The English Girl

by Katherine Webb

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Joan Seabrook, a fledgling archaeologist, has fulfilled a lifelong dream to visit Arabia by travelling from England to the ancient city of Muscat with her fiancé, Rory. Desperate to escape the pain of a personal tragedy, she longs to explore the desert fort of Jabrin, and unearth the treasures it is said to conceal.

But Oman is a land lost in time - hard, secretive, and in the midst of a violent upheaval - and gaining permission to explore Jabrin could prove impossible. Joan's disappointment is only alleviated by the thrill of meeting her childhood heroine, pioneering explorer Maude Vickery, and hearing first-hand the stories that captured her imagination and fuelled her ambition as a child.

Joan's encounter with the extraordinary and reclusive Maude will change everything. Both women have things that they want, and secrets they must keep. As their friendship grows, Joan is seduced by Maude's stories, and the thrill of the adventure they hold, and only too late does she begin to question her actions - actions that will spark a wild, and potentially disastrous, chain of events.

Will the girl that left England for this beautiful but dangerous land ever find her way back?

Release date: March 24, 2016

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

Bedford, England, October 1939

For six days after Uncle Godfrey came to visit, Joan’s dad was patchwork. This was a term Joan had come up with herself, because he reminded her of her rag doll at such times – missing some stuffing, and with stitched crosses for eyes. Now Daniel used the term as well, though he was only five and didn’t really understand. Joan was seven, and didn’t really understand either. Their dad was usually a blur. He was almost always moving, or making noise; singing or proclaiming; juggling apples; tap-dancing on the chipped brown tiles of the kitchen floor. But when he was patchwork he was quiet – all but silent – and moved as though he’d forgotten where he was going. His shoulders slumped, his face went slack; he stopped shaving, and bathing, and wore the same pullover all week. It didn’t happen very often, and Joan hated it more than anything. It felt as though the world was ending.

Joan’s dad, David, was a small, slight man. He had a long face with clear blue eyes behind wire-framed spectacles, deep creases in his cheeks from his smile, and mousy hair that he combed back with Brylcreem. He smelled of tobacco, shaving soap and menthol for his chest. Godfrey, his older brother, was tall and sharp. He arrived in the biggest car Joan had ever seen, as grey and sleek as wet penguins at the zoo; he wore a dark suit and a hat that he didn’t take off, gave their cramped hallway a swift, outraged glance, and smiled at the children in such a way that they were too shy to speak.

‘It’s your own fault they won’t see you, you know that,’ Joan overheard Godfrey say to David. She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but their house was so small, and the walls so thin, it was hard not to. ‘Christ, if they knew I’d come to visit you … It’s your own fault you’re cut off, David.’

‘Why do you even come, Godfrey?’ David asked, his voice already starting to sound patchwork. Joan had also overheard her mother, another time, telling Mrs Banks from number 12 that David’s family were richer than Croesus. She had no idea how rich that might be.

Joan’s parents weren’t rich – rich people lived in castles, and drove cars like Uncle Godfrey’s instead of taking the bus. Joan had only the mildest curiosity about what that might be like. Her dad was the manager of the local cinema, the Rex Theatre, with its musty curtains and red velvet ropes, and regularly took the children to watch films there – sitting on his knee in the projection booth. Afterwards he told them wonderful stories about the places they’d seen – all the different countries and cities and peoples of the world. Joan considered the Rex Theatre a far greater boon than any car or castle might have been. She was the envy of her classmates.

‘You can’t join up, anyway,’ Mum said to her dad, after Godfrey’s visit, not looking up from the potatoes she was peeling. The words had clipped edges, and a loaded pause came after them. ‘Not with your chest. And your eyesight,’ she added. David sat at the kitchen table behind her, cleaning his spectacles with his handkerchief, saying nothing.

