Rooftoppers

by Katherine Rundell

  “Yes. The birds go and shelter in the station. And rain makes people keep their windows shut at night. There’s nothing you can pick up from windowsills.”

  “What’ve you had to eat?”

  “Seagull, on Tuesday. It got blown in by the storm. It was almost dead anyway. A blue tit for breakfast. I was sorry about that. I quite like them—alive, I mean. I don’t particularly like to eat them. And there’s not enough meat on them to make it worth plucking them.”

  Sophie couldn’t help feeling awed. “Was that all? In two days?”

  “Oui. Or, non—I had a candy cane on Monday. Anastasia and Safi left it for me in the oak tree by the opera. I think it was meant for me. If not, it’s not my problem.”

  Sophie turned onto her stomach. “Who’re they? Anastasia and—what was the second name?”

  His face flicked to blank. “Nobody. Do you have any food in your pockets, maybe?”

  “I don’t think so.” Sophie fished in her trousers. “No, wait—I have raisins. I was carrying them for the birds, actually, but you’d better have them.”

  “Yes,” said Matteo, “I had better. I’m hungry. Anyway, I’d just eat the birds once they’d eaten the raisins, so it’s just skipping a step. What else?”

  Sophie scrabbled deeper. Pockets, she thought, were why trousers were so superior to skirts.

  “Yes!” She pulled out a sticky hand. “Here—there’s some chocolate. It might be quite old, though. And it melted and got mixed up with my trousers. But I think it should be all right?”

  “Good. Give it to me.”

  Matteo did not, as she’d expected, cram it all into his mouth. Instead he took a pan from the fire and dropped the chocolate into it. He stirred with a whittled stick. “Chocolate is best cooked. It makes you feel like there’s more of it,” he said. He tipped the raisins into the chocolate. “There. That smells good.”

  The scent of melted chocolate was spreading over the rooftop. Matteo’s body unwound a few inches. For the first time that evening, he smiled.

  “See if you can bring more food, next time you come,” he said. “It’s easier, up here, when you’re full.”

  Charles had not had luck with the lawyers.

  “It’s not easy,” he said. “None of them will take a case against the commissioner of police. Most lawyers seem to have the decency and courage of lavatory paper. But we’ll find someone, my love.” They were at breakfast. Charles spread half a jar’s worth of jam on his croissant and dipped it into his coffee. “Heaven!” he said. “You’re not eating?”

  “I thought I might save it for later.” Sophie transferred the croissant to her lap, then to her pocket.

  “You’re not hungry?”

  “No, thank you. I’m stuffed.”

  Charles paused. “Really?” His eyebrow hooked itself upward. “You’ve already hidden your bread roll in your pocket. And, if I’m not mistaken, there’s an apple in your sock. What are you stuffed with?”

  Inevitably, Sophie’s thoughts collapsed in a heap. “With cookies,” she said.

  “For breakfast? Unusual.”

  “I thought I’d like to see what it was like, to have cookies for breakfast.”

  “And what was it like?”

  “It was good. I had loads of them. I feel a bit sick now, actually.” She half-rose. “May I go?”

  “Not just yet. Sit down, Sophie. Tell me: What sort of cookies did you have?”

  “The chocolate fudge ones.”

  “The ones with the soft middle?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “And you didn’t save me any?”

  “I’m sorry. They were too delicious.”

  “They certainly sound delicious. And these delicious soft-fudge chocolate cookies, they came from where?”

  “From the baker, of course.” Sophie nodded out the window, to the baker’s bright orange awning. Too late, she saw it was rolled in, and the lights were out in the windows.

  “How resourceful of you.” Charles’s eyebrows were bristling with irony. “The baker doesn’t open today, Sophie.”

  “I know that. I bought them yesterday.”

  “The baker went on vacation three days ago.”

  Damn, thought Sophie. Her armpits were prickling, and her face was growing sweaty. She hated lying. She wasn’t sure if she was good at it; she suspected she was not. “Oh, yes! I know, I just forgot. I meant a different baker.”

  “And you paid for them with . . . what? As far as I know, you have no French money.”

