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.
‘I’m making porridge,’ I called as I passed the nursery door. I went along the corridor to tap on the door of the Blue Room, and when there was no answer I pushed open the door with a tiny flare of hope – but the bed was empty and untouched since last I’d looked.
Down in the kitchen, I opened the vent on the stove. To my amazed relief, it contained a glowing heap of ash – enough to coax into another blaze. I put a couple of sticks in, as I’d observed Mary doing, carefully balanced little coals on them and shut the door. I pressed my ear against the warm iron to listen and soon, sure enough, there was the crackle and catch of flame. I felt an odd little sensation of satisfaction that despite all and everything, one thing had come out right at least. I noticed that there was a scatter of salt on the table and that the cutlery drawer was lolling open. Last night it had been shut. So Osi must have been down and eaten something, and that was good.
When I went outside to fill the coal scuttle, I found the ground littered with broken icicles. The air was thin as glass again, too cold to breathe. The snow, in its melt, had slid like lazy eyelids over the windows and frozen there, as if the house itself had given up and gone to sleep.
Back inside, I poured oatmeal into the pan, adding water and a handful of raisins from a jar, as Mary had done sometimes for a treat. And I stirred the porridge this time, to stop it getting lumpy, and when it had glugged and thickened I pushed the pan off the hot plate and went upstairs to fetch my brother. This time I would not take no for an answer. He had to eat and I
must make sure of it. Although only minutes older than him, I was the big sister, I was the capable one; I would be responsible until I was relieved.
I noticed water on the landing floor, not water but drips of ice. I followed them to the bathroom. The door was open and the bath was full of half frozen water. Scattered on the floor was more salt.
Passing the door to the attic stairs, I saw it was ajar. The nursery door was shut. I stopped outside. The handle was made of brass, so cold under my hand that it made my fingers ache as I hesitated, building up my resolve. I had to see what I would see though I longed to run to my bed and bury my head beneath the covers. I turned the handle and pushed hard enough to move the chair that he had jammed against the door. As the door opened I saw my brother kneeling on the floor, looking up at me – and even he seemed shocked by what he’d done.
I shut the door against the sight, and stared at the paint, pale blue as on all the doors, chipped at the edge with nibble shapes as if a mouse had been at it. I breathed in and out three times watching the airy feathers bloom and vanish before I opened the door again.
‘Stop,’ I said, though he did seem already to have stopped. I could see the long pale blur of nakedness at the edge of my vision and also blood, roses of it, on the carpet.
‘I’m preparing her for her journey,’ he said.
‘No!’ I shouted and now my eyes went to the body, the arms and legs jutting at stiff angles, the hard blue bosoms, the cut that gaped up the left side of her abdomen. Osi stood up. His hands were bloody. ‘I’ve done it wrong,’ he said, ‘you’re supposed to remove the lungs and the intestines and . . .’
‘No,’ I said, my voice odd and wobbly. ‘No, you’re not.’
Osi held his fingers apart and stared at them. Would the blood freeze onto him? Does blood freeze like water? By his feet was a heap of something dark and sticky.
‘I can’t find her liver. I don’t know which thing is which.’
The light in the nursery was dim from the overhanging snow and yet it sparkled with a cruel clarity. I struggled to keep my voice level. ‘What you have to do is come and wash your hands and have your breakfast.’
He blinked as if he’d just woken from a trance and looked down at Mary and at his hands and then at me, pupils stretched so huge his eyes were black.
Someone might think he killed her, I thought. That’s what it will look like. No one normal could possibly understand this. Or even that we killed her together. Despite her gaping abdomen there was still a slit of shine in Mary’s eyes, one open a bit more than the other, and between her lips there was the glint of teeth.
‘There isn’t enough salt,’ he said.
‘Stop it, Osi.’
‘I need to find her liver.’
‘Stop!’
A long shiver travelled from the soles of my feet to the skin of my scalp. I took a deep breath, the air rasping my sore throat, and a strange dream-like species of calm settled on me. I went into the bedroom and pulled the counterpane from Osi’s bed and then I covered Mary where she lay.
‘Come and wash.’
I stood outside the bathroom door and watched him run his hands under the tap, red water becoming pink, becoming clear. ‘And empty the bath,’ I said. The gurgling was loud as the water ran away in a prolonged and greedy gulping, leaving splinters of ice, and a nest of Mary’s curls tangled in the plug hole.
I dished up the porridge, put two dishes on the table, sat down and indicated that Osi should do the same.
‘Now eat.’
I took a mouthful, warm and sweet with a sudden juicy squelch of raisin between my teeth – I flinched at the sensation. Osi ate steadily as always, almost mechanically. Spoon in, pause, and swallow. Spoon in, pause, and swallow.
‘You know it’s wrong, don’t you?’ I said.
‘Why?’ He put his spoon down. He seemed revived by the porridge.
‘It’s against the law,’ I said.
‘Whose law?’
‘British Law. The law of the land.’
‘How do you know?’
I stared at his red, crusted nose.
‘It’s what happens, Osi. Dead people have funerals and are buried in graveyards.’
