A/N: To my newest reviewer, Bachy A- nice to have you with me! Its always
great to know someone who is a good author likes my story. I cant wait for
you to write another Mummy fic- is there one in the pipeline? I hope so.
Jess: Beaten to it again! What's happened to you, hon? *kiddin* Glad you liked the Weakest Link chapter, and I cant wait to read what you added to it! If it's a successful collaboration maybe we could do more in the future...?
Nefertirioc: Jonathan is not a Paedophile! She is 17 after all... (legal age in Britain is 16, so what's your problem?) hahaha. Hope you don't get followed by any more freaky men *makes scared face*
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Chapter 9
****************************************
The two ne'er-do-wells ambled their way home after their eventful night (and morning) out on the tiles, preferring to stroll at their leisure after all their exertions. Stephen tried his best to block out the incessant sound of Jonathan's voice, as he kept harping on about his stomach and reliving every twist and turn of the last few hours. At some point he stopped for a kebab, purchased with the last of his winnings, which shut him up for a little while. But Stephen actually felt a little queasy at the sight of Jonathan shovelling the greasy meat into his mouth, wondering exactly what part of what animal it could possibly be.
The dirty, maze-like streets of old Cairo soon gave way to the broad lanes and cul-de-sacs of the predominantly British Garden City quarter. Palatial embassies and swanky private residences in the Art Deco style lazed languidly in the morning sun, their landscaped English gardens sweeping down to the banks of the Nile. Sauntering up the Corniche road, Stephen and Jonathan could hear the river traffic and the gently lapping waves at the passing of a feluccas, and before they knew it they were standing in front of the stately Egyptian Antiquities Museum.
On any other day at lunchtime, Evy would be chained to her desk, hidden behind a huge stack of books to be re-shelved, date stamp in one hand and half eaten sandwich in the other. But today was Sunday, her one day off (barring the odd spectacular mishap which often obliged her to put in an extra day). The two of them might have to think fast if they ran into her at home, but their sole preoccupation at that moment was to find a soft bed and collapse onto it, so they carried on past the museum, continuing up the bank of the Nile until they reached the Zamalek bridge. They crossed over onto the island where the Carnahans had owned a villa for the last ten years, and headed in the direction of it.
""What's the date today, Stevie?" Jonathan asked suddenly, breaking with his usual idle monologue.
"July eighteenth. Why?" Stephen answered after a moment, snapping out of his daze as he realised he was required to respond.
"Oh, no reason...it's just so I know what the second half of my tombstone will look like..."
"Right, mine too," Stephen said with a mirthless laugh, suddenly reminded of the depressing inevitability of his impending court marshal.
"You've got a few years on me though, Stephen old man." Jonathan laughed, clapping him on the back.
"You must be joking! You might be able to convince all those silly girls back in England you're only twenty nine, but I've seen your passport! It's the big four-o in a few years, isn't it Johnny?"
"Not at this rate it bloody isn't! Evy is going to have my guts for garters..."
Stephen's pupils dilated in a long, glazed stare at the image that sentence conjured up- Evelyn's slim, stockinged legs, her creamy thigh encircled by a little lacy white garter ... he could just imagine teasing it down with his teeth, over her knee and finely shaped calf to her slim ankle...
He was jolted back to reality by Jonathan's impatiently snapping fingers just centimetres from his face.
"Earth to zonko! Where are you Stevie?" he teased, clicking his fingers in Stephen's eyes, making him blink in surprise.
Stephen lashed out with the flat of his palm and swatted at Jonathan like a mosquito.
"Oh, there you are..." Jonathan mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. "What were you thinking about? From the inane smile on your face it must have been something worth telling."
"I was just thinking how much I'm going to enjoy watching Evelyn dismember you." He said sardonically, gesturing towards the rather expensive Savile Row shirt Evy had bought him, once crisp white, now rather more cerise with the occasional blot of lamb kebab. Not to mention the wide slash Khalid had so expertly carved across it, exposing a substantial portion of Jonathan's skinny white flesh.
"I'm not letting you get anywhere near my dear baby sister with your member," Jonathan scoffed, smiling wickedly at the immediate colouring of Stephen's cheeks.
"Shut up! Why do you always have to be so crude?" Stephen retorted indignantly, turning away so Jonathan wouldn't see the expression on his face. Jonathan's jaw dropped in a look of mock disbelief.
