by Emma Carroll
A rustle of cloth as Pepe dug into his pocket. I sensed he now held the jar in his hands. When it started giving off a low, golden light, I thought it was just me imagining it. And maybe I was. Yet the glow got stronger. Not quite a torch beam, this was softer, more warming. It lit up Pepe’s face. He said something in a language I didn’t know.
As the light grew stronger, we could see we were in a little chamber. The floor was sandy, the walls curved on all sides – not bare rock, but decorated faintly with little figures and flowers. Open-mouthed, I turned slowly to take it all in. With a little bit of light, the tomb was beautiful.
In front of us was an arch that led to another chamber, above it a picture of a person in white robes, sitting on a throne. On his head the familiar tulip-shaped hat, the skin on his face blue. He was Osiris, god of the underworld who, Grandad once told me, was killed by someone in his own family who wanted to take his throne. How fitting to find his picture here, in Kyky’s tomb.
There were other pictures – jackals, owls, cobras. To be truthful, I’d seen fancier ancient art back home in the British Museum, yet I’d never felt like this just from looking at it. Seeing it here, in Egypt, where it was supposed to be, meant something deeper – a connection, a sort of tingling in my chest. There was no gold, no lapis – apart from what Pepe held in his hands. I wondered what Mr Carter would make of this little place, whether if he saw it now he’d think it important enough to dig up and document. But then, maybe that was the point.
The tomb was private. It was the burial place for a beloved friend. What I really hoped most of all was that when Pepe and I climbed the steps out of here, no one would ever come down them again.
Yet one thing didn’t add up: Maya said he’d chosen the spot for its position, because it would catch the sun. I couldn’t think how any sun would ever get in here.
What caught my eye now was the arch below the Osiris drawing. Looking closer, I saw it wasn’t a separate chamber at all, but two stone shelves running vertically into the rock. On each was a shape wrapped and wrapped again in cloth.
My throat tightened as I moved closer, the light from the jar growing ever brighter. As Pepe angled it towards the shelves, I could see what was, in fact, the top of a head. The shape of the body – the shoulders, the waist, the place where the feet would be – was just about visible under the fabric. Another mummified body lay on the shelf below. They were Lysandra and Maya, I felt sure of it.
‘Are there people buried here?’ Pepe asked in a hushed voice.
‘Yes, they were all friends.’
I started to cry.
I’d expected the tomb to be just for Kyky’s heart, but how stupid of me: without a decent family, his friends were his heart. I knew how that felt – not that my family weren’t decent, but friends can be as important. And tears aren’t always sad, either. Sometimes – like now, for instance – they could be a tangle of all sorts of feelings.
Very gently, Pepe put the jar on the top shelf. This mummy was the slightly bigger of the two, so I guessed it was Maya. The jar seemed to agree – if jars can do that. The light dimmed a little. It flickered, and then, with a fizzing, spitting sound, went out.
We waited. I didn’t know exactly what I expected to happen, but I didn’t think, somehow, that this was the end. The dark pressed in again, but only for a moment.
I blinked, stunned, as the whole chamber filled to the brim with light. This time it came from above, from the sky. Maya’s measurements had been absolutely spot on. The first beams of the sunrise poured into the cave. It hit the far wall where the bodies lay. For a minute, or maybe for always, the three friends were together in the sun.
20
When we crawled out on to the ledge again, it was dawn. After dragging the boulder back into place, we sat against the cliff, exhausted.
‘It went well,’ Pepe said.
I looked sideways at him. ‘It did.’
He nodded: we left it at that because I was crying, and so was he.
The sun was coming up over the valley. Where the light caught the tops of the hills, the rock looked almost pink. Everything else was in shadow – the road twisting along the valley floor, the boulders that marked the way. I’d never seen a view more beautiful, or more empty.
I wiped my eyes. Now, at last, the curse should be broken. We could start hoping for better, happier things.
I fancied a moment just to sit, and take it all in. I was so tired. But it was a good tiredness, like Nefertiti on a winter’s evening curled up in front of the fire. After a while, Pepe left me to check on the others, but was back again in moments, looking agitated. Remembering Tulip, I scrambled to my feet.
