The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  How do you weigh a heart? I asked Nicola Dunsire later that night, as I wrote to her in the quiet of my cabin, her fountain pen snug in my hand. Had she met Mr Callender, whom I’d been trying to describe, I felt she might have found him absurd. But then such issues as good-heartedness made her impatient: what mattered, she always said, was the possession of a good mind.

  Events in the Valley moved very swiftly once Christmas was past; I soon found there was no shortage of information for Miss Mack. News winged its way to the American House, and there it was instantly discussed, in fine detail. The best time to harvest it was over tea, when Frances’s father returned from his work at Hatshepsut’s temple, and his fellow archaeologists returned from Carter’s tomb in the Valley. Before they bathed and changed for dinner, they would all stretch out in the common room, unwind and discuss the events of the day. An hour later I’d be dispatched back to the houseboat, but at teatime the presence of children was tolerated – and quickly forgotten, so Frances and I could sit quietly, be invisible and listen.

  I couldn’t reveal to Frances or anyone else that Miss Mack was writing a book – I was sworn to secrecy on that topic. But Frances was as absorbed by the tomb as I was, so no explanations were required. Pent up with excitement as to whether Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber would eventually be uncovered, whether it might have been robbed or whether it remained intact, she was irritated by the discovery’s numerous, and increasingly apparent, side effects. ‘Well, I can tell you one thing about it, Lucy,’ she’d said. ‘It doesn’t improve anyone’s temper. All they do is squabble, morning, noon and night. That tomb is having a really evil effect.’

  She made that remark to me one day in the Valley, to which we’d begun to make frequent expeditions. Miss Mack, ever alert, notebook and camera at the ready, made visits there almost daily, noting the increasing numbers of tourists and journalists, often sitting encamped among them, recording the procession of marvellous objects now being removed from the Antechamber for conservation and packing. The escape techniques I’d perfected in Cambridge the previous summer stood me in good stead: Miss Mack was so absorbed in her task, her attention so riveted by the glories on display, that it was easy for Frances and me to slip away. First it was for fifteen minutes, then an hour, then, gloriously, an entire morning. Frances and I could walk and talk to our hearts’ content – it was as if we had never been parted, never endured those long months of separation. There we were, just as we’d always been: attuned, knowing each other’s thoughts before they were spoken.

  ‘Like sisters,’ I said to her one morning.

  ‘No, like twins,’ Frances countered.

  We’d creep back from these expeditions reluctantly, expecting remonstrations. They never came: Miss Mack seemed unaware of passing time; her watchdog instincts were blunted. Besides, as she’d said, I was no longer a child. This new status bought Frances and me the freedom of the Valley.

  So intense was the interest in Tutankhamun’s new-found tomb, and the secrets it might yet prove to contain, that the other tombs in the Valley were now neglected; few tourists and no newspaper men ventured beyond the new site, now christened ‘KV62’, and marked by a stone painted with Carnarvon’s monogram, a curious device of two interlocked initials that resembled a skull and crossbones. Pushing our way through the crowds clustered at the mouth of the tomb, Frances and I could, in minutes, escape to the Valley’s further reaches, and find ourselves alone in its heat and its silence. We re-explored the sites we’d visited the previous year and one day, it must have been early in the new year, we returned to the site of Siptah’s tomb, where we’d watched Carter’s excavations, on the day the storm struck the Valley.

  It was Frances who proposed that route; I suspected she had an ulterior motive, and I was right. As soon as we reached the place where we’d stood watching the Decauville rail system at work, she caught me by the hand and drew me into one of the numerous small wadis that led away from the main track. How accurate her memory was! I doubt I could have found the correct place again, but Frances’s instincts were unerring. Ignoring the snaking paths that led off right and left, increasing her pace, she led me around and between the hot bare rocks until, coming to an abrupt halt, I realised we’d reached the place where we’d buried our offerings to Isis and Nephthys – the ankh Hassan had given me, and the scarlet lipstick given Frances by Poppy d’Erlanger. There we were again, at the foot of the same tall rock, examining its blind impassive face and its scorpion-haunted tresses. With the toe of her sandal, Frances scuffed at the burial site we’d made.

  ‘No one even mentions Mrs d’Erlanger now,’ she said, frowning. ‘In another few weeks it will be the anniversary of her death. Not even a year yet – and everyone’s forgotten, Lucy. Well, we haven’t.’

