One Long Thread

by Belinda Jeffrey

  I told Becky how much I would have loved to make her dress but I just didn’t think I could do it after everything that had happened. She blinked at me, clearly stunned, for what felt like an uncomfortably long time without words, before I added to my previous statement by saying that somehow I just couldn’t sew like I used to, blithering about how it was wound up with Sally and how I knew it sounded silly, but there it was.

  All her excitement, her energetic hand movements stopped. She turned her body to face the television, pulling her feet off the couch to position her body in an overly controlled stillness. ‘Oh,’ she said bitterly. ‘So you won’t make it for me.’ There was no questioning in her voice, no trace of understanding or empathy.

  There was nothing I could say.

  She stood, announcing she had really better be going, and left. It was not so hard to find reasons to excuse myself from the group during lunchtimes after that. Becky, I’m sure, invented many reasons of her own.

  I could not decide if it was a fair and reasonable thing to have said I wouldn’t make her dress or whether I was just being mean and unkind because Becky had really given me no choice about the matter at all. It was too much like my mum. If she needed me to do something, give her something, help her with something, believe in what she believed, then there was always something wrong with me if I didn’t do it. Too selfish, too unkind, too stubborn.

  Mum’s latest letter at that time reminded me that she only wanted me to come to the Lord for my own good. She knew what was good for me and so did God, and she would continue praying for me until I matured enough to realise this. I longed for her to talk of Sally but she never did. Not once.

  Mr Grandy and I stood looking at the handiwork of our display and I could tell he was happy with the result. He rocked, slightly, on the balls of his feet and puffed his chest out. He was a man of simple achievements and I loved him for his quiet satisfaction. I suppressed an urge to hug him, right there. You could make Mr Grandy’s day with a kind word or flattering comment or a simple teacake. He was one person I knew who seemed truly content with himself and his own place in the world.

  ‘Well, if Valentino Red can’t inspire you, my girl, then I truly think there is no hope for you.’

  I smiled.

  Mr Grandy waved to a customer disappearing out of the front door, the small bell tinkling as the door closed. ‘You know,’ he said. ‘I think the classification you girls have for boys is one man short.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your Romeos and Casanovas,’ he said and right then I regretted ever telling him.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘A Valentine, by way of expanding your mind to understand another type of gentleman altogether, takes pleasure in the happiness of others.’

  I didn’t quite understand. Mr Grandy turned from the Valentino Red display towards the office where he had been printing out some of the latest Valentino designs to hang in the front window.

  ‘Legend has it,’ he continued as he collected his posters then returned down the three stairs to the counter again, ‘that the first Saint Valentine was killed for disobeying the orders of some Roman Caesar-or-other and marrying young lovers in secret. Something about thinking that single men made better soldiers or some-such-rubbish.’

  I’d never been one to embrace the romantic notion of Valentine’s Day, though, as you can imagine, it had always been one of the major highlights of Becky’s calendar year. She’d begin preparing weeks in advance, making a list of potential valentines from whom she might expect some attention. She would highlight the names of particular interest to her, narrowing this list down to the three names to whom she’d entrust with her romantic aspirations. Throughout our entire high school years she never once received anything on Valentine’s Day. Even when she was officially dating one of the science students at the beginning of February in grade ten. Come February fifteenth of that year she had dumped him.

  I followed Mr Grandy to the window display and held the posters in place while he attached them to the fishing line suspended from the ceiling.

  ‘Well,’ I said, wondering how to accommodate this new information.

  ‘I’m just saying that some men show their character in ways you couldn’t classify as Romeo romantic or Casanov . . .’ he stumbled for the correct word ending, ‘. . . ian.’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t think that’s a word.’

  ‘It is now,’ Mr Grandy’s mouth creased to one side and his smile made him appear playfully youthful.

  ‘So what you’re saying is—’

  ‘What I’m saying,’ Mr Grandy, straightened up, ‘is that Barry might be thinking he’s doing a gentlemanly thing in giving you some space.’

  At first I convinced myself that not calling Barry was because of the way my return had become a black hole, pulling me into it. It may have been true, but there were opportunities and moments I could have done what I longed to do and call. Yet it was the one thing I refused myself. And one afternoon at work I found myself telling Mr Grandy about Barry. He had a way of luring me into conversation.

  I’d begun identifying boys in my year and considering their virtues. I willed myself to feel something for one of them. That sweeping, silly fluttering I had known once, if only briefly. But I couldn’t feel it at all. I knew it still existed within my experience because thinking of Barry brought it back. Sometimes it was only a faded, memory-like feeling. And other times it was louder and insistent. But my emotions were like an arrhythmic ocean, anyway. Running hot and cold, overwhelming and distant at any one moment, any one day.

  Eric Barrada seemed like the most logical attachment so at night I willed myself to see him in my mind and imagine the feel of his body next to mine. I tried to convince myself that if I learned how to feel like that, if I prepped my body for that experience, then it might come true. What I wanted was for something, someone, to sweep me away. I wanted a wind to run through me. I wanted the feeling of being propelled forward and lifted up from where I was. But I could not find it.

