House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  One recess I start eating a banana with the peel on. I’m sitting on the wooden bench that runs along the concrete corridor outside our classrooms. ‘Yes, it’s true, I always eat the peel,’ I say casually to the group amassing around me.

  ‘No way,’ says one girl.

  ‘That’s disgusting. Pft.’ An older boy spits on the ground.

  Mouthful after laborious mouthful I chew and swallow the entire banana. ‘That’s how monkeys eat bananas, and we’re evolved from monkeys so we should eat the peel too. If you think about the Darwinian approach . . .’

  Their eyes glaze over, and I quickly lose my audience to handstands, downball and foursquare. Ugh, why do I always spoil things with a history lesson?

  At five years old, I’m regularly tossed, tugged, pulled and manipulated between my two homes, Bicton and Scarborough. Back and forth, back and forth. Mum is living with her parents permanently now. I get to see her three and a half days a week, but even with this agreement in place Dad finds reasons for conflict. One day, he and Granddad lock horns – not for the first time, but for me it’s the most memorable.

  Standing just outside the front door, Dad demands that I come back with him early and claims that this is within his joint custodial rights. He shouts at Granddad as I curl up beside the broad glass balcony doors overlooking the Swan River. I’m crying while I watch the two men in my life gesticulate aggressively at one another, and I know that Dad’s angry visits only ever mean one thing: I’m about to be ripped from my mother’s arms again.

  Mum storms out to join in the argument on the landing, and Paw Paw wraps an arm around me, pulling me in to her warm bosom.

  Granddad’s protective instinct is peaking, but he maintains his composure. Mum’s shoulders slump, and Dad’s shouts rise. Granddad can’t stand it any longer – he strides towards the front door that opens into a glass atrium entrance on the balcony. ‘Mela, get inside,’ he orders his daughter. Dad keeps ranting as she hurries indoors. I watch Granddad assume a wide armed and legged stance in the doorframe, like a human X. His fists are clenched against the jambs.

  ‘Give me my daughter!’ Dad screams. ‘Or . . . or . . . I’ll hit you.’ He shakes with rage.

  ‘Go on, Francis. Hit me.’ Granddad stares him down, and I bury my face in Paw Paw’s arms. She is on her knees embracing both me and my mother now; she has that much love and that big a hug, she can accommodate us both.

  I turn to see Dad’s fists connect with Granddad’s lean frame, again and again.

  Granddad doesn’t flinch. He is motionless and solid, a stone wall. ‘Go home, Francis. Get off my property.’

  Dad nurses his wrists and drives away.

  Granddad is like a second father to me. He sits me on his knee and tells me stories. He has a jar of cashews beside his armchair, along with a menagerie of wooden African animals: a hippo, a giraffe, an antelope and a small herd of elephants. There’s also a tiger – I was born in the Year of the Wood Tiger, Dad is always quick to remind me, so I relate to this ornament the most.

  Granddad tells me the most incredible stories about his war-hero rescues; he is the original James Bond. ‘And then I climbed into the attic and got the British pilot out.’ I gaze at this great man in awe. He was a paratrooper and an MI5 spy, he helped to liberate Auschwitz, and now he has countless stories to share with me.

  Granddad and I walk Whisky, our cocker spaniel, and he lets me hold the lead. ‘When we built our house, all this was sand.’ He gestures to the mixture of bungalows and mansions along the river now. ‘We were the first ones here.’ The two of us stand together, looking out over the water. ‘That’s where your mother and her brother and sister would row across to Mosman Park on the other side, all the way to that boatshed.’ He nods towards a green box on the opposite bank. ‘Do you see it?’ I nod. We walk further, into the Point Walter bushland reserve. ‘Mimi, sometimes your mother behaves differently to everyone else, but she will always love you. She will do anything for you.’ Whisky tugs on the lead. I run ahead for a bit. When Granddad has caught up, I say, ‘Tell me again about your secret mission in Brussels.’

