The Collector's Daughter

by Gill Paul

  “Course we did.” She nodded, sad to have upset him. She hated upsetting people but sometimes words came out of her mouth without her having thought about them properly first. She watched him pouring two glasses of sherry, careful to make the liquid the same level in each, and felt a rush of love for him.

  “Would you like me to show you pictures of our wedding day?” he asked as he handed her a glass.

  “I’d love that,” she said. She sipped the sherry and found it was delicious.

  He went out into the hall and when he came back he was holding an album. He sat on the sofa beside her and opened to the first page. It showed a photograph of a bridal couple but they looked funny. The top of the lady’s head was only just level with the man’s shoulder. The height difference was comic. She chuckled.

  “That’s us, Pipsqueak,” he said, and she touched the picture with a finger. The girl looked nothing like the face she saw in the mirror but she recognized it was her all the same. She had dark wavy hair cut in a bob shape, and she was quite pretty, with owl eyes set in a round face, but she was not smiling. She looked very serious.

  “You wore an ivory chanteuse dress,” he said, “and your train was trimmed with old Brussels lace. That was your ‘something old.’ Look how long it was!”

  Eve turned to her husband, then back to the photo, and she could see the similarities between him and the man pictured. He already had receding hair in the photograph, and that high forehead and his trim moustache were almost exactly the same. The only difference was that his hair was now gray instead of dark.

  “Your bouquet was made of orange blossoms and they had the most glorious scent,” he said. Suddenly Eve could smell it. It was so strong she looked around to see if there were flowers in the room, but there weren’t. They hadn’t brought home the flowers she had in the hospital because Patricia said it was bad luck.

  Brograve turned another page and began to name their wedding guests: lots of names, lots of faces, and she didn’t remember any of them. Didn’t matter. They were probably dead. She was glad to see she’d been popular once, although it made her melancholy that she wasn’t now.

  “That’s your brother, Porchy,” he said. She thought she recognized him. “And there’s Howard Carter.”

  Eve remembered Howard. “He found Tutankhamun,” she said. “And then there was a curse.”

  “No.” Brograve smiled and shook his head. “There was no curse. That was just a fairy story.”

  “Really?” She was sure there had been a curse. That’s what had caused her to lose her memories.

  “Far from being cursed, we’ve been very lucky, you and I,” he said. “We have each other, as well as a beautiful daughter and two dashing grandsons. We have a comfortable home; and we’ve had lots of foreign holidays. Most people aren’t as lucky as us.”

  “Why were we lucky?” she asked, and he kissed her on the lips before he replied.

  “Because of your sunny personality. I was in the glooms when we met and you brought me the gift of happiness. You still do.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she said, and kissed him back, but it made her feel sad that she kept getting things wrong. A wave of emotion brought tears to her eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” he said in a soothing voice. “Everything’s fine. You had a funny turn but you’ll soon be right as rain.”

  She couldn’t help it; the tears rolled down her cheeks. Her husband took out a handkerchief and dabbed at them.

  “I know how to cheer you up,” he said. “Would you like me to sing the national anthem?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, although it seemed an odd thing to do.

  “God save our gracious queen,” he began, and Eve giggled. He had a terrible voice, singing it all on the same flat note. Then she stopped abruptly, hoping he wouldn’t be upset that she was laughing at him.

  “Oh Lord our God arise, scatter our enemies,” he continued.

  Her daughter came into the room saying that dinner was ready and she started laughing too. It must be a joke. Eve laughed even louder than before, glad they were all laughing at the same thing.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  London, July 1973

  Over the next few days, Eve often spoke of the curse of Tutankhamun and told Brograve that’s what had caused her memory loss. She didn’t seem upset, just repeated it as fact. Brograve corrected her every time but it had stuck in her head for some reason.

  “You were in an accident,” he said. “A long time ago. That’s why you have funny turns.”

