I Tried On Your Wedding Dress

Hilary Casey 1

"He's a funny man, your father," she said, jutting out her chin to light a cigarette as she went and consequently tilting her shoulders back, giving her the appearance of goose-stepping. "Nothing like your grandfather, thanks be to God. David is trying his hardest with you lot. I just wish he'd have a bit more ambition in his own life. I think it's important to make something of your own life before you go giving onto this world. I suppose he'd say he is doing his bit. Some people like families."

All this meant nothing to me.

"You're grandfather loved families. He was so happy when I dropped your father."

When I hugged my other grandmother it was like putting a bra on a dummy. I'd hold her carefully, so as not to break her. This one was an imposing figure. I've seen polar bears with less presence than Hilary Casey. She wore a leather jacket and gloves. She had light brown, imaginative hair that reminded me of an ex-girlfriend. A plastic rose was pinned to her breast pocket. She wore a beret. I had decided I didn't like her particularly.

"I am sorry" She tried to stop herself laughing, unsuccessfully. "When I bore your

Father… That day your grandfather told me he felt finished. I had no interest whatsoever in looking after kids. When he…" she hesitated. "When your grandfather passed away I felt my duty had been done. I started to meet people. Travellers have a way of migrating towards eachother my dear, you'd be amazed how easy it is for one to spot another. Sir Edward was a traveller, and a soldier in his youth. He recognised me for what I was in our conversation; we spoke all the way from Prague to Paris. I doubt he'd ever had a conversation quite like it."

It was the first time I'd met this particularly venerable branch of my family. After lunch, Dad had told me to accompany her down to the betting shop. Immediately she grabbed my arm and shoved me out the front door. Without so much as a glance back to me she started off down the street at a rare old pace. We passed through the alley onto Slater Street. I had a friend who lived there.

"Bored?"

I snapped out of it and looked up at the old girl.

"Listen," she said with a snort of cigarette smoke, and at the same time turning her face round to mine. "Promise to listen and I'll tell you a story."

"I'm a bit old for stories, Grandma."

"This is a true story, though. Are you too old for hearing about things that have actually happened?"

I considered this.

"No."

"Well then."

With that, she fastened one hand tight around my neck and, drawing deeply on her cigarette, she dropped it and stubbed it out with her heel. She swung me round to face her and, with one hand palm rested on the top of my head, her face broke into the most wonderful expression I'd ever seen. She wasn't just smiling; her whole face seemed to open up, wrinkles were smoothed out, the skin lightened: she lost years in that smile and, at that moment, as if ordained, the sun broke through the clouds, and I glimpsed for a second a vision of her as a young woman, hair melting into the afternoon, eyes shining. I was drawn to her, this old lady of life, who still carried the past with her and the promise of an explanation; she had not forgotten the world as it was before I arrived. My childhood now had a prequel.

"I can't expect you to listen to me complain about your father, you've only heard about me in stories. I bet you thought I'd never even visit, didn't you?"

"I hoped I'd meet you. A little."

She blinked twice. I glanced at the plastic rose.

"Modern kids get a great education as far as I'm concerned. They choose their own path. When I was young I went to a convent school; it was run by a bevy of Irish nuns who took great pleasure in punishment. Some people spend their whole lives living the way they are told they should by those they love. Well that's fine for an idiot, but not for us, Will."

She turned away and continued to walk on, at a slower pace this time.

"When I was twenty-one I became secretary to Sir Edward Longton, a retired, faintly aristocratic businessman working with the Director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a man named Gaston Mesparo. In the summer of 1928 we sailed for Alexandria to meet Mesparo, and to look in on an expedition Sir Edward was paying for. We boarded the Fairy Queen in Birkenhead; at that time a lot of passenger vessels landed by the docks. It was a lovely morning in early summer. As we pulled away I remember the only cloud in the sky let out a small shower on us, like a baptism."

I could sense the vibrations from her boots as they rippled out across the pavement.

