Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) (8 page)

‘Mr Burgess said that Mr Patey killed two wives,’ she said to Osi, once the creaking and clopping had diminished. The statement sounded ridiculous brought out into the light of day. ‘Of course, I don’t believe him, but I should tell Mary, don’t you think?’

Osi failed to reply. He was staring longingly after the cart.

‘By the way Osi, do you know where Bastet is?’

Still he didn’t answer and, irritated, she swung the gate hard in the hope of catching him with it, but he jumped out of the way, stuck out his bottom lip and stalked off. Riding on the gate, she let her head hang back and it was as if she soared, dizzied, up into the cloudless blue. George’s was the first dead body she’d ever seen, human anyway, and her eyes still hurt with the grit in his.

There was a light scrunch of gravel and Mary came out, wraith-white and shading her eyes.

‘Mr Patey took him,’ said Isis.

‘He coming back?’

‘Didn’t say.’

Mary winced at the rusty grating of the gate and Isis jumped off and hugged her until she struggled free. ‘Get on with you,’ she said. ‘So the poor old boy has really gone?’

‘Even dead he looked just as cross as ever.’ Isis remarked as she latched the gate. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Barely. Least I’m still here though.’

Isis took Mary’s hand and led her back into the kitchen. ‘You sit down,’ she said.

‘The stove needs filling.’ Mary sank down onto her chair.

Isis rattled coal from the scuttle into the stove and put the kettle on the hob. ‘Have you seen Evelyn’s Bastet?’ she asked.

Mary blinked. ‘Her what?’

‘The jewelled cat?’

‘Oh that thing. No, not now I come to think of it.’

‘It’s worth a fortune,’ Isis said.

‘I expect Osi’s got it.’

On the other hand, Isis thought, having strangers like Mr Patey about the place, going up the stairs, well you never knew what might go missing.

‘Mr Burgess said Mr Patey killed both his wives,’ she said, looking not at Mary but at the blackened kettle as she spoke. But when she sneaked a look, Mary’s expression was merely weary.

‘Poor Mr Patey’s been bereaved twice, and I for one know about bereavement,’ she said, and buried her face in her hands.

Isis took two cups and saucers from the dresser and put them on the table. Neatly she poured a drop of milk into each. As soon as she’d been tall enough to reach the kettle, Mary had taught her to make a good cup of tea, which, she’d predicted, would be a comfort to Isis all her life. She tipped out the old leaves, rinsed the pot and warmed it with the nearly boiling water.

‘Careful,’ Mary said, when she lifted the kettle. ‘Always pour away from you.’ Her voice was still frail from her migraine and with the twist in it there always was when Gordon Jefferson was in her mind. Isis was sorry to have reminded her of him, but she couldn’t quite let the subject drop now that she had dared to broach it.

‘Do you know how they died?’ Isis spooned fresh leaves into the pot. The tea caddy was nearly empty. ‘We need to put tea on the list,’ she added.

‘There’s more in the pantry,’ Mary said. ‘The second Mrs Patey had the influenza.’

‘Oh.’

‘And the first was to do with down below,’ Mary’s hand went to her own curved belly. ‘That and her nerves, I believe, poor thing.’

Isis filled the teapot and squeezed the knitted cosy onto it. ‘That’s what he told
you
.’

‘Don’t you go listening to that bally grocer.’

Isis was silenced. She studied the tea cups, chipped along their rims and faded inside from years of Mary’s scourer. All right then, he didn’t do for his wives. Of course he didn’t. Not with that kind brown light in his eyes. She’d never
really
thought he had.

‘He’s still a coward though,’ she said, in an effort to retain some grudge.

Mary gave a sort of yawning sigh. ‘He’s a Quaker and them’s pacifists. You know that. He’s entitled to his beliefs.’

Isis knew she should drop the subject, but she was in a fidget of irritation at Mary’s refusal to hear a bad word about Mr Patey. ‘Uncle Victor’s no pacifist, he’s a hero with a medal,’ she said.

