EVERYONE IS ON THEIR BEST BEHAVIOUR BEFORE AUNTY IS put to rest, even Dad. The coffin-side circus continues as more random people show up – distant relatives of Brigit, friends of friends – the wake room a revolving door of well-wishers keen to honour Theresa’s departure for the next life. It’s the festival of Theresa with a packed audience and standing room only. The lucky eight rows of plastic chairs are all taken. Garlands and posies line the walls, while ribboned boxes of cumbersome and constrained flower arrangements adorn a number of trestle tables.
Theresa looks out from her portrait beside her coffin. She’s on a yacht, wearing a white windcheater and a smile. Through her lightly tinted sunglasses her eyes are visible, crinkled in the corners. In this moment she is free.
Some visitors have been paying their respects by camping out with the vigil stalwarts as per local custom, inhabiting an annex off the main room with its bleak brown wallpaper. Maroon vinyl cushions stick to the bare thighs of visitors in shorts. Brigit and her family have set up beds here too, their sleeping-bags and pillows strewn about for round-the-clock shifts.
Dad arrives with Karen. In the lead-up to the funeral, he came to Aunty’s condo a couple of times in order to lord it over me. Now he sidles up to a man and, for the benefit of the whole room, tells him, ‘It’s all mine.’ And ignoring my glare, Dad moves down the line to ensure no one misses out on his news. ‘Everything, she leaves everything to me.’
I’ve had numerous meetings with funeral directors and Aunty’s local executors, and I’ve pointed repeatedly to the clause in Aunty’s will saying that she wants ‘no service’ and ‘no fanfare’ at all. ‘No, nooooo,’ the Filipinas say. ‘Mimi, you muuuust give her a big send-off. She would loooove that. With music and a parade and a proper ceremony. Mimi, you cannot doooo that to your aunty. To ignore her like that and not do the proper send-off. Oh, Mimi, it is so wrong.’
In the end I agree to follow local custom and, in doing so, watch the bills stack up – an invoice for everything from entertainment and audiovisual equipment, to the urn for Aunty’s ashes, not to mention commemorative programs and funeral DVDs for the hundreds of people who, I am assured, will demand a copy. The Filipina executors have made me the ‘honorary decision-maker’, so I can consent to all the choices they have already made. They are persuasive, and I am worn down. ‘Mimiiii, we must have more flowers. More, more – of course we must.’ And, ‘Oooooooh, this urn is sooooo much nicer, don’t you think?’
David provides me some solace in this upside-down place, and now Sam has arrived in Manila too, these days a cherished son-in-law to Clara after years of gentle petitioning succeeded in turning her homophobia around. Between sneaking off with me for cigarettes and emptying his hipflask into my orange juice, my cousin counsels me to stay calm and on track – which is good advice, given funeral proceedings are about to commence. I look over at David to see him watching his mum prattle on in a similar way to a stranger, and I remind myself he has his own Kwa to deal with.
Clara arrived from London last night after a long flight. She and her son walking arm in arm was a sight to behold; David is tall and handsome, six foot six, like his brother and father, and Clara is refined, beautiful and diminutive beside him. Thin yet strong, she’s all in black with a single thick gold chain around her neck, her hair styled in a chic pixie cut straight from the ’60s. She’s a gorgeous, frail and elegant eighty-one-year-old beauty, and anyone uninitiated with Kwa would find it impossible to imagine what a both harsh and blessed life she has lived. Clara gestures to Sam, who is walking behind them, and he steps in to take her other arm. I think about how handsome Clara and Dad look, and how lost without Theresa they must feel.
A priest stands in front of Aunty’s coffin, reciting a few words about God and about this lady he has never met.
I’m the only person wearing colour. First of all, in my hurry I forgot to pack anything black. Second, I’m not ready to raid Aunty’s wardrobe just yet. And third, Aunty is wearing bright pink, and I always follow her lead. I don’t want her to feel out of place or alone. If only we could be back tossing sand with our flip-flops on the Repulse Bay beach, making our way over to the club for its famed sandwiches, while Aunty graciously acknowledges cheeky wolf-whistles from old friends, me stumbling in her shadow to keep up.
