Little Egypt

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Prick,’ I repeated and laughed.

  ‘He sells white goods,’ he said. ‘Washers and dryers and dishwashers. Kitchen stuff. Iceboxes, microwaves. Wants me to join the firm.’

  ‘So you ran away.’

  He looked abashed. ‘Didn’t go home,’ he corrected. ‘And fought with my brother who’s all like yes sir, anything you say sir.’

  ‘Make it up,’ I said. ‘You need your family.’

  He had blackcurrant in the corner of his mouth and a blurring in his eyes. ‘OK if I take these?’ He lifted the bird earrings and the diamond-effect bracelet.

  Stephen had told me that once I’d signed over Little Egypt I’d never need another penny in my life. U-Save would take care of all my bills, all my living expenses. I didn’t need this stuff. ‘Take it all,’ I said, then changed my mind, ‘I’ll keep the scarab,’ I decided. It was carved from a dark stone inlaid with carnelian, jasper, lapiz. If I’d known that it was there I would have sent it off with Osi, but too late. And Osi had flown away on falcon’s wings.

  Spike put the other jewels in his haversack. ‘They’ll think I stole them,’ he said.

  ‘If anyone says that, refer them back to me.’ I liked the grand sound of that.

  He fingered Victor’s medals.

  ‘My Uncle Victor was a hero.’ I told the story of how he’d tried to save his whole battalion and risked his life, but sustained such terrible injury to his mind. Spike listened, rapt as a child. And Victor was there in the kitchen, nodding at the lie. I could see the bony structure of his nose, the hollows of his temples, the length of his thin lips. The scar was sizzling on his neck. And Mary was shaking her head at him, that exasperated smile, the spring of curls, that raising of her blue eyes to heaven. Osi came in, a child again, hair in his eyes; Mary stretched out her hand.

  ‘Are you OK, Sisi?’ Spike was saying. ‘What are you looking at?’ His hand was on my arm, warm; I hadn’t even felt it.

  ‘Tired out,’ I told him. ‘Only tired.’

  ‘You want to sleep?’ he said.

  I nodded. Oh I was so tired it caught me suddenly in its folds so I could scarcely speak.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Ma-am.’ He patted the pocket in his haversack and hoisted it on his back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for being my angel, for being my friend.’

  The night was long, peopled with ghosts, deep pits of sudden sleep, a dream from the womb, the packed-tight squirm of twinnish flesh. And, of course, I cried, I roared and all the eyes blinked open in surprise because you should not make a fuss nor make an exhibition of yourself. The tears were hot wax and with the flame in my knee I was the candle that showed myself up in a transport of grief and it was like a transport or a transfer as it was my last night, would be, must be, my last night in Little Egypt, all the fabric of the house aching round me. My last night in the kitchen among the litter and the traces of the people, even Mr Burgess there, the ghost of a damp moustache, but never Arthur, never Evelyn, who I don’t remember in the kitchen ever. Never Mother.

  30

  VICTOR DIDN’T RETURN till after dark. Osi was sleeping, breath smooth, only a trace of stuffiness left from his cold; I was in the bedroom, peering out, waiting to see, praying to see, the headlamp of Victor’s car – and at last there it was, swinging up the drive. From the way it swerved through the dark I could tell that he was drunk again but I didn’t care; I was so pleased that he’d returned. I ran downstairs to greet him. He came crashing in through the front door – ripping off his helmet and untangling his scarf.

  ‘Where’s the food?’ I said, noticing his empty arms. ‘I was waiting to do the chops.’

  ‘Never mind the chops.’

  My heart sank at the slurring of his speech. I followed his blundering to the kitchen where he threw himself down on a chair and let his head sag on the table.

  ‘Pull yourself together,’ I snapped.

  ‘Oh, Icy …’ Eyes shut, he reached out a hand for me to take, but I didn’t take it.

  ‘Is the food in the car?’ I said. ‘I’ve been waiting for the food.’

  Slowly, he hauled himself upright and blinked round the kitchen as if he was surprised to have woken up and found himself there.

  ‘Mary?’ he said.

  ‘Done.’

  ‘How am I going to tell you?’ he said.

