Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) by Lesley Glaister Read Free Book Online

dropping Brie and Camembert, Gouda, Edam, Wensleydale with chives (I love the one with cranberries best). Of course it was a pleasing haul, but my mind wasn’t on it. Mangoes and pork pies, cheesecake and pitta breads, sour cream and sausages, bags of rocket, punnets of cress, the packages just kept coming. At last he finished with a pair of pineapples.
    ‘Would you like to come to Little Egypt?’ I asked, once he was back on solid ground.
    He was sorting out the goods for the trolley, leaving some for me, packing the rest into his haversack.
    ‘My house,’ I prompted.
    He hoiked the bag onto his back and pulled a face. ‘You never asked me before,’ he pointed out. He unwrapped a pork pie and took a bite.
    ‘I could make you a cup of tea,’ I said. I hesitated. Should I mention Osi now? ‘A nice cup of tea on such a miserable day.’
    Spike looked up at the sky and hugged his arms around his thick jumper; in the wet it was reverting to the smell and texture of the originating sheep.
    ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not? You lead the way.’
    He finished his pie and offered to take the trolley for me, but I need it for my balance. I admit to nervousness, some sort of shame, simply at the idea of someone else being, seeing , inside Little Egypt. One person could never hope to keep it clean and in truth, lately, I haven’t even tried. There’s room for me to walk beside the kitchen table to the stairs and to the ballroom. I sleep in my chair with my feet on a box and do my ablutions in U-Save, using the WC in the scullery otherwise, so you see, there’s been room for all wrappers and catalogues and so on and no need to put them out. No dustbin lorry could get here since there isn’t an access road. Acres of space inside the house are stacked with packaging, and I believe the cardboard and the polystyrene act as insulation, which is ecological and green and all the rage. It’s all right for me. I don’t care. Osi hasn’t been downstairs for years and in any case, he wouldn’t even notice. I didn’t think that Spike, who called himself an anarchist, would judge me for the mess.
    ‘Jeez, that it?’ We stood on the bridge and looked at the roof with its slipped and missing tiles, a rowan tree hailing from a chimneystack. ‘Oh my God. It’s huge.’
    I could stop now, I knew. Once Spike stepped inside, a spell would be broken. It would be an ending – or the beginning of the end. At that moment, just as I was wavering, the rain came on more heavily, hissing down, turning to hailstones, stinging where they hit. I could not send him away in such weather and so we trudged across. I took the gate key from my pocket and let him through into the grounds of Little Egypt. Was Osi watching from a window? He always used to watch me come and go. He thought I didn’t know, but I’d catch his figure at the window. Checking up that I came back and that I was alone.

5
    O NE MONDAY MR Burgess took the two tabbies away. He knew a widow who would like them, he said, and they were going to live the life of Riley. Mary found a box, poked holes in the lid with a knitting needle and tore up newspaper so they should be comfortable on their journey. Isis kissed each on its nose before they were stowed, with a lot of twisting and hissing, into the box, and she stood watching the van diminish down the lane.
    Cleo sat at the backdoor licking her paws and seemed not the slightest bit disconcerted – perhaps she had a streak like Evelyn’s in her. ‘Not a natural mother,’ Isis had once overheard Mary say, and though she’d minded on Evelyn’s behalf, she could hardly disagree.
    Once the sound of Mr Burgess’ engine had dwindled, she went to search for Dixie whom she hadn’t seen that morning. There was no sign of him in or around the house and she combed the garden, calling his name. She went past the icehouse, down to the potting shed and opened the door. George was sitting in his chair, legs wide, in a dense cloud of pipe