The Sycamore Song

  “Am I making a fuss about nothing?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “I can’t imagine you ever doing that, but it might have been better if you had thought of these difficulties before we took the plunge. It’s a bit late now.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t thinking about anyone else then,” she explained. “I was thinking about us - and the excavation, of course!” She had a sudden thought. “What on earth is Juliette going to think?”

  Tariq took a piece of her hair between two fingers and began to play with it in silence.

  “You’ll have to tell her that it doesn’t mean anything!” Victoria said quickly. “We can’t hurt her like that. Her husband did enough damage ’

  “Does it really matter?”

  She looked enquiringly at him, trying to read his enigmatic expression. “I thought you liked Juliette?” she said.

  “I do, but shall we call it a flash in the pan-for us both! You don’t have to worry about Juliette, now or ever. Besides, wouldn’t it ruin the object rather if we tell her we got married as a ruse to deprive her of your father’s money?”

  “But we didn’t!” She thought about it for a while. “Did we?”

  “No, we didn’t,” he agreed. “I went into this as a rescue operation first, and to nail these thieves before they succeed in damaging your father’s or my reputation any further. What your motives were,” he added, “I’m beginning to wonder!”

  Victoria looked away. “I wanted to help,” she told him. “I still do. You will tell me what’s going on, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try to.” He smiled then, and his eyes lit up. “I’m not used to running in harness, but I won’t forget you’re there. You have a way of calling yourself to my attention quite forcibly enough without my giving you cause to remind me of your presence.”

  “But you’d prefer it if I kept out of the way?”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t get yourself half killed again,” he said, “and I mean to see that you don’t. Now I’m your husband, it’s my duty to protect you from any further ‘accidents’ or hurt.”

  “Oh, Tariq, you can’t be with me all the time! No one will want to hurt me now, you said so yourself. I’m far more concerned what they’ll have to say about our getting married. Aren’t you embarrassed at all about it?”

  He began to laugh. “Why should I be? They’ll offer their congratulations, no doubt, and that will be that.” He smiled at her. “I’ll see they don’t disturb you tonight, don’t worry. We’ll move into your father’s tent, it’s bigger than mine

  “We won’t!” she declared. “I’m not going to share any tent with you!”

  “It depends what you call sharing,” he said. “I’ll rig up a curtain between our beds and you can be as private as you like. Will that suit you?”

  It would be nice to have him there if the scorpions came back, she thought. It would be nice, too, to know where he was, instead of wondering if he were with Juliette-

  “Have I any choice in the matter?” she asked.

  “Not much.” He laughed and kissed her mouth, taking care not to start her head aching again. “As Omm Beshir said, you must do as I tell you now you’re my wife. You’ll scandalise half Egypt if you don’t!”

  She knew he was teasing her, that he didn’t mean it, but she couldn’t be quite sure and she wondered if she minded quite as much as she should. She decided to joke about it too.

  “I don’t see how you can make me,” she said.

  “Don’t you? But in a Moslem marriage the man has all the advantages. It is written that those wives whose perverseness ye fear, admonish them and remove them into bedchambers and beat them; but if they submit to you, then do not seek a way against them.”

  “But you’re not a Moslem,” Victoria pointed out.

  “No, but they have some good ideas,” he said.

  She might have argued the matter further, but she was tired and sore from her fall and from all that happened to her in the last few days. For the moment she was content to sit back and let him take charge of everything. Tomorrow, she thought, would be soon enough to try and sort out her emotions and take in the fact that she was more or less married to the man beside her, not that she had so much as a ring on her finger to show for it.

  It was almost dark when they got back to Sakkara. Victoria braced herself to meet Juliette and Jim Kerr, but neither of them were around. The only person who came out to greet them was Abdul, his face wreathed in smiles, alone in his certainty that the wedding was a happy occasion, destined to bring great joy to all concerned.

  “Madame is going straight to bed,” Tariq told him brusquely. “Make up her bed in her father’s tent, will you? I’ll move my bed in later.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll be doing that at once.” Abdul gave Victoria a kindly look. “Madame is not looking well after the fall. What will she eat tonight? Soup? Maybe she would like some little meat-balls and rice? That is very good for the strength! I will bring mint tea at once, while she is deciding, no?”

  Victoria found she was more than glad to take off the chartreuse dress and climb into her nightgown which was loose enough not to rub her bruises and remind her of her throbbing head. She lay down on the newly-made bed and pulled the cotton bedclothes up over her. It was sheer bliss to be horizontal and she was determined to make the most of it, and not worry about a thing until she felt a great deal better.

  Abdul brought her mint tea at the same moment that Tariq arrived with his camp bed under his arm. He took the tray from Abdul and put it down beside her bed, pouring a little of the tea into one of the small glasses that shared the copper tray with the painted tin tea-pot.

  “Sugar?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “It’s always too sweet already.” She sat up in bed and accepted the glass from him. She felt nervous of his presence in what was technically her bedroom and was afraid that he would know it. “Are you going to have some tea?” she asked him.

