Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
THE MAN WHO USED TO BE YOU . . .
Dawn rose over the horizon like a slow fire, spreading across the sky, burning with deep orange and reds as the balloon lifted gently.
Below, the Nile wound its way around Luxor, a silver snake of glistening water slithering through the fields.
As though guided by an invisible hand, the balloon drifted towards the desert hills.
When the Valley of the Kings came into sight, the weight of history was palpable, as though thousands of years and multiple generations of humans, all caught in a fascinating cycle of life, whispered their ghostly stories into the wind that soundlessly lifted them over the landscape.
For passengers in the balloon, the aerial sight was breathtaking.
Hattie held on to the basket rail, her hand touching Gerald’s as the burner flared, then fell silent.
She heard him discuss the flight with the pilot and learned that the balloon couldn’t be steered, only guided as it rose and fell.
Hattie reflected that life was often the same.
It too couldn’t be steered, only guided as one rose and fell through the inevitable highs and lows.
She smiled when she remembered how she’d ended up in the basket.
A goliath of a man lifted her as gently as if she were a sleeping baby, placing her carefully beside her friends.
Peter and Mary followed, both receiving a lift from the same towering figure.
Gerald, first in, stood next to Ezra, who’d leapt like a gazelle before turning to help Sylvie, whose long legs made the climb effortless.
As the new day began, they drifted higher, carried only by the wind.
Hattie looked across at Mary and Peter, standing together, arm in arm. She remembered his shocked expression when Mary appeared at their table in 1866, as if a ghost had stepped out of thin air. Sitting beside them, everyone was agog as they waited to hear her explanation.
Peter sat quietly, listening without judgement, as Mary began to explain her disappearance.
‘I’d been planning it for some time,’ Mary said, turning to face Peter. ‘So many times, over the years, I tried to tell you I wasn’t happy, that you’d changed and lost yourself in a fantasy world that didn’t include me.’
Mary folded her hands in her lap and looked down, gathering her thoughts.
‘You never noticed the journals I kept,’ she continued, ‘nor thought to ask why the pages were filling. But I had my own fantasy world too, and like my favourite author, I wanted to write.’
‘Agatha Christie . . .’ Peter whispered.
‘I’d saved for some time and knew that the only way to realise my fantasy was to disappear and immerse myself in the same magic that Agatha found in Egypt.’
She lifted her eyes to Peter.
‘You’d never have understood,’ she said. ‘You would have told me I was being foolish, taken me off to Tenerife and hoped my dream would simply fade.’
Peter nodded. He had to agree.
‘I know what I did must have felt cruel, disappearing like that, making no contact with you, and not telling you where I was. But if I’d said anything, you and everyone else would have tried to stop me and insisted that I come back.
Or worse, there was a slim chance that you would have understood, and I’d have seen how upset you were, then I wouldn’t have gone at all. ’
She hesitated, searching Peter’s face.
‘I needed to do something that was mine. I’d begun to feel that I’d missed my chance, and it wouldn’t leave me alone.
’ Mary’s eyes were bright as she continued.
‘So I used my savings, and some money from our joint account, and travelled to Aswan. I booked myself into the Old Cataract Hotel so I could steep myself in the atmosphere of my favourite author.’
She smiled at the memory.
‘It was wonderful and, in the suite where Agatha had stayed, the staff were so kind. Each morning, they set a rattan chair and small desk on the shaded terrace, beyond the French windows, just as she had done. I thought if I immersed myself there, watching the Nile flow and river life, I might find the courage to write my novel.’
‘And did you?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Mary replied, her smile widening. ‘My jottings, to my delight, all joined together as though Agatha herself were guiding my fingers across the keyboard.’
‘So . . . you’ve written a novel?’
‘Yes,’ she said, unable to hide her delight. ‘And guess what?’
‘Go on . . .’
‘I’ve even found a publisher, and I’ve signed a contract.’
‘But Mary, that’s fantastic!’ Peter said, reaching out to take her hands. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
‘You’re not angry?’
Peter fell silent for a moment, staring at his wife, hardly recognising this new, confident version of Mary.
‘I can’t be angry,’ he said slowly, ‘because you’re here, and you’re real. But how did you find me?’
Mary turned her head and looked across at Hattie.
‘Hattie helped me,’ Mary said, ‘and I’ve been listening carefully to what you’ve just told everyone here.’
Hattie shifted in her seat and gave a guilty smile. ‘I think I might have a little explaining to do,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m a private investigator.’
With raised brows, Peter turned to Hattie.
‘When Peter told us all that Mary had disappeared,’ Hattie began, ‘something didn’t sit right, and I had a bit of a hunch. When I visited the hotel and the room that Agatha stayed in, I was told about a lady with an interest in Agatha, who’d been writing at a desk on the terrace.’
She looked at Mary and smiled.
