The Night Rainbow (20 page)

Is Merlin OK? I ask.

He’s just old, says Claude. And he’s like you; he runs and runs and doesn’t slow down much, even in this weather. But it’s not very good for him. We’d better be getting home soon.

But we just got here, I say.

I’m sorry, says Claude. Maybe you could play in the girl-nest. Merlin’s my friend too and he needs to go home for a rest.

Shall we put on a show for you? asks Margot.

We could do a spectacle, I say. Even better than before.

Maybe tomorrow, says Claude.

I sit down under the shade of the tree, far away from Claude and Merlin. I cross my arms and scowl.

Claude peers at me. I saw you here once last year, he says. You were underneath this tree.

I saw you too, I say.

We weren’t scared, says Margot.

We weren’t scared at all, I say.

I was, a little bit, says Claude. I thought you were going to pounce on me.

We would have pounced on you if you had come much closer, I say.

I’d better watch out!

Not now!

Why not now?

Because now we know who you are, I laugh.

Claude’s eyebrows go up and down, but he doesn’t say anything.

Margot makes her eyebrows go up and down too. I laugh some more.

I like it when you laugh, Claude says.

I know some good jokes, says Margot. We can make you laugh too. Knock, knock?

You shouldn’t listen to Margot’s knock-knock jokes, I say. They’re rubbish.

OK, Pea, want to walk with us up to the gate? Claude gets to his feet and Merlin follows with a grumble.

Of course, I say.

As we walk back up the hill I grab on to Claude’s finger. I’m tired, you have to pull me up, I say. He doesn’t take his finger away. So we go like that all the way up to the road, with Margot holding on to my finger on the other side and Merlin slinking behind us in our shadows.

Aïe!
says Claude as we pass the brambles on the path. His legs don’t fit the path, they are too big and he always wears shorts. The long branches have tangled on to his socks and fresh red scratches criss-cross his legs. He bends over and unpicks the thorns from the sock, threading the long thorny trailer off the path and back into the tangle.

Are you all right? I say.

Every day I get another scratch from these bushes, says Claude. Those blackberries had better be worth it.

I look at the bushes. The blackberries are turning. The red ones now are half black and I think in a few days we will be able to taste them. Green
punaises
are starting to queue up on the leaves. Once the berries are ripe it is going to be a race.

As the path opens out again into grazing, the donkeys pass us at a trot. I look up to see Josette, standing at the gate with a bag of peelings. She sees us coming but does not wave. Claude squirms his finger out of my grip.

I wave at Josette and she lifts one hand off the gate. Still not really a proper wave but I know she has seen me. Then the donkeys have bustled in front of her for their food and she is hidden behind their donkey-bums.

Josette gave me this haircut, I tell Claude.

He looks down at me but he won’t stop and squat to listen like he usually does.

Josette cut my hair, I shout. Claude is not listening now, he is walking faster and faster. Merlin is trotting at his side but he is whining.

Never mind, I say, I’ll tell you later.

Hello, Josette, says Claude.

Hello, Claude, says Josette, opening the gate for us. What a nice day. She says it is a nice day but she does not smile.

Hello, Josette, I say.

Hello, Ragamuffin, she replies, smoothing the hair back off my forehead.

I have got so many names it is getting very confusing. Most people call me Pea, I tell her.

What are you doing down in the meadow, Pea? Josette asks.

She is standing in front of the sun, so she is mostly just a purple shadow and I have to squint to look at her. We play down here every day, I say. It’s more fun than the house. We don’t hurt the donkeys and they don’t kick us.

I am four years old and Pea is five and a half, says Margot. We are big girls. And we know where all the best shade is, and where the fairies live.

Josette raises her eyebrows. And you, Claude?

I’m walking my dog, since you ask, says Claude. He sounds cross. I’ve only ever heard Claude sound cross once before, and that was when we were in danger. Unless Josette is a witch, which we decided she wasn’t, then we are not in danger. I don’t really understand it.

Merlin is magic, I say to Josette, as a sort of test.

A magic dog, incredible, she says. Well, why don’t you run off home now? I’m sure your mother is worried about you. I’ll see you across the road. This is not a question. So we let her see us across the road and we run up the path. Behind us we hear Josette shout.

Wait!

We turn, but it is not us she is shouting at. Claude and Merlin are heading towards their house and Josette is following them, running, shouting.

Stop right there! she shouts. Claude doesn’t turn but she catches him up anyway. For an old lady she can run very fast. Then they start having an argument. Standing there by the fence. The donkeys are watching, we are watching. Merlin is lying down in the grass. It is too hot for him. Claude is waving his arms about. Josette is waving hers too. Their shoulders go up and down.

What’s wrong with Josette and Claude? I ask Margot.

Some sort of grownup thing, says Margot. Grownups argue about really stupid things.

Hmph, I say. I’m quite hungry; are you?

Starving, says Margot.

We’d better not eat the peaches, I say. There are hardly any left as it is.

Well there is something delicious in the fridge, at least, says Margot.

Oh yes, I say. I had forgotten about our cooking. I’m tired too.

Do you think Maman would notice if we eat it in bed?

I shouldn’t think so.

Chapter 15

My room is in the blue half-dark. The frogs are still calling and the crickets too, but there is also the sound of swallows and a cockerel crowing. Papa is melting.

