by Mimi Kwa
The amount Aunty Mary has left me is enough to travel for a year and put a deposit on a house – I am extremely lucky.
Aunty Theresa and I exit the HSBC building to hat tipping and bows, then her driver pulls up at the entrance as though to complete the fairytale scene.
‘Mimi, I know you will be frugal and careful. You don’t flash your money in the wrong places. Just like I don’t flash my diamonds if I am in the poor area.’ She holds up a hand to admire her rings encrusted with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. ‘It is good to show compassion. If you can give, give. I always like to help others. But do not put yourself in a position where people will rob you. They will not care what you have in your heart, only what is in your purse.’ She tips the driveway attendant as he closes the car door for us, then rests her crocodile bag in the back seat between us as we drive away. ‘And never boast, Mimi.’
For lunch, as promised, Aunty takes me to the China Club in order to show me the feng shui stand-off between the banks. A tall, elegant woman in a cheongsam checks her clipboard for our booking. The China Club appears much older than the ones we usually visit, the American Club or the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, but it’s actually brand new. There’s a small framed photo of Princess Diana walking up the same staircase we’re walking up now. Famous artworks and signed photos of patrons make for a fascinating trip to the top floor.
Aunty doesn’t have a booking, of course. ‘My friend always says whenever I want I can sign in under his membership.’ Then she whispers, ‘It’s one hundred and fifty thousand Hong Kong to join.’ We sit down at a table for four; Aunty hasn’t planned to meet anyone else but has asked for extra seats ‘just in case we bump into some friends’. She loves to say, ‘More people, more food!’
The place is like a museum. Pictures of Chairman Mao and Tiananmen Square observe us from the wall above.
‘The man who started this club is David Tang, a very nice man. He likes silks and the old style, the one like I sell in my shop. The one like your grandfather make and sell all over the world. All the corners, from Philippines to England – your family was the best in this business for silk. My uncle – who you would call Grandfather if he was alive, but he is actually your grandfather’s brother – kept the business after your grandfather die.’
She picks up the menus and pretends to read while she talks. ‘He – my uncle – helped your grandfather start the Swatow Lace business on Pedder Street. A long time ago. Your grandfather, my father, joined Uncle when he move from China with Second and Third Mother. Your grandmother is Wife Number Three, you know, so we call her Third Mother.’
I nod as I do whenever she tells this story.
‘So when your grandfather die, in the war, his brother take over the business. During the war the brother was stranded in Shanghai.’ She puts down the menu. ‘And we, your grandfather and me, the children and his wife – we helped to keep the business running under the Japanese even though we must stop many our operation, and the Japanese taking most of the earnings. So then, I have the little Swatow Lace shop at the Mandarin Hotel in honour of your family. And Mr Tang’ – she looks around to make sure no one is listening – ‘Mr Tang is going to open a shop where your family shop was, on Pedder Street. He wants to call it Shanghai Tang. Swatow Lace, our family business, was at 16 Pedder Street, remember I have taken you past there. He is going to open at number 12. You see, you have a connection to all of Hong Kong, Mimi. Everywhere, just look around and you will see.’ She traces her finger down the menu, really reading it this time.
I contemplate the enormity of our Chinese and Hong Kong Kwa history, the smoke from Great-Grandfather’s pipe disappearing down alleyways, curling up tall buildings, wending its way into the wallpaper pattern here at the China Club.
‘You want a club sandwich?’ Aunty asks. ‘You know you love a club, at the club.’ She laughs at our in-joke.
I nod and smile. ‘Yes please, Aunty.’
NOW KWA
虎穴龙潭
Dragon pool, tiger den
– Chinese idiom
MONKEYS AND ZOO
I LEFT AUSTRALIA A CHILD OF SEVENTEEN AND RETURN A legal adult a year later. Dad leased my old apartment the moment I moved out with Narelle after school, so it’s no surprise he has kept tenants in there with no intention of evicting them. What’s left of Aunty Mary’s money is enough for a minimum deposit on a unit, which Dad puts in his name, across the road from Mandarin Gardens. I live there rent-free, and he uses the property as an asset to borrow against, digging further into debt.
