A Trick of Light

by Deborah A Rogers

  I imagine him as a university student, text book under his arm, hurrying to a contract law lecture. As a groom, confetti-showered and grinning, arms linked with my mother's on the steps of the church. As a first-time father, holding me, a mewing, kicking newborn.

  And I think why isn’t that enough? Why is there still this cavern inside him that nothing can fill?

  “In 1998 The Reds will come marching over that hill and take back Hong Kong,” he says without looking over his shoulder.

  “Reds?” I say.

  “Communists.”

  I step onto the balcony. The air is warm and wet. Below us, in the playground, there’s a swing with a rusty hinge.

  “You don't like it here much, do you?”

  “Sarah is leaving,” I say.

  “I see.”

  He lights a new smoke.

  “She goes next week,” I say.

  “All good things must come to an end.”

  He looks at me then.

  “Pull your socks up, maybe you go back.”

  I hold my breath. “Don’t joke.”

  He turns back to the view.

  “And no more sneaking out to bars.”

  I wait but he says nothing else so I leave him in the dark and return to my room before he can take it back.

  Twenty-seven

  THE DAY Sarah leaves it is raining like a Hollywood goodbye. We are downstairs in the empty gym in her apartment block, smoking cigarettes.

  “Stupid Japan,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dishmop said I could go to see Naomi at Christmas if I settle in well at my new school.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Has your father said anything yet?”

  “He’s still making his mind up.”

  “He’ll let you go back. I’ve got a good feeling.”

  She reaches into her pocket and hands me a cassette tape.

  “Here,” she says, “I made you a mixed tape.”

  “Thanks.”

  When it’s time for me to go, I say –

  “Have a good life.”

  She hugs me and laughs even though she is crying.

  “You too, Kiwi, you too.”

  *

  I do everything I can to please him. Cook the meals, do the dishes, clean the kitchen floor, tidy my room, be polite, go to school, don't smoke, drink or swear. I am not sure that he notices. Then one day he says –

  “I can see you’re trying.”

  I am pleased and carry on being perfect.

  *

  I am cleaning up with Annie after a shift, when I tell her that I may be going home. She pauses with the mop and says –

  “I will miss you.”

  “Ditto.”

  She asks me what New Zealand is like. I tell her there is no rubbish on the streets or in the water and that I especially like it in the rain, when the flax bushes are as sleek as seaweed and red-footed Pukekho pick their way across the damp earth to search for grubs. I tell her there’s this thing called a Norwest arch – a great purplish half circle of cloud across the sky – which brings with it the driest, hottest wind, and how beautiful the golden manes of the Toi Toi plants look blowing in the wind.

  “And we don’t have to boil the water.”

  She frowns. “You drink straight from the tap?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t get sick?”

  “Never. It comes from snow on the Alps.”

  “Snow,” she echoes, looking at some midpoint in the air. “They do not have snow in Manila.”

  *

  I begin to think there is a real chance of returning home. I start to collect things because when I get back to New Zealand I am sure I will have my own flat, even though I am only fifteen. With the money I have saved from The Old English Teahouse, I go to Chinese Products and buy a rug with wild horses on it, a tape deck with detachable speakers, some coffee cups and a lamp.

  I imagine how happy I will be in my own place. My friends will visit and sit on the rug and listen to my tape deck and drink coffee from the new cups.

  *

  One night Celia and my father go out and she comes back alone. They do not talk for a whole week.

  Soon there are nights when it is just me and her, watching television, playing cards. Sometimes we wait up until he comes back. Other times we just go to bed.

  I hear her on the phone calling the bars.

  *

  I discover her crying alone at the kitchen table in the middle of the day.

  “He used to bring me flowers and write poetry, but not anymore.”

  I do not know what to say.

  “He doesn't love me,” she says.

  “Why don’t you get a divorce?”

  She looks at me as if I am crazy.

  “Where would I go?”

  *

  Something is wrong. I am awoken by shouting. My father has come home from a night out and is lurching around the lounge. Celia is there too, her face red from crying.

  “I have found you a new stepmother,” he says when he sees me. “She is blond with very blue eyes. Blue like the ocean.”

