Hideous Kinky (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Bilal wanted us to leave the Hotel. Secretly. At night. He said he would show us the ancient city of Fes and take us to the beach at Agadir. Mum wouldn’t agree. ‘We’ve hardly got enough money for food,’ she said, ‘and anyway Moulay Idriss is our friend.’

That was when Bilal hit upon his plan. It was the plan he had been searching for in his head since before my birthday. Bilal demanded a pen and a piece of paper. He rested the paper against a book and began to write. He wrote slowly and carefully.

‘What does it say?’ I leant across his back. The writing closely resembled the black squiggles in Bea’s schoolbook. She tried to make it out, but couldn’t.

Bilal wrote until he reached the bottom of the page and then he handed back Mum’s pen. He stood up and read his letter like a proclamation. The letter was in Arabic. Bea creased up her eyes and listened.

‘It’s begging,‘ Bea said when he had finished, and she turned her back and walked out on to the landing.

‘There are five pillars that every good Muslim must stand by,’ Bilal explained. ‘He must say his prayers. Study the Koran. Fast. Go to Mecca once in his life if he possibly can. And give alms to the poor and hospitality to strangers.’

Mum listened. She wasn’t angry like Bea, but she wasn’t sure. If Mum wasn’t sure, there was nothing Bilal could do. He rolled the letter into a scroll and tied it with a ribbon. He set it neatly in the corner of the room.

The days were not so hot as they had been and sometimes it even rained. I kept wondering if we’d missed Christmas. Bea and I decided to visit Aunty Rose to see if her clay figures were out on display. No one answered the door when we knocked. We peered through the windows. The furniture was covered in white sheets and Mary, Joseph and the cradle were nowhere to be seen. We waited patiently for her to reappear, but when it began to grow dark and there was still no sign, we gave up and headed for home.

I was walking a little behind Bea, re-examining in my mind the great injustice of Aunty Rose and the pyjamas and how such a mistake could be overlooked. I was wearing my pyjamas now under my burnous, and even though I had grown taller in the last year the trouser legs still needed turning over twice. ‘Hideous kinky,’ I muttered and I felt for the rash on my arm to remind myself of left and right so I could begin a marching song with my feet. ‘Left, left.’ I scratched my arm. ‘Left my wife and five fat children. Right, right.’ There was no rash on my right arm. ‘Right in the middle of the kitchen floor.’ Bea stopped short ahead of me and I marched on into her. Her breath came in gasps through her nose and she put out her hand to hold me back.

Through the darkness between two buildings a man was reeling. He was bent over, staggering backwards and away from a figure that glimmered like steel and, as the man who was an old man thudded against a wall, his attacker lunged forward and struck him hard. His head cracked against the stone and he fell forward. As he fell his babouche slipped and. twisted through the air, and then for no reason I knew it was the Fool. It was the Fool and I had never thought before what an old and fragile man he was. Through the darkness that was no longer dim but clear and fine like silk I could see the strength of the other man, I saw his shoulders flex under his light djellaba and a swift, brown leg pull back. Bea gripped my arm and forced me on along the street. I wanted to run screaming into the fight and save the Fool and take him home, but as we dragged ourselves away, I saw his raised and clinging hand flutter to the ground and the beating of his limp and broken body rang in my ears. Bea let go of my hand and I raced after her up the staircase to the second landing. There was no one home. Bea lit a candle. A note lay just inside the door. ‘Luna’s baby has arrived. Be back later. Mum.’

Bea tore the note into tiny pieces and scattered them over the floor. Then she lay down on her bed. I went over to check on Mary, Mary-Rose and Rosemary. I remade their beds and smoothed their clothes and regretted that their hair was made of wool so that it frayed and frizzled if I brushed it.

I didn’t say anything to anyone about the fight. I waited for Bea to mention it, or for someone to notice that the Fool no longer danced with the Gnaoua in the afternoons, or silently escorted us at night. Nothing was said. Occasionally I looked at Bea to see if she was running over those events like I was, the sound effects living their own life behind her eyes, but she gave nothing away.

It was raining a warm rain that slanted down in showers when Mum agreed to go along with Bilal’s plan. Moulay Idriss had visited us in our room and it seemed there was no time to waste. First Bilal went to check his letter with Abu Kier. Abu Kier was a man who was concerned with his spirit, Mum said. People understood about Abu Kier. He sat in the market in his tattered djellaba and they gave him food and money. Abu Kier gave his blessing to Bilal’s letter.

