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Authors: Kate Furnivall

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Shadows on the Nile (32 page)

BOOK: Shadows on the Nile
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Cairo made Jessie’s heart beat faster. Despite its European pretensions, the city assaulted her senses with its noise and its smells, its streets jammed with pedestrians and vehicles. The traders yelled constantly. The rumble of donkey carts choked the pavements. Men squatted on their heels in the street to be shaved and Jessie could not tear her eyes away from a customer on a stool in a doorway having his teeth ripped out.

Shoeshine boys kicked dust over passersby to boost business and bright-eyed urchins roamed in packs, besieging unwary tourists with disarming smiles and quick greedy paws. But this time Jessie was prepared. Her pockets were stuffed with piastres. And there was no such thing as road safety or regard for rules or order. It was so blatant it made her laugh out loud. It was quickly clear that she took her life in her hands when she crossed the road, yet at the same time, in all this chaos, there was an ebb and flow to the rhythm of the city that was as natural as the rise and fall of the Nile itself.

‘Ready?’ Monty
asked.

‘Yes.’

He had drawn her arm through his, holding onto her tightly as though he feared some camel-driver might snatch her away. They were walking up from the Pont des Anglais with Maisie Randall stalking ahead, scything out a path with her umbrella and Jessie wanted to slide a hand under his shirt to touch the warm skin of his chest. To say
Don’t worry
. To say
I have faith in you
.
I have faith in Tim. Together we will find him. I believe – insanely, I know – that this will happen, because we will make it happen.
She said all this instead with just an increase in pressure where her shoulder touched his. She heard him say something under his breath, but she didn’t catch the words because at that moment the call to prayer rose in an undulating wail throughout the city.

It launched itself with outspread wings from the needle-thin minarets, a reminder to the arrogant westerners five times a day that this was not their country. And never would be.

The museum was as pink as a peony. It stood in a tree-lined square, Midan Ismailiya, in the heart of Cairo, and Jessie liked it on sight. With its sphinxes and lily pond, it was less forbidding than the British Museum.

‘I can imagine Tim here,’ she told Monty as they entered through the huge stone archway, ‘like a child in a sweetshop. His mouth salivating at the sight of all this.’

She could see him. Blue eyes gleaming. Hands touching. Caressing. Mind storing fact after fact as he examined the exhibits. Here she could conjure him into reality and force him through willpower alone to materialise in front of her.

‘Where do
you want to start?’ It was Maisie, regarding her closely.

Monty scanned the atrium where they were standing under a great cupola in the roof, surrounded by towering statues of ancient pharaohs and the flamboyant gods of Egypt.

‘We intend to view the King Tutankhamen exhibits first,’ he said.

‘Not me. Want to save the best till last,’ Maisie smiled, unaware of the striking similarity of her face to a basalt figure just behind her with the head of an ibis. Both long and thin, with a nose like a beak and narrow sharp eyes.

‘There’s a lot to see,’ Jessie told her. ‘A hundred and seven halls. The huge statues and sarcophagi are on the ground floor, the smaller treasures upstairs.’

‘Why don’t we meet you here in an hour?’ Monty suggested to Maisie. ‘Then we can decide how much longer we’ll need.’

‘Good idea.’

‘We’ll see you later,’ Jessie confirmed and set off at speed towards the first hall.

‘Jessie!’

She stopped and turned. Maisie was still standing in the middle of the vast atrium, her arms folded, sunhat in hand and umbrella hooked over one wrist.

‘Jessie, my girl, whatever has got you all fired up this morning, you watch your step. I bet me best titfa that this place is just crawling with snakes.’

Jessie shook her head. But her eyes instantly fell on a stone statue of Ramses II, wielding the crook and flail, symbols of authority. On the front of his headdress sat the
uraeus
, the royal cobra poised ready to strike.

‘Slow down.’

Jessie was hurrying through the gallery of the Old Kingdom. Almost running.

‘Slow down,’ Monty said again. ‘You are drawing attention to us.’

She slowed. Not
much.

‘Tutankhamen is going nowhere,’ he reminded her. ‘There’s no rush. Take a look at some of these exhibits, they’re so amazing the way they—’

‘I’m not interested in them.’