There was no sound from the footfalls; they landed in sand, on air. The story overwhelmed me. For the next few minutes I hardly knew where I was. I had a dim sense of time slowing, of the streets lengthening, and of the shadows of the lamp-posts on the dirty street spinning breathlessly, as if the earth's rotation sped up as she spoke. Her voice seemed to come from somewhere far away, buried inside my ears. It intoned like the beating of war drums. At its highest frequency it clicked; just like the landing of boot heels on concrete.

"We entered the West Harbour of Alexandria at ten on the evening of the 12th of June; it was the greatest sight I have ever witnessed. A carpet of gas lamps welcomed us into that great black desert. I was more than a little frightened of the whole thing. We were due in Luxor by July, so Sir Edward decided that, as soon as the sun came up, we should immediately make our way south on the train. In two days we reached Cairo. After a further three days in a hot, airless cabin we reached Luxor. We were picked up from the train station in the early afternoon by one of Mesparo's assistants, a young man named Emil. He turned up in a beaten up Renault, one of the first cars I'd seen in the country, and we haired off into the desert. Sir Edward was a fun sort; he'd fought at Ulundi and had an officer's outlook; he treated every young man the same, as if they were privates newly posted to his regiment. He sat in the front questioning Emil throughout the journey; he even got the young Belgian (who spoke excellent English) to reveal that later in the day he was due to dine with the Belgian Ambassador's daughter, in Cairo, whom he had known since childhood. Sir Edward chortled.

"I salute you, young man! I'll be keeping a firm eye on Miss Casey throughout the great project. Don't worry, Miss Casey, now that you know all about young Emil's travails I'm sure you're sensible to the very recognisable dangers of the desert!"

And with that he let out a great bellow of laughter that shook the entire car.

After an hour or so we pulled off the desert road onto a dirt track that ran alongside a shallow irrigation channel. For miles and miles we saw nothing in all directions except the occasional blemish where the channels dipped into the earth.

As we rose over a steep rivet of a hill, I spotted on the horizon a high ridge.

Laid out before this was a collection of low buildings and, ruling the horizon, the Hotel Meridien. It was a grand old sort of relic, a crumbling body that looked to have been carved out of a single slab of bright yellow rock. Around it were scattered a number of out-buildings. Emil lit another cigarette, and taking the wheel in the same hand, he wound down the window, letting in a huge amount of sand and dirt, and cried out:

"Me voici! I return!""

My grandmother relished performing the accent, and added little flourishes; she slid her head from one shoulder to the other and angled her wrist as she held her cigarette. I could see Emil in my head, one arm draped over the back of the front seat, his eyes studying her.

He smiled. She smiled back, with interest.

It had stopped raining now, and the concrete was shining as we hit the high street and crossed over to the bookie's. It was a grotty little place, with a line of fellas smoking on swivel chairs in front of a TV screen showing horses galloping onwards. It being Grand National day, there was a sizeable queue. My grandmother stood watching the screens for a second, her chin upturned, giving me a chance to survey her properly.

She looked miraculously sturdy for a woman in her seventies. The skin around her cheeks was firm; only the wrinkles of her neck betrayed her age. She had bright, threatening eyes. Standing like that, glaring at the television they had a brilliance even my father's lacked. Unlike my mother, the only other woman anywhere near her age that I had any experience of, she smiled easily and often. It was the smile of a being who had not changed much in thirty years, and who knew it. Even as she stared at the television screens, before we joined the queue, our place was safe. A shabby bin-man stepped aside when she finally made up her mind to join their ranks. She gave him a little nod as we stepped into place, and I swear he went to doff his cap, but thought better of it. As soon as we were in the queue, she put her hand across my neck once more.

"We pulled into a barn and Emil parked the car alongside a number of dirty carriages. An Egyptian boy was washing a sparkling Darraq. He beamed at us as we pulled in, and waved a soapy rag over his head. Emil turned off the engine and leapt out, singing what sounded like a French drinking song to the boy and kicking great lumps of sand at him. The boy threw the rag. I couldn't stop laughing at the look on Emil's face as he turned to us with it plastered over his left eye, and an oily bubble of soap stuck to his chin.

