The Naming of Tishkin Silk Read online

  ‘Would you care to be seated, Your Majesties?’ asked the Fairy Grandmother. Griffin and Layla sat down on the cushions.

  ‘Can I take my boots off now?’ asked Griffin.

  ‘Your Majesty may dispose of his boots whenever he wishes,’ answered the Fairy Grandmother. And she filled two tumblers with crushed ice that sparkled like diamonds and liquid the colour of honey from a glass pitcher on the table.

  Griffin took his boots off and Layla, her pink sneakers and frilly socks. Griffin noticed her toenails were painted blue with little red hearts and sparkles on them, just like a real princess would have, he thought.

  Nell put the drinks on a tray along with a plate of bread and butter sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. ‘Would you care for a glass of hummingbird nectar or a triangle of fairy bread, Your Majesties?’ she asked, passing the tray, first to Layla and then to Griffin.

  ‘Thank you, Fairy Grandmother,’ said Layla taking some of each.

  ‘You’re welcome, Princess Layla.’ Nell set the tray back on the table after Griffin had taken something to eat and drink. She whispered some magic words and blew a handful of apple blossom into the air. Then she made her way back to the house, taking Zeus with her.

  ‘Oh, Griffin, you’re so lucky to live here and to have such a lovely grandma,’ said Layla after they had eaten their way through a small mountain of fairy-bread triangles.

  Fred and Ginger, Amber’s two geese strolled by, took the crusts from Griffin’s outstretched hand in their carrot-coloured beaks, then sailed serenely out into the middle of the dam. The children lay sprawled on the cushions, looking up at the scraps of blue sky between the leaves and blossoms of the Cox’s Orange Pippin.

  ‘I think I can see a face looking down at me,’ said Layla dreamily.

  Griffin sat up quickly. ‘Where? Show me.’ He came and lay down next to Layla and she pointed.

  ‘Up there, see? Oh no, I think it’s changing. I don’t know if it is a face after all, maybe it’s a …’

  ‘What sort of face was it?’ Griffin interrupted, ‘Was it a grown-up’s face or a baby’s?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, just a face.’ Layla sat up. ‘Why, why is it so important?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Griffin and his ears burned. ‘I’m sorry, it was nothing.’ But he wondered if Layla had seen the same face that he sometimes saw. If someone else saw it too, that would mean that he wasn’t just imagining it, wouldn’t it?

  7. The Naming Day Books

  When the sun went down, the daisies shut their bright eyes. Prince Griffin and Princess Layla took off their crowns and became normal children again. The Fairy Grandmother also disappeared.

  Layla telephoned her mother and stayed for dinner and although Nell hadn’t cooked up a brew, the meal was delicious. Layla decided that although Nell wasn’t a witch or a fairy grandmother, there was still something very magical about her.

  Daddy was late coming home, so Nell said Griffin and Layla could go up into the front room, which was only used on special occasions. They could look at the Naming Day Books while she and the Rainbow Girls washed the dishes.

  Griffin opened the door of the sideboard with a little golden key and took out six large, heavy books, one by one. Then he and Layla lay down on the pink cabbage roses on the worn-out carpet square in the middle of the room with the Naming Day Books in front of them.

  The first book was Scarlet’s. The cover was made of wood and finely carved with beautiful scrolled patterns. In the middle of the cover the name ‘Scarlet’ was inlaid in a lighter coloured wood and beneath it, the date of Scarlet’s birth day.

  ‘Can I touch it?’ asked Layla.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s best if you feel it,’ said Griffin. ‘Daddy says you can’t know something properly by just looking.’

  Their fingers explored all the nooks and crannies and the gullies and ridges of the landscape engraved on Scarlet’s Naming Day Book.

  ‘Daddy carved the covers for all the books,’ said Griffin, ‘and each one is different. Mama made the paper for the pages inside.’

