Hideous kinky - By Esther Freud Page 0,20

pointed, ‘presumably means snail.’

‘Are you going to learn to read in Arabic?’ I asked Bea in amazement.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I already know that you have to start from the right of the page.’

I bowed my head. I wished I knew what side that was.

‘Look, there’s a picture of a girl with blonde hair.’ I leafed through for an orange one. ‘Why are all the people dressed in English clothes?’ There was one picture of a boy in a djellaba and a round cap but he was a shepherd and he wasn’t at school. He was on a mountain like Abdul, surrounded by sheep.

As soon as Bea’s clothes were ready she started school. My heart was swollen with envy and pride and fear for her. Mum, Linda, Mob and I watched her set off, hand in hand with Ayesha, her stiff white clothes standing out around her like wrapping. Even Ayesha’s grandmother gave us a smile as she shook her rugs into the courtyard.

‘My nappies,’ Linda suddenly shrieked. ‘My nappies have gone. I hung them out last night. Five nappies and a vest.’

‘Here’s the vest,’ I said. It was still hanging on the railing. ‘It’s dry.’

‘Maybe they fell into the courtyard,’ Mum suggested.

Linda was already heading for the stairs.

‘They’re not here,’ she bawled up a minute later, drawing several people out on to the landing. ‘Has anyone seen NAPPIES?’ Linda shouted to them. ‘NAPPIES?’ She drew a square in the air with her hands.

I crouched in the doorway. Icy with embarrassment. The Henna Ladies had come out and were watching from their landing. They waved at me.

I heaved Mob up in my arms and took her inside as my excuse.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ I looked down into her pale blue eyes. ‘About nappy thieves?’

Mob and I sat side by side on the mattress that was now my and Bea’s bed and listened to the high-pitched shrieks and bitter explanations as Linda interrogated one after another of the inhabitants of the hotel.

‘When we go out can I carry Mob on my back like the girls in the square?’

Linda was still distracted over her loss.

‘You know Khadija? And the beggar girls in the Djemaa El Fna?’

‘Yes,’ Linda said.

‘Well, they carry their baby brothers and sisters around on their backs. They tie them on with a piece of material. We could use a bedspread.’

Linda was counting through her pile of remaining nappies in varying shades of grey and white. ‘All right, if you really want to,’ she agreed.

A bell was being rung as we waited at the gates of Bea’s school. Children began to appear.

I pulled out the bedspread. ‘Will you tie her on now?’ I stood with my feet squarely apart to keep from being toppled over by the wriggling weight. Mob’s damp towel-ling body pressed against my back as she was knotted tightly on, over one shoulder and across my chest. I sweated to think of Khadija gliding through the crowds, her bundle of baby borne lightly as a shawl. I longed to sit down.

At that perfect moment Bea appeared. I took a few unsteady steps towards her. Mob began to yell and pull my hair.

‘Bea! Yoo-hoo!’ Mum and Linda waved and called to attract her attention.

My legs were beginning to shiver with the strain. Bea took one look at me and I heard like a prayer, ‘Can I have a go?’

I twisted up my mouth and paused for as long as I could bear. ‘Seeing as it’s your first day…’ I said, and I sat down heavily and too fast and began fumbling with the knot.

Mob was transferred to Bea’s back and we set off for lunch in the square. I watched her face for signs of strain, and was soon rewarded by a definite loss of colour, a breathy voice, dawdling behind, and ‘She’s quite heavy, isn’t she?’

There was a burst of laughter. ‘Well, you lasted five minutes longer than your sister.’ Linda tweaked her cheek. ‘She’s not been fed on Heinz baby food for nothing.’

As we dipped bread into the circles of olive oil that floated on our scalding bowls of soup, Bea told about her day.

‘We sat in a room and copied everything the teacher said. One girl got beaten with a stick.’

Mum was horrified. ‘Why?’

‘Because she peed in the classroom. The teacher beat her until the stick broke, and then when the stick broke everyone was very happy, and then a boy from the school next door who is her favourite boy brought over a new