Shadows on the Nile (46 page)

He noticed for the first time that her skirt was filthy and her eaude-nil blouse was torn at the elbow, but still she looked … he sought for the right word … she looked unbreakable. As if nothing could stop her. Not the arm. Not the sunburn. Not the doctor’s pills. And certainly not Dr Scott.

He went over to her and lightly kissed her mouth.
She tasted salty. ‘I found this squashed behind the shutters.’

He held out a screwed-up cigarette packet. She took it from him and opened up its blue and white folds.

‘Senior Service,’ she said quietly. Her eyes lifted to Monty’s. ‘Tim smokes Senior Service. Tim was here.’

‘We’re close,’ he said. ‘Very close.’

At the Blue Nile Hotel Malak was waiting and his gigantic
smile at their return made them both laugh. It felt good to laugh. Monty carefully sat Jessie down in the cool interior under the whirring ceiling fan and ordered fresh lemonade for her and for the boy and a straight scotch whisky for himself. As an afterthought he added a dish of
kushari
for the boy and a few mezzes for Jessie and himself. She drank the lemonade but didn’t touch the food. Instead she took out her drawing pad from her bag and sat in silence for a few minutes sketching something. Malak watched her with amazed eyes, as if she were pulling rabbits from hats.

‘Who’s the scruffy ragamuffin?’ It was Maisie who breezed in brandishing her faithful furled umbrella at the boy. ‘Looks like something the cat dragged in.’

‘This is Malak,’ Monty introduced him. ‘He’s our dragoman in Luxor, our man on the ground. He is proving very useful.’ He nodded at Malak. ‘Very efficient.’

Maisie inspected the boy who was regarding her alarming figure warily. ‘Does it talk?’ she asked eventually.

‘Course I talk, good yes, very good. I excellent fine friend to Missie Kenton and sir
bey
, you ask, I get, and I get good with Uncle. Camels you want I get and horses, yes, very strong backs, and
I very fine fellow also you know and …’

‘Does it shut up?’

‘If you ask him politely.’

Maisie tapped Malak on top of his thick black hair with her umbrella. ‘I don’t need a horse, what I need is a chair.’

Instantly Malak pushed a large armchair up behind her and she plopped down in it, folding her long legs out of the way.

‘Good. Now,’ she looked closely at Jessie’s face, taking in the lines of exhaustion, ‘what news? Feeling any better?’

Monty shook his head but said nothing.

‘I’m a lot better, thank you, Maisie.’

‘What is it you’re drawing there?’

‘Look, Malak,’ Jessie said quietly.

She held her drawing out to the boy and he gazed at it in awe, his mouth falling open to reveal lentils and tomatoes.

‘How you do that very clever, Miss Kenton, yes?’

She smiled at him fondly. ‘I went to art college.’

‘In big nice city?’

‘Yes, in London.’

‘I go to London one day yes please, very nice city.’

‘I hope you do, Malak. But Cairo is a very nice city too.’

The boy wrinkled his nose. ‘Cairo full of Egyptians.’

‘I’d like you to do something for me, Malak.’

‘Yes, Missie, I do very good. I very efficient.’ His black eyes shone. ‘You ask.’

‘You see this man?’ She tore the drawing out of her pad and turned it to face him. With a shiver of unease, Monty saw that it was an unnervingly accurate sketch of Dr Scott’s face, even down to the mole in front of his left ear and the ridge of rough skin above one of his silvery eyebrows. ‘I want you to take this and see if you can find him anywhere around Luxor. His name is Dr Scott but – this is important, Malak – he could be dangerous, so I don’t want you to go near him. You understand?’

‘Yes, Missie.’

‘Don’t speak to him.’

‘No, Missie.’

‘Just tell me if you spot him somewhere. I’d like to know where he goes.’

‘I do that easy.’

‘Don’t go near him, remember?’

‘I too quick for old man,’ he laughed.

Monty saw the way he held the drawing close
to his chest, as something precious. He probably owned almost nothing else.

‘Here, Malak.’ Monty tossed him a couple of coins. ‘When you come back, there will be more. But pay attention to what Miss Kenton said. Don’t speak to this man. We don’t want you hurt.’

Malak gobbled down the last mouthful of his
kushari
. ‘I pay attention good,’ he said solemnly and slid toward the door. ‘You have cigarette for me, sir
bey
?’

