I LONG TO SEE AUNTY. SHE OFTEN WRITES AND I SAVOUR HER letters, usually calling her back right away instead of taking the time to handwrite my thoughts. A letter from Theresa is like stardust, a sprinkle of magic every time.
I imagine her sitting at her mahogany desk. ‘Brigit, Brigit,’ she calls out, ‘I’m writing to Mimi.’
Brigit brings in a cup of Chinese tea and sets it beside Aunty.
‘Now, what’s for lunch? Once I finish writing, I will eat.’
Brigit feigns dismay as she always does with this routine. ‘But, ma’am, you tell me you are on a diet, and you have a dinner party with the professor vice-chancellor peoples tonight, so you wanted no lunch.’
Aunty rubs her belly and laughs. ‘Okay. Okay then, just a little snack then, so I don’t get fat.’
Brigit rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, ma’am.’ And she prepares a three-course lunch, knowing Theresa will change her mind and want a big meal after all.
I open the latest letter from Theresa, unfolding the rice-paper-thin blue paper. The cheapest way to send a letter overseas involves writing it within the folds of the custom envelope. I’ve kept dozens of these fine foolscap sheets filledwith elegant curls and wisps, versions of copperplate only Aunty and my grandparents’ generation knows. I have to take great care to open her letter, gently tearing the correct edges in two with a knife, careful not to butcher any of those beautiful words.
Aunty and Paw Paw each own ornate letter openers. Paw Paw’s is brass and shaped like a sword, a scholarly male figure sculpted on the handle; it’s a wartime souvenir from the Netherlands, near the border with Belgium. Theresa’s letter opener is ivory, a souvenir from a Kenyan safari when she would visit with BOAC to join celebrity and distinguished passengers on hunting trips. Ernest Hemingway made safaris fashionable in the 1950s, and as the world recovered from the war, stars such as John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn filmed movies in Africa, which opened a wellspring of flight paths for Theresa to explore.
In her letter just arrived, Aunty shares news of Hong Kong. She was just there and is, as usual, staying in her aristocratic German friends’ place. It seems they are never there, and they’re more than happy for Aunty to occupy their home for months on end, treating their villa as her own. This includes their staff: a driver, and a maid who doubles as cook. The gym in the building is so-so, she writes. So I visit the tennis club where the baroness still includes my signature on her membership.
I picture us crossing the road after a swim at the beach, Aunty with her flip-flops and tasselled terry-towelling poncho and me trying to keep up, wearing the terry shorts and varsity printed T-shirt she bought for me on our shopping spree the day before. ‘You are such a good shopper. Good shopper.’ Aunty had clapped her hands with glee every time I emerged from the change room modelling something new.
I read on. Aunty has drawn a little smiley face with slanted eyes. Do you remember the club sandwiches? she writes. How is baby Royston? How is John? How is your mother? Aunty has filled the entire page, keeping flourishes to a minimum to fit in all her news. I turn it over, and her words occupy every available space on the back too, though she has shown great care not to stray onto the glue flaps.
I can come to see you, but why don’t you come up here to Manila to stay for a while? I have many, many new friends here. One lady owns a whole university. All of it. You can meet her. Brigit can cook for you. My new driver will pick you up.
Much love, Aunty Theresa xx
This is the call of Kwa.
John and I decide to take a trip to Manila and bring thirteen-month-old Royston on his first trip overseas.
I’m used to people staring at my mixed-race looks in Australia, Hong Kong and everywhere else in the world – belonging and not belonging anywhere – and I know the kind of reception John gets when we travel too, standing out in China, Thailand and the Philippines, where there are few expats: a tall, rugged white man with his mixed-up girlfriend. Schoolgirls on a bubble-car ride behind us at the Window of the World theme park, in far southern China’s Shenzhen, ran up to John with notepads one time, calling out, ‘Bluce Lillous!’ But these experiences didn’t prepare us for the attention Royston would receive.
Our little blond boy squeals with delight as John carries him off the plane, and we’re enveloped by the soggy humidity as maintenance workers stop what they’re doing to stare at my child. A sea of local ground crew flood the lounge entrance, move out of the way, and then, realising there’s a baby, surround John and Royston while I follow with our bags. ‘Ooooh, he’s so cute.’ A young worker touches Royston’s chubby hand, bouncing it up and down in hers. ‘Yes, he’s so cute, mister,’ a man says to John. ‘May I touch the hair? The hair is so white.’ By the time we arrive at the gate, having collected our check-in luggage, Royston has been fanfared the length of the terminal.
