The Shape of Sand (29 page)

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Authors: Marjorie Eccles

Tags: #Mystery, #Historical

BOOK: The Shape of Sand
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Daisy exclaimed, “Egypt? You mean he's going back home?”
“Not permanently, not yet, anyway.”
A car drew up behind Daisy's in the lane. There sounded footsteps now on the path outside, voices. With relief, Harriet went to open the door and let the young folk in.
Nina had been a real sport, Tom considered, as ready as he was to ignore all the negative sides of what Harriet – no chicken-heart, herself – clearly regarded as a disaster-prone undertaking. Nina, however, had agreed on the instant. “Why not?”
But clothes! No time to buy something suitable to the climate, no clothing coupons left, anyway. Panic stations.
“Clothes? Just take your ordinary things,” he'd advised carelessly. “It's October, it won't be blazing hot. Anyway, we'd better travel in uniform – if you still have yours?”
Yes, she had, shoved to the back of the wardrobe where she'd thankfully bundled it on her demob. They'd picked it up from her bed-sit on that flying visit the day before. You could always travel anonymously in uniform, he'd told her with conviction, no questions asked if you looked as though you'd every right to be there. Wearing the now unfamiliar tunic and skirt made her feel as though she were in disguise, she said; she felt stealthy, like a female Richard Hannay in a John Buchan novel, and she'd had to resist the inclination to look over her shoulder every five minutes. Not to worry, said Tom - and his confidence was justified. Their arrival on board the York at RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, along with assorted civilians and a few army officers, was nonchalantly received by the breezy pilot, who was so used to ferrying odd bods around all over the place that he took it for granted plane-hopping was what everyone would do if they got the chance. Forces personnel, people on unspecified, official business, civvies scrounging lifts – as long as he didn't have to know the details, he took it as much in his stride as Tom had when faced with the bevy of new aunts he hadn't known he possessed.
 
