Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the gate, from which the black paint was flaking leaving orange patches of rust. Once, when she was younger, she’d licked the rust – it tasted nothing like oranges but rather how she thought the war might taste, deep blood and gritty metal.

4
    A LMOST AS SOON as the sound of Mr Patey’s pony had died away, I heard another motor approaching. The third vehicle in one morning! It was Uncle Victor in his canary bright Bugatti, with a lady by his side. He had taken to visiting once every week or two, often with a companion – never the same once twice – and always no better than they should be, in Mary’s opinion. Isis opened the gate for Victor to drive through, which he did much too fast in a spray of gravel. She pelted after him up the drive.
    Victor took off his goggles, grabbed and tickled her. Though it was much too babyish, she squirmed and giggled. The lady unwound her scarf to reveal hair so fair it was nearly white. She wore the sort of make-up that Isis recognised as common, though it was still rather pretty, on her lips and cheeks and round her eyes, which were hard and miniature as grape pips.
    Uncle Victor stopped tickling and helped the lady step down from the car.
    ‘Isis, this is Mademoiselle Mignon.’ He drew out the name as if it was comical. Mademoiselle Mignon was small as a doll with a tiny narrow waist and dainty, pointed, child-sized boots that made Isis feel like a clodhopper.
    ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle.’ Isis raked her mind back to her French. ‘Comment allez-vous?’
    Mademoiselle squealed out a laugh. ‘Oh, no need for that, French by name but not by nature.’
    ‘Don’t know about that,’ Uncle Victor said, and she squealed again, revealing that her top teeth were chipped.
    ‘But very well all the same, thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘Your uncle’s told me all about you twins. And,’ she patted Isis’ cheek, ‘you can call me Mimi, if you like.’
    Isis breathed in the sharpness of her scent, glamorous yet not quite pleasant.
    ‘I’ll take Mimi in to tidy herself up,’ Victor told Isis. ‘You run along and tell Mary there’ll be another two for luncheon.’
    Isis hurried to the kitchen with the news, but Mary had heard the motorcar arrive and was already scrubbing extra potatoes, her chest wobbling up and down with indignation.
    ‘There’s only the three chops,’ she said. ‘I can’t work miracles.’
    Isis looked at the chops, already laid out in pan – three small shards of bone with hardly any meat.
    ‘They won’t stretch,’ Mary said. ‘That means no chop for me nor you, and you children need your meat.’
    ‘What about a cheese pudding instead?’ Isis suggested. She knew for a fact that there was cheese.
    Mary frowned, considering, and blew out. ‘We can put them chops aside for tomorrow. Good girl. If they don’t like it, they can blooming lump it.’
    Each time Victor visited he seemed a little better, Isis thought, though still his leg jumped when he grew anxious for the slightest reason. He’d taught her the story of how he got his Military Cross, saying it was more seemly for another party to tell the tale, which, with all due modesty, he couldn’t keep on trotting out.
    Isis washed the smuts from her face and called Osi to the table. When he’d finally trailed down, all crumpled and inky -fingered, Mimi clutched his face between her hands, squashing his features like a cod-fish. ‘And aren’t you the dead spit of your uncle?’ she said.
    Mary had made the cheese pudding, a humble nursery dish, into something wondrous to behold, a quivering yellow dome garnished with chives and curly sprigs of parsley.
    ‘That’s a sight for sore eyes!’ Uncle Victor said, rubbing his hands. ‘Another drop of sherry, Mary, if you please.’
    ‘Where do you come from, Mimi? Isis asked.
    ‘Shepherd’s Bush,’ Mimi said. ‘We drove up last night and stayed in a dear little country pub, didn’t we, Vic? We’re on the way to Scotland for a