But as she went out, Jacalyn was standing by the entrance.
“Hey again! Did you enjoy it? And Zac? He’s amazing, hein?” She was smiling… a look of wry amusement at Claire’s expression. “Yeah! All the girls chase him. But he never gets caught. A real, how do you say… breaker of hearts.”
“It was great!” Claire was shifting from foot to foot, feeling awkward and wanting to escape now. “But I have to go… get back home. I hate…”
“Wait!” And Zacharie was there beside her, dressed now in black jeans and a white T-shirt. Smiling. Looking really pleased to see her… reaching out to touch her arm with a finger. Making her shiver.
But Jacalyn didn’t look pleased at all. She looked cross. “For God’s sake, Zac… she’s way too young for you. Leave her alone.” Claire felt herself tensing up. Being treated like a child again. It made her so angry. But if Jacalyn thought Zac would react, she was disappointed. He just stood with his arms crossed, smiling. Jacalyn hovered around for a second, unsure what to do. Then she stormed off. Zacharie made a face at Claire. “She is reloue. You know, a pain in the – how do you say? – butt.”
She couldn’t stop herself looking down and thinking how perfect his was and felt herself going hot all over. And how childish was that? “I’ve got to go,” she said quickly. “If I’m late home…”
“I’ll come with you. Keep you safe! Where do you live? And then we can talk about the rings! Wait… I’ll just get my jacket.” And he sped off towards a huddle of trailers tucked behind the Big Top.
And Claire was still standing there, feeling happy that at last something nice was happening, when Jacalyn came back. She was smiling, so Claire was caught off guard when she spat out the words. “A warning. Stay away from him. He plays around. You don’t need the complication. You can sort it without him you know. Go on. Go home…”
Claire was shocked. Flustered. What did she mean… sort it without him. Sort what? Maybe she should ask? But Jacalyn stood there, implacable… her arms folded tight across her body. Intimidating. Scary. There was no sign of Zacharie.
Claire ran.
She was used to travelling on the tube, but not at night and on her own. So she felt anxious and she was still upset and angry at what Jacalyn had said. How it had made her feel silly, childish, humiliated, confused. “Stupid cow. She’s just jealous, that’s all. She can go screw herself!”
But it wasn’t really that late and in spite of the flu, there were plenty of people around. Too many. The tube was packed, though everyone was trying to create little exclusion zones around themselves and looked horrified when anyone sneezed or coughed. A few people were wearing masks and there were no babies in buggies, no small children. Claire had to straphang, her backpack tucked between her feet because there was nowhere to sit. It was stiflingly hot. She could hardly breathe. So when the train stopped and people got out, she made a beeline for an empty seat and sat down gratefully, hugging her backpack close. But then, as she took a deep breath in relief, something, and she didn’t know what it was at first, started to make her feel uneasy. She scanned the carriage hurriedly. Just the usual mix of people. Nothing alarming. Except the smell. The perfume. She’d been so busy thinking of Zacharie, that for a while she’d forgotten about HIM. She breathed in slowly, tasted the air. Yes, there it was. Cinnamon and flowers. Faint but insistent. She looked around anxiously, but the carriage was full and there were too many people standing for her to be able to see to the end.
He could be here, she thought. Why not? A coincidence. Her mum had met an old boyfriend like that once. “The carriage doors opened,” she’d said, “and there he was, getting out as I was getting in. And I hadn’t seen him for 15 years! Amazing.”
And it had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Because the alternative was unthinkable.
She thought she would walk up the hill from the tube station, then along the side of the common and into Grandma’s road. But as she came out of the tube station, she felt as if she was being followed. When she turned, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of something, someone turning away as if to hide from her. So, when she saw the bus coming, she didn’t think twice, darted across the road and as soon as the doors opened, she leaped on, pushing past a whole queue of people. But she didn’t care. She just wanted to be somewhere light and full of people. Somewhere she’d feel safe.
