House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  Although my mother is privileged too, she harbours some basic socialist views. Her cocooned private school education at St Hilda’s on the banks of the Swan River, and her upbringing of roast dinners, carpeted bathrooms, opera and ballet recitals, plus her innately sympathetic and compassionate nature, are not adequate preparation for this trip.

  She’s also never had to parent away from home and is unsure how she will ever get through this. Usually Thelma would be by her side or on the phone to advise on nappy-pin, burping and settling techniques, but Thelma is not accompanying us. To make matters worse, Mela is anxious about the flight; voices in her head say they will steal her baby, that she is a terrible mother and they will kill her.

  Francis’s idea of a getaway to Hong Kong is as much about giving his wife a holiday and saving their relationship as it is about reconnecting with his roots. Theresa will be so pleased to see him.

  I still cannot get used to the new BOAC branding, Theresa thinks as she stands at the arrivals gate waiting for Francis, Mela and me.

  BOAC merged with other companies to become British Airways, or BA, two months before I was born. It will always be easy for Theresa to remember my age because it’s the same as BA’s.

  ‘Welcome. Come, come, come.’ Theresa ushers her brother, his bride and baby away from the crowded arrivals area. Mela is holding me on her hip and juggling a hard plastic sippy cup with her free hand. Theresa makes a funny sound with her mouth, ‘Oh, blobloblobloh,’ and winks at me as if we share a delicious secret. Then she hides behind her hands and plays peekaboo; I pull her hand away from her face. ‘See, see,’ she says. ‘Mimi, very clever girl. Oh, blobloblobloh.’ She scrunches up her face at me, and I squeal with delight. ‘Let me take her.’ Theresa claps her hands and holds out her arms. I cry because she is a stranger to me, but she is not taking no for an answer. ‘Oh, come on, come on.’ She jiggles me up and down. She is wearing jeans and a red polo shirt with a Yves Saint Laurent scarf tied elegantly around her throat. As we move through Kai Tak Airport, she points at the mountains beyond the vast terminal windows. ‘Look, look, monkey out there.’ She laughs as I look for the monkey.

  Mela tries to close her seatbelt in Theresa’s Volvo but her blouse gets caught, so Francis helps her to free the fabric and fastens the clasp. She holds me on her lap. I watch the Kowloon Mountains and highrises give way to a lower-lying landscape as we travel the ten-minute drive from the Kowloon side to the Island. ‘Wow, wow, wow,’ Theresa says, noticing her brother ogle the concrete entrance to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. ‘See, we’re very modern here in Hong Kong, brother.’

  It’s an engineer’s dream: the underwater tunnel connects one side of the harbour city to the other, allowing residents to cross without a ferry.

  ‘Holy Moses, this is better than looking at the picture in the newspaper.’ Francis knows no photo can do justice to an engineering masterpiece like this one, with its sweeping curves and defiant cantilevers. He wishes he could run his hands over the concrete fascia and examine the structure.

  We emerge onto what is known as ‘Hong Kong side’, and Theresa takes Hennessy Road to turn right onto her street: Tai Hang. She is driving today because her chauffeur only works certain days; she shares him with a friend – or borrows him, to be accurate.

  She notices she has been doing most of the talking, pointing out this and that for Mela’s benefit, and the young woman hasn’t responded once. Since she got off the plane she has been silent as she hangs on to me and stares straight ahead.

  The voices have had a field day on the plane and at the airport. Mela doesn’t do well in crowded spaces; they are confusing and frightening. ‘Why don’t you just die?’ To think that strangers are out to harm her and her child is terrifying. ‘We’re coming to kill you.’ No matter where Mela goes, she needs to be on constant high alert for our safety. ‘I’m going to murder you.’

  She is exhausted and closes her eyes. Whenever she has told Francis or her parents about the horrible things people say to her – on the street, in a supermarket queue, at work, university or home – no one believes her. When they say, ‘But I was right next to you and I didn’t hear them,’ she has any number of replies: ‘You were distracted.’ ‘They whispered it to me.’ ‘It was when you went up to order.’ ‘You just want me to think I’m crazy.’

  Theresa swings her Volvo up a steep concrete driveway. A guard nods, manually lifting the boom gate.