‘Jessie!’ He gripped her arm, forcing her to slow to a tourist’s amble. ‘The king in your story might not mean Tutankhamen. Look at them all.’ He waved a hand at a towering grey statue of Amenhotep III and the severed head of another wearing the tall slender crown with the rounded top which signified a ruler of Upper Egypt. ‘It could be any of them.’

‘No. If there’s anything here from Tim, it’s with King Tutankhamen.’

‘Why? How can you be so sure?’

She hesitated. She wanted to tell him. But her mouth went dry at the thought. She could feel the warmth of his fingers through her sleeve and hear the concern in his voice as he asked the question.
How can you be so sure?

But she couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t bear to see in his eyes the thought that she was crazy – which is what she
would
see if she told him it came to her in a dream. He may manage not to laugh at her, but he wouldn’t manage to keep the pity from his voice.

‘I just know,’ she replied. She shrugged and started up the wide stairs.

The dream had come immediately her head hit the pillow in her own room. She was in the vaulted crypt of a church – it looked like the flag-stoned one under St Martin-in-the-Fields, but they probably all looked alike. Tim was there in black shorts and black shirt, sitting on top of a gigantic marble sarcophagus, as big as a train carriage, dangling his legs over the edge and swinging them back and forth like a child.

‘Look at me,’ he called to her, laughing. His blond curls were dirty as if he’d been scrabbling underground. ‘Look, Jessie.’

He lifted from behind him a mask and held it over his face. Not any old mask. It was the solid gold death-mask of the Egyptian boy king, Tutankhamen. She could tell it was heavy because his wrists shook with the weight of it.

‘Tutankhamen
is me,’ Tim said in a muffled voice and she ran towards him, crying with relief.

She woke with tears on her face.

Tutankhamen is me
.

T.I.M. Even to her it sounded crazy.

31

Georgie

England 1930

‘How are
you today?’ you ask.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I reply, quick as a flash.

Hah! You cannot catch me out. I have learned too well. But you stand silently. I realise you are waiting, and I feel the familiar flutter of failure in my chest.

‘And how are you?’ I ask in a rush. Too late.

‘I’m well,’ you say.

I do not understand. We are both lying, so why do we have to say the words? You have explained to me again and again that when someone says ‘How are you?’ they do not want to hear that each of your heartbeats makes a noise in your head like a balloon popping or that your toes have started to smell like mothballs. Or that you believe that both these occurrences are caused by Dr Churchward and his pocketful of new drugs. But what is the point of lying? If you do not want to know how I am really feeling, why ask?

You say ‘I’m well,’ but you do not look well. I cannot say why I think that, but I do. I know I am no good at understanding facial expressions but I am better with feet. Today your feet are heavy. I want to take your shoes off to make them lighter for you. They clump across my floor and scuff against my skirting-board while you stare out at the garden. At least that is preferable to your staring at me the way you do sometimes, as though you would turn me inside out, my skin on the inside and my workings on the outside. Or is that how you see me anyway? With all the cogs and bloody bits on view. I don’t know and I am too frightened to ask, in case you say
Yes
.

So I stare at
your back. It is a perfect triangle. Broad straight shoulders, muscular from the years of sport and the Indian club exercises we do together. I am catching up with you. From the back we could be real brothers, you tell me, and I like that. I like it a lot.

‘Georgie.’ You are talking to the window-pane. ‘I have to go to Egypt. On a dig at Medinet Habu, working with a team from the University of Chicago.’

I start to shake.

‘I will be gone three weeks.’

I am moaning.

‘It will be over quickly and then I’ll come back to visit …’

‘No, no, no, no, no!’

‘Stop it, Georgie.’

‘No, no, no, no, no!’

You turn to face me and your mouth is all clenched and strange. I hear you sigh as I hurl myself on my bed and start to howl. You pull up a chair next to the bed and you talk to me in a quiet firm voice that I don’t want to listen to but which hammers away at my eardrums. I cry. You give me your handkerchief, a pristine square of whiteness that you always bring especially for me. I clamp it over my nose and mouth, but some of your words slide into my head through the pathways of my tears.

‘It’s a great opportunity for my career,’ you say. ‘Imagine it, Georgie, seeing Ramses the Third’s great temple and fortress with my own eyes. The carvings of his violent wars against the Libyans and the Sea Peoples …

‘The colossal
statue of Ramses as the god Osiris.