Three guitarists in oversized sombreros begin singing a happy tune I can’t make out. It floats and fades. Something about a señorita – it’s all in Tagalog. I mustn’t look at David, in case we burst out laughing. It’s as though Aunty is being serenaded on her last voyage out to sea by three lovers.
As if the scene isn’t bizarre enough, Dad stands up and starts swaying, his swagger growing into all-out dancing as he moves to the rhythm as though he’s in a trance. He sweeps his arms over his sister’s coffin and, like a man possessed, lifts his hands to the sky. The musicians up the tempo and – in what I believe may go down in history as an unprecedented creative collaboration – Dad concocts original lyrics in English, while the three accompanists do their very best to harmonise in Tagalog.
Dad waves his arms in the air as if we should all join in, and some do. He’s suddenly a rock star clapping and geeing-up the crowd.
Before I have a chance to process all of this, he is dragging Clara from her seat.
‘Ooooooh, okay,’ she says, nodding enthusiastically as though she’s been chosen to dance with a prince at a ball, elated to have been selected out of the crowd. She claps wildly, and brother and sister waltz beside their sister’s corpse against a backdrop of obligatory grief-stricken wailing from Brigit’s distant relatives – and from the wife of a masseuse Aunty once employed, and her family who never met Aunty.
The elderly siblings go for a dip, and I wince and peek through my fingers, imagining two more funerals if such behaviour continues. Even for these seasoned mourners, Dad and Clara are a spectacle. They manage to stabilise after the dip and steal their own show, spinning and dipping again. I’m grateful they haven’t attempted a lift, and I’m completely unsure whether to be appalled or touched by the sentimentality of the moment. Tears well in my eyes.
It’s time to carry the casket to the cremation chapel. David and I exchange disbelieving looks as we stifle uncomfortable giggles over our parents’ behaviour, regaining composure only once we step away from each other while everyone files out of the mourning room.
Having David here is a great comfort to me, and I wonder if we may be the only sane people at the service. He moves closer to me again, looks down at me and whispers, ‘Nothing matters much. Much matters little. In the end, nothing matters at all.’ It’s a saying he first told me in Hong Kong over a beer and champagne cocktail, one of his favourites. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says and nudges me. He and I have always enjoyed drinking while comparing notes on our eccentric, narcissistic, entertaining parents. But now these two are the last survivors of their unique strand of Kwa, and I wonder if this will be the last memorable story about them we will have to tell.
In a haze of aftershave and perfume, David and I wait for the funeral procession to wend its way to the chapel. We’re wedged between audacious hats and suits – and even tracksuits – in the sultry Manila heat, none of the dress choices making much sense to me.
I’m thinking about how our parallel childhoods revolved around beach walks and meals with Aunty, long yum chas and warm early evenings in her study, when the pallbearers appear. As Kwas and Bryans, we occupy the whole front row; we watch the coffin lowered before us and then chapel staff step forward to prop open the casket of a woman who has already lain in state for five days – she has to put up one last appearance. I give Aunty a nod of respect, followed by a quick apologetic glance because she has had to go through all this. All she wanted was a simple service and for her ashes to be scattered in the ocean.
Over Brigit’s sobs and occasional wails, I read Aunty’s eulogy. I talk about Aunty’s work as an air hostess, then her gift shop, tucked in near reception at Hong Kong’s most famous hotel. When Aunty appeared at the grand red carpet reopening of the Mandarin Oriental, David was on her arm as her date. Barry Humphries greeted them at the door, and the hotel manager made a beeline for Aunty. ‘Miss Kwa, I am so pleased you could make it.’ Now in charge of the entire building, this man had been a bellhop back in the day, and when others looked down their noses at him, Theresa was always kind. He never forgot that.
As I take my seat, I can see that David is trying not to cry.