‘Peter told us that Mary, like me, loved Agatha’s stories, and wrote in many journals, so I asked my friend Alf to pop over to Clitheroe to see Bob, and learned that Mary had returned just two days after Peter left for Egypt.
She’d asked Bob not to say anything as she would travel back to Egypt to find Peter, while he was away from home and work, and ask him how he really felt.
Mary nodded and squeezed Peter’s hand.
Hattie continued, ‘So, I colluded with Sue, who arranged for Mary to be here, and just now, I hoped that Mary heard you telling everyone how you really felt, so she knew that everything was going to be alright.’
‘But what if I was still playing at being James Bond?’ Puzzled, Peter turned to Mary.
‘Then nothing would change,’ she said, ‘and I would have slipped quietly away to make a new life with my writing.’
‘But you’ve stayed?’
‘Yes,’ Mary said, reaching out to caress Peter’s face. ‘Because I love the man who used to be you and now . . . I’ve found him again.’
In the basket of the balloon, Ezra gripped a rope handle and watched the dawn sunlight catch deserted villages below.
In that moment, he realised that wherever life carried him, he didn’t need to have all the answers.
What mattered most was being true to himself.
His mom’s reaction to his sexuality was unexpected, and her delighted response meant so much.
What a fool he’d been by assuming that when his mom hoped he’d find a partner, he thought she meant a girl!
He thought of Nazeem, a man he would never see again, and knew that was okay, for Nazeem had given him the confidence to be exactly who he was.
And as the sun climbed over the desert, Ezra smiled.
His curse of pretending to be someone he wasn’t had finally been broken.
Now, he was ready to go home and live as the man he was always meant to be.
Sylvie’s eyes widened as she leaned on the edge of the basket, her phone poised to capture the breathtaking landscape below, where scattered clusters of deserted dwellings nestled in the hillside.
She remembered Sam explaining that villagers who once lived near the Valley of the Kings had been relocated by the government after it was discovered that some were digging into the tombs and removing treasures.
When she spotted the mud-brick house Howard Carter had built to be close to the tombs he was excavating, Sylvie beamed with delight and zoomed in for a closer look, framing the dome-topped buildings surrounded by date palms and patches of dusty earth.
What a marvellous holiday this had been!
She had so much to tell Errol when they returned, and the best bit was that Ezra was finally comfortable in his own skin. Seeing him relaxed and knowing he felt confident removed a weight she didn’t realise she’d been carrying for all these years.
As the burner roared briefly above them, shooting bright flares of orange and yellow flame into the balloon, Sylvie realised that the journey had given her more than memories. It had given her son the freedom to be himself, a gift far greater than any souvenir she could take home.
Gerald stood beside Hattie and placed his arm around her shoulder.
‘Enjoying it?’ he asked.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she whispered.
He stared down at a huddle of houses as they glided overhead.
Roofless, their divided rooms were like small open boxes where families moved about.
Occasional flat areas held water tanks and satellite dishes, while chickens and geese wandered freely between buildings.
Thin curls of smoke from cooking fires drifted gently upwards as the villagers woke and began their day.
The pilot pointed out the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and Gerald remembered his walk there with Hattie.
Climbing the long flight of steps, in the scorching sun, and along the terraces set in towering cliffs, while Anouska had gone ahead to take selfies.
Hattie had kindly handed him a walking pole, and as they climbed, he had found himself speaking of Sally and his marriage to Anouska.
The conversation had come so easily that it had surprised him. Looking back now, he wondered if that was the moment, somewhere in that sunlit temple, that his first feelings for Hattie had begun.
As he watched the sunrise, the sudden change in light quickly gave the desert a soft, rose-coloured glow, and Gerald realised that his love for Hattie had grown in much the same way.
Almost unnoticed at first, love, like the faintest hint of dawn, had grown into a blaze of colour with a warmth that filled his heart.
Gerald knew that by divorcing Anouska, the road ahead might be rocky, especially if she chose to make things difficult. But whatever mountains he had to climb, if it meant being free to be with Hattie, every step would be worth it.
He felt Hattie’s fingers curl into his own and glanced down at her pretty, sun-kissed face.
‘Happy?’ he asked.
Hattie looked around at the people surrounding her.
Sylvie and Ezra, shoulder to shoulder, and Peter with his arm protectively around Mary.
Then, she turned to Gerald and saw his warm, kindly eyes filled with love.
For a fleeting moment, Hattie thought she saw a Cupid hovering, an arrow poised, and butterflies dancing lightly across his lovely face.
‘Yes, I am,’ she whispered, brushing his cheek with a soft kiss. ‘And I think that Egypt will stay with me for a very long time.’
‘As long as the Nile keeps flowing, it will be in everyone’s hearts,’ Gerald said quietly.
Hattie turned and as she stared out to the Valley of the Kings and the long winding river, she smiled.
Even Agatha would approve of an ending like this.