Comfort and Joy (22 page)

‘Exactly,’ says Kate.

‘Would they mind not knowing her?’ I ask Flo.

‘I shouldn’t think so. They love strangers,’ says Flo. ‘Another one of my maternal failings. Show them a stranger and my children
hurtle towards them, squealing with joy. So it’s got to
be worth a try. Provided she’s kind. Is she kind, Kate? She seemed nice.’

‘I thought she had kind eyes,’ says Evie. ‘You can always tell. Sometimes mean people have kind faces, which is so wrong and
upsetting, but you can always tell by the ole eyes.’

‘She is absolutely lovely,’ says Kate. ‘We had a long chat. I would trust her
implicitly
.’

‘Excellent,’ says Flo, bouncing off the bed. ‘I’ll go and tell Ed.’

‘I need to decorate,’ I say. ‘Though I suppose I could do it when we get back.’

‘How do you mean, decorate?’

‘Well, I brought a few things from home. For, er, continuity.’

‘Rather mad of you,’ says Kate, ‘though I suppose not a bad idea. It’s marvellous to be here, but I can’t honestly say Marrakesh
exudes
Christmas spirit. I brought a few things too, actually.’

‘So did I,’ says Evie. ‘What shall we do, then? Shall we walk? I rather fancied the look of those horse-drawn carriages, except
they were back in the new town. Do you remember, Clara, when you started me on Georgette Heyer? I used to want to go everywhere
by phaeton.’

‘I was made for sedan chairs,’ sighs Kate. ‘I was born in the wrong century.’

‘I think we should walk,’ I say. ‘Get a bit lost and see what happens. We’re bang in the middle of everything – we don’t actually
need any transport.’

‘I want to take Pat with us,’ says Flo.

‘Flo! She’s not a sort of
creature
you can carry about like a pet,’ says Kate.

‘I totally would, though, wouldn’t you? If she was chihuahua sized and I could stick her in my handbag,’ says Flo. ‘I would
ensure she never left my side.’

‘I would feed her tiny treats,’ says Evie. ‘Wee snacks. She would be blissfully happy and well cared for.’

‘I’d brush her fur,’ says Flo.

‘I’d put ribbons on her ears,’ says Evie.

‘You are absurd, girls,’ says Kate. ‘Quite ludicrous. But fine – let’s ask her if she wants to come along. I’ll go. We’ll
leave in ten minutes, to give Clara time to change out of her grotesque costume.’

‘It was for the plane,’ I say. ‘Leggings have a lot of give. They help me curl up into the foetal position while I scream
on the inside. I’ll put on a dress.’

‘Mind your bosoms,’ says Kate. ‘The exposure thereof.’

‘I thought the dark blue, with the décolleté to the navel,’ I say. ‘And no underwear. No?’

‘Teach us, Mother. Teach us the ways of the local peoples,’ says Flo.

‘The poo-er locals. I thought the boob tube,’ says Evie. ‘Or maybe just a bikini top.’

‘Just pants,’ says Flo. ‘Let’s all go in our pants. And maybe go and hang outside a mosque. You have raised us well, Kate.’

‘You’re exasperating,’ says Kate. ‘All of you. I was just reminding you to be culturally sensitive. I could go out without
a stitch on and nobody would bat an eyelid, but you all have the wrong sorts of faces. You promise much. I wonder why. None
of you got that from me.’

‘What do you mean, “promise much”?’ I ask, suppressing a laugh.

‘She means we’re hot,’ says Evie.

‘She means we’re vulgar,’ says Flo.

‘She means we look come-hitherish,’ says Evie. ‘Not at all the vibe I was going for, which is much more
noli me tangere
glacial ice-queen.’

‘I mean nothing of the sort. I mean you look knowing. Rather
wild
.’

‘Grr,’ says Flo, making tiger shapes with her hands. ‘Roar. I’m a-swishin’ my tai-yul, mamma.’

‘Too silly,’ says Kate. ‘I’m going downstairs to find Pat now.’

Fifteen minutes later we finally head out into the heaving street. Kate almost immediately suggests that our first port of
call should be ‘a burka shop’, which given the amount of attention we are getting – perhaps my sisters and I are leering wildly
and knowingly without being aware of doing it – doesn’t seem a bad idea.

‘Go and ask that lady where the nearest one is, Clara,’ Kate says, gesturing to a grandmotherly-looking woman.

‘I don’t know, Kate. It might be, you know, a tiny bit culturally dubious to stick ourselves inside burkas just because we
don’t particularly enjoy being looked at.’

‘That is the
entire point
of burkas, you goose,’ says Kate, rolling her eyes. ‘That is why they were
invented
. To prevent ogling.’

‘I adore being looked at,’ says Evie.

