Elizabeth Peters - Night Train to Memphis

Taking my guidebook from my bag, I headed towards a corner of the enclosure, where massive walls of pale limestone towered high above my head. Solitude was impossible to attain; there were a dozen different tour groups present, clustered around their guides like flies on spilled sugar. I fended off a few importunate vendors of souvenirs and services and found a relatively quiet spot and a rock on which to sit.

It was still early; shadows lay cool and grey across the pale sand. The sky was a brilliant blue. Rising up against it, soft gold in the sunlight, was the Step Pyramid – the earliest example of monumental stone architecture, over four thousand years old. Worn and weathered, simple to the point of crudeness, it had more than sheer age to stir the imagination; there was something right about it, the slope and the proportions and, above all, the setting. One of my beloved medieval cathedrals would have dwindled in that immensity of sky and sand. This was a dream trip all right, a trip I had hoped to take one day. But I’d have traded the luxurious suite and the fancy food for an ordinary tourist excursion. How could I concentrate on pyramids and tomb paintings when my stomach was churning and my nerves were twanging like Grandad’s guitar strings? My eyes kept wandering from the carved lotus columns of the Southern Colonnade to the people gathered around Feisal.

I forced my eyes back to the guidebook and read a long paragraph about the Sed festival, but if you want to know what it was you’ll have to look it up, because I’ve forgotten everything except the name. Many of the fallen columns and walls had been restored, with original materials, and there was now enough to indicate how impressive the structure must have been in its prime. The slender fluted columns and gracefully curved cornices had a classical elegance. I was staring dreamily at them when I saw Jen heading in my direction.

I bent my head over the book, hoping she wouldn’t join me. I didn’t want company, especially hers. For a couple of minutes I had actually been enjoying myself.

She passed fairly close to me but she didn’t stop. Fumbling in her bag, she disappeared from sight behind a low wall. What could she want back there? It was unlike her to wander off alone. She hadn’t looked her usual energetic self, her steps had been slow and dragging.

I got to my feet and followed.

The space was dark and shadowed. Jen was sitting on the ground, her open bag beside her. ‘Jen?’ I said uncertainly ‘Are you – ’

She turned a blank, grey face toward me and toppled over onto her side.

Chapter Three

I YELLED. At its loudest my voice is the equal of any Wagnerian soprano’s, in volume if in no other quality. My call for help was answered sooner than I had dared hope; apparently I hadn’t been the only one to observe Jen’s sickly look. First on the scene was her devoted son, with Mary close on his heels.

Jen had resisted my attempt to lift her, curling herself into a ball with knees raised and arms clasped over her midsection, but when she saw John she made a gallant effort to smile.

‘Just my silly old tummy,’ she gasped. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll be fine in a minute.’

Her face was now green instead of grey, and sticky with perspiration. Mary knelt by her with a little cry of sympathy.

‘Mother Tregarth!’

‘Get out of my way,’ John said brusquely. I didn’t know whether he meant me or his bride. Mary assumed it was me. As she bent tenderly over Jen, the latter was violently and messily sick. Mary stumbled to her feet and backed off, her face twisted with disgust.

John hoisted his mother into his arms and put her down again a few feet away. Contemplating the spots on my brand-new outfit I said, ‘Oh, shit,’ took a handful of tissues from my pocket, and began wiping Jen’s face.

‘I do admire a woman with an extensive vocabulary,’ John said under his breath. ‘Don’t just squat there, fetch the doctor.’

‘I’ll go,’ Mary said quickly. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I . . . I’ll go.’

When they returned they were accompanied by several of the other passengers, moved by kindly concern or morbid curiosity. It’s not always easy to tell the difference, I admit. I felt fairly sure it was the latter emotion that had moved Suzi to join us, but I was willing to give Blenkiron the benefit of the doubt. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

Jen demonstrated. I had hoped she would throw up on John, but he managed to avoid it, supporting her head and shoulders so she wouldn’t choke. She kept on heaving, poor thing, although she had obviously got rid of everything in her stomach.

I hadn’t paid much attention to Dr Carter when he was introduced the night before, except to hope devoutly I would not require his services. He was a particularly unnoticeable man – middle-aged, middle-sized in both height and girth, with a bland, pink face.

‘Just a case of the pharaoh’s curse,’ he said, with that infuriating blend of condescension and jollity some doctors’ mistake for a soothing roadside manner. ‘Relax, Mrs Tregarth; we’ll get you back to the boat and – ’

‘No.’ John didn’t look up. ‘I want her in hospital. The boat has moved on, we’re as close or closer to Cairo.’

‘Now, son, there’s nothing to worry about. This is a common affliction, and the infirmary is – ’

‘Moving steadily south, among other disadvantages,’ John said, in his most offensive drawl. ‘My mother is not a young woman, Doctor, and she has had difficulties of this sort before.’

Carter started to fuss, and Blenkiron murmured, ‘Mr Tregarth is right, Ben. It would be foolish to take chances. Perhaps the bus can take her to Cairo and then return for us?’

His voice was soft and hesitant, but when you are rich you don’t have to yell to get your point across.

‘Just what I was about to suggest,’ Carter exclaimed.

Jen was too weak to resist. She looked awful, her closed eyes sunken. ‘Wouldn’t an ambulance be better?’ I said anxiously.

Blenkiron directed a smile in my general direction. ‘The back seats on the bus fold down into a cot, Vicky. She’ll be far more comfortable there, and safely in Cairo by the time we could get an ambulance out here.’

John scooped his mother up and walked off, followed by Mary and Carter.

‘Wow,’ said Suzi, staring. ‘He’s stronger than he looks, isn’t he? The old lady must weigh a hundred and sixty, and he’s practically running.’

Since I knew exactly what she was thinking I decided to ignore this. Since Blenkiron did not know, he responded. ‘One can understand his concern, though I’m sure it’s unnecessary. Many travellers get some kind of digestive upset. It’s nice to see a young man so devoted to his mother, isn’t it?’

‘He’s not so young,’ I said.

‘Had you known him before?’

I recollected myself. Blenkiron’s question had been casually disinterested, but the gleam of avid curiosity in Suzi’s eyes warned me that she was the kind who thrives on scandal. ‘No,’ I said.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met formally,’ Blenkiron said. ‘First names are easier and friendlier; mine is Larry.’

He looked younger and more relaxed in a sweat-stained shirt open at the throat and a pair of wrinkled khaki pants. I noted with sympathetic amusement that he was wearing a pith helmet. The damned things were practical, shielding the head and neck from the deadly rays of the sun, and heavy enough to resist the tug of the constant north wind.

‘I believe this is your first visit to Egypt?’ he went on, looking down at me and offering me his hand.