‘And so, I have ridden a camel and seen the fallen obelisk and dear God! but I am so afraid. When I returned to my cabin yesterday evening the lock to my dressing case had been forced and the bottle was gone. The Forresters were furious and Roger distraught. The boat’s crew have been cross-questioned – even Hassan. Then I saw him. The tall man with the white robe. He was here in my cabin, not six feet from me and he held the bottle in his hand. And he had the strangest eyes, like quick silver, without pupils. I screamed and screamed and the reis came and then Hassan and then Sir John and they found the bottle lying under my bed. They think it was a river pirate and are giving thanks for my safety. He would have had a knife, they say, and they think he had returned for what poor jewellery I have brought with me. But if so, why did he not take it before? What I could not tell them was that I reached out to ward him off and my hand passed through him as though he were mist.’
Dressed in a pair of white cotton jeans and a navy shirt, Anna let herself out of the lounge door and climbed up onto the top deck. The river was silent but it was growing slowly less dark. Leaning on the rail she put her head in her hands. Near her the flowerpot with the bottle nestled between the roots of the plants was just a darker shadow amongst the other shadows. The cool air was soothing to her face and she found herself relaxing slowly, distancing herself from the horror of Louisa’s last description. She could just see the opposite bank now and high up on the hillside the silhouette of what looked like a little temple. Across the water a muezzin began to call the faithful to prayer, the dawn cry echoing in the silence.
‘So, can’t you sleep either?’ She spun round in shock to see Toby standing near her.
‘I didn’t hear you coming!’
‘I’m sorry. My cabin was very hot. I thought I’d get up and watch the sunrise.’ He came over and leant on the rail next to her. ‘It’s so beautiful here.’ His voice was dreamy, softened by the silence around them. ‘Look!’ He pointed out across the water. Three egrets were flying towards them, white shadows above the layer of mist. They watched in silence until the birds had disappeared.
‘Did you hear about the snake last night?’ She glanced at him. His expression was rapt. At her words however he snapped out of whatever reverie he had been in and turned towards her.
‘Did you say a snake?’
‘In Charley’s cabin. It was hiding in a drawer.’
‘Dear God! How on earth did it get there?’
She shrugged. Magic. Ancient curses. The spell of the djinn. Not suggestions she could make to this man, certainly. ‘Omar thinks it must have crept on board somehow. It turns out that Ibrahim who waits on us at table is actually a snake charmer! He was completely sure the snake had gone so we all went back to bed.’
‘Except that you couldn’t sleep.’
She shrugged ruefully. ‘No, I couldn’t sleep.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ He continued looking out across the river in a silence which was somehow extremely companionable. They could see the ripples on the water now, close to the boat and in the distance the silhouettes of the palms were beginning to emerge against the hillside.
‘I used to love snakes when I was a child. I had a grass snake called Sam,’ Toby said suddenly. He gave a half-smile. ‘Not quite in the same league, I suspect, as an Egyptian snake, but he could still make my great-aunts scream.’ There was another long silence. Anna glanced at him sideways. He seemed to have returned to his deep reverie as slowly it grew lighter. ‘It won’t be long before the sun disc appears.’ He turned and leant on the rail to face east. ‘And of course the moment it does life will return to the land.’ He changed the subject adroitly. ‘We’re going to be moved up to a mooring alongside one of the big pleasure cruisers later and then we’ve got a busy three days here.’ He yawned and straightened up. ‘There it is. The sun.’
Almost on cue they heard the pad of feet and two of the crew appeared. They were taking in the lines to the bank as the engines began to throb gently somewhere down inside the heart of the boat. Toby glanced at his watch. He gave her a conspiratorial grin. ‘Well. If I recall correctly they start breakfast early today and everyone should be getting up by now. By the time we’ve eaten we’ll be in place and ready to go on our adventures. Do you want to come down with me?’
To her own surprise she agreed with alacrity. For once he was relaxed, unchallenging and that sudden sense of companionship had lingered.
