The Night Rainbow

by Claire King

  From my bedroom window I sneak a look back down into the courtyard. The sun is already drying up the water. With my finger in the air, I trace over the last dissolving letters of you, but then it is as if she had never written it.

  At supper time there is a strange feeling in the kitchen. Maman has made ratatouille. She heaps our plates with yellow couscous and spoons the rainbow sauce on top. The food is too colourful for our moods. Maman seems to agree. She doesn’t eat hers at all, just sits at the end of the table and fans herself with a table mat. We have glasses of water with ice cubes that crackle and clunk against the glass as they melt.

  You’re quiet, Maman says.

  It wasn’t such an interesting afternoon in the meadow, I say. And I’m sorry about my dress.

  She nods. Thank you for cleaning the other clothes, she says.

  You’re welcome, I say.

  I wonder how long I have to sit at the table before I can go to bed.

  Chapter 17

  We have played hide and seek. We have poked around in the fairies’ garden. We have picked four-leaved clovers (two) and we have paddled in the stream. We have made guns out of plantain stalks and popped them at each other. It is hot and we are thirsty. We have climbed the trees and eaten some apples, a little bit sour but not too bad. Not enough juice to make the thirst go away, though. We have picked through the blackberries and found some that were ripe at last. We have eaten a handful. Sweet, soft, but still not enough juice. We have eaten handfuls of elderberries, but they taste like lemons and make me even thirstier. There is nothing by the girl-nest again. No water. Nothing. No sign of Merlin and no sign of Claude. It is too early to go home.

  What did we do before we had Claude and Merlin to play with? I say to Margot.

  It was just you and me, she says.

  But what did we do?

  This and that, she says. Margot is not so funny today.

  The meadow seems empty without Claude. We’ve been here all day, waiting. I wonder what we did to make him cross, I say.

  Perhaps he’s sick, says Margot.

  He could be, I say, or maybe he died.

  Right, says Margot, that’s it. We have to say a decision. What if Claude needs help and no one is helping him? Maybe only we know he is in terrible danger.

  Yes, I say. We have to investigate.

  We cross the road carefully and walk along the edge until we reach his gate. Heat comes up off the road and down from the sky. The tarmac is sticky under my sandals, shining in the sunlight. Claude’s gate is open and I click the latch closed behind me. In the driveway is a car. It is the same blue as blue jay feathers; it looks old, but clean. It snaps with Claude. I run my finger along it on the way by.

  The car is a clue, says Margot.

  By the front door is a spade, a dirty one.

  The spade is a clue, says Margot.

  I reach up to the metal door knocker and clonk it three times. No one answers.

  We are standing outside the door to Claude’s house, and I am not sure what to do next. It has been three days now since he came to the low meadow.

  What if Claude is dead? I say. There won’t be anyone to look after Merlin. If Claude doesn’t give Merlin his food and drink, Merlin will die.

  Maybe Merlin has a clue, says Margot.

  Do you understand his talking? I ask her. I don’t.

  I can try, she says.

  So I call the dog. Merlin!

  There is no bark. I shout louder. Merlin! It’s me, Pea!

  Nothing at all. It is scary-quiet at Claude’s house.

  This is a big clue, says Margot.

  Something is wrong and the darkness is in my stomach.

  We have to do something grownup, says Margot. Maybe we should call the police?

  How do you call the police? I say.

  I don’t know, actually, says Margot.

  So really there is no deciding to be done. We have to go and see if Claude is dead. I clonk the door knocker again, three times, and then three times harder, and then a lot, very hard indeed. Nobody comes.

  I wonder if maybe Claude has been got by the bad men, or maybe he … On the wall by the front door a praying mantis lands with a clatter, and then turns his head to look at us. His eyes are like black, unfriendly beads. He lifts a feathery leg and I jump back. I don’t like the praying mantis. I don’t like the praying mantis so much that I would rather be inside the house with the silence than outside the house with its eyes. The darkness is inside me anyway and I just take it wherever I go. I grab the door handle and the door swings open.

