The Ghost of Akhenaten

CHAPTER 1-2

He struggled to free himself from the web he felt tightening around him, and turned his eyes to Eliot — good, solid, down-to-earth Eliot.

* * * *

That night he dreamed again.

‘Will this exile never end ...will there be no pity ...

Other men have failed, but their punishment has had a season and then it has passed and gone, and they have sailed the golden barque among the stars...

I reach up ... I cry ... but even the God I have served so faithfully has deserted me ... Ai-i ... Ai-i...’

The voice was in the wind that wailed over the desert dunes, lifting the sand like fog around the bleak and lonely figure.

Jack in his bed reached out his arms, but he could not touch him.

When he woke he found that tears were streaming down his cheeks.

* * * *

He dressed and went out. He walked by the river and stared at it long and hard. The water rushing over the curved weir almost mesmerized him, but not quite. He could hear the early rush hour traffic building up behind him, the coaches with their air brakes breathing heavily as they stopped for the lights. The covered market was already busy and bustling. A lone canoe came into sight, but turned and left before the rough white water of the weir. Along the far bank, downstream, the houseboats sent up little signals of smoke as their inhabitants boiled water for their morning coffee. The rugby field on the other side lay silent, wet with dew, and beyond it the wooded hills rose, holding the town, nesting, between them.

At last he walked away, hands in pockets, head down. He could not go on living like this. He had to know the meaning of those dreams.

He found a phone box and dialled Eliot’s number. Emma answered. He invited himself to breakfast and put the phone down before she could demur.

When he arrived Eliot was about to leave for work in smart suit and impeccable tie. Emma was still in her dressing gown with her hair tangled and unbrushed. He scarcely noticed how lovely she looked.

‘You know that interpreter of dreams in Glastonbury you mentioned?’ he said. ‘I’ve decided. There’s nothing for it. I have to see her.’

‘She’s away for a few days,’ Emma said. ‘Have some camomile tea.’

He was disappointed. Having made the decision, he was impatient to get started.

‘You look terrible,’ Eliot said cheerfully, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Give him some strong coffee Emma. He needs it.’

Emma looked as though she might argue, but gave in and poured him a strong black coffee. He sipped it distractedly.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Eliot said. ‘Emma will set you right.’ And he leaned down and kissed her as he left.

‘Ciao!’ he called at the door and was gone.

Emma looked at Jack thoughtfully.

‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Have some fruit. You look unhealthy.’

‘I feel unhealthy,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going mad. Half the time I don’t know whether I am dreaming when I’m asleep or dreaming when I’m awake. Which is the reality?’

She laughed. ‘Probably both,’ she said.

‘I dread going to sleep. Or rather...’ He hesitated. ‘I both dread and long for it.’ He began to pace, frowning.

‘Sit down, for heaven’s sake; you’re making me dizzy! Have an apple while I go and get dressed. Calm yourself.’

Jack sat down and poured himself another strong coffee.

He tapped his fingers on the table while she was gone, thinking of Egypt. He had been there only once, briefly, and only to Cairo — busy, noisy Cairo which gave no hint of its ancient past. He had not even been to the Museum there. He was writing an article on its restaurants and hotels and he had felt no urge to sample anything else. Islamic Cairo had been visible with its mosques and the way the men washed and prayed so often in the day, but the Egypt of the Pharaohs was another country. He had promised himself he would visit it one day, but that day had not yet come.

When Emma returned they talked about his sudden impatience to have the dreams interpreted, and the fact that the woman she knew in Glastonbury was not yet available.

‘I have a friend here who might be able to help you,’ she said. ‘She isn’t a professional past-life reader and she won’t even admit to being a psychic, but she has visited Egypt many times and some pretty strange things have happened to her!’

‘I’m not sure that I want to spread it around that I’m going crazy,’ Jack said cautiously. ‘A professional is one thing...’

‘Believe me, she won’t spread it around.’

He looked doubtful.

‘It’s worth a shot,’ she urged. ‘If you don’t feel comfortable with her you don’t need to tell her anything. We’ll just visit. I often do. I enjoy her company. And her house is even more cluttered than yours with beautiful and interesting things to look at.’

Eventually he agreed, and she rang Mary Brown. She could see them that very day.

* * * *

They drove almost to the southern limits of the city before they stopped at a house half hidden behind a high shaggy privet hedge in urgent need of cutting. The gate was tall and solidly panelled with grey and splintering wood, so they could see nothing of the garden until they opened it and stepped inside. Jack almost gasped. It was a tangle of wonderful plants and colours. Oriental poppies gleamed and shone in the sunlight. Peonies leant untidily against the hedge in brilliant crimson. There did not seem an inch that was not burgeoning and blooming. When the gate shut behind them, they were in a magical and private place — a miniature nature reserve in the city.

Emma rang the bell and while they waited Jack gazed into the conservatory, which was a jungle of exotic plants that he recognised from his travels abroad — bougainvillea and plumbago, hibiscus and lemon, a ten-foot tall Egyptian papyrus plant and several African aloes.

Through the glass door he saw Mary approaching. She was an old lady leaning heavily on two sticks.