Anna did not have the chance to talk to Serena again until they were on their way to see, in their turn, the unfinished obelisk that Louisa had dismissed in two short lines. They sat side by side at the back of the tour bus – no camels for them – as it bucketed over the potholed streets of Aswan.
Charley and Andy, she noticed, were sitting several rows apart. Toby, having collected his sketchbook and camera, had two seats to himself immediately in front of them.
‘Louisa saw him again. The man in white. In her cabin! Exactly as you described in your trance,’ she said as soon as the bus pulled away from the quay. ‘And he tried to take the bottle. I read the passage last night. She had met someone called Lord Carstairs who wanted to buy it off her –’
‘Roger Carstairs?’ Serena glanced at her. ‘But he’s famous, or I should say infamous. He was an antiquarian, but also a rather Aleister Crowley type figure. He dabbled in black magic and things.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Obviously Louisa didn’t give it to him?’
‘No, she was adamant.’
‘But he saw something in it.’
‘Oh yes. He saw something, although it might have been the Arabic inscription which intrigued him. I’ll read some more this afternoon.’
‘Did you give the scent bottle to Omar to lock away?’
Anna shook her head. ‘There were only a few minutes after breakfast and I didn’t have time. And there were too many people about.’ When she had been there on her own, in the dark, before Toby appeared the last thing she had wanted to do was dig up the bottle. She shivered. ‘I reckoned it would be safe where it is. I am sure no one will touch the flowers.’ She was silent for a moment. It would have been nearer the truth to say that she hadn’t wanted to touch it.
Leaving the bus, they trooped dutifully across the quarry and climbed the path to stand looking down at the great obelisk as it lay where it had been first conceived in the heart of the pharaohs’ quarry more than 3000 years before. Almost completed, it lay like a vast fallen warrior, still half embedded in the living granite, almost free when a flaw had been found in it which caused it to be abandoned. Anna brought out her camera, strangely moved by the sight.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it.’ Toby was suddenly beside them. He had his small sketchbook in his hand and was busy transferring the image of the obelisk onto the page with bold sure strokes of his pencil. He glanced at her. ‘You can feel the anguish, can’t you? The utter frustration they must have felt when they realised they had to give up on it.’
She nodded. ‘So nearly finished. So perfect.’ She refocused the camera. ‘The sun is too high. There aren’t enough shadows for the contrast which would show its imperfections.’
‘Did Louisa come here?’ He was concentrating on the paper. ‘It is hard to convey the scale of these things. Even if I transfer it to a large canvas and put in people to show how large everything is, it will be hard. You know this is thought to be one of the largest obelisks ever carved? It’s about forty-two metres in length. Imagine that standing upright. A pointer to the heavens.’ He looked up, held up his pencil for a moment then glanced back at her. ‘Did she?’
‘Did she what?’ She tucked her camera back into her shoulder bag.
‘Did she come here? Louisa. Did she paint the obelisk?’
Anna shook her head. ‘She came here, but she didn’t write much about it in her diary, other than that she came on a camel. She was distracted, I think. She came with friends – or rather acquaintances – whom she doesn’t appear to have cared for much. One of them was a man called Lord Carstairs.�
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She was intrigued to know what his reaction to the name would be, if indeed he had heard of Carstairs at all. It appeared that he had. He gave a low whistle. ‘I remember my grandmother once telling me something about him when I was a kid. Grandfather heard her and was furious; he said she mustn’t talk about him. I didn’t understand why, then. But then his grandfather was a vicar, so I suppose that explains it. How on earth did she get to know an evil bastard like that?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t think she did. They moored near his boat here in Aswan and he came to visit.’ She didn’t mention the scent bottle.
Squinting into the sun she realised suddenly that Andy was heading towards them. Behind him Charley and the Booths were standing with a whole group of their fellow passengers staring down at the blinding white rectangle of the obelisk as it lay below them at the foot of the quarry wall.
Andy arrived with a rattle of stones on the path near them. He glanced at Toby’s sketch. ‘Not bad.’ The tone of his voice implied that he had reservations.
