Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) (18 page)

‘Delayed shock,’ she heard Evelyn pronounce.

‘Let her have a good old cry,’ Arthur agreed from between the flaps. ‘Better out than in.’

It was her fault the pup was dead and that Victor had been sent away. Misery rolled over her in waves and there was nothing for it but to give in and weep some more and moan and groan. Awful sounds they were but she didn’t care how she must sound or what anyone would think. It reminded her of the way Victor went on in his nightmares. Tangled in her mosquito net, she ground her face into the salty swamp of her pillow and groaned some more.

Eventually, worn out, she rolled onto her back. It was dark now except for the stars, so bright they were, like the points of tiny thorns pricking through the canvas. Her throat was sore and she was shaken by intermittent spasms. It was like the end of a storm and she felt oddly peaceful, weathering detachedly the last few squalls.

When everyone else had gone to bed, Isis crawled from her tent. The moon had swelled as it had risen, big and brazen as a slice of tropical fruit spilling juice, bright enough to cast sharp shadows. She wandered round the site. The flattened places where the missing tents had been appeared so much tinier than the lives lived in them, and already the sand was skimming across and blurring the traces of Selim and Victor, Akil and Haru. And soon their own tents would be taken down and all trace of their presence erased. Except for the shells. Tomorrow she would throw them out and soon they’d become buried by the sand again, to be collected, perhaps, by another bored child in another three thousand years.

She went behind the broken heap where her pup had been and there was no trace of anything alive there, just the breezy movement of grit in the moonlight, which had no purpose and meant nothing at all. She could never have taken the pup home, she knew that really. It had been the silly fancy of a silly child, and that child had died.

PART THREE

S
PIKE AND I
stood for a long time on that landing outside Osi’s door. Rain dripped through a hole in the ceiling above us and pigeons crooned, a sound incongruously summery. If he’s dead he’s dead, I told myself, the sort of sensible remark that sounds as if it helps. Oh sometimes my poor old mind thinks it can’t take any more shocks, but then it gets another and seems to go on working – working after a fashion.

‘Ma-am?’ Spike said eventually, he was casting nervous looks up at the rafters and shivering, not surprising in his wetly woollen jumper. I should have had him take it off and dry himself.

‘Here goes,’ I said, with an attempt at jauntiness, and stretched my face into a smile before I turned the handle.

Cold brightness met us, windows open, curtains on the floor. The pigeon smell was not so powerful in here; there was something else. And then I saw Osi. He was alive, naked, crouching on the bed, back pressed against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes huge, beard like a doormat, string of grey gristle slumped between his legs.

‘Cover up, for pity’s sake,’ I said, when I could speak. ‘We have a guest.’

Though Spike had backed out of the door.

I picked a blanket from the floor and draped it over my broth
er’s
knees.
His
skin
was
cold,
surely
could
not
be
colder
if
he
had
been
dead.
‘What
a
state
you’re
in,’
I
scolded.
‘Really,
Osi!’

He’d
gone
bald
since
last
I’d
seen
him
and
his
nose,
always
so
long
and
beaky,
seemed
hardened
now; it
was
a
beak,
the
mouth
shrunken
away
beneath
the
copious
dinge
of
beard.
His
eyes
were
two
dark
tunnels
leading
to
. . .
I
shudder
to
think.

‘Osi!’
Now
that
he
was
decent
I
shook
him
and
he
squawked.
I
jumped
back
at
the
raucous
sound,
bird
sound,
and
all
at
once
understood
that
that
is
what
he
thought
he
was.
He
was
crouching
as
if
perched,
long
horny
toenails
splayed
like
claws.

‘Osi,
it’s
Sisi
. . .
Isis,’
I
cranked
out
that
old
name
and
how
awkwardly
it
issued
from
my
mouth.
‘
Isis
.
It’s
me.’

I
watched
but
nothing
was
occurring
in
his
eyes.

‘What
have
you
been
eating?’
I
said.
‘You
haven’t
pulled
the
bucket
up
for
days.’
Of
course
the
floor
was
strewn
with
balls
of
gold
and
silver
from
his
Dairylee
and
chocolate
bars,
and
there
were
stacks
of
cardboard
wheels
reaching
to
the
ceiling
like
his
blessed
temple
columns.
Everything
was
scrawled
with
hieroglyphs,
all
the
walls,
overlapping,
blurring
each
other,
and
some
of
them
were
done
in
blood,
I
think,
and
some
in
something
thick
and
brown
I
cannot
even
bear
to
name
and
once
I’d
noticed
that,
I
caught
the
smell
too,
that
filthy
human
smell.
His
fingernails,
those
awful
horny
twists,
were
caked
with
dirt
and
stuck
with
hairs,
enough
to
make
you
sick.