‘And don’t we all know it,’ Mary muttered, adding, ‘Give it another moment to brew,’ as Isis lifted the pot. ‘There’s heroes and there’s heroes.’

‘Even Mr Burgess went to war,’ Isis said. ‘Did you know he lost his brothers as well as his fingers? What if everyone in England was a pacifist? Where would we be then?’ She was proud of this argument, that she’d once heard Evelyn voicing. ‘A colony of Prussia,’ she added more uncertainly. ‘Ruled by the blessed hun.’

‘Get on with you and pour that tea,’ said Mary.

I
T WAS SO
peculiar to take another person into Little Egypt, I cannot tell you. It was like opening a door in my skull and letting someone into my brain to tramp their boots and jab their elbows, to spy and judge the murk. I nearly changed my mind, but Spike was right behind me, eager to get in. The hail was rattling down, he was wet and I needed help, I did need help. And so did Osi. I had to put him first.

So I opened the door into the scullery, left my trolley there, and led Spike into the kitchen. And I saw it through his eyes, dim and cold with all the rubbish, my brown toothbrush on the table beside the sleeping Nine, who was curled up on a dirty plate; an old game of patience (arrested halfway through and stuck forever by food spills to the table); a slither of papers; a puff of hair pulled from my brush adhering to spilled egg yolk; a mouldy jam jar crawling with flies, and indeed yes, now that I was tuned in to it, quite a drone of flies. You get used to such sounds in your own place until they do not register. In any case they sound like thoughts, the thoughts that happen as a backdrop to your mind; passive thinking they would call it nowadays. Yes, that has the drone of flies.

Spike stood with hailstones melting and dripping off him. ‘Jeez,’ was all he said. He reached out to stroke Nine
,
but she spat at him and he withdrew his hand.

‘Not used to company,’ I said. ‘I call her Nine, really she’s Cleo number nine, the ninth generation or dynasty, but I keep clear of anything Egyptian.’

Spike eyed me warily.

‘Perhaps a cup of tea then?’ I suggested. I saw him looking at the stove top where sat the heavily encrusted kettle. My hands were trembling as I filled it. Behind me Spike had cleared a space on the table and was putting my groceries there. ‘Where’s the ice
box?’ he said.

I thought he said icehouse, and I started, dropping the caddy so that it bounced away.

‘Refrigerator?’ he supplied, sensing my confusion.

‘Just put it in the pantry,’ I told him, hiding my face as I bent to grope for the ruddy caddy.

‘Jeez,’ he said again when he went inside the pantry.

Now, I know there are things in there that have gone vastly past their sell-by date. I expect that’s where the smell comes from – and the flies. Curious how I hadn’t noticed the flies
,
but now that I was aware I saw that there were piles of them on the windowsill, dead or dying
,
and plenty more buzzing wirily around. It was all rather embarrassing. And it struck me like a blow: what on earth would Mary say that I had let her kitchen get in such a state?

‘What about a Bacardi Breezer?’ I suggested, hand not steady enough to deal with tea.

‘Sure,’ he said, lifting his eyebrows – studs and all.

There were two bottles of the blue
variety in the pantry and he had the caps off
in no time and was taking a copious swallow.

After I’d retrieved the caddy I straightened up and looked at him. Within the setting of my kitchen he appeared smaller, dimi
nished, you might say, younger and rather pale.

‘Are you quite well?’ I said.

‘Not used to being . . .’ He waved his hand around. ‘Inside.’ He spoke as if he was trying to avoid breathing through his nose.

‘Where do you sleep then?’ Curious that I had never thought to ask.

‘I have somewhere,’ he said. ‘A bender in the woods.’

‘A bender?’

‘Tent,’ he said. ‘Kinda like a tent, made of branches and carpets – hey, you don’t have an old rug or two to spare?’