  You first, I say to Margot. Even though I am biggest she is the bravest.

  Claude’s house smells bad. It smells like Maman’s room when she doesn’t open the windows for days. It smells like cheese left out on the kitchen table to go runny and stinky in the heat. It smells of too-close bodies of people in the market in summer and the hair under their arms. Sour. Cold coffee in a cup. My bone is itching. I scratch, hard, opening some of the old scabs up and making the rest of the skin red and welty. At least the house looks normal. Inside Claude’s door is not the kitchen, it is a hallway. The walls have pictures in frames. The floor has four wooden animals’ feet on it that belong to a round table, and on the table is a big telephone, mostly hidden under a pile of envelopes. It is like the pile we have in our kitchen, only smaller. Also there are some stairs straight away, going up, up, up with black metal banisters and handrails, twisting up to bedrooms and bathrooms, I suppose. Margot walks ahead down the corridor. She runs her fingers along the walls as she goes.

  Any clues? I whisper.

  No clues, she shakes her head.

  Margot stops at the end of the corridor. There are two closed doors, one by her left side, one on the right.

  You pick, she says.

  The darkness ties itself in knots. It tightens and it sucks at my insides. The taste of sick comes up into my throat and I swallow it down. It is hot in this house and it smells. The praying mantis is outside. I want to get this over with. I close my eyes. I pick left. I put my fingers on the handle and am about to press it down when the music starts. The music is slow and sad and is behind the other door.

  Can you do it with me? I say to Margot. She nods, and together we reach for the other handle.

  Margot and I stand side by side in the doorway. It is a living room, it is yellow, and it is dark with the shutters all closed. Claude is sitting on a stool in front of a piano. The stool has gold buttons around the cushion part, and lion’s legs. Claude is wearing stripy pyjamas, although it is not morning, or siesta time or even time for bed. His hair is stuck out like a palm tree. His fingers are pressing the piano keys as though they are tired. But they are at least in time with the grandfather clock. It stands by the piano as though it is watching him play and the pendulum is swinging and it makes a real tick-tock. As it does, Claude presses the keys and the sad sounds come. On top of the piano there are photos in frames. There are photos everywhere in this room. On tables and shelves and on the floor and some in frames on the walls. Little girls mostly, and one of a lady. Claude is crying, the piano is getting wet.

  Claude!

  I say it first, with an exclamation mark (they make the words excited), but he doesn’t hear me, so I say it again, a little louder, and then I take a big breath and shout it as hard as I can.

  Claude jumps up off the stool and turns around. When he sees us he looks so scared, as though we are big monsters. He looks so scared that I am scared, and I step back a little bit. Margot holds tight to my hand. Claude’s mouth is open but no words are coming.

  This might not have been a good idea after all, says Margot.

  I’m sorry, I say. And then I want to give him a hug to say sorry for scaring him and so that he will be Claude again and not a crying man in pyjamas. I open my arms wide and walk slowly towards him, like you have to do with horses when they’re afraid of you.

  No! he shouts, and it feels like a thump in my stomach. He looks at the
windows, shuttered. He looks at the door behind us, open, empty, then back at the windows again. He starts to shoo us back out of the door and then he gets distracted by his stripy pyjama sleeves flapping at us. He looks down at himself and shudders. He steps back and changes his mind, shooing us into the room. His face is red and teary. He smells awful.

  Stay there! Claude says, and goes out of the room, closing the door behind him. We stand there in the dark, bad-smelling room. Claude is not dead, but he has gone strange. He has gone like Maman, in fact. Crouching here in the dark, smelling bad and crying.

  This is no good, I say to Margot. We need Claude. He can’t do this.

  Maybe his papa died, says Margot, or maybe he is having a baby.

  Men don’t have babies.

  I hear a door slam shut, and feet going upstairs. Two feet, limping feet. One-TWO, one-TWO, one-TWO. Margot suddenly spins around, and again, and again. Where, she says, is Merlin?

