House of Kwa

by Mimi Kwa

  Saying this in writing or in person has no effect. Dad’s silence is stony, the dragon circling lower, aiming for the tiger’s jugular. The tiger is lying down now, almost resolute that death would be easier than this torment.

  Dad sends another letter. I leave it unopened for days. When I read it at last, the letter informs me that my father is suing me in the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

  Kwa v Kwa

  It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard not to breathe. I stare at the page as though I can alter the words somehow. My forehead pours with sweat, and that night I have trouble sleeping.

  The following morning, when I peer into the bathroom mirror, I see that a thick sprig of my hair has turned grey overnight. The dragon hurtles towards the tiger, who can no longer hide. She searches for an exit and sees no option but to draw breath and face the flames.

  No one seems surprised that he has escalated matters to court – of course he has. But I am. This is Dad who painted my bicycle with me, Dad who lugged my piano on stage to sing at school, Dad who I Wombled and collected junk with, Dad who I fired a rifle with, Dad who drove me and my friends to parties and who boasted about me behind my back to anyone who would listen – whenever I overheard, I would swell with pride. Dad taught me how to use a soldering iron, a hammer, pliers, a cement mixer and an electric saw. He built me a tractor-tyre swing and found me a trampoline, a swing set and a ping-pong table. He had a lolly cabinet just for me.

  Despite the reality of the situation, I don’t accept that Dad and I are about to go head-to-head in court. My heart is breaking. I am a little girl crushed.

  At our Magistrate’s hearing Dad says, ‘My daughter is confused. She is young. I am upholding the will of my sister, and I ask that this trial be held over until the will is settled. It is before the Supreme Court.’

  My chest tightens. I’m going to throw up. In the grip of a panic attack, I slide open a glass door, step outside and lean on a wall to steady myself. The garden sways. I breathe the fresh air into my lungs – deep, deep breaths – but I begin to hyperventilate. I sit cross-legged, lie down, sit up again, rock, just working it through. It’s going to be okay. At home, I have a hot shower. The water rushes over me. It’s going to be okay. I fend off dragon snarls.

  Dad has a reputation with Perth judges as a serial litigant, but no matter what a nuisance he is, they’ve never been able to strike him out. Dad does win sometimes, so he is still part of the furniture. He dines out on being the first man to represent himself in the High Court of Australia since land rights activist Eddie Mabo won his historic case.

  Acutely aware of the emotional toll this is all taking on me, John’s dad finds me a lawyer: Johnson Kitto, a trusted, upstanding man whom people call on public radio for advice. My father-in-law gives him a resounding stamp of approval. ‘Kitto was always straight. Always fair. I trust him.’ Kitto takes my case and is undeterred and easily able to separate emotion from legal fact.

  Fogged with fear and memories pushing aggressively forth to mar every experience by intruding on my thoughts – The bench needs wiping; remember how you got in trouble for not wiping the bench? A child is crying; remember how you cried yourself to sleep? Hide the kitchen knives; remember how you were told your mother must not know where they are – I’m unable to comprehend this fight will ever be over.

  Since Aunty died, I’ve been drowning in House of Kwa. My husband and kids are almost losing sight of me beneath the waves that roll in.

  In November 2013, a preliminary Supreme Court hearing works out whether the court will allow the full Kwa v Kwa case. Kitto appears for me, and Dad appears for himself.

  In ten years, Dad has been to the Supreme Court countless times: against the Bank of Western Australia, the City of Stirling, the City of Cambridge, the Barrister’s Board, the Engineers Association, pharmaceutical companies, the Australian Youth Hostels Association, and now me. Dad is confident in this familiar environment; I haven’t been here since my work-experience days.

  The whole case hinges on one thing I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years. I watch in disbelief, from the public gallery of the Supreme Court, as Dad smugly tables a yellowing wad of paper – explosive ammunition the dragon has been sitting on all along. I’m horrified to hear that Theresa appointed Francis as her power of attorney in 1960, a decade and a half before I was born, to manage her Australian financial affairs.

