.

  I huddled under the blankets and at once fell asleep. When I woke, it was three in the morning. I wrapped myself in my woollen dressing gown, and stood at the window for a while. There was a full high moon and a sharp frost outside, and my breath kept misting up the window-panes. I rubbed the mist away, then pushed up the sash – and there Cambridge was, bright and bone-white from this high vantage-point, its glittering spires, towers, turrets and pinnacles: that palace of knowledge to which I’d returned.

  I made a vow then – and all these long decades later I can claim that I kept it religiously. Then I padded next door to examine my mother’s archaeological remains. They filled the spare room from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall: box upon box of them, all painstakingly sealed, stacked and labelled in the italic script that I would come to recognise as Nicola Dunsire’s hand. Here my mother’s diaries, there her dresses; here her hats, there her paintings and jewellery. China ornaments, assorted, said one label; Emerson family letters, read another; Photographs: USA and England, read a third. There was a box for official documents, passports, visas, birth and marriage certificates. There was a box labelled Final illness and death of; there was a box labelled Stockings and undergarments, and another for Condolence letters: family and friends.

  No archivist could have taken greater pains. The room itself deserved a label: The Museum of Marianne Emerson Payne. It felt as if my mother had died a second time.

  I returned to bed, fell asleep and entered a nightmare – a nightmare that recurred for years. I was back in the Egyptian Museum, compelled to walk past that fearsome line of mummies again. Rose and Frances were with me, all three of us clasping hands. Alongside the dead kings lay my mother and Poppy d’Erlanger and a small shape that Frances recognised as her little brother, lost in the waters off Maine. All the mummies were in a state of distress, protesting at the labels describing them and their lives, insisting the Museum officials were mistaken: it hadn’t been like that, they hadn’t been like that; their identities were confused, or distorted; subverted, or just plain wrong.

  Their anguish cut us to the heart, but in our dream state we were impotent to help. We glided silently past them – and then, at the end of the row, in a special case of their own, we came to a new exhibit: three mummified women, who were regarding us cunningly, who whispered to each other and moaned. When we tried to creep past them, they became very agitated; they began to rip the bandages from their faces, they shook out the snaky locks of their dust-encrusted hair and, to our horror, they called out our names: Don’t you recognise us? they cried. Don’t you see who we are?

  Mesmerised and afraid, I bent to read the labels that recorded their names and lives. In a shaky voice, Frances said: ‘Don’t, don’t. I know who they are. That’s you, Lucy, with the fountain pen. That’s Rose, in the hat. And the one with scarlet lipstick is me.’

  ‘That can’t be! We’re alive – and they’re dead. That’s not possible!’ I cried.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Rose, beginning to weep. ‘That horrid old hag? Look at that hideous hat of hers! I wouldn’t be seen dead in it. How can that possibly be me?’

  Sick with fear, I bent to the labels again. They informed me that the dark-haired woman on the left was indeed Frances; the fair-haired woman on the right was Rose; the pallid cipher of a woman between them bore my own name. Pen in hand, she’d begun to scrib
ble frantic words on her bandages. I stared at them: I could see no resemblance to Frances, Rose or me – yet the Museum labels, which were printed, authoritative, as readable as the clean pages of a new book, made their identities only too clear.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait. Let me read! Let me see what the labels say,’ I cried, as Rose and Frances tried to drag me away. ‘There must be some mistake. Let me check the dates when they died. Then we’ll know for sure––’

  ‘That information is classified. Access denied,’ boomed a terrible voice from the dark recesses of the Museum – and I woke, shaking with fear, to an attic bedroom and a new Cambridge day.

  19

  ‘What’s happened to that Wong fellow, the one who was interrogating you?’ Rose asked, adjusting her new hat. She closed the glass division between us and her chauffeur. We had been inching our way west out of London and had now reached the motorway; before us stretched the M4.

  ‘Fong,’ I corrected, absently. ‘Dr Fong.’

