Perry Angel’s Suitcase

by Glenda Millard

  Her mum and daddy hadn’t been able to agree on a middle name for her, so they didn’t bother with one at all. Sometimes she imagined another name for herself. Something stylish, she thought, like Cordelia or Guinevere. Maybe she could have both. Layla Cordelia Guinevere Elliott. That would look impressive on a suitcase.

  When the taxi whizzed past Joe Canning’s place, Griffin said, ‘Look, Layla, there’s still some apples on the ground, we’ll have to come and get them for Nell.’

  ‘Don’t you have to ask the owner of the orchard first?’ asked Melody.

  ‘Not really,’ answered Griffin. ‘Nell and Mr Canning have a special arrangement. We can collect windfalls whenever we like as long as Nell makes him an apple pie in return.’

  ‘Nell makes the best apple pies in the entire universe!’ said Layla, and she almost wished they were walking home instead of zooming along in the yellow taxi bus. But then she remembered she didn’t have her backpack with her. Even with her lunchbox, schoolbooks and pyjamas in it, her backpack could hold enough apples for at least one apple pie. She didn’t think Perry’s suitcase would hold many apples. It hardly looked big enough for a pair of pyjamas. Maybe he didn’t plan on staying long.

  Saturday passed Perry by in a haze of strangeness. He was used to that. Each new place had its own strangenesses. But Melody was with him in the Kingdom of Silk and he had his suitcase. He concentrated on the familiar feel of them, one at each side. They anchored his thoughts and stopped fright from spinning loose inside his chest.

  Lunch was a banquet on a blanket on the banks of the dam. There were sandwiches and sausage rolls, pink jelly cakes and cream kisses. Afterwards Nell hung the picnic rug on the clothesline out of reach of Delilah and Jezebel.

  ‘Is it true goats eat anything?’ Layla asked Griffin.

  ‘Nell says it’s a myth,’ answered Griffin. ‘Our goats are fussy eaters.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Nell, ‘but unfortunately they are fond of tartan picnic rugs.’

  The Rainbow Girls loaded Blue and the dishes into the wheelbarrow and took them up to the house. Then Ben, Annie, Griffin and Layla took Perry and Melody for a stroll around the Kingdom of Silk.

  Inside Annie’s vine-covered studio, the chalk white walls were hung with paintings. Perry gazed at the portraits of her children. There was also one of Layla and another of a baby girl with a crown of daisies on her head. Above them, in the rafters, sheaves of lavender and musky roses dried slowly in the still autumn air.

  ‘They’re Nell’s,’ Griffin explained. ‘She makes scented sachets for the old folk who live in Lily Lodge and can’t have gardens of their own. On a hook in the corner they found a spare pair of wings. Annie dusted them down and Saffron offered them to Perry, but he shook his head. So Melody put them on over her T-shirt. Then she untied her ponytail and slipped her shoes off. Perry thought she looked as though she belonged in a place like this.

  The worst thing that happened to Perry on Saturday began when he and Melody were standing at the bottom of a tree the Silks called Cox’s Orange Pippin. Layla’s legs were dangling from a wooden platform high up in the canopy of leaves.

  ‘Come up with Griff and me, Perry,’ he heard her call. ‘You can bring Melody if you want to. Can you climb trees, Melody?’

  Perry looked up. A breeze shifted the leaves and splotches of sunlight spilled over his face and he felt as though he might like to be up there in the tree-house. But Melody had her wings on and he couldn’t climb up with his suitcase and he was afraid that if he let go of one of them he might get the feeling. So he didn’t do anything because that was safest.

  The next moment Perry found himself being led away from the Cox’s Orange Pippin and from Melody. His hand was held firmly in Ben Silk’s. Perry looked back at Melody, but she only smiled at him and stayed there under the tree-house tree with her wings on. It was like a nightmare. Perry concentrated hard on his suitcase. He felt the worn leather handle and the frayed stitching. He squeezed his eyelids shut and stumbled along beside Mr Silk while he imagined opening the suitcase a crack and stuffing the feeling inside it, the lid of the case scraping his knuckles as he drew his hand out quickly and slammed it shut. Mr Silk was talking to him, but Perry couldn’t do his imagining and listen at the same time. He imagined the same thing over and over until the suitcase was full. At last he could open his eyes to see where he was going, and the red gravel path didn’t float around anymore and he didn’t feel like he was going to throw up. He looked up at Mr Silk who smiled at him and squeezed his hand, and the best thing that happened to Perry on Saturday afternoon was when he knew that somehow Mr Silk understood about the feeling.

