Waiters quickly pulled over another table and the requisite number of chairs, onto which Kate, Alex and Quentin sat. The briefest of acknowledgements passed between Quentin and Babs, as just at that moment Aggie returned to the table. Having consumed far too much alcohol, they could have told Aggie that they had been there all evening. She would have been no wiser.
With her return a tidal wave of voices raced along the table. They collided head on with Kate, Alex, Quentin and Babs, who sat in almost stunned silence.
“This is yet another lost evening,” thought Kate, though she also thought that if she stayed here for too long, she would also be in danger of losing her hearing.
After the event that was about to take place, everyone would be one hundred percent certain of the comment that had ignited the already volatile situation. Nothing would be the same again after this, as though it may have started at The Gardens, it was to finish at the Winter Palace.
What they would not all agree on, was why Aggie had started bragging that her friend was an archaeologist who was on a top-secret dig. Not only had she pointed at Quentin, she had stood and pointed at him, repeating her statement several times, with each pronouncement becoming progressively louder. This obviously was not the start of the trouble, but it was the start of the end of the trouble, as everything slid on a well lubricated downward spiral after this.
“They were Hermaphrodites,” said the ‘lady’ with the overly bleached hair, which with the aid of some extremely strong hair lacquer gave the impression of an explosion at a mattress factory. “You ask your archie.” There was a short pause as she failed to get her tongue to pronounce the word archaeologist. She filled the pause with a powerful belch for which she offered no apology, before continuing. “Go on, you ask your archie friend, him there, as I’m right.”
Quentin, who had wanted to be anywhere except here before he had arrived, was now deeply regretting leaving the tranquillity, as well as the coffee, of the Winter Palace. He was just wondering if it was her drink or her education, which failed her so totally in the pronunciation of archaeologist, let alone Hittite.
Aggie and the lady with the explosion-at-a-mattress-factory-hair traded verbal blow after verbal blow. Now they were both not only standing, but leaning in towards each other and gesticulating wildly.
Kate turned to Alex and said, “Shall we go?”
Alex put his hand on her knee as he shook his head. He wanted to watch. This was so surreal. He could not believe what was happening right in front of him. His view of Aggie had sunk lower every day since he had been in Luxor, it was now in freefall. At the same time his sympathy towards Kate, for what she had to put up with, had grown immensely. Right now he failed to understand why the women around the table were doing all they could to inflame the situation, whilst the bar owner and waiters stood back and laughed. Surreal was the only word that he could think of to describe what he was seeing.
Suddenly there was a period of silence. All eyes either focussed, or attempted to focus, on Quentin, who was rather forced into speaking, because if he did not it looked as though the evening was going to turn ugly, or uglier than it already had.
“I have not been party to–”
“Well, this ain’t no party, love,” shouted one rather drunk woman who cut straight across him, much to the amusement of those gathered around the table, though this amusement died quickly after glares from Aggie.
“Please sit down,” Quentin said as he motioned to Aggie and the ‘lady’ with the explosion-at-a-mattress-factory-hair. To his surprise, they both did. Now with a clear view he could see smiling waiters along with several young Egyptian men who were circling their walking cash machines. It was obviously that time of night. He had just started to wonder how he had ended up in such a dreadful place, when he was heckled for an answer. He coughed to ensure that he had their full attention, before starting to speak, though this time he cut to the chase. “Ramses II made the first ever recorded peace treaty, which was between him and King Muwatalli II. Ramses was ruler of the Egyptians and Muwatalli ruler of the Hittites.”
“See, I was right, you old bag,” said the ‘lady’ with the explosion-at-a-mattress-factory-hair.
“They were Hittites, not Hermaphrodites,” responded Aggie.
“Well, they both wore tights, so they were all crossdressers. I was right, so pay up.” This was the first the quiet end of the table knew of a wager.
“Do you know,” said Quentin with a confidence born of lecturing students for many years, “that Luxor was a lovely place before the British Government closed all the mental homes, because it was cheaper to give the inmates a one-way ticket here?”
There was an all-pervasive silence which was broken by a very thin bleached blonde, who was well beyond retirement age, though dressed as a twenty-year-old. “I’m going to see the British Consul tomorrow. I had to pay for my ticket. I will demand a refund. It’s not fair that some pay and others don’t. This is the problem with England today.” She was obviously going say much more before both Aggie and the ‘lady’ with the explosion-at-a-mattress-factory-hair turned to her and bellowed as one “SHUT UP, Margaret,” before turning back to Quentin, who obviously was not finished, though what he said took everybody by surprise.
“I apologise, as I should not have said that. It was just my attempt at humour in order to diffuse an angry situation. The Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty was an important piece of history, very important, though my expertise is Egypt when it was under Greek rule. May I respectfully suggest that we all enjoy our evening, then you can check who is right and who is wrong, tomorrow, at the Luxor Museum?”
Alex’s respect for his father grew by the way he had handled this most fiery situation. He had said exactly what he wanted to, followed by a most insincere apology, before deflecting them to sort out the problem tomorrow with someone else. “No wonder,” he thought, “that dad can control a room full of students.”