Mum’s response to Dad being patchwork was to feed him – their meals became as huge and elaborate as the grocer’s shelves would allow, and there were gaudy, complicated cakes at teatime – like the strange, saggy one armoured with mandarin slices from a catering-sized tin, that had looked like the fillet of a giant goldfish. But the food had little effect other than to give Dad a pot belly. When Joan and Daniel asked him for a bedtime story, he smiled wanly and shook his head.

‘Ask your mother, my loves. Your dad’s a bit spent this evening.’ But his stories were usually so much better than Mum’s. He brought them to life – he had a hundred voices and faces and gestures; he could be an old, old crone, or a wicked thief, or a tiny fairy. Joan wondered if it was the war. War had been declared with Germany just before Godfrey had come to call. Joan knew what a war was, in theory; she had no idea what one looked like or what it meant. She was a bit worried for a few days, because her teacher, Miss Keighley, dissolved into tears as she took the register one morning; but it soon seemed that being at war wasn’t going to be very different to normal.

‘It’ll be all right, Daddy,’ she told him, meaning the war, but his smile faded and he didn’t reply, and Joan was more confused than ever.



On the sixth day, she knew what she had to do. The One Thousand and One Nights. It was her talisman, her secret weapon, because it was her dad’s favourite, and hers too. She had the book in her hands when she went to ask him for a story, determined not to take no for an answer. She climbed into his lap so he couldn’t ignore her. When he looked down, he seemed to be looking at her from far away; she pressed the book into his hands, tense with the import of the moment. Daniel was at her heels with his blanket clamped under one arm and his thumb in his mouth.

‘Please will you read us one? Please?’ She stared into her dad’s face, at the stubble on his cheeks and the shadows around his eyes. ‘Please?’ she said again. David took a deep breath, then reached down and lifted Daniel up beside Joan.

‘All right then, urchins,’ he said quietly. Joan felt a little dizzy with relief.

Daniel curled up under David’s arm, already glassy-eyed with sleep, listening more to his father’s voice than to the story, but Joan hung on every word. It didn’t really matter which story he chose, but he chose ‘Ali Baba’ and, as he began to read, Joan asked him where the places were and what they were like, even though she knew the answers, because with every description he gave, her father got a little better.

‘Oh, but don’t you know, Joanie? Arabia is overflowing with magic! How else could anyone live in such a desert? Arabia is an ocean of sand, the biggest in the whole world. It stretches for hundreds and hundreds of miles in every direction – can you even imagine such a thing? Rolling hills and valleys, all made of golden sand as dry as bone.’

‘And there’s nothing in it at all except sand?’ she asked.

‘Well, why do you think the men who live there call it the “Empty Quarter”?’

‘But how do the men live there? What do they eat?’

‘Magic! Like I told you. Genies live there too, and they help the men. Genies can turn sand into gold, or water, or food, or anything else you want – so you’d better make sure you’ve got one on your side. But they’re tricksters, always striking bargains.’

‘What kind of bargains, Dad?’

‘Well, when I was there I met a genie called Dervish, and …’

The more David read and the more Joan asked, the less patchwork he became. Happiness flooded her. She knew that by morning he wouldn’t smell of unwashed jumpers or stewed tea any more, he’d smell of shaving soap and menthol again. He’d be himself again – a moving blur, not quiet and lost. Joan knew, with complete conviction, that her dad was a magical man; that The One Thousand and One Nights was a magical book, and that Arabia was a magical place. She knew that one day her dad would take her there.

Muscat, November 1958

‘Ready?’ Rory reached up and straightened Joan’s hat, needlessly. ‘You look very pretty, very smart,’ he said. Preoccupied, Joan forgot to thank him. She took a deep breath and nodded. The air was hot and dry; the taste of the sea on it was unexpected, and oddly not at all refreshing. She was uncomfortable in the long sleeves of her shirt and the trousers she had to wear beneath her skirt, and was trying not to fidget.

‘I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I should think. Do go, won’t you – she said to come by myself and I don’t want her to see that you walked me here.’

