Little Egypt

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Oh …’ He swallowed his brandy in one gulp and grimaced. ‘Poor show. Get Mary to order Cognac next time. Around and about, don’t you know? I posted the letter.’

  It took me a moment even to remember what he meant.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said, wrinkling his nose at his glass, ‘what I’d really like is a cup of tea. Any cake?’

  I shook my head. ‘You look tired,’ I said. ‘Have you come to stay?’ My eyes kept going to the door; any moment Osi might come in and give the game away.

  Victor sipped his drink and nodded. ‘Thought I’d put up here for a day or two.’ Elbows on the table, he sagged his head into his hands. He looked grey, exhausted, scoops of shadow under his eyes and the light gleaming on the bony ridges of his eye sockets and the thin bridge of his nose. He looked uncannily like Osi had done as he sat in the same chair an hour before, shattered by his gruesome task.

  I filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  ‘I’ll just get these out of the way.’ I scooped up armfuls of bandages and carried them upstairs. I kicked the nursery door till Osi opened it, and shoved them into his arms.

  ‘Victor’s here,’ I said. ‘Don’t come down. I’ll bring your food up. We’ll have to wait till he’s asleep. I’ll keep him busy till then.’

  He darted me a startled look before I shut the door.

  Victor was absorbed in reading one of the old newspapers. He’d moved nearer the stove, and I was glad to see he’d topped up his brandy. I watched his eyelids grow heavy and the nod of his head as he kept approaching the precipice of sleep, but always he pulled back. When the potatoes were ready, I slavered them in butter, pepper – there was no salt – and shared them between three plates. I took a plate up to Osi, and watched Victor shovel his down. He left the skin, as usual, and I put on more butter and rolled it into a delicious tube. I thought it quite a marvel that part of me could stay hungry and normal when I knew what was going on upstairs.

  ‘Cup of tea, Icy?’ Victor asked. I’d managed to deflect him so far, afraid that tea might perk him up, but now I had an idea. Some of Mary’s headache powders were on the kitchen windowsill. She rarely took them since they knocked the stuffing out her, she said. I bleated feebly as the horribly apt expression entered my mind.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ I waited till he’d looked back at the paper before I unfolded a dose of powders and sprinkled it into his tea. I wondered about giving him two, to make sure, but didn’t want to kill him. And then I filled a hot-water bottle.

  ‘Why don’t you get cosy in bed?’ I said. ‘You can take your tea up. You do look tired, Victor, what you want’s a good night’s kip.’

  He was sitting forward in such a way that he could lean his weight on his jumping leg, and he looked up at me with a weary twist of humour. ‘Quite the little housekeeper, aren’t you, Icy? When you’re not going round spreading slander.’

  It was as if I’d been slapped. ‘I said I was sorry,’ I muttered.

  He got to his feet with a stagger. I put the hot-water bottle into his arms and he carried it upstairs, while I followed with his cup of tea.

  On the landing, beside the attic door, he paused. ‘Perhaps I should go up and see Mary,’ he said.

  ‘She won’t thank you,’ I told him. The tea was spilling into the saucer with the tremble in my hands. I could sense Osi frozen by our voices behind the nursery door. ‘Have your tea first,’ I urged. ‘Honestly, she just wants to be left alone.’

  The tea cup rattled on its saucer as he stood swaying, undecided, on the landing.

  ‘I’ll pop up later,’ I said. ‘Bed for you.’

  To my enormous relief he shrugged and followed me to the Blue Room, where I turned down the sheets and put the hot bottle where his feet would go. My eyes were darting round looking for the key so that I could lock him in. He’d never know; I’d unlock it before morning. But there was no sign of the key. He shucked off his outer clothes and in his long wool underwear collapsed onto the mattress. I pulled the covers up and as I tucked him in I was overcome with a convulsion of grief as I remembered all the times Mary had tucked me in snug as a bug, all those times, and now she was no no, no, no.

  I doubled over as if someone had slammed me in the stomach. But pull yourself together she was saying, her voice lodged inside my head where it always was and where it has stayed. And I did pull myself together. I took a deep breath and straightened up and turned back to see that Victor was oblivious.