‘No, Malak.’ Maisie shook her head sternly. ‘You’re far too young a whippersnapper.’

Monty took out a cigarette, lit it for himself and tossed the rest of the packet to the boy who snatched it from the air. ‘If he’s old enough to work for us, he’s old enough to smoke.’

‘Thank much to you, sir
bey
. You excellent good man.’

‘Get off!’

Malak grinned and scampered away. ‘The boy needs new shoes,’ Monty remarked. ‘In the morning we must buy him some.’

But in the morning shoes would be the last thing on his mind.

Monty put Jessie to bed. He showered the sand off her skin, avoiding water contact with her bandaged arm, and brushed the grit out of her hair. He had half-carried her to her room and peeled her clothes off her body, gently lifting her torn blouse from her shoulder-blades. The bruises on them and the scrapes on her hip and gashes on her knees made him wonder once more how much she went through in the desert. How bad it had been. Standing naked in the bathroom, she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, and despite the shower he could still smell the lingering scent of the Nile in her hair. With an arm curled around her waist, he
guided her towards the bed. Her skin felt hot.

‘Monty, I’m sorry I …’

‘Shh, don’t talk. Rest now. What you need is sleep.’

She let her lips touch his neck and he felt his blood leap to the spot. He held her close, aware of the warmth of her breasts, the creamy silk of her skin, the delicate bones of her back, but it was the uncertainty of her steps towards the bed that touched him most. The weakness that she would never show when in good health was what overwhelmed him now, as he eased her on to the bed and folded the sheet over her. Her face on the pillow looked uncertain and damaged, with purple smudges darkening her eye sockets.

He bent down and kissed each of her eyelids. ‘Sleep,’ he told her and her lips tried to find a smile but failed. Almost immediately she was asleep, her breathing regular but too fast. Even in sleep her good hand held on to him and did not let go, so he gently slid into the bed beside her, wrapped her in his arms, and her body moulded to his. Her fingers found his and laced together, and their neediness pulled at his heart.

He lay there silently, hour after hour, listening to the rhythm of her breathing. She woke once, hot and fretful, clearly in pain, so he gave her a couple of the doctor’s pills and held the glass to her lips as she sipped some water. Her drowsy blue eyes looked up at him over the rim, examining his face as if seeking some missing key.

When he settled her back on the pillow, she murmured, ‘Tell me about you and Dr Scott.’

Now was not the time. But he didn’t argue.

‘Nothing much to tell. My father borrowed from him when the estate found itself on the financial skids. Borrowed heavily. Scott holds a mortgage on much of the land, including our village of Chamford, but my father believed he could trust him. He was wrong.’

Jessie’s finger soothed the hard muscle in his cheek. ‘And now?’

‘He is threatening to call in the loans. He wants to break up the estate, turf the villagers out of their houses where they have lived for generations, and intends to
build factories.’ He said the words calmly, with no hint of the rage inside his chest at the mention of it.

‘Factories bring jobs,’ she murmured, her eyes already closing once more.

‘You’re right,’ he acknowledged.

But her eyelids lifted and she drew his head closer to hers until her lips could touch his. He remained beside her until the light started to darken as the sun sank below the desert hills. The air in the room grew cooler and he knew he would have to leave her.

‘Thank you for coming over,’ Monty said in a quiet voice, so as not to disturb Jessie in the bed.

‘Oh, I’m happy to sit with her. You know I want to lend a hand,’ Maisie said cheerfully. ‘Poor little mite, she looks …’ Her words stuttered to a halt.

‘What is it, Maisie?’

‘She has spirit, that one.’

‘Too much, sometimes.’

She nodded and rested her hand on her throat as though to quieten the pulse there. ‘She’s very pretty.’

It was such an odd thing to say just then. They both studied the face in the bed, its delicate lines unguarded in sleep, her hair a jumble of golden threads on the pillow. Her cheekbones were still burnt from the sun in the desert and the skin on her nose was peeling. It emphasised the vulnerability she took such pains to hide.

‘Is that brother of hers worth all this?’ Maisie asked. She was frowning, unhappy about something.

‘I hope so. I don’t know him.’

‘If you ask me, he’s a …’ The words dried up again. She turned away and shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘A blinkin’ burden to her,’ she finished.

‘I don’t think she ever sees him like that.’

‘Then he’s a lucky blighter.’

