Cloudwish

by Fiona Wood

  She and Jess were a fabulously efficient production line. Vermicelli noodles, finely shredded lettuce, then either chicken, two strands of chives and two Vietnamese mint leaves, perfectly positioned on a just-overlapping diagonal, or roast duck with hoi sin sauce and spring onion, or tiger prawn with julienned green paw paw and coriander leaves. Roll, roll, roll. Working so hard, with such concentration, even on a menial task, the time went pretty quickly. Vân Ước was surprised when Gary came over and told them to take their break. Vân Ước and Jess had decided long ago that all Gary’s wardrobe contained was black T-shirts, black jeans and his signature red bandanas. They could never decide how many he had of each. Cam and Bec, who had been prepping, took over the rolling.

  If it was fine, she and Jess always went outside for their break. Eyes needed the relaxation of a more distant horizon after looking closely at rice paper rolls, twelve up, for two hours. They were in the laneway beside the cafe, sitting on the milk crate and cushion seats that were dragged out on the first break of the day and stacked and packed up at closing time. Gary’s preferred music of the moment filtered out: Dionne Warwick singing Burt Bacharach songs.

  ‘I love this one,’ said Jess. It was ‘Trains and Boats and Planes’.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I think of this album as basically an instruction manual for life.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Vân Ước, in a vagued-out trance.

  ‘Unless you think that the moment I wake up I say a little prayer for an unspecified other, before I put on my makeup, when you know I don’t even wear makeup, no, not really. I was being stupid. For humour.’

  ‘I haven’t studied the lyrics, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, well, they don’t really bear examining.’ Jess opened a bag of Cheezels, her current break snack favourite. ‘Does it ever occur to you that we should look for other work?’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘We are Vietnamese Australian girls making rice paper rolls as our casual work.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well we haven’t exactly spread our cultural wings.’

  ‘What do you want to do, flip burgers?’

  ‘Yuck, no, because, smell.’

  ‘Work in a shop?’

  ‘Yuck, no, subservience. Have you found everything you need today? Can I help you with that? It really looks great on you.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘No, I’m happy – I’m just saying, just noting, that we’re living quite the cliché.’

  ‘Suits me. Work’s work. Henry’s great. And we get food.’ Vân Ước bit into a prawn roll.

  Jess had put on her Cheezel fingers. They were still wearing their paper hygiene hats, so should probably at least have put their backs to the laneway in case anyone they knew walked by, but Vân Ước felt too work-zonked to care.

  ‘Why do you think it is that I don’t like actual cheese, but I love Cheezels?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Because there’s no actual cheese in Cheezels?’

  ‘Though there is the thing called cheese powder,’ said Jess, looking at the ingredients list on the pack on her knee, nibbling the Cheezel from her left-hand little finger.

  A group of girls tumbled across the laneway, laughing, carrying Henry Ha Minh takeaway bags. One of them was Holly. She spotted Vân Ước and Jess, and pointed. Laughter spurted from the group. Vân Ước froze. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of looking embarrassed or apologetic.

  ‘Who or what are they?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Just girls from school,’ said Vân Ước.

  Another gale of laughter issued from them as they walked off.

  ‘Are they friends of his?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The case against him just got stronger.’

  chapter 19

  Cleaning the flat with her mother took up a couple of hours every Sunday morning. When her mother was sick, her father took over. The place might not be glamorous, but it was spotless. She didn’t think all families would run a damp cloth along every single freaking skirting board every week, for instance. Or have such sparkling plugholes. If only they could get some air through the place, though. The windows didn’t open far, and there was no cross ventilation. Heavy mesh security grilles covered the windows that looked out into the shared public hallways, and those windows didn’t open at all.

  She packed her camera after the bleach-fest and went down to take some midday-light photos for her folio. In the foyer, she crossed paths with Jess, who was on her way in. They headed outside together, wandering over to their favourite outdoor garden area, the bench under a stand of ghost gums.

  ‘I forgot to ask yesterday – how’s your mum going?’ said Jess.

  ‘Not great. I’m tablet-counting, though, so I guess she’ll feel better one of these days. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘School. We’re doing the toy and book drive.’

  A pang of school-homesickness hit her. Her old school did a massive toy drive every year to gather, sort, clean up and distribute toys for asylum seeker resource centres to send to the detention centres. How relaxing it would be to be back with her old friends and old teachers. Even after a couple of years, it was still exhausting being in aspiration land at Crowthorne Grammar. ‘I wish we were little again, sometimes.’

  ‘Not me. I’m not doing any more kid time than I have to.’

  ‘All that pushing our parents have done. Do you think they get the irony that the more we do what they want, the less we can connect with them?’

  ‘Pushing us to succeed is pushing us out of their gang?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure my parents don’t know what irony is,’ said Jess.

  ‘And we don’t know the Vietnamese word for it.’

  ‘I mean, it is irony, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, I think that would come under the situational irony umbrella.’

  ‘It’s kind of sad.’ Vân Ước opened her camera case and swapped lenses.

  ‘We’re transitional.’

  ‘Band name? Transitional Mews.’

