‘But where have you been?’
‘Blue Room.’
‘But I tried the door.’
‘I know!’ Again the ghastly attempt at a smile.
Osi was looking at Victor’s plate.
‘Go on.’ Victor pushed it towards him.
‘Are you sure? Surely you should eat?’ I said.
But he only shrugged and so I shared his rarebit between myself and Osi. If it wasn’t delicious, it was at least filling and still warmish.
Victor’s arm gave way and he let his head down on the table and before we’d finished eating, he was asleep, drool spilling from his slackened lips. How shocked Mary would be to find him in the morning, and how cross. But I didn’t dare disturb him.
Once Osi had finished eating and gone back to the nursery, I took out a pen and some paper and wrote the letter to my parents at their post restante address in Luxor so that Victor would see it as soon as he woke. He could take and post it tomorrow. I wrote that I’d been wrong and absolutely certain that Victor hadn’t gone near me in the tomb, and that in all my life he had never been less than a jolly good-and kind-hearted uncle to me and Osi. And I begged them to forgive me, and to forget the awful muddle, and please, please, please, to come home soon.
I left the letter open on the table and cleared up quietly round Victor who was snoring now, in and out as regularly as someone sawing wood. And then I went to bed, wishing I could secure the bedroom door – but Osi would want to come to bed eventually, and I could hardly lock him out.
25
IN THE MORNING, for the first time since we’d been home, there was no frost on our bedroom window. I was cheered by this, though it was still hideously chilly and damp. I jumped out of bed, and, leaving Osi asleep, put on another layer of clothes and hurried down to the kitchen. It was dull and cold; the stove gone out. My letter had vanished and there was no sign of Victor except for the empty bottle on the floor.
Today he would post the letter and all would be well. And what relief there was in that. Mary was still not down, so I decided to try and light the stove myself, to save her the trouble and to take her up a cup of tea. The day after one of her heads, she was always peaky and sluggish. Today she could sleep in for as long as she liked. I would insist; in fact, I would take charge. And later, she could come down and sit beside the stove. She could sit there all day if she wanted to, she could finish Desert Longing, or simply doze, just as she liked, and I would make a fuss of her. I prayed Victor would not return today, since that would aggravate her, but if he did come, I would say she needn’t worry about laying up the table in the dining room, she needn’t take any notice of him at all.
I fetched coal and kindling from the outhouse and struggled with the stove. Mary had the trick of lighting it, and the trick of coaxing it to stay alight. It took me ages to get it going, but in the end I did manage. I put the kettle and the porridge pan on the stove-top, and went upstairs to see how she was.
On my way up, I knocked on the Blue Room door just to check whether Victor was still there. The Blue Room was the room farthest from Osi’s and mine, at the other end of the gallery. It was a pretty, spacious room papered with bluebirds, with windows on two sides, and pale blue velvet curtains.
The door wasn’t locked and the room was empty, though the pillow was dented and the eiderdown trailed on the floor to show that he had gone up to bed at some time in the night, but there was nothing to indicate whether he planned to return. The view from the back window carried the eye right down the garden past the orchard, the vegetable patch, the obscured icehouse and over to the railway line. I pressed my face against the damp glass – everything out there was still caked in white, but there was a glimmer of pallid sunshine.
It was as if, since we’d been home, we had all been frozen solid, but now the sky was streaked with lemon and pale blue and it seemed possible that things could change, that spring could come. I felt a surge of optimism, borne out of the relief of having faced Uncle Victor, of having had it out with him, as Mary would say, and of telling the truth in my letter. I could make it all right again for him with Evelyn again, and I would.
So it was in a state of precarious cheerfulness that I went up the attic stairs to Mary’s room. I tapped at the door and, as I waited, heard from the roof the welcome whoosh of thawing snow. I tapped again. I would leave her if she were asleep. When I opened the door, very quietly, just to take a peep, I saw that she hadn’t moved since I’d left her. The room was very still and the sudden hard hammering of my heart echoed as if in a cave.