She passed her travel card across the sensor, then dropped down sideways into a seat right at the front of the bus, her legs sticking into the aisle and her eyes fixed on the door of the bus. That way she could see everyone who got on. And even after the doors had closed and the bus had pulled away, she still kept looking. Expecting any moment he’d pop up, or she’d smell the cinnamon and flowers.
But it was only a few stops and, when she got off the bus, she ran fast all the way to Grandma’s house. Didn’t stop to look back and see if anyone was there. Just ran. Then she panicked when she couldn’t find her key and banged on the door like someone demented and rang the bell and clattered the letter box.
“What on earth?” her mum stepped back hurriedly from the doorway as Claire cannoned through, slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing hard.
Claire’s mum went to push her aside and open the door. “What on earth’s the matter? Where’s Jade?”
“Jade’s not here. Her mum was feeling poorly so Jade stayed with her.” Not really a lie at all.
“Oh. So you came home all on your own?”
“It was fine. It was okay.”
“Then why were you running? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Honest. I just thought I saw… heard someone behind me. That’s all… and I got scared. Stupid. There wasn’t anyone.”
“Hmm.” Claire’s mum opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it. “Well you’re all right and that’s the main thing. But I hope Jade’s mum is feeling better. God, I hope it’s not flu. Do you think…”
“Mum! I’m going to bed okay? I’m really tired…”
Claire was lying on the bed, in the dark, fully clothed. She wanted to be quiet and still so she could think about things. About him, Robert. Had Robert been following her? She was sure he had. About Grandma leaving tickets for a circus where the wire-walker had a ring just like hers. About Zacharie.
She scrabbled upright in bed, reached over and picked up her phone from the bedside table. Then she lay back down again, holding the phone to her chest. Maybe she could just send him a text. Just a ‘Hi!’ and a smiley face. There wouldn’t be any harm in that, would there? He’d wonder where she’d disappeared to. And so what if the things Jacalyn had said about him were true… he was only ever going to be a friend, wasn’t he? Someone who’d understand about the ring. Nothing more. And if he wanted to reply he could, because then he’d have her number. And if he didn’t…
She lay a long while thinking about it… building up the courage to do it. Heard her mum coming up the stairs and hurriedly pulled the covers over and pretended to be asleep. Then, when she heard her mum’s bedroom door close, she pulled out the piece of paper from her jeans pocket and unfolded it. She could just read the number in the light from her phone. She keyed it in, saved it to memory and then wrote the text, took a deep breath, and sent it.
And waited and then fell asleep and it was gone two o’clock when the message came in. Click. ‘I thought I’d lost you! Now I can sleep! Zxx’
* * *
Robert’s house, tucked away behind the Strand just over the river from the Jubilee Gardens, was spectacular. Even Claire could see that and took a surreptitious picture of it on her phone. It looked really old and was made of worn red brick and weathered stone. It had tall glittering windows and, between them, plaster panels decorated with Egyptian figures in relief. Steps led up to a great carved wooden door and into a panelled hall large enough to take the biggest fireplace Claire had ever seen.
It was a pity there wasn’t a fire lit, Claire thought, because even though the
heat outside was like a furnace, the cold from the stone floor still struck up through the soles of her shoes.
She didn’t like it here. She knew he could see that. Because, although he was paying a lot of attention to her mum and Micky, he was watching her. She could feel it. And she knew absolutely that he HAD been following her too. She’d thought about refusing to come today, but wanted to see where he lived. It was important somehow. And anyway, she wasn’t about to let her mum and Micky go off with him alone.
“Let me show you around,” he said and her mum was saying, “Oh, yes please,” and following after him with the biggest smile on her face, as if he were offering to show her the crown jewels, then let her try them on.
Even Micky was excited by the tapestry hanging over the chimney piece in the room he called ‘the great parlour’. A man in armour thrusting his sword up into the belly of a huge, fire-breathing dragon.
