Little Egypt (Salt Modern Fiction) Read Free Page B

papyrus scrolls on the walls, with their men and animals and gods, gave her the creeps. She opened the wardrobe and sniffed Evelyn’s most glamorous dress: green chiffon, sewn with thousands of sequins. The fabric under the arms was whitened with sweat and the sequins were cold as fish scales against her cheek.
    She had only one memory of Evelyn in the dress. When Grandpa died it turned out that he’d left Little Egypt to Evelyn, and Berrydale, thirty miles away, to Uncle Victor. Evelyn had been livid because Berrydale was worth more and she needed funds for her expedition, while Victor was bound to fritter his inheritance away.
    To raise money for the excavation, she’d sold most of Grandpa’s precious collection of paintings – he was still whirling in his grave according to Mary – and held a ball before they left. Four-year-old Isis and Osiris had been dressed up as their namesakes in long white robes with black kohl caked around their eyes and great tall head-dresses, to be cooed at by all the ladies and gentlemen. Evelyn, the horse, had paced about in the slithery frock, smoking and neighing with Arthur panting faithfully at her heels.
    Despite a stab of disloyalty, Isis grinned. If only she could draw, what a funny picture it would make. And after all, Egyptian gods could be people or animals, so why not her parents? She shut the wardrobe and wandered back to her bedroom where she found Cleo crouching on a fallen dressing gown, tail lashing from side to side, quietly yowling.
    Cleo was forever having kittens, which vanished overnight. Mary used to claim that she’d sent them by coach to a stray cats’ home, which, at first, Isis had believed, until early one morning she’d found a wet and heavy sack outside the kitchen door.
    Years ago, and it still made Isis sicken to remember, she’d discovered Osi with a litter of dead kittens in the nursery. The tiny creatures, all hard and stiff, their tabby fur dried into spikes, had been lined up on the floor as if for some kind of ritual, and his eyes had been bright, cheeks rosy with excitement.
    Isis had shrieked for Mary who’d spirited the kittens away, muttering about disgusting, morbid little boys, and Osi hadn’t spoken to Isis for months. But he had never stopped being obsessed by anything dead and the nursery windowsills were cluttered with the skeletons of birds and mice.
    Kneeling down now to stroke the cat, Isis was just in time to see a neat wet purse slither out from under her tail on a trickle of pink water. The purse twitched and squirmed and Cleo twisted round to split the silk with her teeth and extricate the first kitten.
    Isis cried out with a pang of pleasure. She’d caught her! This time Mary could do nothing about it; Isis would protect the kittens and Victor would back her up. In fact, a kitten might be just the thing to lift his spirits.
    Cleo nipped through the little string that came from the kitten’s belly and rasped it with her tongue until it opened its toothless mouth and gave the tiniest squeak.
    ‘Clever Cleo,’ Isis said, settling down to watch and stroke and give encouragement. After the kitten came something frightful, wet and red that Cleo ate, and then there was another kitten, and another two. Four kittens, though the last never moved when Cleo freed it from its purse and its mouth stayed sealed despite a frenzy of licking.
    The three blind kittens found their way, with a little nudging, to Cleo’s teats and, kneading with their tiny paws, began to feed, their pipe-cleaner tails twitching with the rhythm of their suckling.
    Once she was sure that all the kittens had come, Isis went to tell Victor the good news. Of course, she shouldn’t disturb him, but surely tapping softly on the door wouldn’t wake him if he really were asleep. There was no answer. She opened the door and peered into the dim, smelly room. The curtains were drawn and Victor a hump beneath the eiderdown. Drawn by curiosity, she crept inside.
    He was