Hideous kinky - By Esther Freud Page 0,42
straw by hand, kneading it into a cake with water. We carried our first brick to a secret place and watched over it jealously as it dried. When we had baked twelve bricks, Bea decided, building would begin.
On the day set for construction to start we were disturbed by unusual movement in the Projection Room. Bea put her finger to her lips and gestured for me to follow. We crept through the garden, camouflaged by wild flowers, running from tree to tree for cover. When we reached the garden wall, Bea scrambled up the twisted wooden vine of a climbing rose and pulled me up after her. I stopped to rub my knee but Bea was already tiptoeing fast along the wall. We crouched under the Projection Room window and listened. The suppressed voices of a man and a woman arguing drifted out to us, drowned by the occasional twang of a guitar. Bea stretched up to look.
‘There’s a lady with white socks on,’ she reported. ‘One man with a beard, and another man with a beard and patches on his bottom.’
‘Can I look?’
‘All right. But be careful.’
I craned my neck and peered through the window. One of the men was trying to light the mijmar without using any candlewax or paper. Every time the woman tried to help he said in a very warning voice, ‘Jeannie…’
The other man was tuning a guitar.
We ran along the wall, climbed down the rose vine and went to tell Mum. Mum brushed her hair and put on her purple caftan. She walked with us across the garden, up the wooden steps and knocked on the door of the Projection Room.
Jeannie started when she saw Mum, but the man who was called Scott gave up on the fire and came over and shook her hand. Mum told them we were living just across the garden, but that really we were from England. Jeannie and Scott said they had only just arrived from Canada when they had had the good luck to meet up with Akari.
‘We had to get out of that city,’ Scott explained. ‘Poor Jeannie, she just couldn’t stand to see another beggar.’
Jeannie shivered.
Pedro was from Argentina. He had dark curly hair that had been bleached in streaks by the sun. He sat on the windowsill and played his guitar softly.
‘Pedro Patchbottom, Pedro Patchbottom,’ we called through the open door of our room as Pedro and Mum sat deep in conversation over a pattern of cards that told your fortune. ‘Please, Pedro Patchbottom, please come and build our house with us.’
‘Later, later, I promise.’ Pedro picked up a card on which a tall woman in a crown brandished a magic wand. ‘This card you have chosen’ – he looked deep into Mum’s eyes without blinking – ‘is a true card of power and…’ – he paused – ‘of love.’
The colour rose in Mum’s face and she looked away.
‘Mum…’ I sidled into the room and sat close to her. ‘When is Bilal coming back?’
Mum, who was about to reach for Pedro’s magic card, let her hand fall into her lap. ‘Bilal?’
‘Bilal,’ Bea reminded her from just inside the door.
And I repeated, ‘When’s he coming back?’
Pedro shuffled and reshuffled the cards.
Mum was lost for words. She looked blankly from me to Bea as if after all this time we should have forgotten who Bilal was. The rash that had been growing on the inside of my arm began to crawl with an army of ants. I scratched and scratched, my throat growing tighter, stinging my nose and squeezing the tears up into my eyes.
‘I want to see Bilal,’ I wailed, banging my fists on the floor. ‘I want to see Bilal.’ My chest ached and tears splashed into my mouth. Now I had started I couldn’t stop. I could hear my voice, dull and desperate, calling hoarsely for Bilal, who I knew could never be found before I had to stop. Bea, swollen and blurred, watched me from the doorway. Her face was full of curiosity and a mild alarm. I searched between sobs for an excuse to stop, but each time Mum moved to comfort me I lashed out with my arms and held her off. I lay on the floor with my salty cheek against the tiles and howled with fury and exhaustion. Occasionally I scratched my arm which had turned a raw red.
‘She’ll be all right when she wakes up,’ I heard Mum explain to Pedro before I fell into a black