This
was
Osi.
This
was
my
twin.
I
thought
my
heart
would
break.

I
heard
a
cough
behind
me
and
almost
left
my
skin
behind.
I
had
forgotten
Spike
was
there.
I
turned
and
tried
again
for
the
reassuring
smile
but
my
face
felt
tight
and
false.

He
had
a
hand
clamped
over
his
mouth
and
spoke
through
his
fingers.
‘I
reckon
I’ll
go
now,
Ma-am?’

‘First, be a dear and fetch the food from the bucket,’ I said. ‘And some water? Please, dear. I could do with a hand. He’s really not himself.’

Spike went out and I heard him struggling and slithering on the stairs and a yell as his foot went through the third. He was swearing continuously and who could blame him? I stood and listened.
Oh my fucking God, Jesus fucking Christ, fuck fuck fucking fuck
and so on in a sort of dirge, punctuated by gasps and sneezes and retching sounds. To do him credit, he didn’t run away.

‘Come on, Osi,’ I said and at last he seemed to register that I was there and cocked his head to focus on me.

‘It’s me,
Isis
,’ I said. The name was dangerous, likely to haul me back. ‘Sisi, your sister,’ I said. ‘You haven’t pulled the bucket up for days. Remember the system? I’ve come to see how you are.’

As I talked I found another blanket to drape around his shoulders. I tried to shut the windows, but the frame had broken and, in any case, the glass was gone. The curtains were in a squelchy heap from all the blown in rain; part of the ceiling was down, the rest of it intricately mapped with stains. I continued to talk to him, just soothing nonsense, soothing to myself at least, though my mind was scrabbling for what on earth I was going to do with him like this. He squawked again, a dreadfully chilling sound.

‘Speak properly,’ I scolded.

As I watched, his jaw began to move, stirring the beard and a hole opened underneath the nose, and then he spoke a word, although I couldn’t catch it. His voice was so unused to speaking that it would hardly work.

‘Again,’ I said. ‘Try again.’

And he tried several times, with effort in his eyes, an expression come into them now, a pleading for me to understand, and then, with a plummeting of my heart, I understood him. He was saying ‘Horus’.

Spike came back in, bless him, with the Dairylee and Jacobs cream crackers.

‘Thank you, dear. Just the ticket.’

He put his offerings on the bed and stretched one of the sleeves of his jumper across his nose and mouth like a sort of mask, eyes widened above it.

‘Could you fetch some water?’ I asked. He went off again and I listened to him on the stairs again. This time I was afraid that he might really leave, but no, he came back with one of the Bacardi Breezer bottles filled with water.

‘Why not look around the bedrooms?’ I suggested. ‘You might find a rug – or take anything. Have a good old poke around.’

When he’d gone I tore the Jacob’s wrapper open with my teeth, peeled the foil off a cheesy triangle, mashed it onto a cracker, and held it close to Osi’s mouth.

‘You’re not
Horus
, you’re
Osiris
,’ I said and when his mouth opened, popped a bit of cracker in. ‘Remember?’ His hunger woke once we’d begun and he ate five crackers, most of the cheese and glugged the water. The feelings of love, relief and revulsion as the lipless hole churned at the food were so strong I could barely contain myself, but I went on feeding him until he would take no more.

And the sensation of another person upstairs in Little Egypt, wandering the rooms alone, was strange to me and I thought of the fox with the feathers between his teeth, I thought of the bird hearts beating their blood all through the house, tangles of red and blue, veins of life, wet and warm and red amongst the rotting timbers.

I sat with Osi, and I listened so hard I could hear the old nails niggle in the floorboards and the soreness of the gaps between them whistling with draughts like tooth decay. I could feel the grumble and belch of the crusted pipes and the roof beams aching with the slope and shoulder of the remaining slates. I sat listening to Little Egypt properly and wholly for the last time until Osi’s eyes were closed. As he fell asleep he became gradually unperched and slid along the bed so that I could tuck him warmly up before I left.

I’d forgotten Spike and was alarmed by the sound of him in the Blue Room. I hadn’t been in there since Victor. It was in comparatively good condition, just a corner of the ceiling gone, and in that corner the wallpaper with its repeating bluebirds peeled right off the wall, but otherwise it was fine and dry, the window properly closed, and even the curtains intact. Spike had rolled a rug up and had it under his arm.

‘You sure?’ he said.

I went and put my hand on the bed. ‘This is where my Uncle Victor used to stay,’ I said. ‘A hero of the war. The Great War.’