  There was nothing to say, so Sophie said nothing.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  Yes! thought Sophie. There were hundreds of things she wanted to tell him. But adults, she thought, were unpredictable, even the best ones. You never knew when they were going to stop you from doing what you were doing. She tucked her fingers into her sash and crossed them tightly.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing at all.” And then, after a pause, “Can I go?”

  “Of course.” Charles hitched his eyebrows into upside-down Vs. “You’re a very poor liar, Sophie. I do not recommend a career as an actress. But, as long as you aren’t doing anything too extravagantly illegal, I am happy for you to have secrets.”

  “It’s nothing illegal.” Or, if it was, she thought, then it shouldn’t be.

  “Keep your secret, then, my darling. Everybody needs them. Secrets make you tough, and wily.” He waited another moment, but Sophie kept her gaze fixed on the rungs of his chair, and he waved her away. “Off you go,” he said. “Go and practice telling lies in front of a mirror.”

  In a few minutes, though, he knocked on her door.

  “The secret, Sophie,” he said. “Is it a food-based secret?”

  “Oh! Um, yes. Sort of.”

  “Is it to do with your mother?”

  “Yes. I think so.” I hope so, she thought. She crossed every finger and toe.

  “Is another adult involved?”

  “No,” said Sophie. “No, not an adult.”

  Charles seemed about to say something else. Then he shook his head. “Good,” he said. “Keep your secret.”

  “Thank you,” said Sophie.

  “But, Sophie?” Charles had turned, and she couldn’t see his face.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t dare get hurt, or I’ll skin you alive.”

  That night, when Sophie went up to her room, her teeth brushed and a French dictionary under her arm, there was a pack on her bed.

  The note pinned to it was in Charles’s handwriting. It said, “Everybody needs secrets. Only be sure they are good ones.” On the back there was a P.S. “I have never in my life had enough sausages in one sitting.”

  Sophie hefted the pack. It was heavy, and squelchy in places, and something at the bottom clinked. She went to open it, and then stopped. It would be better if she and Matteo opened it together. It took a great deal of willpower not to open it until she had reached the tightrope.

  There was no moon, and Matteo sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the roof, whistling.

  “Look what I’ve got!” he called. He ran across the tightrope, jumped onto the rooftop, and took her hand. “Come and see! Tomatoes! I’ve never had so many.”

  The pile of tomatoes reached almost to Sophie’s knee. They glistened with the dew that had fallen at sunset. She said, “They’re wonderful.” She meant it. They were just ripe, and of the large flattish variety—the sort with a swinging kick to the taste. Sophie took one and sniffed it. “Where did you get them?” she asked.

  “I grew—”

  “And don’t say you grew them, because I won’t believe you. You need a greenhouse to grow this sort.”

  “Fine.” Matteo sneered, a little defiant. “I got them from a windowsill. An apartment block in the eighth arrondissement. Fifth floor.”

  “So you stole them?”

  “Non. I took them.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I
f something’s in the open air, that’s fair game. That’s hunting.”

  The thought of what Miss Eliot would say to that made Sophie snort, messily. She grinned. “What are you going to do with a hundred tomatoes?” she said.

  “There’s thirty-four,” he said haughtily. “I counted.” His attention shifted from the tomatoes. “What’s in the pack?”

  “I don’t know. I thought we should open it together.”

  “Why?”

  Now that he asked, Sophie found she couldn’t explain. She felt herself turning pink, and swore inwardly. “You know. Like Christmas.”

  “I don’t understand. What about Christmas?”

  “You know, like when you unwrap presents together at Christmas.”

  “I don’t,” said Matteo. His face was on edge. Perhaps he suspected her of making fun of him. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think it’s food,” said Sophie. “It’s from Charles.”

  Food has a power over bad temper that nothing else has. Matteo’s mouth elongated into a smile; it reached his ears.

  “What kind of food?” He took the pack and squashed it in his hands. “Meat?” He held it high over her head. “Maybe I’ll keep it for myself.”

  “Give that back!” There was no real point in grabbing for it, but she tried anyway. He was taller than her by a head.