  One day I walk past Granddad’s bedroom on the way to mine. He is sitting on the bed, looking down at a small case open on his lap. ‘Come here, young’un.’ I sit beside him, mesmerised by the glow of metal, the intricate patterns and the ribbons against the felt. ‘These ones are for bravery. If you are brave, it helps you to get through difficult things.’ He places a medal in my palm. It’s heavier than I expected. I stroke the ribbon. ‘And this one, young’un, is for honour. If you stand by what you believe in, you will have honour.’ I run my fingers over Granddad’s engraved name. ‘And these ones are stars for different places where I fought. The same places I brought back the Zulu shield and wooden tiger from. In one of those places, a prince gave me that statue of Buddha in our hall. That place was Thailand.’

  We sit in silence for a while, staring at the medals.

  He returns them to the box and closes it. ‘But, young’un, these mean nothing.’ He stands up and walks over to his open wardrobe. ‘The greatest reward in life is survival. Keeping your health and staying alive are worth more than all the medals in the world.’ He places the case of memories on the top shelf and slides it to the back, out of sight.

  Surviving five has had its moments, and as I’m turning six soon, things are bound to get better.

  A week before my birthday, I wonder why Dad is at my school gate handing out flyers. ‘Hi, Dad, what are you doing?’ He hands me a flyer of a hand-drawn girl with petals around her face. It’s an invitation to a birthday party – my birthday party. He has given one to every kid at school as part of his scheme to fast-track my popularity.

  A week later, more than sixty people turn up to our place in Scarborough for free food and cake, mostly school families trying to make an effort with the new ‘Chinese family’ who clearly don’t understand party etiquette.

  With a bowl-cut bob Dad gave me and a floor-length velvet dress, I welcome strangers into my home. We play Mr Wolf – I am the wolf, and the other children step cautiously behind me – then we eat cake and red jelly cups served on a ping-pong table on the back patio.

  Children and parents, unfamiliar to me, sing ‘Happy Birthday’, and I hear Dad’s distinctive kookaburra laugh rise up over the third and final ‘hip-hip hooray’. He looks pleased with himself and starts handing out business cards.

  That night I dream that all the children behind me in the Mr Wolf game are chasing me, but suddenly I’m able to lift off the ground, I am a tiger cub leaping up through the sky as high as the clouds, to escape. The air is thick, though, and getting away is a real struggle, like swimming against a syrupy tide; I watch my front paws as they run towards the night and jump from star to star, sending golden sparks of dust into the darkness at each one. I don’t dare to look back at my tail behind me, I must get away, I can’t afford to slow down.

  The next phase of Dad’s popularity strategy involves an even more spectacular public performance. He persuades my school principal, Mr Green, to let me play at assembly. Deanmore Primary has a piano but Dad insists our Yamaha is better, so he loads it onto a trailer connected to the back of his Ford Fairmont station wagon. Once he arrives at the school, he tows the trailer through the gates and onto the quadrangle, then the entire school watches as he wheels the piano off the trailer onto an outdoor concrete stage. We are introduced, and Dad begins to sing. I hope no one will notice I am his accompaniment. Mr Green and a row of teachers applaud, but all I notice are the kids sniggering and whispering behind their hands.

  GUCCI AND GECKO

  BEFORE DAD GETS ANY MORE WILD IDEAS, IT’S SCHOOL holidays, which almost always means a trip to Hong Kong. I don’t know what to pack as I have hardly any clothes that fit me at Dad’s, so I roll up my school uniform and push it into my suitcase. We’ll be stopping in Singapore to visit an aunt and uncle whom I’ve never met, and Dad says I must call them Uncle Number Eight and Aunty Number T
en. I’m not entirely sure about the system, but I know Uncle Number Eleven in Hong Kong so I have some experience with relatives as numbers.

  ‘He is my brother from Second Mother,’ Dad says. We’re in a taxi between Changi Airport and the home of Uncle Eight and Aunty Ten.

  ‘So what number are you, Dad?’ A row of palm trees sprints across my window.

  ‘So many baby die. It depend if you count all the baby or just the living one.’

  It’s humid here, like in Hong Kong, but the built landscape looks modern in comparison, clean and new with none of the grubbiness that clings to Hong Kong’s old signs, shopfronts and residential highrises.

  ‘First Mother, she had five but then it depends if you count First Adopted Son, so she really only had four.’

  The cab pulls over in front of a dress shop, a pink, sequinned, taffeta dress, made for a child, in a front window. In another window there are five less gaudy dresses on hangers, all designed for a more casual occasion; the fussy floral prints and frills on the sleeves and skirts still worry me, though.