  The penny drops with the thud of a dragon foot. Dad used his power of attorney to put a caveat on the South Perth property. He took this same document to lawyers in the Philippines to contest the will there. I think I might faint.

  ‘Your Honour, my daughter is deluded and believes that she is in charge. I do not blame her. I only wish to guide her. You see from the document I bring to you today that, in fact, I am the sole person responsible for my dear beloved departed sister’s financial affairs.’ Dad’s hair is tousled and bow tie crooked, just like in the High Court years ago, his signature courtroom style.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Kwa,’ the judge says. ‘Yes, Mr Kitto?’

  I cannot bear the thought of how this will end. As Kitto rises to address the judge, I leave my body, a tiger perched up on the elaborate balustrade of the viewing confine; my tail and whiskers twitch, sizing up the scaled and cunning predator below and identifying the exits.

  Then Kitto hurls a stick of dynamite that blows Francis’s entire case apart.

  ‘Miss Theresa Kwa cancelled the POA forty years ago.’

  Kitto dramatically slaps down Aunty’s letter cancelling Dad’s rights over her affairs – it proves she had second thoughts over him handling her assets and that, having come to her senses, she rescinded his power after just a few weeks. My eyes look to heaven.

  ‘Mimi,’ says Kitto, ‘it’s done. You won. It’s over.’

  ‘But Dad is an expert at appeals.’

  ‘No, Mimi. No, he cannot appeal. It’s been thrown out.’

  JUNK AND BRACE

  WE ASSEMBLE ON A JUNK BOAT IN HONG KONG HARBOUR. It’s Aunty Theresa’s second funeral, and her ashes are finally to be laid to rest in the place she called home all her life. David and I have kept this ceremony small: close family and a few Chinese relatives who caught wind of it somehow.

  Aunty Clara has made the trip from England. She wears black trousers and a black skivvy, her slight frame clinging to a table with outstretched arms gripping its edges.

  Adrian and Jerome are here with their girlfriends, and Third Wife Karen keeps busy in the corner, arranging flowers to be thrown in the water to follow Theresa’s ashes.

  Francis opens the formalities. ‘I have a photocopier.’ He casts an eye around the intimate group. The boat rocks, and we hold on to the side or something bolted down so as not to keel over. ‘Do you understand? I have a photocopier. You know? Photocopier?’ Dad grips a pole with one hand, his notes in the other.

  David charges to the toilet at the rear of the boat, retching violently in the background as we all keep swaying. Sam smiles sympathetically in David’s direction, and then at all of us for having to hear.

  Today is the first time I’ve seen Dad since the court case. We kissed on the cheek and embraced, then gazed silently for too long into each other’s eyes; we have not mentioned the war. It feels strange to carry on as though nothing happened, as though blood taking a knife to blood never occurred, but it’s the wisest and kindest choice – because if we don’t choose this, Kwa would need to turn on Kwa again or, worse still, turn its back, and that, the unthinkable, could never happen. Kwa sticks together, even when battling itself. We are assembled to remember Theresa and won’t let anything spoil that this time.

  ‘I have a photocopier,’ Dad repeats, for those who may not have heard. He is letting us know he is a big businessman because he is rich and important enough to actually own a photocopier – the type usually reserved for libraries and office blocks, never a home study.

  Dad’s message is lost, and the audience turns from sickly and sombre to si
ckly and confused. David returns momentarily, only to lurch for the less-than-modest amenities again, and I imagine the junk’s loo sloshing from side to side.

  Dad presses on. ‘Here, I have photocopied words my sister wrote to me.’

  I grab my brothers’ hands and squeeze them tight as we sit in a row of Kwa siblings, our heads bowed.

  This morning I took Aunty’s decorative urn, filled with her remains, to a buffet breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental, her favourite hotel. I had booked a room so she could spend one last night there. The suites she designed have since been refurbished, but they appear in a coffee-table book I keep by my bed, along with a photo of her true love, Tony, looking over an architect’s cardboard model of the hotel.

