Shadows on the Nile (52 page)

Why?

You smile at me and say it is because of me. They think I am the curse.

Why me?

You touch my shoulder and say it is because I am
different, because I am special. You thank me. There are things I want to say to you, about the pain in my heart when I saw you on your knees in the sand, about how you looked like the great god Ra in the sunlight, about the fact that if you were going to die I wanted to die with you. But there are no words on my tongue, just an ugly moan like oxen in the fields make because they are too stupid to know better.

‘I know, Georgie,’ you say. ‘I know.’

You kiss my cheek. And then you go over and kiss Jessie’s. Proper brothers and sister.

I have a family.

‘Wait, you can’t just rush off.’

‘Yes, I can, Tim.’

‘Maisie, I owe you my life.’

‘You said thank you. That’s enough.’

Maisie straightened her hat, unfurled her black umbrella
and with a little hitch of her shoulders set off back towards Malak who was still patiently holding the camel. Jessie could not let her leave. She fell into step beside her and slid an arm around the woman’s bony waist. ‘It’s not fair on him, Maisie.’

‘Who said life was ever fair?’

‘You owe him that much anyway.’

Maisie halted abruptly and looked sharply from under her umbrella at Jessie. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Maisie,’ Jessie said gently, ‘I’m not stupid.’

Maisie uttered a harsh little sob and shook her head. She glanced back at the truck and at the small group gathered in the shade, and halfway between her and the truck the figure of Tim was standing immobile and hatless in the burning sun, watching her.

‘Look at him,’ Maisie murmured, ‘look at what he has achieved.
He doesn’t need me poking my big nose in.’

‘Too late for that.’

Jessie guided her back down the slope, aware of her friend’s footsteps slowing as they crossed the sand. ‘Tell them, Maisie. Tell them the truth,’ Jessie urged.

They stood in the shade, leaning against the side of the truck and sipping water that was warm. Only Georgie had seated himself on the ground.

Maisie lit herself one of her foul-smelling cigars and looked awkwardly at Tim. ‘Your sister’s a sharp one. She’s guessed my secret and won’t let me keep it.’

Tim smiled, but was obviously bemused and waiting for more.

‘So here it is, smack in your face. I’m your mother, Tim. Your natural mother, that is.’ Her cheeks turned crimson. ‘Well, that’s it, I’ve said my piece and I’ll be off now to …’

‘My mother?’

‘That’s right, Tim.’

‘My
mother
?’

Jessie saw her brother struggle with the startling news and so she said softly, ‘That’s why she’s here.’

Tim stared at the tall rangy woman who stood in front of him with no obvious similarities to himself except perhaps her height, and he suddenly stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

‘Timothy,’ Maisie murmured and let her hand stroke his curls.

‘I didn’t chase your tails all over Egypt just for the good of my health, you know. I had Tim when I was sixteen. An ignorant little tea-leaf I was, a thief. Living on me wits in the East End of London, the youngest of ten kids.’

She looked at Tim with what was meant to be casual interest but failed to come close.

‘I expect you want to know who your pa was. Well, he was a no-good travelling salesman with enough charm to sink a battleship and the eyes of an angel.’ She chuckled at the memory.
‘Anyways, it was the old story. Up the duff before I knew it and forced to give the kid away to an orphanage when it came. But I named you.’ She tapped her son’s strong chest. ‘Timothy, that’s what I called you. I visited you regular as clockwork at the start but then they stopped me. It was bad for you, they said. Bleedin’ fool I was, to believe them.’

She released a sigh and looked at each of the faces. ‘Has no one got a drink around here?’

To everyone’s surprise it was Georgie who mumbled without looking up from the ground, ‘There’s a bottle of scotch whisky in the back of the truck.’

They all had a shot. Maisie kept the bottle in her hand when she continued, ‘Later I met my Alf and we got hitched. He was a brickie – a bricklayer – a good kind man, and he straightened me out. Made me go back to the orphanage for you but you’d gone to a family in Kent.’ She shrugged forlornly. ‘We went down to see you but the house was so bloody posh. They could give you everything we couldn’t.’