She greeted Emma warmly and ushered them into her home. In the small front room two of the walls were lined with books up to the ceiling. The other walls were covered with real pictures — not prints. The windows glowed and gleamed with the vibrant colours of stained glass.

If his own home was deceptive from the outside, hers was even more so. He had passed down this road many times and never thought that the people who lived there might be like this.

She offered tea and while she was away in the kitchen Emma showed him round, pointing out that the pictures were all painted by members of her family; the blown glass was made by her son-in-law, and the stained glass in the windows was by Mary herself. She showed him the books Mary had written and the extensive library she kept for research.

‘Everything in this room has personal significance,’ Emma said enthusiastically. ‘That is why it feels so good. I knew you would like it!’ she added triumphantly, reading his face.

‘You wouldn’t think such an old woman would...’ Jack began, but stopped at once when she came back into the room.

Mary laughed.

‘It’s my disguise,’ she said. ‘We all use disguises to hide the fact that we are eternal beings on a journey through the universe! Yours is of a rather feckless young man intent on nothing but a good time.’

‘I may have used that disguise once, but not any more,’ Jack said. ‘Things have changed a lot lately.’

‘Which is why Emma has brought you to me. Do you have milk and sugar?’

He nodded and there was a pause while milk and sugar were dispensed and biscuits offered. He was impatient to get to the crux of his visit and would gladly have forgone the tea and biscuits. But Mary seemed intent on playing out the little ritual, as though it had some importance.

‘Perhaps she holds to these little ordinary things to keep her sane,’ he thought, feeling that in her presence he could very easily leave this reality behind and swing off into unknown realms.

Emma smiled at him, amused, as though she sensed his impatience.

He tried to be patient.

At last the cups were put away, Emma carrying them through to the kitchen.

He met Mary’s eyes expectantly.

She smiled.

‘Tell me about your dreams,’ she said.

The floodgates burst open and out came the torrent.

She heard how he had never been particularly interested in Egyptian history, but now almost every night he seemed to be in ancient Egypt. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, listening and waiting. Emma held her breath. She began to feel a strangeness growing in the room as though the world outside had ceased to exist.

‘I can never make the dreams come,’ he said, ‘and they rarely come in sequence. They seem to be scattered fragments of another life I am beginning to think I once had, and yet I don’t believe in reincarnation.’

Emma spoke for the first time.

‘His apartment is full of things from Egypt left to him by his great-grandfather.’

Mary’s eyes flicked over to Emma when she spoke, and then back to Jack.

And then she stood up and limped across the room. She pulled out a book of astronomy and handed it to him without a word. Puzzled, he turned the pages. The most wonderful photographs of the universe he had ever seen were there, taken through the most advanced telescopes, some based on satellites above the earth’s pollution. The whole magnificent panoply of what surrounded us in outer space, but which could not be seen with the naked eye, filled him with awe.

‘Take this picture,’ she said, pointing. ‘All these stars look as though they are clustered together, yet what we are seeing is actually an illusion. Our experience of them is simultaneous, yet they are separated from each other by millions of years.’

He studied the picture carefully. He could see no difference between them.

She watched his reaction.

‘Do you understand what I am trying to say?’

He hesitated. He was not sure. Something was glimmering at the back of his mind, but he could not bring it into focus.

‘There is a sense in which we experience events as simultaneous, although they are in fact separated in time by millennia,’ she said. ‘Our minds are skilled beyond belief at surfing the ocean of consciousness in which we have our being.’ She paused. ‘Everything that has ever been is still present, though we may not be aware of it because it is in a form usually inaccessible to us. Some call it the Akashic records, but perhaps we should not use the word “records” because it suggests something inanimate, stored on shelves, gathering dust. The Akashic is rather an imprint from life in dynamic motion, interacting, interrelating, influencing. Eternal and yet ever present...’

Jack struggled to come to terms with what she had just said.

‘We are just part of the choreography of that universe,’ she continued, indicating the pictures once more. ‘We are, it is true, hurtling through space on the surface of a very small planet, but our consciousness is free of time and space. You can experience ancient Egypt as though it is present in your life now because you can see the bigger picture where everything that has ever happened still exists in some form. You are in a sense seeing two stars separated by millions of light years, simultaneously...’

‘Whew!’ Jack laughed nervously. He needed to think about this. The unfamiliar ideas were crowding in too fast.

After a long pause when each sat wrapped in their own thoughts, Jack spoke again.

‘You mean you don’t think I actually lived in ancient Egypt, but am just picking up impressions floating around?’

‘But why does he just pick up those impressions?’ Emma asked. ‘Why are we not continually bombarded by all sorts of things so that we don’t know what is now and what is not?’

‘Because we could not live like that,’ Mary said. ‘We have filters. We have screens to protect us. When you walk down a street you don’t notice everything that is there. A baby in a pram might notice only the dogs and the other babies. A gardener might notice only the gardens. A young girl the clothes in the shops ... a young man the cars ... Not one of us sees everything. Only occasionally we focus on one or two of the host of impressions that are with us all the time. When we are in a relaxed state, sleeping for instance, we may lower our screens, and extend our range.’