Toby ignored him. He flipped over the page and began a second drawing. His subject this time was an aged Egyptian man standing near them, arms folded, impassive as he gazed out across the city, the planes of his cheeks and nose as rugged as the hewn stone around them.
Anna glanced from Andy to Toby and back. The tension between them was palpable. She frowned. Whatever it was between these men she didn’t want it spoiling her day. Turning she began to make her way hastily towards the other group, digging once more in her bag for her camera.
It proved impossible to speak to Serena again that morning. Even on the bus she found herself next to Ben – loquacious, enthusiastic and very large in the narrow seat next to her. Their return to the boat with the usual warm drink to cool them down and the hot towels for the dust was followed almost immediately by lunch and the news that they were going to have the chance to sail that afternoon in a felucca to Kitchener’s Island – the Island of Plants.
Andy, Charley and the Booths were aboard the first felucca. She watched with the second group as its sail filled and it drew away from them, then it was their turn to climb down into their boat where she found herself sitting once more next to Toby. He grinned at her briefly, but seemed disinclined to talk as he squinted up at the tall graceful parabola of the off-white sail against the intense blue of the sky. As they disembarked on the island to explore the botanical gardens, it was Toby who handed her ashore and Toby who fended off the swarming children begging for baksheesh with a handful of cheap biros which he produced from his bag.
As she gazed round she couldn’t restrain her cry of delight. ‘It’s so beautiful! I hadn’t realised how much I had been missing gardens and greenery.’ It was as heavenly as Louisa had described on her visit to nearby Elephantine Island, and as overwhelming. Ahead stretched a network of paths, winding between trees and shrubs. Everywhere there were flowers and birds. This must have been how Louisa felt when she had landed with Hassan. She reached automatically for her camera. ‘I can’t take all this in, in just a couple of hours. How can they have scheduled such a short visit here!’
Toby shrugged. He was still beside her though the others had moved on. ‘That applies to every site we visit, every sight we see!’ He stared round thoughtfully. ‘I am going to come back to Egypt on my own next time. Spend several months here.’ He had brought a brand new sketchbook, she noticed, and she wondered how many he had used up already.
‘Aren’t you tempted to use your camera at all?’ she asked suddenly. She had glimpsed one in his bag.
He grimaced. ‘I use one. I have to. When there isn’t time to sketch. But I have had time today. My notes mean more to me than celluloid.’ He allowed her to see his page for a moment and she saw that already it was covered in small drawings, each one surrounded by notes about colour and light. ‘If I have problems when we get back to England I’ll get you to show me your photos.’ He whisked at the page with a grubby putty rubber and sketched on at lightning speed. A tree, a peacock, a blend of spiky palms, a small enquiring semi-feral cat, one after another they flew from his pencil.
The assumption that they might see each other again once they returned to England filled her suddenly with strangely mixed emotions. She considered them thoughtfully. Half of her was indignant that he should presume, if only in jest, that they might remain friends; the other half was perhaps a little pleased.
‘Are you a good photographer?’ His question was tossed over his shoulder as he drew.
She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. My husband always called it my little hobby.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Just because your husband patronised your photography doesn’t mean it was no good.’
She frowned. ‘No. No, it is good.’ Unconsciously she had braced her shoulders. ‘I’ve exhibited some of my work. I’ve won prizes.’
Toby stopped, looking at her with renewed interest. ‘Then you’re good. And yet your ex-husband’s view of you still matters to you?’ He shook his head. ‘You must have faith in yourself, Anna. It seems to me that you’ve been suppressed for too long!’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Stop hiding your camera. You keep putting it away, have you noticed? Flaunt it. You’re a professional. Be proud of it.’ He paused, then he shrugged. ‘Sorry. End of lecture. It’s none of my business.’ Already he was drawing again. This time it was an old man, sweeping the path ahead of them, capturing with a few sure strokes the rhythm of the body, the dignity of age, the refusal to bow to the stiffening of the bones.