  I wandered down its corridors with Aunty, speaking softly to her, on her last tour. If anyone thought I looked strange carrying around a black urn decorated in white opal, no one mentioned this. I ate the buffet breakfast on her behalf, then swanned out beneath the chandeliers and through the foyer, together for the last time. Two doormen opened the glass doors for us to leave. ‘Miss Kwa.’ I heard again. ‘And little Miss Kwa.’

  One of the reasons I didn’t invite the hundreds of friends and family members in Aunty’s address book to this second ceremony is that I couldn’t tell who was a plumber she met only once or not at all, and who was a dear friend. Instead, I sent them all a poem Aunty chose: ‘Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free’. Many people use this poem, which goes by many names, with no one able to agree who wrote it. Aunty asked for it to be her simple death notice, with no explanation.

  I should have expected the outpouring of grief that was posted back, along with the questions: ‘What happened?’ ‘How did she die?’ And the requests for me to call South Africa, Canada, England and Hong Kong. ‘I would so like to speak with you to understand more,’ they would say most politely. She died at eighty-three but, in the minds of so many, Theresa was still a vivacious young woman serving drinks on BOAC flights, travelling the world, overseeing her shop, attending lavish events, walking on the beach and dining at clubs. Breaking hearts wherever she went.

  But despite this outpouring of emotion from across continents, David and I decided on a small and intimate gathering, exactly as Theresa had wished – a humble, understated affair to make up for the Manila spectacle.

  Francis hands out photocopies of the important excerpt from his eulogy – You are the star in your own movie – passing a wad of paper to Adrian to distribute along the row, then handing another fistful to a distant relative.

  Adrian and Jerome each make their own tributes, and David does a reading. Then it’s time to scatter Aunty’s ashes.

  There’s a strong wind today, and I worry we’ll end up with Aunty all over us if she blows back off the sea. Fortunately a large tube has been tied to the side of the vessel for such an occasion. Dad and Clara go first, ladling Aunty into the tube so she slides straight down into the water. Fish gather and call to their friends, ensuring Theresa will live on through the sea, maybe even ending up on a table in her favourite fish restaurant.

  On the way to David and Sam’s place in Admiralty we sit on the upper sundeck. Dad’s beside me, talking about his latest court case. I take a selfie of us together; he admires my sunglasses and asks if they’re real, and I admire his Don Johnson funeral look, although it’s not much different to his normal style.

  He holds up the pink chain on his sunglasses. ‘Look, look, you need one of this, otherwise you’ll lose your Ray-Ban overboard.’

  I appreciate the good advice; it shows that he cares.

  With the Kwa v Kwa episode behind us and Aunty’s ashes out at sea, the tiger leaps from the flames into calm, cool waters, and the dragon has new priorities as he readies his Floreat place for a grand Perth renovation.

  Dad welds while wearing a bicycle helmet, no goggles and no shoes. He walks on a slippery wet roof with no harness, and contravenes a lengthy list of safety regulations to get his renovation underway. It’s clear he hasn’t built what the council said he could; he has overstepped the agreed footprint and height, altered all the window sizes, and created an additional three bathrooms and three bedrooms. Another Francis Kwa dream emerges: a mini Mandarin Gardens.

  Jerome is mortified and throws his hands in the air. ‘He doesn’t listen, Mimi.’ As an ‘actual’ qualified architect, Jerome has spent months on Dad’s ‘project’ only to be undermined at every stage. ‘Sonny boy,’ Dad says, ‘you know nothing. I am far wiser than you. Do not tell your old man what to do.’

  When I go upstairs one day during a visit from Melbourne, the balcony balustrade wobbles while Dad – busy assembling an IKEA drawer and hardly looking up – reassures me, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry.’ He’s trying to force the wrong screw into the wrong hole. ‘It will be okay. Father knows best.’ I’m careful not to lean on the rail again.

  The picture of the proposed building on the fence looks nothing like the actual building behind it. ‘I did it my way,’ Dad sings.

  The City of Cambridge issues a cease works notice ordering Francis to demolish unapproved parts of the building, so he sues them. Neighbours whose dogs Karen once walked and to whom she delivered meals are now estranged; Karen is sad that Francis won’t let her see them anymore. Three couples on the street list their houses for sale in the same week, wanting as much distance from Dad as possible and hoping to sell fast before there’s too much damage to their property prices.

