Little Egypt

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Lucky I’ve got Vic to keep me warm.’

  Mary snorted.

  ‘My auntie lives in Glasgow,’ Mimi said, and Isis was shocked that she spoke with her mouth full so that you could see a curd of pudding and a squashed pea on her tongue.

  Osi was eating steadily with his eyes on Mimi. He always stared at Uncle Victor’s ladies. He too ate with his mouth open and no amount of telling would stop it; even Evelyn and Arthur noticed and ticked him off, but still there was the visible churn of food you had to look away from.

  Victor nudged Isis under the table and raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you know that Uncle Victor has a Military Medal?’ she said in response. She looked apologetically at Mary, hating to stir up memories of Gordon Jefferson.

  Mimi put her tiny doll’s hand on his sleeve, ‘I know, but he won’t tell me about it, poor dear.’

  ‘Don’t much like to talk about it,’ Uncle Victor looked at his plate. The edge of the tablecloth trembled along with his jumpy leg.

  Mary went out, the door shutting smartly behind her.

  ‘Go on,’ Mimi urged Victor, and when he didn’t speak she turned to Isis, ‘You shall have to spill the beans, dearie.’

  ‘All right. He was at Gallipoli and his regiment was all killed by the Turks, he risked his life for them by drawing fire, not his fault that they all got shot to bits and then he went to the Somme and got shot himself,’ she abbreviated, all in one breath.

  ‘My, my, Victor,’ Mimi breathed.

  ‘Thought I was a gonner too,’ he said and when he raised his eyes there was a ghastly sheen to them. ‘Never thought I’d be here again, at this table.’ One hand went to still his leg and one to the scar on his neck. ‘Enough,’ he said, voice cracking. ‘Icy, tell Mimi about your kittens.’

  Before they left, Victor showed Mimi round the house, and Isis trailed after them with the kittens dancing along behind. Mimi was impressed by the ballroom, despite the budgies in the chandelier and the dead trees in the orangery, and went straight to the piano to play a jingling waltz. No one had touched the piano for years and the first few notes were bleary with dust and the droppings down between them, but the tone soon brightened and Isis began to dance, twirling alone, then Victor took her in his arms and swept her round and round until she was breathless and giggling.

  When Uncle Victor took Mimi out to the garden, Isis shut the kittens in the scullery and followed them, but when they neared the icehouse, Victor shooed her away. She wandered back through the orchard where the apples and pears were still hard and green, though the plums were nearly there. She picked one and took a bite, but it was viciously sour.

  The icehouse was her special place and she should have been the one to show it to Mimi. It was the location of her clearest memory of Grandpa, who had died shortly after. He had ridden her on his shoulders down the bright green mossy steps to the icehouse door. She could even remember the clutch of her thighs on his hairy neck, and the grip of his hands on her ankles. When they got to the bottom, he stooped to let her climb down in front of the small door with its silver padlock the size of a Bath bun.

  ‘Now look at this.’ He took a key from his pocket, unlocked and removed the padlock and swung the door open till she was enveloped in cold black breath. Grandpa’s huge hand reached down for hers and he stooped to take her in through the low doorway. Inside was a thick hush like fur, broken only by the sound of dripping. She shivered and Grandpa said, ‘Of course it’s cold, girly, it’s full of ice. See?’ He pointed down into a shallow pit and as her eyes got used to the darkness she made out a dim grey gleam.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. He let go of her hand and with a great huffing and creaking got down on his knees and reached over for a lump of ice. Outside in the warmth she’d studied the ice, which had a fleck of leaf frozen into it and something wiry that might have been a daddy-long-leg’s leg. Her hands had ached with cold

  Now Isis pulled up a stalk of rhubarb. If she could beg a bit of sugar in a cup, she’d take her book upstairs and dip the rhubarb in the sugar and read away the afternoon. And then it would be suppertime, and maybe a game of cards, or patience at least. And then time for bed, and that would be another day gone, and they would be another day closer to the return of the horse and hound.