Dad continues to take legal action against the City of Stirling, and this becomes his main focus as his empire crumbles. He enjoys having me live directly across the road because I’m nearby enough to proofread his legal documents at no notice and far enough away that my problems are not his.
Angela is living in her own Mandarin Gardens apartment now, out of his hair. Divorce is imminent, and she seems unhappy. She will let me babysit my beloved little brothers, but she doesn’t like them getting too close to me.
Despite returning from my travel adventures stronger and wiser, having experienced both the exhilaration and fright of freedom, I slip back into old patterns. I project my pain by coddling my brothers, taking them to the movies and museums, giving them presents in boxes that burst with helium balloons; I’m overcompensating for what I missed out on in Dad’s Kwa compound, and what they must be missing out on now. I can see history repeating and know the psychological consequences because I’m experiencing them myself. My brothers are facing some of the same obstacles that I have had to confront, as well as some unique to them. Although the parallels of our journey end at Angela – who loves them dearly – I will never give up on my relationship with these boys, no matter how many walls divide us.
My old school friend Emma has moved in with me and while she prepares to visit the Philippines to meet her biological parents for the first time in her life, I make some last-minute tweaks to my academic timetable. I have decided to study Architecture at the University of Western Australia, with a minor in Drama and Asian Studies. Drawing boards were everywhere at Dad’s place growing up and I was always rather surprised when other families didn’t have one or two lying around themselves, or when my friends found it a novelty to drift my set square ruler on its parallel slider. But my choice is a great disappointment to Dad, who had his sights set on law for me, and an unspoken disappointment for my mother who, I sense, knows that I’m an artist at heart. But ‘there’s no money being an artist,’ as Dad says. Architecture is a compromise because there is design involved and, hopefully, an income.
To be honest, I really don’t know what I want to be, and Architecture makes sense because Dad is an engineer and frequently says he is an architect, so I hear that word all the time. Mind you, I also hear ‘lawyer’ a lot. I have secret aspirations to write and report, but believe I must take a conventional career path supported by a ‘proper degree’. As a little girl, I watched 60 Minutes hosts Jana, Mike and Ray scaling buildings and reporting hunched behind walls with mortar fire in the background or interviewing world leaders and superstars, and I thought, I’d like to do that one day. I can’t seem to get a vision in my head of being an architect, but I always dream about being a journalist and newsreader on TV. Jana Wendt is the only woman on national television with a non-Anglo background, and she is not blonde so that does give me hope but, as there are no Asians on air, deep down, I don’t like my chances.
In 1993, there is no university qualification for ‘TV host’ so I spend no time trying to figure out another way to become one. My primary school friend Michelle gets me a job as a photographer at Boat Torque Cruises: taking photos of passengers embarking on their wine tours and party river jaunts, racing back to a photo lab to develop the films and leaping into the arms of the crew across more than a metre of water sometimes, as we re-board the boats. Then we do a roaring trade selling the printed photos to drunk patrons.
One afternoon, I drop my b
rothers off at Mandarin Gardens after taking them to the zoo. I park the car, then hug and kiss the boys goodbye before they dash upstairs to show Angela what goodies they’ve brought home. At the end of our outings, we usually go for fast food – Hungry Jacks or KFC. If Adrian wants one thing and Jerome another, we go to the drive-through at both restaurants because I love to make them happy.
My window is up to make the most of the half-hearted air conditioning that I’ll switch on once the engine is running again, and I’m wondering if I should wind it down a crack, to let in a bit of air first, when I see something extraordinary.
From across the carpark, about thirty metres away, Angela is walking straight towards me. I brace in panic, my chest tightening as I dig my nails into my palm. Experience tells me this can only mean a confrontation. As the slight figure with a formidable presence heads my way, I freeze and hold my breath.
