‘Shut up,’ said a voice, not Mr Patey’s, but Victor’s.
I gasped for breath, my legs gone watery. He let me go. ‘Now shut up,’ he said again.
‘What are you doing?’ I blurted into the pitchy blackness. ‘I nearly died of fright.’ It was as if my heart would fling itself right out of my chest. His breath rasped hotly by my ear.
‘I knew there was someone here,’ I said.
I heard him swallow. The stench of him was overpowering.
‘Uncle Victor, can we open the door?’
‘Uncle ,’ he mocked, but he did open it. I stepped out into the kitchen, never so grateful for a bit of light in my life.
‘You little cunt,’ he said.
I staggered back against the table. I’d never heard the word, and didn’t know the meaning of it, but I understood that it was a terrible thing to say.
‘How could you have told them that?’ he said. ‘You fucking little liar.’ He was snarling at me, lips pulled back from dirty teeth. He was filthy, bearded, hair wild and stiff, eyes far too wide, far too red.
I couldn’t speak. I backed away, stumbling on Cleo who shot off with a yowl. I pushed myself back against the burning heat of the stove. He stank of strong drink as well as sweat, tobacco, grime and I don’t like to think what else.
‘It was you,’ was all that I could say, ‘who took the cheese . . .’
‘Cheese!’ Spit flew from his mouth, hitting me on the lip but I didn’t dare wipe it away. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ he said.
My throat had closed up now and I had to try again before I could make any words come out. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said. The ball of spit seemed to burn and I had to scrub it off if it was the last thing I did.
He grabbed the top of my arms. ‘Because of your fucking lies I have to stay away. If I come anywhere near you, she says, my sister’s husband, my own twin sister’s husband, will set the police on me. The Police, Isis. After all I’ve done for this country.’ More spit was coming from his mouth and I shrank back into the corner beside the stove, feet sliding on the messy pile of newspapers. ‘And all because of a stupid lying little bitch.’ His sour breath was getting in my nose and I could see red veins standing out in the yellow-white of his eyes. His fingers dug painfully into my flesh.
I kicked his shin as hard as I could and he yelped and let me go and I scrubbed the spit away and made sure to get the table between us before I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll tell them I was wrong. Honestly Victor, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘Why did you say it?’ He was bellowing so loudly that I thought surely Osi would hear and come down. Sometimes he would react to things, and I prayed that now would be the time.
‘I was confused,’ I said. ‘Honestly Victor.’
‘Confused!’
His head was jerking now, spasms that tore it back and sideways on his neck, as bad as it had ever been, and it was my fault.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I will tell them. ‘l’ll write. Tonight, you can watch me. I’ll tell them I was wrong. I didn’t mean it.’
He was leaning against the table now, watching me with eyes like dying fires.
‘You didn’t mean it,’ he repeated flatly. ‘Oh that’s all right, then.’
‘Don’t hate me, Victor,’ I said. ‘I was confused.’
‘Confused!’ he mocked, but he was losing energy. He staggered and steadied himself with a hand on the table. ‘So what did happen to you exactly?’
‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know if it was anything at all.’
‘What?’
‘Evelyn kept on and on at me. I had to say something. If I’d said it was Selim or any of the Arabs he would have had his hands chopped off. You told me.’
We stood staring at each until I tore my gaze away.
‘Victor.’ I struggled to quell the tremble in my voice. ‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Something stronger,’ he said, and slumped down at the table.
Though I was scared to go back in there, I went into the dark of the pantry and stood on a stool to reach the bottles of strong drink, fumbling in the cobwebby space till my fingertips encountered the brandy. I brought it out and before I could fetch a glass he’d snatched it, wrenched the top off and was swigging it back.
I edged around him, quiet as could be, slicing bread, grating the remains of the cheese. Mary made Welsh rarebit properly with a white sauce and Lea and Perrins, but I was too trembly to do it properly, too aware that Victor might shout at, grab at, me again. But for now he seemed to have forgotten I was there and sat with one hand round the bottle, the other loose on the table, staring at something that I couldn’t see.
As soon as the toast was ready, I called Osi down and waited in the hall for him.
‘Victor’s here,’ I whispered, ‘and he’s angry, he’s really angry with me, and drunk.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said and pushed past me into the kitchen. ‘Hello, Victor.’ He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jumper.
‘Use a handkerchief,’ I snapped, keeping behind him.
Victor’s mouth stretched into something like a smile. He was halfway through the bottle now.
‘Where’s Mary?’ Osi glanced at the miserably scanty toasted cheese. He looked quite dreadful in the kitchen light, hair much too long and dried into messy tails, nose red and chapped.
‘In bed with her head,’ I said.
‘Fortunate head,’ Victor slurred and gave an ugly laugh.
Osi munched his food, but Victor pushed his away.
Now that Osi was there I felt a mite braver and sat down and took a bite of toast. ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked Victor. ‘I knew someone else was in the house, I told you Osi, didn’t I?’
‘I’ve got every right,’ Victor slurred. His face sagged and dragged against his supporting hand. It was as if all his bones had melted and his face, apart from the shock of the eyes, had gone into a stubbly blur.
‘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 s
tove 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; something 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.
Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Page 19