  Melody left early on Sunday morning. Perry didn’t talk to her because it was too dangerous. Sometimes, on occasions like this, if he opened his mouth his eyes got all watery. Melody didn’t take the wings. She hung them behind the door in the sleep-out and told Perry she would come back and have another go of them before the holidays were over. He tried not to believe her in case she didn’t keep her promise, but it was a hard thing to do, because she kissed him goodbye. The Others had never kissed him.

  6. The Colour of Heaven

  Layla noticed how Perry’s chin wobbled after Melody kissed him goodbye, so she took hold of his free hand even though she would much rather have gone with Griffin and Blue in the back of the Bedford to open the gate for Ben and Melody.

  ‘How long does it take for determination to work?’ Layla asked Nell later that afternoon.

  ‘Depends,’ said Nell, ‘What is it you’re determined about?’

  Layla shrugged. ‘To make Perry happy.’ Then in a few seconds she added. ‘So he’ll put his suitcase down. When Melody left I kept hold of him until Griff and Blue came back from opening the gate,’ she explained, ‘but he kept his fingers stiff the whole time and didn’t curl them around mine even a little bit.’

  ‘Well I’m glad to hear you want Perry to be happy,’ said Nell, ‘but sometimes determination isn’t enough. Happiness comes from the inside; it’s something people have to choose for themselves. Perhaps the best thing you can do is be determined to stay happy yourself and hope it will rub off on Perry. And don’t forget, Layla, you’re not the only one who wants him to be happy.’

  Layla felt happy almost straightaway and didn’t notice that Nell had forgotten to mention the suitcase. But Griffin had been listening carefully to Nell’s answer and he did notice.

  ‘Nell, if you gave Perry a whirl on your clothes line he’d have to put his suitcase down,’ he suggested, staring dreamily out the window. It was the kind of look he got on his face when he was thinking of eating golden syrup dumplings or rolling down a grassy bank in spring or whirling about like a rag in the wind on Nell’s Hills Hoist. ‘He’s not as big as me, Nell. He wouldn’t be too heavy.’

  ‘The day Perry Angel asks for a whirl on my clothes line, I’ll gladly give him one,’ said Nell. ‘In fact I might even have a whirl with him!’

  ‘Cross your heart?’ asked Layla.

  ‘Cross my heart,’ said Nell, and she licked her finger and crossed the Queen of England’s face.

  Because the getting of happiness was a matter of choice and the entire Silk family was doing its best to be an example of happiness to Perry, Griffin and Layla sometimes got to play by themselves, and gradually the Christmas beetle feeling in Layla’s chest disappeared.

  One morning when it was almost time for Melody to come back and try her wings, Layla said to Griffin, ‘Can we get your treasure out and look at it?’

  Some people keep their treasure locked up in a safe or a bank vault, but Griffin kept his under his bed. In his opinion there was no use having treasure if you couldn’t see it or touch it or smell it. Besides, everyone knew robbers didn’t come looking for treasure under beds. Annie said there was so much treasure under Griffin’s bed she couldn’t fit her broom in to sweep the dust out. Griffin reasoned that if all the space was taken up with treasure, there would be no dust and Mama woul
dn’t have to sweep. It was what Layla’s daddy would have called a ‘win-win situation’.

  Layla and Griffin lay on their stomachs on the floor and peered into the darkness under the bed. Griffin pulled out a black and white cardboard box. It had ‘Black Magic’ in raised letters on the lid and a picture of a white rabbit, a magician’s top hat and a magic wand. Layla had seen the box before. It had once belonged to Ben and was her favourite of all Griffin’s treasures.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asked Layla, and she pulled herself so close that her nose was almost touching the box. She closed her eyes and waited, then opened them at the exact moment Griffin took the lid off the box. It was an old chocolate box. The chocolates had long gone, but the smell of them remained, drifting out like a genie from a bottle whenever the lid was lifted. Now the box held a collection of beautifully patterned chocolate wrappings that Griffin had carefully smoothed with his thumbnail until all the wrinkles were gone. Once, he had found a cockroach in the box having a sniff of chocolate. He let it go into the woodheap.