  He didn’t like to tell her the medical details: about the head injury that caused severe trauma to her brain, and the strokes she had been prone to since then, which the doctors thought were linked to that injury. He didn’t want to remind her of the accident at all, for fear of distressing her, but it didn’t seem right to let her keep thinking the curse of Tutankhamun had caused her to lose her memory. It was strange that in her confusion she had locked onto that ridiculous piece of mythology that used to obsess the press. She hadn’t believed it before. They’d both scoffed at the news reports that blamed the curse for the deaths of anyone who ever visited the tomb. But then everything changed on that awful summer’s day in 1935.

  Brograve was in his office at the House of Commons when a policeman rang, very deferential, apologizing that he had bad news. He said Eve had been in a serious road accident and she’d been taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. He didn’t know how bad it was but said she hadn’t regained consciousness.

  Panic took hold, a rushing, gripping feeling of terror, before he shook himself and leaped into action. First he telephoned their housekeeper to check that she could collect Patricia from school, then he borrowed a car from a chap in the office next door to his and set off for the hospital.

  Eve was one of the best drivers he knew—much better than he was. Someone must have crashed into her, and he guessed it must have been at speed for her to be injured so badly as to be unconscious. Earlier that year a speed limit of thirty miles per hour had been introduced in built-up areas but it wasn’t popular. Around the country, speed-limit signs had been torn down and tossed into rivers or village ponds. The Englishman liked the freedom to press the accelerator to the floor in his own car. If this turned out to be a case of dangerous driving, Brograve would press for the full weight of the law to be brought to bear. His knuckles were bony ridges as he gripped the steering wheel.

  All the way to Cambridge he tried to focus on practicalities. It was nearly the summer recess so he was sure he could take compassionate leave from the House. The health secretary was a friend and he would ask his advice if they needed a second opinion on Eve’s injuries. They might have to cancel their holiday in the South of France; they’d rented a villa for the month of August and invited different sets of friends to join them for a week each. Maybe Eve wouldn’t be well enough now. All these matters occupied his brain, but he refused to let himself think she might not make it. She had to; that’s all there was to it.

  When he reached the hospital, a doctor told him that Eve had sustained a head injury and was in a coma. Brograve’s brain froze at the word coma, terrified of the connotations. His ears were ringing so hard he couldn’t hear anything else, then had to ask a nurse to repeat it all later.

  When he got to Eve’s bedside, he gripped the rail, watching her tiny face swathed in bandages, the tubes brutally puncturing her skin, the purple bruising already visible on exposed flesh, and he felt totally lost. Could she hear anything? There was no response when he whispered her name.

  “Do you want me to telephone someone for you?” a nurse asked. “Any relatives?”

  Brograve couldn’t bear to have Porchy there or, even worse, Almina, so he said, “No, thank you.” There was only one person he wanted to talk to and she was lying in front of him, deeply unconscious.

  “What happened, Eve?” he whispered, but there was no reply. It was only when two policemen came to the ward to check on her that he learned abo
ut the chain of events that had led to the collision.

  One of them was Scottish, a tall man with sandy hair; the other was lean and dark with shaggy eyebrows. They spoke to him respectfully, choosing their words with care, helmets on their laps, a little nervous perhaps. They knew he was a government minister.

  Brograve looked from one to the other. Though they were trying their best, he knew they didn’t begin to understand. This wasn’t just another traffic accident, just another victim. This was Eve! His Eve! He wanted to shake them to get the urgency across. But instead he sat, and nodded, and listened quietly, wondering if they could feel his desperation, wondering if they cared.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  London, July 1, 1935

  Eve visited Howard Carter, in a flat he had bought around the corner from the Albert Hall. Howard still dressed just as her father used to, in a three-piece suit and bow tie, but he was stooped and needed a walking stick to get around now. He looked ghastly, she thought, as they sat chatting; his skin was gray, the whites of his eyes pale yellow, and his cheeks hollow.

