Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  ‘Probably. But I’m still going to ask you to tell me.’

  ‘No.’ He closed the carriage door, signalled for Hassan to get into his seat. ‘That’s one thing I can do for you at least.’

  Olivia stewed on Jeremy’s strange words, his look of panic when she mentioned Montazah, all the way to the Pashas’. She sat facing away from the horses to keep Gus from the glare of the sun; the only thing to distract her from what on earth Jeremy could have meant was El Masri’s brooding face bobbing up and down on the rear step.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  He stared blankly back.

  ‘You’re not very genial, are you?’ she said. ‘I don’t think you like me very much.’

  He made no reply.

  ‘You can tell me, and be honest. Please. I can’t stand any more lies.’

  ‘I don’t dislike you, Ma’am Sheldon.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘I dislike your situation. That’s an entirely different thing.’

  ‘Because I’m British?’

  He tilted his head sideways.

  She frowned. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’

  Another one of those head tilts.

  ‘Did you fight against the British, back in ’82?’

  ‘I’m employed by a British man, Ma’am Sheldon.’

  ‘That’s not answering my question.’

  He breathed in, out. He said nothing.

  He was too closed, too controlled. Olivia didn’t like it. And she didn’t trust the way he’d been looking at her ever since Clara had been taken. Had he had something to do with it? He’d been right there in the square, after all – he’d even stayed behind to wait for Clara after Olivia returned to Ramleh with Hassan. Olivia was sorely tempted to question him now, ask him outright if he was involved. She bit her tongue. What use would it be? He was hardly likely to admit it, for goodness’ sake.

  But oh, to have been a lizard on the wall when the police had interviewed him.

  Benjamin greeted them alongside Amélie when they arrived at the Pashas’. He was as handsome as Imogen was beautiful, with the same coffee-coloured skin and slanting eyes; but there was an aloofness in his expression that Olivia had never seen on Imogen’s face. He nodded stiffly at Olivia as she descended from the carriage, and although he was polite enough as he asked after her health, the children’s too, his eyes were distant, detached. He made no mention of Clara. Olivia supposed he didn’t know what to say.

  Amélie had tea ready on the terrace and (seeming to know just what to say) did most of the talking, barely pausing for breath as she bemoaned Clara’s fate, her disbelief that no one had found anything out yet, alternating between French and English the greater her anguish grew. ‘Benjy, ’e is so worried too.’

  ‘Is he?’ Olivia looked dubiously over at the lawn where he was standing stiffly beside Edward, just next to his sugar-drinking roses, watching as his sons played tennis with Ralph. He and Edward appeared to be speaking not at all. ‘He doesn’t seem especially so.’

  ‘Ah, he is,’ said Amélie. ‘Poor Clara.’

  As she talked on, Olivia rocked a sleeping Gus in the Pashas’ old cradle and tried to work out how to raise the subject of Nailah. Whilst she waited for an opportunity, she watched Edward. He held Ralph’s hand on the racquet, guided his other with the ball. The Pasha boys ribbed Ralph, claiming he’d miss. Benjamin snapped at them to be quiet. Edward said something in Ralph’s ear. Ralph’s shoulders rose and fell. He threw the ball high, lifted his racquet, Olivia held her breath. String thwacked rubber, the ball sliced through the air. A smile of triumph warmed Ralph’s chubby face, and Olivia wondered how Clara might feel if she could only see her little man now.

  She ran her hand over her eyes, fighting the sudden waft of grief, and, with new impatience, interrupted whatever Amélie was saying to ask about Nailah.

  ‘Ah, oui.’ Amélie stirred lemon absently into her tea, her tone subdued. Now Olivia was looking, Amélie’s entire person was. There was a greyness to her normally rosy complexion; her brown hair had a look of grease about it. Imogen was right, she was obviously badly upset. But then, she and Clara had been close; Clara was always calling on Amélie after visiting Olivia, chatting to her at parties and so on. Their tightness had been all the more notable for how few friends Clara kept. Even Imogen had said how she’d pushed her away. And as for Jeremy… well, of course there’d been something there once.