  Frances inspected the stone. The heat beat down on my head: it was noon; I’d forgotten my sunglasses, and the sand dazzled painfully. ‘Do you visit your mother’s grave, Lucy?’ Frances asked, poking at the stone. ‘Does your father, now he’s remarried?’

  ‘I think he did for a while,’ I replied. ‘I went there last autumn before I left for Egypt.’

  I hesitated; Miss Dunsire had accompanied me on that occasion; we’d taken a bunch of flowers from our Cambridge garden, rose-hips, the last Michaelmas daisies. I’d stood there looking at a name, at dates, trying to remember the timbre of my mother’s voice. I thought: I mourned her deeply for a while, then a little less, and one day I shan’t mourn her at all. That’s the pattern of grief, Lucy. Miss Dunsire might have forgotten that remark of hers, but I hadn’t. Now, standing by the rock, I traced the snaky fall of its limestone hair and tried to summon my mother. For a second she was vivid; then time began to occlude her. Frances and I sat down by the stone, and I told her all this. She listened intently, but with a frown.

  ‘That’s what she claimed, your governess? I thought you said she was so clever?’

  ‘She is clever.’

  ‘Well, she can’t be so smart if she said that. She’s totally wrong. That isn’t the pattern to grief. It stays and stays. It worms itself deeper. And if she thinks it doesn’t, she’s never experienced it. You should tell her that, Lucy, when you write the next of your endless letters to her.’

  I frowned at the sand, considering this advice. I wouldn’t take it: I could imagine only too well the waspish rejoinder I’d receive if I risked it.

  ‘Come on, Lucy, I suppose we’d better go back,’ Frances said, hauling me to my feet. She patted the coiling limestone, then, taking my arm, drew me back the way we had come. ‘I visit my little brother’s grave once a year,’ she remarked, as we retraced our steps. ‘My parents take me. We go in August, on the day he drowned. It’s a nice plain grave, Lucy, in a beautiful part of a beautiful cemetery, and his name’s still as clear as can be. But it never feels as if he’s there… I often sense him in Maine, though, by the water. So does Daddy. And my mother. And I sense him here, which is kind of strange, because of course he never came to Egypt, let alone the Valley.’

  She came to a halt. We were in sight of KV62 by then, though the tomb entrance was invisible behind the press of spectators. ‘Look at all those people, Lucy,’ she said, ‘they don’t give a dime for Tutankhamun, or who he was. All they care about is the gold they buried with him.’

  I looked at Frances’s small, intense and accusatory figure; she was wearing one of her irreproachable cotton frocks, a panama hat was jammed low on her brow, and she was scowling. Turning to follow her gaze, I saw a painted wooden manikin was being carried from the tomb on a tray; the crowds sighed and cried out as it passed, parting like the Red Sea before Moses, then closing in again. Camera shutters clicked. As we drew nearer, we could see the figure of Miss Mack on the edge of the crowd, fanning herself, and could just make out the spruce figure of Howard Carter, tweed-suited and Homburg-hatted, escorting the manikin to the conservation laboratory.

  It was a depiction of the king as a small child, Miss Mack told us: a marvel of portraiture, why, i
t made the little boy so real, she felt she could have sat right down and had a talk with him. She began to make copious notes. The crowd, having taken pictures as the manikin passed, lost interest. Some clustered around the mouth of the tomb, in eager anticipation of the next object to be carried forth; some sought pockets of shade and unwrapped picnic sandwiches. There were complaints as to the heat, the lack of seating and the tedium. ‘That statue was chipped,’ a woman was saying to her husband. ‘And I really do think they could speed things up a bit. Why does it all take so long?’ From the conservation lab tomb came the sound of Carter’s voice, raised in angry vituperation.

  Frances made a face. ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘the greatest find in the Valley ever made, and all anyone does is argue and complain. It’s brought out the worst in everyone, that tomb… And there’s no escaping it either,’ she added, ‘it’s just as bad at Castle Carter, and it’s even worse at the American House. It’s like a disease, Lucy. Daddy calls it the Pestilence.’

  Whether the tomb was entirely to blame for this state of affairs, I doubted; there were other irritants, especially within the American House itself. Frances’s mother Helen had contracted a mild fever en route to Luxor, and she could not shake it off. She spent days in her room, resting. Mrs Lythgoe, senior wife, usually there to rule the roost, was still in London, where her husband continued to negotiate with Carnarvon.

