The River and the Book by Alison Croggon

just as proper as silly poems.”
    Ling Ti laughed at that and poked Mely in the tummy. “Watch it, you impertinent animal,” he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Sim. I was just being nosy. You don’t have to tell me anything. I hate talking about what I am writing. Though I can talk about it when it’s finished.
Then
I can talk for hours, even if it’s all lies.”
    Once he said that, I found that I could speak about my book, after all. Ling Ti listened attentively, sipping his tea and tickling Mely’s chin until she fell asleep again. In the end, I told him all about the Book, and Jane Watson, and my village. I had told him bits here and there, of course, but never the whole story. His response surprised me.
    “But you must write it down,” he said to me. “And never say again that it isn’t important. Never. Not to anyone.”
    “Would you read a book like that?” I asked.
    “I would read anything you wrote,” he said.
    I laughed. “I could be the worst writer in the world,” I said. “How can you tell if it would be worth reading?”
    He paused, and gave me a narrow look. “I’m not patronising you, Sim. I just think you are truthful, and I know the way you speak. I would like to read a story that you wrote.”
    I hadn’t imagined before that anyone might read this book, aside from me and Mely. The thought gave me butterflies. “Maybe I’m not writing it for anybody to read,” I said. “Maybe it’s just private.”
    “All writing comes from the inside,” said Ling Ti. “It burns you with wanting to be written. It’s the writing that matters. You don’t have to show it to anybody if you don’t want to.” He grinned at me. “I choose to, of course, because I am a great poet, and I wish to share my greatness with everybody.”
    Ling Ti always jokes about being a great poet. The biggest joke, as Anna says, is that he probably
is
a great poet. He says it to annoy other poets, especially those he says are mangy weasels who wouldn’t know a real poem if they tripped over it. (Actually, what he says is much ruder than that.) He argues with other writers all the time, and because of that many people are a little afraid of him. I was, until I began to know him better.
    A comfortable silence fell between us. I studied his face, which was serious and gentle in the mild lamplight. It’s an expression he never reveals except to his close friends. In public, Ling Ti is a showman: he gets away with being a mischief-maker because he makes people laugh. His poems are ironic and abrasive and angry and full of dazzle. Those who admire them say they are beautiful, and even his enemies find it hard to deny their intelligence. But there’s something else underneath, something quieter and deeper, that people sense and respond to. It’s why his poems matter.
    As if he could hear my thoughts, Ling Ti looked up at me, pushing his glasses up his nose. “The secret, Sim, is always to write with love,” he said. “Love is the hardest thing in the world, and it’s the one thing we mustn’t forget. It’s much more difficult than anyone thinks. I believe that you know that already, and that’s why I would like to read your book.”
    It is unusual for Ling Ti to give anyone a compliment, and I suddenly felt very shy, although it also pleased me. He saw that I was uncomfortable and changed the subject, and we chatted about this and that, and then he went home. After he left, I thought about what he had said. Maybe he is right. Maybe it is love that makes me want to write this story.

26
    I discovered a lot about people on our journey to the city. Not all of it was good. I remember the people who turned us away with blows when we were in need, or who cheated us, charging us ten or twenty times what we should have paid, because they knew we had no choice but to buy from them. But then I remember Mei, the innkeeper in the mountains, who let us stay for a week when we turned up at her doorstep, woeful and