‘Pleased to oblige,’ he said. His hands were curled around the bars of my portcullis.
I went into the house to get the key. My legs were soft, knee jagging viciously, hot while the rest of me was cold. Everything takes so long now. Oh how I used to flit about when I was a girl, everything working without having to give it a thought. Moving around now is like operating a complicated machine, one that grows stiffer with every passing day.
‘It’s Osi,’ I told him as I opened the gate.
He blenched but said, ‘Sure, no problem.’
‘Come on,’ I said.
Without another word he followed, and took my arm and helped me struggle through the undergrowth. I don’t know what he must have been expecting, but when he saw Osi flung face down in an attitude of flight he gave a startled yelp and dropped to his knees.
‘He flew,’ I explained, deciding that he might just as well understand the logic of it. ‘Horus rescues Osiris from death, you see, the falcon, see his beak.’ As I spoke I saw the paling of Spike’s lips and added swiftly, ‘Of course, I know he is a man, really, but that is what he thinks, thought, I’m sure of it, so you see for him it was a good end and not as bad as it might appear.’
His lips moved silently.
‘So you see, it’s quite all right,’ I added.
After a few moments he gathered himself enough to ask, ‘Have you called the cops?’
‘No dear, no need for that. You see, I know what he would want me to do now.’
It was difficult to convince him that there was no need to bring any authorities in. It took time. I was surprised how law abiding he was deep down. But with the promise of items to sell to fund his journey home, he overcame his scruples. Though he was slightly built he proved strong. I could not look or take part while he shouldered Osi and took him down the garden.
It took us hours to uncover the icehouse door, or took Spike hours, it was too much for me. Brambles had grown over the icehouse like a crown and what a shame it seemed to rip them up, disturb the creatures: a hedgehog, centipedes, birds’ nests and all manner of scuttling, buzzing creatures; quite a little world destroyed. And Mary’s resting place. The padlock was still there and still locked, but the wood of the doorframe had rotted and Spike managed to prise it open. No bad smell came out, I’ll have you know, only the scent of earth, of darkness; breath of the end.
I could not be there when he put Osi inside and it took all my flagging strength to carry things out of the house and down the garden ready for the burial: three tins of paté, some Dairylee, there were no cream crackers left so I brought oatcakes. I brought the tin opener and a gravy boat that might be silver. I lugged out some of his more portable artefacts and a few books, including The Egyptian Book of the Dead, which would surely be useful. Hastily I cut a row of hand-holding shabtis. I brought out soap and a pair of Arthur’s cuff links, silver with a greenish stone. I put these offerings on the ground while Spike worked away, ripping his forearms on the brambly thorns.
During the work he stopped every hour or so to smoke a cigarette, rolling a big one and adding herbs to it. Each time he stopped I offered to make tea, but he would drink nothing except water from his own bottle. His eyes were red, and dusk was falling by the time Osi was safely tucked away down there with Mary and Dixie (I did not stay to watch for that) and all his grave goods with him.
For Osi to join Mary in the Afterlife (his Afterlife, I want no such thing) is correct and I know it from the peace that settled right through my bones when Spike had hauled the brambles back across the icehouse, obscuring it from sight.
He’d worked all afternoon and I was touched by the scratches on his arms and cheeks, the leaves caught in his snaky hair, his breathlessness, and all on my behalf. You see, Spike was like an angel, to me, setting me free. And once it was done he consented to stay for tea, though insisted, while he was rinsing his hands, on washing some cups and plates in readiness. I endeavoured not to take offence. We dined on blackcurrant tarts, feta cheese, spicy peppers from a jar and, as well as tea, drank gin and tonic, ready-mixed in handy tins. I lit the lamps and the candles to dispel the gloom and it was a pleasant and melancholy little wake we had in all the flickering. I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want to be alone in the house, not that Osi had been any company at all, but still he had been there.
‘Go upstairs,’ I told him, and described where he would find Evelyn’s jewellery box, in the bottom of her wardrobe. He was rather reluctant to go upstairs in the dark, what with the pigeons, but went off with an oil lamp and I heard a creaking to tell me he was upstairs and he was up there long enough for the house to start up its whining and wingeing and for tiredness to roll over me in waves. There were tears like beads of wax stuck in my eyes but they wouldn’t melt till I was alone. My knee throbbed and the house throbbed along with it as if it was the centre, the heartbeat, and Mary was there, scolding me for something with that flick of dimple and when I was a girl I used to hold pencils to my cheeks, digging hard in to train dimples in, but all I got was graphite smudges.
Spike drove Mary away by coming in surrounded by a cloud of bird stink, bearing the leather box in his arms like one of the three kings, I thought, bearing gifts from Orient are and the tune of that got in my head. When Grandpa was still alive and all the servants, there used to be a Christmas party in the ballroom, oh that fox with the feathers in his mouth, oh my poor dear spudgies.
In the box were necklaces with glittering stones, a scarab brooch, a bracelet that looked like diamonds, but surely not? Rings and earrings, pearl and jade and amethyst. Evelyn rarely wore a jewel but for her plain gold wedding band and where had that gone? Stolen by some Egyptian devil, I must suppose. Victor’s medals were in the box too, tarnished against their stripy ribbons.
We spread the treasures on the table amongst the crumbs, and in the waxy light they glittered and gleamed. Nine sprang up to look and sat, neat chinned as an Egyptian cat, as Bastet, eyes aslit, tail tidied round her legs.
‘Are you sure?’ Spike picked out a pair of dangling ivory earrings.
‘Take them and that and that,’ I said. In truth I didn’t care; the things were jabbing and pricking and pinching at my memories of Evelyn and her distance; anyway, she never liked them very much, only wore jewels when she dressed up and that was seldom.
‘My mom would love these.’ He was dangling a smaller pair, garnet and gold, shaped like tiny birds, up to the light.
‘Your mom?’ I repeated, and oh, he looked so young then, such a silly baby boy run away from home. ‘Give them to your mom, by all means,’ I said, ‘but take something else to sell for your ticket. This, maybe?’ I held up the bracelet. What if it was diamonds? Surely Evelyn would have sold it to fund her wild goose chase.
‘Tell me about your mom,’ I said. What a sweet little bob of a word. Evelyn never even let us call her mother and that was mean of her, when we, or I at least, so wanted to. ‘Mother,’ I said now.
‘Pardon?’ said Spike.
‘Tell me about her,’ I said. ‘Your mom.’
Spike shook his head, making the snakes dance. ‘Oh she’s OK, she’s cool,’ he said, and looked as if he might be fighting tears. I averted my eyes to allow him to compose himself. He took a sip from his tin before he continued. ‘It’s my pop that’s the prick, excuse me, Ma-am.’
‘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 an
d 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 side-car 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 live 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.
Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Page 23