Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud Page A

she stood with her back to me I noticed that the long wrists and delicate hands that hung from the sleeves of her caftan were white. A Gnaoua lady with white hands! I tried to point her out to Khadija, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off the Hadaoui.
    ‘Umwi, Umwi, Mum…’ I called again, hoping the Gnaoua lady would turn around, but they carried on talking and Kahdija tugged at my arm to draw my attention back to the show. The Fool had begun to follow Bilal, mimicking him and snorting with laughter whenever Bilal spoke, but always remaining watchful not to let his feet disrespectfully cross over on to the tasselled edges of the carpet. The Hadaoui continued to smoke and roll his eyes. ‘Umwi, Umwi,’ he sighed from time to time and shook his head. Eventually he stood up and entered into a heated discussion with Bilal which I could not follow, but which made Khadija rock on her heels as she giggled and her usually solemn face light up. I squatted next to her and held my breath for the show to be over, counting the minutes before it was my turn to cross over on to the Hadaoui’s magic carpet.
    Now Bilal was on his way to Casablanca and Bea was at school. Even Linda was talking about going back to London. She had received a letter from her mother, who had not only discovered where she was but that she had had a baby.
    ‘She’s our only grandchild,’ Linda read aloud, ‘she must be nearly a year old, and we don’t even know her name.’
    Mum and Linda laughed so hard that I had to pat their backs to stop them choking.
    ‘Well, my mother still wouldn’t know,’ Mum said when she had recovered, ‘except a friend of hers saw me waiting at a bus stop in Camden Town with a baby in a pushchair and Bea who was nearly three. “I didn’t know your daughter was married,” she said to her when they next met.’ Mum wiped her eyes. ‘I’d have given a lot to have seen her face.’
    Linda had been persuaded to stay until after Christmas.
    ‘Will we have a stocking?’ I looked around anxiously, realizing for the first time there were no chimneys in the Hotel Moulay Idriss.
    ‘I’m sure Father Christmas will think of something,’ Mum assured me.
    Last Christmas we hung up a pair of Mum’s long socks. A sock each. This year she didn’t have any socks. She hadn’t packed any. I thought about our Christmas tree all glittering with tinsel and wondered if it was still standing on the front lawn where we’d planted it, its cut-out golden angel on top. Bea and I had waved at it through the back windows of John’s van as we drove away. I sat on the doorstep while Mum meditated and Linda counted nappies, and tried to remember all the things and people and places Bea and I had waved at.
    *
    ‘Would you like to visit Luna and Umbark?’ Mum sat down beside me on the step. We could hear Linda hissing inside the room. ‘… five, six… Aha!… I knew there were eight of those. One… two… Damn.’
    Luna was the lady with the white hands. She was married to Umbark who was a dancer with the Gnaoua. Luna was from Denmark. We had sat with them the evening before at a table in the outside café waiting for the sun to set. Until the sun set we were not allowed to eat or even drink Fanta because it was the first day of Ramadan.
    ‘What is Ramadan?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s a Muslim festival. For twenty-eight days you mustn’t eat, drink or smoke between the hours of sunrise and sunset and for a month no one must have sex.’
    ‘What’s sex?’
    Linda started to explain, but Mum quieted her so we could listen to Luna’s story.
    Luna had come to Morocco three years before. ‘Looking for some fun times and adventure.’ She nodded at Mum from under her veil. ‘But then I met Umbark.’ She had met Umbark soon after she arrived in Morocco and they had fallen in love.
    Umbark sat silently by and listened to Luna’s story. He was as tall and thin and black as Luna was tall and thin and white. Twins from a fairy tale. Since their