The Lost Army of Cambyses (15 page)

an official affirmation of their togetherness.

A friend of his owned a battered old Triumph

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motorbike and at weekends the two of them rode

out into the country, Tara's hands clutched around

his waist, seeking out secret corners in which to be

alone together – a silent forest, a deserted river-

bank, an empty stretch of shoreline.

He took her round the British Museum, point-

ing out objects that were particularly special to

him, enthusing about them, discussing their

history: a cuneiform tablet from Amarna; a blue-

glazed hippopotamus; a Ramessid ostrakon

with a sketch of a man taking a woman from

behind.

'Calm is the desire of my skin,' he said, trans-

lating the hieroglyphic text down one side of the

stone.

'Not mine,' she laughed, grabbing his face and

kissing him passionately, oblivious to the tourists

eddying around them.

They visited other collections together – the

Petrie, the Bodleian, the Sir John Soane Museum

to see the sarcophagus of Seti I – and she in turn

took him to London Zoo, where a friend of hers,

who was working there, brought out a python for

him to hold, which he hadn't enjoyed at all.

Her parents had finally broken apart at this

time, but she had been so buried inside her life

with Daniel that their separation barely affected

her. She graduated from her course and enrolled to

read for a PhD, still hardly aware of what was

happening, as if it was going on in some parallel

universe, far removed from the all-enveloping

reality of her relationship. She had been so happy.

So complete.

'What else is there?' she asked one night as they

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lay together after a particularly intense bout of

love-making. 'What else could I want?'

'What else could you want?' asked Daniel.

'Nothing,' she replied, snuggling against him.

'Nothing on earth.'

'Daniel is a hugely talented person,' her father

said when she told him of the relationship. 'One of

the finest scholars it's ever been my privilege to

teach. You make a very fine couple.'

He paused and then added, 'But be careful,

Tara. Like all gifted people, he has a darkness to

him. Don't let him hurt you.'

'He won't, Dad,' she said. 'I know he won't.'

Curiously, the fact that he did was something

she had always, deep down, blamed on her father

rather than Daniel, as though it was the warning

that had fractured their relationship rather than

the person being warned about.

The Ahwa Wadood tea-room was a shabby affair

with sawdust on the floor and tables packed with

old men sipping tea and playing dominoes. She

saw him as soon as she walked in, at the far end

of the room puffing on a
shisha
pipe, head bent

over a backgammon board, lost in concentration.

He looked much as he had done when she'd last

seen him six years ago, although his hair was a

little longer, his face more sunburnt. She stared for

a moment, fighting back an urge to be sick, and

then started forward. She was right in front of him

before he looked up.

'Tara!'

His dark eyes widened. They looked at each

other for a long moment, neither saying anything,

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and then, leaning over the table, she raised her

hand and slapped him across the face.

'You cunt,' she hissed.

LUXOR, THE THEBAN HILLS

The madman squatted beside his fire, poking at

the embers with a stick. Around him the cliffs

loomed large and silent, the only other sign of life

apart from himself being the occasional howling

of a wild dog. Over his shoulder a dazzling white

curve of moon hung suspended against the night.

He stared at the flickering flames, his face

hollow and dusty, knots of filthy hair dangling

over the shoulders of his torn djellaba. He could

see gods in the fire: strange figures with human

bodies and the heads of beasts. There was one

with a jackal head and another like a bird, and

another with a tall headdress and an elongated

crocodile face. They frightened and delighted him.

He began rocking on his haunches, lips quivering,

mesmerized by the fiery images at his feet.

Now the flames showed him other secrets: a

dark room, a coffin, jewellery, objects piled

against a wall, swords, shields, knives. He gaped

in wonder.

The flames went dark, but only for a moment,

and when they brightened again the room was

gone and in its place was something else. A desert.

Mile after mile of burning sand and across it a

great army marching. He heard the thud of

hooves, the clink of armour, the swelling of a song.

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And another sound too, distant, like a lion roar-

ing. It seemed to come from under the sand,

growing louder until all other sounds were lost

within it. The man's eyelids started to flicker and

his breathing grew faster. He raised his thin hands

and held them over his ears, for the roar was start-

ing to hurt them. The flames leaped, a wind

started to blow and then, as he looked on in

horror, the sands of the desert started to bubble

and foam like water. They swayed and surged, and

then rose up high in front of him, swelling like a

tidal wave, up and up and up, engulfing the entire

army. He screamed and threw himself backwards,

knowing he too would be lost beneath the sands if

he didn't get away. He scrambled to his feet and

ran madly into the hills, wailing.

'No!' His cries echoed into the night. 'Allah

protect me! Allah have mercy on my soul!

Nooooo!'

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14

CAIRO

Jenny had described it as Tara's Mike Tyson week.

First Daniel had left her, then, almost immediately,

she had discovered her mother had inoperable

cancer. Two vicious blows coming out of nowhere,

one after the other, knocking her out.