  ‘Drink up,’ I said and watched as he propped himself half upright to take a sip of tea, screwing up his face at the taste.

  ‘It’s a new blend Mary chose,’ I said. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘It’s cold,’ is all he said, swigged the rest of it back and handed me the cup.

  ‘There,’ I said. ‘Now you’ll sleep the sleep of the just.’

  ‘Just what?’ he said with a weary smile. He yawned and lay down. ‘Night night, Icy.’

  ‘Night night,’ I said. ‘Bugs bite and so on.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  I would have been curious to wait and see how long it took him to get to sleep, but I crept out and shut the door firmly behind me. The brandy and the drug would surely do the job of a key, and keep him there till we were finished.

  28

  THE NURSERY LIGHT was poor and dim, draining everything of colour. I drew the curtains across the frosty black of the windows. Osi was kneeling by the corpse, trembling, his face grey. He looked almost elderly.

  ‘We wrap the head first,’ he said.

  The body was messily sewn, with wiry stuffing poking between the stitches on her abdomen.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  He nodded at his little armchair and I saw he’d pulled some of the horsehair stuffing out. ‘It should have been salt,’ he said.

  ‘Needs must,’ I said in Mary’s voice, and winced.

  Her eyelids were held down with coins and her face was quite blank as if she had no opinion about what was happening to her. She was drained of any Maryness, but for the wild spring of her hair. I tried to get a brush through it but it was too snarled and I could not bear the thought that all the snagging and tugging would cause her pain.

  ‘Come on then,’ I said.

  He knelt by her head and lifted it, quite tenderly, while I passed a ribbon of sheet underneath and wound it round.

  ‘Tighter,’ he said. ‘It must be firm.’ My instinct was to be gentle. I didn’t want to squash her nose, but I obeyed him and pulled it tight, finding myself grateful as the features flattened and disappeared. Together we wrapped the head until it was a blank wad of white, a landscape hidden under snow, and once that was done the task grew easier, except when it came to her hands.

  I chose the thinnest sheeting, for the delicate business of wrapping the fingers – strong, scarred and so familiar they might as well have been my own. As I wrapped I remembered all the things they’d done: the stroking of hair, the patching of grazes, the drying of tears, the wiping of noses, the pinching of pie crust, the podding of peas, the loving of Gordon Jefferson – and perhaps of Mr Patey.

  By the time we’d moved onto the legs and body I’d almost stopped thinking and we were working together in a smooth, efficient rhythm. Osi kept up a murmur of Egyptian spells and I kept my lips pressed together tight, concentrating on making Mary safe and neat. Between the layers, Osi slipped pictures of amulets to make Mary safe on her journey, a journey in which I was almost starting to believe.

  I became so engrossed that I didn’t hear Victor moving about and it was too late to hide what we were doing when the door flew open.

  ‘Icy,’ he was saying, ‘where’s the –’ and then he stopped. He looked at the part-wrapped body on the floor and at Osi and at me. He took in the canopic jars and the pile of grave goods and the blood-stained rug.

  ‘It’s Mary,’ Osi said and I actually thought I saw the hairs rise on Victor’s head, as his eyes stretched wide
and his hands went to his mouth and he began to scream.

  ‘Uncle Victor,’ I jumped up, my legs all cramped from kneeling for so long, and tried to get hold of him, but he flailed away from me. He would not stop screaming and staring so wide and hard that I thought his eyes would surely fall from their sockets. It was the scream from his nightmares, only now he was awake and what could be worse for his nerves than a waking nightmare? It seemed to wake me too from the strange lull I’d entered and all the energy ran out of me. I wondered feebly if I could get him back to bed and we could pretend it was all a dream, but that would be impossible.

  ‘Please, Victor,’ I said. ‘Please, come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Eventually he calmed down enough to allow me to hold his arm and guide him out of the nursery. I shut the door behind us with my foot.

  ‘What have you done?’ he said. ‘I can’t believe my eyes, I …’ His head was doing the spastic jerk and his entire body shuddering. ‘You!’ He recoiled from my attempts to hold him, and ripped his arm away from me. ‘You Isis, you!’

