The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  Miss Mack and I left shortly afterwards, walking in silence, thinking of all we had seen and heard; the inscription on the king’s cup lingered with us. I was thinking of the dead boy’s love of Thebes – and wondering where my own homeland lay. Miss Mack may have been considering The Book, even the threatened outbreak of books: I knew better than to ask and she didn’t say.

  Descending the track that led from Castle Carter to our houseboat, we were arrested by the sight of an exotic species new to the area, one that would infest the Valley within weeks and would soon reach plague proportions – a harbinger: it was the first of the journalists.

  His long legs dangling either side of his donkey, sweating and red-faced, wearing a white pith helmet that did not fit him, swatting irritably at flies, and mounted on a saddle that was clearly paining him, he was toiling up the track towards the Valley – and still had a long way to go. He was escorted by his elderly dragoman and by an impudence of donkey boys; they were lugging his camera, its tripod and other impedimenta. All their faces bore an expression I recognised from expeditions with that soft touch, Miss Mack: excited, scornful, derisive but keen to please, it meant they’d scented a rich new source of baksheesh.

  ‘Christ, it’s sweltering. I’m on a deadline. I need to wire my report by six at the latest, and to do that I’ll have to get back to Luxor. How much bloody further is this blasted Valley?’ he demanded, glaring at his guide as we passed.

  ‘Two seconds from here, excellency! Very close now – just past this damnation big rock,’ his dragoman cried.

  Encountering yet another rival so soon after the first proved too much for Miss Mack, who uttered a forlorn cry of authorial anguish. Within minutes of our return, she had stationed herself at the Oliver No. 9. She remained there, punishing its keys, for hours afterwards.

  29

  Shortly after this meeting, Lord Carnarvon returned with Eve to England; there, the press laid siege to him – and he did not take kindly to this lèse-majesté, we heard. Somehow, his telephone numbers had been obtained by the Fleet Street scavengers. They telephoned Lady Carnarvon in the middle of the night, demanding ‘updates’. They accosted his daughter, pleading for ‘quotes’. When he had an audience at Buckingham Palace – both the King and Queen were anxious to hear the full story of his historic discovery – there was a new flurry of insolent calls: what had His Majesty said; what had been Her Majesty’s reaction? Reporters hung around his London house in Seamore Place, Mayfair; they skulked in the bushes outside the lodge gates at Highclere; he wasn’t safe at his clubs, at the opera house – wherever he went, some impudent hack clutching a dog-eared notebook would emerge to buttonhole him.

  The final blow came a few days before Christmas when, just as he was about to sit down to luncheon at Seamore Place with his good friend, Dr Alan Gardiner – one of the world’s foremost experts on Egyptian inscriptions, whose assistance with the new-found tomb Carnarvon relied upon – his butler announced that he had an unexpected guest: Mr Geoffrey Dawson, the editor of The Times, was downstairs and most anxious to see him. He did not have an appointment.

  ‘Dawson? Never met the fellow. Damn cheek. Get rid of him,’ Carnarvon said.

  Dr Gardiner intervened. He suggested that showing the door to the editor of The Times was akin to barring the Archbishop of Canterbury. Carnarvon said he’d boot him out as well, should he come between him, the Dover sole and the sublime Montrachet ’65 that were about to be served; but Dr Gardiner was persuasive, and Dawson was permitted to remain. He was left kicking his heels for an hour and a half, but the two men did, finally, have the conversation the editor had so importunately sought. What he wanted, Dawson explained, was a monopoly on all news relating to the tomb and Tutankhamun.

  Howard Carter told us this story on Christmas Day at the American House, over a lunch of roast turkey, followed by a Fortnum’s plum pudding, sent with Carnarvon’s compliments. The Winlocks had just arrived in Egypt: Frances and I had been joyfully reunited, and Miss Mack and I had been invited for the feast. The dining room at the American House had been festooned with paper streamers, a large lemon tree decorated with stars stood in for the Christmas fir and the room was hung with lanterns.

