by Eliza Quancy
One afternoon, I’m lying with Kandin in bed. He’s relaxed but not sleepy and I try to talk.
‘When is your mother coming?’ I ask. ‘Is she still in Moresby?’
‘She isn’t coming,’ he replies. ‘This is my house. My mother doesn’t come here.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Then where does she stay?’
‘She’s got her own house,’ he replies
‘Then why isn’t that your house?’ I ask. ‘Why don’t you both live in the same house?’
‘You’re wearing me out with your questions, Auli,’ he says and offers no more information about either his or his mother’s living arrangements.
‘Where did you grow up?’ I ask.
‘Moresby mainly,’ he replies and starts to look irritated. ‘Why all the questions?’
I can never understand why he doesn’t want to talk about his life. Why he always answers in monosyllables. And why he doesn’t ask about my life. What I did before I came here. What I’m planning to do next. It’s as though our whole relationship happens in the present with no past and no future. It feels weird.
‘What about your father?’ I ask. ‘Where is he?’
‘In Oxford, I think,’ he says and then adds, ‘I don’t like him, Auli. And my mother doesn’t like him either.’
‘Why is that?’ I ask and he shrugs and goes silent but then seems to change his mind. He tells me that his father’s name is Lucas, who, he says, fell in love with Chrissie, but for her, he was just a passing toy.
‘A toy!’ I say. ‘How can a person be a toy?’
Kandin doesn’t answer but keeps on talking. ‘I’ve got a sister he says. Her name is Grace.’ He explains that his mother and father fell out over Grace. His sister is older than he is, a couple of years older and after she was born, Chrissie told Lucas that she’d lost the baby. The truth was, Kandin tells me that Chrissie didn’t want Grace but she couldn’t admit that to Lucas.
‘Why not? I ask.
‘Because she wouldn’t seem like a natural mother. Not a nice person,’ Kandin says. ‘It’s not acceptable for a woman not to want her child so she lied to him.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Mum sent Grace to live in England with a friend of hers, someone who was going-finish.’
‘But your father didn’t know?’
‘No, not at the time,’ Kandin says. ‘But after I was born they had row after row. Dad didn’t like Chrissie any more and one day when they were shouting at each other, Chrissie told him that Grace wasn’t dead after all. That she had been sent to live in Oxford with her friend.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘Dad went mad. Said she had no right to send his daughter away and lie to him. He was furious.’ Kandin drains the rest of his G&T. ‘He said he didn’t want to see Mum anymore. He would send money for me and I could go and see him but that he didn’t want to live with us. He asked Mum to give him the address where she had sent his daughter, but she said she had no idea where Grace was. Anyhow, Dad still decided to go to Oxford.’
‘He must be rich,’ I say. ‘It must be expensive to travel to Oxford.’
‘No,’ Kandin says and smiles a big lazy smile. ‘He’s not rich, Auli. It’s me who is rich, but he disapproves of me. Dad works at the university. He got a scholarship to do a doctorate in Oxford. He’s gone for a couple of years. Might be three. I’m not sure.’
‘So did he find Grace?’ I ask wanting to get all the ends tied up.
‘I don’t know,’ Kandin says. ‘We haven’t heard from him.’
I think of something else. ‘Why wasn’t he around when she was born?’ I ask. ‘He’s not much of a father if he wasn’t there when your mother had the baby.’
‘Oh, Auli,’ he says sighing,’ you haven’t got a clue. Men don’t bother to be around when women give birth.’
‘They do,’ I argue wondering where I’ve got my information from on this topic and realise that it must be the movies.
‘Some do,’ he admits, ‘but most are not around. Dad wasn’t around.’
‘Well, where was he?’
‘Here in Melbourne at the Uni doing his master’s degree.’
Oh,’ I say thinking there’s not much more to say about that, but my mind comes back to his mother. ‘And what do you think?’ I ask. ‘What do you think of your mother, Kandin?’ I can hear myself sounding angry. I suppose it’s because my own mother dumped me.
‘I think she had a right not to want the child,’ he says and looks hard at me. ‘Don’t you agree?’
