The Visitors (59 page)

The instant the news of the intact Burial Chamber reached Luxor, the number of visitors to the Valley doubled. Once the Queen of the Belgians, escorted by Lord Allenby, had made her tour of the tomb – a visit conducted with great splendour and maximum publicity – the numbers doubled again.

‘Ridiculous!’ Miss Mack said, with republican scorn, as we watched the Queen and her retinue make their slow procession to the Valley that Sunday. ‘Why do they need royalty? What on earth has the Queen of the Belgians to do with it… though I’m sure she’s a charming woman, of course.’

Frances and I counted an amazing seven cars, one motorcycle (Mr Engelbach), fifteen horse carriages and twelve donkey carriages. Mohammed, who watched with us from our houseboat, pointed out the Mudir of the province, Pasha Suleman, who was riding with the Queen, in a uniform so splendid it threatened to eclipse her grey fox stole and large, veiled picture hat. ‘Observe the glory of the
ghaffirs
, misses,’ he said – and we duly did.

It was difficult to miss these guards: on the Mudir’s orders they’d been stationed every sixteen yards along the entire six-and-a-half-mile route from ferry to tomb, each in a magnificent parade uniform of red, green and magenta, with a glittering brass breastplate. As the Queen passed, each man came to attention and saluted with his
nabut
, or swagger stick. They saluted again for Lord Allenby and his wife, and a third time for the car containing Monsieur Pierre Lacau, Lord Carnarvon and Eve; after that, they seemed to lose heart. It was one hundred and twelve degrees that day, so this was understandable.

The Queen of the Belgians had happened to be in Cairo, Helen Winlock reported – and had gamely stepped into the breach left by King Fuad; the political situation being as it was,
his
hoped-for visit had had to be abandoned. And very charming and indefatigable the Queen had been, removing her fox fur, descending into the Burial Chamber, and inspecting everything with interest for an impressive forty minutes before faintness came upon her.

‘Poor Carnarvon,’ Helen said, ‘what he’d
really
have liked is a British royal – not the King and Queen, obviously. But given that two Englishmen discovered the tomb, I think he had cherished the hope that
one
of the royal brood would turn up – some HRH, a prince or princess, a royal duke – there are enough of them, in all conscience.’

‘One crowned head is much like another in my view,’ Miss Mack replied tartly. ‘The effect will be the same, you mark my words, Helen.’

It was difficult to say whether the lure was royalty, the mystery of the tomb, the pull of buried treasure, the power of international front-page publicity, or a combination of all these factors, but the result was startling: on the following Friday, just a week after the opening, twelve thousand people visited the Valley; of the many tombs it contained, only one was of interest to them. Things had by then reached such a pitch, Frances said, that Carnarvon had decided they must close the tomb and concentrate on conservation for the remainder of the season. Everyone was about to take a short break, in an effort to preserve the team’s sanity.

It was that Friday we went to the American House for tea to say our farewells. We were leaving for Cairo the next day, Miss Mack returning via England to America, and I to Cambridge via Paris, where my father and Nicola Dunsire were now renting an apartment. Our departure had been brought forward a few days; the New England acquaintances who owned our houseboat had decided to return to Egypt after all – they were reluctant to miss out on a ringside seat for the archaeological event of the century, Miss Mack explained, frowning over their telegram. ‘And I shan’t mind leaving a little earlier,’ she added. ‘I do not like this hubbub. And besides, dear, I have all the material I need now. One last paragraph or so, and The Book will be finished.’

She extrapolated on this at length as we walked up to the American House that day. All she needed now, she told me, was an apposite sentence or two, a few wise words of summation. I nodded encouragement, but I was not really listening. I was thinking of my goodbyes to Frances – and of Paris, a city I had never visited, to whose delights Miss Dunsire was promising to introduce me. Would it feel like a homeland, a heartland; would Cambridge – or would the Valley still hold sway?

When we arrived, the Winlocks and Minnie Burton were already in the common room; Mrs Lythgoe, who had returned to Egypt with her husband for the ceremonial opening, was, to Minnie’s fury, presiding. Carter, Carnarvon and Eve were outside on the veranda. Mr Callender had not been invited – or had simply been overlooked, as was often his fate; Mace and Burton arrived shortly after we did, both looking exhausted.

‘Tutmania really has hit now,’ Mace said, sinking down into a chair. ‘They’re saying there were twelve thousand visitors to the Valley today. It felt twice that. You can’t move, you can’t think. We can’t go on like this – it’s insupportable.’

