Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) (9 page)

8

M
ARY SHOOK A
clean sheet over Isis’ bed and Isis helped by smoothing and tucking it in, neat and tight at the corners as Mary had taught her. As they started on Osi’s bed, Isis heard a motor drawing up and ran to the window to see the Bugatti.

‘Uncle Victor!’ she cried and pelted down the stairs to find him already in the hall.

‘Icy,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d drop in for a spot of lunch.’

Mary came hurrying down, primping her hair with her fingers. ‘Me and the children were only having cold,’ she said.

‘Splendid, cold will suit me admirably.’

Victor’s cheerfulness seemed as out of place in the house, where gloom had been ruling for the past few days, as if someone had walked in speaking in a foreign language. ‘What have you been up to, Icy?’ He grabbed and tickled her and she squirmed obediently, though she wasn’t in the mood for being tickled and was getting far too old for it. ‘Take your uncle for a turn around the garden?’ he suggested. ‘While Mary works her wonders?’

‘You’ve been neglecting us,’ Isis complained as they went outside into the cold sunshine. ‘Where have you been?’ When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘George is dead; don’t you know? We found him and it was simply frightful.’

‘Evelyn mentioned it in her letter.’

Isis
gaped
at
him.
‘She
wrote
to
you
?
She
hasn’t
written
to
us
.’

Her pleasure in Victor’s visit was spoiled by a throb of crossness. ‘
Why
didn’t she write to us? It’s not fair. And then there’s all this Tutankhamen business,’ she added.

Victor smiled maddeningly and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Of that, more later.’

‘What Victor, what?’

But he would not be drawn. They walked through the tangled weedy orchard.

‘Obviously we’re going to need a new gardener,’ Isis said.

Victor picked up a stick and reached up to hook down a last few stubborn apples.

‘Look.’ Isis pointed to the silvery wasps’ nest. ‘Isn’t it perfect?’

Victor went as if to poke it with the stick.

‘Leave it,’ she said sharply. ‘Or they’ll come out in a swarm and do for you, Mary says. And what a bally awful way to go.’

‘They’ll be hibernating or whatever they do.’

He dropped the stick, took a cheroot out of a case in his pocket and made a great business of lighting it. The smoke came out of his mouth in a purple ripple and he leaned back against the wall, not far enough from the wasp’s nest for Isis’ liking, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. With his head tilted back like that, you could see the scar, thick and livid, emerging from his cravat.

The train went rumbling past and steam leaked through the branches. Since George had died, Isis rarely went right down the garden or anywhere near his shed, and so she hadn’t watched the train for weeks. It seemed rather a childish occupation now.

‘Come on.’ She pulled him away from the nest. When they reached the icehouse steps, he stood meditatively breathing smoke and Isis guessed that he was thinking about Mimi –
she
was remembering, in any case.

‘Where’s Mimi?’ she said.

‘Oh, we went our separate ways.’

‘Did you love her?’ She searched his face for a sign of distress, but he had no particular expression. Did women find his scar and trembling leg repellent? After a war those are things you have to face, she supposed, you have to learn to love.

Though
it
was
so
damply
mossy,
Victor
sat
on
the
top
step
and
patted
the
space
next
to
him.
Looking
down
at
the
dank
entrance
to
the
icehouse,
Isis
noticed
that
the
padlock
was
askew.
When
she
went
down
and
rattled
it,
it
came
off
in
her
hand.
She
stared
at
its
rusty
iron
face.
When
she’d
been
searching
for
Dixie
it
had
been
locked,
she
was
certain.
Mary
would
never
have
let
them
open
that
door.
‘You
stay
away
from
there,’
she’d
often
warned,
when
they
were
smaller.
‘You
fall
down
that
hole
and
you’ll
be
in
a
right
old
pickle.
No one
would
hear
you
from
the
house.’

Isis pulled open the door. Of course there was no ice left now. The pit hadn’t been refilled since Grandpa died.

‘Someone’s been here,’ she said.

Victor shrugged. Isis leaned in, breathing the chill earthy smell. It was too dark to see much, except for a few etiolated weeds rooting up from between the bricks. She let the door swing shut, pushed the padlock back into place and went up to sit beside Victor. Her hands stank of rust now, and she scrubbed them on her dress.

‘
We’ve
only had one lousy postcard from them in months,’ she said.

‘What did it say?’