"And this coming from a solder, no less! Ever heard the expression 'swears like a trooper'? You lot bloody well invented crudeness!" he laughed, nudging him in the ribs.
"Yeah, but you seem to have taken up the baton and run with it, eh Jonathan?" Stephen nudged him back, but his smile was less jovial. "Look, just ease up, alright? I don't fancy Evelyn, and even if I did, I wouldn't do anything about it. I'm well aware of the fact that a nice, respectable girl like her is far too good for me." He looked genuinely contrite at that fact, perhaps regretting the life that had barred him from ever winning such a girl as Evelyn Carnahan.
Jonathan was never one to feel such remorse, perhaps because he had never felt anything was too good for him, and failed to notice the hint of sadness in his friend.
"Well, you just remember that my son, and I'll never have to give you a good sound beating," he said matter-of-factly. It was true he had led a bit of a charmed life, but he just didn't know when to quit.
"You? Give ME a beating? That's a good one Johnny!" and Stephen clouted him on the ear playfully, initiating another bout of tomfoolery in the middle of the street. However, these streets were rather more quiet and empty of locals, being in the affluent area of Zamalek favoured by most ex-pats, and with the mood once again lightened, they made their way back to the villa unmolested.
***
Jonathan set one tentative foot in the hallway and motioned for Stephen to follow, his finger pressed to his lips in a silencing gesture. Even though it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon, he might just be in luck and find Evy taking a nap, allowing them to slip in undetected. He tiptoed across the tiled mosaic floor towards the staircase, and almost made it...
"Where in heaven's name have you BEEN??!!" came an irate female voice from the doorway to their left. Jonathan flinched and clenched his teeth, knowing perfectly well they had been caught out. With one eye open he turned to face the owner of the voice, and stared into his sister's withering gaze.
"Oh, morning sis!" he said cheerily, relaxing his shoulders and acting as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.
"Afternoon you mean! What do you think you are doing crawling home at this time of day? I've been worried sick!"
"Oh, just a spot of trouble with the car," he lied, "you know the damn thing sometimes..." he knew that wouldn't go a very long way to explaining his current state of dress, or account for why he had been gone for the best part of seventeen hours.
"Don't try to fool me Jonathan, your car is in the garage. But never mind that, I'm not interested in your pathetic excuses! I need to talk to you about something-"
"That sounds ominous..." Jonathan said warily. He knew that face of hers, and now he almost wished she would launch into the third degree if only it would put off whatever she seemed anxious to discuss with him.
"I had a visit this morning..."
"Oh yes? Anyone I know?" Jonathan asked innocently.
"I should say so- in the biblical sense, from the look of it! She was in rather a delicate condition..."
"What...?"
"She was with child Jonathan!!"
"Evy, I don't have the foggiest what you're talking about, old mum!"
"Jonathan, a pregnant woman walked into the museum today, looking for the father of her child! Do you have any idea why she might have chosen that specific place in particular?"
"Because she wanted to ask directions to the military fort?" Jonathan quipped. Realising his sister had indeed been at the library earlier, most likely to straighten up some heinous catastrophe of her making, he couldn't resist the urge to wind her up even more.
"No! She was looking for you! And as if that wasn't bad enough, she was a woman of... dubious virtue, so to speak." Evy said in a tactful tone. Her cheeks were flushed, but whether from anger or embarrassment Jonathan wasn't sure.
"I should say so! A bun in the oven and no ring on her finger? Tut tut." Jonathan replied, wagging his finger with a mock frown on his face.
"No that's not what I mean, Jonathan! She was... how shall I say? A 'lady of the night'."
"Evy, please start making sense soon, I'm very tired..." he said with a pained expression, stifling a pretend yawn that soon turned into a genuine one.
"Are you being deliberately obtuse?! Jonathan, she was a common street walker, a-" Evelyn lowered her voice and leaned in closer, "a PROSTITUTE!" she hissed accusingly. "She said you've ruined her livelihood and she wants five hundred pounds!"
"Well what a coincidence- isn't that a coincidence, Stevie?" he said over his shoulder, throwing a glance to where his friend was standing dumbly in the doorway, eyeing Evy with the awkward shyness of a teenager. There was no question as to why his cheeks were flushed. "That's exactly the amount I won last night!" Jonathan exclaimed, starting to see a connection between the two. "Funny that someone should show up the very next morning and demand the same amount..."
