Gold

Dieke creeps down the stairs. She knows it’s really early, that’s why she’s creeping. It’s nice to be downstairs again. Not that she’s scared upstairs, but once she’s outside her bedroom there’s a lot of empty space, with a couple of empty rooms and a high-peaked roof with a crossbeam and a bare bulb hanging down that doesn’t give enough light.

The door to her parents’ bedroom is wide open. Inside it’s orange – that’s the curtains. She stares at her father and mother, who are bobbing up and down slightly on the enormous waterbed as they sleep. Her mother almost completely under the duvet, her father only half. She used to have her mother to herself at this time of day. She tugs on the arm her mother has out on top of the covers.

‘I already heard you,’ her mother says. ‘You don’t need to pull my arm too.’

‘Where’s Uncle Jan?’ Dieke asks.

Her mother looks at the alarm clock. ‘It’s six o’clock, Diek. He’s still in bed, where else would he be? Everyone’s still in bed at six o’clock. Except for farmers.’

‘When’s he going to get up, then?

‘Later,’ her mother sighs. ‘You go back to bed now too.’

‘I want to stay here with you.’ Without waiting for permission, she climbs in next to her. A wave passes through the bed. It’s almost like a swimming pool, and then being on a wooden raft, like the raft that floats in zone two, the part of the pool she’s allowed in with water wings.

‘But no wriggling, OK?’ her father says.

‘Can you do your legs?’

Her mother rolls over onto her side and pulls up her legs. Dieke slips her feet in between her raised thighs. It feels lovely, even now it’s summer, with her feet warm almost all the time, but in winter it’s even better and never gets clammy. She lies calmly on her back staring at the red curtain.

‘Is he staying today?’

‘Yes, Diek,’ her mother says in a sleepy voice. ‘I think he’s staying all day.’

‘Why isn’t he coming to the swimming pool then?’

‘Because he’s got something else to do,’ her father says.

‘I think it’s strange. If it’s this hot, you go to the swimming pool.’

‘Go to sleep, Diek,’ her father says. ‘Now.’

Dieke closes her eyes and folds her hands together on her stomach. Sleep, she thinks, now. And falls asleep.

Three hours later she’s standing on the wide windowsill in the kitchen; her mother is down in the cellar. Even the brown tiles under her feet are warm. She hasn’t got dressed yet, she’s still in just knickers and a vest. There is one plant on the windowsill. It’s a kind of cactus, she knows that, but it’s a cactus that doesn’t have prickles. She’s waiting for her grandfather to appear. ‘Where is Grandma? Where is Grandma?’ she hums. ‘Stay away. Stay away.’ Keeping her balance by pressing her forehead against the window, she rubs her right shoulder for a second. It’s still a bit tender. The grass in the rusty drinking trough isn’t moving.

Then she sees her grandfather, fiddling with something on the sideboard under his kitchen window. Maybe he’s going to put on some coffee. For Uncle Jan. She starts to wave, both hands at once, becoming more and more frantic. She only realises that her mother has come up out of the cellar when she falls over backwards and doesn’t end up on the floor. She feels hands under her arms and sends the cactus without prickles flying with a kick of her right foot.

‘Unbelievable!’ her mother says. ‘Why do you always stand on the windowsill?’

‘Ow!’ she yelps.

‘What?’

‘My foot!’

‘Look at all those dirty smudges.’

The cactus has fallen onto the floor and Dieke doesn’t even look at all the dirty smudges on the windowpane. There’s something between the roots, something that was once shiny. She kneels down in the soil, avoiding the bits of broken pot, and stretches a finger out to it.

‘And now you’ve got your knees dirty too!’

She’s not listening to her mother, who sits down at the kitchen table to light a cigarette. It looks like a ring. She rubs off some of the moist soil and cautiously pulls it. Roots snap.

‘Oh, go ahead, break it too. That Christmas cactus has been there since your father was a little boy.’

Dieke hasn’t really started listening yet. She spits on the ring, then rubs it clean on her perfectly white vest. A gold ring, but not for a finger.

‘Repotted just three years ago. As if I don’t have enough to do. Old junk. Do you have to wipe that thing clean on your vest?’ Her mother stands and, with the cigarette dangling between her lips, pulls the vest up roughly over Dieke’s head. ‘Back in the wash with this, then.’

‘Ow,’ Dieke says softly, but hardly feeling a thing. A gold ring. But not for a finger. Then she thinks, Christmas cactus. A plant like this is called a Christmas cactus.