‘She’s not worse, is she?’ I asked.
He beckoned: ‘Come. You can see for yourself.’
I followed him almost blindly off the cliff, back to the place where we’d left Tulip lying on Pepe’s scarf. My heart was hammering. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t three people, where earlier there’d just been two.
Tulip looked better, thank heavens. Oz was beside her, staring not at his sister but at the new addition to the group, a blond-haired young man. All three were sitting cross-legged on the ground, the camels behind them dozing.
Tulip waved. As I approached she shot me a quick questioning look: have you done it? Is the jar back where it belongs?
I nodded.
Immediately, she was all smiles. ‘Then you’ll never guess who came back for his notebook?’ It wasn’t exactly hard to: the reporter was right there in front of me.
I stopped mid-stride. He looked very familiar. The beard was gone, but the nice smile made me realise he was the man from the train.
‘Crikey!’ I said, grinning back. ‘Hullo! Fancy you being here!’
‘Hullo.’ The man ran a hand rather sheepishly through his hair. ‘I expect you’ve guessed who I am by now, haven’t you?’
‘Um … well … you seem to be a reporter …’ I offered.
As I sat down beside Tulip, I was aware of how shivery she was, not from fever any more, but with excitement. And Oz, who never looked directly at anyone much, was gazing at the young man like he was a Christmas present that might be snatched away from him at any moment.
‘This is my best friend Lil,’ Tulip said, then gestured to the reporter. ‘And this is Alex.’
I stared at her. At him. At Oz. And at Pepe, who watched us, an arm round each of his camels’ necks, tears still rolling down his face.
‘Alex?’ I frowned. ‘What, as in your brother, Alex?’
‘I don’t think we’ve got another one!’ Tulip laughed.
I was knocked sideways. This young man didn’t look anything like the boy with the floppy hair whose portraits hung in the Mendozas’ library.
‘You got on the train in Yugoslavia! You’re the second-class ticket man!’ I cried. ‘But your beard—’
‘Gone,’ he said, patting his face. ‘It didn’t suit me much, did it?’
He certainly looked better without it.
I turned to Oz. ‘Blimey! This was who you saw at Athens station!’
But Oz, who’d normally have enjoyed being right, wasn’t even listening. He had his brother back, the lucky devil – Alex, who was sitting there, with his notebook in his lap.
‘So you’re a reporter?’ I said again, because it hadn’t all sunk in.
‘I’m afraid I am,’ Alex admitted. ‘I write for the Washington Post. I was sent by—’
‘Mr Pemberton,’ I finished. It all began to make sense. ‘You’re here to replace the man who had a motorcar accident in Italy.’
‘That’s it,’ Alex nodded.
I was still confused. Where had he been since the war? Everyone in Tulip’s family thought he was dead. But it wasn’t my place to ask, I was learning this too. Sometimes people only told you things – difficult things – when they were ready to do so.
‘Well, you know your mother’s going to eat you for breakfast, don’t you?�
�� I remarked.
Oz looked very worried. Tulip laughed fondly.
‘I’m certainly going to get a proper telling-off, and I probably deserve it,’ Alex agreed.
‘I think we’re all in for one of those,’ I pointed out. ‘But you being here, I mean, it’s incredible.’ And it was, though it didn’t quite sink in that such a better, happier thing had happened already. All I could do was burst into a fresh bout of tears.
*
Mrs Mendoza was waiting for us with a face like thunder.
‘I’ve just reported you all missing to the local police!’ she cried, as we arrived back at the houseboat. ‘Tulip, what on earth has happened to your leg?’
‘It’s better than it was last night,’ Tulip told her.
When Mrs Mendoza saw Alex, the leg was forgotten. Yet she didn’t come any closer. Maybe she didn’t believe this person really was her son. Or maybe she was angry. We all stood on deck, not knowing what to say or do. The silence was agony. Alex, meanwhile, grew paler by the second.
‘Here.’ Tulip offered him a seat. As he sank into it, she settled herself protectively at his feet.