‘Of course I had to walk you; we’re not in Bedford any more. And you’re welcome, by the way.’

‘Sorry, Rory. Thank you. I’m just …’ The hand she laid on his arm was slightly shaky. She shrugged one shoulder.

‘I know. I know what this means to you. I just hope it’s not … Well, never mind. I hope it lives up to all your expectations. I hope she does.’ They spoke in hushed tones because the rest of the little street was empty, and the shadows between the buildings watched like censorious librarians.

The sun shining behind Rory rendered him in partial silhouette; a dark, indistinct version of himself. He had a round face – a teddy-bear face, Joan had always thought of it – with soft cheeks, brown eyes, a slightly pouting mouth and curly dark hair very similar to her own. But the heat and several sleepless nights had given him pouches under his eyes, and a waxy look. He looked hardly like himself at all. Bothered, Joan squinted up at an ancient watchtower on the rocks above them, stout against the dazzling blue. They were standing outside a modest mud-brick house in Harat al-Henna, the district outside of the wall of Muscat, near the main gate. At sunset, an antique canon would fire from one of the ancient forts by the sea, and the gates would close for the night, shutting the district out. After that, nobody could get back into the city without an official permit.

‘Of course she’ll live up to my expectations,’ Joan said, with a smile.

‘Yes, but sometimes meeting our heroes can be … disappointing. When they turn out to be only human after all, I mean.’

‘Nonsense; not somebody this remarkable. Anyway, I’ve read everything she’s ever written; I feel I know her already.’

‘Well then. Have you a match for your lamp to come back again?’

‘I’ve everything I need, Rory, really.’ She was suddenly impatient for him to leave. She wanted the moment all to herself, and the time and space to absorb it. And she didn’t want a witness to her apprehension – it always seemed to make the nerves worse.

‘All right. Good luck. Don’t get locked out, will you?’ He leaned in to kiss her cheek but Joan moved away.

‘Tut-tut, Rory – not in front of the Arabs, remember?’ she said.

Joan waited until the sound of his footsteps had faded away completely, then she took a breath and turned to the unremarkable door beside her. It was made of ancient acacia wood, like all the others; parched and beaten by the Arabian sun to the texture and hardness of stone. The mud-brick walls had been painted white at some point, but were now patterned with a network of fissures like the veins of a leaf, through which the crumbling render showed. The house was only two storeys high, square and flat-roofed, with its shutters closed against the eastern sky. It nestled back against the feet of the mountains – there could be no back door. Those rusty-brown mountains reared up all around, like jagged hands, cradling the city with incongruous care. Everywhere was stone and rock and hard sun, hard shadows, and no softness anywhere. A minute passed, and Joan berated herself for cowardice – for standing there making observations, delaying a moment she had so longed for. With her heart in her throat, she knocked at the door.

It was opened almost at once by a tall black man, dressed Omani-style in a grey dish-dash – the loose, long tunic men wore – belted, and with the curved dagger, a khanjar, worn at his middle. There were hollows in his cheeks; the whites of his eyes were stained brown, like milky coffee; the irises were entirely black. His beard was white, as were the few tufts of hair visible beneath a knotted turban. Joan couldn’t guess his age; his face was ancient but his back was straight, shoulders unbowed; he gazed down at Joan with the silent solemnity of a golem, and struck her dumb. The man’s hands hung loosely at his sides and Joan noticed the great size of them – long fingers like spiders’ legs. After a moment he spoke.

‘You are Joan Seabrook.’ His voice was reedy.

‘Yes,’ said Joan. She blushed, embarrassed by herself. ‘I’m Joan Seabrook,’ she reiterated pointlessly. ‘Is this Maude Vickery’s house? I think I’m expected.’