  I had forgotten about Merlin. Merlin is not here. Two feet, not six feet. One-TWO not one-TWO-patter-clatter. That is not normal. Merlin is always with Claude. He’s like a shadow that listens. He is Claude’s best friend. The bad feeling comes out of my stomach and crawls over my skin, over my neck and face and right up to where the hairs grow out of my head, making me cold and hot at the same time. I can’t say it.

  It’s Merlin, isn’t it? says Margot.

  I do a small shrug. But the tears are already starting to prickle. Because I know it is.

  I sit down on the tiles, pushing a pile of photos out of my way, and hug my legs to me. It feels a bit better. While I wait for Claude to come back I look at the photos, separating them with my finger. Little girls; lots of photos of little girls. Girls in a garden, Claude’s garden. Girls climbing apple trees. Girls on ponies, one white one black, up on Windy Hill, blowing black hair escaping from their riding hats, angel’s wings turning behind them. Girls in a tree house; not our tree house. Two girls riding two shiny little red bikes.

  Clues, says Margot, lots of clues.

  Lots of little girls and none of them are us. I wonder why Claude has not taken a picture of us? Why did those girls get to ride the two little red bikes and we haven’t? The girls have dark eyes, like Claude. They are smiling out at us from the photos. Maybe it’s their eyes. We are riding the bikes, they are saying. He loves us more. In the smallest picture frame, on the table by the chair, there is a tiny picture of a lady. She is smiling too. I pick up the picture. The lady looks a lot like Maman did when she was still happy, when Papa was alive. The door handle slowly turns. Slowly, slowly. The door opens a crack, a little more, slowly. Claude is here. He is wearing clothes now. Crumpled ones. He has combed his hair. He looks down at me on his floor.

  Sorry, Claude, I say.

  Claude bends down and starts to pick up the photos. He gently takes one out of my hands. He still smells quite awful. He takes the photo, the one with the bikes. He collects the photos like they are blackberries; press too hard and they fall to pieces in your hands.

  Are you OK? I ask. Claude sighs, his shoulders go up and down, his mouth pursed tight. We wait.

  It’s Merlin, he says at last. He died. So I’m feeling sad.

  I know, I say. I feel sad too.

  You know?

  There were clues, says Margot.

  We worked it out, I say.

  Oh. You shouldn’t have come here, Pivoine.

  Another thump in my stomach. Claude doesn’t want us here. Maman doesn’t want us there. Claude is calling me Pivoine.

  Because we weren’t invited? I say.

  Because it’s, it’s not … Claude loses his place in the sentence and shakes his head.

  Claude, I say, I know that you are very sad, but please, can you still play with us. Please don’t stay in your bedroom.

  Pardon? Claude leans closer.

  Like Maman. We like it when you play with us in the meadow.

  Yes, he says, I know. I just needed some time. Sometimes people need time to be sad on their own.

  Like Maman.

  Claude shakes his head. Yes and no, he says.

  I have to make Claude feel better. Margot says people die to make way for the other people, I say, so maybe it’s the same with dogs. Maybe Merlin is making way for a puppy?

  Claude smiles slightly and Margot puts her thumbs up to me. It was a good thing to say.

  I’m sure he was, says Claude, but still, he was my friend; I’m going to miss him.

  When I am a dog, I won’t die, says Margot.

  You might.

  No. I won’t. I will be the kind of dog who lives for ever.

  Pardon? says Claude.

  Nothing, I say. I point to his hand, the stack of photographs. In the top one the girls are in Claude’s garden. They have dark shiny hair and blue dresses.

  Who are they? I ask. And how did they get to ride on your bikes?

  Claude’s face looks just like Maman’s when we found out that Papa had died. And when you are that sad it is called having a broken heart.

  OK, he says, I’ll tell you a story. He is standing in the middle of the room, looking out of the window. We sit on the white tiles at his feet. Those little girls are called Emeline and Sophie, and those two little red bikes? They belonged to those two little girls. Once, he says, there was a farmer’s son, quite handsome, who fell in love with a beautiful princess. They got married, and the princess had two children, Emeline and Sophie. They were the most beautiful girls in the whole land and the man and his family were very happy. They lived in a small palace, with a beautiful garden that the princess liked to plant with flowers and vegetables. They had everything they needed.