‘
Darling Beasties
,’ she parroted Evelyn’s voice and then her own crept through, with a childish whine. ‘Oh read it yourself. But it’s not fair.’

‘You wait,’ Victor said.

‘For what? I think we’re going to be here for ever, Osi and me. We’ll be old people with wooden legs and ear trumpets.’

Victor hooted. ‘No you won’t,’ he said. ‘Some lucky fellow will sweep you away.’

‘Won’t.’

‘Beautiful girl like you.’

‘What’s beautiful about me then?’

He put his finger under her chin. ‘Lovely eyes, lovely hair, pretty nose, peachy lips.’ He kissed her on the end of her nose and she pulled back, flushing – partly from pleasure, partly from the shame of having fished for the compliment. You could always get one from Victor, so easily that it scarcely counted.

He took a last puff of his cheroot, ground it out with his toe, and then he put an arm round her. She leaned into him; it was nice in the chilliness to feel his warmth. His leg was only jumping a little and she put her hand on it and pressed to stop it.

‘Poor Victor,’ she said.

He gave a tight sort of sigh. ‘Dear little Icy.’ They sat quietly for a moment until something felt different to Isis, she didn’t quite know what. Victor stroked her hand and then her knee, which gave her a tickly velvet feeling and felt queer and wrong. She thought of Mimi and her bare white legs and jumped up and started back to the house.

‘Come on, Mary’ll go bally mad if we’re late for lunch.’

Mary had managed to scrape together enough to make a decent table, though there’d be nothing left for supper. They sat in the dining room and ate broth, meat loaf – the end of the lamb padded out with carrot – with dates to follow as a pudding. There was no sherry so Victor drank brandy, his voice getting fat and slurry much quicker than Arthur’s ever did. He was telling them about his car, and how it would do 65 miles an hour.

‘Someone’s been in the icehouse,’ Isis announced and a flicker crossed Osi’s face. Mary had stayed in the room, standing with her arms folded as they ate, asking Victor how she was supposed to run a house on nothing. And what about a replacement gardener who would actually
garden?

‘Y
ou’ve
been in the icehouse,’ Isis said to Osi.

‘So? None of your business. It’s not yours.’

‘It’s not yours either.’

‘Now then!’ said Mary.

‘But it’s not locked. It should be locked,’ Isis insisted. ‘It’s dangerous, what if someone should fall down it?’

‘Steer clear is my advice,’ Victor said. ‘You’re neither of you babies.’

Mary heaved a long-suffering sigh and went out.

‘What
was
in the letter then?’ Isis asked. ‘Are they coming back?’

‘No.’ Victor raised his eyebrows and grinned. ‘But how would
you
like to go to
them
?’

Osi’s mouth fell open as suddenly as if his jaw had snapped.

‘Where?’ said Isis.

‘
Egypt,
you goose. How should you like to visit them there?’

‘Yes!’ Osi shouted so that a lump of half-chewed date was propelled from his mouth. ‘You mean we can really go to
Egypt
?’

‘They’re getting close, they really are, and can’t drag themselves away. Besides, they want you to share in it – the glory and whatnot.’

‘
Want
us?’ Isis said.

‘Herihor!’ Osi said. ‘They’re going to beat Mr Carter!’

‘And they want jolly old me to take you over there.’

‘Hoorah!’ whooped Osi.

Isis put down her fork. ‘I’m not sure that I care to go,’ she said. The sour dusty taste of her imagined Egypt was in her mouth. ‘Though it’s nice they want us there,’ she added, thinking, it’s
unbelievable
that they want us there.

‘Don’t be a wet blanket, Icy.’ Victor refilled his glass.

‘We’re going to Egypt!’ Osi said. He got up and scurried from the room.

‘Please may I leave the table?’ Isis yelled after him.

‘It’ll be a lark, don’t you think, Icy?’ Victor said. ‘Quite the adventure.’

‘Do they really think they’ve found the tomb?’ she said. ‘Will they come back with us afterwards?’

They could hear Osi shouting, ‘Mary! We’re going to Egypt!’

Mary came hurrying back.

‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Victor.

Mary blinked. ‘That’s all very well,’ she said. ‘But what am I supposed to do?’

‘It’ll be a break for you, Mary,’ Victor said.

‘I s’pose so,’ she said, trying to conceal her pleasure.

‘And when we come back we can be like a normal family,’ Isis said and caught the face that Mary pulled. Well, all right, not quite normal.