  ‘I was so young when we met,’ Clara had said one night, more than a few glasses of Chablis into a dinner. ‘It was one of the first balls of the season. An older woman introduced me to Alistair and Jeremy, she told me about their cotton business, how rich they both were. Eligible, you know. But all I could see was how handsome Jeremy was. I didn’t care about the money, I really didn’t. And the way he talked to me, listened.’ She had smiled wistfully. ‘I used to be so happy when he called at Grandmama’s to see me. And so fed up if Alistair came instead. Alistair tried to tell Jeremy to give me up, that if he was a true friend he would…’ She frowned, sucked in a breath. ‘Sorry, Livvy. I won’t go on about that.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Olivia had said. ‘I really don’t mind.’

  Clara sighed. ‘Anyway, it was like a dream, being with Jeremy. And moving here, to Alex… I thought I could find a home again.’ She widened her eyes sorrowfully. ‘But you weren’t here, Livvy, our parents weren’t. It wasn’t the same. I don’t know what happened to Jeremy and me after that, how we lost it all. Horribly careless, really.’

  ‘I’m told Nailah might have gone to ze city,’ said Amélie, drawing Olivia’s attention back. ‘No one knows ze address, although I expect eet would be somewhere in ze Turkish Quarter…’er aunt was killed and she had to take care of ze enfants. An ’orrible business, a peasant’s ’orse…’ave you ’eard?’

  ‘No.’ Olivia looked around her. It was clear Amélie’s uncertain rambling was going nowhere. A maid dusting in the drawing room beyond caught her attention. Could she be the Elia whom Imogen had spoken with?

  ‘I ’adn’t either until I enquired downstairs.’ Amélie paused, sighed. ‘Eet’s bad of me, I should have pressed Nailah to tell me what was wrong when she left, offered to ’elp. She was such a sweet girl, a local of course,’ Amélie held up the flats of her hands on the caveat, ‘but good. I ’ope she’s coping.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olivia absently. She was finding it rather difficult to care about the misfortune of a girl she had never met. ‘Would you mind watching Gus if I just run inside?’

  ‘Non,’ Amélie picked at a thread on her gown, ‘make yourself at ’ome. Your sister loved eet ’ere, you know. Clara, ah Clara…’

  Olivia smiled tightly. ‘I won’t be long.’

  The maid in the drawing room wasn’t Elia, but, doubtless broken by Imogen’s inquisition, offered to take Olivia straight to her. She was upstairs, making the boys’ twin beds. Olivia, not inclined to beat around the bush, asked her quite baldly if she was sure it wasn’t Edward she’d seen with Clara.

  ‘I am sure,’ Elia said in a plain-speaking way Olivia liked and instinctively trusted. ‘The captain, he is taller, and he has that way about him.’

  ‘That way?’

  Elia flushed. ‘The man with your sister was different, ma’am. His clothes, they weren’t fine, and his skin, it was dark.’ She rubbed her exposed forearm. ‘My kind of dark.’

  Olivia leant against the doorframe. Not him, for certain. Thank God.

  ‘Nailah’s face when she saw them,’ Elia shook her head, ‘she was so shocked. And now she’s vanished herself, like a puff of air. Although someone must know where she is, it can’t be so hard to discover.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Olivia, more to herself than Elia. ‘Finding a lone woman in this city seems just about the hardest thing to do.’ With that, she thanked Elia and left.

  Back in the garden, she told Edward she wanted to get to the beach. Alistair hadn’t yet arrived, if they were lucky, they’d be away before
he came. She knew he’d be angry with her for not waiting, but she couldn’t have him there; she needed to be where Clara had trodden without him crowding her.

  She patted Gus absently as the carriage drove away, her mind a mass of questions, the loudest being: Who was this man of Clara’s? Was he even important, or simply the ‘red snapper’ Imogen suggested?

  By the time the horses drew up beside the sun-baked foliage fringing the slope down to the bay, Olivia’s head was turning somersaults, cartwheels, of Clara. She barely saw where she was stepping as she set off behind Edward and Ralph, feet unsteady on the undulating sand. She thought, Is this the same path Clara walked?

  ‘Be careful,’ said Hassan as she nearly stepped headlong into a ditch; there was a sapling palm beside it, she made to reach out for it to steady herself, but Hassan caught her arm first. She thanked him. He gave her a sad kind of half-smile.

  He accompanied her down to the shore. Wild pigeons stared out from the foliage around them. Olivia looked over her shoulder at El Masri waiting with the carriage, and remarked that he didn’t look too happy at being left behind.

