Jade

Jade can mean many different things besides a stone.

JADE

 

  When Shannon was a little girl of about five years old, her grandmother gave her a jade bracelet. The child didn’t think much of the colour but accepted it gracefully, as her mother pushed her to do so. The jade bracelet was put into an old-fashioned jewellery box and forgotten about. Shannon’s mother never asked her daughter whether or not she liked the bracelet, and as Shannon had other things on her mind throughout her childhood, she usually did what she wanted within reason, and was considered a reasonable girl.

As Shannon grew up, she went away to study and got herself a good job. Meanwhile, the jade bracelet was lying discarded along with other pieces of jewellery she had been given or had inherited from her female relatives. Shannon moved into a good flat and bought herself some furniture and a car. Her parents still lived in her childhood home, which Shannon never visited, as she was too busy running around with her new friends at the weekends.

Shannon’s grandmother had died when she was a teenager, and Shannon hadn’t managed to make it to her funeral, declaring to her parents over the mobile phone, that she just couldn’t take time off from work to go to a funeral, that they were very busy at the offices and needed everyone to pull their weight. Shannon’s mother had cried at what she considered to be her daughter’s cold-hearted attitude, and it created a breach between mother and daughter, that would never be closed up for the rest of their lives.

 

Shannon was quite successful with men, but she wasn’t interested, and said she wouldn’t entertain the idea of becoming a mother till she was ready for it, and when her debts were all paid off. Her friends told her that she would be waiting for ever in that case. Shannon never told her friends that she had everything under control. Her gynaecologist had told her to harvest her eggs before she was thirty-five, and so she did. Shannon had a lot of trouble trying to find the man who would let her have his sperm, and later - not have anything to do with the child. Those were her conditions and she was sticking to them.

 

Just before her fortieth birthday, Shannon decided to be a mother. Her boyfriend at the time was a young man called Ben, and he never had success with any kind of woman, so he felt honoured when Shannon told him she wanted him to be the father of her children. All her friends told her she would have great trouble getting pregnant, but Shannon smiled and kept quiet. Her gynaecologist was happy that at long last Shannon’s eggs were going to be used, albeit a little late.

 

Shannon had rarely been ill in her life, but being pregnant hit her with body-blows. The morning-sickness was literally gut-wrenching, and many mornings she was unable to make it into work, where she had always shown a good example. Her glamorous image was no more, and neither was the career woman image, that she had nurtured for all her adult life. Shannon looked washed-out and hollowed-eyed, through lack of sleep and no food in her stomach.

 

After a couple of months, she felt less nauseous, and Shannon staggered back to work, to be greeted with a couple of her younger female workers, also pregnant. Whereas Shannon was better clothed and shod, she was then forty-one years old, and the younger ones in their twenties or thirties. The pregnancy took its toll more on Shannon than on the others, who shared their pregnancies with her. The doctor told her that her blood pressure was far too high, and that she would have to go on a salt-free diet and no fry-ups. The next thing she had to do, was to rest a lot, as her ankles were getting too swollen. Shannon wasn’t too happy with all those interferences in her life, and hoped against hope, that the nine months would soon be over. Shannon’s mother was happy for her daughter, and thought that although she was an old mother, it would do her good. She used to comment to her husband, “Shannon won’t know what’s hit her when her baby arrives and she’ll be up all night with it crying.”

 

Shannon and Ben couldn’t wait for the day when the baby would arrive and she would be able to go back to work. Shannon went into labour early one Monday, and as it proved to be so long, an emergency caesarean was carried out and her small daughter was born.

 

Shannon wasn’t in good health, and suffered a heart attack after the baby’s birth.

 

Ben was very worried about how he would cope with a tiny baby to bring up by himself. He needn’t have worried, as both sets of grandparents were more than willing to help out. Ben asked the two grandmothers what he should call his daughter, as he and Shannon hadn’t come to a decision before her birth. So, for the first days of her life, Shannon’s daughter was nameless.

 

Shannon’s mother was in her late daughter’s bedroom and was sorting out her stuff, seeing what to keep, and what she could save for her granddaughter. Ben asked her what was in the old-fashioned jewellery box. Shannon’s mother opened it, and they sat at the dressing-table and sorted out the various pieces that had been given to Shannon by her maternal grandmother so many years ago. Ben and his mother-in-law stared in amazement at the bright shiny bracelets, earrings, rings, necklaces. The jade bracelet was there in all its simplicity and shiny beauty. “What’s that made of?” Ben asked his mother-in-law.

“The bracelet was given to Shannon when she was about four or five years old. I don’t think I ever saw her wearing it. She didn’t like traditional things, only the latest fashion in whatever took her fancy.”

“But, what’s it made of?” Ben asked.

“It’s made of jade,” mother-in-law answered.

Ben passed the smooth cool stone bracelet from one hand to the other, and then said, “I’ve got the name of my daughter. Her name’s - Jade.”

The baby’s grandmother stared at him, and then said, “She’s your daughter and it’s your right to call her what you like. You’d better tell your parents. Your mother might feel a bit miffed if she thinks you told me before she was told. By the way, what made you call her Jade?”