  He studied her face in silence. “I shan’t hurt you, Victoria,” he said.

  “I know,” she said at once. “I’m not used to being married, though.”

  “I should hope not!” He poured himself some tea, still looking at her. “You’ve never had much to do with men, have you?”

  “Not at close quarters,” she admitted. “I haven’t had your experience of - of—” She broke off, aware of the hopelessness of what she had been about to say.

  “Sleeping around? You should be grateful you’re the only wife I’ve ever had!”

  “Am I?”

  His reply was impatient. “Stop looking at me as though you expect me to turn into some kind of Bluebeard before your very eyes!” He laughed without any amusement at all. “Though I suppose in a country where they are bidden to marry what seems good to you of women, by twos or threes or fours—”

  “Huh!” said Victoria. “And if you fear ye cannot be equitable, then only one! You couldn’t possibly treat two wives just the same, could you? Think of the expense when they both wanted identical mink coats at the same time!”

  His eyebrows rose, but he ignored her challenge. “More tea?”

  She nodded, holding out her glass to him. She thought he had handled the situation rather well. There was something to be said for experience, it seemed, especially if she was going to take it into her head to start at shadows whenever he came near her.

  He fetched a chair and began to hang the embroidered curtain across the centre of the tent. She watched him in silence, wishing she could tell him she was grateful for his forbearance without making too much of it.

  “Will we have a bit of paper to say we’re divorced too?” she asked impulsively.

  “Probably. It’s quite easy, I believe. We’ll go back to the shard court and you can divorce me—”

  She sipped her mint tea. “Wouldn’t it be better if you were to divorce me? Your foster-family might not like it if you take the blame for things going wrong. Besides, it should be easier still for you
to divorce me. All you have to do is to recite the formula three times, and it’s done!”

  “If I divorce you, it takes three months,” he said, looking down at her with a warning look.

  “It doesn’t say that in the Koran,” Victoria objected. “How do you know?”

  “I took the trouble to find out. That’s how the law stands in Egypt, designed I believe to prevent men from divorcing their unfortunate wives in a fit of ill-temper, which I’m beginning to think must be an ever-present temptation. Look, drop the subject, will you, Victoria? Don’t think of yourself as married to me at all, if it’s going to nag at you like an aching tooth!”

  “I was only trying to be practical about it,” she explained.

  “Well, don’t! This curtain isn’t a very substantial barrier and my intentions are usually better than my actions turn out to be.” He came down from the chair, looking up at his handiwork. “I’m trying not to think of you as my wife, and you’re not making it any easier by continually harping on it - unless you want me to make love to you?”

  She pulled the bedding more closely about her in a defensive gesture. “Oh!” she gasped. “I think you’re hateful! Just because other women have fallen into your hand like ripe fruit, you needn’t imagine that I—”

  He turned and looked at her inquiringly, while she was only too aware of the trend of her thoughts. Wasn’t that exactly what she wanted?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’re so conceited!”

  He bent down and touched his lips to hers, tucking her sheet in round her shoulders with gentle hands. “Where you’re concerned I have reason to be, habibi.” He kissed her lightly. “I’ll tell Abdul to bring your food at once and then you can sleep the clock round if you want to. Goodnight, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  Her heart jerked with her, and her previous shyness of him washed over her like a wave. “Goodnight,” she whispered back.

  In the morning she woke to the sound of people talking. The voices were strange to her and she lifted her head from the pillow to hear better what they were saying. It was a woman who was doing most of the talking, but, although she could distinctly hear the attractive cadences of her voice, she couldn’t make out what it was that she was saying. Curious, Victoria got out of bed and went over to the entrance of the tent. A group of people were seated on the ground not far from where the tent was sited, sheltering from the wind that was blowing up the sand all round the Step Pyramid.

  “The Step Pyramid, the first pyramid of Egypt,” their woman guide was saying, “was the tomb of Pharaoh Zoser. Its construction has always been attributed to Imhotep, Zoser’s architect, the first man ever to have constructed a building in stone. Imhotep’s achievement became a legend in later times. He was regarded not only as an architect, but as a magician and the father of medicine. Later on he was deified as the son of Ptah, who was worshipped locally as we have seen, and even the Greeks were filled with admiration for him and identified him with their own god of medicine, Asklepios.”

  Victoria gave up trying to listen, wondering what the time was. She had the guilty feeling that it was very late indeed, but she must have forgotten to wind her watch, for it had stopped some time in the early hours of the morning. She must have been asleep for hours! She felt better, though. Her head had stopped aching and the dizzy feeling that she might faint was no more. True, she still felt stiff and bruised, but otherwise she felt ready for anything - even for Mr. Torquil Fletcher!

  She had almost finished dressing when he came into the tent. “So you’re awake at last!” he greeted her, hearing her moving about. “May I come in?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  He came round the edge of the curtain. “You’re looking better,” he approved.

