They ate their lunch in uncomfortable silence. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking. But she didn’t. The intensity of what he had stirred up frightened her. He made some remark about a fishing boat that appeared out on the lake, about the chances of buying fresh fish to take back to the dig house—a rare treat, he said, for people living for months on end in the desert. Did he mean to pretend that kiss had never happened? Perhaps he was as afraid of his feelings as she was. She picked at the food, too churned up inside to feel like eating.
He wandered off when the meal was over, leaving her to put away the remains of the food. She covered the baskets with cloth to keep the flies off and packed them into the truck, wondering where he could have gone. She walked to the water’s edge and back, pacing like a caged lion, her mind in turmoil. In a bid to still her thoughts, she went to the truck and got her notebook from her bag, scribbling down everything she had seen since leaving the expedition house. But all she could think of as she formed the words was the look in Max’s eyes when he kissed her. Tossing the notebook back into her bag, she hurried back down to the lake, scanning the horizon. Suddenly he appeared. He was carrying something. The color was vivid orange against his khaki clothes. As he drew nearer, she saw what it was. An armful of flowers. Wild marigolds. Threaded through each other like a daisy chain.
“For you.” He lifted the garland over her head, placing it round her neck. “There’s a great patch of them—just beyond those bushes.”
“How lovely of you!” She wanted to kiss him. Properly this time. But she was aware of curious glances from the Bedouin guard, who had followed her down to the lake when she went to look for Max.
“We’d better be getting back.” Max’s eyes were full of promise. “They’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”
They all climbed into the truck, and he started the engine. It made a whining, jarring sound as it turned over. Muttering under his breath, he jumped out. Soon he and the guard were shoveling sand from under the wheels. But no amount of digging solved the problem.
“I’m sorry to say we’re well and truly stuck.” Max leaned in through the open window, perspiration trickling from his temples. “My fault for stopping here. The sand’s still damp from the downpour we had a couple of weeks ago. I should have realized.”
“Is there anything I can do? I could start the engine while you two push?”
“No—thank you for offering—the sand’s up over the wheel arches. We’re going to have to find someone to pull us out.”
After praying to Allah, the guard set off on foot for the twenty-mile journey to get help. “We’re in for a very long wait, I’m afraid.” Max’s face was grave. “I shouldn’t have put you through this. I feel awful.”
“It’s all right.” Agatha jumped out of the truck and walked round to the driver’s side, which was in the shade. She spread out the sacks she had dried herself on and lay down on them. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just go to sleep for a while.”
He knelt down beside her with a wry smile. “You really are a most remarkable woman, Mrs. Christie. If Katharine Woolley had been with me instead of you, I’d never have heard the last of it. She’d have spent the next however-many hours berating me for my incompetence, getting us stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Max scooped up a handful of sand, making a pillow-shaped mound next to her head. “Would it be very forward of me to ask if I could lie down next to you?”
Agatha sat up, fingering her necklace of marigolds. “It was lovely of you to give me these. Forgive me for being wary, but”—she took a breath—“you know that I’ve been badly hurt and . . . What I’m trying to say is . . . it’s hard to understand why someone like you would be interested in someone like me.”
There was a moment of silence. Max made a spiral pattern in the sand with his finger. “Because you are interesting.” He whispered the words as if he was afraid of being overheard. “You’re talented, you’re good company, and you have the most wonderful eyes. There. I’ve said it.”
Now she fell silent. She felt blood surging up from her neck into her face. How long was it since anyone had said anything like this to her? Archie used to say romantic things. Many years ago. Before Rosalind was born. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That’s . . . very flattering. But . . . well, for one thing, I’m a good deal older than you. I’ve been married. And I have a child.” She paused. He was drawing in the sand again: her name this time. “What could possibly come of it?”
