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
SPIKE 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 brother’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 w
allpaper 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.’
‘The first World War?’
I nodded.
‘For sure? Did European history at High School,’ he said. ‘That’s cool.’
‘I’ll tell you all about him,’ I said. ‘One day.’
We went out onto the landing and I shut the Blue Room door, the firm click of it stirring up a turmoil in my belly. Osi would be all right for tonight. He was warm and fed. But how to manage him from now on I could not even begin to think. And all at once it was too much for me. My head was reeling with too much feeling and I had to be alone. I felt an urgent need to get downstairs away from all the memories that hung like sheets, invisible, to snag and tangle me.
Spike helped me down the stairs and then I sent him away.
I sat in Mary’s chair beside the stove, hunched around my broken heart. Nine tried to jump on my lap but there was no room for her, what with all the grief. Osi still alive. His life continuing like this was almost worse than his death would have been.
I simply did not know how to carry on.
21
BEING OUT IN the world had changed me. On our return, I saw Little Egypt through new and disappointed eyes. I had become more worldly. I had so looked forward to being home, to seeing Mary, to returning to my own skin – but my skin was different now, coloured by the sun and with a stain that went deeper, that soaked right through to my bones. The house, though rattling huge and empty, seemed littler in some important way.
It was mid-January and the very air froze and crackled in our lungs. Icicles fanged the gutter and dangled perilously above the door, and all the bedroom windows were thickly frosted with ferns. It was as if the house had fallen under a frozen spell, and to my own surprise, I missed the sun and the desert heat most dreadfully, and found it hard to believe that I had ever complained of being too hot.
‘You’d never credit the heat,’ I remarked to Mary one morning, a few days after we’d returned home. She had come upstairs where Osi and I were still in our beds, to call us down for breakfast.
‘You never stop flaming mentioning it,’ Mary muttered.
Osi was tightly sealed in sleep and I had my blankets pulled right up to my chin, loath to get out into the cold – and besides, I’d gone to bed in my clothes and didn’t want Mary to know. She was standing by the window, silhouetted by the fuzzy light, hair standing out in a glistening cloud. As I watched, she put her palm against the frosty glass to melt a space and stooped to peer through it.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked, knowing the answer. Of course it would be Mr Patey.
‘Your porridge is ready,’ is all she said, and as she went out, slammed the door hard enough to make icicles crack and tinkle from the gutter.
The day before, I’d heard the rattle of Mr Patey’s pony and cart and looked down from here. As I’d watched, Mary had appeared outside and they’d stood a little distance from each other, oddly formal. Mr Patey had been muffled in coat, hat and scarf so that I could barely see his face. Mary must have been freezing, hugging her arms, dressed only in her frock and cardigan. Though I could hear nothing, I saw the clouds of their words rise between them before he stepped forward and held her. She seemed to sag against him. But by the time I arrived in the kitchen to say hello, Mary was alone.
‘I thought I heard Mr Patey,’ I said.
Her lashes were wet and there was a finger streak of coal dust on her cheek. ‘He’s delivered the coal and that’s that,’ she snapped and turned away to hide her face. My heart hurt for her. I understood love now, having seen the world, having read about it, and for Mary I wanted a happy ending.
The kitchen was the warmest place in the house, but in this deep wintry weather, even it wasn’t all that warm, and despite layers of clothing, I was shivering as I sat down at the table. Mary banged a bowl of porridge in front of me. The worse Mary’s mood, the lumpier the porridge; as I stirred milk and sugar into it, I saw that her mood must be very bad indeed.
I chewed my way through the clumps as Mary stood with her back to me scraping burnt toast into the sink. I believe the smell of burnt toast is one of the most dispiriting in the world. I tried to think of something to cheer her up, but could feel the gloom settling on me as well.
Here we were again, just as before: Evelyn and Arthur away – Arthur had delivered us home and gone haring straight back to Egypt – and us stuck here waiting. Not even waiting any more, not me. I knew they were on a wild goose chase; that they had been taken for fools. There in my mind was the twist of Rhoda’s face when she’d said as much; there was the blind white flash of the pedlar’s eye.
But now at least I was older and I could see that the end was in sight. That was a comfort. I must be patient for just a few years more, and then I would up and leave. I’d work if I had to, make my own living. Perhaps I could teach something – but what? Or work in a shop. Of course, the horse would bridle at the idea – I laughed at that and wished there was someone to whom I could repeat the pun.