  She heard Mimi squeal and crept back down the garden to where Victor was sitting at the top of the icehouse steps with Mimi on his lap. She could see nothing much of Mimi but her legs sticking out on either side of Victor, the skirt ridden right up, pale stockings and even paler legs. Isis’ eyes were riveted on the milkiness of the bare skin. Mimi was making a sort of mewing noise and Victor sounded as if he was choking. Isis gripped her rhubarb stalk and felt a pang in her lower abdomen, a queer sensation, strong and wrong, she knew that much, dirty and provoking. She had a sudden need for the WC and ran back to the house before Victor could turn and accuse her, as he had once before when he’d had a lady there, of being a mucky little spy.

  THREE DAYS AND the bucket, with its Dairylee, its chocolate and its water biscuits, hangs heavy at the foot of the stairs. Of course, I must go up. I can’t sleep for knowing that, for worry about my brother. I strain my ears for evidence that he’s moving about up there – but my ears are too duff to believe what I hear, and besides, the house has a language of its own: shiftings, mutterings and creakings, to speak nothing of the infiltrating wildlife.

  Pulling the rope causes a fossilised bell to croak and I have done it time and time again, for hours on end, making the pigeons panic and feather fluff come puffing down the stairs. But all to no avail. The truth is, with stair number three almost completely gone, and four and five in a perilous condition, I dare not risk the climb alone. Not with my knee – and what if my foot went through? What if I got stuck?

  The truth is, I’m afraid that he is dead.

  Dead or raving mad.

  I am afraid.

  I do not want, alone, to find him.

  I would go up. But first – or instead – I went to feed the spudgies in the ballroom. As I opened the door I caught sight of something curious, a red flash and shiver in a mirror. It was a fox with a dead bird in its mouth. A fox! It slunk quickly through a hole – new, or at least one I’d never noticed – in the skirting below the window that gives out to the orangery. And then I caught an awful glimpse of an old woman, a stranger, shrunken, stooped and white, with gaping mouth.

  The spudgies came down in a shriek and twitter, greedy for their Trill; perhaps it was a few days since I’d been in. In truth, I can’t remember. I shut my mouth and crunched across the floor, avoiding the reflections, to sprinkle seed on the mantelpiece and then I stood for a minute, birds on my arms and shoulders, and in my hair those little scratchy claws.

  A fox! No, I could not go upstairs today. Perhaps it was a sign? I could not go up alone. I needed help. In all my life I’ve rarely asked for help. Full of a new resolve, I bade the flock goodbye and went to the scullery to don my anorak.

  I pushed my trolley up the ramp and onto the bridge. They had to build this bridge for me; it was a condition when I sold the meadow. The bridge provides the only access to Little Egypt since the dual carriageway was built and that is how I’ve liked it. To get onto the bridge you have to unlock the gate. There’s a key and a padlock and three bolts – top, middle and bottom. The bottom’s a devil to stoop to, and stiff, but once I’m inside, after my daily forays, I lock us in, safe and sound. The gate was a further condition of the sale. It’s a good, stout barrier of meshed grey steel, spiked along its top to deter clamberers. It keeps out the vandals and the nosy parkers and the developers. We are cut off, like survivors in a castle; the roads and railway make a sort of moat around us. We’re unassailable and I keep Osi safe inside. Safe and hidden. The postman trudges across the bridge and puts the post in the steel mailbox by the gate. And there’s the Post Office inside U-Save, and a public telephone should I want one, so you see I’m not cut off from the real world. I like the real world, would love more of it, more and
more.

  So, I locked the gate behind me and stood on the bridge, praying, pleading rather, that Spike would be there today. He would be the one to help me, the only suitable person since he lives outside what he calls ‘the system’. If anyone else came in, Osi might be discovered, the authorities would be called, and who knows what would ensue.

  I like to stand on the bridge, traffic streaming between my legs. It’s a thrill. It’s like a river. At night, a river of light; in the daytime it’s the colours of the roofs – cars, coaches, lorries – the pattern of overtaking, sometimes a gridlock. Sometimes an accident with police and ambulances, sirens and flashing lights. I bring my tea out on those days and have a good old gawp.

