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.
Where he went or what became of him, we never knew. I used to wonder if he’d done himself in, but I don’t think he would have had the nerve. He will h
ave gone off and drank and lost himself in his affairs with women, that is what he will have done.
Victor could not bear his own mind; I can understand that. If it was true that he was no hero, then how could he bear it? He couldn’t bear it that Evelyn died believing he did something to me in the tomb. And that is my fault for lying. At least I think it was a lie. When I try to send my mind back now, all those years, I don’t know what the truth was. Was it one of the Arabs? Or was it anything at all? There was one I took a fancy to, and you might say I gave him the eye; his name has gone. I can’t even recall if he was there that day. Everyone else at the scene will be dead by now, or extremely ancient. And what does it matter now? Traffic under a bridge.
There’s a memory buried somewhere on the West bank of the Nile. Beneath that rocky desert there are cells of colour – still to be discovered – of gold, of hope, of love, of riches, of belief, of shrivelled bodies, desiccated sludge in jars, of painted eyes and gods and goddesses all invisible in the dark, under the sand, under the rock, under the pressing sun. Forever and ever a horse gallops across that desert, followed by a faithful whiskery dog, nose down, hunting.
When Osi came down for his supper, I showed him Victor’s letter. I watched his face as he read and there was no change in his expression. He had the beginnings of a beard by then, I remember, thin and scrappy, but it gave him the look of a man, so much like Victor, with the thin bony angles of his face. I smiled, though it almost made me ache to look at him.
‘The nut grove?’ he said, when he had finished reading. ‘He sold the nut grove? But what about the foxes?’
‘The foxes?’ The smile died on my face. Victor had left us and his concern was for the foxes.
‘Don’t you realize we might have to stay here forever?’ I shouted. ‘Because of Mary. Because of you. We can never leave this house. We’ll have to stay forever.’
Foxes!
I couldn’t bear to be near him. I ran upstairs and lay beneath my eiderdown. Forever. Because of Osi and what he’d done to Mary we’d have to stay forever in Little Egypt.
But as I lay there, a memory crept back, a picture of the earth scraped bare round the foxes’ holes. A deep stink hung in the nut grove, and sometimes you’d find a scatter of bones and rags of fur or feathers. One evening when we were tiny, we were gathering cobnuts with Mary, when she caught my arm and pointed. I turned to see a vixen, frozen, one foot in the air, snout lifted and quivering. ‘Keep still,’ she whispered. ‘Shhh.’
We stood as still as the trees and the fox never saw or smelled us. Next thing a tumble of cubs nosed up from the earth, three of them, and Osi and I clutched each other in delight and fear – you could see the sharp glint of the vixen’s teeth as she guarded the rolling, tumbling snarl of her cubs at play. And Osi and I were joined for that moment in our pleasure.
Light was coming through the clots of stuffing in the eiderdown. I pushed it back, anger leaking away. Perhaps he’d remembered that evening and how close we were in the moment of the foxes; perhaps that’s why he cared so much about the nut grove. Overcome with a surge of love, I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. He had just finished his breakfast and was getting up from the table.
At first he quailed when I hugged him, gathering all the bonyness, the awkwardness of him, tight in my arms.
‘We’re stuck here now,’ I said, ‘together foreveranever.’ I heard Mary in my head, and I echoed her: ‘We must make the best of a bad job.’ And then I kissed his cheek and pushed him away. He left the room then, but as he went through the door, he squinted curiously back at me, and smiled.
It’s not as if he could ever have lived elsewhere, though he would have made a wonderful Egyptologist. Apart from his obsession, his almost total lack of interest in physical comfort would surely have been an asset. Think what he might have done. And if he had done that, I would have lived an ordinary life, married and had children – great grandchildren by now. I would have been in the world.
But how could I have left him? I was his twin, his big sister. I loved him. I protected him. And behind our portcullis I kept him safe for all his natural life. And I am proud of that.
But since he’s no company, I’ve made friends: Doreen in the café; the various postmen who bring letters over the bridge and with whom I try to catch an occasional pleasantry, and Spike, my friend. And Stephen, of course, my charming young developer.
TODAY IS TUESDAY and oh the morning was so long in coming but here it is at last, strands of daylight trailing through the window. Nine jumps down from somewhere, stretches and miaows. There’s cat food in a tin and I take the lid off, she can eat it from the tin, and when she can’t get her face in far enough she wedges it against the table leg and dips in a clever paw.
I go straight out, no time to waste today.