“I like the smoothness and coolness of it, and that it’s green,” Ben said.

 

Jade was duly christened and gradually grew into a mini-Shannon. Jade was a clone of her mother. Ben had remarried when she was very tiny, and as she had no memories of her mother, only what she had been like when alive, so didn’t have much information to go on.

 

Ben had more children with his second wife, and Jade was brought up in the same way as they were, but it made no difference. Jade was a disaster as regards her behaviour, and other areas in her life. Somehow or other, she managed to get through her teenage years without causing too much hassle. Ben had never been told her why she had the name Jade. His second wife called their daughters Pearl and Ruby, to keep up the tradition that had started with Jade.

 

As the years passed, Jade also began to study harder and began to develop the same attitude to life and what she wanted from it, as Shannon had done in her youth. In time, Jade got what she had worked for, and Ben advised her, “Jade, be very careful. Your mother and I met when she was really too old to start having children. It would have been a lot easier if she had given birth to you when she was ten or twenty years younger. So, please try not to make the same mistake.”

Jade looked at her father in surprise, and said, “What makes you think I want to have a family? There are a lot of things I’d like to do, before that idea enters my head.”

 

Ben kept his thoughts to himself as regards Jade’s way of life. She did some really silly things, and at times it was as if she had no brain at all! Her boyfriends were all of a kind and were as silly as she was. It was a good thing Jade had bought a flat and a car, as the owing of the money meant she didn’t have her full salary to waste gadding about with her friends. The mortgage was high enough and the payments on the car as well, and then there were the car repairs. Ben never offered her any money, thinking that that way, Jade would mature quicker. How wrong he was. Jade was the eternal teenager who spent her free time and what was left of the money after the obligatory payments and clothes and make-up, on what she called ‘having a good time’. Among her friends, no one paid for anyone else, so Jade could never depend on any of her friends to help her out, they were all in the same situation - living from one payslip to the next.

One word could describe Jade’s life at that time and it was ‘chaotic’. There was no fixed boyfriend, and anyway they came and went in a flash, which was what Jade encouraged, and above all, she didn’t want to compromise herself when she was having the time of her life.

 

What Jade didn’t know about life was that you never know who you are going to meet and who you will be attracted to. So far, she had been calling all the shots, but she was on the point of having a very big surprise happen in her life. Later she would be unable to remember exactly what had taken place and when.

Cyril met Jade when he was involved in setting up a business related to the repairs of roofs, kitchens, and bathrooms. He had been called to her grandparents’ house, and he was calculating on how much needed to be done, and the eventual price. He wasn’t quite smitten, but he liked the look of her. After all, she had studied and had done well for herself. Her grandparents’ hoped she would help out with the payments, but as Jade wasn’t one to put money aside for emergencies, their hopes were shattered when she said she was waiting for her next pay cheque. They couldn’t understand how she got through her salary so quickly and easily. Cyril had never met a girl called Jade, and he looked up the meaning of the stone.

 

Cyril had a friend called Luna, who ran a shop that was full of magic charms, stones, amulets, and potions. He went one Saturday morning to Luna’s shop.

“Good morning, Luna, how are you doing?” Cyril asked his old friend.

“Fine thanks, Cyril. Long time no see. What brings you here?” Luna asked.

Luna was an exotic looking lady, wearing a bright-red frizzy wig, and her face made up in all different colours. There were many coloured beaded necklaces wound round her neck and she had many heavy bracelets hanging from her wrists. Apart from all the decoration, Luna was very tall, and towered over the majority of her customers - whether men or women.

“Her name’s Jade, and she leads a very chaotic life style. Have you got anything to help her steady things down a bit?” Cyril explained.

“Jade has a lot of qualities. It gives wisdom, impartiality, courage, and clarity. It’s generally a health amulet,” Luna said, sure of what she was telling Cyril.

“Well, I can tell you in all sincerity, that Jade has none of these qualities. Her father named her Jade, after a bracelet that her late mother had been given by her grandmother.”

“That sounds interesting, and it might be a good idea to try and persuade her to wear the bracelet, in order to get some of the positive vibes from it, to steady her down,” Luna advised him.

“Jade is not a person to try and convince of anything. She does her own thing. The worst thing is, that she is very bad at decision making, and just carries on, even if she’s made a terrible mistake, whether it’s in a job or with people she knows.”

Luna left Cyril alone in the shop, and went into a back room where she kept all kind of strange things that she preferred the general public not to see.

Cyril wasn’t put out by Luna’s actions, and stood staring at the things that were on display. Several more customers entered the shop, and Cyril told them Luna had gone to get him something. They said they would wait, or come back later.

Luna returned, and gave Cyril a pair of earrings made of jade. “Those are for Jade to wear for a whole moon cycle, that is twenty-eight days. By the time she removes the earrings, she should be a lot more relaxed and quieter.”

“How much do they cost?” Cyril asked Luna.

“They cost fifty pounds, and if they don’t work I’ll give you some of your money back, or a discount on something else. Are you all right with that?”