'Yup,' Jenny had said, 'that's about as Mike

Tyson as it gets.'

Looking back – and for the last six years she'd

done nothing but look back, turning the whole

thing over in her mind as if constantly replaying

the same video – she could see the signs had been

there from the start.

Despite their closeness, a part of Daniel had

always held away from her. They would finish

making love and straight away he would dis-

appear into his reading, as though alarmed by the

depth of feeling he had just displayed. They would

talk and talk, and yet somehow he never revealed

anything of himself. In more than a year together

she had discovered almost nothing about his

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background, like an excavator who tries to dig

downwards only to hit solid rock almost immedi-

ately beneath the surface. He had been born in

Paris, lost his parents in a car crash when he was

ten, come to live with an aunt in England, got a

first at Oxford. That was about it. It was as if he

immersed himself in the history of Egypt to make

up for the lack of a past of his own.

Yes, the signs had been there. She had shut them

out, however. Refused to acknowledge them. She

had loved him so much.

The end had come completely without warning.

She arrived at his flat one evening, eighteen

months after they'd started going out, they

hugged, even kissed, and then he drew away.

'I heard from the Supreme Council of

Antiquities today,' he said, staring down at her,

their eyes not quite meeting. 'I've been granted a

concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings. To

lead my own expedition.'

'Daniel, that's wonderful!' she cried, coming

forward and throwing her arms around him. 'I'm

so proud of you.'

She clung to his shoulders for a moment, then

pulled back, sensing he wasn't responding to the

embrace, that there was more to come.

'What?'

His eyes seemed even blacker than usual. 'It's

going to mean me living in Egypt for a while.'

She laughed. 'Of course it's going to mean you

living in Egypt. What were you expecting to do?

Commute?'

He smiled, but there was something hollow

about the expression. 'It's a huge responsibility,

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Tara. To be allowed to excavate at one of the

greatest archaeological sites in the world. A huge

honour. I'm going to need to . . . focus all my

attention on it.'

'Of course you have to focus all your attention

on it.'

'All my attention.'

Something in the way he emphasized the 'all'

sent a slight tremor through her, like the warning

of a more severe earthquake to come. She stepped

back, chasing his eyes with her own but unable to

bring them to bay.

'What are you saying, Daniel?' Silence. She

came forward again, taking his hands in hers. 'It's

OK. I can live without you for a few months. It'll

be fine.'

There was a bottle of vodka on the desk behind

him and, slipping his hands out of hers, he picked

it up and poured himself a glass.

'It's more than that.'

Another tremor ran through her, stronger this

time. 'I don't understand what you're saying.'

He downed the vodka in one.

'It's over, Tara.'

'Over?'

'I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I can't put it any

other way. I've been waiting for an opportunity

like this all my life. I can't let anything get in the

way. Not even you.'

She continued to stare at him for a moment and

then, as if she had been punched in the stomach,

staggered backwards, grasping at the doorframe

for support. The room around her thickened and

became indistinct.

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'How would I . . . get in the way?'

'I can't explain it, Tara. I just have to con-

centrate on my work. I mustn't have any . . .

encumbrances.'

'Encumbrances!' She fought to control her

voice, to find words. 'Is that what I am to you,

Daniel? An encumbrance?'

'I didn't mean it like that. I just have to . . . be

free to do my work. I can't have any ties. I'm sorry.

Really I am. This last year's been the best time of

my life. It's just that . . .'

'You've found something better.'

There was a pause.

'Yes,' he said eventually.

She crumpled to the floor then, shamed by her

tears but unable to control them.

'Oh God.' She was choking. 'Oh God, Daniel,

please don't do this to me.'

When she left twenty minutes later she felt as

though everything inside her had been scraped

out. For two days she heard nothing and eventu-

ally, unable to hold herself away, she returned to

his flat. There was no answer to her banging.

'He's moved out,' a student living on the floor

below told her. 'Gone to Egypt or something.

There's a new tenant coming in next week.'

He hadn't even left her a note.

She had wanted to die. Had even gone so far as

to buy five bottles of aspirin and one of vodka.

That same week, however, she had received

news of her mother's cancer, and that had some-

how diminished the painful but lesser sorrow of

Daniel's departure, one agony cancelling out

another.

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She had nursed her mother for the four brief

months she had left to live, and in the turmoil of

watching her waste away she had somehow come

to terms with the ending of the relationship. When

her mother eventually died Tara had organized the

funeral and then gone abroad for a year, first to

Australia, then South America. On her return she

had bought the flat, got the job at the zoo, re-

established some sort of equilibrium.

The pain, however, had never entirely left her.

There had been other relationships but she had

always held back, unwilling to risk even a fraction

of the torment she had suffered over Daniel.

She had neither seen nor heard from him again.

Until tonight.

'I guess I deserved that,' he said.

'Yes,' she replied. 'You did.'