‘Mary,’ I murmured, but I knew already. ‘Mary?’ Her eyes were half open showing little slits of shine and her lips were blue. Thin sunlight shone on the whiteness of her cheek. I put my finger down to touch her, and she was icy cold. ‘Mary!’ I said. ‘Mary!’ and stupidly and uselessly I shook her, as if I could wake her from this, and her mouth started to open and just for a second I thought … but it was only the shaking that caused it, and I recoiled from a glimpse of teeth.
‘Wait there,’ I whispered, crept out of the room and fled down the stairs. I could not get down fast enough and stood on the landing staring at our bedroom door. I looked along the corridor towards the Blue Room, wishing that Victor were still here. What to do? What to do?
Osi was sleeping on his back, snoring through his blocked nose and I shook and thumped him. He always took ages to wake up properly – his eyes would open blankly, only gradually tuning in. I stood and shivered, waiting for him to become fully conscious, and then: ‘Mary’s dead,’ I said through chattering teeth.
He lay staring up at me, still blank.
‘Mary’s dead,’ I shouted and the shout rang on and on.
As he sat up my legs went weak and I rested down on the edge of his bed. A gust of wind rattled the window, strange after the frozen stillness we’d grown so used to.
‘And Victor’s gone away again. I don’t know what to do.’
Osi wiped his nose on his pyjama sleeve. ‘M,’ he said. ‘The owl means M. M for Mary.’
‘Don’t!’ I screamed, shocking myself with the sound. I jumped up. ‘None of your Egyptian rubbish now, please.’
He sniffed, seeming to consider.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘She might not be. I need you to come and see.’ I snatched his hand and dragged him out of bed. I made him put on his slippers and dressing gown, and we went out into the corridor. The house seemed to stretch, to yawn hugely round us as we made our way up the attic stairs.
Mary lay in exactly the same position, her face, possibly, a little bluer and her lips drawn further back. Osi poked her cheek with his forefinger. ‘She’s dead, all right,’ he said.
I was shocked by the heat of the tear that was rolling down my cheek. ‘Don’t poke her like that,’ I said, because he was jabbing her harder and harder with his long-nailed finger: neck, chest, stomach. There was a fascinated glitter in his eyes. I grabbed his arm, pulled him out of the room and shook him. ‘Osi! Please. Be normal. I need you to be normal now.’
The light in his eyes dimmed and he looked properly at me. ‘Poor Mary,’ he said, and sneezed horribly against the wall.
The stove had stayed alight and the kitchen was warm, the kettle coming to the boil and the porridge pan bubbling. On the dresser was Mary’s list for Mr Burgess: onions, carrots, potatoes, blancmange powder, soap flakes, gravy browning and ‘br’. Beside it lay a pencil chewed at the end. Mary always chewed a pencil while pondering the list.
‘What shall we do?’ I said, I kept saying, really to myself. I didn’t expect any help from Osi, but I did want him with me. With the shock and the grief and the fear, too many things, too strong, to feel, I was hardly feeling anything at all. ‘I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,’ I said, hearing as if from outside myself the pathetic whimper of my voice. And then I did feel something – anger. ‘There should be a parent here!’ I said. ‘This is not fair! Now we’re all alone, what are we supposed to do?’ The rage was a relief; some
thing definite. I stamped my foot. ‘How can they leave us like this? What are we going to do?’
‘Is Victor coming back?’ Osi asked.
‘How am I supposed to know?’
I was thinking. This was Sunday. Mr Burgess would be here tomorrow. Could we leave her till tomorrow? And Victor might return, he might be back at any moment. And then he’d drive to the village for the doctor. I thought with a shudder of Mr Patey, and his dead wives. If Mary had married him, she’d be yet another to add to his list. Mr Patey, the conscientious objector and his trail of death. It was her blessed head. It’ll be the death of me. She’d said that often enough.
If only there was a telephone – Arthur had talked so often of installing one, but always ‘next time we’re home’ and naturally he never had. Of course we must send Evelyn and Arthur a telegram; that’s what you do in emergencies. Mr Burgess would help us with that, even if Victor didn’t return, and then they’d have to come home. In spite of everything, I felt a little leap of pleasure at the idea. This was so serious that they would surely have to come home and not leave us again, not without Mary. There was a gulp stuck in my throat like a rock that wouldn’t move. Without Mary. We had never been without her in Little Egypt. Osi was staring at me, waiting for what I would say or do.