Mary kept a pile of the unsold papers that Mr Burgess brought her, and they were full of King Tut and all the treasures from his tomb. There was a craze for Egyptian fashion. I saw Cleopatra dresses in printed silk; there were Egyptian moving picture shows and dances and cocktails and there was even an advertisement for Palmolive Soap with a lady emerging from a sarcophagus.
Mary buttered her toast and sat down at the table. She had lost her rosy cheeks and the skin around her eyes was puffy. She crunched her toast, put it down and squeezed the heels of her hands against her temples.
‘Not your head again?’
She winced and nodded.
‘You should put your feet up.’
‘I reckon I’ll soldier on.’
‘Why don’t we play cards when we’ve cleared away? I could teach you cribbage.’
She stood up, grating back her chair. ‘The blinking washing don’t do itself. The broom don’t get out of the cupboard and sweep the floor, the scuttle don’t march in full of coal …’
‘Shall I pour the tea?’ I broke in, trying to stop her going through all the chores and working herself into a frenzy. I poured a cup for each of us, though I didn’t much like tea then. It would be friendly, I thought, if we sat and drank tea, two women – because I was a woman now – two women drinking tea together. Soon Mary would realise how much I’d grown up and begin to treat me differently. We could become friends and confide in each other, be a comfort to each other till the end of the waiting. I tried to think of something womanly to say. I did not dare to ask about Mr Patey, though the question was on the tip of my tongue.
The tea was awful, both weak and stewed and only with three spoonsful of sugar could I bring myself to drink it.
‘Go easy on the sugar,’ she grouched. ‘It don’t grow on trees.’
‘Well, it nearly does,’ I pointed out. ‘On canes, at least.’
The ghost of a dimple hovered on her cheek.
‘We had some to chew,’ I said, and remembering the sensation of those sweet and stringy fibres in my mouth brought back the lorry ride, and with it a sharp memory of Victor beside me in the cab. He’d been tired and drunk that day, stinking and drooping heavily against me. I put my tea down. I didn’t know what, if anything, Mary knew about Victor. Possibly nothing at all. Nobody had mentioned him since we’d been back.
‘I’ll help you today,’ I said.
‘You could help me by writing a letter to your pa telling him I can’t take much more of this. If anyone ever was taken for granted –’
‘I will, but –’
But Mary was getting in a proper paddy now. ‘And what about the help I’ve been promised? And
he needs to pay me up to date and settle up for the coal. We’ll be running out before too long and if this weather keeps on we’ll perish.’
‘I’m sure Mr Patey wouldn’t let you perish,’ I said.
She glared.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Mind your business.’
‘I’ll go and feed the birds,’ I said.
‘You’ll catch your death,’ she remarked, but didn’t try and stop me.
She was chopping onions now and, skirting round her angry elbows, I collected a dish of breadcrumbs and some chop bones for the birds to peck at. In the scullery the water in the WC was frozen. I crammed my slippered feet into a pair of galoshes and put on the thickest coat I could find – an army greatcoat of Victor’s. Cleo had been sleeping on it and it was coated in tabby hairs that flew off when I shook it and made me sneeze. The smell of cat battled with the smell of war in the stiff serge coat, which was wildly too big for me so that it trailed the ground.
Outside everything creaked and glistened. No breeze, no bird song; old snow in frozen heaps beside the door, puddles like plates of iron, hoar frost sugaring every twig and blade of grass. The weight of the icicles, long as walking sticks, had pulled part of the gutter away from the roof. What would Selim make of it, I wondered, but could not picture him here, all muffled up and wearing boots and socks instead of sandals.
I held out my hands and soon there were chaffinches and coal tits and a busy fluster of sparrows, their icy claws skittering on my icy fingers.
My footprints were clearly printed on the frost, despite the scuffing coat hem – and other footprints too. Mary’s, and a man’s big boots – Mr Burgess’ – and the footprints of another man wearing narrower shoes that must be Mr Patey’s. It had snowed since I’d seen him, so perhaps he’d been back and Mary was keeping his visits secret. I was sorry I’d said anything about the dead wives now. It was Mr Burgess’ fault – I realised now that he was only jealous and wanting Mary for himself.
I wandered back through the kitchen. Mary had burnt the onions, and I didn’t dare speak to her. I went into the ballroom to feed the inside birds – the two budgies had been joined by a little flock of sparrows, which had got in through the broken windows. Later they were to breed and I called them spudgies – sparrows with blue and yellow feathers flecked through the brown.
Little Egypt Page 16