The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk

by Glenda Millard

  ‘She’s had pills,’ said Griffin, ‘all kinds of pills, but none of them seem to work very well.’

  ‘She might need glasses,’ Layla said. ‘Mum used to get headaches before she got her glasses.’

  Glasses, maybe that’s all it is. Why didn’t I think of glasses? Why didn’t Nell or Annie? Griffin thought to himself and his heart seemed a little lighter.

  ‘She has to see the doctor this afternoon.’

  ‘He’ll probably do eye tests,’ said Layla confidently. ‘I always ask Doctor Larsson if I can read his eye chart. I can read everything on it. Even the last line. But I wish I could have glasses. And tell Annie to ask him to look in Saffy’s ears with that tiny torch he’s got. Just in case she’s got what Patrick had.’

  Griffin wished he was as good at asking questions as Layla. He remembered something Nell had told him when he was only seven years old.

  ‘Questions are tools for discovering truth. They can be used like a sledgehammer to smash things open, or like a candle to lighten the dark.’

  For a moment he wished he could climb onto Nell’s knee again or step into the circle of Annie’s arms and ask all the questions he so badly wanted answers to. Can an ordinary headache make you fall-down-dizzy, throw up, blind you or worse? Would the truth smash their world into tiny pieces or would their smiles light up the darkness when they told him that a headache is only a headache and has never killed anyone? What was the point of asking when no-one knew the answer? Not Layla, not Nell, not Annie and not even Doctor Larsson. Not yet anyway.

  Layla moved closer to Griffin. His hair had grown long again and he was twisting it around his finger, a sure sign he was worried.

  ‘Saffy will be all right, Griff,’ she said.

  ‘Doctor Larsson said she might have to go to the city for tests if she keeps getting the headaches,’ said Griffin.

  Layla wondered what could be so wrong with Saffron that Doctor Larsson couldn’t fix it but she didn’t want to worry Griffin any further.

  ‘Mum says they’ve got better equipment in the city. And anyway, remember the wish we made up last Christmas? You know, the deep and silent wish we wrote in my journal.’ Layla dragged the dog-eared journal out of her school bag, turned it to the right page and showed Griffin. It was a long wish but the most important part was short.

  We, Griffin William Silk and Layla Elliott, wish that if anyone has to leave the Kingdom of Silk, it will not be forever.

  The fine print on the end explained important things such as Layla, Perry and Blue being included in the wish. Layla studied the words slowly and carefully, as if they were a magic spell and not just a wish. She wondered if there was some rule about wishes that she and Griffin didn’t know. Should they have told someone? Was it like when you invent something and have to make it official so no-one else can steal your idea? Maybe she should have given it to her mother to take to work. She could have stamped it with a blue stamp and locked it in the safe. She remembered how they’d showed it to Nell. And Nell thought it was a good wish, didn’t she? Then she remembered Nell saying something like, ‘But none of us can stay here forever, no matter how much we want to.’

  Layla hadn’t taken much notice then. She knew that when you got as old as Scarlet, you might think about going away to university. But Saffron wasn’t old enough to go to university for a long time yet and even if she was, it wouldn’t be forever.

  These are the thoughts that came into Layla’s head while she and Griffin sat in the playground under the elm tree. It was the worst place to sit on a day like Tuesday because the breeze blew and the leaves jostled against each other and whispered, Tishkin, Tishkin.

  For half a heartbeat Layla wondered if something really bad was happening to Saffron … something that meant she might never come home. Something like dying.

  Griffin sometimes talked to Layla about Tishkin. Usually she enjoyed hearing about his baby sister. But thinking about Tishkin today and hearing the leaves whisper her name when Saffron was ill made Layla feel nervous all over. So she made herself concentrate on reading the fine print. When she had finished, she ate half of Griffin’s peanut butter and honey sandwich. It is difficult to swallow when you are nervous all over. But Layla did it to encourage Griffin to eat the other half, because that is what friends are for.

  Layla wouldn’t hear of Griffin going to the doctor’s surgery without her, even though it would mean missing out on her favourite television program. The Elliotts’ house was on the way to Doctor Larsson’s rooms. Layla’s parents were still at work when school finished for the day, so she pinned a note to the door, telling them where she had gone.