Slowly they walked on, together now by some unspoken symbiosis, drifting along the path to where, in front of them, a vista of the River Nile opened out, framed by a dead tree on the shore at the edge of a narrow sandy beach, very like the one Louisa had described. A group of egrets stood on the bare white branches, asleep in the sun.
She glanced round and realised that they were alone. The others had moved off down the main path and disappeared deep into the gardens. Toby sketched on, oblivious to anything except the rapid details he was conveying to the page he held braced against his forearm.
She squinted through the viewfinder of her camera at the river. Out on the water two feluccas had been tied together midstream, their sails lowered, and the sound of Nubian drums and singing drifted towards them across the water.
‘Earlier, you said you’d heard of Lord Carstairs,’ she said as she dug for a new roll of film in the bottom of her bag. ‘What was so evil about him?’
He gave a tight smile. ‘Having been forbidden to speak his name at home I naturally looked him up as soon as I could when I got to a library. It must have been in the 1870s, he was chased out of England for what would nowadays be called Satanic practices. I think they involved little boys.’ He snapped the point of his pencil and cursed. ‘He ran some kind of secret society in London – a bit like the Hell Fire Club. I don’t know where he ended his days. I suspect North Africa or the Middle East somewhere would have suited him rather well.’
‘I wonder if Louisa realised.’
He shook his head. ‘When was she out here? Late sixties, wasn’t it? I don’t think the scandal had broken then. I don’t know much about him, to be honest, but I can imagine he would have loved Egypt with all the myth and legend and curses and Arabian Nights’ stuff.’ He produced a penknife and began to whittle at the pencil point. ‘Did she only see him the once?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I’m managing to read a bit of the diary each evening. Just enough to keep up with where we are on the tour. Remembering, of course,’ she added with a smile, ‘to keep it away from the sun and other sticky hazards!’
For a moment she didn’t think he was going to rise to the remark, but snapping the penknife shut and pushing it back into his hip pocket he gave her a quick, mischievous glance. ‘That still rankles, does it?’
‘A bit.’ She folded her arms.
‘True though.’
She shrugged. ‘As it happens, yes.’
‘And am I going to be allowed to see it
? If I don’t touch it? I’ll stand well back and let you turn the pages.’
‘With my own fair, clean unsticky hands! Yes, I’m sure I could allow you to see it on those terms.’
For a moment their eyes met. She looked away first.
His pencil resumed its lightning stokes, conveying the scene before him onto the page. Mesmerised by the movement of his hands she saw him scribble the words: crimson hibiscus … green: aqua, malachite, emerald, grass … blinding light off water/sand … contrast deep shadow/but dry rustle …
‘You quite fancy that chap Andy, don’t you?’ A quick look at her under his sandy eyelashes and he was drawing again.
‘I don’t think that is any of your business.’
‘He seems to have dumped Charley, and she is making it everyone’s business. Her complaints on the bus about you were not kind.’
‘The fact that he dumped her has nothing to do with me!’ Anna tightened her lips crossly. ‘It was much more to do with the fact that she was being a complete pain.’
‘So, you don’t like him.’
‘I didn’t say that. But I am here on holiday. I want to relax. To enjoy myself. To see Egypt. And I don’t want any complications.’ Stepping back onto the path she left him abruptly, ducking back between the bushes.
To her surprise he followed her. ‘I’m sorry. It was none of my business.’ He shut his sketchbook and tucked it into his bag.
‘I think it’s time we found the others.’ She didn’t glance back at him. The mood was spoilt.
It was early evening before she had the chance to talk to Serena again. They had taken the last two sunloungers on the top deck. The return from Kitchener’s Island found the boat quiet again after a further search for the snake which had apparently taken up most of the afternoon. Serena and Anna had said nothing. What was there to say? That the snake was magic? That perhaps it hadn’t existed at all? If anyone needed to say something it would surely have been Ibrahim. They collected books and writing materials and went outside to relax after their exhilarating sail back. The plants had been watered, Anna noticed. The decking around each pot glistened in the evening sun; in only a short while the wood would be dry.
Whispers in the Sand Page 17