‘I suppose the police must know,’ I said.
‘They might take us away,’ he said.
I was so unused to him considering practical things that it was a surprise when he spoke sense.
‘There’s probably something wrong about children living on their own,’ I agreed. ‘Not that we’re quite children any more. They’ll simply have to come home.’
I picked up Mary’s frayed pencil to compose the telegram. I remembered from telegrams in the war that each word cost a fortune and didn’t you have to put stops in? Since Mr Burgess was already owed money again, we’d have to keep it short. Urgent stop Mary dead stop come home stop? Did the stops cost anything? Did we need them? I found that I was chewing the softened end of the pencil, woody flecks coming off between my teeth. I spat them on the table, thinking of germs, of Mary’s germs and remembering with a jolt that she was actually upstairs dead. That this was real. I swallowed hard but the rock in my throat was lodged tight.
It would still be ages till they got home. How could we bear to wait till then? ‘I’m sure Victor will be back soon,’ I said. ‘He’ll take charge.’ The lid of the porridge pan lifted and clanked with the steam and I got up and stirred. ‘We should eat,’ I said, surprised by a wisp of hunger stirred up by the oaty smell.
The porridge was lumpier even than Mary’s most angry porridge, but I dished it out, and put milk and sugar on the table. Osi shovelled his down as usual.
‘You should get properly dressed,’ I said. ‘And I do wish you’d shut your mouth when you eat. It will put any lady off,’ I bothered to add, I don’t know why. Although there was hunger in my stomach I could hardly squeeze the porridge down my throat. I made cocoa for us both and loaded it with sugar, flinching against the ghost of a voice: that don’t grow on trees.
Osi drank his cocoa while it was still too hot for me to swallow and then he got up.
‘Don’t leave me alone,’ I pleaded, and then, pulling myself together, ‘I mean, you need to help today. You need to help me in the kitchen.’
He looked at me, eyes wide and green as grapes. ‘Later,’ he said. I heard him sneezing as he went upstairs. I guessed he would go back to his work now, as if nothing had happened. If he were thinking about Egypt, nothing else would be in his head. I was almost envious. There was nothing I could concentrate on so fiercely and completely. I cradled the hot cup in my hands and sipped my cocoa. While we waited for our parents’ return – which would be weeks – what should we eat? I’d have to do a list and I’d have to learn to cook properly quick smart.
I sat in Mary’s chair beside the stove and started a new shopping list. Cheese, I wrote, eggs, potatoes, chocolate, sugar, bananas, candles. I added the items Mary had put, wondering about the ‘br’ – brawn? Brisket? Brandy? I should get some for Victor anyway. And with that thought I dropped the pencil, drew my knees up to my chest and allowed myself to cry. I sobbed and groaned and tried to pray. If it were the other way round, Mary would pray for me. I thought I should go up and see her, pay my respects in some way, take her a flower – though nothing outside was blooming – not leave her up there, cold and alone. But I didn’t dare. I scarcely dared to leave the kitchen. Cleo crept onto my lap and we huddled together until the morning sun had passed the windows. Every now and then an icicle snapped like a bone and crashed past the glass.
Eventually I had to get up to visit the WC. And then, in order to finish my list, I checked the pantry. There was not much bread, though plenty of flour and yeast. The kitchen was plenty warm enough for proving, so I thought to try and make a loaf.
I struggled for hours with the mixture, my tears dripping into the bowl and salting the dough. Mary’s strong hands and arms would knead and stretch and slap the dough about and if she was in a fanciful mood she’d make plaits of bread or even – when we were smaller – sheep and flowers and funny bun people with currants for their eyes. I realized how puny the muscles in my own arms were as I stopped to rest and scrub my wet face with a floury hand. But it was good to be doing something real and helpful, and after all we had to eat. I could just hear Mary saying that. My head clamoured all day with things she would have said.
