Desiring Cairo Read online

  Of course it wasn’t my fault that the car came up inside us on the turn. But then I didn’t see it. I didn’t avoid it. I couldn’t accelerate away, escape from the bend I was committed to. I wasn’t skilful enough. In the same circumstances I would never expect somebody else to have been able to. But it wasn’t somebody else, it was me. I never told Mum and Dad that I blamed myself for my lack of skill. The fact is I was – would be still, if I still rode – a perfectly skilful rider, experienced, calm, patient, swift to react, observant at all times. But not skilful enough.

  Of course it was in their interests for me not to be to blame. If I had been they would have lost two daughters. Unless of course they would have been able to forgive me.

  Anyway, easier for them to assume there had never been a fault, than to face it and forgive it. And do I blame them for that? No.

  The other thing, of course, is Janie’s career. About which they know nothing and will know nothing. All our lives our parents protect us and then suddenly one day we’re protecting them.

  Janie, Janie, Janie. Janie’s money, Janie’s death, Janie’s career. Not to mention Janie’s memory, and all that Janie was to me before … well exactly, before when? Before she died? Before I discovered she was a lying treacherous whore, who prostituted my very identity? We have to go back further … but I don’t know how far back, because I don’t know when it all started, and damn it I can’t ask her. Not for dates, not for clarification, for denial, for explanation, for apology. How can I get her off my back when she’s not here?

  *

  I was woken on Friday by the call to prayer, which didn’t half take me back.

  I was dreaming that I was in Cairo, a clear, intense dream of something absolutely ordinary, of its time, but its time was ten years – no, nine years ago. I was dreaming of going home after work, as I did five or six nights a week. Heading home to Château Champoleon through the dusty, colourless dawn after a night dancing on the Nile boats or in the clubs. In the back of a cab, rhythms sweeping through my blood, my flesh warm and my muscles soft and my brain transcendent from hours of dancing. I could have danced all night – hell, I did dance all night. Every night.

  In my dream I had been at the Niagara, which was run in those days by a lady of uncertain age who modelled herself on late-nineteenth-century French lesbians, with claret-coloured velvet and frogging and a cigarette holder. She liked me because I was English. ‘I most like the English,’ she would say. ‘Most of all like.’ ‘Don’t mock me,’ I’d reply. ‘I’ve read Naguib Mahfouz. I know you hate me.’ ‘Who’s that?’ she would say, even though he was terribly famous and soon to win the Nobel prize for literature and have a café named after himself in Khan el-Khalili. ‘Oh, just some tuppenny ha’penny little novelist,’ I’d say, and she’d say ‘Novelist? What is?’ and then she’d snort, and say, ‘Une danseuse doit être illiterée.’

  In my dream I was walking to my building and thinking about her and revelling in the near-emptiness of the streets. Only at this time of night are the streets finally empty, empty of all but the pattering footsteps of the jackals that come in from the desert in the heart of the night to eat the garbage, and leave empty plastic bags whirling like tumbleweed down Champoleon Street. For a moment, at 4.53 or thereabouts, the streets are empty, but even as you think it, there are people mysteriously starting to do their mysterious jobs in holes and alleyways. The first fuul stand is starting to set up, ready to sell breakfast. A degree of rattling can be heard behind the closed doors of the cafés. Dogs are barking.

  I dreamed I stopped off up on the roof of the Odeon for a soothing bowl of omali before bed. I dreamed of the terracotta bowl, the baked sultanas and nuts and milk, the softened, pudding-baked bread, the hot sweet smell of it, the best of the new day before I collapse at the end of the old one. Five a.m., and the pre-dawn muezzin calls the fajr: ‘It is better to pray than to sleep,’ and me thinking, as you do at five a.m., ‘It is better to sleep than to do anything else in the world.’ I dreamed I passed Mohammed, the bauwab, fast asleep on the stone bench at the foot of the monumental beige granite staircase, by Cecil B DeMille out of Ramses the Great. Walked up so as not to rouse the whole Château with the clanking and wheezing of the ancient lift. I woke up just as, in my dream, I fell into bed. Curiously, the muezzin continued.