‘You are expected, or I would not have opened the door to you,’ said the old man. He smiled slightly, twisting his wrinkled lips. His English was almost without accent, each word formed with deliberate care, as perfect as worked stone. ‘Go up the stairs. The lady is waiting.’ He stood back to admit her, and Joan stepped past.

Inside, the house smelled like a stable. Before she could stop herself, Joan had put up a hand to cover her nose. It was stifling; no worse than the stables at home but so unexpected. The door closed behind her and she could hardly see in the sudden darkness; behind her she thought she heard the dry wheeze of a chuckle from the old man. She glanced at him but his face was in shadow; he neither moved nor spoke again, but she caught the gleam of his watchful eyes. Flustered, clumsy as a child, Joan carried on across the hallway to the foot of the stone staircase, and went up.

The stairs turned halfway up; light spilled through an open window to reveal a crust of dung pellets like those of a sheep or a goat, and scatterings of hay. Joan frowned in confusion. At the top of the stairs were just two rooms, one to either side of a small landing. Here she paused, but a moment later a voice called from her right.

‘Don’t dither there, whoever you are. I’m in here. You’ll have to forgive me for not getting up, but I can’t, you see.’ It was a hard voice with a querulous edge, the accent pure Home Counties, and it made Joan’s pulse leap up again. She couldn’t keep from smiling; for a moment she thought she might laugh. She followed the voice into a square room with white walls and arched windows low down in the front wall, closed off with wooden shutters. Only a single window that faced the steep rocks to the south was open, and the light from it spread softly through the room. There was an antique black bicycle propped against the end of a narrow bed, which was neatly made with faded blankets tucked tight beneath the mattress. To either side of the bed were large potted palms, and an elaborate metal lantern stood on the floor. There was a tidy desk and a long bookcase, the top shelves of which were empty – all the books were at a height of four feet or less, and piled up on the floor when there was no more space. Two wooden chairs faced a red chesterfield sofa on the thready carpet in the middle of the room, and by the sofa a large pile of Arabic and English journals had sagged sideways and slewed across the floor.

Two blonde saluki dogs were asleep in a nest of blankets against the back wall, tangled together so that legs and ears and tails appeared communal. One opened an amber eye to watch Joan, and for a moment their gentle snoring was the only sound in the room; the smell of them was part of the general fug in the air. An inlaid wooden chest was serving as a coffee table, and beside that was a wheelchair – an old-fashioned one made of rattan – in which sat Maude Villette Vickery. Joan tried not to stare. She had the unsettling, almost surreal feeling of being face to face with a person so often imagined it seemed unlikely that they could actually exist in the real world.

The first thing Joan noticed was Maude’s diminutive size. She looked almost childlike. Thin knees and elbows made sharp points through an old-fashioned, high-waisted skirt and a pin-tuck blouse with an upright collar; her ankles and feet, resting on the step of the chair, had a doll-like delicacy. She wore thick stockings, in spite of the heat; her hair was straight and iron grey, pulled into a severe knot at the back of her head, and her face, though sunken and lined, had strong bones beneath the skin. After a few seconds her features resolved themselves into the ones Joan knew from photos of her as a young woman – clear eyes, blue-grey, with a keen expression in them; a hooked beak of a nose. Joan kept her distance, not wanting to tower over her. ‘Come a bit closer, I shan’t bite,’ said Maude. Joan stepped forward obediently. Her feet lifted little clouds of dust from the carpet. Maude examined her, squinting up. ‘My, aren’t you tall? Or perhaps you aren’t. Everyone seems tall to me. Abdullah!’ she shouted suddenly, leaning towards the doorway and making Joan jump. ‘Tea, Abdullah!’ she added, though there’d been no answering shout.

She turned back to Joan with a sketchy shrug. ‘I know he can hear me. He has the ears of a bat, that old man,’ she said. Then there was a pause.

