Marlowe

Two long days went by before I could see Uncle Johnny, one of my parents’ oldest friends in Hong Kong. According to his secretary, he had been at a conference in Beijing.

I was early. Too early. When I reached Sheung Wan, west of the CBD on Hong Kong Island, I asked the taxi to drop me off two blocks before Uncle Johnny’s office. I stepped out of the cab near a trio of large bamboo baskets filled with dried fish, perfectly arranged like the petals on a daisy. Pungent, salty aromas lingered in the air as I passed tubs of fish maw, abalone, shrimp, oysters and sea snails. Weaving through throngs of local shoppers, I passed colourful market stalls that sold paper offerings for the afterlife – flimsy replicas of money, washing machines, air conditioners, jet planes and the occasional paper mansion. Turning the corner to Ko Shing Street, the air turned sweet and musty as I neared Chinese medicine stalls displaying jars of dried herbs, insects and various animal products. I was reminded of the many times Wài Pó had brought me shopping here for reishi mushrooms, ginseng and cordyceps and other smelly herbs to boost Harper’s immune system; through my research I’d since come to know cordyceps as a fungus that infected and manipulated the brain of an insect. I used to hate coming here as a child, but on this particular morning I found it strangely soothing to revisit these familiar streets.

As I sat in the waiting room of the Asia Daily offices, all I could think about was Mum. If we were in the neighbourhood, Mum would bring me here to meet Uncle Johnny for lunch. He had a way of listening as if your every word was interesting and important. ‘He is very present,’ Dad used to say, ‘and in today’s world that’s rare. It’s what makes him such a good journalist.’ I would often come and visit Uncle Johnny after Mum died; he was someone who seemed able to understand how I felt without my needing to say anything.

The reception area had changed in the years since I’d come here with my mother. The beige carpet had been replaced with marble and in the place of the old receptionist was a young woman with tortoiseshell glasses.

‘Marlowe?’ Uncle Johnny strode into the room. ‘It’s so great to see you.’ I stood up to hug him and, for a brief moment, felt like everything would be okay.

As he pulled away, I noticed the changes in him. In the year since I had last seen him, his beard had thinned, and there was a little more salt than pepper in his hair.

He smiled at me sadly. ‘You look so much like your mother.’ He shook his head, as if to bring himself back to the present, and said, ‘Come on through.’

As he led me to his office, he asked, ‘Does your dad know you’re here?’

‘No.’ I had wanted to set things in motion before I involved Dad. I was sure he’d have some reason why we shouldn’t ask Uncle Johnny to help us.

‘How is university?’ Uncle Johnny asked as he moved to sit behind his desk and I took a seat facing him. Did I like London? I answered his questions as quickly as I could, then handed him the article on Sandra Jensen that I’d printed out. ‘This is why I’m here,’ I said. ‘You can help.’

He scanned the page then looked up at me, head cocked to one side.

‘How?’

How? I would have thought it was obvious.

‘You can write an article about Harper,’ I said.

He frowned and sat up straighter in his chair. ‘Harper? What do you mean? Is she okay?’

It was my turn to frown. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Know what?’

‘Dad hasn’t said anything to you?’

Uncle Johnny grimaced slightly. ‘I don’t see that much of your father these days. Tell me, what’s going on?’

I paused for a minute before speaking. ‘Harper needs a heart and lung transplant.’

I heard Uncle Johnny catch his breath, but I wasn’t done. ‘And she has been denied one because of her disability.’

I listed the hospitals that had rejected Harper, finishing with a description of Saturday’s meeting, at which we’d been urged to seek palliative care.

Uncle Johnny rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Oh, Marlowe, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘She doesn’t have long,’ I said quietly. ‘So can you write a piece on her? Get her story out there? It worked for Sandra Jensen…’

But Uncle Johnny was shaking his head. ‘Marlowe, it doesn’t quite work like that. I’m a business journalist; I don’t normally write feature articles. And even if I did, Hong Kong is not America – the law is different here.’

‘I know the law is different.’ I gripped the sides of my seat. ‘Please, I don’t know what else to do…’ I hated the sound of my voice, the desperation in it. I hated begging for help.

Uncle Johnny sighed. ‘Okay, okay… Let me see what I can do.’

I exhaled. ‘Thank you.’

As he walked me back out to reception, he asked me how Dad was holding up.

I stared at him. ‘You really don’t know?’

‘Like I said, we haven’t seen each other in a while.’ He glanced away.

Why was there such distance between them? It was as if Dad was slowly erasing all vestiges of the life he had lived with Mum. I swallowed. Soon there would be nothing left to hold our family together.

It was dinner time. Wài Pó had placed an unusually bland looking omelette and plain rice on the kitchen table. Harper and I shared a look while Wài Pó prepared a tray for Dad and Irene to eat in their room.