Almost immediately everything returned to the noisy gossip of before, helped by the waiters bringing yet more drinks. Tensions flared over something between an old lady and a young Egyptian, though it subsided just as quickly as it had started, after she pulled out a one hundred Egyptian pound note and thrust it into his hand. “My husband says I look like Nefertiti,” she said with a beam.
“Yes, I can see the resemblance,” said the lady opposite. Several chuckles went around the table, not least from Kate.
“Well, young lady, what do you have to say?” boomed Aggie directly at her.
Rather taken aback, Kate did not know what to do, as she had been completely oblivious to Aggie looking her way. “Nothing, Nana,” she said as she tried to blend back in. Her use of ‘Nana’ failed to have its desired effect. Aggie was not going to let this drop.
“I asked you, young lady. What do you have to say?” Kate blurted it out very quickly from fear and without thinking. “Well, as Nefertiti had been dead for two thousand years before she was dug up from a tomb, I suppose that’s where the resemblance could be.”
Raucous laughter came from all around, except for the old lady, who was complaining bitterly to Aggie about how rude her granddaughter was and that she was not at all a credit to her.
Aggie stopped listening. She was fuming and about to take her rage out on Kate.
An extreme amount of alcohol when combined with involuntary laughter is never a good mix. Add in a very hot day, followed by a very hot evening, and it was easy to understand why one old woman had laughed so much that she threw up her entire stomach contents into her friend’s handbag … now more accurately described as her ex-friend’s handbag. Another slipped off her chair and was no longer laughing. She was now complaining about landing in a wet patch, which she hoped was nothing more than a spilt drink, though everyone else knew differently. This reinvigorated the laughter, though when the woman next to Aggie suddenly turned and vomited into an already furious Aggie’s lap, the laughter was turned off like a tap.
Quentin, just as ev
eryone else did, thought that Aggie was getting up to go and hit Kate, especially as one woman from the far end of the table shouted out “Yes, Aggie, go for it, smack her one. Teach her some manners,” so he interjected. “Please let me deal with this, Aggie, as Kate is so wrong.”
She did not know what to say, she was fuming, she was a pressure cooker which was about to explode, but for this moment, at least, she was silent and flopped, rather than sat, back into her chair.
“Please all listen to me carefully as you all need to be aware of just how wrong Kate is.” Quentin was standing as he spoke.
Kate squirmed whilst Alex whispered the only thing he could think to say, “Get ready to run.”
“This is a serious situation,” said Quentin with a very stern face, “very serious indeed.” He paused to look at each person individually before continuing, an old trick of his. “Kate has really disappointed me and I sincerely apologise to you all.” He gestured to the old lady. She nodded and smiled in return. “Yes, your young Egyptian husband is quite correct as you do look like Nefertiti, the ‘great royal wife’ of the greatest pharaoh who ever lived, Ramses II. Look,” he said, turning to point towards Luxor Temple which was just across the road and fully lit against the black night sky. “Yes, do look at this most magnificent temple, which Ramses built for his love, his one true love, Nefertiti.”
Kate and Alex both realised that something was wrong, as Quentin had gone off into the land of fairy tales. Everyone knew that the wife of Ramses II was Nefertari and he built Abu Simbel for her, not Luxor Temple. Nefertiti was the wife of Akhenaten. Everyone except, apparently, for the expats around this table.
Even Babs had realised that something was wrong. She was pulling at Quentin’s belt to get him to sit down.
“No, Babs,” he said pushing her hand away, “we must address the error of Kate’s ways.”
“He has them like putty in his hands,” thought Alex, “just as he had those girls at the café by Medinet Habu. How does he do it?” Alex was quite convinced that if his dad had pointed to the moon and said that it was made of cheese, they would have hung on his every word.
“Kate, I am very disappointed with you,” Quentin said without taking his eyes off his audience. Kate was no longer squirming in her chair, as even Aggie had fallen under his spell. He had them all there, right in the palm of his hand, so why did he blow it? What made him do it? He continued, “Kate, as I say, I am very disappointed in you. Nefertiti was never ‘dug up from a tomb’ and she has been dead for slightly less than three and a half thousand years, not two thousand years as you said. Why would you make such a fundamental error? I’m very disappointed, really very disappointed that you made such an error.” He shook his head slowly as he said this. “Why would anyone compare this woman to Nefertiti,” he pointed to the old lady again, “as in her prime Nefertiti was a beauty. This woman, it is clear to see, has never been a beauty, and could, far more accurately, be compared to a cash machine with legs, though I would regard the cash machine as much more intrinsically beautiful.”
Kate, Alex and his mum and dad sat in the bar at the Winter Palace somewhat nervously as they listened to the sound of so many police sirens, their vehicles passing the hotel at high speed on their way to The Gardens. None of them could really understand how they had been bundled into a taxi quite so quickly, for the couple of hundred metres back to their hotel. Their last recollection was of tables flying, handbags swinging, hair pulling and oh, so much screaming.
“Well, you have really done it this time,” said Babs to Quentin, who now had a most satisfied smirk on his face. He knew that none of them would ever go back to The Gardens ever again. “Mission complete,” he thought. Her words were the first that had been spoken since they had arrived back at the hotel, but they were words which caused them all to break silence.