‘It’s so wonderful to meet you, Miss Vickery,’ said Joan. ‘It really is a tremendous thrill. I’ve been such a follower of yours for …’ She trailed off as a gazelle pottered into the room from across the hall. Joan stared. The animal paused to regard her with liquid eyes surrounded by bold black and white stripes like overdone make-up; then it huffed gently and pottered over to Maude, sniffing at her fingers. Maude smiled.

‘You greedy beast. You shall have dates when we do – when Abdullah brings them, and not before,’ she said.

‘You have a gazelle,’ Joan pointed out stupidly.

‘Indeed I do. I found him in the souk, ready for the chop. Abdullah wanted to cook him but look at that divine face. Who could resist? And such ridiculously big ears. He seemed such a pathetic thing, I couldn’t quite bear to eat him.’ She glanced up at Joan ruefully. ‘Feeble, I know.’

‘I didn’t think women were allowed in the souk?’ said Joan, at a loss.

‘They aren’t,’ Maude agreed, rubbing the whorl of hair between the gazelle’s eyes and offering no further explanation. The animal’s golden hide looked as supple as silk.

‘Well, at least that explains the—’ Joan pulled herself up short, on the verge of speaking far too freely. Maude looked up quickly.

‘The muck? Yes. And I suppose it smells bad, does it? Well, my apologies. I’m so used to it, I don’t even notice it. I manage to rule in this room, but I’ve very little control over what happens to the rest of the house. I’ll have a word with Abdullah.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Vickery, I really didn’t mean to be rude,’ said Joan. Maude waved one tiny hand at her.

‘You and I will get along far better if you speak your mind. I always have; it saves so much time.’

‘Don’t the dogs chase him?’ Joan nodded at the sleeping salukis.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at them! They haven’t chased a thing in years; they were already past their prime when they were given to me by that wily old man, bin Himyar. The Lord of The Green Mountain. How’s that for a left-handed compliment? I used to have an oryx as well, you know. A personal gift from Sultan Taimur bin Faisal, after I regretted to him that I’d never managed to shoot one on my travels. I think he meant for me to shoot it, but it seemed jolly unsporting to do so, with it tied to a post. But it was a wild thing, really, and had to stay outside. Those horns they have! Potentially quite lethal. He soon escaped, my oryx. Never saw him again, and I had to lie and tell the sultan I’d shot it and eaten it and how delicious it had been. I even got those to prove my story.’ She pointed to a pair of dark, ridged oryx horns, mounted on the wall. ‘Waste of time. I doubt the man even remembered giving me the creature in the first place.’

‘I’ve read that you had a close relationship with Sultan Taimur, unlike that of any other western woman.’

‘His father, too. Well, you know,’ said Maude vaguely. ‘Back then, maybe – I was a novelty at the time, you understand. And he always did like new toys. Just like all men.’

In silence, the tall, elderly servant who’d opened the door to Joan brought in a tray holding a pewter teapot and little glasses, a bowl of dates and another of sugar. He bent down slowly, put the tray on the chest without a clatter, and poured the tea without being asked.

‘Do you remember that oryx Sultan Taimur gave me, Abdullah?’ Maude asked him.

‘Yes, lady. I remember it.’

‘What did I call it? Do you recall?’

‘You called it Snowy, lady.’ Abdullah placed a glass of tea within her reach.

‘Snowy! That was it. How imaginative of me.’ Maude sighed. ‘His coat was the purest white you ever saw. We ought to have coffee with dates, I know, but I’m afraid I can no longer stomach the stuff. What was your name again, young woman?’

‘I’m … Joan Seabrook, Miss Vickery.’

‘So you are. The one who wrote all those letters. Quite a blizzard of them. Thank you, Abdullah. I wonder what happened to Snowy? Perhaps he made it back to the desert, but I rather doubt it. I’m sure he’d have wanted to, as I do. Better off in the desert, the pair of us. But what is it that you want, Miss Seabrook?’ Suddenly Maude seemed agitated, almost cross. She brushed at her skirt, then clasped her hands together. ‘I’m at a loss to fathom it, in spite of all the letters.’ As he withdrew from the room, Joan felt Abdullah’s eyes sweep over her. She couldn’t help but turn to watch him leave. He moved with incredible grace.