  After he and Layla had laid all the pieces of foil on the floor and arranged them in several different patterns, Griffin said, ‘We’d better put them away now in case they lose their chocolateyness.’ They carefully replaced the wrappers in the Black Magic box and slid it back under the bed.

  ‘Do you think Perry’s got treasure in his suitcase?’ Layla asked Griffin. He wrinkled his forehead.

  ‘Not sure,’ he said.

  ‘Or maybe he’s a secret agent,’ said Layla and they both giggled.

  ‘I wonder what secret agents have in their suitcases?’ asked Griffin.

  ‘Binoculars and a mobile telephone!’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Don’t know. I wonder what the letters mean?’ Layla thought for a bit and then said, ‘Perry’s something-or-other Detective Agency.’ Then Griffin tried to think what the M and the G might stand for.

  ‘Perry’s Mighty Good Detective Agency!’ he said, and they rolled about on the floor laughing and holding their sides until an image of Perry crept into Layla’s head and she could see him walking around by himself with his suitcase in his hand. His midnight eyes were heavy with secrets and his mouth was tiny and tight. He looked anxious and restless the way Blue did when he was trying to find the right place to lie down and sleep or a safe place to hide a bone. And suddenly Layla didn’t feel as though they should be laughing anymore, even though it had only been a joke.

  ‘Let’s go and see where Perry is,’ she said, sitting up.

  Perry was inside the studio. Outside, a blackbird cast a fleeting shadow on the flaming vine leaves and piped a sharp sweet note through the open window as he flew. Annie’s brush stroked the canvas like a sigh. Indigo passed Perry clean white paper and a rainbow in a box. Seventy-two coloured pencils, including seven shades of blue. Perry sat down on the slated floor in a shaft of sunlight and lay his case across his knees. He looked carefully at all the jewel-bright colours. He turned them in the tin with his finger so he could see their pretty names: peacock, sapphire, kingfisher, azure, indigo, cornflower and sky. He lay the sheet of paper over the five golden letters on his suitcase. Then he chose one of the seven shades of blue and covered the paper with the colour of heaven.

  ‘We’re going to collect the eggs, Perry,’ said Layla when they found him. ‘Nell thought you might like to come with us.’ Because Melody had gone, Perry had got used to walking with the suitcase in one hand and nothing in the other. Sometimes Blue walked on his empty side. Nell said Blue possessed other senses to make up for his deafness. Perry wondered if Blue knew about the feeling. He noticed it didn’t come quite so badly when Blue walked beside him. Once, he’d patted Blue. It felt nice and Blue had turned around and smiled at him. But he never did it again in case Blue missed him when he was gone.

  Nell tossed her Girls some vegetable peelings and a few handfuls of grain and while they were happily scratching and pecking, she opened the small wooden doors to their nesting boxes. Layla and Griffin collected twelve perfect eggs — some brown, some white — from the clean golden straw.

  ‘Well done, Girls,’ said Nell as she put one of the eggs in Perry’s free hand. It felt warm and he closed his fingers around it.

  ‘What about this one?’ asked Layla, pointing to a white hen with a collar of black feathers around her neck. ‘Is she still laying her egg?’

  ‘We won’t bother Madonna today,’ said Nell. ‘She’s a bit cranky. Anyway I think I have enough eggs. I saved some from yesterday. We’re going to boil them and paint them for Easter, Perry,’ she explained. ‘You can decorate one for Melody if you like, she’ll be back on Sunday.’

  That night, before he went to bed, Perry lifted the latches of his suitcase and opened it a crack. He checked to make sure the picture he’d made was still in there. He must be careful. He mustn’t let Melody see the picture. If she saw it and The Others made her tell, they might come and take him away.

  7. Madonna and the Promise

  Egg-decorating night was a tradition in the Kingdom of Silk. Everyone sat around the kitchen table and was given an egg. Perry put his suitcase on his knees and cradled his egg carefully while he watched what the others were doing. He saw Indigo put hers into a saucepan of red dye. It came out cooked and coloured ruby red and she drew scrolls and curls all over the shell with a fine black pen until it looked like a magic carpet. Violet tied pieces of narrow ribbon around her egg before she cooked it. She added some blue to Indigo’s red cooking water and made a purplish colour. When it was cool and the ribbon was removed, her purple egg was striped with white. Then she painted the white parts with glue and sprinkled them with silver glitter.