  One evening Dad said I could see a counsellor if I wanted to. He said he’d been seeing someone and it really helped to talk things through. He made it sound as normal and inconsequential as visiting the dentist, though I couldn’t be convinced. It would have been one thing to talk about Sally – there was no denying what had happened to her and what kind of effect that might have been having on me and my life – but Barry seemed like something shameful. He was complicated. He belonged to Sally, not me. Perhaps what I feared was being told I was right. That the intensity of what I felt for him was really a reflection of my feeling of loss for Sally. It made sense. And I could see how it might have been true. But it wasn’t.

  So I’d open my phone and listen to Barry’s message over and over.

  ‘And another thing,’ Mr Grandy continued as if our Barry conversation was already over. ‘You should consider a future in this business, you know, kid.’

  Mr Grandy had been suggesting in subtle – and not so subtle ways – that I should think about making a step towards a future in the fashion industry. I had trouble deciding what I might do the following week, let alone the next year or the rest of my life. I seemed stuck on a simple wheel that was turning round and round. And there was something comfortable in that. But Mr Grandy could challenge me with ideas whereas Dad and Amona could not.

  I wasn’t to know then that Amona had taken the liberty of chatting to Mr Grandy – with Dad’s encouragement – and through him she gained a quick appreciation for all levels of the fashion business. Mr Grandy knew much more about wider opportunities in fashion, too, given his connections. I wasn’t to know then, either, that Mr Grandy had been making some inquiries of his own.

  23.

  I was so relieved when the formal night finally arrived because it meant an end to Mr Grandy and Dad and Amona’s attempts at persuading me to go. By the eve
ning it was too late to reconsider, there was no way anyone could change my mind. Even if – by some deranged notion – I decided I wanted to go, it was too late. Tickets had been sold, places booked, tables arranged. There was no placecard at the Beachside High School Formal for Ruby Moon.

  I had been anticipating this night, thinking about which video I’d choose to watch. I had been leaning towards something with Ginger Rogers because it seemed to be the kind of evening only her grace and poise could restore. I was standing in front of the wall of videos when Dad poked his head around the door.

  ‘We’re going to Charlie’s tonight, Button,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And you have to dress up.’

  I was totally confused and turned away from the wall of videos to face Dad. ‘I don’t want to go,’ I said, crossing my arms. ‘And even if I did, why would I dress up?’

  Dad held his hands up and shook his head. ‘Not an option,’ he said, smiling. He turned and walked towards his room, whistling. I was furious. Who was this person? I was too confused with my father’s uncharacteristic stubbornness to form any specific words to argue with him. By the time I had followed him to his room, he’d gone inside and the door had closed. So I did what anyone in my situation would have done. I sat down on the floor beside his door, my back to the wall. And crossed my arms for good measure. I was suddenly so angry. It felt like there was a vortex made of steel wool in my guts. It clouded my mind and thumped in my veins. This was not my dad, the man of predictable diplomacy. This was Amona.

  Amona didn’t move into our house straightaway after Dad and I came home. They didn’t discuss it with me but I know they decided to ease into the change for my benefit.

  After losing Sally I’d been finding it hard to adapt to anything new and it seemed as if the whole world was changing around me. School was finishing, my friends were all moving on and I had to scramble to catch up on work I had missed, as well as completing all the current work.

  Even before Sally, I hadn’t given all that much thought to what I would do with my future. I wasn’t the kind of person to think too much ahead of myself. I was like Dad in that regard. We had a comfortable rhythm between us, treading small wheels to get us from one day to the next, one week to the next. But Sally had changed that for me. I knew I had to take responsibility, because I didn’t want my life slipping by and falling away, but I didn’t know what to do with that thought. I didn’t want my world coming to a sudden end, but, if it did, I wanted to know I had lived every day of it.

  I didn’t appreciate Amona’s presence in our house at first. The thing was I liked her, I liked her a lot, but I was trying not to like the situation, making myself feel sad and unwanted. I’d been taking every opportunity to turn what might have been a positive experience into a reinforcement of my loss. Inwardly, I blamed Dad for appearing too quick to move on and forget.

  Amona made him happy; you could see that they both made each other happy.

  I’d go to sleep with my thoughts turning black at myself and anyone I felt didn’t understand. It was strange, part of me understood what I was doing, but the other part of me didn’t know and didn’t care. Dad and Amona never confronted me about it and I could think of a dozen justifiable reasons they should have confronted me with a parental lecture. But they didn’t and I’m so glad. It would have only made it worse and harder to come back out of the small dark hole I was digging around me.

  I heard Amona’s car pull up into the garage. Her car door opened and closed, her heels clicked on the concrete and the door from the garage into the passage opened and closed in a rush. I didn’t move. Amona scurried down the passage, her arms laden with bags. She stepped over me – as if I wasn’t there at all – opened the door to their bedroom and closed it again. There was definitely a conspiracy.

  The door opened again and Dad appeared. I looked up to find him dressed in his best black suit, bow tie fastened about his neck. He smelled of sandalwood and spice. He looked so handsome.