  6. Sir Attenborough and the Velvet Worms

  The wet and the school bus arrived at the Colour Patch Café at the same time. The sky was so dark that Mr Kadri’s neon sign had switched itself on. Scarlet, Indigo, Violet and Amber stepped off the bus outside the café, where the footpath was awash with the colours of paradise.

  Scarlet wished she had asked her friend Anik to come with her. Anik had learnt what courage meant when he and his family rolled up their belongings in a rug and left everything and everyone they loved to start again in a new land where no-one spoke their language, no-one understood. Here, in the small town of Cameron’s Creek, they had found a scrap of paradise above the Colour Patch Café.

  But Scarlet had not asked Anik and he’d gone to his Advanced English class and now she was worried about what would happen if the doctor wanted to send Saffron to hospital. Hospital was where Doctor Larsson sent patients he couldn’t fix. Hospital was where Tishkin went. There was nothing about Tishkin that could be fixed. She was new and perfect in every way except she had stopped breathing. Saffron was different. She wasn’t new. She breathed but she hurt. It seemed like something inside her head was wrong. Knowing all this, Scarlet asked herself, how could she or any of her family, possibly have courage? Perhaps Anik could tell her.

  When she and her sisters arrived at the surgery, the Bedford was parked outside and Blue and Barney were huddled together under the porch at the top of the five slate steps. Inside Perry and Griffin were sitting on the floor, trying to find wooden Mrs Noah in the toy box to help wooden Mr Noah catch the wooden zebras who wouldn’t walk up the ramp because they were frightened of the silent roaring of the wooden tigers.

  Layla was sitting on a grey plastic chair, pretending to read about raising pigs in a magazine that was four years old and had the cover torn off. But she accidentally started thinking about Tishkin and wondering whether the deep and silent wish in her journal was as powerful as she had thought it was when she and Griffin made it. She tried to smile at the Rainbow Girls, but the nervous-all-over feeling started to come back again so after a while she pushed open the heavy red door and went outside.

  With the hood of her yellow raincoat pulled over her head, Layla walked down the steps to the footpath and waded into the overflowing gutter. Storm water eddied dangerously close to the tops of her gumboots and sideways rain needled her cheeks. She made a seed-pod sailing ship, loaded it with an invisible cargo of nervous-all-over and set it afloat on a voyage to the unknown, gazing after it till it disappeared into a grate in the ground. Then she stomped slowly back up the steps to the cherry door with its peek-a-boo letter slot, dragon knocker and shiny brass nameplate. She pulled a crumpled windcheater from her bag, wiped her face then polished the raindrops off Doctor Larsson’s name and all the letters of his learning that followed.

  Barney and Blue didn’t look any more cheerful than Layla felt. She put the windcheater down on the top step and sat on it. Blue sat beside her, rested his head on her knee and gazed into her eyes. Rain dripped from the eaves into Layla’s polka-dot gumboots. She sighed and emptied them into the Michaelmas daisies.

  Everyone who knew Layla properly said she was a girl of great determination. Being determinedly cheerful and kind and brave when someone dear to you is ill isn’t easy. But Layla loved the Silks more than anyone else in the world, except her own fa
mily, so she made up her mind not to let them down. She wrapped her arms around Blue’s neck and hugged him.

  ‘Don’t worry, Blue,’ she said. ‘Doctor Larsson’s very smart. You can tell by all the letters after his name. He’ll do everything he can to make Saffron well again.’

  Noah’s ark had been loaded, unloaded and loaded again by the time Layla went back inside and someone had drawn black spectacles on the pigs and whiskers on all the people in the magazine she’d been looking at. The Rainbow Girls were watching television. When the commercial break came on, Layla went to the reception desk. She waited while the lady behind the counter shuffled papers. It was a tall counter and Layla was a small girl, so after the hamburger commercial finished, she fetched a plastic chair from the play area, carried it to the desk and stood on it to make sure she could be seen. The lady kept shuffling. She was wearing a badge with her name on it. Layla had plenty of time to read it.