“Well, if we can see a bit more of each other, perhaps we could find out.” He rubbed the sand from his fingers and took her hand. “Listen, I’ve got to go back to London before Christmas. Please don’t repeat this: we dug up a solid gold death mask earlier this month, and Leonard doesn’t want to risk sending it back through the usual channels. He wants me to take it in person. I was wondering . . . When are you thinking of going home? Perhaps we could travel together?”
“That would be . . .”
He kissed her before she could finish the sentence. Cupping her head in his hand, he eased her gently down, his mouth exploring hers. Her tongue traced the edges of his lips, tasting salt from the lake mixed with his own perspiration. She felt the hardness of his body as he wrapped his arms around her. Felt the sand in her hair as they rolled off the sacks. She should stop. But it felt so . . . Words exploded into colors in her head. Why not, she thought? Why shouldn’t we?
His lips were tracing a path down her neck when two shots rang out somewhere in the distance. Max leapt up.
“Stay down! Get under the truck if you can.” He got in front of her, shielding her with his body. Reaching backward, he grabbed a pair of field glasses from inside the vehicle. “Well, I’ll be blowed! It’s Mahmoud—he’s found somebody!”
She jumped up. Max was waving at what looked like a moving dot on the horizon. As they watched, they saw that it was a car—an old Model T Ford. By an amazing stroke of luck, the guard had run into it—a car crammed full of passengers on their way from Najaf to Basra. There were fourteen of them—all men—and they got out and lifted the truck bodily out of the sand.
The journey back to Ur was a silent one. Agatha felt overwhelmed by what had happened. Her brain was on fire, reliving each sensual moment, but she couldn’t shut out the voices—her mother’s, and Archie’s—telling her she should be ashamed of herself, that no lady would ever allow herself to get into such a situation.
Once or twice she glanced at Max, wondering what he was thinking. His expression was unreadable.
When they reached the expedition house, he jumped out of the truck and came to open the door for her. “I’ve got to unload the supplies, then get over to the dig site to give out the wages,” he said. “Will you be all right here on your own for a while?”
She nodded. “Max . . . I . . . ,” she stammered. What had seemed so natural and right out there in the desert now seemed horribly embarrassing.
“I hope you don’t think I was taking advantage this afternoon,” he said. “I meant what I said—about wanting to get to know you better. Will you consider what we talked about? About traveling back together?”
She leaned forward and kissed his nose.
CHAPTER 23
The next morning, Agatha woke up knowing something was different. Her senses registered the scuttle of a bird on the roof, the scent of the wilting flowers on the bedside table, the creak of a door opening farther along the corridor. Everything was sharper, crisper, as if she had been living life behind a veil until yesterday. Something had happened to her in the desert. Something important. When Max had hung the marigold garland around her neck, she had glimpsed the person she used to be. Before Archie.
She reached for the chain of flowers, burying her face in the limp petals. If it wasn’t for this tangible proof, she would have been asking herself if it had really happened.
She wondered what Max was thinking as he woke up this morning. They had skirted round each
other last evening, casting shy glances across the table at suppertime. Then he had been summoned by Leonard to look at a collection of tools unearthed at the dig that afternoon. They had still been holed up together when she went to bed.
After dinner she and Nancy had continued with the task Katharine had set them, of piecing together shards of pottery. They were working alone, as Katharine had gone to help Leonard and Max.
Agatha had found it hard to keep quiet about what had happened at the lake. She was burning to talk about this sudden, unexpected chance of romance, but it seemed unfair even to mention it, given Nancy’s predicament. And so they had talked about pretty much everyone else in the expedition team apart from Max.
Nancy was concerned about Katharine’s marriage, having overheard the Woolleys talking together in the courtyard when she was sent to the darkroom to collect some photographs. “Katharine gave him such a tongue-lashing,” she said. “All over some problem with the quality of the last crate of oranges they’d bought, which didn’t seem the least bit important. And he was so patient with her. Never raised his voice once.” Agatha didn’t repeat what Max had told her about the physical side of the Woolleys’ marriage. It would be disloyal, she thought, to sit in the home of their host and hostess, discussing their sex life—or lack of it.