“Who would have thought that that old lady would have been able to fly over the table like that?” said Kate.
“It was a good job that I wasn’t wearing a tie, or she would have got me,” replied Quentin. He then he added, “All those wrinkles must have acted as a coiled spring.”
Babs said that he should not be so rude, but they all laughed, including Three, which was a little disconcerting to Quentin. He did not think that an Egyptian waiter would have understood enough English to know what a coiled spring was. Two coffees arrived, one for Quentin and one for Babs, whilst Kate and Alex had a tamar-hindi each. Sipping his coffee, he never gave the waiter another thought.
From the commotion in reception it appeared that Aggie had either escaped from The Gardens or given the police so much hassle that they had been happy to be rid of her. All bets were on the latter. She did, however, arrive at the bar quietly. Rather than lambast them, she slumped into a chair which Three had quickly moved to their table. Kate thought that she would have words with him later, regarding this. They all looked at Aggie as they waited for her to explode, though she did not. It was as if her outburst at reception had finally drained her. A single tear ran down her cheek as she grappled with shaking hands to light a cigarette. “Where did I go wrong?” she asked quite pathetically.
Kate had seen this just one time too many. If anger did not work, then Aggie became pathetic in order to get everyone to rally around on her side. Tonight, it was not cutting any ice. Kate stood before throwing the contents of her glass over Aggie, whilst proclaiming that she could now shed plenty of false tears, though she was far from finished. Kate shouted directly in Aggie’s face, “Well, at least my mother only took up smoking after she died.”
Everyone around the table expected Aggie to react, everyone in the bar expected her to react. They had been stunned by the sudden ferociousness of Kate’s verbal attack. Kate went to leave the room, tears already welling up in her eyes, though the anger burning through her stopped them from rolling down her cheeks.
Aggie, having regained her voice, shouted for Kate to stop, though alcohol added to the abusiveness of the language which surrounded this pertinent word.
Kate did not stop, though she did turn back as she reached the door. She was more than a little shocked to see quite so many people staring at her, as she had been unaware just how busy the bar was. This caused her to hesitate, only very slightly, before shouting back at Aggie. “Smoking did not keep my mum thin. She has put on so much weight since she died, that you can barely get the lid on.”
A look of confusion went around the room, as people wondered what the young girl had meant about her mother putting weight on after she had died. A ripple of understanding and shock appeared on the faces of the guests after one said, “Surely nobody uses an urn as an ashtray?”
Aggie knew all too well what Kate meant and sobbed, not for the loss of her daughter, not for Kate, but for herself, as when everything was stripped away, the only person that she cared for, was herself. In reality she had never cared for her daughter, as she had always found her an inconvenience, and neither did she really care that she had lost a daughter. What she really cared about, was that she had lost the only person who would have been obligated to look after her in her old age.
Chapter 14
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Economic with the Truth
In many ways it was a funny morning, not humorous … strange. Kate, Alex and Cairo were sitting at the Ramesseum Café eating a breakfast they could have not only had for free, but one that would have been far better quality and of greater choice, at the Winter Palace. Even stranger was that Quentin and Babs were sitting with them.
It had all started last night, just after Kate had left the bar in such dramatic fashion and Alex and Cairo had followed her. Babs had broken down in tears, Quentin had been furious, yet Aggie, who sat with a totally blank expression, had simply ordered another drink, a double, as well as a replacement packet of cigarettes. Hers were rather wet.
Everyone in the bar had been pleased when Three had refused to serve her, at which she had stormed out. Kate’s thrown tamar-hindi had released the awful smell of pre
viously dry sick from her dress. Quentin had quietly ordered two more pots of coffee, though he had requested that they be delivered to their room. This had prompted Three to ask if he would like any tamar-hindi added to his order, to which Quentin had replied, as he helped Babs up, “I will leave it up to you.”
Arriving at their room, Quentin and Babs were met by a very large Egyptian, who smiled as he gestured for them to enter. Three made it clear as he delivered their order, that Mohammed, the very large Mohammed, who was often on reception, would remain outside of their room for as long as they were resident at the hotel. This way they would not have to worry about having any problems with Aggie, or as he put it, Madam Westbrook. Kate had been in their room and would obviously be staying with them from now on. Before Three left, their sofa was exchanged for a single bed.
Quentin and Babs did not have all the answers, but they assured Kate that unless she wanted to, she would never have to be with Aggie ever again, either here in Luxor or back in the UK. There were lots of hugs and a few tears, mostly because Kate felt such immense relief. Her nightmare was finally over.
Babs was upset. As she had felt so lonely, she had gone along with Aggie and her drinking. She felt both weak and foolish. Quentin was sorry that he had put the chance of a dig before his family. It went on like this for a while, with everyone being sorry for something. Everyone except Cairo that was. He was happily munching through the sandwiches which had been sent up, along with many pots of coffee, to their room. When Alex went to pass the sandwiches around, he found the plates empty.
“Sorry!”
“Now even Cairo is sorry! See, everyone is sorry tonight.” They all laughed at Alex’s comment.
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