I AM SIX AND ENJOYING TIME WITH MY GRANDPARENTS. IT’S much less complicated at their place than at Dad’s – but just as I settle in again, Mum decides to give her marriage another go, and we’re back on the road to Scarborough.
Dad greets us enthusiastically, and we put our clothes back in drawers and toothbrushes in cups by sinks in the house that he designed and built himself, brick by brick. There is always a concrete mixer in the yard, along with a trailer, a welding machine, a ladder and an axe; Dad always has a building project on the go.
On top of building and design, Dad now has a new hobby. He’s become interested in the law, and after attending lectures at the uni on an unofficial basis he has embarked on several court cases, suing various people and even businesses. He runs his own cases and represents himself. Like building, it’s time-consuming, but it keeps him busy.
This only adds to the difficulties between Mum and Dad, and before long, the struggles resurface.
It’s four in the afternoon and, as usual, I am the last kid to be picked up from my primary school. I wait on the lawn out front, cross-legged, pulling at blades of grass. I look up at a soaring gum tree and down an adjacent road where groups of kids walk home together, kidding around and having fun, carefree. I eye them with envy.
Mum chugs up in our white VW Beetle. Clothes and bags press at the windows, and I realise the small car is so full it might burst. There are sleeping-bags, pillows, blankets, suitcases and crockery – along with almost every type of belonging I can imagine – crammed into the back seat. Our black cat, Susie, is burrowed into a pile of clothes.
I can hardly fit, the passenger seat is as far forward as it can go, but I get in, squeezing my schoolbag under my feet in front. Susie leaps onto my lap. ‘Mum, what’s going on? Why is all our stuff in here?’
She doesn’t speak, so I’m not sure if she is ‘having an episode’. She starts the engine and drives us down Deanmore Road. Right turn. Left turn.
‘MUM! Where are we going?’
‘We are leaving your father,’ she says eventually. She is looking straight ahead. ‘We are going to live with some very nice women.’ She pauses. ‘They are nuns.’ I’m trying hard to process what she’s saying. ‘We’ll stay with the nice nuns while I work out what to do next.’
‘Why don’t we just go home to Paw Paw and Granddad? How long will we be gone? What about school?’
Mela keeps looking straight ahead. Doesn’t say another word.
We end up in Leederville, a suburb about a fifteen-minute drive from Scarborough, at a women’s refuge for domestic violence victims. Two nuns ceremoniously open enormous oak convent doors and usher us into a courtyard. There’s a sandpit, so I run over to it and get busy sifting and building; I sit on a little metal seat and dig with the yellow steam shovel.
We stay there for a few days, until one morning there’s a loud bang on the door. It’s Dad. He shouts something about legal action and threatens to shut down the refuge for harbouring me against his will.
Schizophrenic delusions and hallucinations have made Mela a challenging guest for the nuns, so when Francis shouts something about his wife needing medical attention, they gladly turn us over. I ride with Dad, and Mum follows us in the Beetle, her tear-streaked face staring straight ahead again, expressionless. I’m crying as I gaze at her through the rear window of Dad’s car, but she looks through me as if I’m not here.
I’ll miss the old man next door to the refuge. He made me a wooden train on a string that I loved to pull behind me up and down the driveway, between the houses either side.
Dad is taking me to Hong Kong again. ‘While your mum gets sorted out,’ he says at the airport as he checks in our empty suitcases. He likes to take them empty so we can fill them with tools and trinkets to bring back – mainly tools, usually sharp instruments like drill bits and circular saws that get us stuck at customs for what can feel like hours. The airport staff always ask me to sit on a chair outside a room with a glass window, while Dad goes inside to explain why he is within his legal rights to bring these objects in. There are bags of food as well: dried mushrooms and beans with special medicinal properties, vials of donkey this and tiger that, but mainly royal jelly because, he tells me, ‘It’s so cheap in Hong Kong.’
Although Dad pushes the boundaries, he knows the law better than the ‘buddy security’ who don’t know what they’re ‘buddy doing’. He will tell me this, as he always does, on our way home to Scarborough with our overfilled cases shoved on the back seat of a taxi.
That is our arriving-from-Hong Kong routine, but right now we’re in the middle of our going routine, with empty cases and mandatory duty-free browsing. ‘Mr Francis Kwa, Mr Francis Kwa, please make your way to Departure Gate 2.’ We’re the last passengers on board while everyone stares at us after they finish sarcastically applauding us for holding up the flight – standard going-routine stuff.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Dad takes triple the number of complimentary peanuts we need, thanks the hostess and leans over to me. ‘They always wait for Francis Kwa. And I don’t even have to look at the time – they always call me on the speaker.’ His laugh fills the cabin.