Today is Tuesday and the water in the Ladies is hot, the mirrors gleaming, but I keep my eyes away from them. I know I look a sight; hardly need confirmation. The lavatories have such comfortable seats. Sitting, spending a penny, I lean my face against the wall. I could go to sleep again, so easily. Why didn’t I think of it last night? The place is open 24 hours, after all; I could have had a warm and comfortable night sitting on the lavatory.
But still, today is Tuesday and all is well. And in the café here is I’m Doreen how may I help you? and despite her sour expression, I’m comforted by her presence. In truth we’re hardly friends, but we’ve known each other for years and for all those years she has reliably disapproved of me, a dreadful liberty since she is working in my shop. If it were not for me you wouldn’t be here, I’ve told her and she knows it. We both know where we stand.
I take my seat by the window and watch the early light picking out the roof of Little Egypt. From here it’s clear the house has had its day. The time has come. Pull it down and build your megastore, and with my blessing, just get me out of there. I can’t bear the sight of it.
Now my mind’s made up I tremble with eagerness to do the deed and get it over with. Stephen will be, must be, here this morning unaware that today’s the day he has been waiting for. I’ve been dangling my indecision, squirming on its hook just out of his reach, for weeks. Stephen’s married to a girl called Carly and they are trying for a baby, as he puts it. If he could be the one to persuade me to ‘sign on the dotted line’, he confided, he’d get a bonus with which he could put down a deposit on a house with garden ‘just a handkerchief would do’. They want somewhere to put a swing. He’s shown me pictures of Carly all fair and pink and soundly fertile, by the look of her.
Although I know it’s counter service, I sit and wait till Doreen cracks and comes across.
‘It’s counter service,’ she says, though she knows I know and that I know she knows. It’s part of a ritual we’ve built up over the years.
‘Well, thank you for telling me, dear,’ I say. ‘But now you’re here, a cup of cappuccino and a pain au chocolate, please. This is Tuesday, isn’t it?’ I add.
‘It is,’ she hisses as she swivels on her heel.
In the corner of my eye, a taunt from Little Egypt, the tiny waving of the rowan on the roof, but I will not turn and look.
And Stephen arrives just as Doreen is slamming my tray down in front of me. ‘Espresso, please,’ he says.
‘Counter service only,’ she says and stalks away.
‘Bitch,’ Stephen remarks cheerfully, not quite loud enough for her to hear.
He doesn’t know it yet, but today he’s getting what he wants, and so am I. Warm with relief, I study him at the counter. He’s of a chunky build, dark blood in him of some variety, rather handsome, eyes so dark they . . .
. . . breath snatched away, suddenly a flash of desert, beautiful boy, beautiful boy, breath of honey, eyes like that, like ink. Was that a dream? It seems a dream now in the turquoise and orange of the café with everything so bright, wipe-clean Formica, plastic chairs, serviettes made
of paper that you use once and throw away.
This is reality.
Stephen returns with his espresso in its tiny dolly’s cup, (what Spike would term a ‘rip off’). We always indulge in small talk before Stephen tries to force my hand, in the nicest possible way, telling me it’s for the best and all. Hungry for conversation, I try to make it last as long as possible. I’ve become truly fond of Stephen; he is someone who will talk about himself till the cows come home to roost, and I don’t mind that in a person. (He’s an egoist if you like, but real and live and entertaining, and oh oh oh those eyes.)
Today, I’m impatient to get down to business, but still, I listen to him chattering on about a holiday they’ve booked (Carly’s a travel agent and gets a discount) – a fortnight in Dubai. As he talks I lick the delicious chocolaty foam from my teaspoon (I always think a cappuccino’s halfway to a pudding) and I notice that he can’t prevent his eyes from wandering out of the window and over to the roof of Little Egypt. I keep my own eyes down and grit my teeth against the buffeting of knowing that Osi isn’t under it.
After stirring his sugar in, Stephen swigs his coffee in one gulp, his signal that the informal chat is over and it’s time to get down to business.
‘I don’t get it,’ he says, all sympathy and velvet eyes. ‘If you sell up you’ll have ten times, twenty times more money than you’ll need to live in luxury for the rest of your days. Somewhere warm, round the clock care – should you need it,’ he adds carefully. And once again he lists all the luxuries on offer. He’s found yet another place, with another glossy brochure, but I barely glance at all those grey haired, plastic grins in their plush settings because I have already made up my mind. Sunset Lodge is the place for me.
Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Page 24