  It was April; there had been a fortnight of fine weather, and spring might, or might not, have arrived. I was on my way to stay at Rose’s house in the country, as I did every year once winter was past. We were installed in Rose’s car, a vintage Bentley originally bought by Rose’s husband; it had been cherished by him until his death thirty years later, and by Rose ever since. This was its last ceremonial outing. It was soon to be sacrificed. Rose, who had always liked causes, had recently embraced a new one, sustainability; she was newborn, reinvigorated; she had become, she’d informed me, eco-aware.

  It was months since I’d seen Rose and we had a lot of catching up to do, I thought, gazing out of the window as the Bentley, its great engine soundless, picked up speed. I had spent a cold winter looking back at the past; Rose had passed those months looking forward. She had been overhauling the large, draughty, seventeenth-century manor house in which she’d lived for sixty years. It was to become carbon-neutral – or so she claimed. The massive upheaval necessary had been seized upon with zeal. Once the floors were up, once her house was crawling with ‘legions of plumbers and electricians’, Rose had embarked on a ‘massive clear-out’. She’d spent the entire winter on this archaeological task, as she’d explained to me in numerous phone calls. Attics had been raided, cupboards gutted, cellars cleared: the accumulated possessions, all the records of Rose and her large family, had been examined, saved, discarded, consigned to Oxfam, passed down, sold off, burned or conserved. For various reasons, these activities had caused me alarm.

  Now, apparently, this act of clearance was complete, but – bringing back the past as it inevitably did – it had reminded Rose of certain obligations, such as ‘making calls’, ‘cheering up ancient chums’ and ‘staying in touch’. As a result, this journey west along the M4 was to include a brief diversion: en route to Rose’s home near Bath, we were to pay a visit – to someone Rose described as a dear old friend. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ she’d said. ‘Half an hour at most. Haven’t been there in ages. We’ve neglected our duty. Has to be done.’

  I’d been reluctant to agree and was regretting this diversion. I didn’t want to discuss Dr Fong either, and hoped Rose would not pursue that subject. She was now fumbling in her ancient crocodile-skin Hermès handbag. I continued to gaze out of the window; a peculiar double vision afflicted me now. I saw a lost Egypt as we passed green English fields.

  ‘What’s happened to Wong? What did you say, Lucy?’ she enquired. ‘I do wish you’d speak up.’ She might deny it, but I felt Rose was becoming deaf: a hearing aid wouldn’t do any harm.

  ‘Fong,’ I said irritably. ‘He’s American, and his name’s Fong, Rose.’

  ‘Fong, Wong, Wrong – whatever.’ From the recesses of her handbag, Rose extracted a powder compact. She patted pink powder on her nose, peered at her own reflection and sighed. ‘Until recently, I thought I was quite well preserved, you know, Lucy,’ she remarked in mournful tones. ‘Not beautiful, obviously, I was never destined to be that: Ma’s genes all went to Petey and passed me by. And never pretty either, but I always told myself I was presentable – and I thought I’d stayed that way. It was the cataracts, of course. The mercies of soft focus. Then that damn doctor insisted I have the op. Now I can see again and there’s no escaping the appalling truth. I look in the glass and think: what a terrible old hag – who in hell are you?’

  Rose’s assessment of her own appearance was characteristically harsh: she’d retained her English-rose complexion; age had not withered the acuity of her gaze. She was looking well, I thought – but I’d save the compliments for later. I said, ‘Join the club, Rose.’

  ‘Thanks. I knew I could rely on you for sympathy.’ She laughed, and settled herself more comfortably in the Bentley’s deep leather seats. ‘Remember this?’ She held out the compact to me. I took it from her, and examined it: a period piece, fashioned in rose gold, decorated with vivid blue enamel, with the initials ‘PdE’ in a diamond scroll.

  ‘I do. It was Poppy’s. I remember her powdering her nose with it – and I remember when, too. We’d just had tea at Shepheard’s, after our ballet lesson with Madame.’

  ‘Gosh, you’ve got an amazing memory. Nowadays, of course, “powder” and “noses” have quite different associations. Or so my grandchildren tell me. They think it’s a hoot.’