  ‘You’re cold,’ I said, making my voice as level as possible. And I found that I was shivering too. Strange how I had been suspended from my own discomfort during the wrapping of Mary and I had lost track of time – hours must have passed. I ran to the Blue Room and fetched his medication, came back and handed him a pill. He stared at it, before he sighed and swallowed it in a dry gulp.

  I started down the stairs. ‘Come on, Victor,’ I said. ‘If you’re not going back to bed, let’s get you a stiffener.’

  He stood at the top of the stairs looking down with a dull space where his eyes should be, awful twitching spasms running through him. There was an animal stench of fear. ‘Come on,’ I urged and at last he did follow me down and into the kitchen. I poured a brandy and wrapped his coat round his shoulders. I fed the greedy stove, and then I knelt before him, held his hand and explained what had happened.

  He listened quietly at first, but then the horror rose in him once more. ‘Blood and guts,’ he yelled. ‘But this is here.’ He waved his arm wildly. ‘Not in here.’ He punched himself on the side of his head so hard I thought he’d knock himself out.

  ‘Don’t.’ I grabbed his head and held it tight and looked into his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have seen it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have seen it!’ He spat out a laugh.

  ‘What could I do, though?’ I said. ‘I thought if anyone saw her like that they’d think Osi killed her. I have to look after him.’

  I let go of Victor and he folded in on himself, rocking and mumbling. Cleo was sitting by the door, eyeing him warily and when I opened it she fled into the scullery. Victor hadn’t touched the brandy and I took a sip of it myself and felt a calming as it ran hotly through me. I put a hand on his shoulder to let some of the calm stream down my arm and into him, and I do believe it soothed him, just a bit. It was four o’clock in the morning, I noticed. I had never been up at that time before.

  ‘Do you see?’ I said.

  ‘Mary,’ he murmured. ‘Lovely Mary.’

  ‘I know.’ I had to brace myself against a fresh flood of knowing that this was real: that that thing upstairs was really Mary.

  ‘Poor Mary. Poor dear Mary.’

  ‘Don’t.’ I took my hand away. ‘I can’t be properly sad, don’t you see? I can’t let myself be properly sad till it’s all over and dealt with.’

  ‘How hard you are,’ he said. And that is the cruellest thing that anyone has ever said to me. But I could not deny it. If being hard is keeping your emotions in control, keeping yourself under control, then I was hard. A softer person could not have endured my life.

  ‘Please go back to bed now,’ I urged. ‘Shall I bring you some warm milk?’

  ‘They might think it was me,’ he said. His eyes were too terrible to meet and I turned my back, pouring milk into a pan. I wanted something else to eat, bread and milk, which is what Mary would sometimes make when we were little – bread softened in warm milk with a little crunch of sugar. Eating something comforting and babyish would help, I thought, would help to carry me through the night.

  ‘They already suspect me of …’

  ‘But I’ve told the truth now. Soon as they get the letter they’ll know.’

  ‘There are other things,’ he said, so quietly I could hardly hear. ‘Misunderstandings with women. I will have some warm milk, Icy.’

  ‘Bread and milk?’

  ‘Evie will think it was me.’

  ‘No she won’t. No one will. Because no one will ever know.’

  ‘But Mary has gone.’

  I cut a thick slice of bread. Soon I’d have to bake some more. That was good; something to hold onto, something wholesome I could do.

  ‘We can simply say she went away. She was never paid properly, after all. Nobody would blame her.’ I tore the bread into chunks and when the milk began to froth up the sides of the pan I poured it onto the slice and, nervy as I felt with Victor behind me, I watched mesmerized, as the bread softened and lost its edges. I sprinkled sugar on top and we ate in silence. The bread was clammy, sweet and simple, dissolving between my teeth, making Victor’s lips gleam white.

  ‘This was a treat for Mary when she was a girl,’ I said.

  Victor put down his bowl and hid his head in his hand. His leg was going and his head.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ I said. ‘Try not to worry.’

  He looked up and gave a wild and nasty sort of laugh.

  ‘Please go back to bed,’ I said.