  In her absence, and with Helen Winlock too unwell to resist, Minnie Burton rose up in triumph, seizing her chance to reorganise the entire house, redeploy the servants and improve the menus. She had always felt, she said, that Mrs Lythgoe and Helen were unambitious: they simply didn’t try hard enough and were far too indulgent with the staff. Yes, the head cook, Michael-Peter Sa’ad, was Nubian, and his experience of Western food was limited; yes, Sa’ad could be obstinate, but – using her recipe – he had cooked the Christmas turkey and, if he could do that, why baulk at shortbread? Or scones? Or fruitcake? Now that Carter’s discovery was bringing a flood of the famous, the well-connected, the influential and the rich to the Valley, the role of the American House had changed. ‘Sa’ad has to learn,’ she declared. ‘We are ambassadors. This house is now an embassy. This is American territory.’

  I was with Frances at the American House constantly, so was able to sample Mrs Burton’s reforms. Monday, the shortbread was burned; Tuesday, the cake frosting set like concrete; Wednesday, the scones were leaden. Frances and I spat them into our handkerchiefs; it was Sa’ad’s revenge, she whispered. ‘He can cook scones when he wants. But he doesn’t want. And he won’t – not with Queen Min bossing him about in his own kitchen.’

  Sa’ad was a man of subtlety. He could hold his nerve too. The next day, he failed with a Victoria sponge. He went on to fail with cookies, meringues and brandy snaps. After some ten days of this, when he felt he’d tortured Mrs Burton almost enough, he went for one final turn of the screw: ignoring her orders completely, he sent out a tray of Egyptian sweetmeats. There were no guests that day, but the assembled archaeologists, exhausted by a day in the field, stared at these riches: crisp pastry, honey, raisins, nuts, a heady scent of cloves and cinnamon. Before Mrs Burton could say a word, they fell on them.

  ‘Thank God. Something edible at last,’ Herbert Winlock said, with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Pour me some more tea, please, Frances.’

  ‘Delicious.’ Arthur Mace stretched and smiled. ‘I feel almost human again now.’

  ‘Me too.’ Harry Burton licked his lips. ‘Sugar. That’s what we need. In vast quantities and immediately we get home – our thanks to Sa’ad.’ He turned to his silent, seething wife: ‘And to you, Minnie. Can we have them again tomorrow?’

  Arthur Mace was well into his conservation work by then. He was being assisted by an eminent chemist, Alfred Lucas, whom Carter had recruited. Fortified by sugar, Mace described to Frances and me the objects they’d tried to preserve that day. They’d opened up a casket, he said, which proved to contain exquisite beaded garments and sandals: the fabric was frail – one touch and the tiny beads scattered by their thousands. Lucas had suggested they pour liquid paraffin wax over them, then wait for it to solidify. It had taken them two painstaking hours to save one pair of sandals.

  ‘How many more of them are there, Mr Mace?’ Frances asked.

  ‘God knows,’ he sighed. ‘We’ve only been through a few boxes, Frances. There could be hundreds more. Our next task is a walking stick, an exquisite thing. It’s entirely covered in iridescent blue beetles’ wings. Loose beetles’ wings.’

  Harry Burton was complaining about the problems of photographing inside the tomb, where there was never enough light, and the heat was near unendurable. He was working with a large-format camera, long exposures and large, heavy glass plates; he had a darkroom in a little-visited tomb, but it was some hundred yards from Tutankhamun’s. The plates had to be wrapped, then transported fast to their developing bath: he had a minute and a half at most to sprint between the two tombs. At first, this had been easy enough – Burton was lean and fit, agile and fast on his feet – but as the number of tourists and reporters increased by the day, his task was becoming more difficult. The crowds would cluster around the mouth of the tomb, avid for the sight of treasures. They were supposed to stay behind the retaining walls Carter had built, and there were guards to restrain them, but even so Burton was now having to fight his way through the mêlée. ‘Yesterday four plates got spoiled,’ he said. ‘Today it was six. It all had to be shot again – and that held Mace up as well. Carter was livid.’