‘Take what you like,’ I said.

‘Sure?’ He looked dubiously about him.

‘You can’t sleep outside all winter, dear, surely?’

‘A couple extra rugs would be good.’

‘What do your parents think of your life-style?’

He flinched and seemed to shrink still further. Next to the virulent blue of the drink his eyes were drained of colour.

‘My folks are on a different planet,’ he began. He told me that his parents were tight-assed Republicans, how all they cared about was money and appearances. They had sent him over to grad school before he joined the family firm. He’d argued with his father on the phone, dropped out of his course and been living outside of all the shit (his word) ever since. He began to trot out his anarchist manifesto, which I’d heard before, but I could scarcely listen. My heart was like a grasshopper in my chest and my breath thin and thread-like. It was a worry that I might go first and then where would Osi be? Keeping him safely tucked away had been my life’s work and I could not let him down now, not so near the end.

‘Drink up,’ I said. I forced in some air before I added, ‘Oh by the way, I’m not alone.’

He paused mid-swig.

‘I am a twin,’ I said.

He eyed me cautiously.

‘I have a twin brother,’ I elaborated.

He nodded, taking this in. ‘Is he still . . . I mean, where?’

‘Upstairs.’ I had to steady myself against the table. ‘Would you like to meet him?’

He finished the drink and banged the bottle down. ‘That’s OK,’ he said, as if about to take his leave.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t go, not yet.’

‘Got to get on the road,’ he said (by which he meant stand by the road and stick his thumb out till some ‘sucker’ as he called them, picked him up. I thought that an ungrateful way of putting it. But anyone who lived in ‘the system’ was a sucker to Spike and I’ll admit to being flattered that he didn’t count me amongst their numbers. But now he’d seen the conditions in which I lived, I could see that he was shaken. Even operating outside the system, it seems he had his standards!).

‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and find you a carpet for your bender.’

But we both stood motionless looking at the floor.

‘Where is your brother?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Osi? He’s upstairs.’ I aimed for a gay and carefree smile. ‘We’ll pop up and see him, shall we?’

Naturally, I didn’t want to alarm Spike with the mention of a possible corpse. Now I had him here, another person, another heart, young and strong, beating in the house, driving round its circulation, I felt braver, I told myself, able to tackle whatever we would find.

7

I
T WAS A
few days before Mr Patey returned, and when he did he brought his toolbox to fix the sticking pantry door, which had been driving Mary demented. Osi was in the kitchen for once, and Mary was grating lemon rind for curd so that the very air made your mouth water. Osi was crouching to examine the neatly packed hammers, chisels, saws, all clean and gleaming in their stout pine box. The pantry door was off its hinges and Mr Patey whistled as he planed the bottom; the smell of wood shavings blending with the scent of lemons. It was warm in the kitchen with fingers of dusty sunlight coming through the window and the stove roaring.

‘A cup of tea would go down a treat,’ said Mr Patey. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his blue striped shirt so that you could see the muscles in his arms and the dark hairs that curled against his skin. Isis had never really noticed a person’s arms before, not like that, not the way you could see the glide of the muscles under the skin, and she watched entranced. She would definitely give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘When you’ve got that door back on,’ Mary said with a grin and stuck her tongue out at him. ‘And you can stop gawping and fill the kettle,’ she added to Isis. ‘And then you children can run along,’ she added.

‘Not
children
,’ said Isis.

Obediently, Osi got up from the floor and went upstairs.

‘And it’s nice in here,’ Isis added. ‘Anyway, Mr Patey, what did the doctor say about George?’

‘His ticker gave out,’ Mary said.

‘Not very nice for you kiddies.’ Mr Patey stopped and wiped his brow.

‘Good job you turned up,’ Mary said, ‘or I don’t know what we would of done.’

‘Turned up like a bad penny,’ said Mr Patey. There was a special sort of fizz in the air between them, smiles like promises. He flicked a glance at Isis and raised his eyebrows at Mary.