Tim held her hand in his. ‘You should have come in to see me.’

‘Oh, don’t be daft. Your new ma would have liked that, I’m sure! But except for Saturday afternoons when me and Alf went dancing down the Palais, I followed you everywhere – got the photographs on my old Brownie to prove it. Saw you grow from a scruffy little nipper into a right smart gentleman, I did. I’m real proud of you.’

Jessie could feel the tears but she shook her head and asked, ‘How did you know he was in Egypt?’

Maisie brightened up, grateful to talk of something else. ‘That was easy as pie. When he went missing I got all worked up, so I broke into your flat a number of times, love, and found the travel tickets to Egypt. Tim is an archaeologist. So I just put two and two together …’

Jessie grinned. ‘Clever.’

‘I didn’t have no smart house or anything but I always had it up here.’ Maisie tapped the side of her
head. ‘After my Alf died, I took over the business and now I own the second biggest brickworks in England. Not bad for a little tea-leaf, eh?’

She took a swig from the neck of the whisky bottle. ‘Now, how about me and my son riding up front together and we get this wagon on the road?’

Georgie stood up suddenly, stumbling over his feet, and looked Maisie straight in the eye.

‘Does that make you my mother too?’

While the workmen were checked for injuries and Tim paid them off from Scott’s briefcase at double-rate, Jessie took another swig of the whisky and handed it over to Monty. On the warm wind she caught the scent of his skin and it stirred something in her, so that she stepped forward and rested a hand on his chest.

‘Tell me,’ she said quietly.

‘Tell you what?’

‘Tell me what will happen now that Scott is dead.’

‘To Tim?’

She nipped his chin between her thumb and forefinger. ‘You know I mean to Chamford Estate.’

‘Ah.’

‘Exactly.’

She could feel the heavy beat of his heart and knew that her own had matched itself to his. Softly he kissed her hair.

‘You taste of sand,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Which was?’

‘Chamford Estate. What will happen?’

He sighed, his breath smelling of whisky. ‘To be honest, I don’t know. Scott’s solicitors might call in the loan.’

‘Which means?’

‘I would lose Chamford. No, don’t look like that, because they might extend the loan or I might find a new investor or …’

‘Or what?’

‘I might after all sell off some of the estate and try to
make it pay for its own upkeep more efficiently. Even if Grandpa Mountjoy Chamford does turn in his very expensive grave.’

Jessie tipped her head back to stare at him. ‘Is this Sir Montague I’m talking to or an imposter?’

He laughed. ‘You’ve got me thinking, that’s all. Time to shuffle into the twentieth century, perhaps.’

‘Well, it is 1932.’

‘Mmm, we could come up with some ideas for it.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, you and me.’

‘All right, we can give it a try.’

But Jessie knew they were not talking about Chamford Estate any more. She rested her cheek against his. ‘One thing,’ she said quietly.

She felt his hands clasp behind her back as if he thought she might run away.

‘The séance,’ he said.

She waited.

‘I didn’t realise what was going on,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I didn’t know that Scott had drugged Tim’s wine before Madame Anastasia arrived. Yes, I helped carry him to the car, but only because I thought he was ill and needed medical attention, and Scott told me that he had received treatment at a hospital and had recovered.’

‘You believed him?’

There was a long pause before he spoke again, and she noticed the shadows of the rocks had started to lengthen.

‘Not really.’

‘So why did you lie to me?’

‘Because I was unwise. Because I was greedy for Chamford Estate. Because Scott promised me that if I did, he’d give me three months extra to repay the latest instalment on my loan.’ He pulled back his head to look at her. ‘Because I was a fool, Jessie, I’m sorry.’

‘I know,’ she whispered and kissed the pulse that was fluttering in his throat.

Georgie

Egypt 1932

I hear things. People think that because I do not speak,
I do not hear. But they are wrong.

I have learned in Egypt the value of money.

I hear Malak’s happiness when he is paid by Monty and by the woman who is your mother. He squeals like a pig. I think he is in pain but you tell me it is happiness because now he can buy himself an education. You tell me this and I squeal like a pig to show you I am happy.

