Clara awoke to the fajr adhan, the dawn call to prayer. The chant sounded mournful yet hopeful. She didn’t understand the words but felt its yearning. She lay in bed and listened to the chant until it was replaced by the sound of Friday traffic on the road beside the Nile Corniche. Clara was not a religious person, but she did not discount the existence of God or the desire that welled up in humanity to connect with that which was beyond. For her, that attempt was through scientific enquiry. To delve deeper into understanding what makes the visible and invisible world ‘work’. But she knew, too, there was a level beyond what science could so far explain; she thought of it as the metaphysical realm. It was the realm of emotions and spirit, and dreams and unexplained coincidences, and the good and evil impulses of human nature. Yet it was also made up of all the things that made the world a better place: goodness, kindness, justice, compassion and love. Somewhere in that mix was ‘God’. But unlike the Christians she knew, and the Muslims she had only just met, she did not feel a need to speak to a named deity. Or did she? Who or what was it that she mused to when she lay thinking these thoughts? Just to herself? Or someone else? She looked to the window to see the sun rising. The ancient Egyptians saw that as a god. She didn’t blame them. At least it was something you could see.
Breakfast at Shepheard’s was a sumptuous affair. The tables groaned under platters piled high with exotic fruit, cold meats, boiled eggs, salad and cheese, and there were more types of bread than Clara had ever seen in her life. Then there was the ‘full English breakfast’ section with cooked bacon, sausages, mushrooms, fried tomato, broiled kippers and eggs in every conceivable form. It would not have been amiss in any London hotel. Clara decided to go for the more exotic table although she didn’t usually eat much more than tea and toast for breakfast.
With her breakfast selected, she was about to sit on her own at a sunny little table in the corner, when she was hailed by a pink-faced woman with steel-grey hair. ‘Miss Vale! Over here! Do join us. You simply can’t breakfast alone.’
Can’t I? thought Clara and sighed.
But she fixed a smile on her face and approached the beckoning woman and her cheerful entourage. There was one vacant chair. A balding man, wearing a cream-and-white striped blazer with a blue and white polka dot bow tie, jumped up and pulled out the chair.
‘My son, Archie. Archie, this is Miss Vale. Do you remember her from that shooting weekend we spent at Running Brook in Oxfordshire? Oh, it must have been about ten years ago now. She’s the daughter of Sir Randolph and Lady Vale. Although I don’t think your father was knighted then, was he, Miss Vale?’
Clara, retaining her fixed smile, said: ‘No he was not. That was a more recent honour. I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your son’s name …’ She hadn’t caught the woman’s name either. She had absolutely no memory of meeting her, or her now-middle-aged son, a decade ago. But she could imagine they were part of the ever-rotating carousel of visitors to her parents’ country estate when they were at the height of their social climbing. Now that her mother finally had the title ‘Lady’, she was a little less desperate and waited to be invited rather than the other way round. Mind you, thought Clara, that’s probably because they can’t afford to entertain at the moment …
But Clara hid all these thoughts well as she took her seat. ‘Archie Fitzgilbert,’ said the son, and offered her a clammy hand. She shook it, then resisted the urge to wipe her hand on a napkin. ‘Of course!’ she said. ‘And Lady Fitzgilbert! My apologies. Travelling does muddle the mind.’ In truth, Clara could still not place the woman from ten years ago, but she did have a vague recollection of her mother saying something snide about her.
Lady Fitzgilbert beamed. ‘Lady Gertrude Fitzgilbert. I knew you’d remember! And how is your sister?’ She turned to her son. ‘Archie, I’m sure you remember Miss Vale’s older sister, Laura. We were at her coming out ball. She married that very dashing Viscount Simpkins, if you recall.’ She turned back to Clara. ‘How is she, dear?’
Clara tightened her smile. ‘She is well, thank you, Lady Gertrude. They have four children now. But Laura is my younger sister, not my elder. I am the middle child. My brother, Antony, is the eldest.’
Lady Gertrude looked confused. ‘Younger sister? Your father allowed her to marry before you?’
Clara’s jaw clenched. ‘He did,’ was all she could manage.
Conversation then, predictably, turned to why she was in Egypt on her own. And rather than get into it further, Clara simply said: ‘My travelling companion will be joining me on Sunday.’