  After we get out of the car she greets her neighbour, an imposing tall figure of a white man in his mid-forties. ‘Ah, Mr Columbo, how do you do?’ He is wearing as close to a safari suit as someone can get away with when they aren’t actually on safari – well, he has been on one recently.

  ‘Just polishing up the old Rolls, Theresa.’

  Another man, a local Chinese, looks up from rubbing the bonnet with a cloth. ‘Miss Kwa.’ He smiles and bows his head.

  She nods back.

  ‘Theresa,’ says Mr Columbo, ‘would you like me to get Freddie here to give your car a bit of a polish as well?’

  She beams at him. ‘Lovely. That would be wonderful, thank you, thank you.’

  Francis paces up and down the length of the Rolls. ‘You know I can tell you how to make this run even better, if you let me look under bonnet,’ he tells Mr Columbo. ‘I’m a mechanical engineer, you know.’

  Theresa frowns. Mela stands in the heat, holding me.

  ‘Come, come,’ says Theresa. ‘Brigit will have cool drinks and food for us.’ We take a small lift up to her apartment. ‘Mr Columbo has so many titles, you know. So many. And that was his Tuesday car – he has several others, all Rolls-Royce. He just loves Rolls-Royce.’

  The elevator opens and Brigit is there, like magic, having seen us arrive through the window. She bows to Francis, who loves that sort of thing, then to Mela, who does not. Theresa claps her hands at me and extends her arms to take me from Mela again. I go willingly this time. Her energy is free as a bird’s, and I like her holding me. ‘Brigit, Brigit, bring the bags, please, and then we are staaaarving.’

  As this is my first trip to Hong Kong, it is also my introduction to humidity, and my eczema clears up immediately. Lush green foliage wends its way up the mountain side, and intense smells escape Brigit’s wok-centred kitchen. I crawl across Aunty Theresa’s fastidiously spotless parquetry floors. When we go out, strangers tip their hats and bow, and I smile when they talk to me in local dialect. I sit in baby swings in playgrounds where children speak Cantonese and their nannies speak Tagalog. In Hong Kong I am dressed up like a life-sized baby doll and given lots of toys and attention.

  Mela doesn’t have as easy a time there as I do. When we leave two weeks later, she is no more rested than when she arrived. She did find some respite from her voices, though, as most people around her did not have a command of English, the only language the voices speak. She mentioned nothing sinister about anyone in Hong Kong to Francis, which was a welcome break for him too. She had to be on guard the whole time, however, for conspiratorial Westerners – this is why she’s so tired.

  I pull at Theresa’s scarf as she hands me over to Mela at the airport. We say goodbye, and Theresa waves us off. For me, she opens and closes her hands and tilts her head from side to side, blowing her cheeks out, pinching them, then exhaling as though she’s popped a balloon. ‘Don’t forget to look for the monkey.’ She points to the mountains beyond the windows. ‘See you later, alligator,’ she calls after me, and we disappear through the gate.

  Theresa walks back to her car, where she has a driver waiting today. She smiles and waves at familiar airport staff, already mentally planning her next trip to see us. She has the lifelong privilege of drastically reduced fares on BA and affiliated airlines, awarded for her years of service at BOAC. She also has plenty of friends to catch up with in Australia, such as Lady McMahon whom she met as long ago as 1965 – ten years, they’ve been friends now. Sonia McMahon is elegant and savvy, and Theresa took an instant liking to her. They exchanged num
bers on a long-haul flight Theresa was crewing, and they’ve stayed in touch ever since.

  When in Hong Kong, Lady McMahon would send Theresa notes to meet for dinner or a party, and they’d flit about town. No door was closed to them. Theresa, ever the gracious hostess, had the key to local customs, and Sonia, ever the diplomat, A-list access to expat events. They made a fun team. ‘Don’t forget to call when you’re next Sydney-side,’ Sonia sang out with a wink as they parted ways after a soiree at the Peninsula Hotel.

  When Theresa did next arrive Sydney-side, of course she called her friend, and Sonia immediately invited her over for dinner. ‘It really is high time my husband met you,’ she said.

  At dinner, after chitchat about her flight and the weather, Theresa leant in and asked Sonia’s husband, William, ‘What is your line of work?’