Maybe she’s upset with me for buying the boys junk food – or is she angry at me for not coming in to see her before I collected them from Dad? Whatever has upset her, I’m terrified she will stop me from seeing my little brothers again. In the seconds it takes her to cross the carpark, all possible outcomes are freight trains through my head, and some are really catastrophic.
I’m frozen in fear as she taps on the window, but then I suddenly spring to life as if jumping to attention for an army commander. Awkwardly I grapple with the manual winder to lower the glass. I gaze up at Angela, dumbfounded and nervous.
‘I just wanted to say . . .’ She doesn’t quite look me in the eye. ‘I just wanted to say thank you. I know you really love the boys.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ is all I can manage, but she is already walking away. I start the engine and drive off, numb with the adult realisation that she was just as nervous as me.
STRIPES AND BOMBS
I VISIT GRANDDAD ONE MORNING AT MOUNT HOSPITAL, A private facility in a picturesque part of Perth. His room overlooks the Mounts Bay Road estuary, a stone’s throw from my Boat Torque job.
Recovery for standard prostate surgery should be only a few days, but due to Granddad’s age and the leg pain he’s been experiencing, they’re keeping him in for a bit longer. No cancer was detected, but he opted for the surgery as a precaution. I open a window in Granddad’s room, letting in a gust of fresh air. Below, I can see ducks gliding on the water and weeping willows skimming the surface. ‘Architecture’s going well,’ I lie. ‘But I’m not sure I want to be an architect anymore. I think I might want to be a journalist.’ I turn to face Granddad, who is propped up with pillows in bed.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Are you sure? You’ve changed course a few times, haven’t you, young’un? I thought your year abroad inspired you to do architecture. Remember when Paw Paw and I came to see you? We all enjoyed our time on the Thames, looking at the buildings of London.’
Yes, of course I remember; it was only two years ago.
‘And I told you all about the Blitz and the part I played in the war.’
Granddad pointed out where the bombs hit and the fires burned, remembering the events as if they’d happened yesterday. I wish my grandparents and I did more together in London, but after a few days of tours and high tea I had to be back at my job down in Cornwall, and they were due for a visit with Paw Paw’s brother in the north.
I want to give Granddad a big hug, but he looks fragile under the sheets and thin cotton blanket, so instead I sit on the edge of his bed, my Doc Martens barely reaching the floor. We’re deep in conversation when I realise the time – I’m late for a lecture but would much rather stay here. I stand up from his hospital bed and, like a bird, gently swoop in to kiss my favourite man on the forehead. Then I am gone.
In the afternoon, Mum and Paw Paw call me from Granddad’s bedside. ‘There’s been a complication, Mimi. You need to come.’
I return and park next to the estuary and stride past the pond, the water like glass. As I pick up the pace, a startled duck lifts off leaving ripples behind. My chest tightens, and I break into a run. In the elevator I reason with myself. It’s just a complication. I’m sure he’s fine. I just saw him this morning. I press a fingernail into my palm; the familiar pain comforts me, keeping my anxiety at bay as I take a deep breath and step out of the lift.
Mum and Paw Paw turn to me with tear-streaked faces as I walk into the room. The bed is empty. ‘No, no!’ I scream. ‘No.’ I run out and take three steps at a time down the fire-escape stairs to the street, Paw Paw and Mum yelling after me from the open third-storey window. I drive away half-blinded by tears, hitting the steering wheel and screaming in despair.
Granddad’s heart gave way. The doctors had thought the pain in his legs was from old war injuries, but he was having a heart attack right there in the hospital – right under their noses, where you might expect such a thing to be picked up. The elective surgery and anaesthetic put too much stress on his body, they said.
Paw Paw is so grief-stricken, the last thing she can think about is filing a complaint. ‘The nursing staff thought it was his parachuting injuries playing up,’ she says. ‘They weren’t to know.’
I look at her, incredulous. ‘They are medical staff, Paw Paw. If they can’t detect a heart attack, who can?’
For the hundredth time, we hold each other and cry.