I tighten my eyes as closed as I can make them. Stay, stay! I say out loud as he mushes up into grey, his smile, his smell. It had been perfect. The dream had gone on for so long. I kept waking up then falling back asleep and dreaming the same dream. Papa, smelling of outdoors, of rain and hay and tractor oil. Papa standing in the doorway at the foot of the stairs, his arms open for me, bending as I ran into them. His arms wrapping me tight and lifting me up high for a kiss, to smell his skin, to put my head on his shoulder. I try to stretch my dream, to pull it into the morning, to keep the smells. But trying so hard to keep the dream is making me wake up even more.

Wait, Papa! I haven’t told you about the girl-nest and Claude and, Papa, your tractor is all peachy . . .

Where are my tractor boots? Papa’s voice is saying. Where are my tractor boots?

Maman had them to kill the scorpion.

Where’s Maman?

She’s sleeping.

Where is your maman?

I don’t know.

I think we’ve gone and lost her, Pea. Papa’s voice dissolves into the colours behind my eyes.

I’m sorry, Papa. I don’t know how to find her, I say.

Papa has gone. He didn’t even say goodbye. I open my eyes, but there is just the room and I feel ashamed.

I roll back over to face the wall and screw my eyes shut again. I want to go back to sleep but the cockerel is crowing and the swallows are chattering and right now I am angry with them. They are taking away the cool, empty dark with their noise and their hot whiteness. They are taking away my papa and he will not come back.

I feel the darkness inside me, heavy like I swallowed a big cold rock and it scraped my insides on the way down. I start shaking, the sobs come in through my stomach and out through my mouth and I curl tight into a ball and let the sobs shake me wide awake.

After a while, Margot wakes up. Although my back is to the room I can feel when she is awake and I turn over to see. Margot is sitting up with her legs crossed.

Don’t worry, my little flea, she says, and I smile. She sounds like Claude and that makes me feel better.

I dreamt about Papa, I say.

Did you? says Margot. What did he say?

I can’t remember.

I dreamt about playing tennis at the beach, says Margot. We had orange tennis rackets, but no ball, so it was very funny.

That does sound funny, I say.

Where shall we go today?

Low meadow, I say. Let’s go to the girl-nest and see what Claude has left for us.

Just then Maman pokes her head around the door. Her hair is all down over her face and her eyes are still half asleep.

What’s all the screaming? she says.

Sorry, I say, it was a nightmare.

Maman sits on the edge of my bed, making it creak. She puts a hand on my leg and looks down at me. What were you dreaming about? she says.

Nothing.

It can’t have been nothing.

It was a nice dream, I say. I was scared when it stopped.

Maman’s face is waking up. She is looking right at me.

I have those dreams too, she says. Right. The bed creaks as she hoicks herself up again. Her belly is so big now she is definitely going to fall over backwards. If she does I’m not sure what I could do to help, which is worrying.

Get dressed, says Maman. Breakfast.

Be careful, I say.

She smiles with half her mouth and says, OK, Pea, I will. What do you want to wear?

I shrug. I have run out of clean clothes. Maman looks in my wardrobe and pulls out the lilac dress that was my favourite last summer.

This is your favourite, right? You can wear this.

I smile and take the dress. It is a dress for the four-year-old me. When I put it on it is much too tight, but somehow I like how it makes me feel.

While we are having our breakfast, the mouse skitters out from behind the curtain, right behind Maman. I hold my breath. Margot pouts. We like the mouse. But grownups don’t like mice and Maman probably is going to want to kill it.

We’re right. Maman sees the mouse out of the corner of her eye and leaves the table to fetch a mousetrap from the pantry. She takes down a sausage from its pointy hook and a sharp knife from the sink. She gives it a wipe. Then she chops off the end of the sausage, leaving on the metal clip and the dangling string, and loads it on to the mousetrap. The mice in our house like sausage.

Maman draws back the curtain so she can put down the trap, but straight away there is a funny smell. It doesn’t smell like mice, which actually don’t smell much at all. It smells more like our basket of dirty laundry, full of damp towels and dirty clothes still waiting to be washed.

Oh I don’t believe it, she says.

What is it, Maman?

A leak, she says. The kitchen sink is leaking.

We are watching her face to see what to do. It hasn’t decided yet if it is a fighting face or a face for tears.

Peony, could you bring me a spanner from the barn, please?

OK, I say, hopping down.

Do you know what a spanner looks like?

A big metal dog bone?

More or less.

The barn door is open and we step around the sticky mess, all covered in ants and flies. Inside the barn is shady and cool and in the corner are Papa’s tool drawers, where all his tools are put away neat and tidy.

Top, middle or bottom? I say to Margot.

Middle.

I open it and she is right.

Good guess! I say.

I find a spanner quickly. In fact I find three, one small, one medium and one big, but as I am shutting the drawer, the smallest one slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor. When I pick it up I notice something lying nearby in a white crack of light. It looks like a hand.

Agh! I make a little scream and jump back.

That’s not a hand, says Margot.

What is it?

That’s a glove.

I stare at the fingers and along the back of the hand to where it stops, with the scratchy fastener around the wrist.

A glove. Papa’s glove. I pick it up and hold it in my fingers as though I were holding Papa’s hand. It is too soft and floppy, but it smells right.

I am going to keep it, I say. I hide the glove under a rock by the barn; it can go and live in the girl-nest later.

When I get back to the kitchen Maman is kneeling on the floor, getting her dress all dirty. But her belly is too big. She cannot get under the sink to fix the leak.

Her face makes up its mind and she starts to cry.