sing-song voice demanding, ‘Ten piastres, sirs and madams. Ten piastres for more light.’
Outside again, James looked very embarrassed. ‘I feel such a fool. Have I spoiled your visit?’
‘Not at all,’ I answered politely. ‘It was very stuffy in there. What would you like to do instead?’
Heavens, what was I doing there with a claustrophobic young man whom I scarcely even knew, who’d only asked me to be with him to apologize for a companion who’d tried to rape me and who was so bored and so boring that he hadn’t said a word on the journey? I’d have been better off staying behind to iron my kit for next day’s inspection. It might have been more fun.
‘Feeling fit?’ asked James, looking up. ‘Schindler’s Guide says it only takes about fifteen minutes.’
‘That sounds a bit optimistic. Anyway, why go up at all?’
‘Oh, because it’s there, I suppose. That’s as good a reason as any. Because everyone does it. Coming?’
James bounded up the sides of Cheops’s great tomb, like a Labrador puppy going upstairs. His hat fell off and tittupped down the Pyramid face, over and over, getting dustier and dustier. James’s hair was toffee brown, sun-streaked, baby soft. There was a sudden division, marked by a red pressure line, between brown face and the pale skin where his hat had been.
‘Never mind,’ he laughed and puffed at the same time. ‘I’ll get it on the way down. Gosh – fifteen minutes not up yet? It’s further than I thought. Are you all right?’
But I didn’t have breath to answer. He held out his hand and grasped mine. His was surprisingly strong, hard, golden brown and dusted with gold hairs.
In the end, we didn’t reach the top. There was a noisy party of South Africans up there doing a clumsy conga on the plateau where the Pyramid’s point had been removed. They were carving their initials next to the ones left by Napoleon’s Army of the Nile. We were content to squat a little lower down, knees and hamstrings aching, watching evening creep over the sand, gold and silver, blue and violet, spreading silkily in one direction to the green fields by the Nile and in the other, all the way to the war and forever after. It didn’t look like the same gritty, dun-coloured dust that got into our hair, our teeth, our tea.
The pedlars, tiny below us, were packing up, heading back to their villages. The South Africans came down from the top, slipping and sliding and ricking their ankles, on their way back to the cinemas and the bars. The evening breeze off the desert chilled my sweating skin. I shivered.
James was quiet. He sat forward, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring towards the desert. He was silent for so long that I thought he’d forgotten I was there.
‘We don’t have anything heavy enough to stop them, you know,’ he said at last. ‘A 2-pounder won’t stop German armour. We’ve got nothing that will hit hard enough, move fast enough. They’re blasting the hell out of us.’
His face was so naked, I couldn’t look at it. This lonely place had stripped away his youth and beauty.
‘What will it be like, d’you think?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered honestly. ‘I’ll never know.’
‘Will it really be like – you know – the swimmer into cleanness leaping?’
‘Rupert Brooke – yes, I know it.
“Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending…”’
‘“And the worst friend and enemy is but Death,”’ he finished.
‘Tom – my stepfather – used to quote it, sometimes, and then he’d laugh.’
‘Why laugh?’
‘He drinks. Not often, but often enough.’
‘We had to learn it at school. If it’s really like that, I don’t think I’d mind too much if … if my turn comes … but if it’s not … if it’s not clean…’
That was my time to tell a lie, my time to console him with platitudes. He would have
Outside again, James looked very embarrassed. ‘I feel such a fool. Have I spoiled your visit?’
‘Not at all,’ I answered politely. ‘It was very stuffy in there. What would you like to do instead?’
Heavens, what was I doing there with a claustrophobic young man whom I scarcely even knew, who’d only asked me to be with him to apologize for a companion who’d tried to rape me and who was so bored and so boring that he hadn’t said a word on the journey? I’d have been better off staying behind to iron my kit for next day’s inspection. It might have been more fun.
‘Feeling fit?’ asked James, looking up. ‘Schindler’s Guide says it only takes about fifteen minutes.’
‘That sounds a bit optimistic. Anyway, why go up at all?’
‘Oh, because it’s there, I suppose. That’s as good a reason as any. Because everyone does it. Coming?’
James bounded up the sides of Cheops’s great tomb, like a Labrador puppy going upstairs. His hat fell off and tittupped down the Pyramid face, over and over, getting dustier and dustier. James’s hair was toffee brown, sun-streaked, baby soft. There was a sudden division, marked by a red pressure line, between brown face and the pale skin where his hat had been.
‘Never mind,’ he laughed and puffed at the same time. ‘I’ll get it on the way down. Gosh – fifteen minutes not up yet? It’s further than I thought. Are you all right?’
But I didn’t have breath to answer. He held out his hand and grasped mine. His was surprisingly strong, hard, golden brown and dusted with gold hairs.
In the end, we didn’t reach the top. There was a noisy party of South Africans up there doing a clumsy conga on the plateau where the Pyramid’s point had been removed. They were carving their initials next to the ones left by Napoleon’s Army of the Nile. We were content to squat a little lower down, knees and hamstrings aching, watching evening creep over the sand, gold and silver, blue and violet, spreading silkily in one direction to the green fields by the Nile and in the other, all the way to the war and forever after. It didn’t look like the same gritty, dun-coloured dust that got into our hair, our teeth, our tea.
The pedlars, tiny below us, were packing up, heading back to their villages. The South Africans came down from the top, slipping and sliding and ricking their ankles, on their way back to the cinemas and the bars. The evening breeze off the desert chilled my sweating skin. I shivered.
James was quiet. He sat forward, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring towards the desert. He was silent for so long that I thought he’d forgotten I was there.
‘We don’t have anything heavy enough to stop them, you know,’ he said at last. ‘A 2-pounder won’t stop German armour. We’ve got nothing that will hit hard enough, move fast enough. They’re blasting the hell out of us.’
His face was so naked, I couldn’t look at it. This lonely place had stripped away his youth and beauty.
‘What will it be like, d’you think?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered honestly. ‘I’ll never know.’
‘Will it really be like – you know – the swimmer into cleanness leaping?’
‘Rupert Brooke – yes, I know it.
“Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending…”’
‘“And the worst friend and enemy is but Death,”’ he finished.
‘Tom – my stepfather – used to quote it, sometimes, and then he’d laugh.’
‘Why laugh?’
‘He drinks. Not often, but often enough.’
‘We had to learn it at school. If it’s really like that, I don’t think I’d mind too much if … if my turn comes … but if it’s not … if it’s not clean…’
That was my time to tell a lie, my time to console him with platitudes. He would have
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