  ‘Bad news, Harry – it’s about to get worse,’ Herbert Winlock said. ‘Take a look at this.’ He tossed him the latest cable from Albert Lythgoe in London. ‘Carnarvon has signed with The Times. Exclusive rights, worldwide. They raised their offer to five thousand pounds, plus seventy-five per cent of syndication profits, so they obviously believe a burial chamber will be found. Carnarvon signed yesterday – and he didn’t consult Carter.’

  ‘Oh God. That won’t please him.’ Burton read the cable, his face gloomy. ‘But what does it all mean? I can’t make head nor tail of all this exclusivity jargon.’

  ‘It means that only The Times has access to the tomb, and to the excavators. All the other papers will have to buy their information and their pictures from The Times, and they’ll get it a day late. So they’ll get scooped on a daily basis – if they accept this monopoly, which they won’t. Watch this little deal explode in Carnarvon’s face. Lythgoe says it’s already leaked, and Fleet Street’s in an uproar. New York isn’t exactly overjoyed either.’

  ‘All the other papers?’ Harry Burton asked sharply. ‘Including the Arab ones?’

  ‘The Arab papers get the information free – at least Carnarvon had the wit to ensure that. But they’re as dependent on The Times as everyone else. They don’t have access either.’

  ‘Jesus wept. An Egyptian tomb – and they exclude the Egyptian press. What diplomatic genius thought that one up? Minnie, give me some more tea – two sugars, no, make that three. It’s hell in the Valley now – can you imagine what it’ll be like when this gets out?’

  Minnie poured the tea. She was still smarting from her earlier defeat at Sa’ad’s hands, and it was clear she did not share her husband’s anxieties. With Mrs Burton, nothing succeeded like success, and any antipathy she’d felt for Carnarvon and Carter was now forgotten – they were the men of the hour. Lord Carnarvon was not due in Egypt until late January; in his absence, Carter controlled access to the tomb. If Minnie wished to obtain a visit for her fashionable friends, it made sound commercial sense to stay on the right side of him.

  Minnie had been hemming curtains for Howard Carter, Frances had reported with disgust a few days before: ‘And she got her reward too. That contessa friend of hers had a private viewing of the tomb the next day. Instant kudos for Minnie! She’d better watch it, though. Carter has no mercy, and Daddy says he always calls in his debts. He’ll have her shopping for him next.’

  ‘Five thousa
nd pounds,’ Minnie was now saying. ‘Munificent. Quite a coup! I can’t see why you’re being so pessimistic, Herbert – or you, Harry. Why shouldn’t Carnarvon make the most he can? He has to cover his expenses. The new car, the steel security gates, all the packing and preservation materials, his native workers, the extra staff he’s taken on. He has Mr Lucas’s services to pay for, as well as that lump Pecky Callender’s. After all… ’ She paused, giving a sidelong glance at Winlock, whom she did not like, as I was beginning to realise; perhaps the fact that he referred to her as ‘Queen Min’ had got back to her. ‘After all, Herbert, Lord Carnarvon’s outlay is heavy, and will be for a long time to come. We still don’t know what marvels there may be if he finds a burial chamber. He could be looking at months and months of work, unending expenses.’

  ‘How true. There’s a difference between covering your expenses and profiteering, however,’ Winlock replied evenly. ‘That word is already being bandied around, Minnie, and you can expect to hear more of it. Money, money, money. Money for newspaper rights, photography rights – and a book, remember, which Carter is somehow supposed to cobble together in record time. Now Hollywood has been in touch, and the newsreels too; Lythgoe says Carnarvon thinks he can get at least ten thousand pounds from Pathé News alone. He’s going all over London, spreading the glad tidings. He’d be well advised not to publicise sums like that when he gets back here. He’s a millionaire many times over. And Egypt, just in case it’s escaped your eagle eye, Minnie, is a poor country.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks! It’s his tomb. Lord Carnarvon can do exactly what he likes. He certainly doesn’t need your permission or your approbation, Herbert.’

  ‘No, Minnie. It is not his tomb. It belongs to the Egyptian government, and the sooner Carnarvon understands that, the better. He appears blissfully unaware at present.’

  ‘I don’t agree.’ Minnie glared at her husband, who was making pacifying faces. ‘It’s all very well for you to preach, Herbert: you have the Met to cover the costs of your dig. Carnarvon is just one man, a private individual. His expenses are rocketing by the day––’