Then while Claire’s mum went to the loo – she said she was feeling queasy with the heat – he showed them the library with its illuminated medieval manuscripts, as bright as jewels, laid out in glass cases. And in the corner of the room, standing in shadow, was a decorated wooden mummy case painted with the life-size image of a woman. She was dark-eyed and full-lipped and had two ropes of black hair framing her face. Micky spotted it at once, ran over, “Can I touch it?” Her hand reached out; hovered over the case.
“You can look inside if you like.”
“Oh!”
He lifted the lid off and to one side.
“That is wicked!” Micky said, turning to Claire and reaching back to tug at her hand. “Look!”
Claire reluctantly peered in. The mummy had been half unwrapped. Poor thing, she thought, with her sunken eyes and stretched yellow skin and horrible tufts of dull red hair… and the third finger of her right hand missing.
“Does she have a name?” Micky asked.
“She does,” Robert said, pointing to a cartouche on the mummy’s case. “Nefertaru, priestess and dancer at the temple of the Lady of Red Linen, the Bringer of Plagues, the goddess Sekhmet.”
“Sekhmet?” Claire looked startled. There it was again. That name.
“How cool is that?” breathed Micky, eyes wide and round as saucers. “And look!” Micky had noticed the missing finger too. “I bet she had a ring, just like Claire’s, that wouldn’t come off, and somebody chopped off her finger to get it.” Micky was looking enquiringly at Robert.
“Mmm.” He looked thoughtful. “It is said that only death can part the wearer from the ring…and it’s said to protect the wearer from sickness too… so maybe she was murdered for it. What do you think?”
He’s teasing, Claire thought. Isn’t he?
He was pointing to some other hieroglyphs. “She was only just 14 when she died.”
“Eugh… Claire… just like you,” Micky started to say. “Now you’re going to have to wear the ring always, unless…”
But then Claire’s mum came back into the room.
God, Claire thought, distracted for a split-second from what Micky was saying, you do look awful, even though you’ve brushed your hair and put on lipgloss.
“What’s that about Claire’s ring?” her mum said, trying to sound upbeat and cheerful, “And who had their finger chopped off?”
Micky told her.
“Oh, so does that make Claire Sekhmet’s priestess too, then? And does the ring protect her from ALL sorts of plague?” Her mum was joking, had started to laugh, but looking from Claire’s face to Robert’s, she stopped, taken aback to see how neither of them was smiling. She tried to lighten things up by saying and half meaning it, “So Claire’s okay, but what about me? What about Micky? What’s going to protect US from this bird flu? We haven’t got any fancy rings.”
It was then that he’d taken them up to his study, with its shelves of boxes and bottles and books. And as they climbed up the stairs, Claire trailing reluctantly behind, he talked about the clear tincture, the ‘medicine’ he made up himself, “Just three drops, every day, straight onto the tongue. It’s perfectly safe… So safe, even pregnant women can take it.” Robert reached out and touched her mum on the arm. The briefest of contact, but it made Claire want to knock his hand away and shout Don’t touch her! “And you’ll be protected against every kind of plague. It’s always worked for me. Because really you know I’m over four hundred years old!”
Micky and her mum laughed and her mum said, “You look amazing for four hundred. You haven’t got a magic cream have you? Only I’d kill for some of that.”
“Who wouldn’t? No, just the medicine. I’ll give you some to take home…”
Claire could see her mum was going to be sucked right in by it. She had a dressing table overflowing with pills and potions.
When Robert opened his study door, Claire’s mum and Micky went straight in. Claire meant to follow on, but the smell hit her… whoomph… and stopped her dead in her tracks. Cinnamon and flowers. Her mum and Micky didn’t even notice it or see her reaction. But he did. Their eyes locked.
He held out his hand to her. “Come in,” he said, his fingers lacing through hers and pulling her towards him.
“No!”
Claire’s mum turned, smiling. “What’s the matter?” But Claire couldn’t answer, because she didn’t know. Couldn’t say why a smell should fill her with such fear.
