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.
The tall windows were so thickly frosted that the light was white and solid in the room and there were even faint frost ferns growing on the mirrors. The birds were perched on the chandelier, fluffed and huddled for warmth. Beneath the chandelier was a miniature mountain range of droppings and feathers. I caught my reflection between the ferns, red-cheeked and ridiculous in the floor-length coat, my head tiny between the military shoulders. I was disappointed by what a child I still looked, and what a sight my hair – grown out of shape and stringy with grease. I was itchy under my arms but couldn’t get to them to scratch inside the heavy coat.
Mary had long since given up cleaning the ballroom and the piano was thick with dust and droppings. After I’d fed the birds, I lifted the lid and pressed my finger on a high C sharp, and the note hung and shimmered on as if it didn’t want to die. I dropped the lid with an echoing bang and caught a shiver of movement in one of the mirrors, like the hem of a dress sweeping past. It brought back a party there, when the ballroom was warm and full, alive with music and voices and dancing feet. Osi and I had been small enough to hide under the piano with our plate of iced fancies and watch the stockings and trousers swishing past, and feel the fuzzy thumping of the music through our skulls.
I hurried from the ballroom before I could catch myself – or anything – in the frosty mirrors.
22
MARY WAS IN the pantry. ‘Can we have a bath today?’ I called.
She came out scowling.
‘You’ve been at the Cheddar,’ she said.
‘Have not!’
‘Well it wasn’t Jack Sir flaming Frost.’
‘Honestly, I haven’t.’
‘Well, most of it’s gone and I was planning on doing a colly cheese for your lunch.’
I pushed past her and went into the dim smelly space, where the wax-papered shelves held crocks of flour and salt, slabs of butter and lard, wire baskets of vegetables, jars of jam, currants and honey. I hadn’t been in at all since we’d been home. The wire cheese-cover was off and there was only a small wonky wedge left – and Mary always sliced things with beautiful preci
sion.
‘Osi?’ I said, doubtfully.
‘You know as well as me he only eats what’s put in front of him.’
‘Well it honestly wasn’t me,’ I said.
Mary sighed. ‘I’ll do a soup. That’s not like you. And get that filthy old coat off. Whatever do you look like!’
‘That’s because it wasn’t me. And who cares what I look like?’
‘Well it wasn’t a blooming mouse.’
I was tempted to shout, or to flounce away and slam the door, but I didn’t want to make her headache worse, or her temper, and besides I liked to think I’d grown beyond such behaviour. Instead I went into the scullery and hung up the coat. Back in the kitchen, despite a discouraging look from Mary, I sat down beside the stove.
She stood with her back to me scrubbing the burnt pan with a fistful of wire wool. The scratch of it put my teeth on edge, but I made my voice sound warm and friendly.
‘I’ve got a book you’d like,’ I said. ‘It’s called Desert Longing.’
She sniffed and turned on the tap.
‘It’s frightfully romantic,’ I said.
‘I reckon I’ll give it a go.’
‘It’s about a love affair between a Lord and Lady and there’s this handsome Arab Prince and –’
‘Don’t spoil it, then.’ She turned off the tap.
‘I’ll get it for you.’ I stood up. ‘And later on you can have a lovely read beside the stove.’
Mary put the scrubbed pan on the draining board and wiped her hands on her apron.
‘We haven’t had a bath since we got home,’ I pointed out. ‘I feel quite putrid – and as for Osi . . .’
She scritched her fingers through her hair and sighed. ‘Oh, reckon I could do with a spruce up myself.’ And to my relief she gave a weary smile.
I ran upstairs to fetch the book. Seeing the garish cover, battered and stained from its travels, brought back the inside of my tent, the heat and dirt and tedium of the desert, which hardly seemed part of this same world at all. In my dreams there was the wet of paint, breath on my neck, a plummeting sensation from which I would wake with a startled jolt. But when I was awake I was able not to think about the tomb, or rather to remember it as something from a story. No more real than Desert Longing. I flicked through the pages and saw my dirty fingerprints, smudgy daisy patterns on the flyleaf. Compared with Victor’s nightmares my dreams were nothing. Poor Victor. My belly twanged with guilt.
I noticed that the place where Mary had melted a space on the window had frozen thinly over. And then I saw that another space in the frost had been scratched away, higher up and more recent. Only Osi was here and why would he want to look out? There was nothing to look at, only whiteness through a fence of icicles.
I went into the nursery where he was lying on his stomach reading.
‘Did you make a hole in the frost?’ I said.
He had to crick his neck to scowl up at me. ‘What?’ He clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
‘Did you pinch some cheese?’
The end of his beaky nose was red, and he was sniffling. If he had a cold it was no surprise, he didn’t bother about trying to keep warm at all.
‘Did you?’
‘No.’ He resumed reading his blasted hieroglyphics.
‘Well, someone did.’
He shrugged one shoulder as if it was no concern of his. I felt like kicking him. I took Desert Longing downstairs for Mary, but I was thinking. What if someone else was in the house? A man with narrow feet. I could only guess that it was Mr Patey. And that’s why Mary wouldn’t talk about him – because she’d hidden him here. And that must be where the cheese had gone – I was surprised she couldn’t work that out for herself. Wasn’t she feeding him?
She was chopping another lot of onions for the soup. She was still pale, but smiled when I returned to the kitchen and put the book on the table. Once she’d read it she’d realise that I knew about love affairs now and perhaps she would confide in me.
