Night Train to Memphis (8 page)

Feisal laughed. He really was gorgeous – even white teeth; glinting dark eyes – and he had a sense of humour. ‘A pity one can’t claim bribes as legitimate business
expenses, isn’t it?’

‘I always do,’ I said.

Perry looked blank. ‘Really,’ he began.

‘Time we were off,’ Feisal said. ‘Forward!’

He bustled us out. The antisocial reader remained.

Alice fell in step with me. ‘I’m sure you were warned about lecturing on site. You can answer questions, but only licensed Egyptian guides are allowed to lecture.’

‘There’s very little danger of my breaking that rule,’ I assured her.

She laughed and gave me a friendly pat on the arm. ‘Some of these people don’t know the difference between the nineteenth dynasty and the nineteenth century; if they back you into a
comer, just refer them to me or Perry or Feisal.’

The passengers had assembled in the lobby. I joined the fringes of the group – which, I was sorry to see, included the Tregarths. Avoiding them, I found myself standing next to Suzi
Umphenour. She hailed me like an old friend, and I studied her in consternation. She had ignored the guidelines about dress, and was attired in a jumpsuit that clung lovingly to her posterior and
bared her arms, shoulders, and cleavage.

‘Don’t you have a jacket?’ I asked.

‘It’s on the chair.’ She gestured carelessly. ‘But I don’t see why – ’

‘You’ll get a horrible sunburn. If nothing worse.’

‘Feisal said if I didn’t wear it somebody would drag me off behind a pyramid and rape me,’ Suzi said hopefully. ‘He’s such a bully.’

Feisal overheard, as she had meant him to. Frowning masterfully, he handed Suzi her jacket and hat, and ushered us down the gangplank.

‘Let’s sit together,’ Suzi said. ‘And have some girl talk. I adore men, but sometimes it’s a terrible bore having them cluster around.’

‘I seldom have that problem.’

‘Oh, now, honey, you’re just being modest. You know, if you’d spruce yourself up a little bit, you’d be real attractive.’

We took our places on the bus. By the time we reached the site my ears were ringing. Suzi had made helpful suggestions about my hair – ‘those little picks you have stuck in your bun
are right cute, but you ought to let your hair hang loose instead of pulling it back’ – my makeup – ‘you ought to wear eyeliner, honey, and a darker-colour lipstick’
– and every article of clothing I had on. She had also analyzed, with devastating accuracy, every man on the boat. Feisal was the sexiest, but that Tregarth man had a certain something; a
pity he was newly married.

I was determined to dump Suzi at the earliest possible moment but first I made her put on her jacket – a billowing big shirt of gauze so fine it did very little to fend off possible
rapists – and her hat, a broad-brimmed straw that tied under her chin with a huge bow à la, I suppose she thought, Scarlett O’Hara. Then I fled. We had been told to stick with
the group, but I figured that didn’t apply to me, and by that time I didn’t give a damn if it did. I don’t like listening to lectures, I’d rather wander in happy
ignorance.

Taking my guidebook from my bag, I headed towards a corner of the enclosure, where massive walls of pale limestone towered high above my head. Solitude was impossible to attain; there were a
dozen different tour groups present, clustered around their guides like flies on spilled sugar. I fended off a few importunate vendors of souvenirs and services and found a relatively quiet spot
and a rock on which to sit.

It was still early; shadows lay cool and grey across the pale sand. The sky was a brilliant blue. Rising up against it, soft gold in the sunlight, was the Step Pyramid – the earliest
example of monumental stone architecture, over four thousand years old. Worn and weathered, simple to the point of crudeness, it had more than sheer age to stir the imagination; there was something
right
about it, the slope and the proportions and, above all, the setting. One of my beloved medieval cathedrals would have dwindled in that immensity of sky and sand. This was a dream trip
all right, a trip I had hoped to take one day. But I’d have traded the luxurious suite and the fancy food for an ordinary tourist excursion. How could I concentrate on pyramids and tomb
paintings when my stomach was churning and my nerves were twanging like Grandad’s guitar strings? My eyes kept wandering from the carved lotus columns of the Southern Colonnade to the people
gathered around Feisal.