  Sometimes I go out in the small hours when the traffic is sporadic and listen to the surging, the receding of engine sounds, separate enough to hear instead of lost in the constant roar and think none of you would be travelling this way if it wasn’t for me. If I hadn’t sold the land for the road, all the people on business or off to funerals, going to their lovers, mothers, children and all would have to go another way. It makes me proud, the difference to the world that I have made.

  It was a drizzly day and the road was sizzling, spray hanging in the air, and I didn’t linger on the bridge but hurried across, down the far-side ramp, through the gate, past the petrol station and into the service area. Two young men were smoking by the door but neither acknowledged me. If it were not for me, they wouldn’t be there either, smoking and smirking, nor would the shop itself. (Sometimes I approach the staff and point this out. But not today. )

  I went to the skips, but Spike wasn’t there. I was feeling a little frantic, I will admit, thinking of Osi all alone: either dead or in some predicament. Thinking of a fox, slinking in the house, thinking of the feathers between its teeth. I looked back at the lads in their turquoise and orange livery. Could I ask them if they’d seen Spike? I started towards them, but as if with one mind they threw down their cigarette stubs, ground them underfoot and went back through the doors.

  A person properly in the world would summon the police. But a policeman nosing around is the last thing that I want.

  From underneath a pallet I saw a half-grown kitten prowling and pouncing. So light it was, so springy, it made me feel earthbound, heavy, though in truth there’s nothing left of me. (I buy all my clothes from Kiddies.) The kitten made me feel old and I am old, I know, by any reckoning; 93 if you want to know, but still, no need to wallow in it. I stood there, old and damp and getting near despair, a feeling of helplessness billowing up around me, so that when Spike came round the corner, I could have wept with gratitude.

  ‘Hey, Sisi,’ he said, ‘how’s it going?’ All dear and cheery. The damp had settled on his felted locks, glittering like sequins. I would have kissed him, but I think it may have scared him off.

  ‘Very well, dear, thank you,’ I said. ‘Despite the inclement weather.’

  He looked ruefully at the damp knees of his jeans, then, light, almost, as the kitten, jumped up onto a skip and disappeared inside.

  ‘There’s a shitload of cheese,’ he called. ‘You ready?’

  I stood there with the trolley trying to catch but mostly dropping Brie and Camembert, Gouda, Edam, Wensleydale with chives (I love the one with cranberries best). Of course it was a pleasing haul, but my mind wasn’t on it. Mangoes and pork pies, cheesecake and pitta breads, sour cream and sausages, bags of rocket, punnets of cress, the packages just kept coming. At last he finished with a pair of pineapples.

  ‘Would you like to come to Little Egypt?’ I asked, once he was back on solid ground.

  He was sorting out the goods for the trolley, leaving some for me, packing the rest into his haversack.

  ‘My house,’ I prompted.

  He hoiked the bag onto his back and pulled a face. ‘You never asked me before,’ he pointed out. He unwrapped a pork pie and took a bite.

  ‘I could make you a cup of tea,’ I said. I hesitated. Should I mention Osi now? ‘A nice cup of tea on such a miserable day.’

  Spike looked up at the sky and hugged his arms around his thick jumper; in the wet it was reverting to the smell and texture of the originating sheep.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not? You lead the way.’

  He finished his pie and offered to take the trolley for me, but I need it for my balance. I admit to nervousness, some sort of shame, simply at the idea of someone else being, seeing, inside Little Egypt. One person could never hope to keep it clean and in truth, lately, I haven’t even tried. There’s room for me to walk beside the kitchen table to the stairs and to the ballroom. I sleep in my chair with my feet on a box and do my ablutions in U-Save, using the WC in the scullery otherwise, so you see, there’s been room for all wrappers and catalogues and so on and no need to put them out. No dustbin lorry could get here since there isn’t an access road. Acres of space inside the house are stacked with packaging, and I believe the cardboard and the polystyrene act as insulation, which is ecological and green and all the rage. It’s all right for me. I don’t care. Osi hasn’t been downstairs for years and in any case, he wouldn’t even notice. I didn’t think that Spike, who called himself an anarchist, would judge me for the mess.

  ‘Jeez, that it?’ We stood on the bridge and looked at the roof with its slipped and missing tiles, a rowan tree hailing from a chimneystack. ‘Oh my God. It’s huge.’