  He stood and stared at me and I found myself looking around for something I could hit him with if necessary, the coal shovel would be the thing, but then he sagged and nodded and turned and left the room.

  Daylight was leaking round the edges of the curtains by the time we’d finished Mary. When every inch of her was wrapped carefully separate – each finger and toe – Osi bound her legs together, and her arms to her sides, and then we wrapped the whole in the sheet from Mary’s own bed, her final shroud.

  ‘Later I’ll decorate it and make the grave-mask,’ he said. ‘And you must make the shabtis.’

  I stood up and tottered, a little giddy. I have always been someone who needs her sleep and it was the first time I’d ever stayed up all night. Osi looked dreadful, grey and drawn, and so like Evelyn, in the bony structure of his face, so like Victor, even in the cloudy absence in his eyes. And then I looked down at the tight white bundle that was Mary. She did not look so frightening or so cold now. Perhaps it was not a bad thing to have done. She did look, as Osi had said she would, complete.

  We went to bed at the same time – we hadn’t done that for years. It meant I could turn the key and be sure to be safe from Victor. Without speaking, and for the first time in years, we climbed into the same bed to keep each other warm. I lay curled into the heat of him – our bodies slotted together like two parts of a puzzle, our womb shape – and I lay listening to him breathing, and snoring because of his cold, and I pretended we were babies again, tucked snug in our cot by Mary, and in that way I drifted off to sleep.

  29

  I SLEPT TILL NOON. Beside me was the neat impression of Osi’s head on the pillow. It seemed oddly light. In a daze I went to the window and parted the curtains. The sky was a pure, pale blue and the sun was shining. There was no frost, the snow had fallen away from the window, and the view was clear.

  And then I remembered what had happened.

  ‘You are so hard,’ Victor had said.

  I looked down at my hands, the fingers chafed from all the wrapping. In the bathroom I splashed my face with chilly water and watched the drips run down the hardness of my cheeks. I saw a woman not a girl, and not a pretty one. The roundness was falling away revealing not the swan I had hoped for but a perfectly plain duck. Plain and hard. The curse had started and I knew how to deal with it and I would have to deal with it myself. More blood, more rags.

  Victor was already in the kitchen and the kettle was risi
ng to a boil. His face was bleared with stubble – and in fact I don’t think I ever saw him cleanly shaven again. The crinkled mix of fox and grey softened his mouth and the thin jut of his jaw, but was ugly beside the scar, the shiny puckered rasher shape, where no hair grew.

  ‘Where will you put her?’ was his greeting.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. The bowls from our bread and milk were still on the table, dried and crusty. I didn’t know whether to prepare breakfast or go straight on to lunch.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. It might be possible to get away with it,’ he said, in a flat, dead voice.

  I pressed my palms on the table and spoke without quite meeting his eye. ‘She got in a right old tizz about her pay and upped and left. Bags and baggage and all. And who can blame her?’

  He looked at me queerly. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t ape her speech like that.’

  ‘Well it’s her as brought us up,’ I said.

  The kettle squealed. I tipped out the old leaves and made a fresh pot. There was scant tea in the caddy. I would have to learn to pay attention to such things. More coal, too. Victor could go to the village and enquire about that.

  ‘The icehouse.’ I eased the felted old cosy down over the handle and spout of the pot. ‘That’s where he puts his other …’ I didn’t know how to put it. ‘His birds and kittens and so on.’

  He considered. ‘And if anyone comes looking you can say she went off in the night. You didn’t hear a thing. I wasn’t even here.’

  ‘It’s more or less what I already told Mr Burgess.’

  ‘Does she have a beau? Anyone who might come looking?’

  ‘She did,’ I said, ‘but she fell out with him.’

  ‘Good. What about her family?’

  ‘Just a sister in Bristol. And she’s poorly,’ I said and then remembered that was not the truth but my lie to Mr Burgess. I must keep things straight. The milk in the jug, left too near the stove, had curdled. I went and fetched the last of the fresher milk from the pantry, and as I passed him, saw the effort with which Victor was pressing down on his leg, knuckles fisted white.