Tales of silk lured men from their Western homes, travelling great distances through the exotic Orient to find these little worms. Men gave up everything in the hope of turning a basket of eggs into hanks of gold.
The legend of silk begins with a fourteen-year-old Chinese Empress, Leizu, in the 27th century BC, drinking a cup of tea beneath a tree. A cocoon fell into her tea and she began to unroll the first golden silk thread, having the idea to weave it.
I closed the book and decided to write Sally a letter and wrap her birthday present. I included her running ribbons and a much belated apology for taking them, as well as The Magic Faraway Tree, the blue dress – which I had managed to buy back – and money so she could call me from a public phone box. I wrapped the parcel neatly and placed it on my desk, ready to post, beside The History of Silk book. It felt as though I had been holding on to Sally all these years, by the tips of my fingers. Just holding on. She was like a moth, fragile and fleeting. One rough breath, one lurch, one tiny movement of your hand and she’d fly away from you.
12.
The first night after Mum and Sally left, Dad and I began a tradition involving Charlie’s Chinese Restaurant. And bad jokes.
At first Dad and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves after their taxi had disappeared at the end of our street. We each sat in our own rooms and the house felt too quiet. Just before tea time Dad appeared at my door.
‘Come on Button. We’re going out.’
We got into the car and drove into town. Dad parked the car beside a newsagent.
‘Wait here a tick, Button, I’ll be right back.’
I was numb, like I understood very clearly what had happened, what went wrong and what our lives would be like from that moment on, though I didn’t feel anything. Only removed, somehow. Dad returned to the car with a small book-sized package which he threw on to the back seat.
‘Here’s the deal,’ Dad said, forcing a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘Keep watch out the window and look for the first Chinese restaurant you see with a carpark out front.’ It wasn’t far until I saw Charlie’s Chinese Restaurant with a spare car space not far from the entrance. And ever since that night, Charlie’s has been the place we celebrate everything from anniversaries to birthdays, even slow weeks.
‘I know it’s a sad time,’ Dad said once we were seated. ‘But everything in life has two sides. You can sit around thinking about all you’ve lost or you can look forward to everything you might find. So . . .’ he said, unwrapping the parcel he’d bought at the newsagent. ‘I am going to tell you the very worst jokes I can find in this book. And while we feel sad, we are going to remind ourselves that there is always something to smile about, too. Order anything you like,’ he said, opening the book.
Every birthday and special occasion after that night, Dad would begin preparing weeks in advance, scouring book stores and bargain tables for joke books and, while the jokes were usually terrible, we laughed regardless.
The week after cleaning out the garage, Dad and I went to Charlie’s to celebrate my birthday. Life had been busy and we missed the actual day, but it didn’t matter. Mr Grandy had surprised me on the afternoon of my birthday with a small teacake at work. I had posted Sally’s parcel but hadn’t heard back from her at all. No letter, email, no phone call.
Dad had found a book, The Darwin Awards. That birthday was Dad’s triumph.
The Darwin Awards are given for the most interesting and unusual method of death. I know it sounds macabre, but it really is so funny that it’s hard not to laugh just thinking about it. Dad and I share a strange sense of humour. Funniest Home Videos was often the humour highlight of the week.
Becky called me wicked. And strange. ‘What kind of person cries while laughing at people hurting themselves?’
‘It’s the context,’ I tried to tell her. ‘And, besides, I must be among good company because the show is an institution. I think it’s outlived that Bert Newton show.’ We thought Bert Newton was a Romeo. For all the wrong reasons.
‘You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Dad. I don’t think I could stand to laugh one more time. My cheeks are killing me.’
Despite the humour there was an unspoken irony of those awards, too, given it’s where Mum and Sally had ended up. It was hard not to celebrate my birthday without thinking of Sally.
‘I sent her some money this time,’ Dad said. ‘I think she’ll like that.’
I nodded, flipping through the Darwin book.
We finished our dinner feeling warm all over.
‘Let’s read them to Amona tomorrow night,’ Dad said and I laughed, thinking how delicious it would feel laughing all over again with someone new. But I felt that sting again, too. Jealous for no good reason.
We walked back to the car, Dad’s arm around my shoulders and I couldn’t think of a happier birthday. Usually Sally would email a thank you to Dad for her present. But Dad hadn’t heard anything either.
We drove home from the restaurant and Dad chose a video to watch and I had made Earl Grey for us both.
Amona was flying home the following morning and the garage was mostly cleared away. We’d hired a skip and thrown everything we’d wanted to get rid of into it. Mostly these were Dad’s things: old baseball bats, a few balls and mouldy gloves. Straw hats and disintegrating picnic rugs, rusty tools and moth-eaten blankets and coats. Dad had reduced the entire garage to a neat wall of plastic boxes. He’d laughed as he surveyed his work, telling me how good it felt to clear things out. Mum’s two boxes were left inside the house beside the front door, ready to either send to Darwin or add to the skip when we heard back from her.
We had just sat down on the couch, our cups of tea on the coffee table, when the phone rang. I answered it.
‘Hello,’ said a male voice. ‘My name is Barry. Barry Mundy and I’m a friend of Sally’s.’