  It was Hakim, celebrating Friday by teaching Lily the call to prayer in the kitchen. She had Allah u Akbar perfectly, and a bit more, but then he sang her something including Bismillah, in the name of God, which made her giggle because she calls her navel her bizz. Because when she was smaller her granddad used to blow raspberries on her tummy, making a Bzzz noise. She was explaining this to Hakim. He was giggling too because bizz is the Arabic for tit, and he wasn’t sure if I knew. I felt a surge of love for both of them, for Egypt, for life, and decided to make pancakes in celebration, before I remembered that Lily now went to a school where she had to be on time.

  By the time I returned from taking her, the post had arrived. There was another letter. It said: ‘He was the best of men, he was the worst of men, but with that man to be alive was very heaven.’ Irrelevantly, the first thing I thought was what an irritating name Carton was for a romantic antihero, evoking as it does cardboard boxes of long-life apple juice, though no doubt it didn’t then. Empty cardboard boxes, actually. And Sydney Carton was not an empty cardboard box. The pitfalls that lie in wait for authors, years down the line … My next thought was that if all she wanted to do was send me semi-poetic notes and paraphrases then I didn’t necessarily mind that much. But.

  I tried to remember anything that Eddie had ever said about his wife, and realised that he had never mentioned her to me. So how did I know about her? Through Harry? Maybe, when he was warning me off Eddie, when he thought Eddie and I were about to develop into love’s young dream. Or maybe through Fergus Droyle, my crime correspondent buddy, who I’d asked about Eddie right at the beginning. I had the idea that she lived in Monaco. Well, if so she’s not there now.

  Does she mean me harm? ‘You did, and I mind.’ She might do. And she knows where I live, as they say. She could, if she wanted, come and visit. This wasn’t a pleasant idea. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I wasn’t keen. As you wouldn’t be. It seemed it might be a good idea to have a word with her. Pre-empt her. Fergus would be the logical place to start, if I wanted to track her down. Except …

  I didn’t want to ask him. I’d sworn him to secrecy and told him, finally, some of what went on with Eddie and me, and the poor man had gone mauve as his desire to use the story fought with his friendship for me and respect for my privacy. Later, after the trial, he’d written a piece about Eddie, and had rung me, but I’d refused to say anything. I didn’t want to try his loyalty any further by bringing the subject up again. Specially when Eddie was so topical, having died. Some things you should not expect a journalist to bear. It would be unkind.

  She would presumably be at the funeral. But I didn’t really want to go to the funeral. He was dead and that was that. Also I thought Harry might be there, out of courtesy as one of the men who nicked him (or as his former employee, if he was still keeping that persona going), and I was sorry that Harry had witnessed the hysteria of my immediate response to the news of his death. I seem to have a little bug that jumps out to wind Harry up. It seemed a good idea to avoid further opportunities for it. And no, I didn’t want any wild graveside scenes with a vengeful Mrs Bates.

  But I did want to locate her. If only to feel better equipped. Fergus or Harry, which would be worse?

  Hakim leaned over my shoulder.

  ‘Evangelina,’ he said. ‘May we ring my mother?’

  He’s started to say ‘may’ because Lily corrects him when he says ‘can’. Actually she’s having quite a good effect on his grammar, but it’s a little alarming for me to hear echoed back so precisely what I say to her.

  I half wanted to confide in Hakim about the letters but decided that it would be a complicated and useless exercise, so I d
esisted. One issue at a time, girl. Let’s put off the ones that matter most to me. There’s a sensible approach.

  First we rang the home number. ‘Hi, this is Sarah, you can leave a message and we’ll get back to you, or you can send a fax, after the beep.’ Relaxed, not warm not cold, middle-class, southern. She sounded nice. I held out hope, but I kept quiet about it. I didn’t want to influence Hakim.

