Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas

here?’
    There was a glazed bowl of dates, and a little dish of plump shelled almonds. He made me open my mouth and popped the food in piece by piece.
    ‘Stop. I’ll explode.’
    In an old Thermos flask there was strong black coffee, and when everything else was finished we drank that fromour tin mugs. I saw Xan glance at his watch and I felt a cold draught at the back of my neck. I shivered a little and immediately he put his arm round me.
    ‘Hassan and I have to leave again very early in the morning. I’ll take you home now.’
    I smiled at him, pushing the meaning of tomorrow out of my thoughts, then leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss. It took a serious effort of will to pull back again.
    ‘That was the very best evening of my life,’ I said.
    ‘Was it? Do you mean that?’
    Once again, his eagerness touched my heart.
    ‘I do.’
    ‘There will be more,’ he promised. ‘Hundreds, no, thousands more. A lifetime of evenings, and mornings and nights.’
    I touched my fingers to his lips, stalling him for now. I couldn’t ask where he was going, or when he would be back. All I could do was to send him off with the certainty that I would wait for him.
    We blew out the candles together and untied the tent flap. We stood side by side and looked across to the Pyramids. And then we turned away from the tent and the view, and walked back hand in hand to the tiny oasis. The men who had been sitting around the fire were gone and the fire itself had burned down to a heap of ash with a heart of dull red embers. Hassan was waiting for us, sitting with his back against the trunk of a palm tree.
    We drove back into the City. At the door to the apartment Xan touched my face. ‘I will be back soon,’ he promised.
    ‘I will be here,’ I said.
    My eyes hurt from staring into the darkness.
    My body aches, deep in the bones, and I am shivering as if with a fever. A little while ago I heard the child wanderingabout, but the street outside and the house are silent now. She must have fallen asleep. I long for the same but instead there is the patchy, piebald mockery of recall, and fear of losing even that much.
    Always fear. Not of death, but of the other, a living death.
    I think of Ruby’s offer to help me, innocent and calculating, and instead of finding her interesting I am suddenly overwhelmed with irritation, discomfort at the invasion of my solitude, longing for peace and silence.
    The shivering makes my teeth rattle.

CHAPTER FOUR
    When Ruby woke, her low mood of the previous night had lifted.
    She swung her legs out of bed at once and went to the window. The view of the street was already becoming familiar.
    Humming as she turned back again, she picked up a T-shirt and a pair of trousers from yesterday’s heap that she had tipped out of her rucksack. She pulled on the clothes, then opened a drawer and scooped the remaining garments into it. The absolute bareness of the room was beginning to appeal to her; it looked much better without a bird’s nest of belongings occupying the floor. She even straightened the covers on the bed before hurrying down the passageway to her grandmother’s room. Her head was full of how she would start helping Iris to record her memories. Maybe after all she could try to write them down for her. The way they were written wouldn’t matter, surely? No one would be marking them or anything like that, not like school or college.
    They could start talking this morning, while they were eating their breakfast.
    Ruby was looking forward to figs and yoghurt and honey.
    The door to Iris’s room stood open. She skipped up to it, ready to call out a greeting, then stopped in her tracks. The window was shuttered and the only light came from a lamp beside the bed. Iris was lying on her back and Auntie was reaching over her to mop her forehead with a cloth. The air smelled sour, with a strong tang of disinfectant. When Auntie moved aside Ruby saw that Iris’s face was wax-pale, and the cheeks