  They opened Scarlet’s book. The first page was covered with tissue and the paper beneath was almost transparent, flecked with flower petals, leaves and tiny seeds. In the centre of the page was a lock of corn-gold hair, curled like a comma and tied with scarlet embroidery silk. On the second page was a poem, written in red ink in perfect, even handwriting with long, curly tails on the letters.

  ‘Can you read it?’ asked Layla.

  ‘I know it by heart’ said Griffin. ‘It’s called For Scarlet.

  Now that you are, there is colour in my life,

  But should we part you will remain even then,

  For Scarlet is my heart, my lips, the blood that gives me life.

  Mama wrote it for Scarlet’s Naming Day ceremony.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘I think it means that even when they’re not together, Mama feels like Scarlet is with her.’

  ‘It’s a very nice poem.’

  They turned over the pages, one by one and looked at the photographs of the celebration that took place on the day that Scarlet received her name. Griffin explained how his father liked to wait until one whole year after the birth of the baby before holding the Naming Day, so that they had time to get to know the baby and to choose a name to suit. Layla thought that was a very good idea.

  ‘Can we look at your book now?’ she asked after they had closed Scarlet’s. Griffin liked to look at his own book best of all. When he was much younger, he remembered sitting here in this very same place, with his big sisters, who were also much smaller then. They had turned the pages and pointed to the pictures and the words, over and over, so that by the time he was old enough to look at his book all by himself, he knew every little bit by heart. It was as though he had remembered the ceremony from being there. He crossed his legs and placed his book carefully in his lap.

  ‘Come and sit next to me and I’ll tell you all about it,’ he said to Layla. He explained that the carving on the front of his book represented the griffin. They traced the outlines of the wooden feathers on its proud eagle’s head and the strong, outstretched wings. They stroked the rippling muscles of the beast. Inside, written in the same beautiful handwriting as Scarlet’s book, was the myth of the griffin. When they came to the photographs, Layla saw that they had been taken outside under the Cox’s Orange Pippin.

  ‘That’s where we were today,’ she said pointing to a photograph of Griffin’s family gathered around a large trestle table down by the dam.

  ‘Yes, all the girls dressed up in Nell’s clothes, high heels and big hats and handbags and long dresses … ’

  ‘And lipstick!’ Layla pointed out in awe.

  Griffin’s eyes moved from Layla’s face back to the book. He looked at the photograph of the girls dancing and holding their big hats so they wouldn’t blow away and their lipstick smiles were as big as clowns’ mouths. Nell was sitting in the long grass with her back to the trunk of the tree, fanning her face with a lace-edged handkerchief. Daddy was holding him right up high and close over his heart. And there was Mama, with her yellow hair streaming, laughing and sprinkling flower petals over him. That was his favourite photograph. He stared and stared at the photo until, from somewhere far away, he heard words fluttering through his head like apple blossom petals floating on the breeze. They were the words Daddy had said when he gave him his name.

  ‘We welcome you to the Silk family and offer you the name of Griffin William Silk. May you rise up on wings as the eagle and may your heart have the courage of the lion.’ Then Daddy’s next words trickled slowly like warm oil into his ear, gentle and soothing, ‘You are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the full stop at the end of the Silk family and the icing on the cake.’

  But then Tishkin came. Griffin closed the book.

  ‘Can we look at your baby sister’s book now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Griffin
had started putting the books back where they came from. When he had put the last one away he took the key from his pocket and locked the cupboard. Then he turned around and answered Layla’s question.

  ‘Because there isn’t one.’

  8. The Gift of Reading Hearts

  It was a long time before Layla asked Griffin any more about his baby sister, who had gone away, whose crib waited emptily next to the big bed where she was born. It wasn’t that Layla didn’t want to ask. There were often questions inside her head. Sometimes they got as far as the end of her tongue. It was just as well that some of the gaps were filling up with new teeth, and she could close them tightly before it was too late and the thoughts turned into words, because Layla somehow knew that Griffin didn’t want to talk about his sister.

  Layla came home with Griffin often that summer and almost always stayed for dinner. She learned to recognise the sound of the Bedford at the bottom of the driveway above the noise of the Rainbow Girls, and sometimes heard it before Griffin.