‘I’ll take that to them.’ I whisked the tray from her hands. This was the perfect opportunity for me to tell Dad my plan. I’d already spoken with Uncle Johnny so it was too late for him to object.

From outside Dad’s bedroom, I heard an argument between him and Irene. The door was slightly ajar and their words travelled clearly out into the corridor.

‘You have to control your temper with the doctors, James,’ Irene was saying. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

‘Is that seriously what you’re thinking about right now?’ Dad retorted.

There was a pause; I heard the click of a lighter and then Irene exhaled. ‘You have to accept there’s nothing more we can do,’ she said.

I didn’t wait to hear any more. I pushed the door open. Irene was by the window, cigarette in hand, while Dad was on the opposite side of the room, leaning against the cupboard.

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘there is something we can do.’ I placed the tray on their side table.

Irene looked at me. ‘You didn’t consider knocking?’

‘What are you talking about, Marlowe?’ Dad asked. His voice sounded weary.

‘We can get a story about Harper’s case in the media.’ I handed him the Sandra Jensen article and told him about her case. He shook his head dismissively.

‘Dad?’

‘I already know about this story, darling, but this is Hong Kong. No one is interested in the rights of disabled people here.’

Irene exhaled smoke in a long, steady stream.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut until I saw stars.

‘Don’t you want to help?’ I asked in a small voice.

‘Your father’s right,’ Irene cut in. ‘The culture here is different. People just don’t care.’

‘No one is going to want to write about this anyway,’ Dad said, his tone softer now.

‘Uncle Johnny will. I went to see him and he said he’d see what he could do.’

‘Uncle Johnny?’ Dad paused, his gaze averted in recollection. ‘How is he?’

When I didn’t answer, he passed the article back in my direction.

I folded my arms, refusing, suddenly disgusted by his passivity.

‘Why am I the only one who is trying to do something?’ I demanded. Then, startled by my own anger, I fled the room.

Irene’s voice followed me down the hall. ‘You really should tell her that she can’t talk to you like that, James. It’s so disrespectful.’

From the back of my wardrobe, I retrieved the empty rearing cage that Grandpa had given me one Christmas. With a damp cloth, I cleaned away the dust from the netted walls and wiped the floral tubes for milkweed cuttings. Why was I setting up an empty home with nothing to inhabit it? I stared at the cage, trying not to think of a life that was slowly slipping away from me.

‘Hello.’ Harper was standing in the doorway to my bedroom. She held a book in her hands. Its front was covered in a thin sheet of silver glitter. ‘I want to show you something.’ She plonked herself onto my bed.

She held her notebook in the air and glitter rained onto the floor. ‘This is my autobiography storybook. I want you to know that I have started my own great story.’ She turned to the first page and, with her index finger following her loopy handwriting, began to read slowly. I sat down next to her and listened, marvelling at how her brain could turn our painful hospital meeting into a series of enchanted tales.

She asked me if I liked her writing and I told her it was wonderful.

‘Do you think I can get this published soon? I would like an agent as well.’

Ever since she was a teenager and started writing seriously, she would send me her work and ask me to help her find a publisher. ‘We can always keep trying.’ I didn’t want her to lose hope.

‘Harper,’ I said, ‘are you sure you’re okay? I know the meeting at the hospital a few days ago was really full-on.’

My sister pushed her spectacles further up her nose.

‘Yes, yes. I am okay because I know the doctors will fix me.’

I bit my tongue to keep my rage in check.

‘Also, the lady with the shell was nice,’ Harper added.

That damn social worker.

‘Do you understand what a transplant is, Harper?’

She nodded her head slowly. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

I took her hand in mine. Her fingers were cold. I massaged them gently. ‘Harper, a transplant is when they give you a new heart and lungs.’

‘Yes, you told me already.’ Then she tipped her head to the side and looked at me, puzzled. ‘But I did have one question: where do these hearts and lungs come from?’

From someone who is brain dead.

‘From someone who doesn’t need theirs anymore.’ I was a coward. I was treating her like a child. ‘Sorry. I should have said from someone who has been in an accident and can’t live anymore, but their organs can live on in another person.’

‘I like my own heart. I don’t need someone else’s and you should know I am not going to die. I am quite happy in my body and with all the parts of my body, and I know the doctors will fix me.’

My head began to throb.

‘I like my own heart,’ Harper repeated in an urgent voice. ‘I like my own. I want to keep my own.’

I drew her close.

‘It’s okay.’ I rubbed her back like I used to when she was small, resting my cheek against the top of her head. She smelled like strawberry shampoo. We stayed like this for a while.

‘It’s okay,’ Harper whispered back eventually. ‘We’ll be okay.’ I listened to the certainty in her voice. All at once it was as if she were holding me. ‘We will be okay because you are home.’

She stood and made her way to the door. ‘I am going back to my room to write now.’

And then my sister was gone, leaving a trail of glitter behind her.