  “I’ve been having X-ray treatments for a problem with my glands,” he said. “Jolly unpleasant. Can’t say I recommend it.” He touched his stomach lightly and kept his hand there, as if to hold back queasiness.

  “It will be worth it in the end, I dare say,” Eve replied, wondering if he had cancer. Since childhood she’d always spoken her mind with Howard, and he with her, but it seemed rude to mention the word cancer if he didn’t volunteer it. “Are you happy with your doctors? More to the point, is Mama happy?”

  Although Almina never had formal training in medicine, she considered herself more expert than the vast majority of doctors.

  “She’s arranged the best of care and given me a strict diet,” he said. “I am, of course, following it to the letter.” They exchanged complicit smiles.

  “How are the Egyptians? Still giving you grief?” Eve asked. There had been a long history of grievances on Howard’s side and on theirs, but on the whole she hoped the authorities appreciated what an astounding job he had done in preserving the tomb. He’d got the world’s top experts involved, and had left a record that was the most thorough of any archaeological dig in history.

  “They’ll always find something to complain about.” He sniffed. “Do you remember that funny smell when we broke into the burial chamber?”

  “I certainly do,” she said. “It was horrid.”

  “They tell me that staff working with the objects from the burial chamber complain of headaches and giddiness. One man has an asthma attack if he goes near them. And it reminded me that I used to feel very odd if I worked in there for long . . .”

  “I did too,” Eve interrupted. “I remember feeling dizzy the night we first broke in.”

  Howard closed his eyes for a second, as if waiting for a spasm of pain to pass. “I couldn’t work out what was causing the smell,” he said, “But then I wondered if it might have been the unguent in that container you took?”

  Straightaway, Eve knew he was right. She shuddered. “I never liked that smell. I keep the container hidden away in the attic because otherwise the scent seeps out and impregnates my clothes.”

  “I’m glad you keep it in the attic, my dear. I’ve come to suspect it may be some kind of poison that Maya left as a trap for tomb robbers.”

  “Poison!” She was shocked. That unguent had been on Patricia’s skin, in her hair!

  “If the robbers had managed to access the burial chamber, that’s the first item they would have stolen, because unguents were so valuable,” Howard explained. “That’s why Maya designed one that would make them ill. Perhaps it could even have proved fatal three thousand years ago. He might have called it ‘magic’ but the toxins they used then were very real.”

  Eve clutched her throat. “Do you think it could still be dangerous?”

  “Probably not.” He smiled. “But I certainly wouldn’t want to breathe it in, day in, day out. You are wise to keep it in the attic.”

  Eve was shaken, but tried to make light of it. “There was me thinking I’d taken the most valuable object that night, and instead I took the most lethal!”

  “It would be interesting to have scientists analyze it and find out what the poison is, but I’m torn because that would mean confessing our little secret.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve never regretted what we did, have you?”

  “Absolutely not. It was thrilling! I’m glad it was just us three. Well, four: you, me, Pups, and Tutankhamun.” She glanced at the clock and realized she was running late.

  He had a fond smile as he regarded her. “Where are you hurtling off to this afternoon?”

  Eve bit her lip, glancing at the clock again. “I’m hoping to get to Newmarket, where Hot Flash is running in the three-fifteen.” Howard looked blank so she reminded him. “You know, our filly. She took the St. Leger last year, and has a feel for speed.”

  “Like her owner,” Howard said. “I’ve never known you to sit still for long, not since you were a nipper of—what were you, seven when I met you?”

  “Six. You came to Highclere with some bits and pieces for Pups’s collection and I bored you to death with the entire extent of my knowledge of Ancient Egypt. I’m cringing at the memory.”

  “You have never bored me, Eve. You never will. Now go—go and see your horse and come back to visit me soon.”

  His niece, Phyllis, came into the hall to bid Eve goodbye.

  “Is he going to be alright?” Eve asked. “Is there anything I can do?” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they needed money, but she stopped herself. Howard had done well over the years from buying and selling Egyptian artifacts, and from his lecture tours and books. He must be comfortable.