I am in the dark. In the truck. My sister sits near me but not touching. I hear her breathing.

I want to thank you.

I want to thank your mother.

There is a giant ball of warmth in my chest, like when I use my Indian clubs too much, but this time it does not go away. I wrap my arms around myself to hold it in. Is this happiness? Is this
what Malak has in his chest too?

I am going to live with your mother.

Tears run down my cheeks when I say the words in my head. You will live there too and Jessie will visit often. I stuff my blanket in my mouth to stop my squeals.

I hear other things. I hear Jessie
and the Tall Man talking about money. I don’t want money, I want happiness. I slide my hand into my pocket under the blanket and my fingers touch the Ancient Egyptian general’s gold pendant necklace and his ram’s head gold ring. Even in the dark I can feel their beauty and that is why I stole them.

But I am not an imbecile. I know they have great value. I won’t give them to Jessie now. Not yet. But when I do, maybe she will love me again.

Reading Group Questions for
Shadows
on the Nile

1. Who was your favourite character and why?
   

2. Who was your least favourite character and why?
   

3. Were you interested in Egyptology before you read this book, and/or has it piqued your interest in the subject?
   

4. Can you imagine yourself in Jessie’s situation, having to adapt to a new brother? How would you react?
   

5. Do you think it was right of Tim to take Georgie to Egypt?
   

6. Does this book make you want to read the Sherlock Holmes stories or find out more about Conan Doyle, or were you a fan anyway?
   

7. Were you resistant to the romance unfolding between Jessie and Monty when he was still potentially untrustworthy?
   

8. Where do you stand on the issue of ancient artefacts being in a museum or left as they are?
   

9. What were you most relieved about when it was resolved?
   

10. Did all the plot twists take you by surprise, or did you see any of them coming?
    

Research.
It is a word that gets my heart thumping with excitement.
From the moment that I set off on the long and winding road that is signposted RESEARCH, anything and everything is possible. I have no idea who or what I will meet along the way or, more importantly, whether I will discover the kind of details that will make my story jump off the page.

For
Shadows On The Nile
I started with books, with photographs and film footage, to get the feel of the 1930s. Only when I had assembled a good body of material together did I pursue the further details on the internet. I watched on YouTube a political speech by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and the horrific clashes in Trafalgar Square in 1932 between the police and the union marchers against the imposed Means Test. Such moments are invaluable to me to gain a feel for the mood of Britain at the time.

But primarily it was Egypt that I needed to explore, with all its historical glories. I knew exactly where I wanted to start – with Howard Carter and his discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. That was my way in. Wherever possible I like to use primary source material for research, and fortunately Howard Carter left an abundance of it, detailing his work in Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s around the time my story takes place. I am in awe of men like Mariette, Petrie, Pitt Rivers, Carter and now Hawass, who have done so much over the years to excavate and protect its heritage. Each has a fascinating story to tell.

Then came Egypt’s history. I studied the long line of pharaohs
and learned who were the peaceful ones and who the warriors. I read about the wars they waged against the Hyksos and the Hittites, vividly depicted in their temples and tombs, and about the schism between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Particularly fascinating was the breathtakingly bold decision of King Akhenaten in the 14
^th
century BC to uproot his court and worship only the god Aten, forcing monotheism onto a society that had previously worshipped many gods.

Years ago I was entranced by Norman Mailer’s gigantic opus on Egypt,
Ancient Evenings
, so it was with immense pleasure that I delved once more into the mass of stories and myths that surround their ancient gods. I learned again of Kheper, the dung beetle pushing the sun across the sky, of Osiris and Isis, of birth and rebirth, and of the long and tortuous journey to the afterlife. They are magical tales, and it was hard to limit myself to no more than snatches of them here and there in my book.

In order to discover what life was like in early 20
^th
century Egypt, I sought out autobiographies and accounts written by people who lived there at that time. Often it is just a small detail that can trigger an idea that I can run with or even spark a whole scene in my mind. I have always loved history, so it was with great interest that I turned my attention to the political situation of the period, pursuing the tug-of-war that had existed for hundreds of years between varying foreign powers, as they jostled for ownership of Egypt.