Read Online The Rice Paper Diaries by Francesca Rhydderch - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Francesca Rhydderch
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up and applied the necessary treatments all in the same order each time without thinking. When it was over I fell back to sleep, only to be woken after two hours to go through the whole thing again. In the mornings we slept late and woke up with our eyes dry and itchy: it was as if Mari and I had been on a long journey through dreams peopled with vague grey shapes that moved silently past us, alone with each other. I think she felt it too. She pulled in close to me, holding onto the ends of my hair. ‘Ta - da, Ta - da, Ta - da,’ she said, over and over. ‘Shhh!’ I said to her, giggling, because it was a joke between Mrs Elsa and the captain that Mari had decided she was only going to say one word, for the moment at least, and that word was going to be something that sounded like ‘Daddy’.
I no longer spent my days off in the kongsi fong looking out of the window; instead I walked around Victoria and Central and Sheung Wan, breathing in as much cool air as I could. It wasn’t always clean air, especially if I was walking along the waterfront, past the ferry terminal and the cargo jetties, but it felt fresh after the long nights in Mari’s nursery. I told myself I didn’t want company, but I went to see the letter - writer more and more, just to talk. He seemed to understand that I didn’t need him to talk back, and I began to spend longer at his stall. I enjoyed the open, honest expression on his face, and the peaceful scraping sound that his pen made on the paper. When the letter was finished and folded away in its envelope, he would take his glasses off and rub the inner corners of his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. Then he would sit back with his hands clasped in his lap.
Today, though, he kept his hands on the table. His fingers weren’t touching mine, but as he looked at me, I wondered what it might feel like if they were, if this was how Lam felt when she was with Ryan.
He pointed up at one of his signs, hung up alongside the calendars and illuminated scripts.
‘You see that saying up there?’
I nodded, although of course both he and I knew it meant nothing to me.
‘To Choose A Lucky Day,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t intended on working on the day you came to me first. But then a feeling came over me that this was going to be a special day, and that I must work, even though I was tired. So I came and set up stall as usual. I hung up my work as you see it now, unfolded my table, set out the stools, took four small bricks and put them under the table legs so it wouldn’t wobble as I wrote. I did everything exactly as I always do it. And then something happened. You arrived. And I realised that I had indeed chosen my lucky day, Lin.’
But I didn’t know what to say. I still felt it, that unfurling inside me, as I watched his still face, with one eyelid that hung down just a little lower than the other, and I wanted him to keep on looking at me across the table that didn’t shake on its legs, but I was thinking of the spring day when I came to Hong Kong. I had left Canton to make money for you, that’s the truth, but also to see something other than the relentless furrows of our fields, the tireless wriggling of the silkworms, more demanding than babies. I wanted to get away, and have no one to think about but myself, once my money was safely on its way to you every month. I wanted to sit in the botanical gardens in the company of friends, with showers of water spraying out of hoses in the background. I wanted to look at the beautiful clothes of women like Mrs Elsa, and to care for a baby like Mari, who has everything already, so all I have to give her is love. I had never thought about a man before I left Canton, except Father, and when I left I was glad not to have to think about him any more.
‘Would you like me to teach you to write your name, Lin?’ the letter - writer said. ‘And then,’ he whispered, putting the tips of his fingers very lightly on my nails, ‘I can teach you how to
I no longer spent my days off in the kongsi fong looking out of the window; instead I walked around Victoria and Central and Sheung Wan, breathing in as much cool air as I could. It wasn’t always clean air, especially if I was walking along the waterfront, past the ferry terminal and the cargo jetties, but it felt fresh after the long nights in Mari’s nursery. I told myself I didn’t want company, but I went to see the letter - writer more and more, just to talk. He seemed to understand that I didn’t need him to talk back, and I began to spend longer at his stall. I enjoyed the open, honest expression on his face, and the peaceful scraping sound that his pen made on the paper. When the letter was finished and folded away in its envelope, he would take his glasses off and rub the inner corners of his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. Then he would sit back with his hands clasped in his lap.
Today, though, he kept his hands on the table. His fingers weren’t touching mine, but as he looked at me, I wondered what it might feel like if they were, if this was how Lam felt when she was with Ryan.
He pointed up at one of his signs, hung up alongside the calendars and illuminated scripts.
‘You see that saying up there?’
I nodded, although of course both he and I knew it meant nothing to me.
‘To Choose A Lucky Day,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t intended on working on the day you came to me first. But then a feeling came over me that this was going to be a special day, and that I must work, even though I was tired. So I came and set up stall as usual. I hung up my work as you see it now, unfolded my table, set out the stools, took four small bricks and put them under the table legs so it wouldn’t wobble as I wrote. I did everything exactly as I always do it. And then something happened. You arrived. And I realised that I had indeed chosen my lucky day, Lin.’
But I didn’t know what to say. I still felt it, that unfurling inside me, as I watched his still face, with one eyelid that hung down just a little lower than the other, and I wanted him to keep on looking at me across the table that didn’t shake on its legs, but I was thinking of the spring day when I came to Hong Kong. I had left Canton to make money for you, that’s the truth, but also to see something other than the relentless furrows of our fields, the tireless wriggling of the silkworms, more demanding than babies. I wanted to get away, and have no one to think about but myself, once my money was safely on its way to you every month. I wanted to sit in the botanical gardens in the company of friends, with showers of water spraying out of hoses in the background. I wanted to look at the beautiful clothes of women like Mrs Elsa, and to care for a baby like Mari, who has everything already, so all I have to give her is love. I had never thought about a man before I left Canton, except Father, and when I left I was glad not to have to think about him any more.
‘Would you like me to teach you to write your name, Lin?’ the letter - writer said. ‘And then,’ he whispered, putting the tips of his fingers very lightly on my nails, ‘I can teach you how to
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