CHAPTER 6
When Mum and I reach Henry’s house on Saturday after my morning sessions of Chinese school and extra maths tuition, the set of steel food containers is there on the porch, washed and dried and smelling of lemons. But the envelope of homework from Miss Spencer isn’t, and when I look around for it, even poking around in the bushes out the front of Henry’s house in case it’s blown away, Mum murmurs, ‘Even Henry deserves a rest on Saturday, Wen. Leave it now.’
‘He’d better not be giving up,’ I mutter in reply as we walk away with the set of food carriers. Mum doesn’t reply. After I’d told her about the entrance exam on our walk home from the Xiaos’ house last night, about how Miss Spencer thought we might even have a chance, she’d been very quiet. As we’d reached our driveway all she’d said was, ‘He will never let you go.’ But she hadn’t said No to the idea completely, and that gave me hope.
When we pass the open door of Mrs Xenakis’s pharmacy, she waves at us while she’s serving a customer. I see that she notices the set of steel food containers in Mum’s hands, because her eyes narrow briefly in thought before she laughs at something the woman says, and turns away to ring up the purchase.
After we’ve arrived home and eaten a quick lunch of egg noodles fried with strips of pork, fresh garlic chives and dried black mushrooms, Mum sets about making dinner for us, but also for Henry and his dad. She prepares a hearty stew out of chunks of beef brisket, carrots, turnips, onion and potatoes that she simmers all afternoon until the gravy is thick and shiny; flavoured with things like mushroom soy, shào xīng wine, garlic cloves, ginger and star anise. Before we sit down to eat our own dinner, we walk back to Henry’s house and leave a big saucepan of stew for them, together with more rice than two people can possibly eat. No one comes to the door when we ring the bell, and there’s still no envelope of finished homework on the front step. The Xiaos’ house looks even smaller and meaner in the late afternoon sunshine as Mum and I walk away from it, empty-handed.
On Sunday, when Mum and I drop by in the afternoon with a large earthenware pot filled to the brim with pork belly braised with finger eggplant and seasoned with garlic, chilli, spring onions and chunks of dried salted fish, together with another huge serving of rice, we are met with the two saucepans we left the day before, carefully washed and dried. The envelope of homework from Miss Spencer is there this time, sitting under the saucepans. Like the envelope before it, all the worksheets inside are carefully completed.
After I’ve slid all the papers back inside with a feeling of relief that Henry is still on track, still focused on the dream, Mum turns the envelope over gently in my hands and says quietly, ‘Henry has left you some homework of your own. Make sure you do it properly, Wen.’
In red pencil, on the back of the envelope, he’s written out four long division maths equations. My heart sinks. I know I’m supposed to have them done by the end of Monday, to slip back under the front door after school for Henry to correct. It will take me most of lunchtime tomorrow to get through them, because long division is the worst. To do long division you have to know all your times tables, and I’m not sure that I do. I like to think that I’m affected by selective times tables amnesia. Even with all the extra worksheets Miss Spencer has been giving me, and Saturday tuition, maths is like wading through quicksand. If I flap around too much, I feel like I’m drowning. If I attempt it slowly, I still feel like I’m drowning.
As we turn the corner to go home holding Henry’s homework and the clean saucepans, Mrs Xenakis shoots out of the pharmacy in her white lab coat, standing right between us and the corner so that we have to stop walking. I’m conscious that Mum and I are each holding a piece of cookware, in the street, in broad daylight, because an elderly woman with a shopping trolley turns to stare at the three of us as she passes. Mrs Xenakis tries very hard not to stare at the saucepans and is very friendly, but determined. She asks if Mum can stop by the pharmacy on the way home from school on Monday afternoon.
Mum’s expression is immediately wary.
‘Say, 3.45pm?’ Mrs Xenakis adds quickly. ‘It won’t take long. Just a small, quick favour.’
Mum, surprised, nods slowly. She likes Mrs Xenakis, who is one of the few English-speaking shopkeepers in the local shopping strip that Mum doesn’t feel uncomfortable talking to. A lot of the others treat Mum as if she’s slow or hard of hearing, even though Mum is as quick as a bird.
That afternoon, when Dad rings home to check on us, I notice that Mum doesn’t mention the small, quick favour at all, although I hear her deny that there is anything wrong, that she’s just tired, more than once.