  He stepped over me and headed towards the kitchen. I followed behind.

  ‘You either get dressed up and join us for dinner or I’ll have to make you starve,’ he said, the determination in his voice rattling me. It verged on scorn. He was toying with me.

  ‘Starve or feast on chow mein and curry puffs.’

  I decided I knew how to handle this. If I had to go along with this half-baked idea, I’d change into clean jeans and T-shirt. For the sake of good Chinese and the semblance of a happy – if not demented – household, I’d go along with the plan. To a point.

  I turned and stormed off towards my room. I heard Dad following me, so I stopped.

  ‘You have to wear that midnight-blue dress you’ve had hanging on your mannequin for months.’

  I swallowed. No way. Absolutely no way!

  ‘You don’t have a choice, Ruby,’ he said quietly, behind me.

  The shock of hearing my name, of Dad actually saying my name. ‘I think it’s about time I called you by the name I gave you. Don’t you?’

  Something cracked inside. Like I’d been hit hard from nowhere. I turned and faced him and blubbered. I thought I was over all of that. I didn’t think anything could reduce me to tears anymore. Certainly not in front of anyone. Dad pulled me close. ‘Oh my darling Ruby,’ he said. ‘Tears are not going to get you out of wearing that dress.’

  Despite this tone of instant sadness, I laughed.

  It was still a stupid idea. But, inside my room, I told myself that wearing this midnight-blue dress, the one I made after Sally had gone, wouldn’t be half as strange as wearing that apricot floral disgrace of Pearl’s. I told myself it didn’t mean anything. That all I had to do was undress and redress, get in the car and go out. I tried telling myself it meant nothing more than that.

  I had not removed that dress from the mannequin, long before Sally’s accident and it felt wrong in a way I still couldn’t explain. But I was hungry and perhaps part of me really wanted to go because I unhooked the clasps and the zip and slipped the dress away from the mannequin. I had an overwhelming sense that Sally was in the room. I held my breath. I didn’t want to breathe or blink or think anything that would make her disappear. I felt like I could almost see her, hear her talking to me, saying things like ‘What do you think you are doing? I can’t believe you’ve made all this fuss over a stupid dress. Well, all right, it’s beautiful but, jeez. Really? You always did hold on to everything too long. Your baby blanket, your dummy, your doll. I’ve been gone for ages, Button. I’d have already let you go.’

  I felt her smile and there was that same sense of warmth and peace she could give you in that gesture. I knew then that she might say the kinds of things that made you think she didn’t care or didn’t take much to heart, but everything she really wanted you to know and feel and understand was right there in those moments when she looked at you like there was no other moment in the world. Her smile could wash away a thousand doubts as soon as light up a room. That was her; that was Sally.

  I kissed my fingers, held my palm flat beside my mouth and blew it into the air that surrounded her memory. I closed my eyes, thinking this was one of those moments you see in movies or read about in books where everything comes together. I expected to remember seeing her in that white dress, my silk moth stitched to the bodice, but I still couldn’t. What I could do, only just, was slip that dress over my own lanky frame, pull the zipper up and look at myself in the mirror. I looked like her. I did look just like her.

  24.

  We were an odd sight in Charlie’s Chinese Restaurant. The three of us sitting in our finery around a lazy Susan filled with chicken chow mein, fried rice, garlic prawns, honey chicken and Mongolian lamb. The remains of our entrees of satay sticks, prawn toast and spring rolls were on one small plate in the centre. The restaurant was full, the rest of the patrons dressed in casual jeans, even thongs
.

  Amona drank green tea from a small cup that had no handle while Dad had white wine.

  ‘Ignore them,’ Dad said as people turned to look at us.

  ‘We’re multi-millionaires,’ he said, ‘and it’s our custom to dress like this and eat wherever we like.’

  That brought the first laugh of the evening. Then Dad produced his joke book. ‘This took me a week of scouting in lunchtimes to find.’

  I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed so much. Yes I could. It would have been my birthday dinner before Sally’s accident.

  We grew full pretty quickly and I was aware of how fitted that dress really was. It wasn’t like wearing my usual jeans and shirt, something comfortable that stretched and moulded to my shape. This dress felt prickly and awkward. It had me sitting straight, being careful about how I let my legs rest under the table. Dad pulled out his camera and we leaned into each other while Dad held the camera and took snaps. Of the fifteen or so that he took, there was only one where he’d managed to get us all in together. In all of the others at least one of us was missing a head, or all of us missing our heads entirely. I think we found those pictures funnier than the joke book.

  Dad held up his hand to signal the waiter and I didn’t think I could eat anything else, but Dad ordered dessert. I was thinking he’d gone a little overboard with the quantities until he announced that there would be two extra people joining us. I didn’t think it would be anyone from school – there was no way any of my friends would have given up a moment of their formal time to come here. Surely. And neither should they. But I didn’t have to wait long to find out who it was. I saw Mr Grandy accompanied by an older lady coming through the main door. He waved enthusiastically as he saw us and I waved back. I turned to Dad and Amona; they were smiling.