  I wanted to slap him. ‘What?’

  He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a screwed up telegram.

  ‘Surely they haven’t found their bloody king?’ I said, though he was clearly not the bearer of good news. This was not the telegram we’d been waiting for. I snatched it from him and read:

  You are advised of the disappearance of Captain and Mrs AHP Spurling. Await instruction and payment for services rendered. Mr AB Ali.

  I stared and stared and though I could read the words perfectly well, my mind refused to take them in. Disappearance? How could they disappear?

  ‘You’ll have to go and find them,’ I said. ‘They can’t simply disappear!’ I walked round and round the kitchen. ‘They will have run because they couldn’t they pay their bills or pay Abdullah,’ I decided. ‘That loathsome man, I never trusted him.’

  ‘Don’t, Icy,’ Victor bleated, lifting his head and peering at me as if through fog. ‘Keep still. You’re making me dizzy.’

  ‘We’ll have to find them we can’t just –’

  ‘Odds are they’ll turn up,’ he slurred. ‘Make me a cup of tea. I reckon you’re right, they’ll have got themselves in too deep and scarpered.’

  ‘Well, what shall we do?’

  ‘Make a cup of tea, or coffee better still,’ said Victor.

  I stood with fists clenched looking at the useless husk of a man as he began to sob.

  ‘She won’t have got the letter, Icy, now she’ll never know it wasn’t me.’

  I turned my back on him and filled the kettle.

  I had been wrong. It was possible for our parents to disappear. Eventually Victor pulled himself together, went to town and made calls; he spoke to persons at both the British and the Egyptian embassies, but there was nothing. No news and nothing useful that we could do. I wanted Victor to return to Egypt and search, but he said he wasn’t well or strong enough. I wanted the police set on Abdullah. He had been questioned, Victor was informed. Abdullah’s story was that one morning Captain and Mrs Spurling had vanished into thin air, owing him a considerable sum of money – the police found nothing suspicious in that. And as far as owing the money went, neither did I.

  A few days after the telegram, a postcard arrived from them, a view of Karnak and the message in Evelyn’s spiky hand: Still awaiting our concession, but the excellent Abdullah keeps our spirits up. Keep well dear beasties and keep warm, Evelyn, with a kiss, and underneath in Arthur’s neater hand, chins up, much love, Arthur. It was dated a month ago, before they would have got either my letter about Victor, or the telegram about Mary. We were never to learn if they received either. The card with its dingy avenue of sphinxes had been posted in Luxor, but held no other clue. Their motorbike and sidecar turned up a few months later in Alexandria and that was the last of them.

  Weeks passed by and all three of us hung suspended, waiting for them or news of them. Anger alternated with grief and sometimes my mind fell into a dull, blank trance, for which I was most grateful. The longer we heard nothing the more likely it became that they were dead, out in the desert, perhaps, buried in the grit, or picked clean by vultures, or shut up in a tomb, but I had to steer my mind away from tombs – even the word caused sourness to rise in my throat and frantic wings to beat.

  Osi simply refused to countenance the fact that they would not come back, nor even that they would not succeed in finding Herihor. He seemed to continue as normal, though I’m sure he worried for them – as I’m sure he grieved for Mary – in his own unfathomable way.

  Victor stayed with us. He was, it turned out, in serious debt and so he sold Berrydale and came to li
ve at Little Egypt. In loco parentis was his phrase, though the way he lived with us could scarcely be described as that. He tried to find a maid, but it seemed no one wanted to be a maid by that time, at least not for the amount he’d pay, and most of the domestic work was left to me, which, curiously I took some comfort in. I discovered that I really liked to cook. I enjoyed the swish of sifting flour, the fleshy give of dough, the bubble of roiling vegetables, the spit and scent of roasting meat. In the kitchen I found peace and a sort of communion with Mary who stood beside me as I worked, whispering advice into my ear – give it five more minutes, cut them smaller, try a dash of vinegar.

  The spring passed in a queer disconnected manner and by the time the lilac was blooming, we, at least Victor and I, agreed to assume that Evelyn and Arthur were never coming back. And so, after what seemed a lifetime of waiting, there was nothing left to wait for. Osi withdrew further into himself, into a sort of blinkered stupor from which I don’t think he ever truly emerged; I think he spent the rest of his life awaiting our parents’ return.