  He laughs unkindly in Celia’s face.

  “Heartless,” she whispers.

  “Mummy?”

  It’s Chung Si by the door, clutching Snoopy dog. My father sees her and is suddenly enraged. In three great strides he is over there, waving a finger in front of her eyes.

  “Go to bed!”

  She bursts into tears. Celia comforts her and shouts Chinese at my father but he ignores her and yells at Chung Si again.

  “Do as you’re told!”

  She is just a little girl, crying and shaking. He is a man, five times her size. I step in front of him.

  “Leave her alone.”

  His eyes dart to me. Bloodshot. Glassy. I see a flicker, as if I’m a stranger he’s suddenly recognised. A fat silence descends. Time slows. Then two tiny hiccupy breaths escape from Chung Si and the stillness is gone. He begins moving again, this time taking his wallet from the table, putting his keys in his pocket and heading out the door.

  *

  Celia mopes around. It’s as if someone has ploughed a giant fist into her gut and knocked out the stuffing. She sleepwalks through the day, doesn't eat or brush her hair.

  Chung Si tries to cheer her up with a song and a dance or a tickle or a clever trick. She does her very best with the homework too. Celia nods but isn’t really there.

  “Is Mummy sick?” Chung Si asks me.

  “Maybe a bit.”

  She studies my face.

  “Will she get better soon?”

  “Of course.”

  But I don’t really know.

  *

  One day I call my mother. I explain that I have been good and trying hard and that I want to come home. Her voice is thin.

  “You'll have to ask your father.”

  So that night when my father comes home from work, I ask if I have done enough. He places his briefcase upright on the floor by his side and studies me. He is taking too long to answer. I glance past his shoulder, to the balcony. If he says no, I will run for it, leap over the railing and fall to my death. Then he says –

  “You can go at the end of the month.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No.”

  He seems to shrink before me. He tries to smile but can’t manage it and gives me a half-nod instead.

  “Alright then,” he says, picking up his briefcase and leaving the room.

  *

  I take everything I can. Clothes. Tapes. Ornaments. I have two suitcases and both of them are full. Celia comes to the door and looks at the empty room.

  “Will you ever come back?”

  “Don’t know.”

  She helps me with the zip on the blue bag.

  “You should, just for a visit.”

  She leaves me to it. I take one last look in the drawers, under the bed, the harbour through the barred window. I think of Mike
and his ship, Sarah and her diet coke, the fish ball vendor and the dragon’s beard shop.

  Before I pull the door closed, I glimpse a flash of green in a drawer. It is the too small Hawaiian t-shirt my father bought me. I decide to leave it behind.

  *

  Our parting is cool. My bags are too full and my father has an extra baggage charge to pay. I said my goodbyes to Celia and Chung Si back at the apartment so it’s just me and him, like old times.

  We wait for the flight to be called and stare out the window in silence, watching 747s taxi to their terminals. I think about my journey here all those months ago. I wonder whether he is thinking about that too.

  The flight is called and we walk to the security gate. He cannot go further.

  “Have a good flight,” he says tonelessly.

  “Yeah.”

  His hands are in his pockets. There is no goodbye hug or kiss or wave, no, see you next time or don't forget to write, just a look, a hurt look that could be defeat. And when I turn around, he is already gone.

  Part III

  HOMECOMING

  ΅

  Twenty-Eight

  MY STEPFATHER and mother have come to pick me up. She has dyed her hair brown. He has put on weight.

  “Hello,” says my mother, giving me a one-armed hug. She smells like coffee and cigarettes.

  “How are you going,” says my stepfather.

  Their accent is coarse to my ears. The people waiting in the terminal look untidy with their non-black hair, varied heights and different body shapes.

  We drive back home. The streets are obscenely wide. Everything moves slowly. There is so much sky, and it’s blue.

  The house is the same. The patchy brown carpet. The dodgy floorboard near the fridge. The grumpy old dog.

  No one knows how to act. It is not the same happy chatter of a holiday return. My siblings talk very quietly, as if I’ve been ill.

  I am told that my bedroom is no longer the room at the front. That’s my brother’s room now. I’m to have the one off the kitchen with the slant ceiling and lavender wallpaper.