  My phone flashes with a text message: Call me when convenient. I still care about your mother. Karen, my wife, accepts this. I am the boss.

  The last thing Mum needs in her life is Dad. She’s doing just fine with us now. She takes her medication religiously, and she tutors students in all year levels and from every ethnic background. She looks after her grandchildren when I’m working, and I even did a TV feature on our set-up, promoting granny flats and multigenerational living.

  I’ve been careful over the years to curate what I tell Mum and Dad about each other, ‘supervising’ visitation on the odd occasion Dad is in Melbourne. (He forgets the names of his grandkids a week later, but I am pleased he tries.) Whenever he’s around, Mum falls back into a role of servitude. It beggars belief: he sits on a sun lounge by the pool, ordering tea and bowls of rice as if she’s the maid. ‘Mum,’ I tell her, ‘you don’t have to do what he says.’ She looks at me like I’m crazy, and I remind myself that all of this is crazy. If only I could have told the teenage girl in the mirror that it would all be okay, that the Kwa madness and my mum’s schizophrenia have ended with me.

  Dad breaks his neck when an IKEA shelf – not correctly bolted to the wall as per instructions – falls on him at home. He texts me: I have broken neck. Doctors do no know what they are talking about. Want me to wear a neck brace but they are idiots. I am a doctor. Love, Dad.

  He will probably sue IKEA, but I am more concerned about his health.

  I call, and he texts back. Am busy. Magnum PI is on.

  DAD! You are eighty-three. My friend broke his neck skiing and had to wear a brace for six weeks. You must listen to the doctors.

  An hour passes.

  Dad replies, I am not your friend. I am a direct descendant of the Emperor of China. I am twenty-third generation Kwa.

  EPILOGUE

  WHEN MY DEAR FRIEND FOXY READ THE FIRST DRAFT OF THIS manuscript, she turned to me wide-eyed. ‘Mim, how on earth did you turn out so normal?’ This question got me wondering, so I’ve tried to weave in little insights here and there as to how I ended up fairly well adjusted.

  I had a breakdown of sorts as well as a breakthrough while writing this story and excavating my past. In particular, seeing my mum every day became challenging and confronting the more memories that emerged. I’m exploring this further in a new story I’m writing, one about reconciling past trauma, forgiveness and gratitude.

  Since I finished writing the last chapter of House of Kwa, Aunty Clara passed on in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. She was fortuna
te to have David, Steven and Josephine by her side.

  This leaves Dad, the thirty-second child, the very last Kwa of his generation in his own Kwa strand. He’s eighty-seven and still has plenty of tenant and building schemes keeping his mind active.

  In Perth, Adrian and his wife, Lee, have a wonderful baby, Grayson, who brings Dad such joy when he allows it, and we all attended Jerome’s wedding to Genevieve this year. This may be taken as evidence that we have pushed through our own Kwa stories alright.

  When the dragon closes his eyes for good one day, I will know that tiger and predator reached an understanding of sorts and a kind of peace in the end – one that could really only come about from telling my story in order to let it go.

  As I hand the brush of Kwa to my sons and daughters so they can paint their own stories, I give gentle instructions at the edge of the blank page: ‘Don’t hesitate to make a mark. You can always paint over it, my love, any time you like. You are not bound by history to repeat its cycle. Your story is yours, but don’t forget that if you ever need it, there’s a Kwa spark in you waiting to be called.’

  PHOTOS SECTION

  My grandfather Ying Kam, who was born in 1868, with my grandmother – his third wife, Ng Yuk – and his second wife. I had always been told that Ying Kam had died of a broken heart, but recently Dad said his father had died because he refused to give up his business to the Japanese, suggesting he was killed during the occupation.

  A Kwa wedding. Ying Kam stands in the middle behind his daughters, the two brides. My dad, Tak Lau, is in the front row, fourth from the right.

  The four children – Clara, Francis, Mary and Theresa – with Ng Yuk (centre)

  Dad in Australia. He thinks this was taken in Victoria.

  Aunty Theresa’s BOAC days