This is such an unusual point of view that I stare at him in disbelief. I can’t think of what to say. How could he think such a thing?
‘No, I don’t,’ I say. ‘She is unnatural. And what about you? Don’t you want to meet your sister?’
‘Not particularly,’ he replies. ‘Why should I? In any case,’ he adds, ‘I don’t think she’s there. I think she probably did die.’
‘Then why would your mother say such a thing?’
‘Just to upset Lucas,’ he replies, ‘and to get him off her back.’
28
Layla and Carolyn say that it’s all right for a woman not to want a child. I can’t believe my ears to hear Layla say this after all that she’s told me about her wanting babies and not being able to have them and being angry with me for not wanting to be pregnant. Doesn’t make sense and I say so.
‘Yes, it does,’ Layla says. ‘It’s all about choice. It’s about my right to have children so that I am the one to choose whether to have them or not. That right was taken away from me.’ (I see Saul’s face in my mind and think that I had no choice about getting pregnant, but Layla doesn’t know about that.)
‘But what about not wanting the child after the baby is born?’ I ask.
Still all right, they say although I can see that Layla understands how I feel about this. Nobody would agree with them, I say but I realise that it’s not true. Layla tells me that she knows lots of women who don’t want children. Or they don’t want to keep on having babies year after year as they are pressured to do by their husbands and other family members.
‘I don’t want babies, Auli,’ Carolyn says and I’m shocked but try not to show it. ‘I think that Chrissie was brave to send Grace away.’
‘Brave?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ they tell me and say I should think about it some more. Look at it through Chrissie’s eyes. It’s easy for Lucas to be angry, they say. Men don’t have to care for the children.
‘But she had another child,’ I remind them. ‘And she kept him.’ They shrug. Maybe she changed her mind. Perhaps her circumstances changed. It was still fine for Chrissie to behave like that. Lucas might condemn her, but they would not.
What I find most surprising is Kandin’s reaction to it all. Not only does he not condemn his mother for what she did, but he seems to have no real interest in finding out whether he’s got a sister or not. I look at Layla and get the feeling that she has started liking Kandin more since I told her about his reaction to Chrissie not wanting children. Funny that because it makes me like him less. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about mothers and babies because my own mother didn’t want me. She threw me out. Literally. According to Layla and Carol - and Kandin - that was fine although we didn’t specifically talk about getting rid of babies by throwing them out of windows.
If I think about all this with my head, I agree with them. It is fine. If I think about it with my baby heart, or even with my grown-up heart, it’s not all right. I’m angry with my mother. I hate her for it because I wanted her to love me. I wonder where she is now. I still want her to love me and anything less is definitely not all right.
It’s getting late, nearly ten o clock so I get up to wash the dishes. We ate late and we’ve spent the whole evening arguing. We were going to watch tv but we’ve missed the start of the drama we wanted to see. While I’m filling the bowl and squirting too much washing-up liquid into it, the intercom buzzes. It’s Kandin
and he sounds excited. Happy excited. I’ve got to leave the dishes and go somewhere with him immediately he tells me. He’s got something to show me.
Earlier on that evening, I had been telling Layla and Carol that I was getting to dislike him and that I was suspicious of what he was doing with all those porno screensavers. Now I find myself falling over in my haste to put on my coat and boots and rush downstairs. I look up and see Layla and Carol giving each other I-told-you-so looks.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I shout as I rush out of the door. ‘I’ll finish the washing up when I get back.’
Kandin is positively awash with happiness and goodwill when I arrive in the foyer to greet him. And he’s excited. This is not the Kandin I know. He’s usually good-tempered, occasionally not, but almost always laid back, lazy and sort of not caring. Can take it or leave it. Anything and everything. Including people. Including me. The way he walks. The way he smiles. That’s how he is, but not today.
‘Have you won the lotto?’ I ask him as I return his smile. His happiness is infectious.
‘No,’ he says, ‘but I’ve got something for you, Auli. Come on.’ He sets off to the underground parking area and I walk behind, almost have to run. ‘Keep up,’ he says. ‘Come on.’
