Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) by Lesley Glaister Page A

pray to her English God before she went to bed each night. Isis began to do the same, kneeling on the knobbly rug beside the bed and pleading for them to be brought safely back, or at least for a sign or messenger. And whether it was the prayers, or whether it would have happened anyway, Uncle Victor arrived a few days later like a ruined knight, come to release them from their spell.
     

8
    M ARY SHOOK A clean sheet over Isis’ bed and Isis helped by smoothing and tucking it in, neat and tight at the corners as Mary had taught her. As they started on Osi’s bed, Isis heard a motor drawing up and ran to the window to see the Bugatti.
    ‘Uncle Victor!’ she cried and pelted down the stairs to find him already in the hall.
    ‘Icy,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d drop in for a spot of lunch.’
    Mary came hurrying down, primping her hair with her fingers. ‘Me and the children were only having cold,’ she said.
    ‘Splendid, cold will suit me admirably.’
    Victor’s cheerfulness seemed as out of place in the house, where gloom had been ruling for the past few days, as if someone had walked in speaking in a foreign language. ‘What have you been up to, Icy?’ He grabbed and tickled her and she squirmed obediently, though she wasn’t in the mood for being tickled and was getting far too old for it. ‘Take your uncle for a turn around the garden?’ he suggested. ‘While Mary works her wonders?’
    ‘You’ve been neglecting us,’ Isis complained as they went outside into the cold sunshine. ‘Where have you been?’ When he didn’t answer, she added, ‘George is dead; don’t you know? We found him and it was simply frightful.’
    ‘Evelyn mentioned it in her letter.’
    Isis gaped at him. ‘She wrote to you ? She hasn’t written to us .’
    Her pleasure in Victor’s visit was spoiled by a throb of crossness. ‘ Why didn’t she write to us? It’s not fair. And then there’s all this Tutankhamen business,’ she added.
    Victor smiled maddeningly and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Of that, more later.’
    ‘What Victor, what?’
    But he would not be drawn. They walked through the tangled weedy orchard.
    ‘Obviously we’re going to need a new gardener,’ Isis said.
    Victor picked up a stick and reached up to hook down a last few stubborn apples.
    ‘Look.’ Isis pointed to the silvery wasps’ nest. ‘Isn’t it perfect?’
    Victor went as if to poke it with the stick.
    ‘Leave it,’ she said sharply. ‘Or they’ll come out in a swarm and do for you, Mary says. And what a bally awful way to go.’
    ‘They’ll be hibernating or whatever they do.’
    He dropped the stick, took a cheroot out of a case in his pocket and made a great business of lighting it. The smoke came out of his mouth in a purple ripple and he leaned back against the wall, not far enough from the wasp’s nest for Isis’ liking, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. With his head tilted back like that, you could see the scar, thick and livid, emerging from his cravat.
    The train went rumbling past and steam leaked through the branches. Since George had died, Isis rarely went right down the garden or anywhere near his shed, and so she hadn’t watched the train for weeks. It seemed rather a childish occupation now.
    ‘Come on.’ She pulled him away from the nest. When they reached the icehouse steps, he stood meditatively breathing smoke and Isis guessed that he was thinking about Mimi – she was remembering, in any case.
    ‘Where’s Mimi?’ she said.
    ‘Oh, we went our separate ways.’
    ‘Did you love her?’ She searched his face for a sign of distress, but he had no particular expression. Did women find his scar and trembling leg repellent? After a war those are things you have to face, she supposed, you have to learn to love.
    Though it was so damply mossy, Victor sat on the top step and patted the space next to him. Looking down at the dank entrance to the icehouse, Isis noticed that the padlock was askew. When she