The Secret Mandarin by Sara Sheridan

Author:Sara Sheridan [Sheridan, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2013-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

That night, I had a dream. I was a child again. I was hidden, for I had been playing a game and was stowed in my mother’s crockery cabinet. I could taste bread and lard in my mouth as if I had just had breakfast and it lingered on my tongue. Peering out, I could see that my father was in the kitchen, Jane over his knee as he beat her hard. Her skin was raw pink but she was silent as his hand came down sharply again and again. Her eyes were alight with fury, staring right at the cabinet as if she knew I was there. What did she want of me? What? I woke in a sweat, unable to tell whether it was a true memory or only fantasy. I never remembered Da hurting Jane, though I know he picked on her for half nothing, while I got away with blue murder. I felt horribly guilty. I had a feeling that it was my fault, that Jane was protecting me by taking the beating. I was only a child and she’d been so brave, so silent. If she had cried I would have tried to protect her, I’m sure of it.

The further I got from home the more I realised that I did not remember Da so very much. It vexed me. If he was so vicious, how could Mother have loved him and still been happy that he was gone? Losing a parent is hardly unusual and yet, it seemed to me, I had missed out on something intriguing by simply being so young that I could not quite remember it. People who inspire such contradictory emotions must be worthwhile, I reasoned. Jane, I knew, loved me very much. In adulthood she had protected me when she could have turned her back and yet she found me difficult and frustrating too. What would my son think of me? Poor Henry. No mother nearby and William as good as absent, no doubt. I could not help feeling that both Henry and I deserved better than we had got. And Jane too, perhaps. He had formed us, our father, I realised. He had been the key to our closeness and the source of our differences.

I lit the tallow beside my bed and pulled out a notebook, ripping a page.

Dear Jane,

I am writing to you from inside China. I want you to know that I think of you often. I want you to know, though we are not in the habit of saying such things, I love you very much. You have stood by me always.

Thank you.

Mary.

I blotted the ink and folded the paper. I would ask Robert to dispatch it at the next opportunity.

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