Equivocator by Stevie Davies Read Free Book Online Page A

asks.
    â€˜Oh, a conference. And I didn’t want to lose the chance of seeing you, darling.’
    â€˜ Another conference? Whatever can be left to confer about? So, tell me, how are those mummies and sphinxes and suchlike faring, Seb? Much as before, I imagine. I can’t think where you got your passion for cadavers – it certainly wasn’t from me. And you have given a learned paper? On?’
    I shift in my seat, embarrassed. ‘A bit of a whimsical-sounding title – “New Light on the Abomination of Monthu”.’
    â€˜Dear oh dear!’ She chuckles with relish, a luminous silver-grey figure in her immaculate silk blouse, a cameo at the neck. ‘Sorry,’ she says, choking with giggles like a girl. ‘But – honestly! And who or what is or was this Monthu?’
    â€˜Well …’
    â€˜On second thoughts, don’t tell me! What world do you people live in? Wars and invasions and persecution – these, Sebastian, are abominations. Streams of refugees coming out of Syria and Sudan and Iraq – yes, you see, I do keep up with the news and I trust you do too. Sometimes these poor people seem to be flocking out of the TV into my living room. I can hardly breathe for abominations. If you are interested in the real thing.’
    I want to cheer her on. She still suffers reality to imprint itself on her conscience. My mother remains courageously enrolled on the side of practical ethics. Elise remains Elise, for all her daunted awareness that her brain may betray her. Snaring her hand in both of mine, I rub it with my thumbs. She must have seen the homage in my face, the gratitude. And, moved by it, she asks if there’s anything I need.
    â€˜I need to ask you about someone.’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜A friend of Dad’s. Rhys Salvatore.’
    â€˜Never heard of him,’ Elise says firmly and withdraws her hand. ‘Next question.’
    I deflate, thinking: whatever did I expect? And my quest seems as anachronistic as a fossil hunt.
    I divert Elise by describing a mineshaft I explored in Egypt. My friend and I were checking out Roman mine workings, leaving our equipment at the surface, to try out techniques used by the original amethyst-miners, some of them children. They worked in near-dark, with the most basic of tools. I went first, Aziz puffing along in my wake. We penetrated to the point where the narrowing tunnel fell sheer away. I made out hack-marks on the walls, perhaps left by the children.
    I held my lamp over the drop. And there below me was … something terribly human. A basket. Just an ordinary basket of woven reeds like those used by present-day peasants.
    â€˜Two thousand years go by,’ I tell Elise, who’s listening intently, breathing deep. ‘Egypt falls. Rome falls. The British Empire falls. The miner’s lunch box is still there. Never decaying. Down those shafts nothing changes – there’s no humidity. It’s not subject to time. The basket remains exactly as the miner left it. Then my friend and I clap eyes on it.’
    â€˜What do you suppose they had for lunch, Seb?’
    â€˜Bread, certainly. Figs? Fish? Falafel?’
    â€˜Couldn’t you, I don’t know, hook it up or something?’
    â€˜I stretched but it was too far down and there was nothing to hold on to. A parlous place to fall – the basket being on a ledge and the shaft pitching way down beyond that. We had nothing we could use to hoist it up. I expect it’s still there.’
    â€˜And I suppose Aziz was your lover?’
    â€˜Pardon?’
    â€˜You heard. Yes, of course I know! What kind of ninny do you take me for? Once you asked for a cat,’ she continues, without a pause, leaning forward in her chair as if this was the whole point of the conversation. ‘Remember that?’
    I shake my head.
    â€˜Of course you can have a cat, your dad said – he was just back from his travels, with