This appeared to mollify Lady Gertrude who then gave Clara a blow-by-blow account of her time in Egypt, interspersed with the occasional ‘Isn’t that right, Archie?’ then continuing without waiting for her son’s reply. Poor Archie, thought Clara, empathising with the unmarried, adult child of an overbearing mother. In fact, she felt so sorry for him, that when Lady Gertrude insisted Clara accompany them on a jaunt to the pyramids, she could not resist his pleading ‘Oh, please do, Miss Vale.’
And so, with trepidation, she agreed.
The Pyramids. The indispensable excursion on the outskirts of Cairo is that to the Pyramids [ … ] these miracles of antiquity are seen in the distance, beyond the placid water that flows to the edge of the road unbroken save by clumps of palms rising like something unreal against the sky.
Cook’s Traveller’s Handbook to Egypt and the Sudan
Clara and the Fitzgilbert entourage arrived at the pyramids by carriage. The entourage – spread across two vehicles – was made up of two unmarried female cousins of Archie’s, an elderly uncle whom everyone referred to as The Major, and two ladies’ maids. One for Lady Gertrude, and the other shared between the cousins, Elsie and Lily. Clara was questioned as to the whereabouts of her maid and collective eyebrows were raised when she declared she didn’t have one.
Lily mumbled to Elsie: ‘I’ve heard the Vales took a knocking with the Wall Street Crash. I hadn’t heard it was this bad.’
Elsie glanced pityingly at Clara. ‘Poor thing,’ she whispered to her sister, behind her hand. ‘No wonder she’s latched onto a free ride with us.’
Clara, who could hear every word, returned the glance with a steady, challenging stare.
Elsie lowered her eyes.
‘Ignore them,’ said Archie, into Clara’s ear. ‘They don’t have a brain between them. Not like you, Miss Vale. I’ve heard you have the most remarkable mind.’ Clara could still smell the morning’s kippers on his breath.
Clara turned away from him and caught sight of the Sphinx, lying in wait, with the Great Pyramid of Cheops looming beyond it. She gasped.
‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’ said Archie.
‘It is.’
‘First time you’ve seen it?’
‘First time from the ground, yes.’
He cocked his head in curiosity.
Clara did not want to start a conversation about her personal affairs so just said: ‘I arrived in Cairo by aeroplane.’ Then changed the subject. ‘Where will we start with the tour?’
‘At Mena House. Mama always likes to stop there to freshen up. We’ll have tea then pick up the picnic we ordered. After that, it’s up the pyramid!’
‘Up?’ asked Clara.
‘Oh yes.’ Archie grinned. ‘We picnic on the top of Cheops! You can’t beat the views!’
Clara was startled. ‘Will your mother and the Major manage the climb?’
He shook his head. ‘No. They will stay below. But we younger folk can make it. And we’ll have help from the native porters if we tire.’ He appraised her briefly. ‘You look like a fit young woman.’
‘I am,’ she said, but her heart sank. Did she really want to scale that magnificent monument in the company of Archie and his snide little cousins?
She was pondering this as the carriages turned through the gates of the luxurious Mena House Hotel. Her Cook’s told her it was owned by the same company as Shepheard’s and had previously been the viceroy’s hunting lodge while Egypt was under Ottoman rule. It was a lush, green compound on the edge of the desert, lavishly maintained by artificially pumped water from the Nile. There were tennis courts, bowling greens, croquet lawns, a golf course and an open-air swimming pool – apparently, the first ever to be built in Egypt. It was also renowned for its stables where guests could hire Arabian stallions and be taken on falconry hunts into the desert. Or, more sedately, enjoy a camel ride around the pyramids. Clara considered the latter, because at least she would be on the camel on her own. But she would still have to face the carriage ride back with the Fitzgilberts, likely in close quarters with Archie, who since noting that she was a ‘fit young woman’ had been pressing his thigh urgently against hers. She was queasy and regretted having felt sorry for him.
It was while the group was having tea on the terrace, and Clara popped into the lavatory, that an opportunity to escape presented itself. She overheard two young women chatting about how they would love to be able to afford more than just a cup of tea at Mena House, and that their tour bus to Saqqara was leaving shortly. Saqqara? Where Mohammed and Maryam Hassan lived?
Fifteen minutes later, Clara had bid a relieved farewell to the offended Lady Gertrude and her desperately disappointed son, and secured a seat on the bus.