Page 61 of Kiwi Sin
“Yes,” I said. “Theydouse them for that.” And she beamed.
“But don’t rabbits have flies on them, too?” Amira asked. “And I was going tosay,Yasmin.”
Yasmin, for once, shut her mouth and looked stubborn, so I said, “Yasmin knew first, though, so of course she gave the answer.” Timid girls got to speak up, too, under my rules. That way, they might not be so timid. And I should put them to bed right now, of course. Instead, I asked, “Where do rabbits live? Where’s their home?” Because—wait. I actuallyknewthis, for once. I thought I did, anyway. You learnt some things growing up around farming that people didn’t necessarily learn in school.
Amira hopped on the other foot a few times, clearly thinking furiously, but again, Yasmin said it first. “In a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree. That’s where Peter Rabbit lives.”
That was a story, I knew now. I’d read it to the girls. “Yes,” I said, getting a bit excited myself. “A burrow in the ground. And what does a stoat like to hunt?”
Amira and Yasmin looked at each other, then Amira asked, “A what?”
“A stoat,” I said. “Like a weasel. It’s long and thin and eats other animals. What does it hunt?”
“Idon’t know,” Amira said. “I never heard of it!”
“Rabbits?” Yasmin asked.
“Rabbits,” I agreed. “But rabbits are very fast, and they have heaps of tunnels in their burrows to help them escape, so if the stoat is behind the rabbit, trying to grab it, and the rabbit is hopping away very fast …”
Both girls were jumping now. “The stope can’t grab its tail!” Amira shouted.
“And catch it!” Yasmin said. “And eat it!”
I laughed, and they did, too, and then I remembered and shushed them. “Yes, but now that we know, you both need to go back to bed. And go tosleep.”
I’d failed completely at child-minding, because they both hopped around the lounge instead, being rabbits themselves, thoroughly wound up and not likely to fall asleep anytime soon, and it was almostnine.What if Laila had come home early and found out? After the thing with Poppy, where I’d left the kids to take Gabriel to hospital?
Also, what would have happened to me if I’d been out of bed at nine? Or to my oldest sister, if she hadn’t got me back into it?
Nothing, because I wouldn’t havebeenout of bed, that was all.
Now, both girls were asleep at last, it was close to ten o’clock, and I was alone. Well, other than Long John. I was pretending, maybe, that this was my flat, and they were my girls. That I’d cooked them dinner—which, in fact, I had—in a cozy little kitchen and not in a long, low, always too-hot extension to the dining hall, hurrying along the row of cookers and fridges manned by a dozen women, the sweat dripping down our backs under our heavy cotton dresses, pooling between our breasts. That I’d tucked them in and sung to them and read a book about make-believe animals doing almost-human things—which wasn’t right, because humans were created in God’s image and animals weren’t, but the stories were too nice not to read—and kissed them goodnight, and then I’d taken my shower and taken down my hair and changed into my nightdress, and …
My imagination screeched to a halt there the way it always did, except when I was lying under the duvet in the dark with the visions playing across the screen of my closed eyelids, refusing to be banished.
It was as if my body had woken up, since that night watching the movie with Gabriel, or it had come to life, maybe. I’d seen too many photos now, had watched too many films, even the Disney ones, with that breath-holding moment before the first kiss. I’d heard too many songs. I had all these … thesefeelingsin my body, and I couldn’t stop noticing them. Was it the Devil tempting me, or was it just that I should be long married by now, so I could share those feelings with my husband? I didn’t know, and I didn’t know how to ask.
I thought some more about make-believe animal stories instead and whether there was actually anything wrong with them, watched my cheap bamboo needles flashing in and out of my dark-blue knitting in the lamplight, and concentrated on my pattern. I was doing cables and ribs, which would make it warmer for …
“Oriana?”
The voice was low, but I jumped anyway and dropped a stitch. Long John jumped to his feet—a bit clumsily, because of the missing leg—and started wagging his tail.
It was Gabriel. Standing at the foot of the steps, dressed in his usual work trousers and long-sleeved shirt, looking so much like Mount Zion, I froze. As if he could read my thoughts.Allmy thoughts. As if I’d conjured him up like summoning the Devil.
He said, “Can I come up?”
“You don’t have to ask,” I somehow managed to say.
“I do have to ask,” he said. “There are still rules here. They’re just different rules.”
I felt the heat rising into my cheeks and hoped he couldn’t see it. He meant that men asked here, or maybe that I didn’t know the right rules. I said, “Come up, then. Please.” And tried to stop my hands trembling as I picked up my stitch.
He sank down on the step beside me. Long John started in with his usual overenthusiastic greeting, but when Gabriel said, “Lie down,” he did. Even though Gabriel’s voice hadn’t been harsh, or even loud.
The church porch was wide, because of those double doors, and Gabriel wasn’t touching me, but it felt like he was. I said, “Why are you … Were you out walking, then? Or going somewhere?” And immediately thought,Why are you asking him his business?
He didn’t seem to mind, because he said, “Yeh. Out walking. It gets a bit warm in my flat. A bit …” He moved his hands restlessly, one over the other, then clasped them. The left one still had a bandage on it where his stitches would remain for a few more days. The white cotton was grubby, and my own hands itched to change it, to check and clean the wound. How could he do that well enough with one hand?
