Mahmoud, busy as ever, had immediately switched to another case. It was clear that he regarded the matter as closed.
Owen was not so sure. Tit-for-tat- exchanges between the communities of Cairo did not necessarily end just because a man had been killed. He was waiting to see if there were any further attacks.
As the days went by, however, and no further incident was reported, he began to relax. His words to Osman appeared to have had some effect. On the Copt side, too, all was quiet. One morning he went so far as to say to Nikos that he thought the affair was now over.
“Yes,” said Nikos, “provided that it was the simple case.”
“What do you mean?”
“The simple case,” said Nikos, “is that the matter began and ended with the Zikr. He desecrated the tomb; he has paid for it.”
“Well?”
“The other case is when it doesn’t end there. Suppose Andrus were right? Suppose it were not the whole thing but part of a pattern? That gets more complex.”
“Polo,” said Paul.
“What?”
“Polo. It’s a game you play on horses. There’s a match tomorrow. Would you like to go and see it?”
“No!” said Owen.
“Pity. I’ve arranged for you to take Miss P.”
“I don’t want to watch polo. I’ve got better things to do.”
“Hasn’t everybody? However, that’s not the point. I need her out of the way tomorrow afternoon because things are reaching a juicy stage and I’ve got to work on her uncle.”
“Couldn’t you find somebody else?”
“I’ve picked you. Though not with the confidence I used to. However, with polo you ought to be all right. Just confine yourself to watching the game, that’s all. If a horse has to be shot, or, I suppose, a rider-perhaps they do that sort of thing in polo; I expect they do since the Army has a hand in it-you don’t have to go out of your way to ensure that she has a ringside seat. Nothing nasty this time, please.”
“It will be very boring,” Owen complained.
“I certainly hope so.”
“Mightn’t she find it boring too?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There are the horses. Don’t girls like horses?”
“I would have thought she’d have outgrown that.”
“I would have thought so too, but last night I spent a whole dinner sitting between two girls who talked about nothing but horses. That’s what gave me the idea.”
“I think she may be different.”
“So she may, and tomorrow’s the chance for her to find that out. I’ve arranged for you to pick her up from her hotel at four o’clock.”
The polo took place at the Khedivial Sports Club, or Gezira, as it was familiarly known, and the following afternoon found Owen walking dutifully about its spacious grounds with Jane Postlethwaite’s hand resting lightly on his arm. He had been somewhat apprehensive about the encounter in view of the way their last meeting had ended, but fortunately she seemed to have put her irritation behind her. They stood beneath the trees for a while watching the game.
“Do you play polo yourself, Captain Owen?” she asked politely.
“A lot of people did in India,” he said. Honesty compelled him to add: “I didn’t. I couldn’t afford the ponies.”
Jane Postlethwaite turned her candid gaze upon him.
“They are very expensive, I presume?”
“Not in themselves. It’s the things that go with them. Stabling, a syce-that’s a sort of groom-that kind of thing. You couldn’t really manage it on a subaltern’s pay. Of course, most of the officers had private incomes.”
The play moved over to the other side of the field and they stopped their conversation for a moment to follow it. Then a long hit sent ponies and riders thundering away.
“It seems wrong,” said Jane Postlethwaite.
“What does?”
“To spend your money on this sort of thing.”
“There are worse things to spend your money on.”
“And better.” She turned away. “Shall we walk through the grounds?”
The grounds were beautiful and well kept. There were marvellous flowerbeds, rose-gardens and herbaceous borders, well-established trees and shrubberies in full bloom. Yet the pride of the Gezira was its turf. Lush, green fields stretched in all directions. They were heavily watered each day in both the morning and the evening and kept their greenness in spite of the wear and the sun. All the pitches were lined with trees under which spectators could sit and which made splendid spots for picnics when no game was going on. There were several families under the trees now, with little children running around and babies crawling about in the grass. Jane Postlethwaite watched them with pleasure.
“I can see now,” she said. “I can see how it might be possible to bring up a family here. I wondered how an English family could manage it. It’s so hot. It would drain the energy out of you.”
“You get used to it.”
“Especially with children.”
“Lots of men send their families home to England in the summer.”
“I wouldn’t like that,” said Jane Postlethwaite with a decided shake of her head. “I wouldn’t like that at all.”
They made a wide circle through the grounds. By the time they came back to the club house the sun was already setting. Through the trees they could see the spectators returning from the polo. Because of the heat games never started before four and they had to finish soon after six because of the early Egyptian twilight. There was time for one innings only if you were playing cricket. All matches had to be two-day ones.
They approached the club house through a fine avenue of tall mimosas. Jane Postlethwaite dawdled.
“It’s lovely,” she said enthusiastically. “It’s just like one of those avenues you sometimes see in Italy. Different trees, of course. But against the sky, especially when it’s beginning to get dark… Have you ever visited Italy, Captain Owen?”
Owen hadn’t. To him Italy was as alien and remote as- well, as England was. It was ten years since he had been in Europe. He had left England when he was nineteen. The landscape he knew was that of the East.
Jane Postlethwaite went happily up the steps of the club house and off to the ladies’ room. Owen waited outside. At this time of day it was cooler outside than in the airless rooms of the club. He took a turn along a path between the great bougainvillaea bushes. A man came along the path towards him, obviously taking the air, as he was. He looked at Owen, stopped and stretched out his hand. t
“Hello,” he said. “Enjoying the polo?”
“The grounds more,” said Owen.
It was Ramses, the civil servant from the Ministry of Finance whom he had talked to at the Consul-General’s reception.
“Me too,” said Ramses. “I bring my family out here for a picnic. The boys like watching but I can’t say I greatly enjoy it myself.”
They fell into step beside each other. Owen asked how John Postlethwaite was getting on in the ministry.
“All right. He’s very thorough. He knows his stuff.”
“I wish I did. Accounting has always been a closed book to me.”
“I don’t suppose it figures large in an officer’s training.”
“No. But when you move into administration you find you need it.”
“All administration is ultimately money,” said Ramses, who had a professional bias in the matter.
“Money. And people.”
“The two go together.”
“Especially in Cairo.”
They both laughed.
“I’m having problems,” said Owen.
“A soldier’s pay doesn’t go far,” said Ramses neutrally.
“No, no. It’s not that. I’m having problems with my viring.”
“You don’t have powers of virement, surely?”
“I’ve sort of had in the past.”
Ramses grinned.
“But they’ve found out?”
“Yes, but I need to vire, if that’s what you call it. I get my money through all sorts of old accounts. It might have been all right in the past but it doesn’t work now.”