“They’re an odd couple,” Nancy went on. “He’s very distant, isn’t he? Not the type of man you’d imagine being interested in marriage. I get the impression that a fragment of antique pottery is always more exciting to him than a mere human being born somewhere in the twentieth century AD.”
Agatha nodded.
“Do you think it’s a marriage of convenience? I mean, they sleep in separate rooms . . .” There was a look of recognition on Nancy’s face, a look of bitter experience.
Agatha tried to change the subject then, not wanting to drag up memories that would do Nancy no good. A minute later Katharine appeared with a tray of coffee—the set that Agatha had bought as a wedding present. She was in very good spirits, full of praise for their efforts with the pottery. What she had brought them, she said, was what the Arabs called wild-colored coffee, ground with green cardamom, cinnamon sticks, and saffron. Then she taught them the etiquette that went with it.
“You’ll need to know this tomorrow, when we go to the feast at the Bedouin village,” she said. “Don’t be offended when the person with the coffeepot passes you by to serve a man first. That’s their custom—and they always begin with the eldest.” She held up the swan-necked pot. “This is called a dallah, and cups like these—with no handles—are called finjan. At official functions they pour it from a distance of about a foot, because it’s considered disrespectful to get any closer to the guest than that.” She demonstrated, pouring a cup for each of them. “The cup will only be a quarter full, so it’s not too hot and easy to savor the taste. The person offering it to you will say samm, which is an invitation to say the name of God.”
“Do we have to say Allah, then?” Nancy asked.
Katharine nodded. “They don’t mind if you’re not a Muslim—they don’t think it’s hypocritical or anything. They believe our God and theirs is just the same, only with a different name.” She lifted her cup and breathed in the aroma. “Once you’ve drunk it, there are two choices: shaking the cup indicates that you’d like some more, or tipping it upside down shows that you’ve had enough.”
“Mmm—that’s delicious!” Agatha drained her cup and shook it. “Where did you get it from? I must buy some to take home.”
“You can get it from any of the stalls in the spice souk in Baghdad,” Katharine replied. “You just have to know what to ask for, and they’ll mix it for you.”
Watching Katharine during that hour before bedtime, Agatha saw no hint of the angst Max had described. Agatha wondered if she would be taking a bath when they had all gone off to their rooms. The thought of Leonard sitting there, watching her, not allowed to touch, was almost unimaginable. How could any man be expected to restrain himself in a situation like that? It would be pure torture.
When Agatha went for breakfast, Katharine was sitting alone in the courtyard. She looked up from the book she was reading. “Will you come for a walk with me? Just a short one before we go and eat.” She was smiling, but her voice betrayed her. Agatha sensed the tension in it. She wondered what was coming.
Katharine led her past the snoozing dogs, out of the gates of the compound, toward a place where the ground dipped slightly. There was a dried-up streambed with stunted bushes growing alongside it and the odd patch of dwarf tulips—same as the ones in the vase in Agatha’s room.
“Did you enjoy your outing with Max yesterday?”
Ah, so this was what it was about. Agatha wondered how much Max had told her. “Yes,” she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral. “It was very interesting—and very pleasant.”
“You went to the lake?”
“Yes—it’s lovely, isn’t it?
“And Max went for a swim.”
This took Agatha by surprise. She couldn’t imagine him revealing that to Katharine. Not after everything he’d said about her.
“Don’t try to cover up for him,” Katharine said. “I saw his shorts hanging on the washing line this morning. He only ever washes them once a week—always on Saturdays. It’s a dead giveaway.” She took off her hat, swishing it at the cloud of flies that had formed around them. “I hope he behaved himself. He knows what an important guest you are. I wouldn’t want him taking liberties . . .” She trailed off with a violent swipe a couple of inches from Agatha’s left ear.
