Hideous kinky - By Esther Freud

CHAPTER ONE

It wasn’t until we were halfway through France that we noticed Maretta wasn’t talking. She sat very still in the back of the van and watched us all with bright eyes.

I crawled across the mattress to her. ‘Maretta will you tell us a story?’

Maretta sighed and turned her head away.

John was doing the driving. He was driving fast with one hand on the wheel. John was Maretta’s husband. He had brought her along at the last minute only because, I heard him tell my mother, she wasn’t well.

Bea glared at me.

‘Maretta…’ I began again dutifully, but Maretta placed her light white hand on the top of my head and held it there until my skull began to creep and I scrambled out from under it.

‘You didn’t ask her properly,’ Bea hissed. ‘You didn’t say please.’

‘Well, you ask her.’

‘It’s not me who wants the story, is it?’

‘But you said to ask. I was asking for you.’

‘Shhh.’ Our mother leaned over from the front seat. ‘You’ll wake Danny. Come and sit with me and I’ll read you both a story.’

I looked hopefully at Bea. ‘Oh all right,’ she relented, and we jumped over Danny’s sleeping body and clambered up between the two front seats.

‘ “Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail. “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.” ’

I sat warm against her and joined in when she got to ‘Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?’ ‘Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?’ until we heard the rustle of Danny’s sleeping-bag as he sat up in the back.

‘D’you want me to take over soon?’ he yawned.

John kept his eyes on the road. ‘Half an hour.’

Danny was my special friend. The first time we’d met he’d magicked a sweet, a white sugared almond, out of a pipe for me. I had been waiting ever since for a good opportunity to ask him to do it again. Now he was always either driving or sleeping. Or Bea was there. Bea was two years older than me and there were some things you had to keep secret about. Anyway, I thought, however magic Danny said these almonds were, they’d be bound to run out like any others.

That evening we stopped to cook. My mother made soup with carrots and potatoes in a metal pot on a camping stove. We sat on the grass verge and ate.

‘Maretta?’ My mother held out a bowl to her.

Maretta looked at the ground.

‘Maretta would you like some soup?’

She turned her face away.

My mother’s hand began to tremble. It made the spoon rattle on the tin side of the bowl as she stretched it out to her.

We waited.

‘Well, all the more for us,’ she said finally, pouring the soup back into the pot. Her voice was high and tight. Maretta smiled serenely.

A truck roared by. A wave of hot and cold laughter swept over me and I bit my lip and stirred my spoon noisily.

John stood in front of my mother, between her and Maretta. ‘She’ll be all right once we get to Marrakech. She’ll be all right.’ He put his arm around my mother’s waist. ‘I was married to her for four years. I should know.’

She let her head rest limply on his shoulder. ‘I still think we should take her back.’

They stood by the side of the road rocking gently from side to side.

‘Danny?’ I felt this might be my lucky moment. ‘Will you magic me a sweet?’

Bea, who was sitting nearer than I thought, raised her arched eyebrows. I screwed up my face in warning.

‘Damn and blast.’ Danny slapped his hand on his knee. ‘I’ve gone and forgotten my pipe.’ He lowered his voice and said with a laugh, ‘Well maybe we should go back to London after all.’ And he squeezed my disappointed face between his fingers.

Late the following afternoon we arrived at Algeciras and drove the van on to the ferry. We got out and stood on deck. Bea and I leant against the railings and waved enthusiastically at the straggle of Spaniards on the quay. The air was thick with the smell offish and oil. Some men in blue overalls waved back. Almost before we lost sight of Spain, Morocco began to appear at the other end of the boat. A long flat shadow across the water.

‘Land ahoy!’ Bea shouted out over the sea. ‘Land ahoy!’

We ran fast from one end of