Desiring Cairo

Does she mean me harm? ‘You did, and I mind.’ She might do. And she knows where I live, as they say. She could, if she wanted, come and visit. This wasn’t a pleasant idea. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I wasn’t keen. As you wouldn’t be. It seemed it might be a good idea to have a word with her. Pre-empt her. Fergus would be the logical place to start, if I wanted to track her down. Except …

I didn’t want to ask him. I’d sworn him to secrecy and told him, finally, some of what went on with Eddie and me, and the poor man had gone mauve as his desire to use the story fought with his friendship for me and respect for my privacy. Later, after the trial, he’d written a piece about Eddie, and had rung me, but I’d refused to say anything. I didn’t want to try his loyalty any further by bringing the subject up again. Specially when Eddie was so topical, having died. Some things you should not expect a journalist to bear. It would be unkind.

She would presumably be at the funeral. But I didn’t really want to go to the funeral. He was dead and that was that. Also I thought Harry might be there, out of courtesy as one of the men who nicked him (or as his former employee, if he was still keeping that persona going), and I was sorry that Harry had witnessed the hysteria of my immediate response to the news of his death. I seem to have a little bug that jumps out to wind Harry up. It seemed a good idea to avoid further opportunities for it. And no, I didn’t want any wild graveside scenes with a vengeful Mrs Bates.

But I did want to locate her. If only to feel better equipped. Fergus or Harry, which would be worse?

Hakim leaned over my shoulder.

‘Evangelina,’ he said. ‘May we ring my mother?’

He’s started to say ‘may’ because Lily corrects him when he says ‘can’. Actually she’s having quite a good effect on his grammar, but it’s a little alarming for me to hear echoed back so precisely what I say to her.

I half wanted to confide in Hakim about the letters but decided that it would be a complicated and useless exercise, so I desisted. One issue at a time, girl. Let’s put off the ones that matter most to me. There’s a sensible approach.

First we rang the home number. ‘Hi, this is Sarah, you can leave a message and we’ll get back to you, or you can send a fax, after the beep.’ Relaxed, not warm not cold, middle-class, southern. She sounded nice. I held out hope, but I kept quiet about it. I didn’t want to influence Hakim.

I hung up, and told him it was a machine, and did he want me to leave a message, or to leave one himself, or what.

He paused for a second, then picked up the receiver and pressed last number redial (another trick he’d learnt from Lily, who uses it to ring Caitlin after I’ve been talking to Brigid). I watched his face as he heard his mother’s voice. Expressionless, it just grew softer and softer. I thought he might melt away completely, so I offered him my hand as something solid to hold. He took it and gripped it, and hung up the phone.

‘If she is not a good mother,’ he said, ‘I want you to be my mother. The English mother.’

I kissed him on the forehead and narrowly stopped myself from telling him that I would do anything in the world for him.

‘May we ring the other number?’ he said.

I called directory enquiries, got the number of the university, called the switchboard, got the extension, called the extension.

‘Hello, Sarah Tomlinson,’ said the same voice.

I had decided to do it on a wing and a prayer. I could not have worked out a script and stuck to it. This is what came out.

‘Hello, Sarah, my name’s Evangeline Gower, I’m a friend of Ismail.’

‘Ismail?’ she said.

‘El Araby,’ I said.

She was quiet. I heard voices in the background.

‘If this isn’t a good time I can …’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. One moment.’ She spoke at the other end, and then came on the line again. ‘What’s it about?’ she said.

‘Hakim and Sa’id,’ I said. I could almost hear her heart-rate change.

‘What about them?’ she said, her voice completely different, narrow-throated, nervous, tense.

‘Hakim is in London,’ I said.

‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, and spoke again to the voices in the background. I could hear them retreat, and a click, some shuffling, and some breathing, and then, ‘Is he with you?’

‘Beside me, yes.’

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, again, and she began to cry, very softly. Hakim was all eyes.

‘What’s she saying?’ he asked. ‘What?’ I held my hand up, mouthed ‘wait’.

She carried on crying. I spoke to her: ‘Listen – do you want to ring him back? Can you take down a number? Otherwise … he wants to see you, you know. He wants to talk. Take my number, and if you don’t ring he’ll ring you tonight. OK?’

She didn’t sound negative. I gave her the number and I thought she got it down. She was still crying. ‘I don’t want to leave you like this,’ I said.

‘I don’t even know who you are,’ she snapped suddenly, through the tears. ‘Who are you anyway?’

‘Evangeline Gower, friend of the family,’ I said.

‘Family,’ she said. She sighed. ‘I’ll ring in a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘Tell him … is he well?’

‘Very well,’ I said.

‘Tell him … say I’m not sorry he’s here.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘’Bye.’

‘’Bye.’

I put the phone down and said, ‘She’s not sorry you’re here, she said to say so. She’ll ring back.’

‘Alhamdulillah,’ he said, four times, and smiled, and went to Lily’s room, where if I put my ear to the door I could hear him saying el fateha, the opening of the Qur’an.

*

I tried to do some work: an article about an exhibition of Orientalist paintings that was coming up in Birmingham. The exhibition wasn’t open yet and there was some doubt about which paintings were going to be in it, because of some insurance problems. Doubt hung over, among others, an extremely famous and interesting pair with all sorts of splendid and evocative anecdotes attached. One, fairly innocent, harem scene had originally been painted as a cover for the other, more erotic, work, of which it was an almost exact copy, except that the harem ladies were covered up in various cunning ways. The main houri, for example, was sitting with her legs wide because she was holding a great platter with a watermelon on it, rather than displaying herself; another was adjusting her scarf rather than her nipple. The cover lived in the same frame, on top of the naughty picture, and the owner could remove it for selected guests, after dinner, and thus preserve both his pleasures and his reputation. The two paintings had been separated over the years and were now to be reunited. Or not. I was going to have to write two articles, so that they had something to use whatever the outcome. I wrote an introduction that would do for both versions, then admitted that I was not concentrating and rang Fergus.

‘Fergus, Evangeline,’ I said, in my brisk talking-to-people-in-offices voice.

‘Evangeline darlin’,’ he said, emphasising the Irish. ‘What can I do for you?’ This made me feel bad because of not having been able to do anything for him on recent occasions, but I don’t think he did it on purpose.

‘Mrs Bates,’ I said. Fergus fancies himself utterly ruled by deadlines and important busyness; he appreciates you getting to the point.

‘Oh my God, would you get out of my hair with that,’ he said, which was not the response I’d been expecting.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve had it up to high dough with that woman,’ he said (at least that’s what I thought he said – I assumed it was something to do with bread rising; later he told me no, it’s high do, as in do re mi, as in top C, when you’re singing). ‘She’s off her flaming trolley, in fact if she and her trolley were ever intimately connected I’d have my doubts. Serious doubts. I can understand a widow woman being upset but she is the most abysmal specimen of a … why?’