  ‘Mmm, an oboe and a violin. I’m not seeing it.’

  ‘There are kids not much younger than us whose grandparents came on boats. They’re a whole generation in. Parents with proper jobs and perfect English.’

  ‘Like we’ll be.’

  ‘Our kids won’t be able to keep us in the dark like we can with our parents.’ Jess got up and stretched. ‘I feel kinda sorry for them.’

  Vân Ước headed for the street as Jess turned back towards the building. ‘Yeah, well I feel kinda sorry for us.’

  Her father had a chicken phở on the stove.

  Vân Ước emerged, starving, from her bedroom, after a massive load of maths homework and an intense ‘what’s with Billy?’ wondering session.

  Her ba smiled at her, gave her a significant look and pointed at the closed bedroom door.

  ‘Please chop the herbs now,’ he said.

  Vân Ước started cutting up the coriander and Vietnamese mint he had ready on the chopping board. ‘This smells SO DELICIOUS,’ she replied, playing along.

  ‘And very healthy food. So good for you.’

  ‘Just what you need when you’ve been feeling sick.’

  ‘Now the noodles, and then we can eat.’

  Her mother opened the bedroom door. She looked tired, but had a small smile on her face. ‘Why don’t you two just come into the bedroom and shout at me while I’m lying down.’

  ‘Mama, perfect timing!’

  ‘It does smell good. I’ll sit up and eat a little bit.’

  Watching her father happily draining noodles, arranging the bowls, ladling in stock, Vân Ước felt relieved. Out of bed. Out of the bedroom. Eating. Good signs.

  Her father believed his strategy of luring her mother from her b
ed with tantalising food smells had worked. And her mother, the most obstinate woman imaginable, let him think it.

  chapter 20

  Vân Ước arrived in the locker area after pre-school orchestra practice on Monday morning to find Annie in the middle of a heated dispute with Pippa. She listened idly as she got out her laptop and copy of Ariel for period one, English.

  ‘I am too off sugar, you dweeb,’ Annie said to Pippa.

  ‘But you just put about a gallon of honey in your tea in the common room. I was there right next to you, so . . . you’re not. Off sugar,’ Pippa said, in her patient, slightly trippy voice. ‘You’re actually mainlining sugar.’

  ‘Honey isn’t sugar,’ Annie said, closing her locker with a bang.

  ‘But it’s a sugar,’ Pippa said. ‘It’s in the sugar family.’

  ‘Listen, sugar is white and comes in a bowl, and, it’s like POISON. Honey is a yellow liquid. It’s healthy because it’s made by bees, who, PS, we would die without, because they pollinate our food.’

  ‘No one’s saying bees aren’t like totally good guys and all, but honey is a sugar in dietary terms,’ said Pippa. ‘Put it this way: if ants like it, it’s a sugar, babe.’

  Holly walked in with Tiff, and stopped dead when she saw Vân Ước.

  ‘Security alert – lock up your belongings,’ she said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Didn’t you hear? You know that cardigan Vân Ước had on last week? She “found” it,’ Holly said, doing the inverted comma fingers in the air. ‘So, just keep an eye on your valuables.’

  ‘Oooh, I loved that cardigan,’ said Pippa. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘In the Botanic Gardens,’ said Vân Ước.

  ‘What do you mean – it was just lying around?’ said Annie.

  ‘No, I would have left it, if it had been.’ Finally, an opportunity to tell her story without Holly’s false spin on it. She found an extra shred of courage as she saw Michael arrive.

  ‘It had a label pinned to it that said . . .’ Of course, she remembered – she had proof. She opened her locker again. ‘I’ve still got it here . . . somewhere.’ She pulled out her backpack and felt around inside the front pocket where she’d put it. ‘It was here. I must have lost it.’

  ‘How convenient,’ said Holly.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I found the cardigan, and I know what the label said . . .’

  ‘And I know a liar when I see one.’ Holly ostentatiously locked her locker. ‘But do let us know if you find this non-existent label.’ She gave Vân Ước an unpleasant Cheshire Cat smile.

  If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends. Huh! Cold comfort. Of course that was the saintly Helen Burns speaking, not Jane Eyre. Jane’s rejoinder had been, No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don’t love me I would rather die than live – I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Jane was always spot on the money. Who wanted to be solitary and hated? Who didn’t want to be popular and loved?

  Ms Norton, who was also another class’s homeroom teacher, was running a few minutes late for English, and the whole room was humming with chat when Billy arrived. He came over to Vân Ước. ‘I’ve been scouted by Brown,’ he said. ‘They want me and Ben to row for them.’ Vân Ước could see Billy’s friends exchanging looks: a few aberrations were becoming a pattern – what was Billy doing talking to that girl again? With his full focus on her, she was unable to ignore him.

  ‘Brown. You mean . . . Ivy League Brown?’ she said.

  ‘Yep.’ And as though struck by an important realisation, he added, ‘They have great art schools there, too.’ She wasn’t the only one giving him the shock bomb. What he seemed to be saying was that she too might like to study in America.

  Holly looked at her with open hostility. But Ben made light of it. ‘Actually, they have a whole lot of good universities there. And Robbo says we’ll get more offers. Now we just have to ace the regatta this weekend.’

