Swimming on the Lawn Read online

  ‘Shukran. Thank you,’ I say to the milkman, as I give him the money.

  ‘Affwan. You’re welcome,’ he says, as he carefully leans forward and hands me the heavy saucepan. I carry it into the kitchen and place it on the stove. I light the gas ring under the pan, before going out to the verandah where I’ve left my cup of tea. It’s cold, so I tip it into the nearest bougainvillea.

  Back in the kitchen, I rinse my cup and make a fresh pot of tea. I help myself to a rusk and sit down at the kitchen table to dunk and eat. I keep an eye on the milk as it heats. When it starts to boil I quickly turn off the gas. The milk keeps rising and rising, but before it spills over, it falls back, air escaping from the collapsing bubbles.

  Just then Mama comes into the kitchen, her hair damp and smelling faintly of the beer she rinses through it as a conditioner.

  ‘There’s fresh tea in the pot,’ I say.

  ‘Thank you, but I think I’ll make myself a coffee instead, and have some of this hot fresh milk.’ She gets her jar of Nescafé and her large brown mug out of the cupboard. At any other time Mama has a cup and saucer, but often in the mornings she uses her mug. ‘How can you live on coffee and salad?’ I once overheard one of her friends say.

  Mama spoons coffee into her mug, but before she scoops some milk from the pan, she carefully skims the thick layer of cream off the top and puts it in a bowl.

  ‘Would you like some cream on a piece of bread sprinkled with sugar?’ she asks me.

  ‘Ugh!’ says Selma, who has just come into the kitchen. ‘Is breakfast going to be late today?’

  ‘No, it will be at ten o’clock, the same as usual,’ replies Mama.

  ‘I’ll just have some tea then.’

  ‘Farida?’ Mama asks again.

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Help yourself then. Try not to spill any sugar or we’ll have the ants marching in.’

  Sami comes in carrying Amir.

  ‘Amir fell out of bed and bumped his head. He’s got a bruise, but he didn’t cry.’

  Mama lifts Amir over her head, saying, ‘Who’s a brave little boy then? Who’s Mama’s little treasure?’ and gives him a big kiss before settling him on her hip.

  Mama gives Sami a glass of milk, and stands half a glass in a bowl of cold water to cool for Amir.

  We hear clapping by the gate and Sami goes to see who it is.

  He comes back and says, ‘It’s the peanut lady. Do you want any?’

  ‘We could have stuffed tomatoes as part of our breakfast if you’ll help pound the peanuts.’

  ‘Yes!’ we all yell.

  Sami goes out again to call the peanut lady to the kitchen, while Mama, still carrying Amir, goes to get some money.

  The peanut lady comes in. She takes the basket off her head and lowers it to the ground in front of her. She is old and wrinkly and is dressed in a purple and green patterned thobe over a flowery orange dress. As she sits down on the kitchen step, she wipes the sweat from her forehead and neck with the twist of old fabric she uses to cushion her head and balance the weight of the basket. While we wait for Mama, I give the peanut lady a glass of water. She has silver and gold rings on her fingers, some with dark red stones.

  Mama comes back and we crowd around. In the basket are little sacks of shelled raw peanuts with dark-red papery skins; roasted peanuts, their skins grey with ash; and also peanuts still in their shells. Mama buys some roasted peanuts. The woman weighs them out on her small brass scales. She scoops peanuts into the little tray on one side and puts round iron weights on the other. When the pans are even, she tips the peanuts into our glass bowl.

  We all help to rub off the peanut skins, each of us having a taste, and then we take turns pounding them in the mortar with garlic and salt. Mama scrapes the peanut paste out of the mortar with a spoon, before the next handful goes in. When there is enough peanut paste, Mama chops two red onions very finely and mixes it in. She adds chopped coriander and squeezes in some lime juice. She cuts the tops off baby tomatoes, scoops out the seeds, and Selma and I help to stuff the hollows with teaspoonfuls of peanut mixture, arranging them on a plate as we fill each one and put the tomato lid back on.