  Griffin soon realised that Layla had the gift of reading people’s hearts just like he and Mama and Daddy, and like Tishkin before she went away. He didn’t mind that she knew he watched the windscreen of the Bedford for a glimpse of Mama. He hoped she couldn’t see the other things that he didn’t want anyone to know, because if she ever did find out, she might not want to be his friend any more. She might go away too.

  Nell had told him that things would get better at school and she was right. With a friend like Layla, anything was bearable. Just as the newness wore off his clothes and boots, the newness wore off Griffin Silk and that seemed to make him less interesting to the other children at school. Not to Layla, but to people like Scotty McAllister and his gang. But then something happened to Griffin that made him blend in more than ever, and that was the doing of Layla Elliott.

  It happened when Griffin was invited to play at Layla’s house one afternoon, after school. Mrs Elliott had never been the sort of person who liked to play dress-ups and had long ago forgotten the pleasure of make-believe. She gave Layla and Griffin a glass of cold lemon cordial each and a packet of potato crisps to share and told them to amuse themselves while she prepared dinner. So they went to Layla’s room.

  There were still lots of things that Griffin didn’t know about Layla. He found out one of them that afternoon. Layla wanted to be a hairdresser when she was old enough. She practised on her family whenever they would allow it. But her father had very little hair left, and her mother was almost always busy, and her brother Patrick said that it was a sissy thing to do. Even when she was given the opportunity, she was only allowed to wash and dry, comb and curl, but never to cut or dye. She had practised cutting and dying on her dolls’ hair, but the trouble with that was that it never grew back again and black Texta wasn’t very good for dying doll’s hair.

  It was hot on the day that Griffin came to play and Layla tied her own hair up high in a ponytail.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said swishing the hair from side-to-side, ‘it’s much cooler this way.’ She looked longingly at Griffin’s hair. ‘Do you want me to tie yours back in a little piggy tail, Griff?’ she coaxed.

  ‘If you want to,’ he answered, barely looking up from the comic book he had found in Layla’s room. He was used to his sisters doing all manner of things to his hair.

  Layla combed Griffin’s hair while he read. He found it very restful, reading and having his hair combed.

  After a while, Layla said, ‘Maybe I could snip just a tiny bit off the front, so it won’t get in your eyes while you’re reading.’

  He peered up through his wispy fringe, ‘All right, just a bit,’ he agreed and went back to his reading.

  Layla went out to the kitchen to find some scissors. Griffin was so engrossed in the comic that he didn’t even realise she was back, until a chunk of his fringe fell on to the comic. Nell had a saying that she might as well talk to a brick wall as talk to Griffin when he had a book in his hand. So it escaped his notice that the chunk of hair was rather large. He brushed it on to the floor and continued with his reading. Layla, on the other hand, had noticed the large gap left in Griffin’s fringe and began to even it up.

  Griffin finished his comic and reached up to where his fringe had been. ‘It feels a bit short,’ he said.

  Layla stood back and surveyed her work. It was short, very short. It made the back look even longer. Griffin saw the look on Layla’s face and walked over to the dressing table. He looked in the mirror and tugged at what was left of his fringe.

  ‘Maybe if I just trim the back a bit, you won’t notice it so much,’ Layla said uncertainly. Griffin wasn’t quite sure what to say but was saved from saying anything at all when Mrs Elliott came to the bedroom door.

  ‘Children,’ she called, and then she noticed Layla standing miserably by the dressing table with the scissors in her hand.

  ‘What have you done!’ she cried. She clutched Griffin by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. Her face paled and Griffin thought she was about to faint. Then she began to shriek, ‘Anthony! Anthony!’

  Mr Elliott came rushing to the door. He summed up the scene in front of him, then put his arm around Mrs Elliott’s shoulders and led her away towards the kitchen. ‘Now, now, dear, don’t worry. I’ll look after everything.’ As he walked down the hallway, he turned around and Griffin could have sworn that he winked.

