‘When she came to my place, she seemed to be going through some kind of emotional crisis.’
For the second time that morning Angie looked at him closely. There were definitely no antennae. So how had he known there was something wrong with Vicky, when Angie, her best friend, hadn’t noticed a thing?
‘Vicky’s dealing with some unpleasant stuff,’ said Angie who wasn’t prepared to share the details of her friend’s situation. Besides, it wasn’t a happy ending. No reconciliation, only rancour. Paul wanted a divorce to marry his thirty-eight-year-old girlfriend. There was a dispute looming over his super and a custody battle for the dog.
When they finished their drinks, Richard produced a grey plastic shopping bag.
‘I thought you might like this,’ he announced. ‘It’s not a present. Just something I found in that old chest of drawers in the shed, the one that used to be in the Manse.’
Inside the plastic bag was something soft. As Angie removed it from the bag, she began to smile. It was a crumpled posy of velvet violets.
‘It may have belonged to Amy,’ he said. ‘I thought Charles might have given it to her.’
‘It’s possible. Or it could have come off a hat or dress. But it’s definitely Amy’s.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Violets were her flower.’
‘This is for you as well.’ He handed her a large envelope with ‘For Ange’ written stylishly across the centre with a fountain pen.
‘A card?’
‘No, I don’t do cards either. Just open it.’
She removed a hand-written letter from the envelope.
Dearest One,
Know that I love you more each day. Over the time we have been apart, I have been recalling that autumn morning when you first walked into the emporium, looking like an angel. We introduced ourselves and drank tea together. By the time you left, I was already falling in love with you. After that, I watched for you every day, and whenever we met, my heart would soar.
I never expected to feel like this. Romantic love is not something I have allowed myself, until now. It is both a joy and a torture. A joy when I am with you and a torture when we are apart.
I will always love you.
Your Devoted Suitor
The script was copperplate. The paper was covered in foxing marks, resembling tea stains. When Angie looked up, Richard was smiling. His eyes were hazel, fringed by dark lashes. Tutankhamun’s eyes. She hadn’t noticed before.
‘It’s a lovely letter. Thank you. I’ll add it to my Amy Duncan collection.’ But she wondered if it mightn’t equally apply to Richard’s feelings for her, or was that making far too big an assumption?
‘Where did you find it?’ she asked, steering the conversation to safer ground.
‘In the same chest of drawers that I found the flowers. I decided to clean it up, thinking you might like it for the Manse. So I started to remove the lining paper from the drawers and that’s when I found the letter hidden underneath.’
‘You didn’t throw away the lining, did you?’
‘Of course not. I’m not the town idiot, or a vandal, for that matter.’
His response left her feeling foolish. She should have known a heritage specialist wouldn’t mess with such a precious piece of furniture. Why was she always underestimating him? After a moment she ventured: ‘There’s something that’s been puzzling me.’
‘Yes?’ He was looking directly at her with those inquisitive eyes.
‘Everyone, including my best friend, calls me Angie, but you insist on calling me Ange.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
She was about to say that there was only one person in the world allowed to use that name, before realising she didn’t mind it at all. ‘No,’ she said gently, ‘I was just wondering why.’
‘You studied French at school, didn’t you, Ange?’
‘That was a long time ago,’ she replied, wondering where this could possibly be heading. ‘But I suppose my French has improved lately from reading Amy’s Aladdin story.’
‘In that case, you might know the meaning of the word a-n-g-e.’
As she struggled to remember, he supplied the answer in the manner of an impatient schoolteacher: ‘From the Ancient Greek via Latin. It means angel.’
For a second Angie could have been a teenage girl hearing a boy she fancied declaring his love for her. Then she decided that this was Richard Scott and he was simply being flippant.
Why was it that she was seeing sub-text in everything people said? Even in a letter from Charles Chen to the woman he loved. If you lived in Millbrooke long enough, you could fall victim to the Millbrooke phenomenon. You’d begin to look for the layers in everything and everyone – the layers of history hidden in every old building and the layers inside every inhabitant. If you were only passing through the town, you wouldn’t even notice. You might have a coffee in the emporium café and not see the ceramicist doing his day job as a waiter, and you wouldn’t look twice at the middle-aged woman who happened to be both an artist and the proprietor of a soon-to-open B&B. Even if you happened to be a Millbrooke resident, it would take you a while to become aware of the architect behind the street person. And it would be a year before you realised he was a man you liked a lot.
Should you visit Millbrooke in the winter, you might wonder how the locals managed to endure the icy winds, the sub-zero nights and the frosty mornings. But if you chose to make Millbrooke your home, you would become accustomed to the weather. You would learn that a harsh winter often brings a sumptuous spring, a glorious summer and a golden autumn. You might still complain about frost burning your lavender and wilting the geraniums, but secretly you would stand at the window and marvel at the morning view, glistening with icy crystals. And despite the frost, your garden would continue to grow.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the friends who sustained me with their generous and valuable comments during the development of this book, particularly Judy Allen, Judy and Colin Briscoe, Gilly Burke, Carol Fulker, Margaret Grainger, Jo and Mark Hill, Henrietta Kit-lan Holden, Lena Kotevich, Kerrie James, Marilyn McCann, Jan Norris, Angelika Roper, Sue Schipp, Joyce Spencer, Chrissie Whipper and Margaret Wong.