  As Mama prepares the breakfast beans and makes a green salad, I carry the water glasses and water jug on a tray out to the table under a tree in the garden. While I’m dragging and arranging chairs neatly around the table, I see Selma running across the grass waving her sugar doll.

  ‘Hurry up, Farida! You’d better get your doll. The ants have found it!’

  In the dining room, I discover a double black line snaking from the corner of the window, along the top of the wall by the ceiling, then down to the cabinet, and continuing through the tiniest gap between the glass doors before disappearing under the paper skirts of my pink sugar doll.

  Locusts

  Selma and I are lying on our beds reading. Mama comes running into our room. ‘Close your windows, quick!’ And she runs out again.

  I assume a sandstorm is coming. Selma and I both get up and climb onto the windowsills above our respective beds. I lean out and unhook the wooden shutter from the wall, and as I pull it towards me I notice that everything is still. It strikes me as being odd, because usually it is windy before a sandstorm. Then the sky suddenly darkens, and I hear them. ‘Locusts!’ I shout to Selma.

  We slam the shutters, and then close the glass windows. Selma switches on the overhead light. Then she lies down on her bed and picks up her book.

  I put on my sandals and run out of the house. There seem to be millions of them. Their wings hum like the electricity cables sometimes do out in the street. The mass of insects billows like layers of black fishing net hung across the sky to dry in a fierce wind. As the dark cloud passes overhead, swarms of locusts break away and dive-bomb our garden. I can feel them hitting my arms and legs and getting stuck in my hair. I keep my eyes closed and wave my arms about in front of my face, and when I move I hear them crunching under my sandals.

  ‘Farida,’ someone calls. ‘Come and help.’

  Dad, with his shirt draped over his head, is hitting the rosebushes with a big stick. I run towards him, still waving my arms in front of my face. When I reach him I hold my hands over my eyes and look through the gaps between my fingers. For every locust he manages to knock off, ten more are landing. They are eating every leaf on every plant. Without stopping, he points towards the side garden with his chin. ‘Help your mother get the washing in.’

  I run round the side of the house to the back garden. Mama points at our bedsheets flapping on the washing line. ‘Quick, help me get these down! We’ll use them to cover the rosebushes. I should have thought of it before.’

  The rosebushes in our garden are more than seventy years old. They were originally planted and nurtured by a homesick European, and their survival is due to their protection from the fierce summer sun by the mottled shade of strategically positioned eucalypt trees. The roses are watered once a week with enough water to fill a small swimming pool.

  I pull the sheets off the line with a hard tug. Some of the pegs somersault off the high wire, while others cling onto the edge of the fabric in neatly spaced rows of twos or threes, as though showing off the strength of their jaws.

  With the sheets bunched in my arms, I pull one end over my head. The locusts on my hair and shoulders are trapped, and I can feel their scratchy feet on my neck. I shriek and pull off the sheet as I run towards the rose garden. We have enough sheets to cover about half the bushes, but I can see that the locusts can still get in from underneath. As Dad and I run towards the house, my sandals keep skidding on the seething mass, now covering the ground like a slow moving carpet.

  Injections

  The whole family is in the car, and Dad is driving us to the doctor. It is early evening, and the sun has only just gone down. The sky is a pale grey that is quickly darkening like someone is turning down the flame of a paraffin lamp. Shadows elbow each other as they creep in around the edges where a few stars begin to s
hine.

  Barely visible against the sky, bats, forming a black cloud, stretch the sleep out of their wings as they swirl and loop above the rooftops, and then head towards the river.

  Dad and Mama are quietly talking about a work trip that Dad has to make and whether it would be a good idea for the whole family to have a holiday at the same time. For once it is quiet in the back seat as we look out of the windows and eavesdrop.

  ‘The actual inspection will only take a couple of days, then we can relax,’ says Dad. ‘We’ll book a sleeper compartment on the train so the children can lie down if they’re tired. It will be good for them to see a bit more of the country.’

  ‘But it’s out in the desert. Where will we stay?’ asks Mama.

  ‘Oh, we can stay in a government rest house, I’m sure it can be arranged.’

  ‘What about food?’

