I LEFT AUSTRALIA A CHILD OF SEVENTEEN AND RETURN A legal adult a year later. Dad leased my old apartment the moment I moved out with Narelle after school, so it’s no surprise he has kept tenants in there with no intention of evicting them. What’s left of Aunty Mary’s money is enough for a minimum deposit on a unit, which Dad puts in his name, across the road from Mandarin Gardens. I live there rent-free, and he uses the property as an asset to borrow against, digging further into debt.
Dad continues to take legal action against the City of Stirling, and this becomes his main focus as his empire crumbles. He enjoys having me live directly across the road because I’m nearby enough to proofread his legal documents at no notice and far enough away that my problems are not his.
Angela is living in her own Mandarin Gardens apartment now, out of his hair. Divorce is imminent, and she seems unhappy. She will let me babysit my beloved little brothers, but she doesn’t like them getting too close to me.
Despite returning from my travel adventures stronger and wiser, having experienced both the exhilaration and fright of freedom, I slip back into old patterns. I project my pain by coddling my brothers, taking them to the movies and museums, giving them presents in boxes that burst with helium balloons; I’m overcompensating for what I missed out on in Dad’s Kwa compound, and what they must be missing out on now. I can see history repeating and know the psychological consequences because I’m experiencing them myself. My brothers are facing some of the same obstacles that I have had to confront, as well as some unique to them. Although the parallels of our journey end at Angela – who loves them dearly – I will never give up on my relationship with these boys, no matter how many walls divide us.
My old school friend Emma has moved in with me and while she prepares to visit the Philippines to meet her biological parents for the first time in her life, I make some last-minute tweaks to my academic timetable. I have decided to study Architecture at the University of Western Australia, with a minor in Drama and Asian Studies. Drawing boards were everywhere at Dad’s place growing up and I was always rather surprised when other families didn’t have one or two lying around themselves, or when my friends found it a novelty to drift my set square ruler on its parallel slider. But my choice is a great disappointment to Dad, who had his sights set on law for me, and an unspoken disappointment for my mother who, I sense, knows that I’m an artist at heart. But ‘there’s no money being an artist,’ as Dad says. Architecture is a compromise because there is design involved and, hopefully, an income.
To be honest, I really don’t know what I want to be, and Architecture makes sense because Dad is an engineer and frequently says he is an architect, so I hear that word all the time. Mind you, I also hear ‘lawyer’ a lot. I have secret aspirations to write and report, but believe I must take a conventional career path supported by a ‘proper degree’. As a little girl, I watched 60 Minutes hosts Jana, Mike and Ray scaling buildings and reporting hunched behind walls with mortar fire in the background or interviewing world leaders and superstars, and I thought, I’d like to do that one day. I can’t seem to get a vision in my head of being an architect, but I always dream about being a journalist and newsreader on TV. Jana Wendt is the only woman on national television with a non-Anglo background, and she is not blonde so that does give me hope but, as there are no Asians on air, deep down, I don’t like my chances.
In 1993, there is no university qualification for ‘TV host’ so I spend no time trying to figure out another way to become one. My primary school friend Michelle gets me a job as a photographer at Boat Torque Cruises: taking photos of passengers embarking on their wine tours and party river jaunts, racing back to a photo lab to develop the films and leaping into the arms of the crew across more than a metre of water sometimes, as we re-board the boats. Then we do a roaring trade selling the printed photos to drunk patrons.
One afternoon, I drop my brothers off at Mandarin Gardens after taking them to the zoo. I park the car, then hug and kiss the boys goodbye before they dash upstairs to show Angela what goodies they’ve brought home. At the end of our outings, we usually go for fast food – Hungry Jacks or KFC. If Adrian wants one thing and Jerome another, we go to the drive-through at both restaurants because I love to make them happy.
My window is up to make the most of the half-hearted air conditioning that I’ll switch on once the engine is running again, and I’m wondering if I should wind it down a crack, to let in a bit of air first, when I see something extraordinary.
From across the carpark, about thirty metres away, Angela is walking straight towards me. I brace in panic, my chest tightening as I dig my nails into my palm. Experience tells me this can only mean a confrontation. As the slight figure with a formidable presence heads my way, I freeze and hold my breath.
Maybe she’s upset with me for buying the boys junk food – or is she angry at me for not coming in to see her before I collected them from Dad? Whatever has upset her, I’m terrified she will stop me from seeing my little brothers again. In the seconds it takes her to cross the carpark, all possible outcomes are freight trains through my head, and some are really catastrophic.
I’m frozen in fear as she taps on the window, but then I suddenly spring to life as if jumping to attention for an army commander. Awkwardly I grapple with the manual winder to lower the glass. I gaze up at Angela, dumbfounded and nervous.
‘I just wanted to say . . .’ She doesn’t quite look me in the eye. ‘I just wanted to say thank you. I know you really love the boys.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ is all I can manage, but she is already walking away. I start the engine and drive off, numb with the adult realisation that she was just as nervous as me.