8. The First Night Without Nell

The Kingdom of Silk seemed empty that night. The kitchen felt as big as Saint Benedict’s hall. On other evenings, Ben might still be in his shed, but Nell would be there in the kitchen. It is a deep mystery that when a person so small is gone, they leave such a large emptiness. Such mysteries are not new to the Silk family. There is still a Tishkin-shaped emptiness in their hearts.

No-one could remember a night without Nell. Everywhere they looked were reminders of her. The pot of soup she had made that morning still simmered slowly on the stove. In the middle of the table was Nell’s old teapot, with the chipped spout and the knitted cosy. Her favourite apron hung on a hook beside the door and pinned to the mantelpiece was Nell’s to-do list, written on the back of a used envelope.

Take socks and silver beet to Henry.

Post letter to Sunday Lee.

Meals on Wheels — my turn next week.

Even Blue and Barney were restless. Instead of settling down for the night on the couch on the veranda, they stood at the front door and looked longingly down the passage through the flyscreen. Blue yipped politely and Barney bleated pitifully until Annie felt sorry for them and told Violet to let them inside. They lay on the hearth in front of the stove where Nell had raised each of them — Blue the runt of a litter and Barney an orphaned lamb. Having the animals there made the room slightly less empty. Indigo turned the radio on. But no-one danced, no-one sang.

Saffron set eight places at the table. Annie ladled soup into eight bowls, but no-one seemed hungry. Usually, Indigo argued about doing the washing-up and when it was her turn, washed as noisily as she could, clattering china, crashing cutlery and sloshing soapsuds onto the floor. But tonight she cleared the table, stacked the dishes on the sink and washed quietly and slowly without being asked.

Scarlet didn’t write any poems in her book or on her arm that night. She didn’t ring the Colour Patch Café and ask to speak to Anik either. Indigo didn’t paint each of her fingernails a different colour or braid her hair into hundreds of skinny plaits and tie them with blue embroidery silk. Amber didn’t bake jam drops or chocolate brownies for next week’s lunches. And no-one talked about the Festival of Crisp Winter Glories. They just waited for the telephone to ring. Hoped Ben would call and tell them Nell could be repaired, that the doctors could make her as good as new again.

After Perry and Saffron had locked the hens in their house for the night, Annie took a pack of cards from Nell’s ‘useful’ drawer and they all played Happy Families. But everyone kept forgetting things, like who they’d already asked for the Mr Plod the policeman card, or the one with Mrs Chip the carpenter’s wife on it, or who they suspected might be holding Mr Bacon’s little boy. The game seemed to go on forever. No-one cared who won. From time to time, the children sneaked a look at the telephone, willing it to ring. While he was waiting for his turn, Perry looked at Nell’s to-do list. He slowly read the first line and wondered who Henry was.

‘It might be very late when your daddy rings,’ Annie said after a while. ‘It takes at least two and a half hours to get to the city and then if the emergency department is busy, Nell and Ben will have to wait until a doctor can see them.’

Indigo exploded into her familiar noisy self then.

‘But that’s not fair — Nell’s in pain!’ she shouted. ‘Daddy should tell them she needs to see a doctor straight away!’

‘I know it doesn’t seem fair, but there are probably a lot of other people waiting to see a doctor too,’ said Annie. ‘The nurses will see Nell gets something for the pain, but I’m afraid she’ll have to wait her turn like everyone else does. Why don’t you all go to bed now. There’s no sense in us all staying up. I’ll sit here by the stove and wait for the call.’

Annie sat down in Nell’s rocking chair on the flattened blue cushion with tassels on the corners and propped her feet up on Barney’s woolly back. But none of the children moved. No-one wanted to leave Mama by herself.

‘I’ll keep you company,’ said Scarlet.

‘Me too,’ said Violet.

‘Let’s make a pot of tea,’ said Amber, filling the kettle.

Annie looked at their faces and sighed.

‘Why don’t you get your sleeping bags,’ she said.

Griffin and Perry made a cubby house under the table, with sheets for the walls, and put their sleeping bags and pillows inside. It wasn’t long before Blue padded in and made himself a cosy nest between them. After they’d had their tea, Annie turned the lights out and Griffin and the Rainbow Girls were soon sleeping, but Perry lay awake.

He shone his Superman torch on the underneath of the table and tried to read all the words that were stencilled on the wood. Ben had made the table top from old fruit crates. He rubbed the top with sandpaper until it was smooth and shiny, but underneath you could read the labels that had once been on the outside of the boxes: oranges from Robinvale, apples from the Harcourt Valley, peaches from Shepparton and sultana grapes from Mildura. It was a fruit salad table.

Ben could make anything out of wood. He was good at fixing things too. But you cannot fix people unless you are a doctor. Perry thought he might like to be a doctor when he grew up. He would be the sort of doctor who could fix legs and he wouldn’t have a long line of people waiting. He made his teeth into a cage again and said the I love you words for Ben and Nell.

Then Perry started to feel thirsty from looking at the Robinvale orange box, so he opened the sheets of the cubby house a crack and shone his torch onto the sleeping Rainbow Girls. Then he shone it on the telephone. Annie had the door of the stove open. Coals glowed inside and shone a soft light into the room. Perry wriggled out of his sleeping bag and filled a glass with water from the tap. After he quenched his thirst, he quietly carried a chair over to the door, climbed up on it and unhooked Nell’s apron. When he took the chair back to the table, he saw Annie watching him. She looked lonely without Ben, so Perry went and sat on her lap for a while. When the big hand on the clock was on the twelve and the small hand was on the eleven, Annie kissed him and whispered, ‘Off to bed now.’

Perry slid off her lap, but he didn’t go to bed straight away. There was something important he needed to know.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Annie.

‘Does Nell like Henry?’ said Perry.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Does Henry like Nell?’

‘I’m sure he does.’

‘More than Jenkins does?’

Annie put her arms around Perry and cuddled him. Then she whispered, ‘Henry and Jenkins are the same person. Henry is his first name and Jenkins is his last and I am sure he loves Nell just as much as we do. Now, off to bed, my angel.’

Nell’s apron had dribbles of dried cake batter on it and a few splotches of raspberry jam. But Perry didn’t mind. He licked the raspberry jam off, because Blue was asleep, and then he smoothed the apron over his pillow and lay his head on it. He stared at the orange box for a while and wondered if he should get up and look at Ben’s spinning-around map of the world to find out where Robinvale was. But he decided not to, in case he saw Africa by mistake. Then he went to sleep and he didn’t hear the telephone ring or Annie doing her soft talking.