‘Soulless affairs,’ Osi said and I recognised Arthur’s voice getting into his, ‘the so-called decent Christian burial. I want to do it the proper way, otherwise,’ and just in time, before I lost my temper, his voice became anxious and his own again, ‘otherwise she’ll end up in the next world with nothing, Icy. She has to be preserved. She needs her things with her.’ He looked up and met my eyes. ‘But I’ve made a mess of it.’
He put down his spoon and swallowed. I heard the hard click in his throat, and then he pushed his chair back and went out of the kitchen, and I listened to the creaking as he went back upstairs. I didn’t know what to say or do. He was only doing what he thought was best for Mary, I understood that, and knew I should not to blame him, though it made me sick.
At that moment I could easily have hated him. If he hadn’t looked so scared I would have hated him. He had ruined everything. He had ruined the rest of our lives, though I didn’t understand that then. All I knew then was that this would have to be kept secret, if Osi wasn’t to end up in asylum, or both of us in prison. I sat staring at my porridge as it congealed.
Mr Burgess had a toothache, his jaw muffled in a tartan scarf. He stepped into the kitchen smelling of eucalyptus, with a dewdrop on the end of his nose that trembled as he went on about the night he’d had of it. Everyone had the cold, he told us, it was going round like wildfire and what with this weather, we should be bally grateful he could do his rounds at all. He put the box of groceries on the table and looked around for Mary.
‘Chew a clove,’ I said. ‘It’s what Mary does for toothache.’ I winced as I spoke her name. ‘Do you want one? She’s gone to her sister’s.’
He looked at the kettle, moustache drooping glumly, but I only handed him the list. The dewdrop fell from his nose onto his scarf.
‘I don’t know nothing about a sister,’ he said.
‘Could you send the telegram please and add it to the bill.’ My mind was flocking, with what I could put. Not Mary dead, of course, not now. ‘A telegram to my parents,’ I said.
‘Saying what?’
‘I’ll write it.’ I picked up the pencil. Mary gone stop, I put, immediate return vital stop. I was pleased with the concision. Surely they would take notice of that?
I held my breath as Mr Burgess took in my words. ‘She went away unexpected then?’ he said.
‘Her sister was taken poorly,’ I said. ‘Very poorly.’
‘How did she get word? I don’t recall a letter.’
I stared at him. A new drip was gathering. ‘Someone came for her,’ I said.
‘It’s rum that she’s never mentioned a sister,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember her saying she had no one in the world, besides you two.’
‘They didn’t speak for years,’ I improvised. ‘Some falling out – and then they . . . fell back in again.’
He was looking at me suspiciously. ‘Who was it came to fetch her then?’
‘Goodness!’ I said. ‘What does it matter? The fact is, she’s had to go, so you see we need to telegraph our parents.’
‘When’s she coming back then?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘She’s very cross, you know, about not being paid and so on.’
He believed that, at least.
‘She might not ever come back.’ My voice cracked and I had to look hard at the table and crunch my teeth together to keep from wailing.
He stared at me with his bleary eyes. ‘Will you manage on your own?’
I sniffed and got my voice under control. ‘Uncle Victor’s coming – with a lady,’ I said. ‘We’ll be right as nine-pence.’ I forced a smile. ‘And Ma and Pa will be h
ome before you know it.’
Mr Burgess glanced wistfully at the kettle.
‘That’ll be all then,’ I said.
‘She left no word for me?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, when you hear from her send her my . . . best regards,’ Mr Burgess said. ‘Oooch.’ His hand shot to his jaw.
‘Sure you don’t want a clove?’
He shook his head and tightened his muffler. I waited till he was out of the door and then ran up to our bedroom, scritched a space in the frost with my fingernails, and watched his van blur into white.
27
AND THEN, DRAGGING my feet, I went to find Osi. It took all my will to push open the nursery door, but he was not there. Mary was; I’d had a wild magical idea that she would somehow have gone, but she lay as we’d left her, covered with the counterpane, a pale puff of curls escaping from one end. So cold and stiff, chilled to the marrow, she would have said, and now that was really, literally true.
I found Osi sitting up in bed, shivering, arms clutched round The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
‘I’ve done it wrong,’ Osi said, voice cracking. ‘I’ve messed her up.’
He’d lost his nerve. I understood; he had always dreamed of mummifying a human being and had woken from the dream to the reality of Mary dead and himself, a childish amateur with a knife, expecting a neat diagram of a body rather than the loose, unruly, stinking thing it is once you cut through the skin.
I slumped down on my own bed and blew my nose. I longed to be warm. I longed not to have to think. In truth, I longed to climb into bed and stick my head under the pillow and not come out till this was all over. But it would never be over. The idea of running away flashed through my mind. But I had no money and no idea, really, how to go about running away, especially in such bitter cold. Running away with Osi in tow would have been impossible – and leaving him even more so. I was his sister and I was responsible, and despite all and everything, I did love him. Not a love that I had decided on, but a deep and visceral tugging in my guts and in my veins. Osi needed me and always would.
Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Page 20