  Rose took the compact back and squinted at it critically. ‘I suppose one would remember it – it’s awfully flash. Very goût Rothschild. But then Jacob d’Erlanger gave it to her, and he was a bit Rothschild. Poppy adored that in him, she never stopped teasing him about his taste. Well, she adored him, of course… I found it in the back of a drawer when I was doing the great clear-out. Hadn’t laid eyes on it in years, and then, suddenly, there it was! Oh, so that’s where you’ve been hiding, I said to myself… I’ve started talking to myself now, incidentally, which cannot be a good sign, I feel. Do you ever do that, Lucy? No, of course you don’t. Far too strong-minded. It still has the powder in it that my mother used. What a relic! But then I found all sorts of interesting relics during my clear-out.’ She gave me a sly considering glance, replaced the compact, snapped her bag shut, and turned to the window with a frown. ‘Look at this traffic! Where on earth are all these people going? It’s ten-thirty on a Wednesday morning, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘They’re going about their business, I imagine. They’re working, Rose.’

  ‘If you say so. I think they’re just gallivanting. The instant the sun comes out in this godforsaken country, every man, woman and dog says, Let’s head for the M4 and cause the mother of all jams. It’s the English disease. So, let’s catch up. You’re not looking well, you know – how’s the hip? Where’s the Fong fellow gone?’

  ‘The hip’s hell. But less bad now it’s spring. And Dr Fong’s finally left for Egypt. They’ve begun filming his documentary at last, so I imagine he’s in Luxor.’

  ‘Staying at the Winter Palace?’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, Lucy – I had nightmares about that place for years. Eve taking Petey and me into her room to explain, everyone trying to pretend it was going to be all right, when I knew it wasn’t. It was a palace of tears for me. Misery HQ. Still, it must be very different now. I expect your Fang’s having a whale of a time. You must be relieved to have him off your back. Frightful man.’

  ‘Very clued-up. Sharp. And he’s not so bad. In some ways I rather liked him… ’

  ‘That’s not what you said on the phone. You said he was pestering the life out of you, came to see you twice, stayed for hours, kept phoning and emailing, and was driving you round the bend. You said you couldn’t wait for him to bugger off to Egypt.’

  ‘I expect I was exaggerating. I don’t like being interrogated.’

  ‘So I’ve observed. You were always like that. Close, Wheeler used to say, and she was right. I can’t think why you’re so allergic to imparting information. I love being cross-questioned. I positively jump at the opportunity. After all, one doesn’t often get it, not now one’s old. Absolutely no one, in my experi
ence, has the least interest in anything one has to say. And as for one’s memories, they just bore everyone to tears. “I once met Herr Hitler, as a matter of fact,” I said to my grandchildren the other day – you’d have thought that might have grabbed them. But did it? Two sentences in, just hitting my stride, and there they were, smothering these huge yawns. It was mortifying.’

  ‘Hitler?’ I gave her a startled glance. ‘I never knew that. You actually met him, Rose?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I just threw it in to liven things up. And it was almost true. I mean, given my father’s political views, it was on the cards. He was always buzzing off to Germany before the war, and then coming back and going on and on about parades and discipline and trains that ran on time. Alles in Ordnung. That was his watchword. Vile old fascist. Petey was in his teens by then and very left-wing, longing to go off and fight in Spain – you remember how he was, Lucy. So Pa only had to say it, and Petey would go white and clench his fists and––’

  Her voice caught. ‘Don’t, Rose,’ I said gently. ‘Don’t go there. Not now.’

  ‘Not ever,’ she replied. ‘I do know that, Lucy. I’d willingly forget him, but sometimes he intrudes. Up he pops from his tomb, and starts on the inquisitions… a bit like your Dr Fang, I suppose. Only he’s alive, of course.’

  I gave up. ‘Dr Fang’ had a certain ring. ‘Safely in Egypt, though,’ I said. ‘He kept telephoning when I was hoping it was you. But I don’t think he’ll bother me again, not now. I was just a minnow – he has bigger fish to fry.’

  ‘So what did he ask you?’

  ‘Oh, you can imagine – describe Carnarvon and Howard Carter – with anecdotes. What game was the Met playing? Did Carter know that tomb was there? Was it true he was looking for Tutankhamun from day one, as he claimed afterwards, or was that one of his fairy tales? Carnarvon’s death, of course. Oh, and the fabled Curse – inevitably.’