  After a long pause, Sonia and her husband smiled broadly at each other.

  ‘I’m the prime minister,’ he replied.

  Theresa smiled too and, without skipping a beat, returned, ‘Oh. And what is that like?’

  Theresa loves to squeeze the cheeks of the three McMahon children, particularly the boy, Julian. She thinks of my chubby cheeks now and sees no need to delay; the BA office is only a slight detour to her car. She has trips to Paris, London and Amsterdam coming up soon, followed by Saint Petersburg then Cairo. She puts in a request for another flight to Sydney, in three months or so, and plans to book a connection to Perth once it’s approved.

  ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND GLASS

  HAVING A BABY HURRIES LIFE ALONG FOR FRANCIS AND Mela. The Scarborough Beach property continues to take on a life of its own. As more buildings, sheds, gazebos and barbecues spring up, Mela and Francis’s marriage is constantly on the rocks. Mela moves back home to her parents intermittently, always taking me with her. But each time she returns to Francis after a few days. They are caught in a pain cycle. He calls daily. He threatens, reasons, apologises, promises things will be better and pleads with her to come back. She cannot bear to be at either home because the voices follow no matter where she goes – it’s impossible for her to escape the torment by packing up and moving. But, of course, she doesn’t know that. She scoops me up, and we return to Francis.

  Mela’s symptoms worsen, leading to more frequent marital separations, lasting longer and longer each time she and I move away. Francis tries to get her help but her illness remains undiagnosed.

  I am three now, and my dad has taken me to visit Hong Kong once a year. Mum went with us the second time, but the third time she backed out at the last minute, and Dad carried me onto the aeroplane anyway. There is no time difference between Hong Kong and Perth, so Mum telephoned every day, trying not to sound distressed.

  Dad was often out, ‘meeting important people’, so Aunty Theresa kept me entertained with all kinds of funny games. She showed me her abacus and we counted the beads together, over and over. While I sat on her lap, she showed me albums filled with photos of people I have never met. Aunty Mary spent a lot of time with me too; I was at the centre of their universe.

  ‘Brigit, Brigit, bring some more watermelon. She loves the watermelon.’ Aunty Theresa would gleefully summon Brigit, who was always already standing in the doorway, holding a silver tray of peeled and chopped tropical fruits: watermelon, mango, dragon fruit, papaya and banana.

  But now I am home in Perth, three years old and far too experienced at packing my things so I’m ready to go to my grandparents’ place at short notice.

  ‘We’re going to see Paw Paw.’ Mum forces a smile. ‘I think we’ll stay the night.’ Paw Paw is what I call Thelma. It is Cantonese for ‘maternal grandmother’, and even though Thelma is an auburn-haired white Englishwoman, she is tickled pink to have a Chinese title.

  Three days – and many phones calls from Dad – later, Mum and I are doing the dishes back in our Scarborough kitchen. I love kneeling on the stool as I push my pudgy arms into mountains of suds. I’m wearing an apron sewn by Paw Paw, the fussy flower pattern and embroidered edges contrasting vividly with our minimalist kitchen of burgundy tiles. Woks and turners dangle from a hanging rack above the island bench, and we look out onto a garden of dry, patchy lawn. We also have a view of Dad’s shed where he is hammering something on an iron anvil mounted on a jarrah plinth. He lowers a mask over his face and lifts a cutting torch from a trolley. Sparks hit the front of the mask, sending a thrill up my small spine; it’s my own little fireworks display with orange lasers shooting in every direction, a giant sparkler. The lines of light lose intensity at the edges, and a few tiny balls of fire break free to disappear on the brick paving. Mum and I sing the ‘Johnny Works With One Hammer’ song the whole way through, twice, with the actions and all the merriment a normal mother and daughter might enjoy. The family home is complete, and we are happy for a moment.

  A couple of days later Mum swallows glass in an attempt to kill herself. She does it alone in her ensuite while I am in the lounge room watching Play School. I hear a sound like groaning, choking and throwing up all at once. Mum is lying on the bathroom floor, spluttering blood and barely breathing.

  I am screaming. ‘Mummy. Mummy? Wake up, Mummy.’

