The Night Rainbow A Novel - By Claire King Page 0,57

bet you can’t get us some.

I wonder what I could possibly say that would make Maman want to buy us some paella. I make lists in my head. It smells good, but we haven’t much money. She wouldn’t have to cook, but she doesn’t eat much these days anyway. She likes yellow. She likes mussels, but not now she’s got the baby in her tummy. Papa used to like paella.

That paella smells delicious, I say eventually.

Maman stops and looks over at the big black skillet full of rice and prawns and peppers and shiny black shells. She rests her hands on her belly.

Go on! says Margot.

Papa liked paella, I say.

Maman stares harder at the paella. People are pushing around her all the time. They’re cross at her blocking their way through the market until they get around the front of her and see her big baby-belly, with her hard breathing making it go up and down, up and down, and how she is looking at the paella, with the tears coming out of her like rain.

Pass me the bowl, I say to Margot.

Even the kitchen is hot today. The only parts of me that are cool are the bottom of my feet on the floor tiles. Upstairs Maman and the baby are having a siesta under the fan. Me and Margot have decided to make up for me making Maman cry in the market by getting some lunch ready for when they get up. We have had to use what we found in the fridge and the pantry. This is what we have found:

Cheese, three different sorts. Milk. Cornichons. Jam. Cold chicken. Tapenade. Lettuce. Courgettes. Dried apricots. There are also sausages and pork belly but we can’t eat those because they are not cooked.

We also have the bread from the market, and tomatoes.

We need to have goodness and flavour, I say.

And colour and texture, says Margot.

And love, I say. When Maman was still singing she cooked all the time and she taught us the right ingredients for a recipe. You have to have all of those things and also you have to have variety, and you have to smile when you are cooking or else the food tastes bad.

We can make a salad, I say.

You can eat goodness, says Margot, but you can’t eat naughtiness.

I think about it, and she’s right. You don’t get naughty food.

I haven’t used the milk because it is too wet, and I haven’t used the jam because it doesn’t rhyme with any of the other flavours.

I tear up the lettuce and put it in the salad bowl. I can’t reach the kitchen sink so I take the bowl outside to the courtyard tap. The water comes out warm, almost hot, and the lettuce shrinks a little bit, but I tip the water away quickly and I think it will be all right.

Margot has already found the grater and put it on the kitchen table with a chopping board.

Thank you, I say.

You’re welcome, she says. Today we are being super-polite.

I grate the courgettes into the bowl of lettuce and then we tear up the chicken that is left and put that in too. We find the wishbone and try to pull it, but it is too greasy, so I put it on the side to dry out. I’m not allowed to use the sharp knives so I get a dinner knife out of the drawer for cutting the tomatoes and cheese. The cornichons can go in whole.

The bread won’t cut with a normal knife, so I break up one of yesterday’s baguettes on a tray and put it out into the sunshine to dry. Papa used to do that. It is midday and the courtyard is hot like an oven, trapping all the heat in the walls of the house and the barn and making us turn pink. I want to take off my clothes but I know that would be worse. My skin is not the right skin for that. I have Maman’s skin. But I have Papa’s mouth. That is what they told me.

We have to stay out here to keep the swallows and the ants away from the bread while it toasts. Then it will be croûtons. So Margot and I take turns. One of us splashes tap water on our face and throat and hands while the other shoos the swallows away and disturbs the procession of ants. If you put things in their way, like twigs and leaves and crumbs of