‘What about bringing in a few apples?’ Mary suggested. ‘And then you can have a scone and lemon curd. I don’t expect you’d like one?’ she said to Mr Patey with a dimple.

‘You mean, will I leave you alone,’ Isis said and heard a muffled snort from the coalman as she went to collect a basket from the scullery.

The Indian summer was going on and on. The sky was a splintery blue between the branches, the apples jaunty amongst the golden leaves. Most of the fruit was too high and so she gathered windfalls, flicking away the tiny yellow slugs that clung to the rosy skins. And then she lugged her haul back to the kitchen window and climbed the bricks. The room looked dim inside and the glass was rippled with condensation so she could not see as clearly as she liked, but Mary had propped the window open at the bottom, so Isis could hear their voices and smell the lemons.

‘You know he does for all the widows in the county,’ Mr Patey was saying. ‘Least them that’s under 40-odd and don’t look like a barn door.’

‘You can’t think I care about him?’ Mary gave a shrill laugh that didn’t sound like her at all. ‘And he doesn’t “do” for me, Wilf. He’s sweet on me, that’s all, and it oils the wheels with the tab and where’s the harm in that?’ There was quiet for a moment and then a clatter. ‘This is nearly done.’

‘There’s a dance in the village, Friday.’

‘You know I can’t.’

‘Mary. You’re throwing your chances away.’

‘Oooh, it’s a bit sharp. Nice, though. Taste.’ There was silence for a moment. ‘Nice? Can’t leave them twins, can I?’

‘They’re not babies.’

‘No?’

Isis bristled.

‘Remember they’re not
yours
,’ Mr Patey said and there was silence until Mary said:

‘Can you get them warmed jars out?’

After a shuffle of movement, Mr Patey said, ‘Mmm, that’s tasty, that is.’

‘You can take that jar.’ There was quiet and then: ‘We haven’t heard from them for weeks. Not a postcard to the twins, not so much as a penny payment. No nothing. And then there’s his lordship turning up, never any warning, expecting to be fed, and the company he keeps! We might as well be a brothel. And Mr and Mrs, well they might of dropped dead for all we know.’

‘Hand in your notice, Mary,’ Mr Patey said. ‘I’ll look after you.’

Isis held her breath. It went quiet and through the steamy window she saw their two dim shapes blend into one. She jumped off the bricks and made a clatter going through the scullery and by the time she got into the kitchen Mr Patey had his cap on. ‘Well, must be off.’ He popped half a lemon curdy scone in his mouth, lifted his hand to Isis and went off whistling.

Over the days that followed there was still no letter and the Indian summer ended in a gale that blew the rest of the apples off the tree, along with a slate or two from the roof. Osi retreated more into himself than ever and Mary was cross and snappish. Even Victor hadn’t visited for weeks.

On Mr Burgess’ day, Isis hung over the gate, shivering in the mean and pesky wind, straining her ears for the sound of his van. She was aware of how pathetic she was, so desperate for some sort of diversion that she yearned for the
grocer
to come. One day I’ll look back on this and laugh, she thought, and sent her mind into a future of school and friends and beaus and marriage and babies. Into the proper sort of life that surely soon must start.

At last the van arrived, and she opened the gate and ran beside it back up the drive.

‘Any letters?’ she asked Mr Burgess as he emerged from his van. ‘And, by the way, Mary knows all about Mr Patey and he certainly
didn’t
do for his wives. He’s actually a decent chap,’ she added.

‘I hope you haven’t been spreading gossip?’ He straightened himself up with the heavy box and she heard the click of vertebrae.

‘But you said –’

‘No letter,’ he interrupted. ‘But good news. Have you heard? Is it them?’

‘What?’

‘You don’t know!’ His scribbled cheeks bunched up in a smile and his moustache quivered.

