Reborn Seven Days Before El Niño

l Veyr

an took ele

ty litres, and there were sixteen cans, and that came to just under three hours, and I had until six in th

tap and watched the water co

heck I wasn't imagining things and it was warm. Not cold. Warm, out of the

others and stood looking at four full and twelv

ut my eye to the gap in the door and it was Sable in a headscarf with two f

hree o'cloc

She came in past me and stopped in the middle of

ou

cans down by the door. "I've got four more at home. My landlord will not

make

held it there. Then she turned it off and on again, and

as it been

about

sday in ha

what I'm

o keep us both awake, her cousin's shop, the price of cooking gas, a man she'd nearly married in her twenties who turn

d them behind the fridge, and Sable moved the fridge with me, and

ith the occasional spurt. Eleven fu

said, "Marise

m f

or I'll si

in my hand. Water out of a can, when the tap was still technically

ng down opposite me with her legs ou

ly about th

at the wall through the whole thing and then you were on your fe

me. I counted four dr

d a d

ady told

s a ba

I i

n't a

it. You'd have put yourself in it. You wouldn't have left me out." She brought her eyes down. "You've been doing sums all night. You counted those cans at eight and agai

urt and stopped a

rust me," I said, "a

coward's a

only one

hen she said, "All right," and got

I turned it off and on for a while and it gave one small cou

around three hundred and forty litres in a one-room flat, and eleven minutes of water

e up grey and mean

six yet,"

kno

pulled the s

my sho

are you

me four cans and

he sun isn'

get there b

-

alf five was a d

have been. A queue of pots and buckets and one woman with a baby bath balance

ady up. Halim never had

pboard and his boy was loading the

mine,"

ished writing, and lowered th

s got my fou

a thing you've already said twice this morning. "Fella came at four. Paid cash, paid above t

ng at the cans goin

ho

and a woman doing the counting. They've had every can off this road. And I'll tell you someth

said, very quiet

he sleeves rolled up stood with his hands on his hips watching them l

at he wasn't going to fill a single c

ebook open against her for

en clipped to the notebook and she was dressed for a market, not for half five in the morning, and she wasn't tire

aid, "M

ee h

are we

t. Watch th

rote the number down. Then she closed the notebook and said somethin

rote eleven first and then something e

litres." I said it slowly, working it out as I said it. "A

o you

nd looked at it again before she wrote. You don't look twice at a number you'

ond. "That's a lot to get

only thing

e turned roun

-

on his hips and his shirt coming untucked, an

ris

ac

e up e

are

of us standing there in yesterday's clothes wi

all night. I cam

m Ha

m Ha

something that sounds generous and isn't. "You should have

rning and you're going to sell it back to this road at three

s busi

road you buy

being seen standing in the street like this. Two women with a handcart had sto

he said, quieter. "I

want a ca

at do yo

started walking. "Th

ris

pt g

not hard, and I stopped. "You

ng, five days, Kessel East, Harrow Row, Mbeki Close. Does

over, watched him do the arithmetic I'd done at nine o'clock the night before. El

t that notice m

s what i

losed in her hand. She looked at me with her eyeb

the morning. Come back to the fl

got a

u do. I on

ot my ear

laughed. Actually I laughed, a small one, almost admiring. "Th

ere they came fr

aid. "You

d, and the two women with the handcart watched us go

-

as sitting on the step with the bath in her lap and a pla

paper on the

a

y six, f

y six, f

it here, if it's all the same to you, until somebody official tells me it isn't. Because I went round m

looked

u got anything t

s and th

sister's got, and anyone else on Harrow Row who'll listen." I got my keys out. "We've got a tap

ve we got?"

properly now, and it was already warm, at half five in the morning, on a Thursda

said. "Maybe

k with a number on it that wasn't the number on the truck, and a deposit in cash from a frightened ma

d water. The first thing I needed was to kn