  “Don’t worry,” Phyllis said. “We’re fine. I’d tell you if we weren’t.”

  Not fine at all, Eve thought, as she left the London suburbs behind and headed into the countryside. He was only sixty-one and should have been in better health. Poor Howard!

  She hoped the press didn’t get wind of his illness or they’d claim it was the curse of Tutankhamun. Every chance they got, they wheeled out the old trope. Howard had calculated that ten years after the official opening of the tomb, only six of the twenty-six present had died, which wasn’t bad odds considering the average age of the guests was probably around sixty.

  She took the Great Cambridge Road. As it crossed the River Lea, sun glinted off the water and the sky was a bright cloudless blue, making it feel like the South of France rather than England. She tried to shake off her gloom and focus on their trip to Montpellier in three weeks’ time. She couldn’t wait. Still, a kernel of worry nagged at her.

  It was horrid to think of an Ancient Egyptian poison rotting away in her attic. Sometimes she wished Tutankhamun’s tomb had never been found, but had been left undisturbed beneath the rock and sand of the Egyptian desert.

  * * *

  The clock on the dashboard read twenty to three. Time was tight but Eve could still make it to the starting gate if she kept up her present speed. Just as that thought crossed her mind, a tractor turned out of a field into the road in front. No, she groaned. She beeped her horn, but there was nowhere for the driver to pull over because there were dry-stone walls lining the fields on either side. As luck would have it, this was the only twisty stretch in an otherwise ruler-straight road that dated back to the Romans. Eve pulled the car’s nose out in an attempt to pass, but another car was hurtling toward her so she drew back again.

  She tried several times to pass the tractor but each time had to abandon the attempt. It was too risky. A queue of cars built up behind her and she hoped the tractor driver felt guilty at least. Some of the other drivers beeped their horns, but it did nothing but raise their blood pressure, Eve thought. It looked as though she was going to miss the race after all. Too bad.

  Straight after a tight bend, a clear stretch beckoned: her chance at last. She accelerated into the other side of the road.
The car directly behind her also pulled out. And then, like a mirage, a country bus turned out of a lane up ahead that had been hidden among trees. It was heading straight for her.

  Adrenaline kicked in. Eve pressed her accelerator to the floor, taking the Austin up to its top speed, but quickly realized she wouldn’t get past the tractor in time to avoid crashing headlong into the bus. She couldn’t brake and pull back because the car behind was hemming her in. There was a field to the right but a dry-stone wall stood in the way. A million thoughts flooded her brain in split seconds as she tried to think how to save herself. Patricia! she screamed silently. Brograve!

  Just before the bus hit, she spun the steering wheel hard right toward the wall and braced herself. Metal exploded on metal and glass shattered on her passenger side, the impact throwing her hard against the driver’s door. She was still conscious when the car filled with a musky fragrance that caught the back of her throat. It was a scent she knew from long ago, the scent of Tutankhamun’s tomb. An image flashed into her mind of the boy king’s striped funeral mask, with the uraeus on top, its cobra head poised to strike.

  It got me, she thought with surprise, just before there was a second explosion as the car behind smashed into her, followed by silence.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  London, July 1973

  Brograve tried to count how many strokes Eve had suffered in the thirty-eight years that had passed since her car accident. Was it four? Maybe five? Each of them had stolen something. The first took her peripheral vision, meaning she was no longer allowed to drive. The second and third had been mild but they still took chunks of memory, and left her fatigued for a long time afterward; she had never regained the fizzling energy she had possessed in her twenties. The fourth, the previous year, had taken months for her to bounce back from, and had affected her mobility, her balance, and the strength in her right hand, as well as sucking up more swathes of memory. But this latest one was different, he soon came to realize. It was as if a bomb had gone off in her head, laying waste to her intelligence and leaving her brain full of craters, like no-man’s-land.