  I hung up, and told him it was a machine, and did he want me to leave a message, or to leave one himself, or what.

  He paused for a second, then picked up the receiver and pressed last number redial (another trick he’d learnt from Lily, who uses it to ring Caitlin after I’ve been talking to Brigid). I watched his face as he heard his mother’s voice. Expressionless, it just grew softer and softer. I thought he might melt away completely, so I offered him my hand as something solid to hold. He took it and gripped it, and hung up the phone.

  ‘If she is not a good mother,’ he said, ‘I want you to be my mother. The English mother.’

  I kissed him on the forehead and narrowly stopped myself from telling him that I would do anything in the world for him.

  ‘May we ring the other number?’ he said.

  I called directory enquiries, got the number of the university, called the switchboard, got the extension, called the extension.

  ‘Hello, Sarah Tomlinson,’ said the same voice.

  I had decided to do it on a wing and a prayer. I could not have worked out a script and stuck to it. This is what came out.

  ‘Hello, Sarah, my name’s Evangeline Gower, I’m a friend of Ismail.’

  ‘Ismail?’ she said.

  ‘El Araby,’ I said.

  She was quiet. I heard voices in the background.

  ‘If this isn’t a good time I can …’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. One moment.’ She spoke at the other end, and then came on the line again. ‘What’s it about?’ she said.

  ‘Hakim and Sa’id,’ I said. I could almost hear her heart-rate change.

  ‘What about them?’ she said, her voice completely different, narrow-throated, nervous, tense.

  ‘Hakim is in London,’ I said.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, and spoke again to the voices in the background. I could hear them retreat, and a click, some shuffling, and some breathing, and then, ‘Is he with you?’

  ‘Beside me, yes.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, again, and she began to cry, very softly. Hakim was all eyes.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ he asked. ‘What?’ I held my hand up, mouthed ‘wait’.

  She carried on crying. I spoke to her: ‘Listen – do you want to ring him back? Can you take down a number? Otherwise … he wants to see you, you know. He wants to talk. Take my number, and if you don’t ring he’ll ring you tonight. OK?’

  She didn’t sound negative. I gave her the number and I thought she got it down. She was still crying. ‘I don’t want to leave you like this,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t even know who you are,’ she snapped suddenly, through the tears. ‘Who are you anyway?’

  ‘Evangeline Gower, friend of the family,’ I said.

  ‘Family,’ she said. She sighed. ‘I’ll ring in a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘Tell him … is he well?’

  ‘Very well,’ I said.

  ‘Tell him … say I’m not sorry he’s here.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘’Bye.’

  ‘’Bye.’

  I put the phone down and said, ‘She’s not sorry you’re here, she said to say so. She’ll ring back.’

  ‘Alhamdulillah,’ he said, four times, and smiled, and went to Lily’s room, where if I put my ear to the door I could hear him saying el fateha, the opening of the Qur’an.

  *

  I tried to do some work: an article about an exhibition of Orientalist paintings that was coming up in Birmingham. The exhibition wasn’t open yet and there was some doubt about which paintings were going to be in it, because of some insurance problems. Doubt hung over, among others, an extremely famous and interesting pair with all sorts of splendid and evocative anecdotes attached. One, fairly innocent, harem scene had originally been painted as a cover for the other, more erotic, work, of which it was an almost exact copy, except that the harem ladies were covered up in various cunning ways. The main houri, for example, was sitting with her legs wide because she was holding a great platter with a watermelon on it, rather than displaying herself; another was adjusting her scarf rather than her nipple. The cover lived in the same frame, on top of the naughty picture, and the owner could remove it for selected guests, after dinner, and thus preserve both his pleasures and his reputation. The two paintings had been separated over the years and were now to be reunited. Or not. I was going to have to write two articles, so that they had something to use whatever the outcome. I wrote an introduction that would do for both versions, then admitted that I was not concentrating and rang Fergus.

  ‘Fergus, Evangeline,’ I said, in my brisk talking-to-people-in-offices voice.