‘I blame the journalists,’ Minnie Burton said irritably. She was examining with a critical eye the food Michael-Peter Sa’ad had sent in for Mrs Lythgoe: the offerings included cucumber sandwiches, scones of incredible lightness, a perfect Victoria sponge, a superb fruitcake and shortbread no Scotswoman could have improved upon.

‘Those reporters deserve a flogging,’ she went on. ‘Apparently that Valentine Williams man procured a motorcar
and hid it behind a rock in the Valley. He had a team of natives on hand to
drive
that wretched cable of his to the ferry, and that’s how he scooped
The Times.
Can you imagine what that little escapade cost Reuters? They had to buy the car, at
least
three hundred pounds,
and
ship it to Luxor – just for one ridiculous cable. The malice of it! He’s spent the entire week boasting about it.’

‘The world’s gone mad. You know they’ve turned the tomb’s discovery into a dance tune?’ Herbert Winlock said. ‘The Tutankhamun Rag. It’s the most requested number at the Winter Palace ballroom, I hear. Is that right, Eve?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Eve replied. She had just entered the room and was at the tea table with Mrs Lythgoe; her father and Howard Carter remained outside on the terrace. ‘I avoid that ballroom, Herbert. All those journalists, eavesdropping on every word I say, writing these vicious lies about my father and Howard. I won’t be in the same
room
with them.’

‘Quite, quite,’ Mace said in a peaceable tone. ‘The Tutankhamun Rag? Absolutely disgraceful. Though these days nothing would surprise me.’

I knew the Rag in question – I listened to it nightly
.
I’d first heard it drifting across from the Winter Palace; a day or so later, one of the houseboats moored near us had taken it up. The young Americans there danced to the tune every night, thumping out its rhythms on a piano and a banjo. Its jagged syncopations lodged in the brain. I could hear it now, under the conversation and complaints in the sitting room:

Tut, Tut, Tutsie, at last!
 

Three thousand years-plus have shot past
 

I guess dying was hell but
 

Ain’t resurrection just swell?
 

Now git out of that tomb, hand over your diadem
 

Wanna do, wanna do the Tut-strut again –
 

No putrefaction to fear, here’s to mummification, my dear
 

Get the latest sensation
 

Watch that boy-king’s gyration –
 

It’s the Tut-tut-tut-HANK-HANK-HANK
 

It’s the Tut-HANK-amun RA-AG…
 

‘Reprehensible,’ Miss Mack was saying, as I surfaced. ‘Such delicious cake. I wonder – is Mr Callender not joining us?’

‘Gone for a walk, I expect,’ said Mace, who was sitting next to her; he lowered his voice. ‘Things are getting difficult at the Castle, Miss Mackenzie. Carter’s moods. The rest of us can escape at the end of the day, but poor old Pecky can’t. It’s been getting pretty bad – we all catch the edge of Carter’s tongue, and it’s not pleasant. Not even Lord Carnarvon escapes. Sometimes Carter dresses him down as if he’s a naughty two-year-old.’

He broke off with an expressive glance as Carter himself entered the room; Eve immediately hastened to welcome him. Mrs Lythgoe and Mrs Burton clustered around him, pressing him to take some cake, some sandwiches.

‘Lord Carnarvon will be joining us in a moment,’ Carter said, settling himself in an armchair. ‘He’s just having a cigarette on the veranda. No, no, I won’t eat anything, thank you. Just tea. Gyppy stomach, not feeling too bright today.’

‘Oh, poor you,’ Eve said, perching on the arm of his chair. ‘You must be exhausted. How many people did you have to conduct around the tomb today?’

‘God alone knows. Forty? Sixty? It took up the entire day. I’ve been at it all week. I’m a tour guide now, didn’t you know that?’

That remark might have been a jest, but the tone in which it was said was not pleasant. Carter looked ill; it must have been at least two weeks, perhaps more, since I’d last seen him close to, and the alteration in his appearance was marked. He’d lost weight, and his face, puffy around the eyes, drawn around the mouth, had acquired a sickly pallor.

I saw Herbert and Helen Winlock exchange a warning glance; leaning forward, Helen said in a quiet tone: ‘You need a rest, Howard. Everyone does. Things will get better once you close the tomb for the season – they’ll quieten down then.’