  ‘Don’t worry, there will be a cook. We can give him some money, so you won’t have to do anything. There won’t be any electricity, and the only water will be from a well but it will be safe. You could ask for the water to be boiled for Amir, but everyone else should be okay.’

  ‘Why isn’t there any electricity?’ says Sami.

  ‘Shhh,’ I whisper. ‘We aren’t supposed to be listening.’ ‘What did you say, Sami?’ asks Dad. Everyone is quiet, so I nudge Sami.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. Mama and Dad stop talking.

  We pass a wedding: a big tent decorated with coloured lights and lots of people dressed in their best clothes shaking hands with each other and laughing. We suddenly hear loud music, and then it quickly fades away.

  ‘Dad,’ I say. ‘There’s supposed to be a circus on. Can we go? We’ve never been to a circus.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s something you’d want to see,’ says Dad, glancing at Mama. She doesn’t say anything.

  ‘They are supposed to be really good. I read a book called The Circus is Coming and it’s about a girl and her brother who run away and join the circus and they live in a caravan, and the boy loves the animals and helps with the horses, and the girl learns to be an acrobat,’ I say.

  ‘This circus won’t be anything like the one in your story. This circus is supposed to be from India, but who knows? It’s just for poor people. It will be unsafe. Too many people crowded together in a tent. Lots of dust and spitting.’

  ‘I want to see the animals,’ says Sami.

  ‘No one is seeing any animals,’ says Dad.

  ‘Animals!’ says Amir.

  We pass a row of shops glowing and flickering with a greenish light, and empty of customers. The shopkeepers squat and chat in a group on the verandah where it is a little cooler.

  A couple of minutes later Dad parks the car in front of the clinic wall.

  ‘I don’t want to go in,’ says Sami. ‘I’m staying in the car. I don’t need an injection.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before,’ says Dad. ‘You have to be inoculated.’

  ‘Please, Mama, tell Dad I don’t have to.’

  ‘Listen to me, Sami,’ says Mama. ‘I’m sorry, but there isn’t a choice. We’ve talked about this already.’

  ‘But we’ve not been to the Hajj. I’m not a pillgum,’ says Sami.

  ‘A pilgrim,’ says Mama. ‘I know you’re not, but you don’t have to be a pilgrim to get ill,’ says Mama.

  ‘You’ll get cholera,’ says Selma. ‘You’ll have diarrhoea and die.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ says Dad. ‘Everyone out!’

  We’re in the waiting room. No one else is there, and Sami and Selma are trying out all the different chairs.

  ‘I want to go first,’ says Selma.

  ‘I think Amir should go first,’ says Mama.

  The nurse comes out of the doctor’s room. ‘The doctor’s ready. Are you all coming in together?’

  I feel a bit nervous. I don’t know why that is, because I know the injection only stings a little, a bit like an ant bite.

  Amir cries when he gets his injection, and Mama kisses it better.

  Selma and Sami take turns lying on the bed and get their injections on their bottoms.

  When it is my turn I hold out my arm to the doctor and say, ‘My arm is bigger than it was last year.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says the doctor. ‘It’s still on the skinny side, so it might hurt.’

  I close my eyes and wait for the ant bite.

  Journey

  Dad has decided that we can all go with him on his work trip and have a little holiday together. One of my uncles gives us a lift to the railway station. Mama is carrying Amir who is still asleep, his head on her shoulder, and we are following the porter who has a suitcase in each hand.

  There are a number of trains but nothing to tell us which one is ours. There is no platform, just the dusty ground and the rail tracks. A mass of people, mainly men dressed in various shades of white, mills about in the spaces in front of each train. Amongst the white are bright flashes of women’s thobes – deep blues and greens, and the occasional orange and yellow. But I also notice the softer colours favoured by older women: pale oleander pinks, the slightly deeper Turkish-delight pinks, and the translucent mauve of gauzy chiffon.

  Wafts of perfume mingle with the smell of smoke, engine fumes, and fresh animal dung. Horses and donkeys stand patiently in front of their carts, flicking their tails at the flies that take off and land on them constantly as though they are bouncing on a trampoline. Sacks and crates are being unloaded from a goods train. An engine blasts its horn, but passengers ignore the signal and continue chatting from carriage windows.