‘I’m Sally’s sister, Ruby.’ I was so surprised and stupidly excited. I didn’t know why I over-explained who I was.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some bad news for you.’
I couldn’t speak. Or swallow.
‘Where is my mum?’
‘There’s been an accident.’ A pause. ‘Is your father there? I was told to talk to him.’
13.
‘Do you sense things?’ Becky once asked me. ‘Do you and Sally feel the same thing at the same time? Do you go cold when something is happening to her?’ All our friends had asked the same questions at some stage. The truth is I wish I did. I wish we shared that kind of bond because I might have known or understood earlier. I might have been able to help.
While Dad talked to Barry and I waited to find out exactly what had happened, I closed my eyes and willed myself out of my body and into Sally’s, but I was as trapped inside myself as she was in hers. I felt Dad go cold beside me. He lowered his head, picked up the TV remote and hit the mute button. Images and colours flashed from the screen through the darkened lounge room and the absence of sound exaggerated everything. Dad put his arm around me and pulled me close. I could hear the mumbled sing-song of a voice on the other end of the phone, but I had no words to dispel the images of every awful thing in my mind. My heart hammered inside me, but my body was heavy and frozen. Each breath hurt as I imagined the worst. The very worst.
Dad made noises of acknowledgement. ‘Does Jan know?’ he said at one point, asking about my mother. ‘I see. Oh my god. I don’t know what to say. Thank you for letting us know.’
I’m her twin, I should have known something had been wrong, she should have called me. We look the same, but we are nothing alike. Not in any way that matters. Peel back the surface, unravel the fabric of our fragile cocoon and we are strangers.
Over the next few minutes after that phone call, I pieced together what had happened from the snatches of phrases and words that came from Dad’s mouth. He finis
hed, and I felt his arm slide from my shoulders as he stood up and walked to his room. I heard the door close and looked down at the coffee table where our cups of tea sat, still steaming.
What a shock it must have been for that fourteen-year-old Empress, unravelling that golden thread for the first time. That cocoon getting smaller and smaller, the strand of thread sticky around her hands, until all that remained was the half-transformed worm. Dead.
14.
Dad didn’t come out of his room all night, not even when I knocked, so I lay down in the hall outside his door. It was as though my brain couldn’t register what had happened yet my body curled up around the truth and held it still.
You have thoughts of running away when you’re a kid. Something makes you so angry, you convince yourself you have to run away. You pack a bag – probably with nothing suitable for anything beyond an hour stuck underneath the tree in the front yard – and you tell your parents you’re leaving. You actually manage to leave through the front door and they don’t stop you. They don’t say anything to try and keep you home, in fact, they agree with you. ‘Go on, Button, leave if you want. I’m not stopping you.’
You’re determined and your steps are fast-paced, backpack fastened behind you. You stride down the footpath, out the front gate and make it to the corner of the street where you stop. You hesitate. And the feeling changes. It’s not what you wanted at all. And you know you didn’t really want to run away, but your parents didn’t stop you and now you have to go back.
I only did it once that I remember. And spent an hour in the front yard thinking I’d make them worry just a little, before going back inside. Mum hugged me and, other than that gesture, continued on with her day as if nothing unusual had happened. She didn’t mention it to Dad.
Only Sally said anything about it. She laughed and teased me all afternoon saying, ‘I knew you wouldn’t go through with it. You don’t have what it takes. If I ever planned to leave, you wouldn’t catch me coming home in a hurry.’
I always wondered what made her say that. Even then she had secrets she didn’t share with anyone, not even me.
For hundreds of years the secret of silk was protected in China by threat of death. And it took marriage to break it, when a Chinese princess was persuaded by her fiancé, an Indian prince, to smuggle cocoons out of China in her hair. It seems to me that marriage, the having of it, the breaking of it, the disgrace and shunning and shame of it, has so much to do with everything.
Barry had told Dad that Sally had left home without a word to anyone. She had been missing for five months and Mum hadn’t told us. After the phone call Dad had only managed to speak to Mum via an Aberdeen council member. When Dad asked why he hadn’t been informed earlier, Brother Marcus replied, ‘In our eyes Jan has no husband and Sally has no father. The Aberdeen are her family.’
I don’t know where that left me.
I woke to the sound of a key turning in the lock, the front door opening and Amona’s cheery voice, ‘Hello, I’m back!’ She laughed and began chatting as she walked down the passage. I didn’t process what she was saying. Somewhere in my mind I realised she had let herself in.
‘Hello,’ she called.
‘Ruby?’ she said, finding me in the passage. She knelt down beside me. ‘What’s going on? Where is your dad?’
‘Sally,’ I said. ‘An accident.’
I felt her hand on my shoulder as she stood up and opened Dad’s door. ‘Oh Brett,’ she said.
‘It’s my fault,’ said Dad.
‘It’s no one’s fault,’ said Amona.
Later we sat together in the kitchen.
‘I’d been cleaning out the garage so Amona could park her car there,’ Dad said. ‘While she was gone I was supposed to talk to you about her moving in.’