Now Mum was in a hurry. She draped my burnous over my shoulders and buttoned its one cloth button at my neck. My burnous was camel-coloured. Bea’s was made from darker, thicker wool like the coat of a donkey, and Mum’s was white. We stood in the street with our hoods around our ears while Mum kept the letter under her cloak to stop it from getting wet. Bilal wasn’t coming with us. When I asked him why, he explained that it wasn’t part of the plan.

Bea and I followed Mum towards the Djemaa £1 Fna. She held us each by the hand and walked fast, heading for the shops that surrounded the square. We passed Khadija, Zara and Saida talking to the waterman, but Bea pretended not to see that it was them and, as I turned to call out, Mum tugged my hand to keep me from falling behind.

We stopped by a shop that sold carpets. The sun struckout from behind a cloud and splintered through the rain in a dazzling shower of gold. She held the letter out infront of her so that the carpet merchant would know why we were there and wouldn’t try and sell us any carpets. He took the letter. He had a kind face and he lifted me up on to a tottering mountain of prayer mats before he read it. He read carefully and nodded while he did so. Mum had told me what it said: ‘In the name of God I am a stranger in your town, fallen on a hard moment…”

Bea’s face was blank. ‘Hideous,’ I whispered at her but she wasn’t playing.

The carpet man handed the letter back to Mum and without a word took some coins from a box at the back of his shop and presented them to her.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said once we were outside. We had left home before the mijmar was alight and I couldn’t remember having had any breakfast.

Mum hurried on towards a shop which sold things made from brass – weighing-scales and pots and pipes in different shapes and sizes. There were two men smoking inside the shop. They looked like brothers. Mum took a deep breath before she entered. Once the brothers had read the letter, each in turn, they insisted we sit down and they called to a woman to bring us mint tea. Bea shrugged her shoulders at me and asked for a second cup. The men in the brass shop were very generous. They gave Mum a handful of dirhams, which she put with the others in her purse.

We only visited the larger shops that sold carpets or boxes and bags made from leather, and the more money Mum collected the more courageous she became. As we moved through the streets between the shops, she held the letter out in front of her for everyone to see.

Bea and I kept our eyes on the ground.

People stopped. They glanced at the letter and stared at us, but before they moved away they always added at least a centime to our collection.

The only person who questioned us was an American. He scrutinized the letter. Who was Mum? Where was she from? Why didn’t she have any money? He said he wanted to help us, but until he was utterly convinced by our story he didn’t feel he could. At first Mum tried to answer his questions. Then she became irritable. ‘You are interrupting my begging time,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see I’m working?’ And she took Bea and me by the hand and moved away.

We worked all day. We moved around the square, traipsing in and out of shops and standing in the street to stop the people who were coming from the market. We never even paused to talk or drink coffee with our friends. Once I saw Abu Kier watching us from the corner of the street. I tried to point him out to Mum, but in the moment that I looked away he’d vanished. As the day wore on I didn’t mind so much about the letter and the fact that we were begging, and from time to time even Bea forgot and lifted her eyes from the ground.

Mum’s purse was full. It rattled when she walked. She rolled the letter back into its scroll and tucked it inside her burnous.

‘That is a once in a life-time kind of thing,’ she said, to my relief.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Moulay Idriss was waiting patiently. He watched us as we trudged up the corner stairs. Mum tipped the money out on to the floor and Bilal began to count. He heaped the coins into separate piles, arranging them into towers of various size and colour. When every coin was in formation, Bilal jumped up and called Moulay Idriss in to take away his rent. He put his arms around Mum and held her close.

‘Bilal, Bilal,’ I said after more than a minute. I had crawled across the floor and was hanging on to his leg. ‘What are we going to do with the rest of the money?’

Bilal let go of Mum. He picked me up by my feet and dangled me upside down. I could see four towers of coins swimming.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said between gulps of laughter. ‘And Bea wants a Mars Bar.’ Bilal didn’t know what a Mars Bar was. ‘When we go to England,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy you one with my pocket money.’

It was some time since we had eaten in the square and we ordered meat kebabs and snails and bowls of oily spinach. ‘If our money ever does come through,’ Mum said, once we had started to eat, ‘maybe we really should think about getting home.’

She wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. Bea looked at her over a wedge of bread. She didn’t say anything. Bilal eased a rubbery snail out of its shell. He didn’t seem to have heard. Bea continued to chew thoughtfully and Mum stopped eating to smoke.

When the meal was over and our plates had been cleared away, Bea, without warning, sank her head on to her hands and burst into tears. I stared at her bobbing head. I couldn’t remember ever having seen Bea cry. Bea didn’t cry. It was me and Mum who cried.