‘If you say so. I beg to differ. They’ll improve when Carnarvon realises I’m not running some blasted salon, I’m running a scientific dig. When he realises I’ve got better things to do than escort Lord-this and Lady-that around the Burial Chamber – when he understands I have work to do, and can’t spend all day every day answering damn-fool questions – yes, maybe then they’ll improve. Not before.’ He paused, glaring at Eve. ‘You might like to tell your father that. Maybe he’ll listen to you.
I’m
sick to death of telling him.’

Eve coloured and did not reply; everyone else began speaking at once. Frances gave me a small nudge in the ribs: ‘
KV
,’ she whispered. She knew we were about to be banished from the danger zone of Carter’s irascibility – and so we were. I saw Mrs Lythgoe and Helen exchange a few quick words, and in moments we’d been extricated, sent on an errand. We were dispatched to the veranda outside: Frances carried a plate with cakes and sandwiches, I carried a cup of tea with lemon. We found Lord Carnarvon, stretched out on one of the planter’s chairs, feet up, and eyes closed. He was wearing his Tennysonian hat, a three-piece tweed suit and an ancient brown cardigan for extra warmth. The temperature was by then in the high nineties; he appeared to be sleeping.

‘We bring victuals, Lord Carnarvon,’ Frances said, as he opened one pale grey eye. ‘I added an extra slice of fruitcake, because I know you like that.’

‘Oh I say, how tremendously kind,’ he replied gallantly, rousing himself. ‘How uncanny. I was just lying here thinking how peaceful and quiet it was, and how nice, how very
restorative
a slice of fruitcake would be – and lo and behold, here it is. Brought by two ministering angels.’ He inspected the plate, which Frances had piled high. ‘By Jove – don’t think I can quite manage all that by myself. You two had better help me out. Draw up some chairs. This
is
fortuitous. I was hoping to have a brief word in private with you two, and now here you are. Excellent.’

We sat down as invited. Carnarvon sipped his tea and ate one cucumber sandwich. He talked on in a desultory way, as we munched fruitcake. Unlike Carter, he appeared unruffled by that day’s events – indeed, they seemed scarcely to have registered with him. Instead he lapsed back into the past. ‘My doctors sent me to Egypt,’ he said, his eyes on the river below, ‘after I had that motoring accident in Germany. Years ago now… That had left me badly smashed up, as I expect you’ve heard. Even when the bones mended and the wounds healed, I got every infection going – couldn’t deal with English winters at all. Too damp, you know. So they sent me here for the warmth, and the air – and the air is marvellous, don’t you find? So pure. So dry. Never fails to restore me.’

Frances was not interested in the qualities of Egyptian air. ‘I hear there were over twelve thousand people in the Valley today,’ she said. ‘That must have been terrible.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Frances,’ he replied, in his genial way. ‘They’re interested – and why wouldn’t they be? It’s the find of the century. Makes it tricky for Carter, of course – he doesn’t like showing people round the tomb. I can’t blame him for that, but one’s friends turn up, and what is one to do? Naturally, they want to see what we’ve found, and one can’t just turn them away. Don’t want to be uncivil… Anyway, things will quieten down now. We’ll close the tomb next week, and then Eve and I are going to take a little holiday. A few days in Aswan. Get away from newspapers, escape the journalists.’

‘Do you mind about them?’ Frances asked. ‘Mrs Burton thinks they ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered,’ she added imaginatively.

‘By Jove, does she really?’ He smiled. ‘Well, no, Frances – I wouldn’t go that far. Some of those reporter johnnies are quite amusing – resourceful too. I just wish they’d stop painting me as this arch villain.’ He gave us a perplexed look. ‘It’s awfully rum, reading about yourself in the papers. I can’t say I like it. I look at some of the stuff they write, and I think –
That’s not me, they must be mixing me up with some other fellow.
D’you know the latest accusation? They’re saying I want to remove poor old Tutankhamun and take him back to the British Museum – or maybe post him off to the Metropolitan; they can’t seem to decide which.’

He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Why are they saying that, d’you think? I just can’t understand it. I can’t seem to grasp the way their minds work. It’s not true, and they know that, so why do they go on repeating it? We’ll have to open Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus and examine him in due course, but that won’t be for at least another year. And when all that gruesome business is over, I want Tutankhamun returned to his tomb in the Valley. That’s where he rightly belongs. I don’t want him in
any
museum, not even in Cairo. I don’t intend him to be a public spectacle. I’ve made that very clear to Lacau, to Allenby, to everyone. And I shall ensure it happens.’