Brigit rushes forward to drape herself across the coffin. She clings to it, moaning, and my heart goes out to her. ‘Miss Kwa,’ she wails, ‘Miss Kwa.’ She collapses to the floor. Three of her relatives lift her to her seat where she continues to sob, so loudly she almost drowns out David as he reads from the Woman’s Weekly article featuring Aunty.
Now comes another custom, unfamiliar to me. Well-rehearsed assistants standing behind the casket swiftly cover it with a white bespoke coffin-shaped cardboard box and hand out permanent markers. The pens pass from one person to the next so that each of us can write a parting message or tribute, or, in some cases, just a name. It’s like signing the cast of a school friend who has broken an arm, but this time the cast is for Theresa’s irreparably broken life.
The coffin is jostled about and almost topples over as Dad pushes to the front, shoving a pen in Karen’s hand and ordering her to write a prayer, after which he writes, You always said I am ‘the star’ in my own movie, and draws a star.
Immediate family members – blood relatives, Dad, Aunty Clara, David and me – are directed to an annex off the main room. Dad drags Karen in with us despite my protests. ‘Theresa said all the time, “Karen is family.” So she is family. She comes in.’
I end up squashed next to David, then I’m taken by surprise when I realise we’re all crammed into a space the size of a small elevator, with a glass window on one side. It’s a viewing room, just like in a maternity ward, only, eerily, at the other end of life. Huddled together, we watch the cremation team reveal the coffin, which is covered in hurried last words. Aunty is lying on top. Staff remove her jewellery and shroud her in a white sheet. A young man holds her pearl earrings up to the glass, slides them into a velvet pouch, and places it on a tray with her watch and necklace.
A woman points to a black button on our side of the glass. We are meant to press it and send Aunty into the fire.
The furnace door opens, and the woman gestures to the button again, more vigorously this time as she grows impatient, but none of us wants to do the deed. David suggests that ‘it might be most fitting for brother and sister, Francis and Clara, to press it together’. I am so relieved it’s not me; I couldn’t agree more. They count to three and press it, springing the conveyor belt to life, sending their sister and mother figure into the inferno.
‘You won’t be able to wear those earrings,’ Dad instructs me a moment later, referring to Aunty’s pearls. ‘It’s bad luck to wear what she wore dead.’
Apparently, though, it’s not such bad luck to wear the dead person themselves. I am horrified to learn that Aunty’s ashes are being sold off – in quarter-teaspoon portions placed in glass vials shaped like crystal pendants – for anyone to keep. When all the mourners congregate in another building for tea and biscuits, I’m stunned to see so many strangers eagerly lining up to wear Aunty around their necks. I selected the urn for her ashes when we went through the ‘extras’ package options, but I certainly did not approve of this.
‘It is tradition, Mimi,’ Tessie says. ‘You, no need to pay. Non-family must pay, but you can have for free, Mimi. Isn’t that wonderful?’ When it comes to religion and tradition, I see an unexpected side of this executor.
Cash flies from purses held high as mourners vie to be served, reminding me of the betting ring at the horseraces.
‘That’s not the point,’ I say. ‘She wants to be scattered in the ocean. It has to be all of her, not just what’s left.’
Tessie appears not to compute.
‘I am so sorry. So sorry.’ I push through the crowd. ‘I’m sooooo sorry,’ I say to the strangers who want to carry Aunty around with them. ‘No, no, no.’ I take a fistful of money from the attendant selling Aunty off and return it to the lady at the front of the queue. ‘We cannot separate the ashes today.’ I bow repeatedly, begging forgiveness from the disappointed strangers, my hands together in an attempt to appear respectful, having used this tactic successfully on a number of less critical occasions. They look at me as though I’ve lost my marbles, but they put their money away.
Except Dad, who proceeds to the front, asks for five necklaces and instructs the attendant to ‘put it on the bill’. I am dismayed, but he just shakes his head and frowns at me, scooping the ashes into the little vials: one for him, one for Clara, one for Karen, and two spares – because, according to Dad, keeping spares of anything is a good idea.