‘When we met,’ she says, ‘your grandfather and I, he went to the ballet just to please me, and he courted me with a warning. He said, “I am ten years older than you. If you marry me I will die before you.” We were young, and it seemed such a silly thing to worry about. But he was right, Mimi. He was right.’ We weep some more. Granddad was seventy-nine.
I keep Granddad alive by recounting his war hero stories to anyone who will listen, and I unexpectedly burst into tears in all sorts of places: a friend’s car, a university lecture theatre, walking Whisky. I turn to friends, and Mum retreats further into her voices. I host a series of wild parties with my housemate Emma and, at one of them, our friend Danny Green, a boxing protégé, swallows my pet goldfish. That was right before one girl, Widge, swings Zarn around as they’re dancing to The Cure and she falls and breaks her arm on the kitchen tiles. Never a dull moment. People have sex on car bonnets and light joints like they’re cigarettes.
But one day, when I host a ‘hat party’ and my girlfriend Nina instead wears pictures of nude women stuck on an ice-cream container on her head, I decide things have gone too far. I am after all, a feminist.
Then I meet John – handsome and funny, from a normal family of meat-and-three-veg Catholics. He has no idea what he’s getting into, and we fall madly in love.
‘Your dad keeps asking me what my dad does,’ John says one night. ‘Remind me, why can’t I tell him?’
John and I are locked in an embrace on the bed in my unit across the road from Mandarin Gardens. We’re at the stage where we can barely keep our hands off each other. Young love!
‘Because,’ I tickle his chin and kiss him lightly, ‘if my dad finds out your dad is a magistrate, he’ll be over there quicker than you can say, “My dad’s a magistrate.” Your dad will never hear the end of it.’ We laugh.
‘Is that so?’ John asks and kisses me.
‘I think we should live together.’ I roll on top of him.
‘What will we tell our parents?’
I nestle into his shoulder. ‘We’ve been together six months. They’ll be fine.’
‘Mimi, your mother and I, we’re worried John is too old for you. You know what your grandfather said to me about being older. And he was right. He did die first.’
Mum is holed up, as usual, in her basement room, but Paw Paw uses ‘we’ for leverage.
‘Paw Paw, he’s only three years older.’ I have a stupid ‘I’m in love’ smile on my face.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise. He looks much older than that.’
Now I laugh. ‘He does not!’ I know she’s worrying about me, and I appreciatively throw my arms around her in the bearhug I wish I’d given Granddad the day he died
. ‘I love you, Paw Paw.’
She holds me out from herself to see me better, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Well, if this is what you want, I am happy for you.’
‘Mi, you still haven’t told me what his father does.’
I go against my own counsel, exhausted by the question. ‘He’s a magistrate, Dad. John’s dad is a magistrate. He comes from a very good family. We haven’t taken the decision for him to move in here lightly.’ Then I tell a lie: ‘His parents are fine with it.’
‘Right, well, I want their number. I want to talk to them.’
Just as I feared. ‘I don’t have it, Dad,’ I lie again.
‘They live in Morley, right? If John is Roberts then his father is Len Roberts. I know all the magistrates, ahahaha.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Dad, I’m twenty. We’re not getting married – I really don’t think you need to talk to them.’
But it’s too late: Dad is already scouring the White Pages telephone book and before I can stop him, he’s revving his Kwa Car up the hill on his way to Morley. I am utterly mortified. I dig my fingernails into my hand and focus on that pain instead.
When he arrives at the unsuspecting Roberts household, Dad asks immediately for legal advice – on the grounds John’s parents are virtually related to him now – and when John’s dad mentions he has a sore back and asks to be excused, Dad insists that Len lie on the floor so he can walk on the magistrate’s back, cracking it in two places. ‘I am an expert in the chiropractic, you know.’ Len’s back never recovers.
Not long after this incident, John moves in with me as planned. He has brought a few humble possessions from the bachelor pad he shared with two friends, among them a Holden HD station wagon, 1966 – an iconic car that he intends to fix up one day. It’s unroadworthy and unregistered, so he parks it outside our unit.