  “I am.” She felt self-conscious of him and went on brushing her hair, her face turned away from him.

  He sat down on the edge of her bed. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Victoria, would you like to go and stay with Omm Beshir for a while?”

  And have everyone know that she wasn’t married to him at all? How could he even suggest such a thing?

  “Certainly not,” she said.

  “You’d be welcome there—”

  “I know, but I don’t want to go. I love Omm Beshir. She’s a lovely person! It would be the last straw to have her thinking that you didn’t want me. She’d think there was something wrong with me—” She glanced round at him under her arm and was aware that once again he was mocking her. “She would so!” she exclaimed crossly. “She’d never allow that it might be your fault!”

  “We could explain things to her,” he suggested.

  “No!”

  “Darling, don’t you think you’re being a little bit unreasonable?”

  She went on brushing her hair in silence. “Yes,” she said at last. “But I can’t help it, Tariq. Put it down to silly pride if you like, but I couldn’t bear it if she thought I were a disappointment to you. She’d hate me for it! And it doesn’t make any difference that it’s only a marriage contract and nothing more to us. You know she’d never understand how it really is. Nor would she believe it! She’d be quite sure that you at least tried to sleep with me and that I’d been found wanting. She wouldn’t see anything wrong in your making love to me, even if you did intend to divorce me the next minute. Well, would she?”

  “You seem to know her very well,” he said.

  Victoria bit her lip. “I like her, and I want her to like me!”

  Tariq leaned back on his elbow, watching her through his lashes. “Juliette is right,” he said. “She is not stupid, this one, is she? You’re probably right. She could well wring your neck for you if she thought you were standing out against her ewe lamb. I’m surprised that you should know that, though. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you too!”

  Victoria smiled at that. “No, I know. But the whole world has to stop at your command as far as she’s concerned. I don’t mind, in fact it’s one of the things I most like about her, but I don’t want her to think that I’m less - well, you know, less than she is, I suppose.”

  “She won’t think that. She knows that your ways are bound to be different from hers.”

  “She knows it with her mind,” Victoria said. “In her heart, she thinks only her ways are good enough for you. She may be right. She brought you up when you were a child as much as anyone did. You may well think like her about these things.”

  “Meaning what?” he drawled. “That I think of women as objects for my pleasure?”

  That wasn’t what she had meant at all, and she suspected that he knew it too.

  “Meaning that one doesn’t always know where one is with you,” she retorted. “I might like to give you the world too, but I don’t know if you’d give me a thank you for it. You’d probably tell me what I could do with it!”

  He looked startled and then totally impassive. “Do you want to give me the world?” he asked, not moving a muscle.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point? That you don’t know if I’d be properly grateful or not?”

  She glowered at him. “Not that either! You’re being deliberately obtuse! I don’t want your gratitude, but I would like to know where I stand with you as a person. I want to give too, not just take all the time!”

  He stood up and, putting a hand on the small of her back, drew her firmly into the circle of his arms. “I’ve never doubted your generosity, ya habibi, but I think you’re in a bit of a muddle as to what you do want, whereas I’m in no doubt at all as to what I want.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That would be telling,” he murmured.

  “Tell me!”

  “What will you give me if I do?”

  She stood still, refusing to commit herself. “Tariq, what’s the time?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “My watch has stopped.”

  He stroked her back, taking her
brush from her and throwing it on the bed behind him. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”

  “Mmm,” she agreed. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to fulfil an urgent wish of yours.” She shut her eyes, making no answer. She felt him gather her up into his arms and put his mouth against hers. It was a gentle kiss at first, but it changed halfway through and her lips parted beneath the hard, demanding pressure of his, and her arms crept up round his neck and her fingers buried themselves in his hair.

  When he broke away, putting her firmly at arm’s length and holding her there, she didn’t try to hide her disappointment.

  “You see why I wanted you to go to Omm Beshir?” he said. “And how much my promises are worth?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  He put the back of his hand against her cheek. “I told you I wouldn’t touch you while you were married to me.” He let go her hands, saw her wince, and picked them up again, examining the palms to see how the grazes had healed after her entanglement with the guy-rope.

  She gripped his fingers in hers. “You haven’t hurt me,” she said. “What more can I ask?”

  “You could ask me to leave you alone.” He tipped up her face and looked deep into her navy blue eyes. “Why don’t you?’

  She blinked. “I trust you,” she said.

  He turned and left her without another word and she sank back on the bed, holding her head in her hands. She couldn’t do anything right as far as he was concerned, she thought gloomily, no matter how hard she tried.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there but, after a while, she realised he was not coming back and she wandered out of the tent, wondering what to do with herself. The groups of tourists were leaving the Step Pyramid now. Victoria watched them as they straggled across the blowing sand, making their way to where the camel-boys waited, where they would vie with one another for the various modes of transport that would take them down the hill to the Serapeum where the sacred bulls of Ptah had been buried so many thousand of years before.