  “We’ll open it together,” he said magnanimously. He jerked it away as she came nearer. “I’ll start.”

  The pack was full of parcels wrapped in greaseproof paper. Matteo dipped his face in and sniffed, then lifted out the first parcel. It was bread rolls, four of them, soft in the middle and dusted with flour at the top. They were still warm from the oven, and they smelled of blue skies. The bread had been spread by someone with strong opinions about butter—it was as thick as the first joint of Sophie’s thumb.

  “I always used to think,” said Sophie, “that if love had a smell, it would smell like hot bread.”

  “What?” Matteo was eating already. “What are you talking about?” A chunk of butter was hanging from his upper lip.

  “Never mind,” said Sophie. Since Matteo looked busy, Sophie unpeeled the next package. It felt sticky in her hand.

  “Meat!” said Matteo. He hadn’t looked up from his two handfuls of bread roll, but he sounded gleefully certain.

  “How do you know?”

  “The smell.”

  Matteo was right. The package unfolded away from a hunk of brown meat cut in thick slabs. It didn’t look familiar. She held it out to him. “What kind of meat is it? Can you tell?”

  Matteo took the largest piece and nibbled a corner. “Non. I’ve never had it. It’s good, though. And it’s not pigeon or rat, that I do know.”

  Sophie tried some. It tasted of smoke and salt. It was wonderful, up there in the night air. “It’s . . . venison, I think? I’ve never had it, but this is how I imagine it.”

  Matteo’s head was inside the pack. His hand came out; his fingers were wrapped around two glass bottles. “And these? What’s in these?”

  “Wine, maybe?” The bottles were chilled, and perspiring in the warm air. Sophie held one against her cheek. “They look like wine, anyway. But Charles knows I don’t like wine, except champagne with blackberries.”

  Matteo shrugged. “I’ve never had that.” He sniffed one. Bubbles flew up his nose, and he sneezed, catlike.

  Sophie laughed. “Lemonade, I think.”

  At the bottom there was half a chocolate cake, still wet and sticky in the middle, and a jam jar filled with cream, and a fat parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper and newspaper.

  “Sausages!” cried Matteo. They were as thick as Sophie’s wrist.

  Sophie counted them. “Twenty-two,” she said. “Eleven each.”

  “Mon Dieu!” said Matteo. He added something else in French. Sophie didn’t know the word, but it sounded unrepeatable. “Whoever your guardian is, I love him.”

  “I know! I do too.” Sophie grinned into the fire. How many other people, she thought, will give you more sausages than you have fingers and toes? “I think we should cook them all at once,” she said. “I think he meant us to.”

  “Non,” said Matteo. “We should save some for later.”

  “But you don’t have any ice, do you? If you don’t cook them, they’ll spoil. I’m starving. Go on, Matteo!” A suppressed smile was twitching Matteo’s left cheek. Sophie took that for a yes. “And I could make tomato soup,” she said.

  “Do you know how to make tomato soup?” said Matteo.

  “Yes,” lied Sophie. “At least, I’m sure I could work it out.” The sausages had no fat or gristle in them. Sophie prodded them. “How do we cook them? Do you have a frying pan?”

  “No,” said Matteo, “but I collect weather vanes.”

  Sophie wondered if his English had gone awry. “You collect . . . weather vanes?”

  “Yes. I’ve got almost a dozen.” Matteo reached into a sack behind him. He pulled out a handful of long metal spikes and dropped them at Sophie’s feet. Most of them were fashioned to look like arrows. One, though, was the mast of a ship, and one a chicken. The weather vanes were polished and shone bronze and silver in the moonlight.

  “Here.” Matteo took three sausages and spiked them onto the longest of the arrows. “You do some.”

  “Where do you get them?” Sophie asked.

  “From rooftops, of course.”

  “Isn’t that stealing?” She skewered four sausages on a silver arrow, and laid them on the fire.

  “No, it’s not. They don’t use them. They let them rust. I use them.”

  “They do use them, though. They use them to . . .”

  “To what?”

  Sophie was stymied. “Well, to tell which way the wind is blowing, surely?”

  “If they are so stupid that they need a weather vane to tell them that, then they do not deserve weather vanes.”