  ‘He has little enough to be happy about, Ma’am Sheldon.’

  ‘Does he have any family?’ Olivia asked, curious suddenly to know more about him. ‘A wife?’

  ‘No, just sisters. Or one sister, actually,’ he frowned, ‘and her child. Neither of us have wives, Ma’am Sheldon. The cost…’ Hassan tailed off.

  Olivia coloured, painfully conscious of her leather gloves and tailored riding robes.

  Hassan, staring at his sandals, appeared not to notice her discomfort. He said, ‘I had been planning to marry, saving.’ He paused. Then, in a low voice, speaking more to himself, Olivia felt, than her, said, ‘Such plans I have had.’

  Olivia waited for him to tell her more. But he remained silent. Not wanting to pry, she didn’t push him.

  She invited him to sit with her on the beach, though, choosing a spot close to the shore. It was high tide, the waves rolled just shy of them. Hassan perched on his haunches, flicking a string of worry beads. Gus, propped between Olivia’s skirts, ate sand, for once content. Ralph and Edward climbed on the rocks and skimmed stones into the sea. Every now and then, Edward caught Olivia’s eye.

  She looked sideways at Hassan. His dark face was contemplative. His beads caught the sun. Some of them had Arabic characters inscribed on them. Olivia had been learning the alphabet, and she studied them, trying to make them out. It appeared to be an endearment…

  Hassan noticed her looking. He gathered them into his hand.

  ‘A gift?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, in such a heavy way, Olivia thought perhaps they’d come from the woman he’d been saving to marry.

  The sun dipped behind a scudding cloud. Olivia pulled Gus’s hand from his mouth. He dipped his fingers straight into the sand. ‘Hassan,’ she said, ‘can I ask you about El Masri? I don’t trust him, you see.’

  ‘No?’ A muscle twitched in Hassan’s cheek.

  ‘Was he really with you all the time you were waiting for me and Clara that day?’

  ‘Most of it. He went to fetch water for the horses, then to buy tea.’

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘An errand for cook. He wasn’t gone long.’

  ‘Do the police know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘Was my sister… close… to El Masri?’ Olivia asked.

  Hassan turned, frowning as though trying to make out her meaning. She raised her eyebrows. His puddle-like eyes widened, fit to burst. ‘He’s a footman, Ma’am Sheldon. Why do you even ask such a thing?’

  A movement of Edward’s caught Olivia’s eye, preventing her from answering. He was looking over at the distant sandbanks, squinting. She turned, resigned to seeing Alistair there. She could have been knocked over with a feather when she saw Fadil with him. ‘What d’you suppose…?’

  She set Gus down on his tummy and stood as Edward climbed down from the rocks and jogged in Fadil and Alistair’s direction. There was a loud plop in the sea.

  ‘Don’t use such large stones, little sir,’ Hassan called. ‘Come closer in.’

  ‘It was a good one,’ Ralph said. ‘I’m going to find another, see how far I can throw it.’

  Olivia watched Edward and Fadil talking. Edward looked over, expression widening in alarm, and shouted something. His words were obscured by the wind. Gus grunted, trying to turn himself. A gust lifted Olivia’s skirt around her. Edward broke into a run towards her. A wave crashed, much louder than the others.

  When Olivia turned, she could see no sign of Ralph. She too ran now, picking up her petticoats, and waded towards the rocks he’d been standing on. She gasped as the cold water swirled around her, pulling at her legs. She took a deep breath and plunged under, salt stinging her eyes as she scanned the murky water. Shorts, socks in sandals, perhaps ten yards away. Olivia came up for air, but couldn’t see Ralph’s head on the surface. She launched herself forward; the lesions on her ribs burned, her dress and stays dragged on her body. She submerged herself again, straining to see. A pain like a red hot poker lashed through her silk stocking. A jellyfish, Ada had warned her endlessly about them. She gasped, choking on the salt water, disoriented, and was dragged down and forward out of her depth.

  It was an effort to break the surface again. She had no footing, and her clothes were like dead weights. ‘Ralph!’ she screamed. She went under again, and more from instinct than sight reached forward. Something solid came between her arms, still kicking. Thank God.