"You mean stole! Or cheated, which amounts to the same thing." Evy countered reprovingly, ignoring his half formed musings.
"Evy my dear, there's a whole world of difference between stealing and cheating. Cheating requires skill, finesse, and no small amount of cunning. Stealing is what dirty little street urchins do, not a gentleman like myself-"
"Jonathan I don't give a fig for your tricky semantics, its dishonest and that's that!" Evy announced self righteously, jabbing a finger at his filthy shirt. "And what on earth happened to this?!" she said in a tone of abject disgust, rubbing her fingers together where they had just touched him. "No, don't tell me- I really don't want to know. I've had just about as much as I can take of you Jonathan Carnahan!"
"Oh, don't be like that Evy, old girl!"
"Don't you try to wheedle your way around me! You've already dragged your own name through the mud, I will not let you do the same to mine!" she slapped him on the side of the head a little harder than she had meant to, then immediately stroked his grubby face in remorse.
"How could you, Jonathan?" she said more gently, starting in on the guilt trip after the initial reprimand. "A common...tart! It'll ruin us if it ever gets out, and even if it doesn't- all Daddy's money going to cover up for your foolish indiscretions, I cant bear it!" Her eyes shone wetly with the onset of tears, and Jonathan suddenly did feel very guilty. Not because he thought for one minute that this so called 'lady of the night' was carrying his progeny, but because he was quite sure this whole thing somehow traced back to Khalid and the cheated five hundred pounds.
"Evy, its all just a terrible mistake, I promise," he said consolingly, tenderly caressing her reddened cheeks.
"Well I hope for your sake it is, Jonathan."
So do I, Jonathan thought worriedly. With a pinched expression Evy swiped his hands away from her face and turned to go.
"And another thing- before you get into those clean sheets I've just put on your bed, for heaven's sake take a shower!" And with her last word on the subject, she picked up her book and went out onto the patio.
Dejectedly Jonathan went out into the hallway and tapped Stephen's jaw shut- he had been goldfishing again, something he was prone to do whenever he found himself superfluous to the situation unfolding around him. Then he silently ushered the exhausted soldier upstairs towards one of the guest bedrooms.
**************************************************************************** *****
A/N: He he, even when he's finally home Johnny is never far from trouble! Told you this was going to be epic... this new plot twist could go on for a while!
Jess: Beaten to it again! What's happened to you, hon? *kiddin* Glad you liked the Weakest Link chapter, and I cant wait to read what you added to it! If it's a successful collaboration maybe we could do more in the future...?
Nefertirioc: Jonathan is not a Paedophile! She is 17 after all... (legal age in Britain is 16, so what's your problem?) hahaha. Hope you don't get followed by any more freaky men *makes scared face*
****************************************
Chapter 9
****************************************
The two ne'er-do-wells ambled their way home after their eventful night (and morning) out on the tiles, preferring to stroll at their leisure after all their exertions. Stephen tried his best to block out the incessant sound of Jonathan's voice, as he kept harping on about his stomach and reliving every twist and turn of the last few hours. At some point he stopped for a kebab, purchased with the last of his winnings, which shut him up for a little while. But Stephen actually felt a little queasy at the sight of Jonathan shovelling the greasy meat into his mouth, wondering exactly what part of what animal it could possibly be.
The dirty, maze-like streets of old Cairo soon gave way to the broad lanes and cul-de-sacs of the predominantly British Garden City quarter. Palatial embassies and swanky private residences in the Art Deco style lazed languidly in the morning sun, their landscaped English gardens sweeping down to the banks of the Nile. Sauntering up the Corniche road, Stephen and Jonathan could hear the river traffic and the gently lapping waves at the passing of a feluccas, and before they knew it they were standing in front of the stately Egyptian Antiquities Museum.
On any other day at lunchtime, Evy would be chained to her desk, hidden behind a huge stack of books to be re-shelved, date stamp in one hand and half eaten sandwich in the other. But today was Sunday, her one day off (barring the odd spectacular mishap which often obliged her to put in an extra day). The two of them might have to think fast if they ran into her at home, but their sole preoccupation at that moment was to find a soft bed and collapse onto it, so they carried on past the museum, continuing up the bank of the Nile until they reached the Zamalek bridge. They crossed over onto the island where the Carnahans had owned a villa for the last ten years, and headed in the direction of it.
""What's the date today, Stevie?" Jonathan asked suddenly, breaking with his usual idle monologue.
