The Night Rainbow (26 page)

Then, as though I were throwing a stick over the rainbow, I bring my arm back and slap her back, hard. I am still not very good at aiming. I was trying to hit her leg but instead I hit her in the belly. I know straight away, before she can say anything, that I haven’t hit Maman. I have hit the baby inside. In the space where the sorry should be, I wait to see if the baby starts to cry, to see if I have hurt it.

Maman grabs me by the arm, her fingernails digging into the red slap, and scowls down into my face.

You’re just like your father! she screams at me.

Her face is fire and thunder, but my voice comes out loud too. Papa was . . .

Not Papa, your REAL father!

Maman clutches the belly. The belly with the baby in it that she made with Papa, and then I realise that it is me that is not good enough. The baby in her belly is coming to take my place.

Am I going to die? I ask.

Get out of my sight, says Maman.

So I go. I feel like I am turning inside out.

Running down the stony path away from Maman and away from the house, I am a small dark cloud in the blue sky and Margot is the wind that blows me along.

Chapter 19

I didn’t mean to hit the baby, I say to Margot.

I know, says Margot. Anyway, I’m sure you won’t have killed it.

No, I say. I run my finger over my arm where it hurts, feeling the crescent-moon dents where the fingernails stuck into my skin. Maman hit me, I say.

Margot nods. Yes. She didn’t mean that either.

Yes she did, I say. She meant to hit me. I meant to hit her. I just didn’t mean to hit the baby.

We are sitting at the bottom of the path, by the pavement. I am sulking. My arm has the big pink slap on it. I want the cars to come by and the people to look out of the windows and ask why I have a big pink slap on my arm. I want Josette and Claude to come and ask why I have a big pink slap on my arm. Then I will tell them all. Because Maman is a bad mother. Because she doesn’t look after me and she is rude to my friends and because she is making up lies about my papa.

What did she mean about Papa? I ask Margot.

Margot stretches her arms up above her head. I think, she says, that you must be a princess.

A princess? I say.

Yes, says Margot. It all makes sense now. You are an English princess, and Maman stole you when you were a baby and ran away with you to France. Maybe the King and Queen tried to stop her and that’s when your itchy bone got broken, because she had to TUG you away from them.

And Papa?

I don’t think Papa knew. Maman probably pretended you belonged to Papa.

So in the photo, that is Maman stealing me, when I was a baby.

Yes, it must be.

Why would she steal me and not just have her own baby?

Margot shrugs. Maybe all Maman’s babies die, she says.

It is getting too hot and there is no shade here. I am starting to feel thirsty and also a bit dizzy. No one is coming to look at my arm, and the handprint is starting to disappear as the rest of my skin gets pink in the sun.

Let’s go and get a drink, I say.

Even before our feet have landed in the grass on the other side of the gate, the donkeys have come over to say hello. It’s like someone called them to say that we were coming and that we were not in a good mood. They push up close, nudging at my hands with velvety muzzles and fluttering their long donkey eyelashes. The donkeys smell kind.

Thank you, I say. And I stand next to the grey one for a long time, stroking the dark line down his back and his shoulders, smelling his grassy donkey smell.

That donkey likes you best, says Margot, and the brown one likes me best.

Yes, I say. And I stand some more.

The donkeys follow us down to the stream and stare over to the other side. Someone has been here and given the low pasture a haircut. It is lying flat, turning yellow in the sun, and it smells like you could eat it. I’m sure I can hear the donkeys’ tummies rumbling. We wave goodbye to them and go very carefully over the stepping stones. The field looks different now, bigger and cleaner, like it wants us to run in it, so we do. Right along the long rows of cut-down grass. It feels funny running on the stubbly leftovers, no flowers, all empty. The grass spikes scrunch under my sandals.

Claude has been to the girl-nest. There are bottles of water and a packet of biscuits waiting for us. But Claude is not there. I drink some water and start on the biscuits. They are soft and sticky and full of figs. I wonder if I should save some, because I haven’t decided if I am going to go home yet. I am tired and need to think about it. The nest is shady and soft. Margot and I curl up together and try to make nice dreams come.

When I wake up my dream is still behind my eyes. I was dreaming of a jar of beads, red at the bottom and then orange and yellow and blue all the way up to the top, with all the colours, even the boys’ colours. The beads were spilling out one by one. I knew when the last red bead was gone and the jar was empty something very bad would happen, but I couldn’t scoop them up as fast as they were tipping out. It wasn’t a nice dream and I am very hungry. I shake my head to make the dream be gone.

Pass the biscuits, I say to Margot.

Pass the water, PLEASE, Margot says back.

I pass her the water and when I take the biscuits from her I say a very big and polite THANK YOU. I have nearly finished the whole packet before I remember to offer her one.

I’m terribly sorry, I say, how rude of me. Would you care for a figgy biscuit?

Margot smiles. How kind, she says, but no, really I’m not very hungry. Would you like some water?

Oh yes, I would LOVE some water. THANK YOU, I say.

After all this I feel better – not dizzy any more and less cross. But I don’t think I want to go home.

Shall we go to Claude’s house? I suggest.

We can’t, says Margot. He put up his finger and said not today.

Hmm, I say. Well what about Josette then?

Why should we say we have come?

To say hello?

She might be disturbed.

I don’t want to go home! I say. I can shout at Margot, it doesn’t matter. She isn’t allowed to get cross with me.