We head for arrival gate K for Kwa, where we find Aunty Theresa’s driver holding a small whiteboard that says MISS KWA. Aunty is so excited about our visit that she has travelled with her driver to greet us – not all Aunty’s guests receive such a welcome. I fling my arms around her for a warm hug. She beams, claps her hands, and bobs up and down to elicit a smile from Royston. ‘Aunty Theresa,’ I say. ‘Aunty Teessah,’ he repeats.
I am elated. As I sink into the leather car seat, I feel I’ve come home. This is Manila, of course, not Hong Kong, but Aunty is here, and that’s home to me.
The air conditioning is on, but beads of sweat still run down our faces. It’s hotter than Hong Kong, so Aunty gives John the front seat to be nearer the air con, and she sits in the back with me – to be nearer Royston. Aunty chuckles, holding my son’s tiny hand and then pulling hers away, hiding it beside her so he can’t see it beyond the booster seat she has so thoughtfully arranged. He laughs as he and Aunty play this game all the way home.
I watch the scenery change out the window: shantytown, slum, condominiums, highrise; shantytown, slum, condominiums, highrise. We stop at traffic lights, and a boy, six or seven years old, knocks on my window, holding up a bunch of bananas and nodding at me expectantly. I shake my head. Another child, this time a little girl, skips across the main road between cyclists and mopeds with a cotton bag, slung across her body, holding mangoes.
‘You want?’ Aunty says.
‘No thanks, Aunty.’
A young man in a grubby and torn singlet top, fit and shining in the heat, walks between two lanes of traffic and stops momentarily at each car. He’s selling water. ‘Water, water,’ Aunty says to her driver. He pops open the ashtray and reaches for a few coins before winding down his window just enough to make the exchange. He is ex-military; in the Philippines, most personal drivers are. They double as security guards in troubled Manila where the elite feel they must protect themselves from being robbed or kidnapped or worse.
Every time I visit, there has just been a spate of Chinese abductions, according to Aunty, so I must be very careful never to go out of her driver’s sight unless I’m at a shopping centre. Most of the high-end malls are off limits to locals unless they look rich; the security guards can tell, I’m told. To me it’s a bizarre feeling to walk through a familiar shopping-centre entrance when the person behind you gets turned away or their bag is searched because they don’t look like they can afford anything inside. Security can always tell I’m a tourist and usher me to the left, bypassing the metal detector and bag search that even a Chinese Filipino in head-to-toe Gucci can’t avoid.
When we arrive at Aunty’s condo, a guard in the sentry box tips his cap, recognising our car, while another circles us and peers in the windows. ‘My niece, my niece,’ Aunty says. The expressionless guard nods us through, and we drive into a cavernous carpark then stop alongside a marbled lift well. Another guard, this one friendlier, helps our driver with our cases. ‘I can take that,’ I offer.
‘No, no, no, let them do it,’ Aunty insists. ‘Here, you live it up. Live it up.’
I’m familiar with Aunty’s routine, having grown up shadowing her over so many school holidays: massage, gym, swim, eat, sleep, usually a couple of times a day and sometimes punctuated by shopping. We’ve been at her place three days now, and I am copying her routine as closely as I can. Royston adds to the schedule by sliding on his tummy across the parquetry floor. It’s almost a mirror, Brigit has polished it so well.
‘Mimi,’ Brigit says with a laugh, ‘why you don’t let me get that for you?’ She’s referring to the orange juice I’m helping myself to from the fridge. No other guest would ever even be allowed in the kitchen, let alone into the laundry behind it, or Brigit’s tiny room beyond that.
‘Mimi’ – she takes the bottle from me – ‘I juice you a fresh one. Off you go.’ I am shooed out, laughing.
Brigit perfectly pulps the orange and serves it to me in a glass nestled in a white doily cupholder, before peeling grapes for John and Royston. John raises an eyebrow at me as if to say, She’s peeled our grapes, and I laugh. This is ludicrous and luxurious compared to our lives in Australia. It’s new to John, but I’ve been existing across galaxies since I was born.