When I reach my locker on Monday morning, Nikki, rocking a denim onesie under her school sweatshirt, with her beautiful braids pulled into a low side pony, and Fatima, who’s wearing a pretty dark-red headscarf today with a sparkly border over her usual school sweatshirt and jeans, are standing there smiling. Nikki is holding a navy sports bag in a thin shiny fabric, the kind you buy from a two-dollar shop that can fold back up into a tiny purse. ‘Miss Spencer mentioned that you and your mum are bringing Henry food and homework, which is amazing,’ Nikki says.
‘Not the homework,’ Fatima laughs, elbowing her. ‘The homework’s not amazing.’
Nikki shoots her a look that says, Can we be serious for a moment here, please? ‘My mum,’ she continues, holding the bag out to me, ‘heard about Henry and wanted to help.’ She shakes the end of her ponytail of fine braids off her shoulder and looks at me squarely.
‘We all want to help,’ Fatima says, not laughing anymore. ‘But as you guys have the food part covered—’
‘And we weren’t sure if Henry likes South Sudanese food,’ Nikki interjects.
‘Or North Sudanese food,’ Fatima adds, ‘or has even tried it, our mums, and some of the other mums, thought that Henry might need, like, things, you know?’ Fatima’s voice is sombre. ‘Like clothes. It’s getting cold. So we did a small collection.’
My eyes drop to the navy sports bag as Nikki unzips it and Fatima rifles around inside, showing me what’s in there, the five thin gold bracelets on her wrist jingling.
‘Some trousers,’ she says, and we all glance at each other, thinking of Henry’s painfully exposed ankles.
‘Two warm jumpers,’ Fatima continues, ‘because it’s really starting to get cold.’
‘Some T-shirts,’ Nikki adds. ‘Because maybe his dad isn’t doing much laundry at the moment?’
‘Loads of socks, but no shoes,’ Fatima says apologetically, ‘because we weren’t sure what size Henry’s feet are. But we can get some, if you can find out? My uncle has a shoe shop.’ She zips the bag back up. ‘It’s no trouble. We’ve already worded him up and he said Henry can have his pick of the store, any colour, any style, he just has to go in and choose.’
They help me jam my backpack and the shiny sports bag into my locker and we walk into the classroom together, all smiling, but also feeling a bit like we want to cry. None of us can imagine how it would feel to be Henry right now. Not with our mums at home, doing mum stuff, the way they always do, day in, day out.
Miss Spencer sees us come in together and smiles, holding her hand out for Henry’s work. I slide all the worksheets out carefully and return them to her, saying, ‘I’ll give you back the envelope at the end of the day, if that’s okay? Henry’s left me some maths exercises.’ I turn the envelope over and show her the four maths problems in red pencil.
‘Answer them carefully, Wen,’ she laughs. ‘But in a way that will keep Henry “talking”!’
And we grin at each other in understanding, before I take my seat between Nikki and Fatima, who’ve saved me a spot.
At lunchtime, everyone is out on the dusty oval or hanging around near the climbing frames and outdoor gym equipment under the bedraggled eucalyptus trees – everyone except me. I’m in the library surrounded by this week’s usual book display of girls with long flowing golden hair in colourful ballgowns, or the headless torsos of girls with long flowing golden hair in colourful ballgowns, trying to work my way through the long division questions as quickly as possible so that I can go out and sit in the thin sunshine with my friends.
How do I answer Henry’s questions in a way that will keep Henry ‘talking’? To me and to Miss Spencer?
I think about all the ways that long division doesn’t make sense to me – how I can never tell which bit is the divisor or the dividend or the quotient, or what numbers to bring down, and where to put them exactly.
But I don’t want to completely enrage Henry – I just need to keep him engaged, even if it’s just in numbers. So I do my best to solve the four equations he’s set me, leaving just the one obvious thing wrong with each answer, groaning as the bell goes for period five. As expected, the whole exercise has taken forever, and I’ve had no lunch, no sun and no chats. Stomach rumbling, I search out Miss Spencer and hand her the empty envelope with the desperate scribble all over it.
She calls out, as I’m hurrying away, ‘But Wen, you forgot the—’
And I raise my hand, shouting, ‘I know!’ and her face breaks into a wide grin, as she works out what I’ve done, on purpose. Miss Spencer waves the wrinkled envelope back at me in farewell as I hurry to French class.