  ‘That egg will hatch if you hold it any longer, Perry!’ said Indigo, noticing he hadn’t even started. ‘Here, let me help you.’ She put a few drops of blue dye in some clean water. While his egg was cooking, Perry watched Ben. He had already dyed his egg a deep mossy green and was using a large, sharp needle to engrave it. He scratched away at the thin green layer so the white underneath showed through. On the back he’d carved a flower. It looked like one of Nell’s roses.

  ‘Oh, it’s beautiful, Ben,’ said Annie.

  ‘I think I’ll give it a coat of lacquer when I’ve finished,’ said Ben looking pleased. Then he leaned over and whispered to Perry. ‘I’m making mine for Annie.’ He turned the egg around in the palm of his hand and Perry saw the two letters A and B twined together like the stems of the blackbird’s vine outside the studio window.

  ‘Here, Perry, you can start on yours now,’ said Indigo, putting a pale blue egg in front of him. Layla came to look at Ben’s egg.

  ‘It’s really good, Ben. Are you going to put some glitter on it? I’m doing mine for Daddy,’ she told him. ‘Do you think he’ll mind if it’s pink?’

  Perry wondered if all the others were decorating their eggs for someone else. ‘Do you want some stickers, Perry?’ asked Layla, offering him a sheet of dots and dinosaurs, hearts and stars. ‘Or you could draw a face or glue some sequins to it. I’m going to put pink sequins on mine, and some feathers.’

  He didn’t mind Layla talking to him. He liked the way she talked without expecting an answer. Although sometimes he thought he’d like to talk to her, and if it hadn’t been for having to concentrate on the suitcase all the time, he might have. There was a part of Layla that was like him. She wasn’t a Silk either.

  When he had finished his egg, Perry thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever made.

  Melody didn’t come on Easter Sunday. She telephoned the night before and told Nell she wasn’t well. Melody asked if she could speak to Perry, but he didn’t want to talk to her on the telephone. He didn’t tell her he had decorated an egg for her or that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever made. At least now he didn’t have to worry about her seeing the picture of heaven.

  On Easter Sunday the scent of spices; nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, wafted through the old house on the hill at the Kingdom o
f Silk, sneaking under doors and drifting into dreams. Layla woke up and wriggled up onto Griffin’s bed, still cocooned in her sleeping bag; a warm pink caterpillar.

  ‘Wake up Griff, it’s Easter! Come on Perry!’

  Perry rubbed his eyes to smudge his dreams away and opened them to Layla’s forget-me-not stare and her morning-bright smile. He looked out the louvre windows behind him and heaven was everywhere. In the hall he heard rushing footsteps, bare feet and the sound of slippers slapping on the boards. There were dreamy voices and others as clear and bright as blackbird songs. Perry tumbled out of bed, grabbed his suitcase and followed Griffin and Layla, who were running towards the kitchen as though it was the centre of the universe.

  The table was set. Beside each plate was a chocolate egg wrapped in foil and tied with ribbon. In the middle of the table there was a mountain of home-made hot-cross buns; fragrant and fat and fruity and sticky with glaze. Perry had never seen so many, not even in the window of a bakery. After the buns came the giving. Amber went first. She liked to cook. Her ambition was to be as good a cook as Nell and to have as many aprons. Her gift was to share. It was a cake in the shape of a heart. ‘It’s an Armenian Love cake,’ she said. Amber was a romantic cook.

  Then Indigo put a cardboard egg carton on the table. It had four hair scrunchies around it and a sign that said, ‘DO NOT OPEN’.

  ‘Hurry up and open it, Indi!’ said Violet. Slowly Indigo took the scrunchies off. Then she flipped open the lid of the carton.

  ‘Ta da!’ she said. It was full of decorated eggs. She had started preparing them well before egg-decorating night. ‘You can all choose one,’ she said. ‘You first, Perry.’ Perry knew exactly which one he liked best. He chose the magic-carpet egg.