‘What is it?’ I ask when we’re sitting in the car. ‘And where are we going?’
‘You’ll see,’ he says, reminding me of his answer that first day after I met him at the tree and he drove me off to ‘somewhere’. It seems ages, but it was not that long ago. I keep my mouth shut after that and soon he starts to talk again. ‘It’s a present,’ he says. ‘An apology from me.’
Apology? I think to myself. Kandin doesn’t do apologies. And what does he think he has to apologise for?
‘What are you apologising for?’
‘For not caring about your feelings,’ he says.
This is stranger and stranger. I’ve felt drawn to Kandin from the very start, but he has never shown any interest in my feelings. Mostly, he hasn’t noticed them.
‘Your feelings about mothers and babies,’ he says eventually and I wait for him to explain further. I don’t remember ever telling him about being thrown through a window or how I felt about it. ‘You’re missing Jenn,’ he says finally. ‘And then I talked about Chrissie (he often calls his mother Chrissie) getting rid of Grace.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I say but I don’t. And I still can’t understand why he’s so excited. For half a second, I have a surge of hope. Maybe a miracle has happened and he’s fetched Jenn to Melbourne. But no, I saw him only a few hours ago. He wouldn’t have had time, and in any case, Joel would never have let her travel with Kandin.
Eventually, he stops the car and turns to look at me.
‘Are we in West Brunswick?’ I ask him. ‘We seem to have gone in the same direction we take when we go to your house.’
‘Nearly,’ he says. ‘This is East Brunswick. It’s the next neighbourhood. Look out of the window.’
Dutifully, I stare out of the window but it’s dark and there doesn’t seem to be much to see. Just a street with houses down both sides.
‘Number 59,’ he says getting out. ‘Come on, Auli, hurry up.’
Kandin leads the way to the door which is only a meter from the road. It’s a single storey house similar to all the others. He inserts the key and steps inside.
‘Here you are,’ he says and offers me a bunch of keys. ‘Here’s your new house, Auli. It’s for you and Jenn. And Layla, of course.’ I notice that he doesn’t mention Joel and it’s shameful that in this moment of his gift that it is this that catches my attention. I don’t believe it in any case. He must be playing games with me. Houses are phenomenally expensive. I’ve heard Layla and Carol talking. They used to be cheap here but not anymore. You have to be seriously rich to buy a house in Melbourne in 2017.
‘You’re joking,’ I say putting the keys down on the table in the hallway where we are standing.
‘No, Auli,’ he says, ‘it’s not a joke. You told me that you were worrying about where you could live when Jenn came and how you were going to earn money.’
‘That was only a couple of days ago,’ I say. ‘You haven’t bought a house in two days.’
‘No,’ he agrees. ‘I already had this house. I was going to sell it because I didn’t need it anymore, but then I thought of you and it seemed perfect.’ He grabs me, pulls me close and kisses me long and hard (also not typical Kandin behaviour) and then he goes off into the kitchen to get us some drinks.
‘Come and have a look at it,’ he says. ‘It’s yours, Auli. For you and Jenn.’
‘I can’t accept it,’ I say but even as I speak, I think that yes, I can. It would be for Jenn. I could accept anything for her. Layla was considering prostitution I remind myself.
Kandin laughs, ‘Of course, you can,’ he says. ‘Think of your daughter.’
‘But how will I explain it?’ I say. ‘Joel wouldn’t bring her. He wouldn’t let her come if he thought the house had anything to do with you, Kandin.’
‘Then don’t tell him,’ Kandin says. ‘I don’t want you to tell anyone that the house is from me.’
‘Then where would the money have come from?’
‘You said it yourself,’ he says. ‘Lotto.’
I look at this man who just lately I’ve been liking less and less and realise that I haven’t even said thank you. He’s standing there, leaning against the bar area in the kitchen. The bar area!
‘Are you sure?’ I ask him and before he says another word I feel myself blacking out and when I come to, I’m on the bed.
