Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) (27 page)

‘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

H
E 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 have 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.

T
ODAY
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.

Sucking on a mouthful of pastry, I keep my smile pent up and listen. Stephen has a sweetness to him, partly youth no doubt, that works on me, in a way that the older men, the over-sympathetic business women who’ve tried to win me round before have never even approached. Previous developers have always seemed my enemy, while charming Stephen has become my friend. He certainly deserves his bonus. Once I’m installed in Sunset Lodge, he’ll visit me, he’s promised, and bring along his travel agent too.

‘What I don’t get,’ he says, gesturing towards the house, ‘is why you would choose
that
, rather than to live in the lap of luxury.’

‘Lap,’ I say. ‘Why lap, I wonder?’

He starts to frown but transforms it into a grin. He has a disarming grin, a dent at the corner of his mouth, halfway to a dimple. ‘Dunno. Never thought about it. Thing is . . .’ He leans closer, letting his professional mask slip, ‘if you’re ever going to cave, please do it for me. Carly’s getting right broody and there’s a little property we’ve seen . . .’

‘With a garden?’

‘Back and front. And a downstairs loo, which is always handy.’

I nod. ‘Indeed. There’s just one thing I need to check.’

His mouth drops open.

‘Listen,’ I say. I take my time. The hook is quivering just out of his reach, he strains forward, open mouthed, ready for to snatch. ‘Sometimes people have things to hide.’ My hand shakes as I lift cup to lip.

‘Ah?’ Stephen lifts both his hands in eager anticipation, ready to quell any worry I might have.

I put my cup down carefully. ‘Someone told me that these big firms like U-Save and so on, that when they buy land for a project they don’t let anything like . . . Roman ruins, for instance, stand in the way of progress.’

His expression falters. ‘You got Roman ruins?’

‘No, no, that’s an example. Is it true?’

‘What do you mean? Like something in the house?’

‘Hypothetically,’ I say. ‘Or in the grounds.’

Stephen leans forward and actually takes my hand, greasy from the pastry though it is. No one has held my hand like that for years and I shut my eyes for just a moment to savour it. ‘Listen,’ he says, glancing furtively about, ‘off the record and everything, get me?’

I tighten my fingers round his.

‘All they want is to get built and trading with no hold-ups. They’re not interested in what’s there, they’d keep their eyes shut and get it covered over quick.’

‘That’s what Spike thought,’ I say.

‘Uh?’

‘A friend.’

‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘Off the record, I’ve heard there
is
a Roman Fort – or Bronze Age or something – under Cleopatra’s – that’s the big casino next to the station? Illegal, of course, not to report it, but they got the thing flung up that quick.’

I could no longer keep his hand without a struggle so I let it go.

‘Can you promise?’

‘Can’t
promise
,’ he says. ‘But the likelihood of anything getting in the way of profit . . . and you’ve held them up that long now. They’ll want to be trading by Christmas, I reckon.’

‘I will sign.’

I sit back to luxuriate in his incredulity. Doreen’s watching, face a study, but she snatches her eyes away when she catches me looking.

His eyes are wide. ‘Straight up?’ he says, hand ferreting already in his briefcase.

‘As long as I can go today – to Sunset Lodge.’

‘Today!’ He’s startled. ‘Takes longer than that,’ he says. ‘You’ll need to be assessed and that, they’ll need to have a room for you. And there’s the paper work.’

‘Well, that’s my deal,’ I say. ‘It’s that or nothing.’

‘Ready to sign?’ He has the pen out of his pocket and the papers spread out before me.

I
do
not
take
the
proffered
pen.
‘I’ll
only
sign,’
I
say,
‘if
I
can
move
today.’
I
remember
a
phrase
of
his
own.
‘It’s
a
deal
breaker.’

Brow furrowed, he nods. ‘Hang on,’ he says. ‘Let me make some calls.’

He pretends there’s no signal, but he’s made calls from here before. Naturally, he doesn’t want me to hear his negotiations.

‘One other thing,’ I say. ‘You’ll have to take my cat. Unless I can take her with me?’

‘Not a problem. Another cappuccino while you wait?’

He’s in a hurry now. At the counter he orders and points across at me. The look
I’m Doreen how may I help you?
flicks him as he walks away is one I’ll treasure for the remainder of my days. But she does bring me my coffee. ‘So,’ she says. ‘You’re giving in?’ I was not aware she was so
au fait
with my business, but then I do conduct it in her café.

‘Giving in?’ I ponder for a moment. ‘Not a bit of it. It’s simply that the time has come. I’m ready for pastures new.’

She nods. ‘Well then, good luck,’ she says and turns away, but not before something like a smile breaks on her face, a real one too, for the first time in all these years! Aghast, I watch her walk back to her position behind the counter and present her usual chisel face to the waiting customer, the sort she hates, the blurred type with chaotic children.

I sip my coffee and stare out of the window at the waving rowan, and I see it’s not a tree at all but Mary, waving her handkerchief at me. I eat the foam. In Sunset Lodge will they have cappuccino of this excellence? I’ll miss the turquoise and orange brightness, the paper serviette dispensers; I’ll miss the comforting roar of the hot air dryer in the Ladies’ Lavatories. And I’ll miss
I’m Doreen how may I help you?
.

Although I last it for as long as possible, my coffee cup is empty before Stephen returns, all shiny and excited. ‘Phew,’ he said, ‘I knew that money talked, but this is something else!’ There’s a smell of sweat coming off him, hidden behind a freshly squirted miasma of Sure or Lynx or something of that order.

My hands shake and I attempt to knit my fingers tightly but they are too stiff and knobbly, ugly stranger’s hands, not my own at all. ‘So?’ I ask.

‘U-Save’s lawyers will advance to Sunset Lodge your first month’s keep – just on proof of signature. You’ll have to pay an extra month for urgent processing – that OK?’

I
nod,
loving
that
expression.
Urgent
processing
.
It
seems
of
appropriate
weight
for
this
momentous
moment.