  ‘Evangeline darlin’,’ he said, emphasising the Irish. ‘What can I do for you?’ This made me feel bad because of not having been able to do anything for him on recent occasions, but I don’t think he did it on purpose.

  ‘Mrs Bates,’ I said. Fergus fancies himself utterly ruled by deadlines and important busyness; he appreciates you getting to the point.

  ‘Oh my God, would you get out of my hair with that,’ he said, which was not the response I’d been expecting.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve had it up to high dough with that woman,’ he said (at least that’s what I thought he said – I assumed it was something to do with bread rising; later he told me no, it’s high do, as in do re mi, as in top C, when you’re singing). ‘She’s off her flaming trolley, in fact if she and her trolley were ever intimately connected I’d have my doubts. Serious doubts. I can understand a widow woman being upset but she is the most abysmal specimen of a … why?’

  It never takes him long to get to why.

  ‘I think she’s been writing me letters.’

  ‘Does she think you killed her husband?’

  ‘Well yes she does, actually.’

  ‘Join the club, darling. We’re a flaming conspiracy, evidently. I killed him, by writing that article, which apparently affected his heart. Every policeman you ever saw killed him, by being a policeman, which was contrary to what he liked. The jury killed him, separately and together, by finding him guilty when he would have preferred not. The prison warders killed him; the prison doctors killed him, the judge killed him and chopped him up into little pieces and left him out for the birds. How did you kill him then? By being the object of his unrequited desires?’

  ‘I suppose so … God, Fergus, that’s a relief.’

  ‘Did you think it was only you? So did I, till I got to gossiping. You should get out more. You know Harry killed him too, and Ben Cooper, only no one’s told him yet that everybody else did too because they like to see him suffer. What has she done to you then? Letters? Phone calls?’

  My journalist filter went up.

  ‘Are you going to be writing about this?’

  ‘I’ll just say “a girl he admired”. Nothing to identify you. Promise.’

  ‘Oh Fergus …’

  ‘Please. For colour. There’s no sex in it so far. Please.’

  I thought for a moment. I did quite want to give him something, because he’s a friend and he’s helped me in the past. I did also want very much to keep my nose clean.

  ‘I tell you what,’ I said.

  ‘What,’ he said.

  For a second I was about to say ‘I’m not telling you’. That’s Lily’s great joke: ‘You know what?’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘I think … let me think about it.’ I was thinking that perhaps I wanted to see her first, clear the air, then I thought no, if she’s feeling that way about so many people I don’t need to. She�
��s not going to firebomb the lot of us.

  ‘Is anyone taking it seriously? Has she made any threats at all?’ (This Irishness is contagious. I don’t know if it’s my dad’s Liverpool Irish blood coming out in me but whenever I talk to an Irish person I start using their accent. It makes Brigid, Cork born and bred, piss herself laughing.)

  ‘Not to my knowledge. I think they’re all taking it with a pinch of salt. I was exaggerating a little bit, you know. I don’t think she’s been pestering the judge. The woman may have some sense. Have you met her? She’s a funny woman and that’s for sure.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ I realised I had a clear picture of her as being a bit like the Queen, but younger. Respectable, pretty, pearls, elegant in a dull way. Grace Kelly. Handbag. Why? Because she lived in Monaco? Because Eddie had classy taste and modern art?

  ‘Oh, she’s basic gangster Euro-trash, a Marbella queen. Army father, boarding school, home counties, ran wild, ex-model, still wearing the make-up that was in style when she was young and gorgeous, and her heyday hairdo. Brigitte Bardot without the class. White stilettos, shiny eye-shadow. Permatan. Permapissed, as well. Drinks like a Mexican maggot. When Eddie started ignoring her she took to astrology and small dogs. And possibly younger men, but she’s always been crazy about Eddie. And terrified of him. Flaming lunatic, basically. There’s a lot of them around.’

  Oh.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Didn’t your boyfriend tell you, then?’

  I hung up on him.