Oz moved his chair to sit next to his brother, the bond between them obvious. I felt glad for them, I really did. But this was family business. I was an outsider looking on: theirs was a team I wasn’t part of.
In broad daylight, Alex’s scars were more vivid. His hair tumbled forwards into his eyes once or twice, which made me think maybe he didn’t look so different from the boy in the portraits after all. He was, I supposed, rather handsome. He also seemed very lost.
‘Might we have some tea and toast, Mama? I’m starving,’ Tulip suggested.
Mrs Mendoza went very white, then very red. ‘You can’t just walk in and expect breakfast!’ She looked pretty scary, to be honest. Tulip seemed to recognise the look too: she looped her arm tighter around Alex’s ankles.
‘The war ended, Alex. They told us you were missing, believed dead.’ Mrs Mendoza’s voice was dangerously quiet.
Alex wiped his hands on his trousers. Even from where I was sitting I could see how much he was shaking.
‘I was in a hospital in France, Mama. This scar on my face?’ He touched it. ‘Shrapnel. I couldn’t speak, feed myself or remember anything for months. I didn’t know who I was.’
I wished Mrs Mendoza would go to him and hug him, but all she did was close her eyes for a moment.
‘Why didn’t you come home when you’d recovered?’ she asked in the same tight, quiet voice.
‘Come home for what?’ Alex asked. ‘Look at me, Mama! I can’t even hold a cup of tea without spilling it.’
Mrs Mendoza gritted her teeth. ‘We thought you were dead. Everyone – even the War Office – thought you were dead.’
Alex was crying.
‘I couldn’t come home to you in pieces, Mama. You’d have been so disappointed.’
‘Disappointed?’ Mrs Mendoza looked shocked. ‘You’ve never disappointed me, ever!’
I thought of all the silver cups on the library shelves, the place at Oxford. Alex’s spectacular future was all mapped out for him.
‘That’s exactly it, don’t you see?’ Alex said. ‘I’m not your dazzling boy any more. I’ve seen terrible things, seen chaps who I’ve shared lunch with die half an hour later. The war changed me.’
A lump grew in my throat as I thought of my dad. The war probably changed him too, though he’d never have said so much out loud. But hearing Alex give words and feelings to the sadness helped me understand a little better why Dad rarely smiled.
Mrs Mendoza, though, wasn’t moved. ‘Do you think you’re the only person in the world who’s suffered? All those wives who lost husbands, all those children without fathers, mothers without sons.’ She almost spat the last word. ‘And those men who did come home – disfigured, injured, out of their minds – do you think they found it easy? Do you?’
Alex shook his head.
‘I lost two tiny babies before you came along,’ she told him. ‘You were my blessing. And then, four years ago, I thought I’d lost you too.’
It was getting harder to listen. Everything they were saying made me think of my parents, especially that Sunday afternoon in St Mary’s churchyard. My mum had lost a baby, I’d never had the chance to be a sister to my brother, and all these years Grandad had missed out on having a grandson. In my family, it wasn’t the dead people who were mourned, it was the living one we’d never got to know.
‘I’m sorry.’ Alex held up his hands. ‘But the longer I stayed away, the harder it got to come back.’
When Mrs Mendoza stepped towards her son, I honestly thought she was going to hit him. She didn’t; she hugged him at last. It was a fierce, bone-crushing embrace, and anyone could see how much she meant it.
*
Afterwards, we did have tea and toast.
‘Where have you been all this time, Alex?’ said Mrs Mendoza, adding sugar to our tea. Now her anger had eased a bit, she looked completely dazed.
‘America, mostly. I gave up on history.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I’d had enough of dead people. I wanted to be a writer like you, Mama. I thought it might help me make sense of the world.’
Her face softened a little. ‘And why are you here now? Did you track us down, or is it mere coincidence?’
‘A little of both,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘You see, I followed in your footsteps … I work for the Washington Post.’
I braced myself as Mrs Mendoza froze mid sip of tea.
Nervously, Alex hurried on. ‘When my colleague had an accident, I was sent to cover this terrific story. It was my first big break. I leapt at the chance, of course. More than anything, I wanted to do it to impress you, don’t you see?’