  ‘I think we’ll be okay. I pulled a six twenty-six this morning,’ said Billy.

  Vân Ước saw a quickly covered spark of annoyance cross Ben’s face. Billy was talking about his ergo time. Six minutes, twenty-six seconds. She wondered what his splits were.

  Ms Norton came in with apologies, making sure everyone by now had completed their practice session, or had them scheduled for some time that week and had made appointments with her for their first orals.

  She and Billy were meeting after school on Wednesday. She knew for sure if she looked up he’d be looking at her. She managed not to look up.

  chapter 21

  On Wednesday, straight after her oboe class and his training session were finished Vân Ước found herself leaving school with Billy Gardiner. She was side by side on a footpath with him. Billy Gardiner. On her way to his house. To Billy Gardiner’s house. She knew from the class contact lists that he lived within walking distance of the school. He’d showered after gym and his hair was still dripping, soaking his shirt. He smelled great. Looked great. She tried not to look, not to smell.

  She had told her parents she’d be at a compulsory after-school English session. Her mother didn’t even bother asking to see the letter from school. She must have figured out years ago that her daughter was reliable to a boring degree. The benefit of all those years of perfect behaviour was that she had a fair amount of freedom in daylight hours, though rarely anything to squander it on. She smiled. She was acting as though this actually constituted a transgressive activity, when what she was doing was walking to a real, compulsory after-school English study session. What a loser she was. Even when she was breaking free, she wasn’t.

  Billy looked at her. ‘It’s the secret smile. The Vân Ước special.’

  She immediately replaced the smile with a neutral expression. He couldn’t possibly interpret that any particular way. She thought of Mr Rochester studying Jane Eyre’s expressions: There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd . . .

  ‘It’s the Vân Ước is giving nothing away face,’ he said. ‘I like that I get the faces to myself for once. Now I can ask you what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You’ve had since year nine to ask what I’m thinking. You took your own good time.’

  ‘You came in year nine?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Huh. Who knew?’

  He looked genuinely puzzled, and fleetingly unsure of himself, as he should, because wasn’t he really asking the question, Why am I suddenly fascinated by someone I never noticed before, even though she’s been in my class for two years?

  He was unlikely to be speculating that his feelings might be nothing more than wish-induced hokum.

  But she was.

  Billy was quiet for a stretch of at least two minutes – unusual – before they turned into his street, which ran into a road that flanked one boundary of the Botanic Gardens. They stopped at a high brick wall covered in well-trimmed ficus. He unlocked a tall wrought-iron gate decorated with leaves and flowers and ushered her into his world.

  On a sideboard crammed with photos of, she guessed, family and extended family and friends, in a forest of silver frames, there was one photo to which she was particularly drawn. Billy’s parents, presumably – a wedding-day shot. Straight blonde hair, a simple, collarbone-exposing neckline, thick fabric that stood a little way from the skin, casting a soft shadow. Eye-shining laughter, champagne flutes raised, a toast. The large square diamond. It could be a Tiffany ad. It could not be a more stark contrast to her own family.

  She thought, inevitably, of something – not the worst thing, no, not by far – on the list of things she’d never dared to ask her father. On boats, in cases such as her parents’, when people sat crammed togethe
r like livestock, becalmed and dying, it wasn’t uncommon that they would resort to drinking their own urine, or giving sips of urine to their children, desperate to keep them hydrated. She’d dipped the tip of her little finger into a sample she had to produce at the doctor’s one day, when she was thirteen. It tasted funky and made her gag. Mouthfuls? No. No way. She would have perished, a weakling.

  The sense of excess here flooded her senses. Space! The entry hall was bigger than her living/dining and kitchen area combined. One wall featured a gallery-huge piece of indigenous art. The entrance lobby of her flats featured unpainted red brick walls, a line of missing tiles on the floor right outside the lifts, and a sign that said, No spitting or hawking. Fine $300 in three languages.

  The stuff of which things were made! Curtains in the sitting room fell to sit heavily on the floor, slightly over-long. Windowsills were deep enough to sit on. She thought of Jane Eyre’s reading nook. In the library, the windows had solid wooden folding shutters, painted white. The books! They lived here – never had to be returned to a public library. The rug felt densely woven, thick and soft underfoot. Here was a sense of air and light, an environment controlled. Nothing intruded. Nothing unwelcome could find its way in. No cooking smells invaded this area. It had its own lovely smells: the glass vase of flowers, as big as a bucket; a hint of furniture polish, beeswax. But it smelled most of all like – cleanness, and fresh air.

  Where she lived, there were pockets that would forever hold the ghost of a thousand phởs. A lack of proper ventilation meant that their flat held the heat for too long on summer days like this.

  The walls here must be so thick. This room was quiet, and cool, despite the breathless heat outside. Maybe there were other people in the house, maybe not. You’d never know.

  At her place, every conversation could be heard from anywhere in the flat. Bathroom and toilet noises were all unavoidably shared. And, coming in from either side, neighbours’ phone calls, music, arguments, plumbing noises and TV were constant visitors.