"That child does nothing all day, I swear, but think of ways to annoy me! Tell the others we've arrived, troublemaker!"

The dig team were assembled in the Reception. Sir Edward introduced me to the dig director, Mesparo, then a middle-aged Frenchman named Capuron: Derek Carragher, a close personal friend of Sir Edward's who lived in Luxor and owned the hotel, had a Nordic air about him, and was at least 20 years Longton's junior. Last was a paper-thin reflection of a woman in a sallow red gown, introduced as Mrs Capuron. The Capurons, I later discovered, where holidaying indefinitely, and knew Sir Edward on distantly polite terms. They had about them an air of vacancy, and a vague rudeness, as if we were noisy foreigners crashing their vacation. They seemed intolerant of manners or community. The husband's handshake was mechanical, lifeless. In contrast, Mr Carragher took my outstretched hand firmly and planted an airy kiss on the knuckles. He had great hairy eyebrows that brushed against my wrist like the bristles of a toothbrush.

"Charmed, Miss Merrion."

…Merrion was my name before I married your grandfather."

My grandmother broke away as we reached the counter. In a minute the desk clerk gave us a bundle of paper and off we went. It was still sunny outside, so my grandmother said:

"Shall we take a walk through those gardens, Will?"

We crossed Argyle Street and passed through the little side entrance next to the great iron gates of the gardens. In those days you could walk in a circuit around the lake, taking in all the woods and sandstone outcrops as you went. She didn't know the place so I took to the fork in the road by a great beech and we turned left, following the path that ran around Coronation Lake. We stopped at a bench overlooking the lake. A crowd of ducks were being fed on the far shore. Pigeons were fighting a running battle for scraps of bread thrown by a toddler.

"Throughout that first evening Sir Edward and Mesparo, a gracious, tidy man always dressed in a neat, light khaki suit, with a tidy covering of dark hair across his whole chin and cheeks, sat drinking whiskey together in the Hotel bar. The bar was a wide, low-ceilinged back room with deep red sofas that ringed little low tables. The Capurons sat alone, and in silence, I believe, for the entire evening. I sat with Emil and Mr Carragher, who obviously got on like a house on fire, and who exchanged tall stories of the various scrapes they'd had in motorcars on the desert roads. They were smoking foul Egyptian cigarettes and drinking a sweet liquor that tasted of apples. Much stronger than cider, it was thick and a brownish green colour, a waiter in white tails kept refilling their glasses from a huge jug. Sir Edward and Mesparo were sat directly behind me, and their conversation was quieter. They seemed, for the most part, to be engaged in an enthusiastic discussion about the relative merits of the different modes of travel available in Egypt. Maspero was praising Emil's car, but at the same time he claimed it would not do for archaeologists to travel in such comfort constantly. He had lived in Egypt for a long time, and considered the camel the natural vehicle for those who resided there, and who would be engaged in long journeys out into the wilderness, looking for new treasures.

I should explain a little about Sir Edward's interest in the expedition.

Sir Edward had a great passion for Egyptology, but he was not an expert. He had resided in Egypt on and off for twenty years or so, but he was an enthusiast with money rather than a scientist. He had funded expeditions at Giza, Karnak and Luxor, but his digs were always overseen by others. Mesparo kept Sir Edward away from the site, except on certain ceremonial occasions, and for his part Sir Edward was happy to lounge by the pool of the Meridien, always in a clean white suit, like a kindly retired school master. Every morning Mesparo would pass by Sir Edward's table, and with a salutary hand on his shoulders, would announce:

"Today, Sir Edward, I will return with two mummies."

And every morning Sir Edward would smile and raise his glass.

"By my honour, Gaston! Today will be the day I'm sure of it!"

We passed a whole year like this. I rose early, but never before Sir Edward, who parasol, sitting silently across from Capuron, watching the Frenchman's desolate wife swim slowly from corner to corner of the great pool. I had never been out to the dig, and was not particularly keen to do so; from what Emil said when he returned, thirsty and dirt-ridden each evening, there wasn't a great deal to see, excepting camels and sand and the occasional scorpion. They were looking for a burial site away from the main areas of interest; it was hard work and, so far, unrewarded.