  After the first few months, Victor began to go away again, drinking and gambling and chasing ladies. There was one he brought back more than once, Ivy her name, a lady with freckles on her arms, lovely and young and cleanly scented and I had a hope that he would marry her. Perhaps she’d come and live with us, I thought. But Victor ruined it with all the drink, and soon it was just us again.

  It was years later, I think, time all gone into a smear, when one particular night I was woken by Victor’s bellowing, and lay with the moonlight washing bluish across my bed. It must have been spring, he was always worse in spring. There was nothing unusual, only my own response. I made no decision that I recall, still befuddled as I was by sleep and dazed by moonlight, but climbed out of my bed and, barefoot, walked to the Blue Room door.

  Between his screams he was talking, as if to another person, saying, ‘Richie, Richie take the …’ I could not make out what, and sobbing. I couldn’t bear the fear in him, those awful wrenching sobs, worse than the screams. I tapped at the door but he didn’t hear or answer, so I opened it.

  He was not on the bed but crouching against the wall in his pyjamas, cowering, hands protecting his head. I walked across the room and touched his shoulder, and he jumped and yelled. The moonlight stained his face and I could see from the dark holes of his eyes that he was not awake. I took his hand and felt how he was quaking, how cold with sweat he was, and I pulled him towards the bed.

  He let me lay him down and cover him, juddering and sobbing. I took a shirt from the floor and wiped his face. He was shivering so hard he made the bed shake. I got in to hold him, to steady and warm him. I moved him onto his side and I hugged him. I could feel the thin branches of his ribs through the clammy cotton of his pyjama jacket. I stroked his back, and made soothing, mothery noises close to his ear, like Mary would make if ever I awoke frightened in the night.

  Eventually, he quietened down and one of his arms came round me. It was such a beautiful feeling to be held like that after no tenderness at all for years. The rigidity of his terror went out of him, and he was soft in my arms, relaxed, his hand stroking my back, a part of me that had never been touched by another hand, since Mary had washed me when I was small, and I wanted to arch my back against the movement of his hand, to purr like Cleo. He started to push his knee between my legs and I let him and I let my legs open but then he stopped, stiffened, shoved me off the bed.

  He sat up, wild haired, wild eyed in the moonlight. ‘Icy?’ He peered at me as if I was something from his nightmare. ‘Icy?’

  I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for his hand but he would not take it, he backed himself right up against the bedhead, arms wrapped round his legs. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Leave, leave, leave,’ and he kept on saying it until I left the room.

  Back in my own bed I lay and thought. My heart was thudding with a particular kind of excitement, but there was a sick lump of something in my throat. It should have been shame. I tried to make it shame. But it was disappointment.

  Next time I heard the screaming, I got up and went to his room. But the door was locked. Whether he had locked himself in or me out, I don’t know. I stood by that locked door with my heart thumping and my cheeks flaming, and then I went back to my own bed. I never tried again.

  Next day he was as normal. Neither of us spoke about what hadn’t happened. And we continued just as we had done since Mary had gone and our parents vanished. After supper in the kitchen, Osi would go up to the nursery and Victor and I would clear the table and play cribbage or rummy, we’d read to each other, or together we’d do a crossword puzzle. Sometimes he’d go away for a week or so, but would always come back, and seem glad to be home.

  But one day he came back raggedly drunk. He was at his worst, shambling and stinking and he lurched towards me in the kitchen, holding out his arms. ‘You’re a bad girl,’ he said, his voice all skewed and slurred. ‘You want it though, do you, you want it, that’s why you told those lies, that why you ruined me?’

  I had been trying to darn one of his socks. I threaded the needle through the grey wool and put it down, before I said, in my calmest voice: ‘No. Stop it Victor, pull yourself ­together.’

  ‘Your fantasy.’ He grabbed hold of me and I inhaled the staleness of his clothes, felt the rasp of his beard. I didn’t fight, only stood limply saying, ‘Stop it, stop it.’ I knew what kind of a drunk he was; I knew he would sag and stop any moment. I wasn’t frightened, only repulsed and pitying and ashamed for him, for us both.

