I VISIT GRANDDAD ONE MORNING AT MOUNT HOSPITAL, A private facility in a picturesque part of Perth. His room overlooks the Mounts Bay Road estuary, a stone’s throw from my Boat Torque job.
Recovery for standard prostate surgery should be only a few days, but due to Granddad’s age and the leg pain he’s been experiencing, they’re keeping him in for a bit longer. No cancer was detected, but he opted for the surgery as a precaution. I open a window in Granddad’s room, letting in a gust of fresh air. Below, I can see ducks gliding on the water and weeping willows skimming the surface. ‘Architecture’s going well,’ I lie. ‘But I’m not sure I want to be an architect anymore. I think I might want to be a journalist.’ I turn to face Granddad, who is propped up with pillows in bed.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Are you sure? You’ve changed course a few times, haven’t you, young’un? I thought your year abroad inspired you to do architecture. Remember when Paw Paw and I came to see you? We all enjoyed our time on the Thames, looking at the buildings of London.’
Yes, of course I remember; it was only two years ago.
‘And I told you all about the Blitz and the part I played in the war.’
Granddad pointed out where the bombs hit and the fires burned, remembering the events as if they’d happened yesterday. I wish my grandparents and I did more together in London, but after a few days of tours and high tea I had to be back at my job down in Cornwall, and they were due for a visit with Paw Paw’s brother in the north.
I want to give Granddad a big hug, but he looks fragile under the sheets and thin cotton blanket, so instead I sit on the edge of his bed, my Doc Martens barely reaching the floor. We’re deep in conversation when I realise the time – I’m late for a lecture but would much rather stay here. I stand up from his hospital bed and, like a bird, gently swoop in to kiss my favourite man on the forehead. Then I am gone.
In the afternoon, Mum and Paw Paw call me from Granddad’s bedside. ‘There’s been a complication, Mimi. You need to come.’
I return and park next to the estuary and stride past the pond, the water like glass. As I pick up the pace, a startled duck lifts off leaving ripples behind. My chest tightens, and I break into a run. In the elevator I reason with myself. It’s just a complication. I’m sure he’s fine. I just saw him this morning. I press a fingernail into my palm; the familiar pain comforts me, keeping my anxiety at bay as I take a deep breath and step out of the lift.
Mum and Paw Paw turn to me with tear-streaked faces as I walk into the room. The bed is empty. ‘No, no!’ I scream. ‘No.’ I run out and take three steps at a time down the fire-escape stairs to the street, Paw Paw and Mum yelling after me from the open third-storey window. I drive away half-blinded by tears, hitting the steering wheel and screaming in despair.
Granddad’s heart gave way. The doctors had thought the pain in his legs was from old war injuries, but he was having a heart attack right there in the hospital – right under their noses, where you might expect such a thing to be picked up. The elective surgery and anaesthetic put too much stress on his body, they said.
Paw Paw is so grief-stricken, the last thing she can think about is filing a complaint. ‘The nursing staff thought it was his parachuting injuries playing up,’ she says. ‘They weren’t to know.’
I look at her, incredulous. ‘They are medical staff, Paw Paw. If they can’t detect a heart attack, who can?’
For the hundredth time, we hold each other and cry.
‘When we met,’ she says, ‘your grandfather and I, he went to the ballet just to please me, and he courted me with a warning. He said, “I am ten years older than you. If you marry me I will die before you.” We were young, and it seemed such a silly thing to worry about. But he was right, Mimi. He was right.’ We weep some more. Granddad was seventy-nine.
I keep Granddad alive by recounting his war hero stories to anyone who will listen, and I unexpectedly burst into tears in all sorts of places: a friend’s car, a university lecture theatre, walking Whisky. I turn to friends, and Mum retreats further into her voices. I host a series of wild parties with my housemate Emma and, at one of them, our friend Danny Green, a boxing protégé, swallows my pet goldfish. That was right before one girl, Widge, swings Zarn around as they’re dancing to The Cure and she falls and breaks her arm on the kitchen tiles. Never a dull moment. People have sex on car bonnets and light joints like they’re cigarettes.
But one day, when I host a ‘hat party’ and my girlfriend Nina instead wears pictures of nude women stuck on an ice-cream container on her head, I decide things have gone too far. I am after all, a feminist.
Then I meet John – handsome and funny, from a normal family of meat-and-three-veg Catholics. He has no idea what he’s getting into, and we fall madly in love.
‘Your dad keeps asking me what my dad does,’ John says one night. ‘Remind me, why can’t I tell him?’
John and I are locked in an embrace on the bed in my unit across the road from Mandarin Gardens. We’re at the stage where we can barely keep our hands off each other. Young love!
‘Because,’ I tickle his chin and kiss him lightly, ‘if my dad finds out your dad is a magistrate, he’ll be over there quicker than you can say, “My dad’s a magistrate.” Your dad will never hear the end of it.’ We laugh.
‘Is that so?’ John asks and kisses me.
‘I think we should live together.’ I roll on top of him.
‘What will we tell our parents?’
I nestle into his shoulder. ‘We’ve been together six months. They’ll be fine.’
‘Mimi, your mother and I, we’re worried John is too old for you. You know what your grandfather said to me about being older. And he was right. He did die first.’
Mum is holed up, as usual, in her basement room, but Paw Paw uses ‘we’ for leverage.