  We quickly step over the rails in front of a stationary train. Dad points to the right. ‘That’s ours,’ he says. And I wonder how he knows. It looks exactly like all the others.

  ‘Mama, I’m hungry,’ says Sami.

  ‘Me too,’ says Selma. ‘I’m staaarrving!’

  ‘I’ll order breakfast as soon as we are settled on the train. But it won’t be served until we are on our way,’ says Dad. He looks at his watch. ‘The train is supposed to leave in half an hour, so we’ll eat in an hour.’

  ‘I’ve brought some bananas and some dried dates,’ says Mama. ‘They are in the bag that Farida is carrying.’

  Selma and Sami stand in front of me, both trying to get the bag out of my hand. One of them scratches the back of my wrist, and in their struggle they kick dirt onto my foot and I can feel the grit getting between my clean toes.

  ‘Wait!’ I say. ‘You have to wait until we are on the train. If you carry on, the bag will fall on the ground and everything will get dirty and no one will get anything.’

  They both let go. Selma glares at me. ‘We can still eat the bananas, even if they fall on the ground. They’ve got thick peel.’

  ‘Sami, hurry up.’ Dad is waving at us by the steps of one of the carriages. The porter has heaved one case onto the train and I watch as he leans in and shoves it into the corridor before lifting the second, which he then uses to shunt the first suitcase further in before climbing the steps behind it.

  Our carriage is made of wood and painted a yellowy cream. It is one of only two carriages with glass in the windows. All the others have square holes with a couple of horizontal iron bars across them to stop anyone from falling out. Dad watches as Sami and Selma climb the steps. ‘Just follow the porter,’ he says. ‘Your mother is already in the compartment.’

  I hand Dad the bag of food and climb up the four steps, which are almost as steep as a ladder, and use the metal rails on either side for balance. Dad passes me my bag just as the porter comes up behind me. I move to the side and he climbs down. I watch as Dad pays him, and then I walk down the corridor, to where Selma and Sami are leaning out of the window opposite our compartment door.

  Inside our compartment are two banquettes. Mama is sitting at the window-end of one and Amir is lying in the middle of the other. The space between the banquettes is the width of the window, which looks out onto another train. We must be moving! I lean on the table that is
fixed in front of the window and realise that it is the other train that is slowly rolling by.

  In the narrow space between the door and the left-hand-side banquette, our suitcases are stowed one on top of the other. I put the bag of food next to Mama who is leaning back with her eyes closed. I sit beside Amir’s head and stroke his damp hair. I can still see Sami and Selma leaning out of the window in the corridor and I wonder where Dad is, when I hear Sami calling out, ‘Dad, the train might leave without you.’ Then, ‘When are we going to have breakfast?’ I can’t hear a reply.

  Mama has opened her eyes and smiles at me. She looks in her bag and gets out her book, The Rainbow by DH Lawrence. She doesn’t open it. She just holds it in her lap and gazes out of the window. A few minutes later Sami and Selma come into the compartment, elbowing each other to be the one in front.

  ‘Ow, stop it, Sami!’ says Selma.

  ‘You’re in my way,’ says Sami. ‘I’m sitting by the window.’

  ‘No you’re not. I’m older. Tell him, Mama. I want to sit by the window. He always gets his way. It’s not fair!’

  Mama ignores them and closes her eyes.

  Sami looks at me and says, ‘Amir’s using up all the space.’

  ‘No he’s not,’ I say. ‘There’s plenty of room to sit.’

  ‘But I want to lie down.’

  ‘Take your shoes off, then, and you can lie down behind me.’

  ‘It’s not fair, Amir’s got his shoes on.’

  ‘Amir was carried all the way to the train. His shoes are clean.’

  ‘Mine are clean. Look.’ Sami has put his foot on my knee and is pointing to his sandals. Grit tips onto my skirt.

  I push his foot off. ‘Take your shoes off if you want to lie down. Otherwise just sit quietly. You’ll wake Amir if you keep jiggling around on the seat.’

  He ignores me and climbs onto the banquette with his shoes on. ‘Mama, I’m hungry,’ he says.