My room caught the sun in the morning, around 9, so I would have a swim before breakfast every day, then, after eating breakfast in the airy dining room, a wide iron- columned glasshouse through which one had to walk to reach the pool, I would return to the parasols that lined the pool and join Sir Edward. The corridors of the Meridien were painted the same deep red as the bar, but with a golden leaf pattern, and the floors were bare and smooth. When the heat became unbearable, I would extinguish all the lights in my room and lie on the rough cotton sheets with the curtains closed. In the dying light of late afternoon the light blue curtains of my room shed a cool glow; I often napped in these long afternoons. Sir Edward supplied me with hardly any work. I became convinced that I was employed more as a travelling companion than anything else. I spent my time practicing my short hand; in a year I went from a virtual beginner to professional speed, and was able to produce 100 words a minute as the anniversary of our arrival approached.

One morning in the June of 1929 I was playing bridge by the pool with Mr Carragher when we heard the sound of a motor car approaching along the canal road. A great wall of dust hung across the desert, drawing the line the driver had taken all the way back to the main road. The Capurons were stretched out on great loungers beneath one of the umbrellas. The wife had not moved for four hours. The sun was just passing it's zenith, when Carragher looked up from his cards.

"Hmm, a visitor."

"Who is it, Mr Carragher?"

"I haven't the faintest, my dear."

He pulled down his sunglasses from beneath his great bushy eyebrows. I watched his face as he spied on the car. He had a curious way of blinking fiercely whenever he was forced to sit unprotected in bright light.

"It's a nice new motor, whoever is driving it. Looks to be going almost forty miles an hour."

The car skidded to a halt and the door was thrust open. A cloud of dust was ascending upwards and outwards from the vehicle, and carried towards us on the breeze. It was quite an entrance. Even Mrs Capuron strained her neck to catch a first sight of the driver. Carragher rose.

"Hi there, who is it?"

The passenger door was flung open. Through the dust I could just make out the murky silhouette of a figure sitting stock-still in the seat. Carragher entered the cloud; his cotton shirt, unbuttoned at the wrists, fluttered as the wind at last began to disperse the gloom.

"Who is that… Oh my lord!"

This exclamation roused our little group. Mr Capuron rose, rather like a horse does after sleeping, with a sleek extension of each limb, moving in easy pivots from his elbows and knees. He went from a perfectly horizontal position to standing in the guise of a thin wooden fencepost in one smooth movement.

"Monsieur Carragher?" he asked, in a thinly enquiring voce.

"My fault entirely my friend!"

From the opposite side of the car appeared a white man dressed in flowing white robes and wearing a great white turban. He hurried around the car to the passenger door, and, closing it over even as Carragher stood frozen, still glaring at whatever fearful image he had seen, he waved an arm towards us.

"Excuse me, sir? You there, my good man with the ladies; would you be so kind as to offer me some assistance?"

Capuron stood motionless. His wife, bored with the whole situation, shifted her gaze back to the endless sky.

"Please, monsieur, pourriez-vous m'aider à porter quelque chose?"

Something about Capuron's stance must have hinted to the stranger in the turban that he was dealing with a Frenchman. Capuron approached the car in long, lazy strides. There was a short interchange between the pair, in what language I could not tell, then the Frenchman aided Mr Carragher and the stranger in removing from the passenger seat whatever it was that had caused Carragher's outburst, and they carried it towards the Hotel. As they approached, I could make out that it was a human form that they held between them, small and crouched like a sleeping child, and of a deep grey hue all over. Only when they were within yards of me did I finally guess what it was the stranger had brought. Carragher was fully recovered now, and seemed engaged in a very friendly discussion with the turbaned man. The three men were holding the object delicately, like a model aeroplane, each supporting the various limbs with great care. Between them, Carragher, Capuron and the stranger were cradling the body of a decaying mummified corpse!"