  “But then nobody would have weather vanes, and there’d be none for you to steal.”

  “Find, not steal.” He spat on another metal spike and rubbed it on his shirt. “Anyway, you want to know about the wind, watch the trees! Lick your finger and feel the wind. Pull out a hair and hold it over your head.”

  The sausages were starting to ooze clear juice. Within minutes the smell was quite fantastic.

  Sophie rinsed Matteo’s largest pot with rainwater. The pot was shaped like a small cauldron, made of brass, and it made an excellent booming sound when she tapped it with the jam jar. “Do you have something to peel them?” she asked.

  “Non. But you don’t peel tomatoes. You’re thinking of oranges.”

  “I think you do if it’s soup,” she said doubtfully. “Never mind. It should be all right, shouldn’t it?” She tipped in all the tomatoes, bar two. She tossed one to Matteo, and they ate them raw. “I think we leave it to boil,” she said. As an afterthought, she tipped in half a cup of rainwater. Over the next half hour, the tomatoes boiled down into a pulp. Their skins floated to the surface, and they fished them out—Sophie with a twig, Matteo with his fingers—and shared them with the dozen pigeons that had gathered round at the sight of crumbs.

  “Can you pass the cream?” said Sophie.

  “Don’t use it all!” Matteo took a quick sip from the jar before he handed it to her.

  “I won’t.” She tipped in most of the jar, but left enough to drink with the chocolate cake. What else would you put in soup? she thought. She said, “Do you have salt?”

  “Of course I have salt! I’m a rooftopper, Sophie, not a savage.” Matteo kept his salt in a scrubbed-out flowerpot, twisted up in a blue square of cloth. There was pepper, too, in a red square. Sophie recognized the cloth of his shorts from the first time they met.

  “I don’t much like pepper,” said Sophie. “I’ll just put in the salt, if that’s all right. You can put pepper in yours.”

  “Yes, you do like pepper. You just eat bad pepper in England,” said Matteo. “I
know. I’ve had some of the food the English leave behind. Add just a little.” He took the pepper from her, and cracked it between two scraps of slate, and tipped it in. “Trust me.”

  Sophie added the salt to the soup. The smell was so rich, it made her nose shiver.

  “It’s ready, I think,” she said.

  They sat side by side, with their backs to the wind, and drank the soup out of tin cans. The taste made her giddy. It made her want to laugh. Matteo ate whole sausages in a single mouthful. Sophie took four and made them into sandwiches with the venison. She added a slop of soup as a relish, and they ate them with both hands. Sophie’s hair blew into her mouth, and she tied it back with one of Matteo’s bowstrings. She couldn’t remember having been so happy before.

  They had made their way through fourteen of the sausages, and even Matteo was slowing, when Sophie froze.

  “Can you hear that?”

  “ ’Ear wha’?” Matteo spoke with his mouth full. “It’s jusht the wind.”

  “That’s not the wind.” It was too sharp and too sweet to be the wind. “It’s music. It’s a cello. Hear the low notes?” Sophie dropped her food onto the slate. She strained her ears. A tune came to her over the rooftops.

  She said, “It’s Fauré’s Requiem played double time.”

  Sophie leapt up, spilling sausages into the fire. “It’s coming from over there!” She tore to the far edge of the rooftop and stood on the tips of her toes, straining to hear. My mother, she thought. I am hearing my mother. The thought shook her to her bones.

  “Can you hear it?” She held her breath to listen. The music had stopped. “God, Matteo, please! Say you heard it!”

  Matteo stood and wiped his mouth. “I heard it.”

  “How far away do you think it was? Can we go now? Come on! We’ll go right now! Which way’s fastest?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What? Yes, you do! You said you knew the whole of Paris! We need to go, now!”

  “No.”

  “What are you . . . Look, quick, come on! Come on!”

  “We can’t just run.”

  “Yes, we can!”

  “Stop, Sophie! Listen—it’s stopped, anyway.” He was white. “It could be miles away. You can’t be sure where it came from. Didn’t you know? Sound twists on rooftops. It echoes. It bluffs.”