Today Aunty’s friend picks us up and takes us to a resort. The friend owns the resort, or has shares in it – with Aunty I can never quite tell who owns what or what title belongs to whom, as she has a way of stringing several connections and references into her pre-introductory briefings: ‘She’s the daughter of the magnate who owns the main Telco. Her daughter is a professor in the best university. She is an owner in the island we are going to. Maaaany famous movie stars go there – even the European prince comes for a holiday. But when her son married the owner of the biscuit company – you know the one, Arnott or Nabisco or something – that was a mistake. They are divorce now. She didn’t like her, anyway. Now he has the marketing degree and he works in the head of the marketing at the biggest bank in Philippines. Maaaaany people know him. She’s a good friend. So generous. You will like her.’
In Aunty’s orbit, it can be difficult to place who is who, but it’s highly entertaining to try. And one thing is certain: just like me, they all adore her and would do anything for her.
After a bumpy two-hour ride in Aunty’s very nice friend’s luxury van, we emerge at a Spanish-style resort. It’s hard to imagine how the manicured lawns and trimmed hedges can survive in this heat, but they must like the humidity because the foliage is lush. We swim in a lagoon-style pool looking out over a private golf course set before a picturesque rolling landscape. I turn towards the jungle and wonder about the locals living in villages nearby, forbidden from ever setting foot in here without a worker’s uniform.
‘Ma’am.’ A waiter brings drinks to the edge of the pool, and John and I glide over, leaving Royston in Aunty’s arms. She’s wearing her signature bright-pink flower swim cap and a broad smile; at seventy-five, she is radiant. Royston splashes as Aunty laughs and holds him out from her, pulling him back again with an arm wrapped around his waist. He keeps splashing to the enthusiastic applause of a line-up of staff, each wearing white-and-tan uniforms with dark edging at the collar pockets and seemingly happy dispositions on their sleeves, despite their life of servitude.
‘Little prince, little prince,’ Aunty sings.
A few days later, temperatures are soaring. Although our time is spent in air conditioning or the pool, the thick humid envelope of air in between is bearable for a few minutes at most. When the generator at Aunty’s condo breaks down, we feel it instantly. Royston cries, his little pink face flushed; it must be forty-five degrees in here.
Brigit’s sister has come up from their village home to stay for a while and help out, and maybe find a city boyfriend. She’s beautiful and like an elk crouching by Royston’s cot, fanning him with a magazine, singing to him in her T-shirt and jeans. How on earth can she be wearing jeans?
‘They are used to it.’ Aunty reads my mind, standing beside me in the doorway to Royston’s room. All the power is out now, and Aunty is carrying a flashlight; I’ve been using the one on my mobile phone. John is downstairs in the bath-warm pool when Aunty says, ‘I’ve sent Brigit to tell your husband to get ready. Grab your overnight bag. We are leaving.’
We walk into the Shangri-La Hotel foyer looking like drowned rats, and Royston stops crying the minute the air con hits us. Aunty pays for three rooms: one for John and me, an adjoining one for Royston, and one for herself. ‘Live it up.’ She winks at me.
Once I’ve settled Royston into a blissful sleep and John’s nodded off, I slip out into the corridor wearing my hotel robe and slippers and tap lightly on Aunty’s door.
‘Alligatorrrr,’ I hear. To Aunty, ‘See you later, alligator’ can be abbreviated to ‘alligator’ as shorthand for ‘see you later’ and ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’. ‘Alligator. Alligator.’ She is so happy. ‘Now, what would you like? I get you something. Thirsty? Hungry?’ She’s wearing her hotel robe too and leans back in an armchair, perusing a menu before swinging her legs up to sit cross-legged and dial room service. ‘Why not.’ She smiles broadly and winks. Champagne and club sandwiches soon arrive, and Aunty watches my delight. ‘Eat, eat,’ she commands. ‘Hmm, this is good.’ Her mouth is full, so it sounds more like ‘HMM-rthmisoud’, but I can understand her. I always have.
I wipe crumbs from my chin. ‘You’ve worked so hard, Aunty Theresa.’ I replace the starched white linen napkin on the tray.
‘No, not really.’ She folds her own napkin and lies my glass flute down too, as one might expect of cabin crew when they collect your empty plate. ‘I am very lazy.’
Laughing, she picks up the tray and carries it across the room to leave outside the door. She comes back and sits down, cross-legged again, her expression now serious. ‘I have had a good life, Mimi.’ For a moment she looks reflective, as though she has sailed off somewhere far away. ‘Really, Mimi, I am so very lucky.’