  ‘But another two sons die, you see. And then Second Mother. She had more girls and only three son but three more die.’

  I hope Dad’s not going to make me wear a dress to meet these relatives. I prefer to stick to my dungarees, the ones I’m wearing now, with a large embroidered apple on the bib. These or my school uniform, which looks like a netball outfit, are my clothes of choice. Everything else I have is second hand or handmade by Mum or Paw Paw – all items that other people want to see me in.

  ‘My elder brother from Third Mother die. But he was already grown up so he keeps his number.’ Dad reaches into a coin purse strapped to his middle and shuffles through different currencies: Australian, Hong Kong – ‘Ah!’ He pulls out Singaporean dollars, hands the driver a note and waits for change, but the driver places his hands on the steering wheel.

  ‘Okee, lah.’ Singlish makes English singsong-y.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Dad is not standing for this. ‘You Singaporeans are supposed to be well behave. Where’s my change?’

  I open my door to get out.

  ‘Mister, the tax, see?’ The driver points to a sign above his mileage machine, explaining that taxing tolls are added to the final fare.

  Dad does a calculation in his head. ‘You still owe me ten cents.’

  We stand outside the dress shop after the driver has handed Dad the change.

  ‘Always trying to ripping you off. Buddy taxi driver.’ Dad unzips his pouch, puts in the ten cents and zips it back up. ‘Maybe you can bow when you meet Uncle and Aunty. And then I get you to tell them your school mark.’

  He opens the door of the shop which, it turns out, belongs to Uncle Eight and Aunty Ten. It would have been easier if each child had a number rather than numbering boys and girls separately, I think; that way the new aunt or uncle by marriage could just assume the same number as their spouse. Being Chinese is so complicated.

  ‘Mimi!’ Dad shoves my arm – I’ve been daydreaming and forgotten to bow. They are not royalty, mind you, they are dressmakers, and I’m not sure where Dad picked up the idea I should bow to them. ‘They are senior. You must bow.’

  Instead, as a joke, I pull on the sides of my dungarees and curtsy. The couple clap and laugh and look happy to meet me, although because I don’t speak Chinese I cannot communicate with them very well. Their Singlish is limited too.

  Dad speaks to them in Cantonese, but when they don’t understand – either they speak Mandarin or Dad’s Cantonese is too poor these days – he reverts to English. He asks them if they’re acquainted with the engineers responsible for the new Changi Airport terminal; he would like to meet them because he has some things to say about the structure. ‘I am an engineer,’ he says in a tone that suggests they might be deaf. ‘I’m very big engineer in Australia.’ He puts his hand above him to suggest he is indicating the height of someone taller than himself. ‘Very big.’ They don’t seem to personally know the engineers behind the airport renovation, but they do know a good noodle place for dinner.

  ‘They’re not very clever,’ Dad says afterwards, folding a suit bag over his arm. He convinced them to give me a dress that I will never wear, and he didn’t offer to pay. ‘They owe me, you see. I am the baby brother. Youngest brother of thirty-two!’ (Technically he’s the last boy if you count brothers by numbers according to their mother number.)

  We’re walking towards the noodle restaurant, but Dad decides on something from a street-food vendor instead.

  ‘I am very important, your father. Everybody like to give thing to me.’

  The smells wafting into my nose are exciting and delicious. The bustle of people at Newton Circus, the traffic sounds and exotic voices of people ordering food, speaking up to be heard over sizzling woks and rotating skewers, the humid night air – it’s all wonderful. Naked bulbs are strung between metal posts, tables and benches cemented to the ground.

  Dad butts in. ‘Waste of time to come here. They don’t introduce me to anyone important.’ He hands me a few coins, and I skip off to buy fried banana on a stick.

  The next day we’re on a plane to Hong Kong, and the comforting familiarity of a routine I look forward to every time: Aunty Theresa at the gate with a big embrace, squeezing my cheeks, always with something kind to say. ‘Oh my, so beautiful. Haven’t you grown.’

