She suddenly sensed that there was someone behind her. Whirling round, she came face to top of head with Auntie.
‘Hello,’ Ruby said brightly.
Auntie peered up at her. ‘Sabah il-kheer,’ she murmured. Her face was like a walnut. She didn’t smile, but there were quite kindly-looking creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
‘I’m looking for my grandmother.’
‘Mum-reese,’ Auntie agreed, nodding. She indicated with a small hand movement that Ruby should follow her.
The house wasn’t really as big as it appeared. Just a few steps round a corner brought another surprise.
Ruby said, ‘Oh. It’s lovely.’
At the heart of the old house was a little open courtyard. It was enclosed by terracotta walls pierced by simple rounded arches faced with grass-green and turquoise glazed tiles. In the four corners were big square tubs of trailing greenery and to one side a waterspout splashed into a green glazed bowl. The trickle of water was loud in the small space. A lemon-sharp slice of sunlight obliquely bisected the courtyard and in the shady portion was a padded chair. Iris was sitting there watching her. Her thin grey hair was held up with a pair of combs and she was wearing an elegant silk robe with a faint pearly stripe. She appeared less tired than she had done the night before. But she also looked displeased.
Ruby considered. She wanted to find a way to stay, not just because to come here at all had been a last resort and she had no intention of being sent back home, but because it was so intriguing. Therefore she must say something appropriate, find a way to ingratiate herself. A shadow of a thought passed through her head – an acknowledgement that she was quite out of practice at making herself agreeable. She didn’t even know what to call this disconcerting old lady. She was way too unfamiliar and beady for ‘Granny’, which was how Lesley referred to her at home. Not that Ruby’s mother talked about her own mother very often.
‘Hi,’ she said in the end, shuffling her feet.
Mamdooh had to remind me when he brought my morning tea that we have a visitor. The night was a long one, and it was after dawn when I finally slept. And then, dreams.
Now here is the girl. She wears peculiar, ugly clothes. Are they the same ones as last night? A pair of dusty black trousers, safety-pinned in the front across her plump belly. The legs billow out from the knee like sails, and they are so long that they drag on the ground. The hems are all dusty and torn. When she takes a step I see that her huge shoes have soles four inches thick, so she isn’t quite as tall as she seems. On the top half, or third because the garment is so shrunken that it exposes six inches of white midriff, is a little grey thing with some black motif on the front. She has so many silvery rings on her fingers that they reach up to her knuckles, more rings in her ears, one in her nose, and a silver stud pierces her top lip. She hasn’t washed this morning, there is black stuff smudged round her eyes. Her face is round, pale as the moon, and innocent.
She slouches forward and utters some monosyllable I can’t hear.
Why is she here?
I search the layers, broken layers, of memory. Piecing together.
Lesley’s daughter.
‘Don’t you have any proper clothes?’
She sticks her chin out at me.
‘These are proper.’
‘They are not decent.’
Her eyes meet mine. She scowls, then thinks better of it. Her metal-cased fingers pluck at the bottom of the vest garment.
‘Too short?’
I am already tired of this exchange. There is a white shawl across the arm of my chair and I hold it out to her. She shakes out the folds and twirls it like a matador’s cape, and I am struck by the grace of the sudden movement and, yes, the happy exuberance of it. It’s pretty to see. Then she seems to remember herself. She knots my shawl awkwardly over her breasts so it veils her stomach.
‘Sit down.’
Obediently, she perches on a wooden stool and leans forward.
‘Y’know, I don’t know what to call you. You’re my grandmother and everything, but it doesn’t seem right to say Granny. D’you know what I mean?’
It hardly matters what she calls me. It’s a long time since I have been anything except Mum-reese or Doctor Black. ‘My name is Iris.’
‘Is that what you want me to say?’
I rest my head on the cushions and close my eyes.
After a minute, maybe more, she murmurs, ‘Iris?’
The line of sunlight is creeping towards us. I rouse myself again.
‘Have you told your mother where you are? You’ll have to go back home right away. You do realise that, don’t you? It’s very inconvenient, this … this appearance in my house. You must telephone her at once, tell her where you are, and say I told you, to …’
A shadow crosses the child’s face.
‘Yeah. I know, I know. Thing is …’ she half stands and rummages under the shawl in the tight pocket of her trousers. She produces a small silvery object. ‘My mobile doesn’t work out here.’
‘Is that a telephone? You can use the one here, I suppose. It’s through there. Mamdooh will show you.’
‘Right. OK. Um … I’m really hungry, though. Is there something to eat, maybe, before I call home and tell them everything’s cool?’
‘Auntie is bringing it.’
Auntie and Mamdooh arrive together. Auntie’s quite lively with curiosity now but Mamdooh is offended, I can see from the way he puts down the tray with exaggerated care and doesn’t look at the girl. It doesn’t matter. She’ll be going back where she came from, maybe not today but certainly tomorrow. What was her name?
It comes back to me surprisingly easily. Ruby.
Ruby’s eyes lit up at the sight of breakfast. She was very hungry indeed, and here was a bowl of fat purple figs and – lifting a little beaded cloth that covered a bowl – thick creamy yoghurt. There was a basket of coarse bread, a glass dish of honey and a plate of crumbly, sticky little cakes. There was also a battered silver pot, a tiny wisp of steam rising from the spout.
‘Thank you, Mamdooh. Thank you, Auntie,’ Iris said. ‘We’ll look after ourselves now.’
Ruby drew her stool closer.
‘Pour me some tea, please,’ Iris ordered. Ruby did as she was told and put the glass on the table beside her. The tea smelled of summertime.
‘Mm,’ Ruby said, after a long swallow. ‘That’s so good. What is it?’
‘Don’t you know? Mint tea.’
‘I like it. We don’t have it at home. Well, maybe Mum does. She drinks those herb tea