  But what could have been quite a nasty experience turned out rather well in the end. Mr Elliott took Griffin and Layla to the barber’s shop.

  ‘Looks like he needs a number two to sort that out, Tony,’ said the barber. Twenty minutes later Griffin came out of the barber’s shop with a smile on his face and a haircut like the stubble in a corn field, short and straight and golden.

  ‘All we have to do now is explain this to your grandmother,’ said Mr Elliott.

  Griffin was pleased that the girls were still swimming in the dam with Ginger and Fred, while Mr Elliott explained to Nell what had happened. Nell ran her hand across the top of Griffin’s soft short hair, then stood back and held up her thumb as though she was looking at a painting in an art gallery. She tilted her head, first this way and then that. Then she shook her head slowly from side to side and clicked her tongue against her teeth.

  ‘My word, Griffin,’ she said, ‘you’re as flash as a rat with a gold tooth.’

  Then Mr Elliott stopped jingling the loose coins in his pocket and Layla and Griffin smiled at each other. Nell buttered date scones and made a pot of tea to share with Mr Elliott.

  It was dusk by the time Griffin and Layla went outside to wait for the Bedford. The bottom part of the sky was the colour of pumpkins and the top, where the stars were, was the colour of Daddy’s Bluey jacket. They sat on the veranda eating date scones and dangling their bare feet into the marigolds in the garden bed below and listening to the jiminy-crickets singing scratchy little love songs to one another.

  ‘How come you’re not angry with me, Griff?’

  ‘You’re my friend … and you didn’t mean it. Anyway, now I’ve got a proper haircut, so Scotty McAllister can’t laugh at me any more.’

  ‘How do you know I didn’t mean it?’

  ‘Just do. Listen. I can hear Daddy coming!’ The headlights appeared like twin moons, away down at the bottom of Silk Road.

  ‘Griff, how do you know I didn’t mean it?’ Layla asked again and grabbed Griffin’s hand.

  He turned to look at her and knew that she wouldn’t let up until he answered the question. He answered slowly and carefully, ‘Daddy says that sometimes, when people know each other really well, they don’t need ears to hear and they don’t need words to talk. They just know.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘It happens to me like that sometimes.’ She held his hand tighter and spoke very softly. ‘Griffin … your baby sister isn’t ever going to come home, is she?’

  9. The Flame of Courage

  Griffin Silk closed his eyes. He thought
about his namesake, about the great powerful wings of the eagle. He wanted to spread his wings and fly. High above the Kingdom of Silk he would soar, away from school, away from Scotty McAllister and away from Layla Elliot, so he wouldn’t have to answer her question. He would fly to a safe place, a big soft nest lined with feathers, to be with his mother. But maybe Mama wouldn’t want him there. She might toss him out of the nest, like Zeus’s mother had done.

  He felt himself falling, down, down and then something warm. He opened his eyes. Layla was beside him, still holding his hand. Inside, he felt something swell like the tiny flare of a match in the darkness. Layla smiled and squeezed his hand and the feeling grew stronger. And though Griffin didn’t realise it, the feeling had a name. It was courage.

  Griffin had never said the words out loud, because he knew that once they were spoken, it made things real. Once they were said, he couldn’t pretend any more, not to himself, or Layla, or Scotty McAllister, or anyone else. It was hard to move his lips and his voice seemed to come from a long way away, but the little flame of courage that Layla had lit in his heart grew stronger and he said, ‘No, Tishkin won’t ever come home’.

  ‘Tishkin,’ Layla tasted the name on her tongue where it dissolved like fairy-floss. ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘It’s what I call her.’

  ‘What’s her real name?’

  ‘She doesn’t have one.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she went away before we gave her a name.’

  ‘Why do you call her Tishkin?’

  ‘Because that’s the sound I hear the leaves make, when I see her face looking down at me.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s who you thought I saw looking down through the Cox’s Orange Pippin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s a beautiful name. Tishkin, Tishkin.’ Layla repeated the name and Griffin was pleased that she liked the name he had chosen for his baby sister.