‘You!’ Mrs Mendoza nearly choked. ‘Mr Pemberton sent you!’
‘Oh lordy,’ Tulip muttered under her breath. ‘Here we go.’
I winced. It was all about to come out – our cover-ups, the misunderstandings about who’d sent which telegram and when. We’d also booked tickets under someone else’s account. In amongst that lot, we’d probably done something rather criminal.
Yet the great unravelling of more secrets didn’t come – at least not then. Mrs Mendoza was too stunned to say anything, and Alex, now he’d started, couldn’t stop. ‘I’d heard rumours of tensions between Mr Carter and the locals here, though not much has been said in the papers about that so far.’
‘Back home they’re making him sound like a hero,’ I agreed.
‘Exactly.’ Alex nodded vigorously. ‘I followed him last night, when he took off into the desert. He and Lord Carnarvon were up to no good, I’m sure of it, but they were on donkeys and I was on foot, so by the time I caught them up I’d missed the real action.’
‘It’s a possible story lead,’ Mrs Mendoza admitted. ‘But you’d need to have all the details to write about it.’
I put down my teacup.
‘We were there,’ I said. ‘I saw it happen up close. What do you want to know?’
21
The tomb-opening ceremony was scheduled for two o’clock that afternoon. Almost everyone else travelled by motorcar to the Valley of the Kings, but we asked Pepe, Charlie and Chaplin to take us. The Mendozas, I suspected, liked to make an entrance, and by camel was a fine way to do it. There was also the issue of Tulip’s scorpion sting, which was healing, but the lower part of her leg was still numb. Most important of all, though, was Pepe. It didn’t feel right to go without him.
‘We are an independent country now, not a colony,’ he’d explained to us. ‘We shouldn’t let this Englishman dictate what happens to Tutankhamun’s tomb.’
I couldn’t help but think he’d have liked my grandad very much.
Pepe was, of course, very keen to be in on our plan, though to call it such was a bit grand. Put simply, where Mr Carter was concerned, we each had our axe to grind. Mrs Mendoza and Alex wanted a fresh news story. Pepe was keen for more Egyptian involvement in the dig. Tuli
p, I think, fancied going to a ceremony, and Oz – well, he was happy just to be near his big brother. As for me, I kept thinking about Grandad and Professor Hanawati. They’d learned the hard way about taking things that weren’t yours. It was time for Mr Carter to hear about it.
Returning to the desert under the hot afternoon sun was a whole different experience to being there in the dark. Tulip, who was now very much at home on Chaplin, took the reins, whilst I sat behind.
‘He’s really quite intelligent,’ she told me. ‘He understands his name and everything.’
As she chatted on about the weather and what camels ate for breakfast, you could see Chaplin’s ears flick back and forth, like he was hanging on her every word.
None of us looked particularly smart or clean by the time we climbed down from our camels. In full view of everyone, we’d had to slither down the rocky hillside, with Pepe behind us yelling, ‘Lean back!’ at the top of his voice. So it was an entrance, all right, and not a very dignified one.
Down in the valley it felt hotter than ever. Overhead, the sun beat down and on all sides the rocks threw out heat like giant, dusty ovens. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d choose to spend time in: even in daylight it had a strange, unsettling atmosphere. No wonder Maya had chosen the clifftops instead.
A small gathering of people stood under an awning at the top of the tomb steps. Mostly it was men in suits. I spied Pecky amongst them, and the frail figure of Lord Carnarvon himself. The few ladies wore white summer frocks that fluttered in the hot breeze. After the ceremony, there was to be a tea party. Over by the tent where we’d hidden last night, a table had been laid with a crisp table cloth and silver cutlery that shimmered in the heat.
‘How civilised it all looks,’ Mrs Mendoza murmured.
‘Ah yes, today they’ve invited the police chief and the provincial governor.’ Pepe nodded in the direction of the two other Egyptian men present.
‘Someone’s drawn Lord Carnarvon’s coat of arms on that stone, look,’ Tulip said, pointing at a rock that’d been propped up near the tomb steps. It reminded me of a house-name sign or a number nailed to a front door.