‘Yes, but I don’t know that one can just turn up and appropriate a religious custom in that way …’

‘Nonsense,’ says Kate. ‘Don’t lecture me about local customs. I am exceptionally well travelled. Everyone will be thrilled.
Not that many women wear them here. We’ll be among the special few.’

‘I still think –’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Now you’ve taken so long that the old woman has gone.’

‘The only reason people are staring is because of our clothes and because there are so many of us. It would help if we weren’t
walking five abreast,’ I say.

‘And because of our come-hither faces,’ says Evie. ‘That promise much.’

‘And because of Pat’s sombrero,’ says Flo. ‘To be frank.’

‘Aye. It’s getting a fair bit of attention,’ says Pat, who is not tall and who looks like the cartoon drawings of Mexicans
we used to do at school: a huge hat and two tiny legs. ‘Oops!’ she says, as she brushes the hat right into a man’s face. ‘Forgiving,’
she says to him.

‘Pat,’ says Kate. ‘Why have you been speaking in that odd way ever since we arrived?’

‘It’s easier for them to understand,’ says Pat matter-of-factly.

‘Ah. Right. Quite a lot of them speak English, you know. As well as French. And Arabic.’

‘I
am
speaking English,’ says Pat. ‘That’s the point.’

‘I want to learn it,’ says Evie. ‘How do you do it, Pat? How would you say, “I’d like a mint tea, please”?’

‘Greeny tea, choppy,’ says Pat, without thinking twice.

‘It’s basically speaking in tongues. The power is flowing through you, Pat, you marvel,’ says Flo. ‘How would you say, “I
would like a remedy for my bunion”?’

‘Sore toot-toot. Fixy!’ says Pat instantly.

‘Open to hideous misinterpretation, that one,’ Kate murmurs.

‘How would you say, “Do you have it in the pink?” ’ asks Evie.

‘Rosy have prithee?’ says Pat. It’s like automatic writing: she doesn’t even have to think about it.

‘Perhaps I’ll do the speaking,’ says Kate. ‘Ah, now look. This seems interesting.’ We have arrived at what seems to be an
enormous furniture barn; its doors are open. Elaborate, multicoloured glass lanterns like the ones in our house dangle enticingly
from the ceiling; the tables are piled high with china, pottery, tea glasses, brass teapots, beaded quilts, cushion covers
and so on and on: it’s ye olde traditional tourists’ Aladdin’s cave.

‘Let’s go in,’ says Flo. ‘It looks fabulous.’ Which indeed it is: beautiful things as far as the eye can see.

‘It’s that exotic here,’ says Pat, looking around. ‘Back home, we’d call it a pile of old junk. Don’t they sell anything new?’

‘Excellent point, Pat, to which the answer is no,’ says Kate. ‘It’s to do with class, tiresomely enough. We like old junk,
partly because we think it shows we have
souls
and partly because we don’t think owning broken, rickety things makes us look like they’re all we can afford. You’d probably
prefer something shiny and new from a department store.’

‘I would,’ says Pat. ‘Though I like a nice rug.’

‘Rugs over there,’ says the sales assistant, pointing to another room. ‘And may I offer you all some mint tea while you look
around?’

‘He speaks English,’ Pat says. The man is standing three inches away from her. ‘He speaks English! Would you listen to that?
Oh my days.’ She looks the man straight in the eye, holds two erect thumbs aloft and says, louder than is necessary, ‘Speaky
bueno!’

The man from the shop smiles a tight little smile and gestures again towards the rug room, then claps his hands and asks a
young boy to bring us tea.

‘I’d like one with cats on,’ Pat tells the man. ‘They had one in the Argos catalogue. Do you have anything with wee cats on?
Taily-miaow?’ Still unconvinced by his demonstrably fluent English, she mimes being a cat, which involves an unbearably coy
expression and doing weird paw-things with her hands, much like Flo’s tiger act earlier, but creepier. I love Pat, but I am
beginning to find her Abroad-mode challenging.

‘It’s so disturbing when elderly people do little-kid things,’ says Evie. ‘I hate to look upon it.’

‘I can’t believe you said, “It’s to do with class,” ’ I tell Kate
while Pat takes a seat and the men busy themselves unrolling carpets.

‘What?’ says Kate. ‘Of course it’s to do with class. Absurd not to say so when it’s perfectly true. My relationship with Pat
is based on honesty.’

‘I know, Kate. But we’re not supposed to allude to the fact that we are relentlessly bourgeois. We’re supposed to be more
sort of … elastic.’

‘Ludicrous,’ says Kate. ‘Can’t stand any of that nonsense. We’re perfectly elastic but I don’t have class shame, and neither
does Pat. I don’t see what the issue is. She is more proletarian than us. Simple fact of life.’