‘Well, I …’ she said, distracted.

‘Draws the eye, doesn’t he?’ Maude interjected, fixing Joan with a beady gaze.

‘Your servant is indeed a … striking man.’

‘Oh, he’s not my servant, Miss Seabrook. He’s my slave. I own him. I bought him at an auction, in a cave in the hills near Nizwa. Now, what do you make of that?’

‘I’d heard that the practice still continues here,’ Joan said carefully. She was thrown by this elderly version of her idol, unable to read her mood or her temperament. Maude sat back, looking disappointed.

‘Well. I see I shall have to try harder if I want to shock you, Miss Seabrook.’

‘I’m sure that once I’ve had a chance to reflect, I shall be very shocked, Miss Vickery. Only, I haven’t quite finished being shocked about the gazelle just yet.’ There was a pause; Maude’s eyes narrowed, and then she smiled a quick, impish smile.

‘Ha,’ she said, in place of laughter. ‘Good girl. You’re not too polite; I approve of that.’

Joan took a seat at one end of the red sofa, near the desk; they drank the tea, which was sweet with sugar and bitter with mint, and ate the dates. From outside came the clatter of donkey hooves and the slap of feet in leather sandals; the light began to mellow and a handful of flies buzzed in lazy circles around the room. The gap since Maude had asked Joan what she wanted had grown too wide for her to answer, and she let her eyes roam the room as she waited to be asked again. Maude chewed a date slowly; her eyes were far away but she seemed calm again, almost distant. There was a rosewood pencil tray on the desk, empty except for a ring – small but heavily made, with a twisted pewter band and a coarse lump of bright blue stone.

‘That’s an interesting ring,’ said Joan, leaning closer towards it. ‘What stone—’

‘Don’t touch it!’ Maude snapped, interrupting her loudly.

‘No, no I …’ Joan shook her head; she hadn’t been reaching for it.

‘Do not touch that thing,’ the old woman reiterated. Her glare was ferocious, and Joan realised that it was fixed on the ring, not on herself.

She laced her hands in her lap and searched for a way to change the subject; she didn’t dare ask anything else about the ring.

‘Was this house also a gift from Sultan Taimur, Miss Vickery? After he gave you the oryx?’ she said. Maude blinked several times, and then answered as though nothing had happened.

‘Certainly not. I bought it – and dearly. Taimur’s father, Faisal, gave me permission to live in Oman the rest of my days, and that was generous enough – I think I may be the only one, you know. The only European living here simply because it pleases me to, and not for any official or commercial reason. This current sultan, Said, is Faisal’s grandson – every time one of them dies I wonder if I’ll be turned out by the successor, but so far, so good. He’s as conservative as they come, Said, but he has his quirks – like those American missionaries for example; I have no idea why he lets them stay. Sweet people; silly as geese. They actually seem to think they might be able to convert the Arabs to Christianity. But theirs is the only hospital in the whole country.’ She pointed a finger at Joan. ‘Don’t get typhoid while you’re out here, Miss Seabrook – or tuberculosis. The milk is riddled with tuberculosis. Be sure it’s boiled before you have any in your coffee. Once I had permission to remain in Muscat, this old house was all I could find to buy. The better houses were refused to me. I think the Governor of Muscat wanted to make sure I was kept in my place, you understand? Have you met him yet? Sayid Shahab? Fearsome chap, all but autonomous with Sultan Said away in Salalah. He made sure I was honoured, but not too much so.’ She smiled slightly.

‘The government here certainly seems very strict.’

‘Indeed. Which begs the question, how on earth did you manage to get permission to come, Miss Seabrook? Oman is not a place that welcomes foreign visitors, or the idly curious. Never has been.’ Maude fed a date to the gazelle, which took it delicately from her fingertips.