  Ralph choked as she propelled them both to the surface, snorting and staring blindly in panic. ‘I have you,’ she said, even as Ralph pelted her in the stomach with his foot. They went under again, and the water rushed into her nose, her eyes. Her arms shook around Ralph’s thrashing form. Her leg was agony, she didn’t want to kick it any more. She did, though, and breathed air again. ‘I have you,’ she said, ‘stop kicking, stop struggling.’

  Finally Ralph’s eyes locked on her salt-stung ones. His pale face was drenched and blurred before her. It took a moment, but the fear in his stare eased, and he relaxed in her arms. Trust. So easy.

  The swell knocked around them. They went under. Then Fadil was there, olive face taut with purpose. He took Ralph’s weight and dragged him up and away, cradling him close, like a baby. ‘Come, little sayed.’ He said it with such tenderness, it reminded Olivia he’d been a father once, before those rebels gave his children their blazing grave.

  Edward’s arms came around her, he pressed her to his chest. She felt his battering heart through his wet shirt. ‘I have you,’ he said, unknowingly echoing her own words to Ralph, ‘I have you.’

  He scooped her up, just like Fadil had Ralph.

  ‘Why has Fadil come?’ she managed to stutter.

  ‘He needs to tell me something. I don’t know what it is yet.’

  ‘But why did he come with Alistair?’

  ‘He didn’t.’ Edward sounded aggrieved, his breath came deep and rapid as he waded to the shore. ‘They just arrived at the same time.’

  Olivia was about to ask more, but then she caught sight of Alistair, dry as a bone, his arms folded as he stared at her cocooned in Edward’s hold. He hadn’t come to help her. He hadn’t even tried.

  And this time there was no doubting the suspicion in his gaze.

  It turned her cold.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As they clambered back onto the beach, Alistair barked orders, insisting that someone, anyone, pick up that screaming, godforsaken baby, everyone else back to the horses, into the carriage. There’d been enough fun for one morning.

  Olivia rode with a shivering Ralph as well as Gus pressed to her. And although Edward stayed close, so near she could easily have talked with him, Alistair was there too, so she remained silent. Alistair ordered Hassan to take the carriage to their house first, everyone else could go to the Grays’ without them.

  They pulled up.
Olivia’s stomach turned liquid at the narrow-eyed look Alistair gave her. Her heels stuck to the carriage steps as she climbed down, her whole body pulled back.

  Edward dismounted and took her trembling arm. His damp hair was ruffled, his shirt and trousers sodden. He told her he’d be home as soon as he could, he had things he needed to see to for now, then the bloody polo. ‘You can stop shaking,’ he said, ‘it’s over. You’re safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ she said with a glance at Alistair heading down the driveway.

  Edward frowned in confusion.

  She shook her head and managed a wobbly smile. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said.

  ‘Olly,’ he called after her.

  She didn’t turn back, much as she wanted to. Alistair had reached the porch, she was caught in his frigid stare. He tethered his horse, ushered her in. Her mouth ran dry. She barely saw Alistair’s manservant hovering inside, Alistair’s case in one hand, a message in the other. It was only when Alistair began reading the note, frowned, looked at her, back at the paper, and then at her again, that she caught her breath with hope.

  ‘I need to go away,’ Alistair said. ‘Something urgent has come up at,’ he paused, then said, ‘one of our mills.’ He shot his manservant a look. The man gave a small nod.

  Olivia didn’t know why Alistair bothered with the lie. She didn’t give a damn whether he was going to a mill or to hell. Only that he was going.

  He told her that he had to catch the express to Cairo. She was to stay at home whilst he was away, he’d be asking Ada for a full report. He’d be gone a couple of days at least.

  Her bones shuddered with relief.

  And although Alistair’s parting words – that he’d look forward to seeing her soon – felt horribly ominous, ‘soon’ was at least a night or two without pain.

  She took her time in the bath. Her muscles eased as she slowly acclimatised to the barely believable respite of Alistair’s absence. He was gone, not here. Gone. She imagined him on the train, speeding away from her, one pristinely creased trouser leg crossed over the other, a perfect gentleman in all but soul. She pictured the others too: Ralph back in his nursery, chubby and calm in the starched cushion of Sofia’s hold; Sofia tsking as she rocked him back and forth, ruffling his tawny hair with one hand, holding a cigarette in the other; Gus, exhausted and napping in his crib, round (quite possibly sun-scorched) cheeks smooth beneath his curls.