"July eighteenth. Why?" Stephen answered after a moment, snapping out of his daze as he realised he was required to respond.
"Oh, no reason...it's just so I know what the second half of my tombstone will look like..."
"Right, mine too," Stephen said with a mirthless laugh, suddenly reminded of the depressing inevitability of his impending court marshal.
"You've got a few years on me though, Stephen old man." Jonathan laughed, clapping him on the back.
"You must be joking! You might be able to convince all those silly girls back in England you're only twenty nine, but I've seen your passport! It's the big four-o in a few years, isn't it Johnny?"
"Not at this rate it bloody isn't! Evy is going to have my guts for garters..."
Stephen's pupils dilated in a long, glazed stare at the image that sentence conjured up- Evelyn's slim, stockinged legs, her creamy thigh encircled by a little lacy white garter ... he could just imagine teasing it down with his teeth, over her knee and finely shaped calf to her slim ankle...
He was jolted back to reality by Jonathan's impatiently snapping fingers just centimetres from his face.
"Earth to zonko! Where are you Stevie?" he teased, clicking his fingers in Stephen's eyes, making him blink in surprise.
Stephen lashed out with the flat of his palm and swatted at Jonathan like a mosquito.
"Oh, there you are..." Jonathan mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. "What were you thinking about? From the inane smile on your face it must have been something worth telling."
"I was just thinking how much I'm going to enjoy watching Evelyn dismember you." He said sardonically, gesturing towards the rather expensive Savile Row shirt Evy had bought him, once crisp white, now rather more cerise with the occasional blot of lamb kebab. Not to mention the wide slash Khalid had so expertly carved across it, exposing a substantial portion of Jonathan's skinny white flesh.
"I'm not letting you get anywhere near my dear baby sister with your member," Jonathan scoffed, smiling wickedly at the immediate colouring of Stephen's cheeks.
"Shut up! Why do you always have to be so crude?" Stephen retorted indignantly, turning away so Jonathan wouldn't see the expression on his face. Jonathan's jaw dropped in a look of mock disbelief.
"And this coming from a solder, no less! Ever heard the expression 'swears like a trooper'? You lot bloody well invented crudeness!" he laughed, nudging him in the ribs.
"Yeah, but you seem to have taken up the baton and run with it, eh Jonathan?" Stephen nudged him back, but his smile was less jovial. "Look, just ease up, alright? I don't fancy Evelyn, and even if I did, I wouldn't do anything about it. I'm well aware of the fact that a nice, respectable girl like her is far too good for me." He looked genuinely contrite at that fact, perhaps regretting the life that had barred him from ever winning such a girl as Evelyn Carnahan.
Jonathan was never one to feel such remorse, perhaps because he had never felt anything was too good for him, and failed to notice the hint of sadness in his friend.
"Well, you just remember that my son, and I'll never have to give you a good sound beating," he said matter-of-factly. It was true he had led a bit of a charmed life, but he just didn't know when to quit.
"You? Give ME a beating? That's a good one Johnny!" and Stephen clouted him on the ear playfully, initiating another bout of tomfoolery in the middle of the street. However, these streets were rather more quiet and empty of locals, being in the affluent area of Zamalek favoured by most ex-pats, and with the mood once again lightened, they made their way back to the villa unmolested.
***
Jonathan set one tentative foot in the hallway and motioned for Stephen to follow, his finger pressed to his lips in a silencing gesture. Even though it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon, he might just be in luck and find Evy taking a nap, allowing them to slip in undetected. He tiptoed across the tiled mosaic floor towards the staircase, and almost made it...
"Where in heaven's name have you BEEN??!!" came an irate female voice from the doorway to their left. Jonathan flinched and clenched his teeth, knowing perfectly well they had been caught out. With one eye open he turned to face the owner of the voice, and stared into his sister's withering gaze.
"Oh, morning sis!" he said cheerily, relaxing his shoulders and acting as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.
"Afternoon you mean! What do you think you are doing crawling home at this time of day? I've been worried sick!"
"Oh, just a spot of trouble with the car," he lied, "you know the damn thing sometimes..." he knew that wouldn't go a very long way to explaining his current state of dress, or account for why he had been gone for the best part of seventeen hours.