Right then, says Margot. Off we go to Josette’s house. Shall we take her some flowers?

That’s a good idea, I say. Yellow ones.

Josette is pegging out the laundry in her garden. She has a pink basket sitting on the grass full of unusual clothes. We are sitting on the grass and watching her. We arrived quietly and she doesn’t know we are here yet. She takes a pair of trousers and floofs them so that they uncrumple. A pair of frilly knickers fly out from the leg and I laugh.

Pivoine! says Josette. Good heavens, you gave me a fright! What are you doing here? Is everything OK?

I hold out the flowers. Hello, I say.

We hope we are not disturbing you, says Margot.

Are you hungry? she says.

No, I say. Claude left us some biscuits and water.

Did he now? Josette folds her arms.

In the girl-nest, Margot says.

In the low pasture, I say.

I hope it wasn’t meant to be a secret, says Margot.

Maman yelled at Claude, I say. So we have no one to play with.

Who? says Josette.

Me and Margot, I say.

Suddenly I hear music, and we look up to see a band walking up the path to Josette’s house. There is a man with long hair and a trumpet. A man wearing a hat with a green ribbon around it and holding an accordion. There is a lady with long dark hair and rings all over her fingers and a shiny brown guitar. There is a big boy, with thimbles on his fingers, who is carrying a big tray and scratching the thimbles on it.

Are you having a party? I ask. Josette laughs.

It’s the
llevant de taula
, she says.

The what? I don’t know those words at all. But Josette doesn’t speak English.

That’s Catalan, she says. In French it’s the
lever de table
: it means dessert.

These people are a dessert?

Josette laughs again. They have come to play us a song, and to invite us to the village fête tonight.

I remember now, how last year they came to our house. It was the day I saw Papa smoke a cigarette. Papa followed the band up the path on his tractor. They all arrived in the courtyard and Maman was hanging out clothes, just like Josette today. Papa asked them to play a song, and the words kept saying
Je t’aimais, je t’aime and je t’aimerai
. That is in French and it is telling about how the singer used to love someone and still does and always will. It sounds like it should be a happy song, but when they played it, it came out all sad. I thought maybe they had played the wrong song. But Maman and Papa danced to it in the courtyard, so close they looked stuck together, and Papa sang and Maman cried. Afterwards, Maman went back into the house, and Papa and the musicians drank some pastis and smoked some cigarettes and they made their glasses chink.

Everybody kisses Josette, and the man holding the accordion gives her a big hug.

So, what song would make you happy today? asks the man with the trumpet.

‘La vie en rose’, says Josette.

That is a song about life being pink, says Margot.

That’s silly, I say. You have to have all the colours.

Everybody laughs as though I have made a joke.

But I’m serious! I say. They laugh some more, and then they begin to play. It’s quite a happy song and Josette sings the words while we listen.

Sit down, says Josette when it is finished. So the musicians sit around the table and Margot and I sit on the grass and look at them. The man with the hat has taken it off and put it on the table. Underneath he has no hair! He takes out a red handkerchief and wipes drops of sweat off his shiny bald head.

Josette comes back with a bottle of wine and puts some coins into the hat with the green ribbon. Then she whispers in the ear of the man with the accordion. He smiles with his yellow teeth, then squats down next to me.

What’s your name? he says.

Pea, I say.

Pi? Like the number? he says.

Or
Pie
like the bird? says one of the ladies. Everybody laughs and I feel shy.

Pea just like pea, says Margot.

My name is Pea, I say. P, E, A. And this is Margot. I am five and a half years old, I say, and Margot is four.

The musicians all have their eyebrows up.

She is tall for her age, I say. They laugh.

Well then, he says. Your house is next, so come on, we’ll walk back with you.

The band has a white truck, like the peachman’s only bigger. It is open at the back and they all climb in and pull me up. Come on P, E, A, Pea, they say, come on Margot-Tall-For-Your-Age. And we get into the truck with the drum and the accordion and the trumpet and all of the people and we drive along the road. And they are playing happy music. A car passes us going in the other direction and the people wave at us. I wave back and do my best smile. I feel like a princess at last.

The musicians follow us around the house into the courtyard. They are still teasing me.

Shall we get your maman? says the man with the long hair and the trumpet. His hair is shiny and I would like to touch it to see what it feels like.

Better not, I say. She prefers it inside and she’s probably asleep.

Maybe we shouldn’t play, then, he says. We shouldn’t wake her up.

I think about it. I am still extremely cross with Maman. That’s OK, I say. She’s deaf.

Oh, says the man. OK then P, E, A, Pea, what song would you like me to play?

I try hard to think, but I can’t think of anything.

I don’t know, I say.

Well, says the guitar lady, bending down and taking one of my hands. She has a soft, kind face. She is very pretty. Well, she says, when is your birthday?

My birthday is on the seventeenth of September, I say. I will be six years old.

Well then you are more than five and a half years old, says the lady. You are nearly six.

I suppose that is true. Papa told me I was five and a half but that was a long time ago.

How many days is it to my birthday? I ask the lady.

More than you can count on your fingers and toes, she says. But less than if we used my fingers and toes too.

But how many? I say. The fingers-and-toes thing is very complicated. Why do grownups complicate things all the time?

Pea can count to a hundred, you know, says Margot.

Thirty-five, says the lady, smiling.

Three and five, I say. And I draw it in the air with my finger.

Very clever, says the lady.

That’s not such a long way off, is it?