Free Someone Like You by Cathy Kelly

bad enough at home seeing homeless dogs brought into the surgery after being hit by cars. At least she could do something for them at home, but here, she wasn’t a veterinary nurse: she was just a tourist.
    A vision of Penny came to her, suddenly; those melting chocolate eyes filled with abject misery at being left behind.
    Leonie missed her desperately; she missed all the animals she loved. Poor Clover locked away in the cattery, and little Herman, watched endlessly by her mother’s ravenous cats. And she felt so far away from the kids. At least Ireland was nearer to Boston than here. Just a phone call away.
    Egypt was two continents away and she’d be travelling so they’d never be able to track her down. What if something happened and Ray couldn’t reach her and …
    Stop it, she commanded. Nothing’s going to happen.
    Trying to put portents of gloom out of her mind, Leonie stared out the windows as the countryside gave way to straggly city streets with more traffic. Dust rose up into the air from the other vehicles on the road: battered Ladas with taxi signs on them and stately old station wagons in bright colours, encrusted with dust. Electric signs in exotic Arabic shone over small shops and cafes, with bright English-language signs over the myriad souvenir shops.
    Every few yards, she could see small groups of men sitting outside their houses, drinking coffee or watching football on television. Most wore the long simple cotton robes with white headdresses tied into a neat hat. Young boys sat nearby, staring and pointing at the tourists in the bus, some waving excitedly.
    ‘I haven’t seen any women,’ Leonie whispered to Hannah, as if the men watching them from the roadside might read their lips.
    ‘I know,’ Hannah whispered back. ‘It does seem to be a very male-orientated society. There were no women at the airport either. It’s a mainly Muslim country, though, isn’t it? And that means the women dress modestly.’
    Hannah thought ruefully of her holiday wardrobe, which contained quite a few skimpy clothes for sunbathing on the boat. As the guide books mentioned that women shouldn’t wear revealing shorts or sleeveless outfits for visiting temples, she’d brought plenty of cover-up clothes as well. But if the Egyptians frowned upon Western dress, her bikini would be staying in her suitcase. She didn’t want to offend people with her clothes. Mind you, she realized with a grin, the elderly parish priest back home in Connemara wouldn’t appreciate a pale pink crochet bikini any more than a religious Egyptian.
    ‘On your right is the Nile,’ Flora announced and the passengers craned their necks for their first sight of the great river. At first, Hannah couldn’t see anything but other people’s heads as everyone tried to get a glimpse out of the window.
    Then she saw it, a great expanse of gleaming water, sparkling with lights from the large river boats that were moored by its banks. The mystical Nile, the gift of Egypt as Herodotus said - or was it the other way round? She couldn’t remember. Egyptian kings and queens had sailed up and down this river in their royal barges, pharaohs sailing to visit their temples and to worship their gods.
     
    Tutankhamun, Rameses, Hatshepsut: their names were a roll call of an exotic past world …
    ‘Look at the boats,’ breathed Leonie, who was dying to know on what sort of vessel they’d be spending the next seven days and who couldn’t concentrate on the glories of the Nile until she saw her cabin to see if it had enough room for her vast suitcase. ‘That’s a huge one,’ she added as they drew closer to a floating palace decorated with hundreds of fairy lights. ‘I hope that’s our boat.’
    The bus sped past. ‘Oh well …’ Leonie shrugged.
    The bus suddenly shuddered to a halt beside a much smaller boat which was painted French blue and had the words Queen Tiye written on the side in huge gold letters.
    Three decks high, the top deck was half