Karnak, Egypt — A Flip-Flop at the Foot of a Column

Our Linda booked it on the Wednesday after the business with the car. She had a brochure on the kitchen table when I came home from Stuart's and she didn't say anything about it for a bit. Then she said, "Keith, I've been thinking. We're going on a boat."

I said, "what sort of a boat."

She said, "the Nile."

I think she'd had the brochure out a while. She'd put a Post-it on one page. Seven nights, Luxor to Aswan and back, full board. Manchester flight included. She said it had been reduced. I think it had been reduced a fair bit because we were going in eight days' time.

I said, "any reason in particular." She said, "you've been a bit funny since the car, Keith, and I think you want a change of scene." Then she put the kettle on.

She didn't say anything about the shoes. She didn't have to. It were in the air.

Out we went

Saturday morning, Manchester. The carpet were the same as in Nerja. I think it's a Jet2 carpet rather than a Málaga carpet. I had wondered about that. Now I know.

We landed in Luxor about teatime. The heat hit us when they opened the door. I had a navy zip-up on because Manchester were drizzling when we left. I kept it on through Passport Control and a fair bit of the coach because I couldn't see a reasonable place to take it off. Our Linda said I were going red. I said I were managing.

The boat were called the MS Nile Marquise. It had three decks and a small pool on the top one. Our cabin had a sliding door onto a little balcony that were about the width of a chest freezer. The river were brown and went past slow.

The buffet

The first morning I went down to breakfast at quarter past seven. There were a lot to take in.

The breakfast. 07:17. The orange rice were back. I will not pretend I weren't a little pleased to see it.

There were beans of a sort in a brown sauce. There were a noodle and rice thing in a metal dish that had a label in Arabic and then in English underneath, "KOSHARI." There were a flatbread that you tore with your hand. There were a fruit salad that had been out since six, by the looks of it. There were the orange rice again. The orange rice followed me from Nerja and I were quietly glad of it because at least one thing on the table I had seen before.

Our Linda had three cups of tea and a thing she called a "spinach pastry." She said it were excellent. She said that twice.

I weren't to look

Our Linda had said it as we got on the boat. She said it very quietly. She said, "Keith, no looking." She didn't say no looking for shoes. She didn't need to. She said no looking, and I knew what she meant, and I said, "right then."

I sat on the top deck the first afternoon and I read the book I'd brought, which were a Bernard Cornwell about the Saxons this time. I had a glass of lemonade. The river were brown. A heron stood on a sandbar and didn't move for the whole chapter. I felt all right.

The top deck. About four. The jacket were eventually removed. I will not be drawn on when.

The one I couldn't get to

It were the Tuesday. We were sailing somewhere between Edfu and Kom Ombo. I were on the top deck again with the book on my lap. I looked up at the bank because I'd heard a bit of a noise — turned out to be a donkey — and I were looking at the bank for about a minute when I saw it.

A single dark boot. Right foot, I think. On the mud, just back from the water. Reeds round it. I might have been looking at it for a few seconds before I knew what I were looking at.

I got my phone out. I zoomed all the way in. I took four photographs.

The bank shoe. Phone at full zoom. It is the dark shape just left of centre. I know it's not much to look at.

The boat didn't stop. The boat were never going to stop. They don't stop a Nile cruise for a boot.

I watched the bank till the bend took it out of sight. I had a feeling I haven't had before. I have sat with a lot of shoes. I have not, in seventeen years, had to watch one go past me on a moving boat.

I'm not going to log this in Away Fixtures. I didn't get to it. I didn't stand near it. I have a blurred photograph and a feeling and that's all. It belongs in this report and nowhere else. I'll not give it a number. It is the shoe I saw from the boat.

Karnak

The Karnak excursion were on the Thursday morning. A coach from the boat at quarter to seven because of the heat. Our guide were called Mahmoud and he had a yellow umbrella so we could find him in the crowd. Mahmoud spoke about each column for two or three minutes and then moved us on. He didn't dawdle. There were three other coachloads doing the same thing and the timings were tight.

The Hypostyle Hall is the bit with the columns. There are a hundred and thirty-four of them. I had not understood, before going, how big they would be. You read it on the leaflet. You don't really know. You're sort of inside a forest made of carved stone, and the carvings are above your head and out of your reach, and the sun comes down between the columns in great hot stripes.

Our Linda. She'd brought the cream sun hat from Nerja. She got within a foot of the carvings and she took a lot of pictures.

Our Linda were very taken with it. She'd read a bit beforehand. She knew which one were Seti the First and which one were Ramesses the Second. She kept saying, "Keith, look at that bit." I'd look. She were right to point it out.

Mahmoud were moving us towards the next column when I saw it. I'd not been looking. I want to say that clearly. I had not been looking the whole holiday. But you can't help what your eye does. My eye went where it went.

At the base of one of the columns, on the dusty stone floor, sat a single flip-flop. Blue rubber. Left foot. The toe-thong frayed where the foot had been working it. A bit of grit caught in the heel. Standard mass-produced rubber sandal of the sort you can buy in a petrol station.

I stopped.

Mahmoud were saying summat about the cartouches. Our Linda were three columns ahead.

I looked at the flip-flop. The flip-flop did not look at me. It sat there. It had been made in a factory probably last year and somebody had been wearing it five minutes ago and then it weren't on their foot any more and now it were at the base of a stone column carved three thousand three hundred years ago.

I want to say what I felt. I felt the same thing I feel on a moor. I felt the same thing as I felt at the canal lock at Marsden, and on the bench at Beaumont Park, and on the sea wall at Nerja. It were the same feeling. It travelled with me.

I got my camera out — I had brought the camera this time, I'd learned my lesson from Nerja — and I took two photographs. The first one come out. The second were blurred because Mahmoud touched my elbow and said, "sir, please, the group."

I caught up with the group.

I had to leave it where it were.

On the boat that evening

Back on the boat, Our Linda asked me if I'd had a good day. I said aye. She said, "did you see owt." I said, "I saw summat." She said, "I bet you did, Keith." She said it kindly. She didn't ask to see the photograph. I think she knew without asking.

I wrote most of this on the balcony of the cabin, with a small bottle of lemonade. The river were brown and quiet and the lights from a boat going the other way slid across the cabin door behind me for a bit and then were gone.

The matter of the ledger

The flip-flop goes in Away Fixtures. That ledger were opened for the sandal in Nerja, and I had thought at the time there'd not be a second entry. There is. I'm not going to make a new ledger. I'm not going to call it "Far Away Fixtures" or "Hot Country Fixtures." It is an Away Fixture. Egypt is further than Spain. Spain is further than Skipton. The line were drawn at the edge of Huddersfield. Past that line it's all one ledger.

I'm pleased about that, actually. I don't want any more ledgers.

Going home

Friday evening, Manchester. The carpet on the return flight were the same pattern. Our Linda had bought a small soapstone scarab for our Gary at a stall in Aswan. He'll put it on the fridge at work next to the donkey.

Our Linda said, on the coach to the airport, "Keith, did the holiday do you any good." I thought about it. I said, "aye, I think it did." She said, "any less of the shoes." I said, "happen so." She said, "fair enough."

I don't know if it's true. But I said it.

Aye. A flip-flop at Karnak. Blue rubber. Left foot. Three thousand three hundred years of column above it and nobody in the group but me had stopped. I will think about that one a while.