  It was a large group, sixteen of us; it included Arthur Mace, the English conservationist from the Met’s team, and Harry Burton: both men had now been seconded to work on Tutankhamun’s tomb. Several other Met archaeologists made up the party, and we’d been joined by Howard Carter, who had ridden over from his house to join us. Albert Lythgoe and his wife were not there; they were still in London, locked in negotiations with Carnarvon as to what further assistance the Metropolitan might provide him – or so Herbert Winlock had told us, somewhat irritably. Pecky Callender was also missing: he was spending the holiday with his sons at his Armant farm, he’d said, and intended to have a ‘knees-up’ and a ‘bit of a beano’.

  It wasn’t exactly a beano at the American House – things remained decorous; but there had been red wine with the turkey, and then sweet wine with the pudding; after that, we’d played games – Dumb Crambo and Consequences. Minnie Burton had obtained crackers, and we were all wearing paper hats. Miss Mack had an approximation of a red revolutionary French bonnet; Howard Carter had a gold-foil crown, crammed down over his ears; he was chain-smoking and began drinking whisky after lunch. Once the games ended, he seized the chance to talk shop with Herbert Winlock.

  Clasping my hand, Frances drew me behind the chairs ringing the fireplace; we knelt down and began stuffing the hats and feather boas we’d used as accessories in our Crambo game into the large chest where they were stored. ‘KV, Lucy: out of sight and out of mind,’ Frances whispered, putting a finger to her lips and, hidden by the chair backs, we listened. Frances’s face was tense with concentration and concern – the conversation began amicably enough, but its underlying tensions were apparent to us.

  ‘So – that’s the latest news,’ Howard Carter was saying to Winlock. ‘According to Dawson, The Times did a similar deal with the recent Everest expedition. Paid them one thousand pounds for rights to the story worldwide. For exclusive rights on the tomb, we’d get much more: it could go as high as four thousand. The Daily Mail would trump even that, I gather, but The Times, as Lord Carnarvon says, is the first newspaper in the world… He’ll consult me before he makes the final decision. What d’you think, Winlock?’

  ‘The Everest expedition?’ Winlock’s tone was dry. ‘Not exactly the same, is it, Carter? No reporter was going to hike off to the Himalayas to cover that story – besides, that expedition never made the summit. This is different: it’s a massive story already, and if you do find an intact burial chamber, it will be front-page news, worldwide… The journalists are already on their way to Luxor; there were three sleuths on our boat over, and two more on the train from Cairo. The manager at the Winter Palace told Helen he’s never had so many bookings – they’re flooding in, from tourists and newspapermen. The latter might not be too pleased to trek all the way to Luxor, only to find The Times had stolen a march on them. They’d be expected to sit around, waiting for whatever scraps it deigns to pass on to them, would they? I can’t see that happening – even if it is the first paper in the world. And it might be tactful to avoid that kind of remark, Carter – you know, if you’re speaking to The New York Times, for instance. Or one of the Arab papers. Journalists just might take exception to it.’

  ‘Tommyrot,’ Carter replied, refilling his whisky glass. ‘The truth of the matter, Winlock, is that it’s put your nose out of joint, our discovery. You’ll pooh-pooh any arrangement we make. It’s sour grapes. You can’t deal with us stealing your thunder.’

  ‘Well, you’re certainly stealing my team,’ Winlock replied, lightly but with edge. ‘You’ve already snaffled Burton and Mace. You have the loan of Hauser and Hall, as well.’ He glanced across the room at these two men, both architectural draughtsmen previously working for him, now redeployed to map and record the artefacts in the Antechamber. ‘However,
needs must. No doubt I’ll learn to live with it.’

  ‘Not much choice in the matter, old sport,’ Carter replied, with a sneer. ‘Like it or lump it. Your boss Lythgoe’s orders. I found the tomb – and I take priority.’

  ‘And I wish you all joy of it,’ Winlock replied, in a tone that silenced even Carter.

  The party broke up shortly afterwards. Frances’s face was flushed with indignation; her love for her father was intense, and her loyalty to him absolute. I think her hero-worship of Howard Carter began to diminish from that day onwards.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Miss Mack said, when we’d returned to our dahabiyeh, ‘Mr Carter can be so graceless, don’t you find, Lucy?’

  ‘Not always. But he is when he’s been drinking,’ I replied. ‘And he was knocking it back today.’