  I could stop now, I knew. Once Spike stepped inside, a spell would be broken. It would be an ending – or the beginning of the end. At that moment, just as I was wavering, the rain came on more heavily, hissing down, turning to hailstones, stinging where they hit. I could not send him away in such weather and so we trudged across. I took the gate key from my pocket and let him through into the grounds of Little Egypt. Was Osi watching from a window? He always used to watch me come and go. He thought I didn’t know, but I’d catch his figure at the window. Checking up that I came back and that I was alone.

  5

  ONE MONDAY MR Burgess took the two tabbies away. He knew a widow who would like them, he said, and they were going to live the life of Riley. Mary found a box, poked holes in the lid with a knitting needle and tore up newspaper so they should be comfortable on their journey. Isis kissed each on its nose before they were stowed, with a lot of twisting and hissing, into the box, and she stood watching the van diminish down the lane.

  Cleo sat at the backdoor licking her paws and seemed not the slightest bit disconcerted – perhaps she had a streak like Evelyn’s in her. ‘Not a natural mother,’ Isis had once overheard Mary say, and though she’d minded on Evelyn’s behalf, she could hardly disagree.

  Once the sound of Mr Burgess’ engine had dwindled, she went to search for Dixie whom she hadn’t seen that morning. There was no sign of him in or around the house and she combed the garden, calling his name. She went past the icehouse, down to the potting shed and opened the door. George was sitting in his chair, legs wide, in a dense cloud of pipe smoke.

  ‘Clear off,’ he said, his voice a thick, phlegmy gurgle.

  ‘I’m looking for my kitten. A black kitten.’

  ‘Boy then girl what do they think I am?’

  ‘Just a tiny black kitten,’ Isis insisted. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘Clear off, blasted hun,’ he said. He took his pipe from his mouth and shook it at her. ‘Blasted animals, bloody liberties, bugger off with you.’

  She squinted through the pall at the grim twist of his face, the smoke-yellowed eyebrows jutting forward like filthy tufts of shaving brush.

  ‘You’re the one taking the liberties,’ she said and quickly shut the door.

  She searched the end of the garden, stirring the weeds with a branch. She looked round the icehouse, safely locked, and right through the vegetable garden and the orchard, and she found a toad, old birds’ nests, the china arm of a doll and a broken saucer, but no sign of Dixie.

  Once more round the house, she tried every room that wasn’t locked. Osi stood defensi
vely at the nursery door but swore he hadn’t seen the kitten. In the ballroom she was spooked by shivers in the long bleary mirrors that seemed to wobble and bulge as if the glass was melting. The birds had settled very happily onto their glassy tinkling home and now there was a crusty white patch on the floor beneath the chandelier, fluffed with tufts of fallen feather and down.

  She looked in the bathroom under the great tub and behind the pipe. She searched around the shrouds in the dining room and went up the attic stairs to peep into Mary’s room.

  Only when it was starting to get dark did she give up. ‘You must have seen him,’ she said to Mary, who was sitting by the stove with her favourite book – December Roses – on her lap, having five minutes before she got on with the tea.

  Mary shook her head. ‘He couldn’t of got in the van with Mr Burgess?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, I was watching.’

  ‘Or shut in George’s shed?’

  ‘I looked.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Not today at all. He’d gone out already before I came down. Someone must have let him out.’

  She stared at Mary, whose face was pink from the warmth of the stove. There was a basket of darning by her feet and the book with its flagrant, tragic cover was splayed on her knees.

  ‘He’s probably gone on an adventure,’ Mary said. ‘He’ll be back tomorrow right as rain, you see.’

  Isis squashed down the wave of helplessness that tried to rise in her. Mary looked so comfortable there, so warm and dry and complacent.

  ‘I wonder how many kittens you’ve killed in your life,’ she said.

  Mary tilted back her head and narrowed her eyes. She didn’t speak for a moment, but when she did her voice was low and tight. ‘Listen. I’m left alone here and have to use my judgement in all sorts of difficult things and I’m scarcely ever paid. Stay here, working my fingers to the bone and worrying myself into an early grave just for love of you – and your brother.’