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ I said when I felt the energy leave him.

  And he let me go. ‘I wish Mary were here,’ he said, as he slumped into her chair by the stove.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. There was still tea in the pot and I put the kettle on to refresh it.

  ‘Good name for you, Icy,’ he said.

  I sliced bread and slathered it with the last of Mary’s apple butter. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the jumping of his leg.

  ‘Can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘You’re grown up now. I can’t …’ He focused on me blearily. He was drunk, but it was a sober truth he spoke: ‘You should never have come to my bed.’

  I turned away from his eyes, waited for the kettle to whistle, poured water into the stewed slops in the pot. ‘You mustn’t go. Please don’t. I only wanted to comfort you, like Ivy and Mimi and Melissa.’ As I spoke my words revealed themselves as thin and silly. ‘I only wanted to make the horror go away.’

  His jaw dropped and a sudden shocking jag of laughter leapt out. ‘Make the horror go away! Make the horror go away! You think that’s possible?’

  My hand was shaking as I poured his tea. ‘Don’t,’ I said. I tried to hand him the plate. ‘Eat,’ I said, but he swiped his hand through the air and sent the plate flying to smash against the stove, the bread landing sticky side down on the hearth mat.

  ‘That’s pathetic,’ he said, ‘make the horror go away!’ He gave another mirthless laugh and when he turned his head to look at me again I saw an awful and familiar deadness had come into his eyes. ‘When you’ve seen how easily they come apart.’ He pressed his fist against his leg.

  ‘Don’t,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Bodies,’ he said. ‘Legs and arms, feet and hands, heads. And it’s my fault.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘please, Victor.’

  ‘It’s like a nest of snakes in here.’ He smacked his hand against his own abdomen. Under the skin everyone is a nest of snakes just waiting to burst out.’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘Victor, don’t. It’s not your fault. Listen! The war was not your fault!’

  ‘You don’t know.’ He was breathing heavily. ‘If I had kept my head they’d be alive,’ he said. ‘They might be.’

  I stared.

  ‘My lads. I sent them the wrong way, into danger, then kept my own bloody head down.’

  I sat down at the table, warming my hands round his cup of tea.

  ‘No,
’ I said. ‘That’s not right, is it? Think; remember. You got the MC’

  ‘Shouldn’t have accepted.’

  ‘No, Victor, no,’ I said.

  ‘I lied. It was all a cover up. Those poor bastards.’

  He kept on talking and then pacing round the room and talking madness and so much ugly awful stuff I had to stick my fingers in my ears and hum just like I used to do to shut out Osi’s rubbish, and then the door banged and he was gone.

  I sat and listened to the crash of doors, the roar of the engine, and then, when it was quiet again, I picked up the pieces of the broken plate, and the bread from the floor, took up the sock and resumed my darning.

  31

  HE LEFT THE house for a week and came back with a lady of sorts. Deirdre, I think she was called, or Flo? I lost track. Sometimes they would stay for days, sometimes just one night. Sometimes they were friendly and would play cards, even tinkle on the piano in the ballroom, with the birds skittering madly round, and sometimes they ignored me. Sometimes they shouted out their joy in the middle of the night, and sometimes they were silent.

  Victor and I never really talked again, though he was friendly enough, calling me ‘Dear little Icy’ and playing cards in the evenings, treating me like a child, but never again did he look me in the eye.

  When we’d run through Victor’s money, he sold the land for the road, so big and noisy when first it was built, it seems like nothing now, compared with the dual carriageway. We lived on that money for years. Victor stayed with us most of the time, sometimes he went away, and sometimes brought a woman back. When he was alone, he still occasionally screamed at night, and I pulled the pillow over my head.

  And then one morning I found a farewell letter on the kitchen table. It was formal, impersonal, almost. He had made arrangements with some solicitors – he must have been sober to do that – to deal with all financial matters, to sell a further parcel of land – the nut grove – the money to be invested, which would keep us in funds for the foreseeable future. Groceries would be delivered; the house would be looked after … it was all about practical arrangements. He must have been planning for ages to leave us, and to leave us looked after, but he’d never said a word.