‘That looks good,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if I can get that bathroom stove lit this afternoon. See if we can’t work up a bit of a fug.’ There were tears in her eyes, but they were only onion tears. You don’t need to keep him secret, is what I wanted to say, but didn’t dare. Instead I went upstairs to search.
There were seven bedrooms, two bathrooms and the nursery on the first floor, and in the attic a maze of cramped servants’ quarters, including Mary’s room. In Grandpa’s heyday there had been a full staff, but by the time he was old there was only one manservant, a housekeeper, a cook and a tweenie – Mary. And now there was only Mary.
Most of the first floor bedrooms and one of the bathrooms had been locked for years. I had been walking past them without a thought all that time, but now, suddenly, it seemed dreadful to imagine all that stale and boxed-in air, all that dead space. All those mirrors with nothing to reflect.
But Mary would be keeping him in the attic, of course, perhaps even in her room. Perhaps they were keeping each other warm at night. I went up the attic stairs calling, softly, ‘Mr Patey?’ And I thought I heard a movement. I hesitated half way up, straining my ears. At the top I called, ‘It’s all right, Mr Patey, I know you’re there.’ Cautiously, I pushed open the door. But there was no one. Mary’s bed was messy and unmade and her clothes piled untidily on a chair, papers from her headache powders were scattered about, which was not like her. I looked round – the wardrobe would be too small for a man to hide in – the only place he could be was under the bed, but there was only a suitcase and a box, a chamber-pot and a pair of shoes.
And then I heard footsteps on the stairs and Mary came storming in. ‘What the flaming hell are you up to? Can’t I have one room in this blasted mad house to call my own?’
‘I was looking for Mr Patey.’
Her mouth opened and closed and opened again, the vapour of her breath fogging the air between us. ‘You what?’
‘I know he’s here.’
‘Stop this nonsense. Mr Patey indeed! Have you lost your wits!’
‘I’ve seen his footprints,’ I said doubtfully.
She was shaking her head at me. ‘That foreign sun must have addled you brains good and proper. If you must know, Mr Patey’s marrying a milliner from town what he got in trouble and apart from dropping off the coal I haven’t seen him for weeks.’
I stared at her. ‘A milliner?’
She shut her eyes and squeezed her hands against her temples. ‘What with everything else and what with my bloody head,’ she said. ‘How am I supposed to cope? Now get downstairs.’
I left the room, closing the door behind me and heard the squeal of bedsprings as she flung herself down – not to cry, I hoped.
23
AFTER LUNCHEON, MARY went up to light the bathroom stove, but it took hours to take the chill off the room and by the time the frost on the window had melted the daylight was fading. The iron of the gigantic tub was so cold it cooled the rusty water that chugged from the taps, so we had to fill it twice – as with a teapot – once to warm it so that the next lot of water would stay hot.
When the bath was drawn, I threw in three fistfuls of Evelyn’s Gardenia Bath Salts. I collected all the candles I could find and stood them along the edge of the bath and the candlelight mixed with the scented steam into a thick, sweet mist. Mary stood for a moment staring as if at nothing; she seemed insubstantial, wavering in the steam. She had come down to make lunch without referring to my trespass. As well as a temper she also had a forgiving soul. She was distant though, vague with headache, and had spent most of the afternoon squinting at Desert Longing beside the stove. Now she sucked in a sudden breath and frowned, pressing the heel of her hand against her temple.
‘Oooh, that’s really sharp,’ she said. ‘That’s like a fork. Call me when you’re both done and I’ll see if I’m up to gettin
g in myself.’
‘We won’t let the water go cold,’ I promised.
When we were small, Mary used to sit on the lid of the WC and chat while Osi and I wallowed in the tub. We used always to get in together, it was such a big bath, one each end and plenty of room to move our legs, but since we’d got older Mary thought bathing together wasn’t quite decent anymore. She thought that we should have separate bedrooms too. Perhaps we may have done, if things had turned out differently.
It would take too long, I thought, if Mary had to wait for us to bathe separately. The water would be cold. It wasn’t practical.
I found Osi in the nursery hunched in his tiny armchair copying something from a book. I felt a surge of fondness for him and bent over to see with what beautiful neatness he had filled his page.
‘What does it mean, though?’ I asked.
‘This is an informal hieratic script, probably 19th dynasty,’ he explained, and began to read: ‘The scribe salutes his Lord, the Fan bearer on the right side of the King, re Chief of the gangs in the Place of Truth, Seal Bearer, Chief Priest of the –’
‘All right, all right.’ I pulled back hastily. ‘The bath’s ready. Come on.’
I didn’t want there to be anything Egyptian about the bath. It was an English bathroom on an English January afternoon and nothing could be further away from Egypt. It was amazing to think that this was the same planet and that all those miles away the Nile was flowing greenly between its banks and the sun beating, glittering down. And the horse and the whiskery dog? Oh I snatched my mind from them.
Osi picked up a fine brush and slicked it with his tongue, leaving a groove of black down the centre of his lower lip.
I pulled him up by the hand. ‘Let’s get in together; it’ll be quicker. Mary needn’t know.’
The bathroom was warm and the particles of steam gleamed in the candlelight. Condensation streamed from the walls and plopped from the ceiling in long drips. I felt rather self-conscious as I took off my layers of woollies, dresses, stockings, liberty bodice and drawers. But the light was dim and in any case, unless it was Egyptian, Osi hardly noticed anything past the end of his nose.
Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Page 17