‘Yah,’ says Flo. ‘Let’s buy some old junk.’

The shop owner and his two assistants have by now laid a good two dozen rugs out for our delectation. We sit on some low banquettes
while he explains the provenance of each, the differences in weave and pattern, the origins of the dyes that have been used
– and, of course, the prices, which being in dirhams mean very little to any of us. The tea arrives; Pat automatically raises
the glass to her nose before sniffing it deeply.

‘Pat!’ I say more sharply than I’d meant to. ‘It’s mint tea. It’s mint leaves and water and sugar. It’s delicious. Please
don’t sniff it.’

‘Smells all right,’ Pat says. She speaks before unwrinkling her nose, so that her facial expression is that of an especially
dim and toothy hamster.

‘Well, they’re hardly going to serve you a glass of warm piss,’ I say, which causes Pat to laugh heartily.

I’m not laughing at all. It’s funny how you reach your natural threshold with stuff. Pat’s dog-like sniffing of nice things
she is given to eat or drink (often by me) has annoyed me for
years, but today, for some reason – perhaps the fact that I’ve only had a couple of hours’ sleep – the annoyance has mutated
into purest exasperation. What does she think she is, some medieval food taster, checking the King’s food for poison? It’s
just so rude: the implication is that people – kind people, who’ve gone to the trouble of making you a meal or a drink – have
sneakily shoved in something disgusting, like minced insoles or powdered guano. Or that they are so inept at cooking that
you need to smell their food to make sure it’s not going to make you vomit onto the ground. I mean, you know –
really
. Of all the rudenesses. I make a mental note to brace myself against the orgy of plate-sniffing that’s in store tomorrow,
when we’re served our atypical Christmas dinner – the plate brought, with great suspicion, up to the twitching nostril, or
maybe the head bending down to the table, so that the nose is level with the plate. And then: sniiiiiiiiiiiiff. Aargh.

‘No cats, though,’ says Pat mournfully, dismissing a selection of rugs with a sad wave of the hand.

‘Did you want an actual cat’s face?’ asks Evie.

‘Aye, or a face and a body,’ says Pat.

‘And a tail,’ says Flo.

‘You don’t like these patterned ones?’ says Kate. ‘None of them? What about the plain ones? The colours are lovely.’

‘No,’ says Pat.

‘Madame dislikes all of these?’ asks the shop owner. ‘I have many more.’

‘They’re not to my taste,’ says Pat loftily. ‘I collect cats, see. Oh, sorry, son. I mean, collecto puss. These ones, baddy.
Caca rug.’

‘Oh God,’ whispers Flo. ‘Please help me, Clara.’

‘I can’t,’ I say helplessly. I am biting the inside of my cheeks. The poor man.

‘
Caca
means poo in French, Pat,’ says Evie, her voice
carefully modulated. ‘And in English too, actually, I think. So, it’s kind of quite a rude thing to say.’

‘Oh!’ says Pat. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. No shitey,’ she says to the man, who is now looking pretty irked, and who can
blame him? ‘Ruggies bueno, ruggies nice. But –’ and here she mimes tragedy, pulling the sort of face one might make if one’s
firstborn had just been slaughtered ‘ – no pussy, see?’

‘Pussy?’ says the man.

‘Aye. Taily-miaow,’ Pat repeats, for emphasis.

‘That’s enough,’ says Kate, whose eyes, I notice, have a strange sheen about them, almost as though she were about to cry
with laughter. She turns to the man. ‘
Madame n’aime que les tapis avec des motifs de chats. Elle n’a aucun goût. Je suis désolée
.’

‘
Ça ne fait rien, Madame, ça ne fait rien
,’ says the man, perking up a bit (thank God).

‘
Moi, par contre, j’aimerais voir ce que vous avez de Berbère
,’ says Kate. ‘Girls – why don’t you take Pat for a coffee? There was a place just further down, on this street. I’ll catch
you up. Call me if you go anywhere else.’

‘Sorry for saying caca, Kate,’ Pat says humbly. That annoys me too, the suggestion of forelock-tugging in her voice and the
fact she is addressing her apology to Kate, not to the man from the shop, whose rugs she has just compared to faeces. Faeces,
for God’s sake.

‘I’ll catch you all up,’ Kate repeats, quite loudly. ‘Please go. Now, ideally.’

We bundle Pat and Pat’s sombrero out of the shop and walk down to the café Kate has mentioned. We’re only fifteen minutes
or so away from home, and it occurs to me that we could do with Sam being here. We could feed Maisy a snack and generally
try to behave like normal people. I call him on the mobile and they arrive a short while later. Maisy immediately starts to
demolish a plate of pastries.