  ‘Excuse me please, Colleen,’ she said. ‘Have you got the documentary channel on your TV? There’s a really good nature show on it.’

  ‘It’s flu shot day for seniors and that means there are a lot of other people waiting too, dear,’ said Colleen without looking up. ‘They mightn’t all want to watch your nature show.’

  ‘It’s not my show, it’s Sir Attenborough’s,’ said Layla, ‘and it’s very educational. Today it’s about velvet worms, which aren’t really worms at all because they grew legs and came out of the sea millions of years ago and now they live in rainforests.’

  Colleen looked up then and arranged her orange lips in a straight line, like an elastic band fully stretched. Layla had seen this look before, on her mother’s face. It was a warning to stop. But Layla didn’t. She said calmly and ever so slightly more loudly, ‘And besides, my mother says The Bored and the Beautiful is a romantical drama and it isn’t suitable viewing for children.’

  Colleen frowned and said, ‘Does your mother have an appointment, dear?’

  ‘No, she’s at work. I’m here with my friends, the Silks. They don’t have a television at home, they do interesting stuff instead. But I don’t think Annie and Ben and Nell would approve of us watching romantical dramas.’

  Mr Fairchild of Fairchild & Sons Butchery, who didn’t have the usual number of fingers on his left hand, was waiting in the corner by the mother-in-law’s tongue plant. Suddenly he made a loud spluttering sound, leant forward with his head in his hands and began to shake uncontrollably.

  The lady next to him said, ‘Heavens above, what’s wrong, Alfie?’

  Mr Fairchild uttered a strange wheezing sound and the lady leapt from her chair and hurried to the counter.

  ‘Quick, get the doctor,’ she said to Colleen. ‘I think Mr Fairchild’s had an allergic reaction to the mother-in-law plant!’

  Colleen stopped fiddling with her papers and rushed out from behind her desk. ‘What’s the matter, Mr Fairchild? You haven’t been eating the plant have you? It’s poisonous!’

  Mr Fairchild shook his head and fumbled in the pocket of his tweed jacket. Tears streamed down his face.

  ‘Can I fetch you a glass of water? Do you suffer from asthma?’

  He pulled out a handkerchief, mopped his eyes, blew his nose, slapped his knee and shook his head. He didn’t look the slightest bit ill to Layla. There were smiling lines at the corners of his eyes and his cheeks were two fat buns. Mr Fairchild was laughing!

  You can catch things from other people in doctors’ waiting rooms. Things like coughs and colds and sometimes, but not often, laughter. Mr Fairchild’s laughter was the highly contagious kind and soon everyone was giggling. At last the butcher drew a deep breath and said, ‘For pity’s sake, Colleen, would you switch to Sir Attenborough’s show? I think I’ve got an allergy to romantical dramas.’

  Layla had heard of people having allergies to things like medicine or eggs or peanut butter but never, ever to romantical dramas. Mr Fairchild winked at her and she had a distinct feeling it was something she’d done that made him laugh. She wasn’t sure what it was but it didn’t matter; she was taking care of her friends and soon they were watching Sir Attenborough with a torch on his head and a beautiful velvet worm crawling over his fingers, and not thinking quite as much about why Saffron’s appointment was taking so long.

  7. Different Ways of Looking

  Saffron had never owned a teddy bear. She had Barney instead. But sheep, even well-behaved ones, were not permitted in the doctor’s rooms. Saffron knew from experience that no amount of pleading or waving ‘sheep have feelings too’ placards in the waiting room had any effect on Colleen. Last time, Colleen had said, in a shouty sort of voice, ‘If I let Barney in, Blue will expect to come in as well! This is a doctor’s surgery, Saffron, not a vet’s.’

  This time, Saffron couldn’t be bothered arguing with Colleen, so she came in jeans and her old woolly jumper, which was the next best thing to having Barney in the room.

