Hideous kinky - By Esther Freud Page 0,61
I watched the point of the needle as it came towards me. The nearer it got, the further into the cushions I sank. The Henna Lady reached down and took hold of my ear and as the cold flat point of the metal pressed against my skin I began to scream.
‘My God. What a fuss,’ Mum said when we were safely back in our room.
‘Maybe on my next birthday,’ I said doubtfully.
Even if I’d gone through with the ear–piercing I still wouldn’t have had anything to give Khadija. Three orange beads – I was scornful – and the promise of a gold stud.
It was the day after my birthday that Bea‘s lips went blue. She came home from school looking as if she‘d been blackberry–picking.
Mum inspected the inside of her mouth. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Of course it hurts.’
When Bea was ill there was nothing you could say. She had a way of turning things around and making you feel stupid.
‘I have a mouth infection,’ she said.
All Bea could eat was soup. Cold soup. Bilal suggested taking her to Umbark and the Gnaoua to see what they could do, but Bea refused point–blank. She sat with her hand over her mouth and scowled indignantly at us as we scooped up grains of couscous with our fingers and attempted to swallow them without appearing to chew.
That night when we were in bed Bea told me that if she closed her eyes and imagined biting down on a piece of toast she felt as if she were going to be sick. I’d never been sick. I asked her to show me how it was done. Bea turned towards the wall with one glum sweep of her blanket and refused to speak to me again.
Soon Bea’s mouth had swelled up like a bluebottle. The bluer her lips became the whiter her face. Mum took her to see Aunty Rose. Mum had never met Aunty Rose, but she said she sounded like the kind of person who might know what to do.
Aunty Rose looked at Bea’s lips and inspected the inside of her mouth. ‘She has a gum infection.’
‘You see,’ Bea narrowed her eyes.
‘All I can suggest is that you gargle with hot salt water. I don’t expect you have any medical insurance?’
Mum said she didn’t.
Aunty Rose made me open my mouth too. She tutted and put one finger right in. ‘Thank heavens they’re only your baby set,’ she said.
Aunty Rose boiled a kettle and showed Bea how to gargle. ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ Bea moaned between mouthfuls of salt water.
‘If I were you, my dear’ – Aunty Rose looked at Mum as if she were a child – ‘I’d think about getting home.’ She said ‘home’ in a certain way that made me know she wasn’t talking about the Hotel Moulay Idriss. ‘I’ll pray for you,’ she said as we left.
Aunty Rose was a Christian. She had been living in Morocco for twenty years and she had one convert. Mum didn‘t like her much. She didn’t say so, but she was quiet on the way home. We walked single file, Bea with her hand over her mouth in case she saw anyone from school, and me furious that I hadn’t had a chance to mention my birthday.
Mum boiled water over the mijmar and Bea stayed home from school to gargle and spit into a bucket. Bilal brought her goat’s yoghurt and figs from the market and I offered to give up one of my dolls. Bea wasn’t interested in dolls. She lay on the mattress in the darkest corner of the room and made me tell her stories. I told a story about Aladdin and his friend Bea the Bad who overheard Aladdin mumbling ‘Open Sesame’ in his sleep. Bea the Bad used the magic password to open the stone walls of the secret cave and steal all the treasure. Bea the Bad became Bea the Beautiful and moved into a palace next door to Luigi Mancini where they lived happily ever after.
When I finished the story she said, ‘Just one more. Go on. I‘ll owe you.’ She never even minded if I told her the same story twice.
On the day Mum took Bea to the doctor she owed me twenty-two stories. I waited at home with Bilal. We sat in the courtyard under the banana tree and Bilal smoked and I watched the Henna Ladies talking to their men on the upstairs landing. One of them was wearing Mum’s stolen trousers under her caftan. I