If you happen to be a passenger who isn’t taking full advantage of the complimentary peanuts and orange juice, don’t worry, Francis makes sure he gets value for everyone’s ticket. ‘Yes, Mr Kwa,’ a hostess says as she switches the call light off above his head. ‘Two more orange juices and three peanuts coming right up.’ She smiles graciously and nods. Her elegant red-and-white Cathay Pacific uniform fits her perfectly, and her hair and make-up are immaculate. Aunty Theresa must have looked glamorous like that in her air hostess outfit, I think as I scribble with a pencil from the children’s airline pack.
Outside the airport Dad and I catch a taxi to Tai Hang Road, on our own this time. When we arrive, a guard telephones Brigit to say we’re here. Aunty Theresa appears and I throw myself into her arms. She likes a hug but not too much effusiveness in public now that I’ve started school. I almost cry but, as if she senses it, Aunty steps back and holds my shoulders, her grin broad. ‘Now let me look at you. So beautiful. You have grown again.’ She casts a glance of dismay at our tatty suitcases and nods at the doorman to bring them up to her apartment.
Brigit blushes with embarrassment as I fling my arms around her too. ‘Oh, Mimi. Oh, stop it.’ She holds me out from her as well. ‘Look at you, Mimi, you need to eat.’ Her jolly chuckle makes her bosom shake. ‘Miss Kwa,’ she addresses Aunty, ‘may I peel some grape for the Madam Mimi?’
On this trip, as usual, Dad and Aunty Theresa argue in Cantonese frequently when he isn’t out haggling for cheap tools for his workshop. ‘It’s as if you’re re-creating the blacksmith shop,’ she says in English during one such exchange.
I’m relieved Dad is out so often on his ‘important business’, as it gives me uninterrupted time with Aunty. But she has to go out today on business of her own, and she doesn’t want me to watch TV or pester Brigit in the kitchen. ‘Today,’ she announces, ‘I introduce you to my neighbour’s child!’ She says this a bit like ‘The Shopping!’ Aunty leans towards her dresser mirror and winds up an Elizabeth Arden lipstick. ‘He is home from boarding school for the holidays.’ The red pigment glides onto her plump bottom lip. ‘His father is an Arab banker.’ She rubs her lips together to spread the colour, using her pinky finger to remove an undetectable smudge in the crease at the top of her pout. ‘His mother is often out of the house, and he could do with company.’ She replaces the lid and turns to face me. ‘I like him. He has chubby cheeks. I can squeeze them.’ She squeezes my cheek. ‘Just like this.’ I smile.
As if by magic, the doorbell rings. ‘Ma’am, ma’aaaaam, he’s here,’ Brigit sings.
‘Ahhh, come, come.’ Aunty ushers me towards the door. ‘He has very good parents.’
It’s like an arranged marriage: all of a sudden I’m standing face to face with a boy, almost identical in height to me, with no idea what to say. He’s wearing trousers and a collared shirt and tie, while I’m in shorts and a T-shirt. His maid is standing a few feet behind him. We are both wearing slippers.
The matchmaking introduction continues. ‘Rukin, this is my niece, Mimi.’
‘Lukin, ma’am,’ Brigit corrects Aunty and sweeps my hair behind my shoulder.
‘Yes, yes, RRRRukin.’
The boy extends his arm formally, and I shake his hand. ‘How do you do, Lukin?’ This is awkward but far more interesting than being bored on my own.
‘Do you like Lego?’ he asks with a smile.
‘Yes.’ I smile back.
Lukin and I play Lego and talk and listen to music. He never asks me to speak about my parents if I don’t bring it up. They have finally divorced after being separated for so long, but Lukin doesn’t treat me differently for coming from a broken home like some of my classmates do. We alternate between his place and Aunty’s, and sometimes Brigit or his maid takes us for ice-cream. When this happens, we sit in a minibus side by side as it wends down mountainous Tai Hang Road. On one side, a vertical jungle pushes its way through gaps in concrete retaining walls; on the other, there’s a steep drop. But for the most part, it’s a smooth ride.
‘I will write to you after I go back to Australia tomorrow,’ I tell Lukin.
Brigit is seated two rows behind us, pretending not to know us while never taking her eyes off us.
‘Okay,’ he says. He places his hand over mine, resting in my lap, and gives it a quick awkward squeeze. ‘But you had better send your letter to my boarding house or I won’t get it until I’m back here at Christmas.’ He pulls his hand away, and we sit in silence the rest of the way to Jardine’s Bazaar, the market at the bottom of Tai Hang Road.
