page21 (1/2)

‘That was different I was different back then’

‘Why don’t you take a dose of your own ood than me’

He let out a long breath and began walking again

‘I used to That was one benefit of living on a lonely stretch of shore with only fishermen around me Whenever there was a storm that is precisely what I did the first year I was there Then I didn’t feel like it any more’

‘Do you feel like anything any ry and deter at the storged again, as if shaking her off

‘No, not really It is quite pleasant this way It suits me But it doesn’t suit you’

‘Go fall doell, Edge’

‘I dare say I will if I spend enough time with you Or into the Nile like the time you took the felucca without Daoud’s permission’

‘I would have been fine if you hadn’t insisted on co away from the jetty’

‘Probably I always did make bad worse, didn’t I? I deserved every one of your nicknames It would have been far better if I’d listened to you instead of you to ht have’

She heard the clean note of pain at theIt arainst her palm as his hand wrapped around hers in turn The sky felt like it was pulsing above them, a deep, steady throb She watched the outline of his chest as he breathed, a slow rise and fall like the thick rolling waves of the Mediterranean With strange panic she felt her own breathing fall into the rhyth the orchestra late Her heartbeat was co at her insides as if trying to wake her froerous sleep

Into a dangerous dream

She’d fallen into it once, but she wouldn’t again It was the result of being back in Egypt withbelow the ralimmer of rueful amusement she’d often missed or misunderstood She’d seen only what he chose to show the world and not the conflicting currents that clashed beneath his wary surface

Again she thought of al-Walid’s story

‘I keep thinking of what they saw,’ she said and he turned to her

‘Who?’

‘Thosebehind you It ’

‘I was certainly terrified We thought that ht be our final misdemeanour’