‘Yes,’ Monty agreed. ‘I think he is.’

Georgie

Egypt 1932

‘Control him.’

‘I try,’ you say. ‘But he is upset by the move.’

You are discussing me again, you and the Fat
Man, and I hate it. The heat is bad today, made worse by the hot wind that whips up the sand and scours the skin. I am working under an awning this morning. It has a canvas roof and three canvas sides but the front is open to the elements and to the desert dwellers. A buff-coloured lizard scuttles in and hides behind one of my crates.

I chop one of Tim’s sieves in half and trap the creature in it, so that I can touch it and study its interesting toe-fringes. These are projecting spines, a modification of toe scales on sand lizards to improve their movement on slippery sand and to aid burrowing into it. A fascinating example of Darwin’s theory of evolution that I now hold in my hand. Two weeks ago I was hiding in my wardrobe. My mind fizzes at the speed of these changes.

You and the Fat Man are off to one side, so I cannot see you, but
I can hear you. There is something about very dry air that allows sound to carry further – it is a phenomenon that I want to explore when I can.
When I can
. But I have no idea when that will be. I have no idea about anything any more, and the thought makes my hands start to shake so badly that I have to put down the bronze statuette I am packing. It is the beautiful goddess Isis, first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the sky, and with each piece that I wrap in tissue and cotton wool I am slow because I caress them. My fingers will not leave them alone.

‘Hurry, hurry,’ I mutter to myself, but my hands are shaking so much that I have to tuck them under my armpits to keep them still. I don’t want you to see them.

‘The move has upset all of us,’ the Fat Man grumbles, ‘but we don’t go around wailing and beating our heads against the ground.’

‘He is adjusting better, now that I’ve got him working again.’

‘Tell him to speed up.’

You say nothing. Not far behind my awning the two Egyptians who shared the house with us are also at work, crating up the heavier stone artefacts, and I hear them laugh.

Are they laughing at me?

I start to feel sick.

‘We’re leaving tomorrow night,’ the Fat Man tells you and I hear you gasp.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘So soon? There is so much we still have to extract from the tomb.’

‘Just drag the best stuff out and get it down here and into the crates. Tomorrow night we ship out of here.’

‘Why so soon?’ you ask. I can the anger in your voice.

‘It’s Fareed and his bloody nationalists. Making more trouble last night. We have to move faster and get out of here before he tracks us down.’

‘Is the transport arranged?’

‘Of course. We’re all waiting for you and that brother
of yours. Look, I’ve brought you an extra pair of hands.’ He raised his voice. ‘Malak, over here, boy.’

‘Yes, sir
bey
, I come right now.’ The young voice comes closer and I sit down in the sand with my face in my hands to shut out all the people. ‘Good morning, excellent fine morning, sir Timothy, sir, I pleased much to help in many many ways, yes.’

You give the grunt you make when you are cross. ‘A bit young, I think.’

‘No, sir Timothy sir, you see I big strong.’

‘Get yourself a shovel from the pile, Malak.’

‘Immediately, sir, yes.’

After a pause you ask in a lower voice. ‘What good is a boy to me?’

‘Just put him to work, for God’s sake, Timothy. You and your imbecile are never satisfied. Get the tomb emptied fast and make damn sure you control him.’

I hear a big rush of air, like the winter wind but I know it has come from your mouth.

‘Georgie is not a dog. Nor a child. And he is certainly not an imbecile. He is my brother.’ You shout the last four words and I wrap tissue-paper around my head.

I watch the boy stride easily up the hills, even up the steep parts, balancing a wooden crate on his shoulders. It is far too big for him to carry, but he does it without effort. It is as much as I can do just to carry myself up the hills and even then I need your hand to get me up the steep parts. I am glad when he is swallowed by the purple shadows.

‘Don’t look at him like that, Georgie. He’s only a kid.’ You are under my awning with me.

‘Look at him like what?’

‘Like you could kill him.’

I turn away and meticulously start to wrap a set of gold and enamel amulets in tissue-paper. ‘Where did he come from?’

‘The boy? Oh, just someone Scott picked up in Luxor last
night. An extra pair of hands and a tongue that doesn’t ask questions.’

‘Why choose a child?’

‘Because he does what he’s told.’ You glance up at the silhouettes disappearing over a sandy ridge on the barren hill and you smile. ‘And because the boy is very engaging.’