I forced my eyes back to the guidebook and read a long paragraph about the Sed festival, but if you want to know what it was you’ll have to look it up, because I’ve forgotten
everything except the name. Many of the fallen columns and walls had been restored, with original materials, and there was now enough to indicate how impressive the structure must have been in its
prime. The slender fluted columns and gracefully curved cornices had a classical elegance. I was staring dreamily at them when I saw Jen heading in my direction.

I bent my head over the book, hoping she wouldn’t join me. I didn’t want company, especially hers. For a couple of minutes I had actually been enjoying myself.

She passed fairly close to me but she didn’t stop. Fumbling in her bag, she disappeared from sight behind a low wall. What could she want back there? It was unlike her to wander off alone.
She hadn’t looked her usual energetic self, her steps had been slow and dragging.

I got to my feet and followed.

The space was dark and shadowed. Jen was sitting on the ground, her open bag beside her. ‘Jen?’ I said uncertainly ‘Are you – ’

She turned a blank, grey face toward me and toppled over onto her side.

I
YELLED
. At its loudest my voice is the equal of any Wagnerian soprano’s, in volume if in no other quality. My call
for help was answered sooner than I had dared hope; apparently I hadn’t been the only one to observe Jen’s sickly look. First on the scene was her devoted son, with Mary close on his
heels.

Jen had resisted my attempt to lift her, curling herself into a ball with knees raised and arms clasped over her midsection, but when she saw John she made a gallant effort to smile.

‘Just my silly old tummy,’ she gasped. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll be fine in a minute.’

Her face was now green instead of grey, and sticky with perspiration. Mary knelt by her with a little cry of sympathy.

‘Mother Tregarth!’

‘Get out of my way,’ John said brusquely. I didn’t know whether he meant me or his bride. Mary assumed it was me. As she bent tenderly over Jen, the latter was violently and
messily sick. Mary stumbled to her feet and backed off, her face twisted with disgust.

John hoisted his mother into his arms and put her down again a few feet away. Contemplating the spots on my brand-new outfit I said, ‘Oh, shit,’ took a handful of tissues from my
pocket, and began wiping Jen’s face.

‘I do admire a woman with an extensive vocabulary,’ John said under his breath. ‘Don’t just squat there, fetch the doctor.’

‘I’ll go,’ Mary said quickly. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I . . . I’ll go.’

When they returned they were accompanied by several of the other passengers, moved by kindly concern or morbid curiosity. It’s not always easy to tell the difference, I admit. I felt
fairly sure it was the latter emotion that had moved Suzi to join us, but I was willing to give Blenkiron the benefit of the doubt. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

Jen demonstrated. I had hoped she would throw up on John, but he managed to avoid it, supporting her head and shoulders so she wouldn’t choke. She kept on heaving, poor thing, although she
had obviously got rid of everything in her stomach.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Dr Carter when he was introduced the night before, except to hope devoutly I would not require his services. He was a particularly unnoticeable man –
middle-aged, middle-sized in both height and girth, with a bland, pink face.

‘Just a case of the pharaoh’s curse,’ he said, with that infuriating blend of condescension and jollity some doctors’ mistake for a soothing roadside manner.
‘Relax, Mrs Tregarth; we’ll get you back to the boat and – ’

‘No.’ John didn’t look up. ‘I want her in hospital. The boat has moved on, we’re as close or closer to Cairo.’

‘Now, son, there’s nothing to worry about. This is a common affliction, and the infirmary is – ’

‘Moving steadily south, among other disadvantages,’ John said, in his most offensive drawl. ‘My mother is not a young woman, Doctor, and she has had difficulties of this sort
before.’

Carter started to fuss, and Blenkiron murmured, ‘Mr Tregarth is right, Ben. It would be foolish to take chances. Perhaps the bus can take her to Cairo and then return for us?’

His voice was soft and hesitant, but when you are rich you don’t have to yell to get your point across.