  ‘Knocking it back?’ Miss Mack gave me a reproving glance. ‘Lucy, really! Where do you pick up these phrases? Though I fear it is accurate. On his third stiff whisky, dear – I’m afraid I counted. He was not sober – and he was unpardonably rude to Mr Winlock. It soured the whole atmosphere. Should I mention all that, Lucy – in my current chapter? The Book feels I should, but I’m not sure. It is Christmas. I don’t want to be uncharitable.’

  ‘Charity has nothing to do with it. You should write the truth,’ I flashed back, flinging myself down on a bench on the upper deck.

  Miss Mack’s moral haverings often made me impatient; I could imagine how mercilessly Nicola Dunsire would have dealt with them. In honour of the Christmas lunch, I was wearing the dress she’d given me, and although it still fitted, the bodice felt tight and restricting. I’d had two long letters from her by then, letters I knew by heart, and she’d sent a Christmas present from my father and her: a single string of seed pearls. I knew it was she who had chosen them. I fingered them now, milky, glistening pearls.

  Miss Mack gave me a long, silent look. ‘Well, no doubt you are right, my dear,’ she said at last, in a quiet tone. ‘I shall bear your views in mind. I am sorry to have inflicted my uncertainties on you.’

  I could see that she was hurt. She retreated to her cabin, but inspiration could not have come, for the Oliver No. 9’s keys remained silent. I repented almost at once. I changed out of Miss Dunsire’s frock, and after half an hour’s deliberations, wondering why these sudden moods and rebellions seized me without warning, I knocked at Miss Mack’s cabin door. When I entered, I saw that she had been crying. Flinging my arms around her, I apologised for being rude; I said I didn’t know what had come over me.

  ‘Say no more about it, Lucy dear. I’ve already forgotten it,’ Miss Mack said, wiping her eyes and returning my embrace. She hesitated, and then, blushing painfully, continued: ‘I’m very fond of you, Lucy; deeply so, as I hope you know – you’ve become like a daughter to me, and, and – the truth of the matter is this: it must often be tedious for you, spending so much time with a fussy old woman. You’re a bright girl – coming on in leaps and bounds, whereas I can be slow and indecisive. Of course that makes you impatient. I’m no longer young, but I haven’t forgotten what it is to be young, dear. You’re growing up fast, Lucy – changing before my very eyes. So the fault is mine. You are no longer a child, and I must remember that.’

  I did not deserve this generosity and I knew it: it filled me with shame. I kissed Miss Mack and brought her some tea, persuaded her to go for an evening stroll along the river – she loved these gentle forays, and only too often over the past days I’d churlishly and moodily refused to accompany her. As we walked, I silently resolved to make it up to Miss Mack and decided the best way to do that would be to help her with The Book. I’d say nothing of this plan until I had results to show for it – and it was easy to remain silent on the subject for, that evening, our walk was interrupted by an unforeseen meeting.

  ‘Why, it’s you, Mr Callender,’ Miss Mack said, with surprise, as we drew level with a great bear of a man mooching along by the water’s edge; he was wearing a pith helmet and his once-handsome, now-ruined face was hidden until we came close. She held out her hand to him. ‘Merry Christmas! But I thought you were at your farm with your sons?’

  ‘Bit of a mix-up.’ Callender turned his sad, bloodshot eyes towards us, then back to the reed beds. ‘They’d made other plans. Sent a cable cancelling. Got the dates confused. Young men do that, you know. So I celebrated Christmas on my ownio up at the Castle. Pulled a cracker. Toasted the King. At a loose end after a bit. No sign of Carter. So I thought a nice stroll along the river might be just what the doctor ordered.’

  ‘My own feelings exactly!’ Miss Mack was struggling to conceal her consternation. ‘But Mr Callender, you should have said – you’d have been very welcome to join us at the American House, I’m sure. One more wouldn’t have made any difference, you know.’

  ‘Carter said if I went, there’d be thirteen at table. Can’t have that at Christmas, can we?’

  I was about to correct him – sixteen at lunch, as Carter knew full well. Miss Mack gave me a warning glance and I stayed silent.

  ‘What a great shame,’ she said gently. ‘We’d have been so pleased to see you… What a beautiful evening it is, Mr Callender. So lovely and peaceful here by the river. Are you on your way back to the Castle? I think Mr Carter must be home by now.’