‘If we do go home,’ she sobbed into the table, ‘does it mean we won’t ever be able to come back?’

Mum put her arm around her. She stroked her despairing head. ‘If you look up at the sky,’ she told her, ‘you can see seven stars that make a pattern.’ Bea raised her head and I followed her gaze. The sky dripped with stars, they hung in a mist behind the orange glow of the city. ‘Those stars are the seven brothers of the seven prophets and whoever makes a wish to them, it will come true.’

Bea lifted her head high, her tears already drying on her cheeks. ‘Oh that’s all right then,’ she said, and she closed her eyes and with her face tilted up towards the seven stars she moved her lips silently in a long and complicated prayer.

‘I think it would be nice to buy Khadija a present,’ Mum suggested. It was the day our money had arrived at the bank.

‘And Zara and Saida,’ Bea added.

We found the three friends sitting in a circle around an empty bottle of Fanta. ‘Waa, waa,’ they called to us as we approached. Mum took Saida by the hand and led us around the edge of the Djemaa £1 Fna and into the covered market on the far side. We followed her down aisle after aisle of slippers and purses and gold belts until we came to the stall where I had bought my first caftan. I was wearing it now and the orange-and-raspberry pink of the cloth seemed hardly to have faded. Khadija, Saida and Zara looked up at the rows of dresses with longing eyes.

‘Choose one,’ Mum urged, and they looked at Bea and me for confirmation. ‘Choose one. Choose one,’ we insisted.

The man in the shop would not let them touch. They pointed and giggled and sighed over each dress as he held up one after the other for their inspection. Khadija chose a pale green dress with the crescent-shaped pattern of leaves embossed into the material. She wanted to put it on right then, but Mum insisted that it be wrapped in paper, and she carried it under her arm. Zara and Saida both chose dresses in thick, shiny nylon. One in blue and pink and the other in a swirling paisley of red and yellow. Mum held all three packages under her arm and we followed her on down the avenues of everything you ever dreamed of.

Mum wouldn’t say where we were going. She walked fast through the old city and we followed her, all five dancing and. skipping to keep up. She stopped at the doors of the Hammam. ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked them. They hadn’t.

They peeled off their ragged dresses which was all they wore and Mum took a bottle of shampoo out of her bag. She stood them in a line and poured water over their heads. Bea and I showed them how you could stand your hair on end when it was thick with the lather of the shampoo so that you looked as if you had seen a ghost or you were a ghost. Mum rubbed us down with the Hammam stone and then she left us in a warm and steamy room to drip and chatter while she washed her own hair which was much too long and heavy to ever stand on end. When we were dry she combed our hair through with almond oil. Otherwise, she said, it would break the hairbrush. I wished we still had our tin of powder so that they could know how silky it felt between your toes but, when Mum unpacked the caftans and dropped each one overj their heads, Khadija, Zara and Saida looked at themselves with such wonder that nothing else mattered.

The following morning a woman tapped on our door. She had grey hair and a bent back. She was Khadija’s mother. She thanked Mum over and over, and every time she thanked her a tear rolled down her cheek and over the top of her veil. After she had gone Mum cried too but she wouldn’t say why.

We went to visit Akari in his shop and Bilal came with us and carried Mum’s sewing-machine as a present for Akari’s wife. Akari tried to convince us to stay. He said he had a house we could rent in the French quarter. We could live there free if Mum were to sew an English dress every month for his little girls. He said he would even take us to another camel festival.

I didn’t like to think about the camel festival. The camel, garlanded in flowers, had collected us from our house in the Mellah, and we had followed it out of the city and high into the mountains in a procession of singing. We had walked for the whole day and only arrived in time to see the camel sinking to its knees, forcing itself up again, staggering, and all the time its severed head was bouncing and grazing down the mountainside. Bea said it hadn’t rolled down the mountain at all, and that she had seen the camel’s head with her own eyes being packed into a straw basket. Mum had lagged behind with Akari and only arrived at the top in time to eat a slice of camel cheese and negotiate a donkey ride for the journey down.

We said goodbye to Luna and Umbark and their tiny baby. Luna was so happy that even though she was sad when she said goodbye I could still see her smiling underneath. We packed all our things into the tartan duffle bag and what was left over into a sack Mum had made out of a bedspread. I left my black trousers out to wear on the journey.

‘When you are too big for your trousers,’ Bilal said to me, ‘I want you to take off my patch and sew it on to something else.’ He made me promise. That was when I knew he wasn’t coming with us.