‘Are you all right, Auli?’ he says. ‘I wanted a reaction, but didn’t expect quite such a dramatic one.’ He’s beginning to look more like his old self again, slow and easy with his old manner of couldn’t care less. But not quite. He’s happy to have given me this house. He’s pleased that he’s done it.
‘I’m fine,’ I tell him. ‘I’m fine.’ I stop and look around the bedroom and back to Kandin who is sitting on the side of the bed. ‘I’m grateful,’ I tell him. ‘More than grateful. How can I thank you, Kandin? What can I do for you?’
‘I’ll think of something,’ he says. and comes to lie beside me.
29
The house has been put in my name - Aulani Sogeri. I’ve seen it (and kissed the document). I’ve got a copy of the property title. And we’ve got an income. Both Layla and I have managed to find jobs in restaurants doing kitchen work. Nobody in the markets would employ us. That’s where we tried first but the restaurant work is better. We earn enough to pay the bills and Layla is saving every cent so that she can apply to do her master’s degree. Shouldn’t take longer than twenty years or so, I think. At first, she wasn’t happy about Kandin giving me the house but when I pointed out that it was for Jenn, she softened.
‘We can’t always be legal,’ I tell her.
‘No,’ she says, ‘but we can try to be moral.’
I didn’t argue with her about that. It’s much too big a subject and we don’t really know how Kandin makes his money. Not for sure. She’s moved into the house with me. That’s all that matters. The main problem, however, still remains. The main problem is Jenn. I’ve told Joel that I won with Lotto and that I’ve bought a house, but I can tell that he doesn’t believe that I’ve won money like that. He believes me about the house but is suspicious about where the money has come from. And the thing we didn’t think of was the speed of it all. How could I have bought a house this quickly? I should have thought it through more carefully but it’s too late now. He still says that he’ll bring Jenn, but he still won’t give me a date. Layla says he doesn’t want to bring her because he’ll miss her. He’ll have to go back because of his job. What about me? I ask. I’m missing her.
I decide that I’ll have to go back and get her. If I turn up in person, Joel will surely let me bring her back. It won’t be easy, Layla says. Jenn’s passport has been changed to Joel’s name. I smile. I’ve still got the old one, I tell her. I
asked Kandin to get it for me. Joel had to hand over the Jenn Sogeri passport before he got the Jenn Goasa one. I’ve got Jenn’s other passport. But it’s dangerous for you, Layla says. And she’s right. It will be dangerous if anyone sees me. And it’s dangerous to have to travel again with the forged passport. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be in jail. But I’m desperate to get my daughter back so I decide that I’ll go, and I’ll tell Joel tonight. I text him to say that I want to speak to him and we set a time so that we can talk before I have to leave for work.
All day, I’m on edge about it. Kandin is away somewhere on one of his trips. Won’t be back until the weekend. Layla has already started to study (in anticipation of one day being able to join the course). Carol brings her books from the library, and Layla spends all day reading them and making notes. As though her life depends on it. As though her life depends on those things she reads in the books. There’s a park nearby and I go there so I can talk to Joel privately. Don’t want Layla to hear although I‘m not sure why. At seven o’clock exactly I sit on a bench next to the deserted play area and ring him.
‘Hey Joel,’ I say. ‘How are you?’
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he says before I can tell him that I’m coming to fetch Jenn. His voice is hard and cold and my heart plummets. I can feel a sick feeling in my stomach. Something bad has happened.
‘Is she all right?’ I ask. ‘Is Jenn safe?’
‘Perfectly safe,’ he replies in a voice that doesn’t sound like his. ‘But I‘m not going to let you see her anymore, Aulani, and I don’t want to hear from you again.’
‘What!’ I say. ‘What’s happened, Joel? I’m coming to get her.’
‘No, you are not,’ he replies in the same icy tone. ‘If you come to Moresby or anywhere near her, I’ll inform my colleagues. You’ll be picked up and that will be it.’
‘What’s happened?’ I ask again, but he puts the phone down. The line goes dead and I ring and ring but there’s no reply. What’s happened? What’s made him suddenly change? I’ll have to go there. I’ll have to find out. I look at my watch and rush back to the house. I need to get to work or I’ll lose my job.