  Just as Layla said, Doctor Larsson had a torch. But it wasn’t for shining into ears. It was an ophthalmoscope and the doctor explained it was used for looking into people’s eyes. Saffron didn’t care what fancy name the doctor gave his torch. She didn’t want to know anything about his world of medicine, illness and instruments. Hers was a joyful world of imagination, discovery, books, myths, legends, magic and grandmotherly wiseness. And that was how she wanted it to stay.

  She told herself that when Doctor Larsson shone his tiny torch through the windows of her mind he’d see a universe inside. Her universe, and every part of it would be beautiful. There would be colour and movement. The doctor would be amazed. He would see all the stories Saffron had ever read, all the songs she’d sung, the laughter heard, the tears cried, the hands held. All her tender moments would shimmer there in the dark as brilliantly as the moon and stars she saw when she slept with her brothers and sisters in their tree house.

  The tender moment when Mama gave birth to Griffin would be there. And Daddy’s tears when he held his first son up to the forget-me-not sky. One for Mama explaining to them all how her love for them, and theirs for her, would help ease the ache of their Tishkin-shaped emptiness. Surely the doctor couldn’t miss seeing that moment when a small boy was given a choice for the first time in his life, when Daddy asked Perry Angel if he wanted to become part of their family and stay with them forever and for always at the Kingdom of Silk. And Nell would be there too. Nell was the beginning and the end of every tender moment in Saffron’s universe. In the air she breathed.

  When Doctor Larsson lay his torch on his desk, Saffron knew immediately that he hadn’t seen her tender moments, not even one of them. She knew because it wasn’t possible for anyone to look upon such loveliness without it showing in their eyes.

  The world is filled with interesting people. Some like wearing matching socks, some prefer odd ones and others never wear socks at all. There are fans of romantic television dramas and those who prefer to view the secret life of velvet worms. Like Saffron, some have only to close their eyes to see extraordinary things, like memories of tender moments, while others, despite their bright lights, brass nameplates and X-ray machines, cannot.

  Doctor Larsson, kind, clever and wishful though he was, did not know how to recognise tender moments. When he shone his tiny torch through the windows of his patients’ minds he did not expect to see something that would rival the beauty of the Milky Way, the moon or Mars. So, sadly, he never did. All he ever found were shadowy things that needed further investigation.

  Over their many years of living, Nell, Ben and Annie had come to understand that both kinds of people and both ways of looking and believing are important. Especially when someone isn’t well.

  Doctor Larsson was like a detective looking for clues with his torch and his stethoscope. His job was to question the victim and the witnesses and get to the bottom of the mystery. He asked Saffron, Annie, Ben and Nell all the questions he could think of. How often did Saffron feel unwell? Which part of her head ached? What other symptoms had
she experienced? He didn’t mention halos or firebirds and Saffron didn’t tell him. Doctor Larsson had no reason to believe she was withholding information. He was careful not to name a suspect before he had evidence. Careful not to frighten his patient. Careful as a new father with his baby.

  At Saffron’s Naming Day Ceremony, the doctor had nodded his head when Ben read the line in his poem about the mystery of Saffron. In his experience, many people think a child ceases to be a mystery once it is born, simply because they can hold it, hear it, see it and smell it. But Doctor Larsson had three daughters of his own, Sonja, Ingrid and Pia, and despite all his knowledge of science and medicine, he still found humans of all ages wonderfully mysterious creatures. Like Ben, he’d once believed that with each passing day his girls would become less of a mystery to him. Now Sonja, Ingrid and Pia were adults with families of their own, yet he still found them as mysterious as ever. He wondered how much Ben and Annie had learnt about Saffron and how much was still a mystery.

  At the end of the interview Doctor Larsson asked if there were any questions. Saffron had many: What’s wrong with me? What did you see inside my head? What about the firebirds? Am I mad? Will I go blind? Will I die?

  But she didn’t ask any of them. She couldn’t. Not with the people she loved most there in the room with her. Not after what had happened to Tishkin.

  She sat on her hands and stared at the squares in the tartan carpet while Doctor Larsson wrote a letter with a scratchy pen to a person she didn’t know. He put it in an envelope, sealed it and wrote a name on the front. Then he gave it to Ben and told him to take Saffron to a hospital in the city, where someone would take photographs of the inside of her head.