  If she is appalled by my bowl cut and shabby clothes, she never tells me. But she shakes her head as I show her the dress our Singapore relatives gave me. ‘Tut-tut. Not your style. Not your style at all.’ She zips up the suit bag so I never need to see the bejewelled taffeta and frills again. ‘I know just the girl I can send this to. She will love it. And you, my girl, are old enough now – you are six years old. I will take you to do . . . The Shopping!’ She says this as though it’s some wondrous and powerful rite of passage to conquer; as though she should be putting her closed hand to her chest and pointing her chin valiantly skywards. ‘Your choice. You want shorts. You have shorts. T-shirt. Jacket. Whatever you want.’ She smacks her knee with her hand and brings it up into a bent elbow and fist, like a running arm. ‘Shall we go?’

  We’re sitting on her bed, angled towards each other with the suit bag in between. In the corner of her room is my favourite piece of furniture in the whole world.

  ‘Yes, Aunty, I would love that, thank you.’ I smile broadly. I can never quite believe that I am here; it just makes me so happy. ‘But first, Aunty, may I please use your massage chair?’

  She stands up and wraps a Gucci scarf theatrically around her neck, bends to inspect herself in her dresser mirror and whisks round to face me. ‘Of course, madam, please be my guest. Be my guest. It’s the first electric massage chair in the world, you know?’ She says this snootily, for fun. ‘The baron’s company was trying them out, and he gave me one. I use it every day.’ She wiggles her hips as if to say the chair is responsible for her good figure. I giggle and pull myself onto the seat, leaning back on the rollers. ‘The control, madam. You know what to do.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, madam. I did visit this establishment not long ago, and I did so enjoy this chair.’

  We laugh, and she hands me the plastic control on a cord. My favourite piece of furniture in the world! The rollers travel up my spine with reassuring pressure.

  Aunty goes to tell Brigit what we’ll have for dinner and to call a driver to fetch us for ‘The Shopping!’

  ‘Today we go to Lantau to see Aunty Mary. Tomorrow Mama for mahjong.’ Aunty ties a red YSL scarf to the strap of her alligator-skin handbag. She’s wearing all white: long pants with a T-shirt tucked into an elastic waistband. I have on denim shorts and a red T-shirt. We tie up our canvas sneakers before heading out the door.

  ‘Ma’am, ma’am!’ Brigit calls frantically – it sounds like an emergency. She appears from the stairwell as Aunty and I step out of the elevator. Brigit puffs and wipes sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief she takes from a yellow pocket on her pale-blue apron.
She holds out a lunchbox. ‘Snacks, Mimi. Snacks.’ She squeezes my left cheek. ‘Ma’am, I must scold you. She is a growing girl!’ Aunty does a little stomping tantrum impersonation of Brigit, who just smiles and takes the lift back up.

  Aunty has borrowed a driver from a friend in her building, just to take us down to the pier in Central. It’s opposite the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where her shop is; we stop in there on our way. Two familiar turbaned Sikh men bow and greet us as they swing open two heavy glass doors. ‘Miss Kwa.’ Aunty beams at them and nods. ‘And little Miss Kwa.’ I smile and nod too. It’s like a scene from Annie.

  We pass under a ceiling of sparkling chandeliers arranged in square sections boxed in gold, then visit Aunty’s shop, Swatow Lace, to check on her workers, Christina and Amy. I am greeted by the familiar smell of wood polish and wall to wall pigeon holes stuffed with silk garments in crisp plastic sleeves and two glass display cases with a village of carved stone and ivory characters trapped inside: fishermen, Buddhas and celestial gods, as well as the most fascinating of all to my young eyes – the erotic figures.

  ‘Hungry Jack today?’ the shop girls tease me in broken English, because our routine is going for a burger and vanilla milkshake when I’m left with them in Aunty’s store.

  They’re a bit like older cousins: Amy entertains me with a game of noughts and crosses on a scrap of paper, while Aunty instructs Christina about a big potential sale with a hotel guest. ‘Room 329. Veeeery large lady. I suggest the man robe with the blue flower. I do not tell her it’s the man robe but the lady robe is too small.’

  Aunty clacks away at a slim wooden abacas on the glass counter. ‘Second thought, steer her to the scarves instead. And this is the discount if she goes ahead with the jade man who holds the fishing rod.’ She slips into Cantonese to wrap up the conversation and slides the abacus towards Christina.