‘No,’ said Joan uncomfortably. ‘My father was at school with the current wazir – the sultan’s foreign minister – which helped things along. We’re staying with him at the Residency – my fiancé, Rory, and I.’

‘Do they still call the post wazir? Vizier? How quaint. But then, I suppose, Oman is still a British protectorate, isn’t it? Even if they don’t exactly call it that any more – not now everyone’s so embarrassed about appearing colonial.’

‘And also, for the past six months, my brother Daniel has been over here. He’s a soldier, you see, seconded to the Sultan’s Armed Forces – the SAF. I was granted permission to come out and visit him.’

‘But that’s not why you’ve actually come.’

‘No. Well, yes, it is in part … I just …’ Joan paused, and for a second she felt the rise of something like desperation; she felt like she was grasping at something that was determined to slip away.

The truth was, she didn’t know quite how to put her need to see Arabia into words. It had been rooted deep inside her for so long, she’d stopped questioning it; and when Daniel was posted to Oman, and Robert Gibson became wazir, and Joan got a little money in her father’s will, it had seemed as though everything was lining up to finally bring her here. To Oman – a small, far corner of Arabia, but Arabia nonetheless. And somehow, since his death, it felt as though something of her father might be here, too. It had taken almost a year for the paralysing shock of losing him to lessen, and then for the idea to form, but once it had she knew that nothing would shake it.

It had been difficult telling her mother, Olive, how she intended to spend her small inheritance. She’d waited until Olive was cooking – which was when she was happiest – before mentioning it.

‘Isn’t it enough I’ve one child out there in that godforsaken place?’ said Olive, pausing with cubes of bacon fat stuck to the blade of her big knife and that quaver in her voice that was becoming a permanent impediment. ‘You’re not up to it, Joanie. And how could you leave me all by myself?’ She’d pulled a rumpled hanky from the pocket of her apron to scrub at her eyes, and Joan had felt the stifling guilt that was becoming all too familiar, welling up, making her question her decision. Olive looked wretched, vulnerable, easy to wound. ‘Your father never even went there – you know that.’ Joan did know. She’d been incredulous to learn, once she was old enough to understand, that her father had never been further than France. In spite of all his tales; in spite of all his dreams and enthusiasm and plans. But he’d wanted Joan to travel, that much she knew; he’d wanted her to live out some of her dreams. And Joan had always dreamed of Arabia. She heard her father’s voice in her head; pictured his wide, exaggerated eyes. Land of Sinbad the Sailor and the Queen of Sheba, and frankincense and genies and wishes! Always over the top – deliberately so; always ready to bring magic and wonder into her world.

Joan tried to swallow the desperate feeling down, but her audience with Maude Vickery was not going at all as she’d hoped or imagined. ‘You’ve been my heroine since I was only a girl, Miss Vickery. I want to go into the desert, just as you did. Into the Rub el Khali – the Empty Quarter. The largest sand desert in the world … I know a lot of people have crossed it now, but so much of it is still untouched. I want to go to Fort Jabrin, and do a survey; perhaps draw some elevations. I’m an archaeologist – perhaps you remember from my letters? Well – almost. I haven’t actually done any archaeology yet, but I have my degree. I’ve actually just applied for a post at a local museum – a very junior post, of course. It starts in the new year, that’s if I get it, which I ought to if I can show them some study I’ve made while I’m out here; and I really want to …’ She paused for a breath but Maude was looking at her in an unfriendly way, so she held her tongue.

‘A goodly long list of wants, Miss Seabrook.’ Maude jabbed a finger at Joan, the nail ridged and stained. ‘And may I point out that you are still only a girl?’

‘I’m almost as old as you were when you first crossed the desert. I’m twenty-six.

Maude made a grudging sound.

‘You seem younger. But be that as it may, I fear you’re chasing a dream. You wa