That afternoon, after Mum and I have dropped the bag full of clothes for Henry with a note tucked inside that says it’s from the Kuol, Salah, Deng and Abango families, together with the fresh batch of homework, we stop at Mrs Xenakis’s pharmacy at precisely 3.45 pm.
The old Chinese woman Mum helped the other day is standing inside by the counter, next to an equally old wrinkly-faced man with hollow cheeks dressed in a faded brown three-piece suit with widely spaced, thin stripes. Both elderly people are smiling, and the woman reaches out and catches one of Mum’s hands in hers and begins shaking it warmly.
Mum’s face breaks up into smiley lines as she chats to them in Shanghainese while Mrs Xenakis and I look on, grinning. Mum explained, when she got home from the hospital the other afternoon, that the old woman lived with her daughter’s family and was from Shanghai, and didn’t speak any other languages.
‘My third uncle’s wife was from Shanghai,’ Mum had told me with a faraway look. ‘I really loved that aunty, but she died just before I went to high school. We used to spend hours in the kitchen together when I was small because she cooked for the whole family. All of us lived in the one house, all the uncles and aunties and cousins, and because she was the best cook, she did all the cooking, for everyone.’
‘Didn’t she mind?’ I asked, my feelings about cooking being lukewarm at best.
Mum replied, ‘Everyone was expected to do what they were expected to do.’
‘No arguments,’ I’d added flatly.
‘These are different times,’ Mum had replied quietly. ‘Strange times. That time and this time are like two different countries separated by an insurmountable wall. Not everything from one makes sense in the other. I really miss that aunty. And her cooking.’
Mum turns to Mrs Xenakis now and says, ‘Mr and Mrs Wu agree that they must take better care of their health. What do you suggest they do, Mrs Xenakis? They trust your opinion very much.’
‘Well, now that winter is approaching,’ Mrs Xenakis replies immediately, ‘they should consider getting a flu shot each. I’ve had no way to ask them if they’ve had them done already. I can arrange that for them tomorrow, if they’d like – can you tell them that?’
Mum translates Mrs Xenakis’s words and the old couple smile and nod. When they say something to Mum in their language, I see something in Mum’s face change and she shakes her head quickly, replying in Shanghainese in a way that makes Mrs Wu’s face fall, and Mr Wu look worried.
Mrs Xenakis says, ‘What is it, Mrs Zhou? What’s the problem? Tell them it won’t cost them anything, if that’s what they’re worried about.’
Mum shakes her head, replying hastily, ‘It’s not the cost, Mrs Xenakis. It’s just that Mrs Wu wants me to be here tomorrow, so that I can translate when you give her and her husband the injection. But I can’t. It’s Tuesday.’
Mrs Xenakis looks confused. Mum glances at me, her eyes asking me to explain.
I say quickly, ‘It’s Dad’s one day off, every week. We always eat dinner together and there’s a lot of …’ Mum and I exchange looks again, ‘… preparation, a lot of work, involved. Mum and me are supposed to get back from school by four o’clock every day. No stops. But especially on Tuesdays.’
It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.
Mum glances at her watch now, as do I. It’s 3.54 pm. We need to get home, for the call.
Mrs Xenakis frowns, and her reply is swift. ‘Tell Mrs Wu we’ll do the flu shot on Wednesday, at three forty-five then.’ She looks from me to Mum, adding, ‘Is that all right? You’d be doing me another great favour, Mrs Zhou. I have a lot of elderly Chinese customers and it’s a real struggle to get across everything that I want to say …’
The uncertain look is back on Mum’s face – the look she wears when she’s faced with a Chinese restaurant menu with too many pages and Dad is waiting, impatiently, for a decision. At this point, Mum usually lets someone else decide for her.
So I do.
‘That’s fine,’ I cut in, before Mum can object, and she gives me a sharp, sideways glance but doesn’t disagree. ‘I’ll make sure she’s here at three forty-five on Wednesday, Mrs X.’
Mum translates for the Wus, and they nod, their faces relaxing, happy again.
‘See you on Wednesday,’ Mrs Xenakis says to the old couple, and to Mum, bowing low, from the waist, and I giggle.
‘We only do that on special occasions now, Mrs Xenakis. The bowing.’
‘This is a special occasion,’ Mrs Xenakis replies thoughtfully, as she straightens. ‘There’s a lot I could learn from you and your Mum, Wen.’
Mum gently withdraws her hand from Mrs Wu’s, and we back out of the shop, still waving.