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

deft movements, as if she was sharpening a pencil, to peel it. Isis watched the golden shavings coiling on the table.
    ‘Don’t go,’ she said urgently. ‘Don’t go and marry Mr Patey.’
    The knife fell from Mary’s hand. ‘Whoever said anything about that?’
    ‘I promise I’ll be good.’
    Mary sighed. She went to the drawer, fetched another knife and handed it to Isis. ‘Make a start on them spuds then,’ she said.
     

     
    Mary was upstairs with one of her heads. Weeks had passed with no more sign of Dixie and Isis had at last given up hope. Sometimes foxes take kittens, she knew, and there were foxes around, and badgers. And even hawks and owls will take small furry prey; Mr Burgess said he’d seen a kestrel. It was one of those things, and one of the dangers, Mary said, of getting yourself attached.
    It was only early October, a shivery day that felt like a premonition of winter. Evelyn and Arthur hadn’t come home when the excavation season was over – and now it had begun again. It cost too much to keep travelling back and forward across the globe, and they needed to keep the money to unearth Herihor – if they ever found the tomb. It seemed to Isis that they really didn’t like to be at home at all. Even during the war, when all archaeological work in Egypt had come to a full stop, they had both stayed in London, Evelyn driving ambulances while Arthur, too old for the front, had had a desk job in the War Office.
    At last Mary came down and into the kitchen, white faced, her hair all pillow squashed.
    ‘I thought you were staying in bed,’ said Isis.
    Mary threw Cleo off the stove, stoked it up, filled the kettle, and then sank down, fingers pressed to her temples.
    ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ Isis said. Sometimes the word love would flicker in her memory like a flame and she would want to show Mary that she was also loved. ‘You just put your feet up,’ she was saying, when there was a perfunctory knocking at the door and Mr Burgess was standing there, blowing like a grampus, a box piled high with groceries in his arms.
    Mary nodded at him but didn’t shift herself.
    ‘I don’t know what you want with all the salt,’ Mr Burgess grumbled as he put the box on the table. ‘Sure you didn’t over-order?’
    ‘We do seem to run through it,’ Mary said.
    ‘I’ve never known anyone get through so much.’
    Mary shrugged. ‘Did you put the brandy in?’ she asked.
    ‘You seem to be running through that , too,’ Mr Burgess said. ‘Gentlemen callers?’
    Mary pressed her lips together. ‘Go along outside now,’ she said to Isis.
    ‘Are the tabbies all right?’ Isis asked the grocer.
    ‘Dandy.’
    ‘What’s she called them?’
    ‘Don’t know. Little black ’un turn up?’
    Isis shook her head and Mary frowned as if to say, don’t get her started. ‘Do you good to get some roses in your cheeks,’ she said.
    ‘Who for?’ Isis said. ‘Who cares if I’ve got roses in my cheeks?’
    ‘Mind your manners.’ Mary used the cross voice she never used in front of gents. Mr Burgess’ face was stiff. He reached into the box, brought out a liquorice pipe and shoved it at Isis.
    ‘Run along,’ he said.
    ‘Besides, it’s beastly cold out there,’ she said, risking a scolding by taking the pipe without saying thank you. It was, after all, a very childish gift. How old did he think she was? She went out through the kittenless scullery, clambered up the bricks and stuck the pipe in her mouth. It was a thick stubby one, decorated with scarlet hundreds and thousands to denote burning tobacco. Childish or not, she might as well enjoy it. It would last her for weeks if she could remember to suck and not to bite. Peering through the window she saw that the groceries were still in their box. Usually Mr Burgess would help Mary unpack as she checked off the items on her list. But Mary hadn’t moved and Mr Burgess was sitting with his hands on the table instead so that you could see the