“Yes, of course, although I had hopes it would have been a lot cheaper. Jade’s not my girlfriend, but the granddaughter of an elderly couple who need expensive repairs done on their house, that one day Jade will inherit. She’s not forthcoming with any kind of financial help for them.”

“Let’s see what effect the earrings have on her character, and if they don’t work, we’ll have to think up something else.”

“Thanks a lot, Luna, and see you in a month’s time,” Cyril said putting the small package inside his jacket pocket.

 

The rest of the weekend, Cyril was out with his friends going to the cinema, eating out, and playing football.

 

The following Monday after purchasing the earrings, he and his team of men went to Jade’s grandparents’ house to continue with their work. He didn’t see Jade for a long time. She wasn’t at all keen on the house, although nobody understood why.

 

One evening, when all the work was over and finished, the elderly couple invited Cyril and his team of workers to have tea and cake with them, as a way of saying thank you. The new roof was lovely and solid, and the interior with the new bathroom and the kitchen, had added to the selling price if they wanted to sell it. Jade who hadn’t been anywhere near the house in a long time, arrived and walked in while the men were enjoying themselves with her grandparents.

“Hello, what are they doing here?” Jade asked her grandparents.

“Cyril and his men have carried out all the work on the house. Don’t you think it looks nice?” her grandmother asked her.

Jade said, “You know I’ve never liked this place. I don’t know why you’ve spent so much money on it, when you could have got yourselves a nice bungalow by the sea or a flat. Or is that why you’ve had it done up?”

Cyril, seeing that Jade had needed to be cheered up, said, “Here, do you like these? They are made of jade, so they are for you,” handing her the small packet.

“I don’t like Jade, and I’m not happy my father gave me this name. My late mother didn’t like jade either. She was given a jade bracelet by her grandmother and never wore it. My father liked the stone, and that’s been my bad luck ever since. I don’t want the earrings. You’d better give them to someone else.”

Cyril was offended, and said, “I bought them for you - so you keep them. They’re no good to me.”

Jade reluctantly put them into her pocket.

 

Luna heard the shop door open and saw Cyril enter, “Well, how did it go with the earrings?”

“Not at all well. Jade went off with them, and that’s all I can tell you. The job on her grandparents’ house has been finished for six months now, and I’ve never seen or heard of Jade.”

Luna was making wind chimes and asked Cyril, “Like to help me make some of these up? I’ve got an order from a shop that likes to use them in decoration.”

“As I’ve got nothing much on today, I might just as well help you finish up the order.”

The two friends stayed in the shop making up the order. If Luna was annoyed by Jade’s actions as regards the jade earrings, she didn’t say so to Cyril. Another thing she never told Cyril was, that she had dipped the earrings in a strong powder to help Jade to calm down and straighten her out. What neither of them ever knew was, that a friend of Jade’s saw the earrings on her dressing-table one day and asked to see them, and Jade had replied, “Take them if you like, I don’t like the stone, but if you do, then it’s OK by me, for you to free me from them. I know I’ll never wear them.”

Jade’s friend, asked Rosalind to put them on, and said to Jade, “I like them. Thanks a lot for the nice present.”

“You’re very welcome, and you’ve done me a favour by taking them off my hands.”

 

Rosalind may have enjoyed wearing them, but her boyfriend had other ideas. “Rosalind, why are you wearing those earrings? They are really old ladies’ ones,” her boyfriend said.

“Jade said I could have them. I thought they looked all right, but if you don’t like them on me, then I’ll give them to someone else.”

“That sounds like common sense. Try giving them to your grandmother or one of your great aunts,” suggested Rosalind’s boyfriend.

Rosalind, after some thought, gave the earrings as a birthday present to a girlfriend, who put them on, and said she didn’t like them.

“Well, give them to another friend, or your mother,” suggested Rosalind.

 

In the meantime, Jade was pushing to get promotion in the company where she had worked for a long time. Bad luck would have it, that a younger woman from outside was given the job. Jade was angry and upset with what she considered her bad luck, and began looking for another job.

 

After a long and ardent search, Jade found a new job in an antiques business. One of the many items they had on sale, were jade bracelets and earrings. Jade left her new job, and went back to working in a small bank with no jade - not even another girl called Jade.

 

The earrings were passed on from one girl to another, till on one holiday, one of the multiple owners left them in an hotel room. What was wrong with the earrings? Had Luna’s powder given them a bad feeling, or was it that green was considered an unlucky colour?

 

Cyril and Luna went to live together, and he helped her in the shop, and also carried on with his building repairs.

 

Rosalind’s boyfriend bought her a pair of diamond earrings, and the jade ones were forgotten.

 

Jade’s grandparents, after her attitude referring to the improvements to their house, sold it and went to live in Florida - well away from the cold and rain.   And Jade.

 

Jade changed her name after meeting a man she fancied, whose dog was called - Jade. 

Reviews

[David Jae]

Interesting. A little heavy on exposition, but enjoyable. It would be improved by having some dialogue, in my opinion. Even so, the story is compelling.