  Dad has prepared me for this, so I have memorised the speed-dial button to reach him at work. I run to his study – there are so many speed-dial buttons, but I know the right one and press it. ‘Daddy, Mummy is bleeding. She is sleeping on the floor.’

  Dad calls an ambulance that arrives before he does. I can’t reach the doorhandle to let in the paramedics, so they gesture I should move away from the window. More broken glass.

  This is one of my earliest memories that will stick.

  Mum is treated at the scene, then lifted onto a stretcher and taken by ambulance to an emergency department. In what becomes a routine, I am whisked off to my grandparents’ place to be cared for by Paw Paw and Granddad. In times of trouble, Francis seeks help from his in-laws. But when it becomes clear that the marriage cannot be saved, Francis’s relationship with my grandparents sours. When he turns to the only extended ‘family’ he has here, it turns away from him.

  Mela loves me unconditionally. She would die for me. She protects me from the wolves and the voices. They want to kill us, so we must be armed with the skills to fight both the war that only she can see and the real war raging in the 1970s for girls’ and women’s rights.

  Mela wants her daughter to walk in her shoes, a pair of very feminist flat ones, so she coaches me in Germaine Greer and teaches me to be wary of men from a very young age. She gets a crew cut, starts to wear dungarees and joins a women’s soccer team, so I wear dungarees too and cheer her on from the sidelines. I am her number one supporter and enjoy going to matches, but then her voices inhabit the soccer team. The other players say nasty, unspeakable, violent things, and they may kill us, so we don’t go back.

  Mela hides in her motherhood of me. She gets her teaching qualification, and when other toddlers are toddling, I am in private tuition with my mum. I am three years old reading words like ‘fire engine’, ‘letterbox’ and ‘wonder woman’. Mum paints the words in white on grey cardboard strips cut from Cornflakes packets.

  I’m soon reading fluently and am also fluent in protecting my mother: looking out for her, speaking on her behalf and living in anticipation of what she may be hearing and what she might do. She shares her paranoid thoughts with me. There is no question they are real, although I cannot hear them – I must not have been listening, or it was said quietly because I am a child and they did not want to involve me. I’m on the lookout to catch people running up to our house as they hurl abuse or throw stones. I’m on high alert for snide comments at the supermarket, the park, in the bank queue.

  The time I found Mum bleeding on the ensuite floor, with glass spilling from her mouth, has made me very afraid of the monsters who are out to get her, and it has deeply ingrained my fear of losing her.

  PUNCH AND MEDALS

  IT’S MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, AND I AM THE ONLY CHILD here who i
s even vaguely Chinese. I already stand out, but Dad wants me to make an even bigger impact, to be top of my year and have lots of friends. ‘Everybody likes me,’ he says. ‘You need to be like me and get everybody to like you.’ That’s quite a lot of pressure for a five-year-old.

  But thanks to late nights watching whatever I want on Dad’s TV, I’m mature for my age, and thanks to Mum, I’m two years ahead with schoolwork, so it might be possible for me to live up to Dad’s requirements. He constantly tells people how brilliant I am. ‘My daughter is very, very advance,’ he says, leaving off the ‘d’. ‘Everyone else is dumb,’ he says to me. When I make mistakes, though, I’m ‘an idiot and stupid’ and ‘should have been a boy’, and when I do well I ‘could do better’ or ‘Have you seen how smart that person’s son is? He’s going to be a lawyer.’

  Although my grandparents offer to pay for me to attend a private school, Dad insists I go to Deanmore, the local public school. How can I get ‘everyone’ to like me, as ordered by Dad? The best way I can think of to stand out is to dress differently – a departure from the school uniform on my first day should get everyone’s attention. After we settle into our Grade One classroom, our teacher, Mrs Bailey, asks us to go around the room and introduce ourselves; when it’s my turn I unzip my school sweater to reveal a red boob tube. The other kids snigger and laugh, and Mrs Bailey looks surprised and at a loss for words. I am the first five-year-old in the history of Deanmore Primary to do lunchtime detention.

  Apart from misguided misdemeanours like that one, I’m a good student and read anything I can get my hands on: books, comics, cereal packets, instruction manuals – if there are words, I’ll read them. I’m devoted to learning but have to remind myself that I am also on Dad’s mission to be popular and still have no clue how to achieve this.