While waiting for the dough to rise, and then the loaf to cook, I went outside and fed the birds. I put on Victor’s greatcoat and stood with sparrows and finches hopping on my hands and shoulders, smelling the change in the air. The sky was already flushing with the start of sunset. The packed and frozen snow was wet and slithery, and there was a symphony of drips and tinkles, cracks and scatters, as snow and icicles descended from the roof and from the trees.
I fed the ballroom birds, averting my eyes completely from the mirrors, and then I shut myself in the kitchen once more, played patience, and read old newspapers, boring things about Germany defaulting on its reparations, more interesting things about fashions by Chanel, even sweaters can be chic, and a list of the sumptuous treasures from Tutankhamen’s tomb. I screwed that paper up and shoved it in the stove.
By the time the bread was steaming on the rack, the sky was dark. The loaves were so good, so well risen, so golden and crusty, they made me cry again. Mary would have said they were humdingers. I cut the end off one, even though you should leave bread to cool before you cut it, slathered it with butter and found that I could eat now, in fact that I could hardly stop myself.
I called Osi down but there was no answer. It took a vast effort of will for me to venture back upstairs, keeping my eyes averted from the door to the attic. I tried the nursery door, but he had pushed something against it.
‘Osi,’ I called. ‘I’ve made bread.’
‘Not hungry.’
‘Come down and have a warm then. What’s in the way of the door?’
But he wouldn’t come out. I could have forced the door open but I didn’t want to go into that cold, depressing room. ‘Busy,’ was all he that he would say.
It might seem that Osi was unfeeling, but I knew he was upset about Mary. He might even have been crying in there, not wanting me to see. And keeping busy always was his way.
‘Osi?’ I said again. ‘Are you warm enough?’ But my voice sounded so small and lonely and the gloom of the house engulfed me so that I hurried back down to the warm kitchen and stayed there, reading and eating – I believe I finished a whole loaf – and vainly straining my ears for the sound of Victor’s car, until it was evening. I felt shivery and my throat was growing scratchy, as Osi’s cold got into me. I made a hot water bottle and, much earlier than usual, carried it, with a stock of candles, up to bed.
On the way, I tapped on the nursery door again. ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘Osi, you need to come out and eat something.’
‘I will,’ he said.
>
‘Are you all right?’
Silence.
‘Please Osi, come out and eat something and come to bed.’
It was as if on both sides of the door we were holding our breaths and then I heard him blow his nose.
‘I hope you’re using a hanky,’ I called, and losing patience, went into our room and slammed the door.
I lay, fully dressed, between damp sheets, my feet burning on the bottle, chilblains itching, head filling up with cold, listening for the sound of Victor’s car, or for Osi to emerge from the nursery, but I heard nothing except an occasional owl screech and the sorrowful murmurings of the house. Cleo scratched at the door and I let her in. I often did, though Mary hated it, but now it didn’t matter, and that was awful. Cleo curled up at my side and comforted me with her purr. I left three candles burning. I could not stand to be in the dark. There was no moon or starlight, only the dark out there.
26
WHEN I WOKE, the sky was light, the window whited out with frost again and Osi absent. His bed was undisturbed. It was freezing, and utterly still. And now my head was thick with cold. I was baffled by a sense of unease or the taint of a bad dream – and then, with a lurch, remembered. I lay stunned, frozen as the day for a long silent stretch before I was able to force myself from bed.
No one else would see to the stove or make the breakfast or be ready for Mr Burgess when he came.
In my drawer was a pile of handkerchiefs, ironed into lovely squares by Mary. I blew my nose, put my coat over my crumpled clothes, a pair of socks over the stockings I’d slept in. I didn’t look at the door to the attic as I passed it. No use dwelling. That’s exactly what she would have said, in fact I could almost hear her. Just buck up and get on with it. And that’s what we had to do, best foot forward, just send the telegram and keep ourselves alive till Arthur and Evelyn came home. Why should we not be able to do that? We were not helpless; we were not babies.
Once our parents (or even Victor) had returned, Mary would not be our responsibility any more and then I could be, would be, properly, normally, sad. But I must hold it at bay till then or everything would fly apart. It felt like an actual inner manoeuvre, holding the pieces together by sheer force of concentration and will.
Little Egypt Page 19