‘What? What? What?’ she asked as she followed him round to the kitchen, but he would not answer. Mary was at the sink with her back to them, her whole body jiggling with the vigour of her scrubbing at some stain.

‘Mary?’ said Mr Burgess.

She turned, drying her hands on her apron, but failed to treat the grocer to a smile.

‘
What
news?’ Isis said.

‘Leave Mr Burgess alone,’ Mary said wearily. ‘And run along now.’

‘But what news?’ Isis pestered. ‘He’s got some good news.’

Mr Burgess waited for both of them to be riveted to him before he gave an answer. ‘Only a big tomb found in Egypt. Heard it on the wireless.’

Isis felt her mouth open, stiff and gasping as a fish. For a moment she couldn’t speak. Mary was gaping at Mr Burgess too and he was fairly glowing, as proud to be carrying the news as if he had turned up the tomb himself.

‘They’ve
never
gone and found it?’ Mary said, dimpling with disbelief. ‘Oh my giddy aunt. I don’t believe it.’

‘Mary!’ Isis grabbed her. ‘Oh! If only we had a wireless. Is there no telegram? What shall we do?’

Distractedly, Mary squeezed Isis tight before she pushed her away. ‘Are you
sure?
’ she said.

‘How shall we find out?’ Isis couldn’t keep still. There was a surge in her like a pulsing light and she wanted to yell or sing and she needed to move.

‘I reckon there’ll be a telegram any minute,’ Mr Burgess said. He gave Isis a poke of toffees. ‘You go out and watch for the boy.’

Isis took the toffees but pelted upstairs. ‘Osi, Osi!’ she shouted. ‘We think they’ve found it! They’ve found it!’ Her voice would hardly come out loud enough. She hurled herself into the nursery before he could stop her. His hands were yellow with paint from the model he was making.

‘Go away,’ he said.

‘But they’ve found the tomb.’

He stared at her. He had paint on his face too and looked grotesque otherwise she would have kissed and hugged him. ‘It’s over!’ she said.

‘What?’

‘The
wait
.’

‘Is it true?’ he said. ‘Who says?’

‘Ask Mr Burgess if you don’t believe me!’

The actuality of Osi and his peculiarities threatened to take the shine off her elation and she ran downstairs, forgetting to avoid the broken step so that her foot went through the tread, ripping the side of her shoe, but it didn’t matter one bit because soon there would be new shoes and the stairs would be mended and life would really start and this was
really
happening. She ran through the kitchen where Mr Burgess was accepting a cup of tea and outside to hang over the gate, mouth crammed with toffee, awaiting the telegram.

But two days went past with no news and then Mr Burgess came back, moustache adroop, bearing a newspaper. It seemed it had been a false alarm, nothing to do with Herihor at all; the news was about the Carter fellow – though not even
he
had
actually found his Tutankhamen. Evelyn and Arthur must be mortified, Isis thought. They must be livid.

The disappointment, after the elation, brought a pall down over Little Egypt, darker than ever before. Mary moved slowly through it looking crushed, and Isis tried and tried to cheer her up by being helpful and with games of cards, afraid that she might up and leave, but was so miserable herself that she could scarcely drag herself out of bed in the mornings. With no tutor and no school there was nothing for her to do. There was a whole world going on out there but still they were held in Little Egypt, suspended as if in souring aspic.

She was surprised to find that she felt cross and sorry on her parents’ behalf about blasted Howard Carter and blasted Lord Carnarvon, and blasted Tutankhamen. She hoped they might come back. If only they would at least write. If only they would give up the whole beastly business and come home and put an end to this awful wait.

Both Evelyn and Arthur were atheists, but Isis sided with Mary, who knelt to pray to her English God before she went to bed each night. Isis began to do the same, kneeling on the knobbly rug beside the bed and pleading for them to be brought safely back, or at least for a sign or messenger. And whether it was the prayers, or whether it would have happened anyway, Uncle Victor arrived a few days later like a ruined knight, come to release them from their spell.