‘Paw Paw, he’s only three years older.’ I have a stupid ‘I’m in love’ smile on my face.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise. He looks much older than that.’
Now I laugh. ‘He does not!’ I know she’s worrying about me, and I appreciatively throw my arms around her in the bearhug I wish I’d given Granddad the day he died. ‘I love you, Paw Paw.’
She holds me out from herself to see me better, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Well, if this is what you want, I am happy for you.’
‘Mi, you still haven’t told me what his father does.’
I go against my own counsel, exhausted by the question. ‘He’s a magistrate, Dad. John’s dad is a magistrate. He comes from a very good family. We haven’t taken the decision for him to move in here lightly.’ Then I tell a lie: ‘His parents are fine with it.’
‘Right, well, I want their number. I want to talk to them.’
Just as I feared. ‘I don’t have it, Dad,’ I lie again.
‘They live in Morley, right? If John is Roberts then his father is Len Roberts. I know all the magistrates, ahahaha.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Dad, I’m twenty. We’re not getting married – I really don’t think you need to talk to them.’
But it’s too late: Dad is already scouring the White Pages telephone book and before I can stop him, he’s revving his Kwa Car up the hill on his way to Morley. I am utterly mortified. I dig my fingernails into my hand and focus on that pain instead.
When he arrives at the unsuspecting Roberts household, Dad asks immediately for legal advice – on the grounds John’s parents are virtually related to him now – and when John’s dad mentions he has a sore back and asks to be excused, Dad insists that Len lie on the floor so he can walk on the magistrate’s back, cracking it in two places. ‘I am an expert in the chiropractic, you know.’ Len’s back never recovers.
Not long after this incident, John moves in with me as planned. He has brought a few humble possessions from the bachelor pad he shared with two friends, among them a Holden HD station wagon, 1966 – an iconic car that he intends to fix up one day. It’s unroadworthy and unregistered, so he parks it outside our unit.
‘Francis,’ he says to Dad, ‘perhaps you could advise me on how to bring my car back to life.’ John is half serious, half buttering Dad up.
‘Yes, yes,’ Dad replies, ‘I am a tup-tup-tup mechanic. I can show you. Yes, I can fix it.’
A few weeks later the car vanishes, and John and I are at a loss until I open our mail and unfold a council bill for towing and impounding fees. I call the council, and the person at the other end checks a file on the curious incident of the disappearing car. ‘It says here a Mr Francis Kwa called to have the car towed, because it was an eyesore.’
We can’t afford to bail out John’s beloved Commodore, so all he has left are pangs of nostalgia. We do see the funny side, though, and I’m thankful for the sense of humour my new partner brings to the table – after all, this is one of countless Francis Kwa incidents John will no doubt endure by my side.
Whenever my tiger stripes are shadows tightening around me, I turn to John, my rock in the storm.
When I tell Aunty Theresa about my new-found love, she flies out to inspect the relationship and gives it a cat’s pyjamas two-thumbs-up stamp of approval. She even meets John’s parents and, to my relief, somewhat redeems the Kwa name with them in a way only Aunty can do.
At yum cha with Dad, John, Adrian and Jerome, Theresa announces she is moving to Manila to escape the handover of Hong Kong, which is coming up in 1997, marking the end of Britain’s 99-year lease. She isn’t taking any chances, keen to get her money out before China takes the territory back. In Brigit’s home city, Aunty can be cared for in her old age without fearing her maid may leave her. Aunty has dual Australian–British citizenship, and we’ve tried for years – without any luck – to get a visa for Brigit to migrate to Australia as Aunty’s companion, so this is the next best option. Aunty plans to visit Hong Kong regularly.
Ocean Palace is Perth’s biggest Chinese restaurant, seating two hundred, and the maître d’ has assigned us a standard round table covered with a white cloth under the lazy Susan in the middle. We order san choy bau and spring rolls, plus stir-fry noodles for the boys. Considering this is a Kwa event, everything is going well so far.
But when chicken feet come out for Dad, so do a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket. He slides them over his hands, and snaps the latex on as if he’s in an operating theatre. Dad Wombled a whole palette of these gloves and uses them at every possible opportunity – and, apparently, even when there isn’t one.
Aunty looks at her brother, horrified. Dad helps himself to food with his gloved hands and eats, and I kick him under the table. Adrian and Jerome excuse themselves and go outside in teenage shame, while John – who is becoming accustomed to Kwa eccentricities by now – keeps eating.
‘What?’ Dad looks at me as if I’m insane. ‘They are free. No need chopstick. What’s wrong with you?’
Everyone in the restaurant seems to be staring as I die of embarrassment, and Aunty tut-tuts, frowning her disapproval.
Dad eats with his gloves on for the whole meal. ‘It’s a good idea, good idea. No washing up. No washing up. Ahhahahahahahah.’
John doesn’t speak to Angela out of respect for me. ‘I can’t understand why you’re nice to her,’ he says.
‘I do it for my brothers, you know that,’ I reply.
Plus, the little girl in me still craves acceptance and love from this woman. Why do I hang on when it makes more sense to let go? My grandparents never gave up on Mum, or me. Aunty Theresa would never give up on Dad, and I won’t ever give up on my brothers, or Dad either. So for Adrian and Jerome’s sake I keep making an effort with Angela.
Kwa blood is thicker than pain. It washes over wounds and warnings, whispering, ‘You are Kwa. You will never walk away.’