Aunty teases me playfully about my friendship with Lukin, and I can’t help but cry when we say goodbye the next day. I think he wants to cry too, but stops himself. It has been so enjoyable spending time with this new friend who is smart and funny, with no peer-group pressure or expectations, bullying or sudden snide remarks. We’ve looked an odd pair playing around Peace Mansion’s grounds, Lukin in his shirt and trousers and tie – sometimes even a bow tie – and me in my scruffy shorts and well-worn T-shirts, or my favourite dungarees. He doesn’t mind that I can be a bit of a tomboy, and I don’t mind that he dresses and behaves like a Middle Eastern prince. His manners are almost incomprehensible compared to those of the rough kids at my school.
Before we part, Lukin hands me a box. ‘A gift to open on the plane.’
Aunty has something for me too: she takes a bright graphic print scarf from around her neck and loops it over mine, arranging it in her signature ascot knot. ‘This is pure silk. It is delicate and strong at the same time. It is also mine.’ She smiles and wiggles her hips. ‘Which means . . .’
Dad is trying to force the boot of our taxi closed. And even though it’s overflowing with his suitcases, he’s commandeered most of the room in my case.
Aunty tries to ignore his complaints about the size of the taxi. ‘You must come back to visit me again soon.’ She gives me a warm embrace and squeezes my cheeks. ‘Next time, Mimi.’ Then she glances at Dad and whispers out of his earshot, ‘Next time we put him in a hotel. What do you think?’
It’s time for the going-home routine: haggling over the excess luggage allowance Dad hasn’t paid for while he lets everyone know he is an engineer, visiting the duty-free store, then being paged through the loudspeaker system. ‘Calling Mr Francis Kwa. Please make your way urgently to Gate 50.’ Dad hands a $20,000 watch – which he was never going to buy – back to a very disappointed duty-free saleswoman. ‘See, see,’ Dad says as we move towards the gate. ‘See, they like my diamond earring. They see that and they think I’m rich.’
A golf buggy driven by a desperate-looking flight steward approaches us.
‘No, Dad,’ I say, ‘it’s because you tell everybody you’re rich.’ I’m at an age where I am starting to speak up about these things.
The steward talks into a microphone, its black cord bouncing with the energetic movement of his arm. ‘Mr Francis Kwa. Paging Mr Francis Kwa.’
I grab Dad’s hand and pull him onto the buggy. We show our tickets to the steward, who shoots us a stern look as he swerves to avoid throngs of meandering people in transit. He swipes a card next to a pair of reinforced metals doors labelled ‘Staff Access Only’.
We speed along concrete corridors. We’ve been this way before: past baggage handlers heaving suitcases onto long trailers, past crew lounges, past mechanics covered in grease, lying on trolleys as they check the mysterious workings of catering lifts. This is behind the scenes of Theresa and Mary’s world, the hustle and bustle of an international airport, the excitement of travel and glamour of flying.
A light on top of the golf buggy spins and flashes, and our attendant waves and nods purposefully at the cabs of other vehicles on the tarmac, who stop or move out of our way. Four men are pulling a staircase from a Boeing 747 so it can begin taxiing for take-off.
‘Dang! Dang!’ our man shouts in Cantonese over his megaphone. ‘Wait! Wait!’
My heart races. Dad and I run up the stairs, and the other passengers applaud.
Six packets of peanuts and two tomato juices later, Dad has wrapped himself in pillows and made a bed for himself in the aisle. Finally, I can open the box from Lukin.
I gently prise away the three neat strips of sticky tape holding the wrapping in place, careful to preserve the handmade paper. I run my fingers over a mass of blue and green fibres, bumpy but not rough; the paper is beautiful in its imperfection. I roll it up and use a hair elastic from my wrist to keep it secure. Beneath the wrapping is a Brand X Huaraches shoebox. Funny that he should buy me sandals, I think. But when I lift the cardboard lid there’s another box, this one made of Lego – red with yellow hinges. I open it and read the note inside. Lukin’s handwriting is neater than anyone’s in my class.
I don’t know when I will see you again because sometimes Father and Mother come to visit me on my school break. Dad’s snoring travels down the aisle, filling the cabin; I have to concentrate. But next time I’m coming back to Hong Kong, your Aunty Theresa said she will try to arrange for you to visit too. This is for you to store something special in until then. Your friend, Rukin. He has drawn a smiley face above the R.
I fold the note and put it back in the Lego box. I slip Aunty’s scarf from around my neck and try to perform the triangulated fold I have watched her do a hundred times. ‘It’s a Japanese way,’ Aunty told me. ‘Very neat, very calm, very polite people.’ I place my scarf ball over Lukin’s letter and smooth it on top, the way Aunty would do.