‘On the west bank of the Nile at Luxor …

‘I’ll bring you pictures of the colonnade of broken osiriform figures with …’

Your voice is drooling like a starving dog at a banquet. I pull my pillow over my head and howl into it. Time stops. My world stops because you are leaving it.

‘All right, you’ve got that straight?’

I nod. What else can I do?

‘I’ll be back.’

I nod again. You keep saying that. For the last three Saturdays we have had the same conversation. You are going, no matter how many times I beg you not to. It is important, you say. How can you become an Egyptologist if you don’t go to Egypt? I tell you to study Anglo Saxon archaeology instead, so that you never have to leave the country, but you shake your head, your mouth tight. We both are victims of the spell cast by Egypt and we both know there is no choice for you.

‘You have my itinerary?’

I nod.

‘I have written out for you an advance diary of what I hope to do each day in Luxor.’

I nod.

‘You must picture me on my knees with my brushes and trowels in the sand and dirt, folding back time as I excavate the trace of a hand or the curve of a
shabti
at Medinet Habu.’

‘Or the crown of a king.’

You smile at me. ‘Thank you.’

‘To look a god in the face will be huge.’

Especially Osiris, green god of the afterlife with his mummy-wrapped legs and huge distinctive
atef
crown with ostrich feathers. I would like a crown like that, one that demands respect. He is always depicted holding a crook and flail, as though his existence depended on them. Like mine does on you. Osiris had a brother too – Set, the god of storms and the desert – but the rivalry between them was intense. It is said to be symbolic of the eternal war between the fertile green lands of the Nile Valley and the barren desert lands just beyond, but I think it more likely that Set just got sick of his tall brother throwing his weight around. You don’t do that to me. I know I must listen to your words and I must let you go. But I cannot.

‘Here is
the calendar,’ you say. ‘You know what to do.’

I nod.

‘You must tick off the days, Georgie.’

I know.

You let a silence into the room. I am hunched on the floor in my favourite corner, hugging my knees and bouncing my chin on them to make my teeth click like a clock, counting away the seconds of my life. You are leaning against my wardrobe, smoking a cigarette, as if you just happen to have come to rest there. But I know and you know that you are blocking my retreat into the dark.

‘Say something, Georgie. Anything.’

Maybe the silence has stretched longer than I know.

‘You will read hieroglyphs carved in stone,’ I say, ‘and see the marks of the masons’ chisels. You will touch a Ramses cartouche, the sign of a royal name, that is three thousand years old. It is unbelievable.’

‘Jealous?’

I do something for you then. Something big.

I nod. ‘Yes.’

But it is not true. I say it for you. I lie. I shoot a quick glance at your face and see that your mouth is still tight, but your eyes are shining. The sun of Egypt is already inside you.

‘I’ll bring you back something ancient,’ you promise.

I remember my manners. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’ll be all right.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘You won’t like it maybe, but you’ll survive, Georgie. It’s only three weeks and it might even do you good.’

‘No, it won’t.’

‘Let’s play
a last game of chess.’

‘No.’

You come closer. You squat down on your haunches and I can feel the energy billowing off you.

‘Be happy for me, Georgie. Please.’

‘I am.’ Another lie. ‘But I am sad for me.’

‘So am I.’

‘What if I die while you are gone?’

‘You won’t.’

‘I might.’ Another thought strikes like a hammer to my brain. ‘What if you die in Egypt? There are poisonous snakes – cobras and horned vipers. There are scorpions. Suffocating sandstorms and mosquitoes carrying malaria. What if you go out there and your plane crashes on landing or you fall out of a boat into the Nile and drown? What if …?’

‘Georgie, stop shouting!’

For the first time I take your hand in mine and hold it tight.

‘Don’t go,’ I plead. ‘Don’t leave me.’

‘Oh, Georgie. I must.’

I hate you at that moment. I am sick with terror and I hate you.

I cannot speak of it. Those three weeks. Nothing you imagine can come close to how bad they are.

In the end I put my hand in the coal fire to lessen the pain, but they bandage it up and so I have no choice but to break a window and use the glass. I cut deep. My stomach, my thigh, my throat. I do not want to die but I have to let out the pain, and it is the only way. There is so much blood, so much seething redness, that what is left of my mind splinters into a thousand pieces. Dr Churchward is screaming like a child.

BOOK: Shadows on the Nile
10.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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