The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,27

they are the going ones, with red noses and homesickness.

Come on, says Margot, I’m going to teach you a game.

Here?

No, in the orchard. Come on! she says. It’s our running day, so run!

We race round the sunny side of the house and off into the orchards. Margot is very fast and I can’t keep up.

Boo! She jumps out at me from behind a tree.

Boo! I say back, just because.

OK, says Margot, now this game is complicated so you have to listen carefully.

I’m too busy for complicated games, I say. We’ll do it later.

Don’t be silly, says Margot. Listen. First, she says, you have to put everything upside down, like this. And then she folds in half, putting her hands on the ground, and looks backwards and upwards between her knees. Then, she says, we have to race, like crabs.

You try it, she says.

I bend down and put my eyes between my knees. Up in the sky are the red balls of peaches in amongst the green teardrop leaves. The peaches look wrong and it’s not just the upside-downness of them. There are shadows and black dots. I unfold myself to have a look.

The peaches are covered in holes as though someone had been shooting at them. Thick lines of ants are marching up and down the trees and into the peaches. They are stealing our fruit, one ant-bite at a time.

Pea, you have to concentrate, says Margot. Race! So I do the crab thing again and we scuttle about between the trees, making ourselves dizzy and sometimes squashing some of the ants.

Scrunch-unch-unch up the path, a bumping of tyres is coming our way. A white truck stops by the side of the track and the man who buys the peaches steps out. He isn’t wearing a shirt or a hat. His skin is brown and he has hairy nipples. He has a belt on his trousers.

This is the peachman. Every few days he comes to pick our peaches. Last year he collected them together with Papa, on hot afternoons without their shirts on. Afterwards they would sit in the shade and drink pastis, which is not for little girls, and Maman would take them olives. These days the peachman just comes to the door and gives us some money, then takes the peaches away to sell. Maman makes me answer the door; she doesn’t want to be disturbed.

The peachman has left the car running, with the door open and the radio on, but it is nothing we can dance to, just people talking about boring things. He unties a stepladder from the roof and walks into the orchard.

We crab over to where he is, and look at him upside down from between our legs, his head floating like a grey cloud in the blue sky.

Hello, I say.

How are you? says Margot.

The peachman does not answer straight away, but pulls off a few more of the fruits. Normally he picks out the ripe peaches and sets them in careful rows in wooden crates. Today he is just picking off all the ones with holes, which is most of them, and throwing them on to the crates in a heap. It’s ruined, he says.

What happened to the peaches? I say.

The hailstones happened, he says.

Are they all broken? I ask.

Margot stares at him upside down and opens her eyes wide and white. I giggle.

Where’s your maman? the peachman says.

I don’t know, I tell him. Can we come and see your pigs?

With your maman?

No, just me and Margot.

No, he says. Get your maman to bring you some time. Tell her she’s welcome. Amaury would have wanted an eye kept on her.

His smile is confusing. I don’t like him any more, says Margot.

I don’t either.

Come on, Margot says, and we stand up and run away without saying goodbye.

Why would the peachman want to keep an eye on Maman? I say.

Maman is a grownup, says Margot. He’s being silly.

Do you think Maman would take me to see his pigs? I ask.

Pea, says Margot, don’t ask silly questions. We have more interesting things to think about.

Like what?

As we get to the path, the talking people on the radio remind me that the car door is open.

Should we take his car for a drive? says Margot.

I think about it. There are good reasons to do it, like it would be fun. But also there are good reasons not to do it, like I don’t know the way to the beach, and also Maman would be furious. But I