‘Just what I was about to suggest,’ Carter exclaimed.

Jen was too weak to resist. She looked awful, her closed eyes sunken. ‘Wouldn’t an ambulance be better?’ I said anxiously.

Blenkiron directed a smile in my general direction. ‘The back seats on the bus fold down into a cot, Vicky. She’ll be far more comfortable there, and safely in Cairo by the time we
could get an ambulance out here.’

John scooped his mother up and walked off, followed by Mary and Carter.

‘Wow,’ said Suzi, staring. ‘He’s stronger than he looks, isn’t he? The old lady must weigh a hundred and sixty, and he’s practically running.’

Since I knew exactly what she was thinking I decided to ignore this. Since Blenkiron did not know, he responded. ‘One can understand his concern, though I’m sure it’s
unnecessary. Many travellers get some kind of digestive upset. It’s nice to see a young man so devoted to his mother, isn’t it?’

‘He’s not so young,’ I said.

‘Had you known him before?’

I recollected myself. Blenkiron’s question had been casually disinterested, but the gleam of avid curiosity in Suzi’s eyes warned me that she was the kind who thrives on scandal.
‘No,’ I said.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met formally,’ Blenkiron said. ‘First names are easier and friendlier; mine is Larry.’

He looked younger and more relaxed in a sweat-stained shirt open at the throat and a pair of wrinkled khaki pants. I noted with sympathetic amusement that he was wearing a pith helmet. The
damned things
were
practical, shielding the head and neck from the deadly rays of the sun, and heavy enough to resist the tug of the constant north wind.

‘I believe this is your first visit to Egypt?’ he went on, looking down at me and offering me his hand.

I let him pull me to my feet. He was still looking down at me; not many people can do that. A part of my mind I try to ignore assessed the breadth of his shoulders and his flat stomach and
decided he wasn’t at all bad for a man of fifty-odd. And he was a multi-millionaire. Or a billionaire? What’s a few million more or less? I thought tolerantly.

‘Does everyone on the boat know I’m a fraud?’ I asked.

‘Now, Vicky, don’t call yourself names. You have quite a reputation. I read your article on the Riemenschneider reliquary with great interest.’

‘I’m flattered. But I don’t know a damn thing about Egyptology,’ I admitted, with one of my most winning smiles.

‘Would you like me to show you around? I’m only an amateur, but I know Sakkara fairly well.’

It was one of the most fascinating mornings I have ever spent. Sakkara is a very complicated site; there are several smaller, ruined pyramids in addition to the Step Pyramid, which is surrounded
by a maze of subsidiary buildings, temples and courtyards, corridors and chapels. There are underground structures whose function is still unclear, and a lot of private tombs built for high
officials. The larger of these mastabas, as they are called, are mazes in themselves. One has thirty-four separate rooms in the superstructure and a tomb shaft below. I had given the guidebook a
hasty perusal the night before and ended up with my head stuffed full of miscellaneous, unrelated facts. Larry made sense of it all.

‘You’ve missed your calling,’ I said, as we left the temple complex. ‘You ought to be a guide.’

He looked absurdly pleased at the silly compliment. We were getting on like a house on fire, I thought complacently. No wonder the poor man fled from women like Suzi; he must be sick of being
relentlessly pursued. All he wanted was to be treated as an intellectual equal, to be admired for his brains instead of his money. I could sympathize with that, though in my case it wasn’t
money that distracted admirers from my intellectual achievements.

‘It’s easier to simplify a complex subject when one is an amateur,’ he said modestly. ‘Shall we have a look at one of the mastabas before lunch? As an art historian you
are probably familiar with the reliefs.’

‘I remember some Old Kingdom reliefs – they were wonderful, very delicate and detailed – but at this moment I couldn’t tell you which tomb they were from There was one of
a baby hippopotamus . . .’

‘You’re probably thinkihg of Mereruka.’ Larry took my arm. ‘But some of the other tombs are equally remarkable. We’ll see which is least crowded.’