The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,2
feet so dirty and not mine? I ask her.
Because she spends too much time indoors where the dirt is, says Margot.
There didn’t used to be so much dirt.
No.
There didn’t used to be so much indoors either.
Papa wouldn’t have liked it.
I don’t like it, I say.
Can you remember if Maman ever came paddling with us? Margot asks.
I can, I say. She definitely did. Her feet looked like big white fish under the ripples. Her toenails were painted pink and she waggled them in the water.
Yes, says Margot. Her feet are dirty now because she doesn’t paddle enough. And also, my tummy is rumbling, we have to stop dawdling.
I’m thirsty, I say.
Come on then, says Margot.
To get a drink of water from the courtyard tap you have to kneel underneath it and the water runs down your neck and wets your clothes, but they dry fast in the sunshine.
We’re going to need some bread, says Margot.
Sylvie, the breadlady, has left our baguettes on top of the letterbox as usual. There are two of them, hot as though they had just been baked and each with a little paper coat around its middle. Since Papa died we only eat one of the baguettes each day, but Sylvie still brings two. I put the hard ones in a box outside the front door and the peachman takes them for his pigs.
I break off the knob-ends of the bread, one for each of us, and we dig inside them for crumbs as we walk. On the way down through the orchard we look under the trees for peaches that have fallen off. There are plenty, more than we can hold. We both eat one, ripe and sweet, then I make an apron out of my still-damp dress to carry the rest.
Down in the low meadow, the ground is softer and there is plenty of shade. On the path down from the road, we skip around the brambles, checking for ripe blackberries, but they are all still green and red. Josette’s donkeys meet us at the bottom of the path and we give them the crusty leftovers of our bread. Then we sit in a patch of dandelions under the alders and oaks close to the stream. Somewhere up in the trees a bird is drilling holes.
Woodpecker! says Margot.
That’s an easy one, I laugh, with peach juice running down my chin.
Croo, croo, says another bird and I shout, Dove!
I usually win at this game. Maman knows all the bird calls and she used to teach me: cuckoo, crow, blackbird, seagull, song thrush . . . She taught me the feathers too. Birds leave their feathers lying around all the time, like presents. In the days when Maman sang and baked cakes we would come out together on treasure hunts, collecting feathers and flowers. Back at home we stuck them on to paper and Maman put them on the fridge with magnets, or pinned them to the walls.
Margot and I point our ears to the sky, listening for more birds, trying to untangle their calls. It is quite complicated and keeps us very busy until a long fat hornet arrives, hovering and buzzing around my face. I jump on to my feet. Margot becomes bossy again.
Come on, quickly, she says, now we must wash our hands and faces. She takes my sticky hand and leads me down to the stream. We crouch down at the edge of the brown water and rinse our fingers in the reflections of trees, scattering half-made tadpole-frogs under the rocks.
The rocks look different, says Margot. What’s wrong with them?
They’re out of the water, I say. It’s because it’s summer.
I know about summer, of course, says Margot, and rain and snow and mountains, but it isn’t just that they are out of the water. They have moved. Look.
Rocks don’t move, I say. But I take a few steps backwards just in case. From further back I can see the pattern. The big rocks that were dotted around the stream before are now zigzagging from one side to the other, from the low meadow into the low pasture. They are making the water slow down, pool up against them and run off the sides. In the still water in the middle, pond skaters spin around in circles on the surface while silvery water boatmen and tiny fish glitter underneath.
Stepping stones! I shout. Let’s go! And I rush to the water’s edge, sticking out my arms ready to balance my way across.