The Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble Page A

infinitesimally small bump which he had mistaken for serious affliction, and which he in the end admitted had probably been there all his life. Even the words of the Scrabble board had veered remarkably towards the camel, and when one night they had been reduced to playing Consequences, they had produced some highly entertaining variations on the theme. None of those good jokes would stand the chill of retelling, but they had been good at the time, mingled as they had been with the extraordinary sensations of relief and triumph, with the knowledge that there, just out in the sandhills, lay their own city, rising slowly from the ground: a reputation made, it meant, for Frances Wingate, and a good step in the right direction, career-wise, for Derek and Bruce, both of them acting as her assistants, both of them on handsome grants from their respective Universities, grants which would now be seen to have been amply justified. No wonder they had laughed weakly with euphoria, lying there in the cool evening, thinking of the long caravans from Meroé, the bazaar, the palms, the chickens and dogs, the bargaining, the donkeys and camels, probably not so different then from now, for the whole place had been miraculously preserved by the fine dry sand, and it looked, as it emerged, habitable, homely, like any other small Saharan village today, not crushed out of recognition, like so many sites, by earth and rain and trampling feet. It had been busy then, but they had all gone away (she had had to think of reasons for their departure, but that came later). Negroes, Arabs, Phoenicians. John Sinclair-Davies, who had accompanied them at his own expense, was the artist of the expedition; he was there to draw pots and stones, but would also dash off beautiful reconstructions—life in Tizouk and Meroë in 500 BC , with giraffes and monkeys and ivory, with palm trees and lions, interspersed with sketches of Frances in her bikini, Frances in the pose of Alexandrine Tinne, the first European woman to venture into the Sahara (she was hacked to death for her trouble), Frances in the full regalia of a Meroitic queen, Palmer grotesquely raddled in the last stages of tertiary syphilis, Bruce Wyatt as a sheik playing poker with Frances dressed as the ancient queen of the Tuareg. They had all been very silly, no doubt. They had played Scrabble, in the evenings, when poker palled, allowing themselves to use the place names of the Sahara, which were full of z and k and x, and other useful consonants—after all, said Frances one night, regally adjudicating, bending the rules, allowing Tizouk to Derek, it is
our
place name, and we can allow ourselves to use it, can we not?
    The Sahara had once been very different: fertile, grass-covered, and in places the hippopotamus had wallowed where there is now no water for hundreds of miles. Her people had left Tizouk when the water dried up: they had wandered off, from their little trading post, leaving it to the wind and the sand and Frances Wingate.
    When she had finished her camel story, she and Hunter and Galletti discussed camels and their habits in general, contrasting their bad character with the nobility and fidelity of the horse and the dog, and then, suddenly out of the blue, Hunter said, ‘I met an old friend of yours a month ago. Karel Schmidt, his name was.’
    â€˜Really?’ said Frances, a little stunned, unable to change gear very quickly. She couldn’t think of anything to say, her mind still ran on camels, but she longed to know more.
    â€˜Where did you meet him?’ she said, after a pause, playing for time, afraid the topic would be changed, wondering desperately how much Hunter could know about her and Karel, what Karel had said about her and whether she dared ask, whether Karel still saw Derek Palmer ever, wishing she hadn’t drunk so much.
    â€˜I met him at his Poly,’ said Hunter. ‘I went to give a talk there. He said that’s where you first