Neither the journey nor the overnight stay at the RAF base at Luqa in Malta had been precisely comfortable, and Nina had arrived in Fayed the next day feeling airsick and jaded after
the five hour flight from Malta, the drone of the aircraft's engines still in her ears, to find that Tom's estimation of what was boiling hot and hers didn't coincide. After a hitched lift into Ismailia, followed by a hot and sticky train journey into Cairo, encased in thick airforce blue serge, she wanted nothing more than a cool bath or shower.
Tom seemed to feel the need to apologise for a lack of comfort in the Heliopolis flat, but if there had been nothing else but sufficient water and a bed, Nina would have been satisfied. In fact it was a perfectly adequate second-floor apartment in a new block in what had once been a city created for the worship of the Sun-god, and was now a modern suburb of Cairo. It wasn't luxurious but it was spacious, sparely furnished for coolness in the heat of the summer. Faded, silky rugs on marble floors, where the insidious dust gritted under your feet and lay in a light film over everything. Books and artefacts untidily occupying every flat surface, making up for the scarcity of ornament. Clearly, it was the home of two men without female influence, who were rarely there, its only distinction being several paintings on the walls which it was impossible to ignore. “Your mother's?”
Tom nodded. “Pretty good, aren't they?”
“I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how beautiful they are, after seeing what was left of those frescoes at Charnley,” Nina replied, instantly drawn to them.
But these were gentle, exquisite watercolours, as far removed from what it had been possible to see of the decorations in the Jessamy rooms – or for that matter from the brilliant tomb paintings of Ancient Egypt – as it was possible to imagine. Modern paintings in soft muted tones that sought to capture the essence of this sun-baked land: the pale browns, beiges and salmon pinks of the sand and rocks, the soft turquoise and teal colours of sky and water. Reflections in the Nile, the sharp triangular sail of a felucca; an irrigated field, and white egrets following a solitary, Biblically-attired figure leading a buffalo and a plough; a sickle moon in a pale green evening sky; the glittering white domes of a mosque contrasting with the colourful, vibrant crowds in the narrow streets below. Tall stands of feathery palms at a watering place in the
desert. The Pyramids at Giza rising from the arid desert sand; a group of racing camels.
Tom's voice broke into her absorption. “Would you like some tea? There's bound to be some, somewhere.”
Still awash with the Thermos-tea doled out at regular intervals on the aircraft, full of the last packed meal, she declined the offer in favour of taking a shower, while Tom telephoned Iskander, who was expecting to hear from him. He'd previously made a brief telephone call from England, warning Iskander of their arrival – a difficult connection which Tom had had to book and wait hours for, and the line had been terrible. In the end he'd deemed it better to wait until now to make what was bound to be a complicated explanation of the real reason for this visit. The long conversation, conducted in Arabic, was still continuing when Nina, in a cotton wrap, emerged from the bathroom.
She wandered out on to the balcony until the call ended, leaning on the railing, sharing it with a small bright green lizard, lying motionless in the sun. A brilliant, rampant bougainvillaea twining itself around the rails of the balcony which looked out over the distant prospect of Cairo, several miles away, was luxuriant enough to provide shade as she gazed out over the city's minarets, spiking the sky through the haze. Traffic passed unceasingly below on the road into Cairo - modern cars and bell-ringing bicycles dodging the occasional camel or fodder-laden donkey. The air rising from below was thick with perfumes and the smell of dust and petrol fumes. England seemed very far away. As Tom came out to join her, she moved and the lizard suddenly darted away and disappeared, following its own compulsions.
“Sorry that took so long. I thought I ought to put the old boy in the picture as to how things are before we meet. He swears he knew nothing of what happened after he left Charnley the morning after the party, until Marcus told him about it when he came out here with my mother.”
But, thought Nina, if Iskander had anything on his conscience, that would be the line he would take, wouldn't he?
“He seemed quite upset about Beatrice, and he wants us to meet to talk about it. He insists on buying us dinner tonight in
the old town. I know the place, and the food will be good. Put your best bib and tucker on.”
“What do you suggest I wear?” Every woman's first thought on being invited to any social occasion, and Nina was no exception. “My nice uniform or that silk frock of Harriet's she made me bring despite your advice not to bother about clothes?”
“Is that what I said?” He grinned. “If I did, it must have been because I knew you'd take no notice. Don't women always pack everything but the kitchen sink, regardless? Isn't that why your bag was so heavy?”
“I didn't notice you staggering under it.”
A couple of cotton dresses, a light suit and Harriet's frock could hardly be regarded as excess baggage, thought Nina, as she made up her face, brushed her dark hair till it shone and put on Harriet's chestnut silk. Fashions hadn't moved forward much since the war, and it didn't feel dated, with its draped neckline and a sleek fit over the hips before falling into a gentle flare. And oh, what luxury, to feel silk against your skin – the chance to wear such borrowed finery! Especially if it brought to a man's face the sort of look that Tom gave her as she came out on to the balcony where he was waiting for her.
But all he said was, “Come and watch this.”