I am indebted to Sean Doyle of Lynk Manuscript Assessment Service for his wise counsel. Special thanks to Carrolline Rhodes, whose astute and supportive advice gave me the impetus to keep writing, to Janet Blagg for her illuminating ideas and psychological insights, and Jan Dawkins, who brought her delightful sense of humour and perceptive feedback to our regular coffee sessions.
I am deeply grateful to my agent, Sheila Drummond, for championing Mr Chen so enthusiastically, and to my publisher, Beverley Cousins, who believed in this book from the moment it ‘pinged into her inbox’, contributed inspirational ideas for enhancing the manuscript, and lovingly nurtured it to publication. A big thank you to my very capable and patient RHA editor Elena Gomez, designer Christa Moffitt, publicist Kirsty Noffke, Tobie Mann in marketing, and everyone who worked on the book.
Heartfelt thanks to my husband who patiently listened for hours – and sometimes fell asleep – as I read aloud from the manuscript. And to my son for his loving encouragement.
Lastly, I am immensely grateful to my mother for her love and support and for her unswerving belief in my ability as a writer.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The story of Aladdin, or ‘L’histoire d’Aladdin, ou la lampe merveilleuse’, first appeared in Les mille et une nuits: contes arabes, collected and translated by Antoine Galland c.1710. There are twelve volumes of Galland’s stories, which became known in English as The Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights. Each volume contained several tales. Amy owned Volume IV, a hefty 474 pages. Her edition was annotated and published by Edouard Gauttier du Lys d’Arc in 1822.
In spite of its age, Galland’s ‘L’histoire d’Aladdin’ (sometimes spelled Aladin) is an engaging and accessible read. The quotes appearing in this novel are
my own loose translations of the original text. Although the 1822 edition contains engravings, there are none that seem to relate to Aladdin. Therefore, the illustration discussed by Amy and Eliza is merely a product of my imagination.
I am grateful to the following museums for their online and/or actual resources: the Beechworth Chinese Cultural Centre; the Braidwood Museum; the Burke Museum, Beechworth; the Chinese Museum, Melbourne; the Lambing Flat Folk Museum (home of the anti-Chinese ‘Roll up’ banner c. 1860, the ‘prototype’ for the Millbrooke banner); Melbourne Museum and the National Museum of Australia. I am also indebted to the National Archives in Canberra, the Original Gold Rush Colony, previously known as Old Mogo Town, and the State Library of NSW.
From the many books and websites I have used as research, I would particularly like to mention the following sources:
Margaret Scarlett Tart’s wonderful book, The Life of Quong Tart: How a Foreigner Succeeded in a British Community, first published in 1911 by W M Maclardy (University of Sydney Press), about her husband, Mei Quong Tart, was an inspiration in creating aspects of a prosperous nineteenth-century Chinese merchant in the colony of New South Wales. I found Golden Shadows on a White Land by Kate Bagnall (University of Sydney Department of History, 2006) a very readable and illuminating analysis of relationships between Chinese men and European women in the Australia of the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Michael Williams’s Chinese Settlement in NSW: A Thematic History (A Report for the NSW Heritage Office, 1999) was most useful in providing an overview of the occupations of Chinese settlers and the European attitudes towards them.
The Practical Home Physician and Encyclopedia of Medicine by Henry Munson Lyman et al (World Publishing Company, 1892) provided a nineteenth-century perspective on treating a perceived case of quinsy.
For a wealth of Victorian-era miscellanea, I am indebted to the Australian National Library’s amazing online collection of old newspapers at http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper.
I discovered the term ‘duck-mole’ in Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages by Edward E Morris (1898).
The Lancet was established in 1823. The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, founded in 1812 as the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, is now the New England Journal of Medicine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah O’Brien is a teacher, visual artist and writer. Although she was born and educated in Sydney, she has family links to rural New South Wales by way of her father and her maternal grandmother.
Together with her husband and son, she divides her time between the city and a country cottage, overlooking a creek frequented by platypuses. It is her dream to own a small herd of alpacas.
She has authored several non-fiction books, contributed articles to a variety of magazines and written short stories. Mr Chen’s Emporium is her first novel. Its sequel, The Jade Widow, will publish in September 2013.
www.deborahobrien.com.au
Q&A
WITH DEBORAH O’BRIEN
Warning: These questions may contain spoilers, so we recommend reading them after you have finished the book.
Your novel celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, but it also shows the darker side of human nature in terms of racism and prejudice. How do these opposing themes play out in the book?
The concept of finding hope and renewal runs through both storylines. It’s a universal constant no matter what the era. Family, friends and faith have always been among the primary sources of comfort for those who have suffered a loss. These days, people can also access counselling services, which didn’t exist in Amy’s time, and modern thinking on the grieving process has been very much informed by the groundbreaking work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
There are a number of characters in the novel, both in the past and the present, who suffer the death of a partner or a child, or the break-up of a marriage. Some, like Angie, reach a degree of acceptance and begin to rebuild their lives; others, like Vicky, are still dealing with unfinished business.