  ‘No hurry. Just between you and me and the gatepost, Mrs Macpherson, it can be a bit iffy up there. I’m living at the Castle for the duration, you see. Well, I’m short of the readies, so there’s not a lot of choice. And I don’t know if you’ve spotted it, but Carter’s a nervy sort of chap. Highly strung. Gets het up. Used to living alone. Used to working alone. Sometimes he likes company. Sometimes he can’t stomach it. Under a hell of a strain at the moment, too. So I try to stay out of his hair. Don’t want to irritate him.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t do that, Mr Callender.’

  ‘Expect I do. I irritate a lot of people. Never have understood why. I tend to the doleful – that might be it. I try to hide it. Yes, indeedy. But I don’t always succeed. The tomb gets me down – I think it’s that. It gives me the willies. Can’t say so, of course; wouldn’t dream of it. I’m lucky to get the work. Jolly generous of old Carter to rope me in, Mrs Macpherson. I do know that.’

  ‘Miss. Miss Mackenzie.’ She drew in a deep breath.

  I knew what was coming, for she could never resist extending a helping hand to lame dogs; sure enough, the shy and awkward Mr Callender was quickly invited back to our dahabiyeh. There, as dusk fell, he sat for an hour with us on the upper deck, sipping a beer Mohammed produced, nibbling dates and pistachio nuts, his mild eyes resting on the river. He told us about sheep ranches in Australia and prospecting in South Africa. A lesser woman than Miss Mack might have seized this moment to pump him for information about the tomb and any further secrets that might lie behind its north wall; but that action she’d have viewed as immoral, as taking unfair advantage of a vulnerable man. I knew she would not countenance questioning him – and so, having fewer scruples than she, even then, I did.

  ‘Why does the tomb give you the willies, Mr Callender?’ I asked him, shortly before he left. I thought this a cunning gambit, one that might provoke revelations as to night-time expeditions, their purpose and outcome.

  It did no such thing. Callender turned his kindly eyes to me, gave me a puzzled look and with transparent honesty replied: ‘Well, it’s all about the afterlife, that tomb, isn’t it? That’s why it’s there, Miss Payne. And I don’t believe in afterlives. When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it, over and out, farewell, my hearties. So I look at all that stuff they left there for that poor boy, the boats he could sail, the food he could eat, the clothes he could wear – and it gives me a pain round the heart, just here.’ He rested his big mottled hand on his chest. ‘Because he hasn’t used them, has he, not once in three thousand years? Never did, never will. Dead as the proverbial doornail.’

  Miss Mack, whose views on an afterlife were very different, gave a pious intake of breath.
She opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘Someone loved him, though,’ Callender went on, before she could interrupt. He stood up and looked about him, perhaps admiring the rose sky, the tranquil air, the river’s eternal flow. ‘They’d kept his things. A glove he’d worn as a child – it’s a tiny thing: he can’t have been more than four when he wore it. Toys he’d played with. A reed he’d cut as a walking stick when he was a little kid – someone went to the trouble to keep that, even labelled it, recorded when he cut it and where. That’s what we all do when we love someone, isn’t it, keep mementoes? I keep all my boys’ bits and bobs. So they speak, those little things of Tut’s – loud and clear, right across the centuries. Or I think they do.’

  He turned and, having thanked us, ambled away towards the gangplank. Miss Mack, who had taken a liking to him, I could see, followed him to say her goodbyes; I did too.

  ‘Crikey, jolly good view of the Castle from here,’ Callender said, on reaching the bank. ‘Lights on, I see, so Carter must be back now. Better head home, I suppose. Can’t put it off for ever. In for a penny, in for a pound. Yes indeedy.’

  ‘You must call in and see us whenever you’re passing, Mr Callender,’ Miss Mack said.

  ‘Pecky, Miss Mackenzie, please. Pecky… ’

  ‘Myrtle,’ she replied, to my surprise. ‘Myrtle. I insist.’

  They shook hands; Miss Mack’s was bruised for days afterwards. ‘A very sound man,’ she announced, as we watched him make his way up the track. ‘A rough diamond, perhaps. But a good heart. One can always tell, can’t one, Lucy?’

  She sounded very sure of herself: I didn’t reply.