She pulled her hand free and turned and ran and didn’t stop running until she was out of the house and had slammed the door behind her. Now she was in the open air, she felt better, though the smell still clung to her. She dropped down onto the top step and sat there, her heart racing. And when the door opened behind her, for a minute she was terrified it was him.
“What on earth’s got into you?” Her mum sounded concerned, but exasperated and bewildered too. “You silly girl,” she said, bending down, enveloping Claire in a curtain of hair, the smell, THAT smell clinging to her and intense in the heat. “Robert wants you to come back inside. He’s worried he’s upset you… all that stupid joking about the ring.” Her hand rested on Claire’s shoulder, rubbing it as if she was a child again and needing to be soothed.
Claire shook her head and felt tears prickle at the back of her nose.
“Well stay here then.” Her mum’s voice sounded flat and tired. “You know where we are.”
But there was no way Claire was going back inside. She would stay out here, move along the step until she was in the shade, rest her back against the warm brick of the house and wait.
* * *
When they came out of the house at last, the heat was still suffocating but had lost some of its fierceness. The noise of traffic had reached a deafening crescendo. It was rush hour and people were on the move. Masses more people in cars now. Safe, isolated, cocooned from everyone else.
The drive home took a long time and there was hardly a word spoken the whole journey. Robert had insisted on driving them back home too. “Too risky for your mum to be travelling on the tube in her condition,” he’d said, looking at Claire and smiling conspiratorially, as if they shared a secret.
Micky was asleep on the back seat, her mouth open and her head lolling against Claire’s shoulder, making it damp with sweat and dribble. In one hand she was clutching a little figure which he had given her as a parting present; a genuine Ancient Egyptian magical figurine (he’d said): a wax doll, with a fragment of papyrus inserted in its back, strands of dull red hair pushed into its head. He’d explained there was a spell written on the papyrus, which would protect the bearer from harm. He’d given Claire’s mum one too, which she’d popped in her bag for safe keeping. Nothing for Claire though. He’d said she didn’t need it. She had the ring. And it was then that she’d done something really stupid. Had blurted out, “One of the rings!” And he had taken her arm and tucked it in his and leaned in and whispered, “Ah, yes… the little rope-walker at the Cirque du Sekhmet.”
So he had followed her.
Claire’s mum sat in the front passenger se
at, her hands folded in her lap and with her head turned to look out of the window.
He seemed to be concentrating on the traffic now, but when Claire glanced up, their eyes met in the rear-view mirror and in that second, panic rose up in her so fast she struggled to control it. She felt he sensed that and was pleased by it.
Breathe, she thought. Deep breaths and steady your thoughts. Don’t let him win.
Then he half turned towards her mum and said something, in a low voice that Claire couldn’t catch. But it made her mum laugh and that startled Claire. She should have been pleased her mum was happy, but she wasn’t. Not one little bit. And she was even less pleased when they got home and Robert helped her mum out of the car and then opened the back door and went to lift Micky out as if he was part of their family. She was still fast asleep. Claire moved roughly, deliberately, letting Micky’s head fall awkwardly from her shoulder, hoping it would wake her up. “Thanks. I don’t need your help. I can manage.”
And it must have been while Claire was busy getting Micky out of the car and inside and onto the sofa, that her mum had fetched it for him. Sold it.
Once the front door was closed and they could hear his car pulling away, her mum had exploded. “The man you’ve been so spectacularly rude to all afternoon has just paid an enormous sum of money for your Grandma’s old box. I told you he would. Look!” She pulled out a huge wodge of money from her handbag and waved it under Claire’s nose.
Not an enormous sum of money, she thought. He would have paid more. “How could you?” Anger welling up inside Claire and spilling out. “Wait till I tell Dad what you’ve done. It was MY box.”
Claire’s mum quietly tucked the money back in her bag. “We need the money… and that’s that.”
“You’re a stupid cow. No wonder Dad left you.” Tears were streaming down Claire’s face now. She turned on her heel, ran upstairs, went straight into Grandma’s bedroom, saw the empty space on the chair where the box ought to have been and threw herself down on the bed.
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