“Why would you think that?” Agatha wondered if Katharine had spotted her underwear on the line yesterday. It had never occurred to her, as she pegged it out, that anyone would guess she’d been swimming in it. Washing out one’s underwear after a hot day in the desert seemed an entirely natural thing to do.
“Because I know him.” Katharine turned to her, fire in her eyes. “He’s a red-blooded young man, and you’re an attractive, clever, successful woman. You have to be careful, Agatha. Face facts. Men will want you—not always for the right reasons.”
Her words made Agatha’s stomach flip over. Suddenly she saw yesterday in a harsh new light. Max holding her hand on the palace walls, the swim in the lake, the clinch in the sand: had it all been a ploy to sweeten her up for the Woolleys? She could almost hear Katharine giving him his orders: Make her feel good, flatter her a little. Then she might give us some money . . . Clearly, he had gone too far for Katharine’s liking. Above and beyond the call of duty. And like a fool Agatha had lapped it up. It occurred to her that he had even stage-managed the car getting stuck in the sand, so he could send the guard off and be alone with her.
The flies buzzed round her ears, drowning out the voices in her head. Her mother, gentle but firm, telling her she should have known better. And Archie. In the cold, hateful tone she had first heard at Harrogate. Deriding her for thinking any man would find her desirable now—let alone a man as young as Max.
But then Max’s voice broke through the others. The memory of him asking her to travel back with him to London. Why would he have pressed her to spend the best part of a week cooped up on a train with him if it was all a sham?
Katharine was still looking at her, waiting for her to respond. Agatha surged with indignation at this calculated attempt to warn her off. Clearly, Katharine was jealous. She had once had Max in her thrall, but he had broken free of her. And she couldn’t stand to see him drawn to someone else.
“We swam together.” Agatha tried not to betray any emotion in her voice. “It was a hot day, and we decided to go in. Max was a perfect gentleman about it. He kept his eyes closed the whole time we were in the water.”
Katharine said nothing for a moment. Then: “Oh. I’m surprised at you, Agatha. I didn’t have you down as such a . . . a free spirit.”
Agatha’s jaw clenched. “Let me remind you, Katharine,” she said, struggling now, to keep her voice level. “You’re married.
Max isn’t. And neither am I. What does it matter to you if we enjoy each other’s company?”
“Oh! Please don’t tell me you’re in love with him!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Agatha felt herself blushing. “I can’t think why you’re getting so het up about it: perhaps you should be asking yourself that question!”
It was as if she had fired a gun. Katharine suddenly dropped to the ground. She sat in the sand with her head in her hands.
“Katharine!” Agatha knelt down beside her. “What is it?”
Katharine lifted her head a little. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I . . . I’m sorry. I hate myself!”
“Hate yourself?” Agatha’s heart hammered against her ribs. Was she right, then? Was Katharine in love with Max?
“I . . . It isn’t . . .” Katharine mumbled.
“Isn’t what?”
“I . . . It . . . isn’t him.” Her mouth trembled as she spoke. “M . . . Max. I try to . . . control people, you see. I know it’s wrong, but I . . . It’s my . . .” She pressed her lips together as if she was afraid of what she might say.
Agatha took her hand. “What’s this about? Can you tell me?”
“I . . . I c . . . can’t.” Katharine’s teeth rattled with each syllable. “I . . . th . . . thought I could do it . . . b . . . but I can’t.”
“Take deep breaths.” Agatha wiped a tear from Katharine’s face. “There. That’s better. Don’t try to talk if you don’t want to.”
When Katharine spoke again, her voice was steadier. “I’ve . . . relied too much on Max,” she said. “He’s been a friend. A comforter.”
“But you’ve got Leonard now, haven’t you?” Agatha held her breath, wondering what was coming.
“I haven’t, though.” The sound she made was something between a sob and a sigh. “I can’t be a wife to him, Agatha. Not to Leonard or anyone else.”
The Woman on the Orient Express Page 23