As for prejudice and intolerance, it is arguably the most pernicious curse of mankind. The 1870s thread highlights the appalling racism directed at Chinese immigrants. In his role as a merchant, Charles earned a level of acceptance, even respect from the Millbrooke community (or at least a good number of them); nevertheless he would have been expected to ‘know his place’. The widespread view was that business dealings with ‘Celestials’ were acceptable, but personal relationships, particularly intimate ones, were not. Apart from a few progressives such as the Miller family who embraced Charles as an equal, most of Millbrooke’s citizens would have disapproved of a marriage between a ‘Chinaman’ and a white woman. The prevailing attitude, codified nationally thirty years later in the deplorable Immigration Restriction Act 1901, was that Australia should be a country for whites only.
What is the role of historical research in the novel?
I love to undertake research – it satisfies my natural curiosity (I should have been a detective) and it affords me the chance to visit museums, which I consider among the most interesting places on earth.
As an artist, I’m particularly excited by visual discoveries: objects, photographs, paintings, drawings, posters. I fell in love with a rickety Cobb and Co coach belonging to Museum Victoria (one of the few remaining) and an old travelling trunk I saw online, and decided both had to appear in the novel. I was intrigued by an 1870s photo of Sydney University, so different to the vast, leafy place I attended a century later. This prompted Amy’s visit there with Aunt Molly. An illustration of a nineteenth-century forceps inspired some rather graphic text in the draft childbirth scene, which you will be pleased to know I later deleted.
I’m also fascinated by old newspapers. They can take you back to the very date in question and reveal so much about what was going on in people’s lives and in society as a whole. Now that they’re conveniently available online, it’s easy to spend hours lost in those archives, just reading the classifieds and personal notices.
I must also offer a disclaimer. Even though I like the factual details to be correct, I don’t purport to be a purist. Often there has to be compromise – for the sake of the story or a host of other reasons. After all, this is an imaginary tale, not a work of historical non-fiction.
The structure of the novel with its past and present threads seems complex. Did you plan it?
There was no plan as such, just a starting point (Amy and Angie arriving as blow-ins in different eras) and some possible key incidents along the way. Though I’m fond of making checklists and plans in everyday life, I’m quite the opposite when it comes to writing. Other than a few ‘guideposts’, I tend to let my characters loose and allow the story to unfold.
I was helped greatly by the seasonal nature of the book which gave it a natural rhythm and structure. Within that framework, the individual chapters and parallel storylines evolved, for the most part, in a spontaneous way. For instance, I didn’t plan to have both town meetings occurring in the same chapter. But when I saw what had happened, I was delighted. It seemed like magic, though I suspect my subconscious had also played a part. Angie’s discovery of the emporium building in the modern-day was also a surprise which unfolded as my fingers tapped the keys, complete to the incident with the currant buns. That kind of scene, where the writing process takes on a momentum of its own, often turns out better than something which is meticulously orchestrated.
How do you create your characters? Are they based on real people?
Not at all. I usually begin with one or two elements and build the character from there – a mannerism, an accent, a personal trait, a way of dressing. In creating Amy, it was the books which provided my starting point. Early on, we see her escapist fantasy about being held up by a highwayman – it could easily be a scene out of Sir Walter Scott, except, of course, for the Freudian undertones. The fact that she has to read her novels in secret mirrors the experience of my own gran
dmother who used to hide in the barn reading Dickens.
The first time I saw Charles Chen in my imagination, he was wearing a vividly coloured silk waistcoat. So that became his emblem. As I wrote his scenes, they were informed by the research I had done into nineteenth-century merchant, Quong Tart. There are many echoes of the revered historical figure in Charles Chen’s story, but also many differences.
With Richard, the genesis was the woollen beanie and checked flannelette shirt. At first I wanted him to be invisible – to the other characters and even to the reader. But soon he was insinuating his way into the heart of the story. Once I realised what was happening, I let the growing relationship between Angie and Richard evolve, not sure where it was heading. Even at the end there’s a degree of ambivalence.
The township of Millbrooke is a potent presence in the book. Is it based on a real town?
No, Millbrooke is an imaginary place rather than a specific one. I see it as an archetypal former Gold Rush town, like so many scattered across NSW and Victoria. However, the strong sense of community and friendship which characterises Millbrooke is something real and tangible that I’ve encountered in many country towns, including my own. It’s what makes rural living so special. As for the setting and climate, I’ve found most gold towns in south-eastern Australia seem to be located in picturesque areas with four distinct seasons, including a bracingly cold winter and the attendant frosty mornings. In terms of the architecture, I’ve created a composite town in my mind’s eye, made up of my favourite Georgian and Victorian buildings taken from many different places.
Will there be a sequel to Amy’s story?
Yes, Amy’s sequel, called The Jade Widow, picks up her life in early 1885 when she and Eliza are thirty. It’s a chance to revisit some of the characters from Mr Chen’s Emporium and meet a few intriguing newcomers.
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