‘We don’t need to do anything right at this moment,’ Amona said. ‘I’ve booked your flight, Ruby,’ she added, ‘I’ll take you to the airport this afternoon.’
‘I still don’t understand why you aren’t coming with me,’ I said to Dad.
‘Your passport is in the top drawer,’ he said avoiding the question.
Amona reached over the bench and held his hand. ‘You know he would,’ she said so Dad didn’t have to deal with the details again. ‘The Aberdeen . . . he doesn’t want to make things worse.’
Somewhere I might have registered the sense of what she was saying but at that moment I felt like my father had abandoned me and Sally. What did it matter what Mum wanted? She was his daughter, too.
‘She’s completely involved in that religion, Ruby,’ Dad said, by way of explanation. ‘They’re . . .’ he fumbled for the word.
‘They’re a cult,’ I said. I stood up to go to my room and pack. I heard Amona say, ‘You have to know that it kills him, Ruby. Not going with you.’
Before we left for the airport Dad pulled me close to him. I felt his arms around me, holding me tight, not wanting to let me go. ‘Barry said he’ll meet you at the airport. Call me as soon as you land.’
I felt abandoned. I needed my dad with me. It was like he was sending me away. If he didn’t have the guts to stand up to some church just to see his daughter who was in trouble, I wondered what I could expect from him if I truly needed him. What if Mum refused to let me come back home? He’d loved one daughter from a distance; it wouldn’t be so hard a second time. I packed a few clothes and everything of value: my scrapbook, MP3 player, passport, diary, all my savings, The History of Silk. I don’t know exactly why, but I packed Pearl’s red coat, too.
I saw Barry waiting for me as I walked off the plane. I felt like a traitor, my heart hammered so hard at the sight of him. He was like a magnet. I tried to think of Eric Barrada to dampen my own feelings, but even his incompetence couldn’t turn off my heart. Maybe attraction was aligned in heaven before our birth because there was no other way to explain my feelings. There were millions of boys on the earth. Why did it feel so strong? I had no right. And it was tasteless, feeling this after what happened to Sally. But, then, she had left Barry as well as me.
I still hadn’t slept and the world felt like foam around me. My head was groggy and my throat felt tight as I walked towards him. He raised a hand, tentatively, in my direction and I remembered that I hadn’t ever technically met him. There was no way I could have known what he looked like. Except, maybe, from the newspaper article Sally had sent through. I realised that would have been just before she ran away.
I flicked my hand in a return wave and tried to smile, but Barry could hardly look at me when we came face-to-face. If we weren’t meeting in these particular circumstances, I could only assume he found my appearance so offensive he was trying to hide his loathing. He flushed, cleared his throat and coughed, reaching down to take my carry-on case from my hand. He turned quickly, walking away from the terminal, my bag trailing behind him. I followed, realigning the handbag on my shoulders.
‘Oh god,’ I said, stopping beside him. ‘No one told you, did they. About . . . me.’
Barry slowed his walk, turned towards me, glancing quickly at me before looking away.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It must be a shock. Seeing me.’
‘It’s all right,’ he mumbled.
‘People never talk about the important things. Don’t you think? We blabber on about everything unimportant, but—’ I stopped, laughing slightly. I don’t know why, but I placed my hand on his shoulder and he had no other option but to stop. I stood in front of him. ‘I’m actually nothing like her. Sometimes I wish I was because people always want to think the way you look on the outside accounts for what’s inside but you can’t judge a person by . . .’ I trailed off. ‘I’m so sorry. I haven’t slept and . . . I’m so sorry.’ I turned to walk ahead of him until I realised I had no idea where I was going. Out of nowhere I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I was so angry with myself because it j
ust wasn’t fair to be blubbering away to a stranger who was already freaked out.
‘I don’t know where to go,’ I said, my voice wavering. I dropped my handbag and rubbed my face, trying to swallow my tears down. But it didn’t work and out they came anyway, trickling out from the corners of my eyes. My body betraying me.
‘It’s all right,’ Barry was beside me. I felt his arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him. And in the middle of the airport, somewhere between the terminal and baggage claim, Barry wrapped his arms around me and held me while I cried. Those tears should have been for Sally or Dad or Mum. But I think they were for me. I felt invisible.
In the car Barry was quiet as the world seemed to speed past the windows. He glanced at me every now and then, a nervous smile appearing on his face. I was careful not to be looking at him when he turned towards me.
My mobile phone rang. It was Dad. It was so good to hear his voice, until I remembered the situation.
‘Call me after . . .’ he didn’t say it, but I knew he wanted me to call him after seeing Sally. He should have been there with me so I hardly said a word and hung up quickly.
‘Can you tell me everything?’ I said to Barry.
He didn’t say anything straightaway, just leant his elbow on the window and flicked his fingers against the steering wheel.
‘What do you know?’ he asked.
‘Not enough. I mean. Last time I was visiting her she told me about you. That must have been just before she left.’
I saw Barry’s body react, pulling back against the seat.
‘Why did she leave?’
‘To tell you the truth I didn’t know that much about her,’ Barry said. ‘I’m sorry for that. I feel like such a . . .’ he fumbled for the word. ‘Well, I don’t feel exactly right about it, that’s all.’
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