"Don't try to fool me Jonathan, your car is in the garage. But never mind that, I'm not interested in your pathetic excuses! I need to talk to you about something-"
"That sounds ominous..." Jonathan said warily. He knew that face of hers, and now he almost wished she would launch into the third degree if only it would put off whatever she seemed anxious to discuss with him.
"I had a visit this morning..."
"Oh yes? Anyone I know?" Jonathan asked innocently.
"I should say so- in the biblical sense, from the look of it! She was in rather a delicate condition..."
"What...?"
"She was with child Jonathan!!"
"Evy, I don't have the foggiest what you're talking about, old mum!"
"Jonathan, a pregnant woman walked into the museum today, looking for the father of her child! Do you have any idea why she might have chosen that specific place in particular?"
"Because she wanted to ask directions to the military fort?" Jonathan quipped. Realising his sister had indeed been at the library earlier, most likely to straighten up some heinous catastrophe of her making, he couldn't resist the urge to wind her up even more.
"No! She was looking for you! And as if that wasn't bad enough, she was a woman of... dubious virtue, so to speak." Evy said in a tactful tone. Her cheeks were flushed, but whether from anger or embarrassment Jonathan wasn't sure.
"I should say so! A bun in the oven and no ring on her finger? Tut tut." Jonathan replied, wagging his finger with a mock frown on his face.
"No that's not what I mean, Jonathan! She was... how shall I say? A 'lady of the night'."
"Evy, please start making sense soon, I'm very tired..." he said with a pained expression, stifling a pretend yawn that soon turned into a genuine one.
"Are you being deliberately obtuse?! Jonathan, she was a common street walker, a-" Evelyn lowered her voice and leaned in closer, "a PROSTITUTE!" she hissed accusingly. "She said you've ruined her livelihood and she wants five hundred pounds!"
"Well what a coincidence- isn't that a coincidence, Stevie?" he said over his shoulder, throwing a glance to where his friend was standing dumbly in the doorway, eyeing Evy with the awkward shyness of a teenager. There was no question as to why his cheeks were flushed. "That's exactly the amount I won last night!" Jonathan exclaimed, starting to see a connection between the two. "Funny that someone should show up the very next morning and demand the same amount..."
"You mean stole! Or cheated, which amounts to the same thing." Evy countered reprovingly, ignoring his half formed musings.
"Evy my dear, there's a whole world of difference between stealing and cheating. Cheating requires skill, finesse, and no small amount of cunning. Stealing is what dirty little street urchins do, not a gentleman like myself-"
"Jonathan I don't give a fig for your tricky semantics, its dishonest and that's that!" Evy announced self righteously, jabbing a finger at his filthy shirt. "And what on earth happened to this?!" she said in a tone of abject disgust, rubbing her fingers together where they had just touched him. "No, don't tell me- I really don't want to know. I've had just about as much as I can take of you Jonathan Carnahan!"
"Oh, don't be like that Evy, old girl!"
"Don't you try to wheedle your way around me! You've already dragged your own name through the mud, I will not let you do the same to mine!" she slapped him on the side of the head a little harder than she had meant to, then immediately stroked his grubby face in remorse.
"How could you, Jonathan?" she said more gently, starting in on the guilt trip after the initial reprimand. "A common...tart! It'll ruin us if it ever gets out, and even if it doesn't- all Daddy's money going to cover up for your foolish indiscretions, I cant bear it!" Her eyes shone wetly with the onset of tears, and Jonathan suddenly did feel very guilty. Not because he thought for one minute that this so called 'lady of the night' was carrying his progeny, but because he was quite sure this whole thing somehow traced back to Khalid and the cheated five hundred pounds.
"Evy, its all just a terrible mistake, I promise," he said consolingly, tenderly caressing her reddened cheeks.
"Well I hope for your sake it is, Jonathan."
So do I, Jonathan thought worriedly. With a pinched expression Evy swiped his hands away from her face and turned to go.
"And another thing- before you get into those clean sheets I've just put on your bed, for heaven's sake take a shower!" And with her last word on the subject, she picked up her book and went out onto the patio.
Dejectedly Jonathan went out into the hallway and tapped Stephen's jaw shut- he had been goldfishing again, something he was prone to do whenever he found himself superfluous to the situation unfolding around him. Then he silently ushered the exhausted soldier upstairs towards one of the guest bedrooms.
**************************************************************************** *****
A/N: He he, even when he's finally home Johnny is never far from trouble! Told you this was going to be epic... this new plot twist could go on for a while!