or three brief words. Several pairs of eyes, red-rimmed or milky, turned towards Ruby.
She understood the situation at once. Mamdooh came out to do the household’s shopping, then retired to this café or whatever it was for an hour’s talk with his friends, and her presence was an impediment to this pleasant interval in his day. She lifted her hands and raised her shoulders in apology as Mamdooh prepared to move on.
She said hastily, ‘I can find my way back, you know, if you want to stay with your friends for a bit. I found my way last night, didn’t I?’ She remembered Nafouz and his taxi.
Mamdooh looked genuinely shocked at this suggestion.
‘That would not be at all right, Miss. We will be going home at once. Mum-reese will look for you, perhaps.’
The perhaps, and the pinch of the lips that went with it, betrayed more hope than conviction, but Ruby knew there was nothing more to be said about going back by herself. Farewells were exchanged with the old men and Mamdooh sailed across the square. But now, Ruby sensed, she was walking with him rather than in his wake. The impression was confirmed when he remarked in a conversational voice, ‘Market, very old also.’
‘How old?’
‘Seven hundred year.’
‘Ha. Just think of all the buying of things.’ Centuries, Ruby thought, of leather and herbs and perfume and figs. The notion made her shiver a little.
‘Selling,’ Mamdooh corrected her. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Selling, very important.’
They both laughed at that. Mamdooh’s shoulders shook and his head tipped back, but his tarboosh didn’t fall off.
They came to the wide street from a completely unexpected direction and ducked through the stream of buses and cars. They were walking companionably towards Iris’s house when an extra-loud volley of hooting caught their attention. There was a black-and-white taxi parked where the alley finally became impassable to cars. The faded blue of the door was just behind it.
‘Lady, lady! We look for you!’ a voice shouted.
Nafouz was leaning out of the driver’s window and banging with his fist on the car door.
Mamdooh moved fast for a man of his bulk. He streaked across to the taxi and shouted at Nafouz, flapping his big hand towards the open end of the alley. From the passenger side of the car another young man climbed out and hung on the lintel. He looked like Nafouz, but a little younger. He was grinning and shouting back at Mamdooh, thumping on the car roof, clearly enjoying the scene. Two or three small children gathered to stare.
Nafouz slid out of the car. He appealed direct to Ruby. ‘We are friends, yes? I bring you, last night.’
‘No.’
‘Lady?’ Nafouz’s eyes were wide, hurt pools.
‘Yes, I mean, you drove me from the airport. That doesn’t make us friends, does it?’ She had kicked him, for one thing.
Nafouz turned away to burrow inside the car. Ruby looked at the other young man. He had the same slicked-back hair as Nafouz and a similar white shirt, but cleaner. He smiled at her.
‘I come all the way, bring this for you.’ Nafouz had re-emerged. He was holding out a CD case with a hand-coloured insert, a pattern of swirls and tendrils in red paint and black ink. Ruby looked at it. Her name was spelled out among the tendrils. Jas had painted the insert, and he had burned the CD inside it for her. It was one of his own mixes, just about the last thing he had made for her before … Before he …
She held out her hand. The CD must have fallen out of her bag as she scrambled into or out of the taxi. She would have been sad to lose it.
‘It’s only a thing, baby,’ Jas would have said. ‘Things don’t matter, people do.’
But she had so little of him.
‘Right. Well, thanks,’ she muttered.
She was about to take the case but Nafouz drew his hand back, teasing her. Her fingers closed on thin air, but Mamdooh was quicker. The case was tweaked out of Nafouz’s grasp and slipped into the deep pocket in the seam of Mamdooh’s galabiyeh.
There was a sharp exchange of words before Mamdooh turned back to Ruby. ‘If you like, Miss, you give him a little money. But it is not if you do not want.’
Ruby looked at the two young men and they stared back at her. An awkward flush of colour crept up her face as she felt the space of cobbled alleyway widen between them. She wished she hadn’t denied being Nafouz’s friend; she would have much preferred to be that now rather than the possessor or otherwise of a few Egyptian pounds.
‘How much?’ she muttered, in shame.
Nafouz was equal to the moment. ‘Twenty bounds,’ he said brightly.
Mamdooh clicked his tongue but Ruby rummaged under her shirt for her purse as the two young men watched with interest. She took out a note and Nafouz whisked it away. He winked at her.
‘You take a tour? I show you Cairo. Special Cairo, my brother and me. Not tourist places. Real city.’
Ruby hesitated. She would have loved to pile into the taxi and go cruising through the streets with them. She could smell cigarettes and the plastic seats of the car, and feel the hot diesel-scented air blowing in through the windows.
Mamdooh had already mounted the steps and produced a key for the blue door.
‘Another time, maybe,’ she said lamely. There were priorities, other matters she had to deal with first.
The younger brother came round to Nafouz’s side of the car.
‘I am Ashraf.’
‘Hi.’
The door was open, Mamdooh was waiting with the basket of vegetables at his side. The brothers were waiting too.
‘My name’s Ruby.’
Their faces split into identical white smiles. ‘Nice name.’
‘I’ve got to go now. But I’d like to take a tour, yeah. Have you got a …’ She made a scribble movement in the air for a pen, but Nafouz dismissed it.
‘We find you.’
‘Miss?’ Mamdooh said, holding the door open wide. His forehead was serrated with disapproval once more.
‘See you, then.’
Ruby marched up the steps. The taxi noisily reversed down the street in a cloud of acrid fumes.
In the cool hallway Mamdooh blocked her way. ‘It is important to have some care, Miss. You are young, in this city there are not always good people. Not all people are bad, you must understand, it is just important that you make no risks. Do you understand what it is I am saying to you?’
He was treating her like a child. In London, Ruby did what she wanted. Lesley and Andrew didn’t know what that involved, nor did Will