They leaned on the balcony rail, with the tops of the feathery palms waving below, watching an ineffable, glorious sunset of fiery oranges and rose-gold. He moved nearer and put his arm around her shoulders while the black velvet night dropped with startling rapidity. And there they stayed under the brilliance of the stars until it was time to leave, talking quietly. The bougainvillaea wreathing around them had lost its vividness but the starry blossoms of a creeper glowed white in the dusk. There was a jasmine somewhere whose scent was heavy on the night air. And electricity flashing between them where his hand rested on her flesh.
He said, “My father would love to meet you, I know. But that's for another time, hmm? He's working up-country at the moment. Pity he isn't here now.”
But somehow she didn't think he really meant that.
Harriet had found Millie by the simple expedient of looking in the telephone directory. Not dead, after all then, but living in south London. She made a brief call, and arranged a visit for the next afternoon.
A bus took her to the nearest point, after which she found herself walking through ruined, scruffy streets of red brick houses and collapsed buildings, where children, rowdy as packs of stray mongrels, kicked balls and jumped to skipping ropes, and chalked hopscotch squares on the pavements. Buddleia and willow herb and bright yellow ragwort clung to unlikely places on staircases open to the street, on unsupported bedroom floors, sprang from rubble-filled basements. But quite suddenly, rounding the corner, Harriet was immediately into a quieter, more prosperous area, the way it happened in this city, working class streets cheek-by-jowl with those of higher pretensions – no less scarred, but not as dilapidated, and free of the ragamuffin hordes.
And here was where Millie now lived, a short, peaceful, cul-de-sac, miraculously untouched by bomb damage, as if invading aircraft might have been intimidated by its patrician elegance, the only evidence of war being the years of neglect to peeling paint and greying stucco. But the house Harriet sought at least had shining windows, scrubbed steps and a brightly polished bell push with several cards next to it. So, flats now. Millie, unlike Vita, didn't live in solitary splendour in this house. She pressed the bell next to the name Kaplan, Flat 1, and presently the door was opened, not by Millie herself, but by an elderly woman whose face was vaguely familiar. The hallway had a pre-war look and smell. Furniture polish, fresh flowers, old fashioned furniture. The woman nodded to Harriet, saying shortly, “Mrs Kaplan's expecting you.” She stood back and indicated an inner door on the right, adding, “She's in the drawing room,” at the same moment that Harriet placed her. It was Clara Hallam, her mother's maid. Older by nearly forty years, but not looking much different, hair now iron grey, upright and rigid as a broomstick, still flat as a washboard. Mouth drawn into a familiar purse of disapproval. I am not welcome, thought Harriet. The same aura of self-righteousness hung around the woman as it always had.
They looked at one another, unsmiling. “How are you?” said Harriet at last, recovering from the shock. “I didn't expect to see you here.” The last person, actually.
“Didn't she tell you when you rang? I've been Mrs Kaplan's housekeeper for thirty-seven years.”
Since she had ceased to be … since that awful day … since – then. A disconcerting beginning to a meeting Harriet was already half wishing she hadn't instigated.
She collected herself and stepped forward. The door was held open for her to pass through and closed after her, without a word of announcement. But then Millie, if this small person sitting by the fire was Millie, must have heard the exchange in the hall.
“I somehow expected you might come, even before you rang – one of you, at least, and I thought it would be you, Harriet. Excuse me for not getting up.” A small claw-like hand indicated a stick leaning against her chair and was then held out, weighed down with rather grey diamonds. For some reason Harriet remembered that hand better than she remembered the face that went with it. For the woman in the chair seemed no more than middle-aged. And Millie had to be well over eighty.
“Sit over there where I can see you. That's right. Oh yes, I always knew you'd become handsome, Harriet. Good bones, one can always tell. You're wearing well — why have you never married? No, I won't ask. That seems to matter nothing these days.” It was Millie, irreverent as ever.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mrs Kaplan.”
The gamine look that must have been so appealing when she was very young now gave her the appearance of a wise little monkey. And yet to Harriet, still disorientated after having the door opened to her by Clara Hallam, it seemed that Millie looked more attractive than she had in her middle years. Then she smiled, and when she did, the marks of a face-lift showed, one that had possibly taken place some time ago and at closer range could be seen to be in need of repair; there were all the tell-tale signs, the stretched skin at her temples, the lifted wattles and the tiny tucks beside her mouth. She had, however, wisely forsaken the heavy, rather desperate make-up of that
time and was painted expertly and with care. Her silvery hair was drawn simply back. She was dressed severely in a black Chanel suit, and though she seemed to have shrunk, her upright posture and her perfectly groomed appearance gave her stature. Millie Kaplan, despite her rather racy past, had also worn well.
Harriet had been waved to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth, where a coal fire burned brightly. The room might have been lifted from her childhood memories of houses exactly like this. A cut-glass bowl of roses, rather too much beeswaxed furniture, tea set out on a lace edged cloth, a silver teapot. There was bread and butter (not marge), scones, real strawberry jam with no need of marrow to eke out the fruit, and a Fuller's walnut cake. Harriet was reminded that Millie Kaplan was very rich.

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