  Claude’s voice is very faint. I open my mouth to ask a question but he interrupts me.

  One day, he says, in the summer, they decided to take a picnic to the beach. Emeline and Sophie were wearing dark blue dresses with white at the bottom, near their knees. They are wearing the dresses in that photograph there, but you can’t see the white at the bottom. It was a beautiful summer, and there were lots of holidaymakers that year. The roads were very busy. Some people were in too much of a hurry. There was a big accident with smashed-up cars, and those two little girls never got to the beach.

  Were they hurt?

  They died. The lady too. And the man was broken.

  Were the little girls very old? I ask. Claude is crying, I have never seen a grownup cry like this before, he is crumpled like paper.

  Not very old at all, he says. And I make the joins in my head, because their bikes are not very big either.

  I go over to Claude and hug his legs. He crouches down so that I am standing between his knees, and he hugs me back, properly. Quite hard, in fact. I pat his back gently, the way Papa used to do with me. Claude shivers all over, as though he had stepped out into the cold, and lets go of me. He walks over to the window.

  It happened a long time ago, he says, before you were born. If they were still alive they would be ladies, not much younger than your maman. They might even have had their own children.

  I do not know what to say to this. I know Maman was a little girl once upon a time because there were spiders and bees and wasps but no scorpions and a garden with a swing. She had snickets and paddling pools and she ate rocks.

  Did they eat rocks? I ask.

  Rocks?

  Yes, rocks on sticks? Like bonbons? Maman did, in the olden days.

  Claude’s eyebrows do a dance. No, no rocks, he says. In fact Emeline – the little sister – you remind me a lot of her.

  So, can we ride their bikes? says Margot.

  No one says anything. Claude begins to roll up a cigarette. His grandfather clock tick-tocks, loud in the space between the words. There won’t be an answer to the bike question today.

  OK then, we shall tell you the news that you have missed, announces Margot, standing up and putting herself in front of the television, which is turned off. First, she says, the evening primroses died and so Maman did not like them.
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  We threw the dead flowers in the bin, I say. Claude looks up.

  Then, we cleaned all the clothes from the kitchen that had the tomato sauce on, says Margot.

  She stopped stirring because of the dead fly on her foot, I say.

  And Maman loved us, says Margot.

  Yes, Maman loved us, I say. Until she saw the bird blood on my dress.

  Bird blood?

  Oh and there was a big fire and Margot called a flying fire engine.

  A fire?

  Yes and a flying fire engine.

  You don’t say things twice on the news, says Margot, that’s boring and there is no time for that.

  Sorry, I say. And then we wondered where you were and the spider’s web has gone and we had nothing to drink when we were in our nest.

  Claude looks extra-sad.

  But we didn’t mind, I add, we weren’t really thirsty anyway.

  It works; a small smile. A good start.

  And yesterday the hills were all set on fire and there were caterpillars in my head. And now for the weather.

  But there is no time for the weather report. Three knocks, clonk, clonk clonk. Loud knocks.

  Let’s not answer it, says Claude.

  That’s what Maman says, I say. Don’t do that. It’s not polite.

  I think it would be best just this one time, says Claude.

  I shake my head. Papa used to say that it is never just this one time. Just this one time is always the first one of lots of times, he said. Let’s answer the door.

  I know she’s in there with you! A shout, a lady’s voice. Angry. Outside the house.

  Who’s that? I say.

  I know! I know! says Margot.

  Josette, sighs Claude.

  Can we say hello? I say.

  We have to, says Margot, it’s only good manners.

  Clonk, clonk clonk. CLONK, CLONK, CLONK! Claude, you open this door right now! Josette sounds furious.

  OK! yells Claude. Just stop your yelling. And he stomps to the door and opens it. Josette barges in.

  Ha! she says. She is staring at me. She throws her hand out towards me, as though she is a magician and I am the trick she has just done. Ta dah!