  “You have a new school too,” says my mother. “Burnside High.”

  “But that’s miles away.”

  “You can bike.”

  Then she gives me a hug. “It’s good to see you’ve turned over a new leaf.”

  Later when I go to bed. It is cold and quiet. I long for a tropical breeze and the hum of traffic.

  When l wake up, I am lying at the wrong end of the bed.

  *

  I am cautious, feeling my way, learning to walk again. I ride my bike all the way from Somerfield to Burnside High and back every day. I listen to my walkman to pass the time on the long journey. I have graduated from Tears for Fears to Pink Floyd and can soon recite The Wall by heart.

  I am placed in the fourth form. I do not understand what they are teaching because it is near the end of the school year. Everyone has already made friends so I go it alone. I walk to the outer fields at lunch time and lie on my back with an arm over my face and think of Rome or Greece or Israel. I think of Chung Si and You’re the Greatest Charlie Brown. I think of Celia and the gold necklace but most of all, I think about my father not saying goodbye.

  *

  Fleur is still at Cashmere High. I wonder if her, Belinda and Kerry are still friends. I am not allowed to contact any of them but call Fleur anyway.

  “Did you get my letters?”

  “I'm not supposed to talk to you.”

  “I know.”

  She pauses. “What was it like?”

  “Horrible.”

  “I thought you were never coming back.”

  We fall silent. I am not sure what else to say, so try –

  “Do you want to meet up?”

  She hesitates.

  “Fleur? Are you there?”

  “Better not.”

  She gasps “Mum’s coming” then slams down the phone.

  *

  There is a boy in my class. His name is Ryan. He sits in the back row and stares out the window. His father died of cancer last year.

  His eyes are like undiscovered caves.

  *

  In class one day, I am sitting next to Tracey Billingham. She tells me her mother grounded her for a week just because she got in a car with a group of boys she didn’t know.

  “She’s such a cow.”

  “I hate my father too,” I say.

  Then I shut my mouth because I see that one desk over Ryan has heard. He looks at me, then turns back to the window to watch a blackbird on the sacred grass pull a worm from the mud.

  *

  My sister wants me to be one of her bridesmaids but I would rather not. I don’t even get to pick the dress or the fabric. My Nana is a seamstress and she will make the bridesmaids' dresses even though her knuckles are arthritic boulders.

  I go to her two bedroom flat for a fitting. I have stayed here before, during the school holidays when I was young. Nana would take me to the ballet or movies like Annie – The Musical, and make me tomatoes on toast for breakfast with an orange cut into perfect segments on the side.

  I would stay in the spare room with the shag pile carpet that my Pop raked everyday to make sure all the threads ran the same way. That was before he got Alzheimers and went to live in the home. He sometimes escapes from the home and they find wandering up Barrington Street heading for the flat. Once my Nana came home to find him the garden watering the roses in his pyjamas.

  “How are you settling in?” she says, marking out sleeves with white tailor’s chalk.

  “Alright.”

  “Are you making friends?”

  I shrug.

  “Won’t be long before you’ve finished school. Remember – learn a trade, like your mother, that will stand you in good stead.”

  “I don’t want to be a hairdresser.”

  She stands back to stare at the marks she has made.

  “You could go to university, be a lawyer, like your father.”

  “I don’t want to be anything like my father.”

  *

  One of the boys called Tahu brings a slide of a crime scene to form room before the teacher arrives. He holds the tiny square up to the light. The man has shot himself through the roof of his mouth and blown off his head. It looks like a flower.

  The maths teacher, Mrs Huff, is a bitch. She rolls her eyes when I give the wrong answers. We have arguments in front of the class. After awhile, I do not do any work in Maths anymore. I cut the back of my hand with a broken scissor blade instead. Soon there are little slashes and everyone is asking what I have done to my hand.

  English is ok. I write a poem and get a good mark. But when I write a story about a Chinese Fisherman I get a D because we were supposed to write about a time when we were embarrassed.

  Everyday I pass the school counsellor’s office. I wonder who goes in there and what they talk about. I would like to go in; maybe it would solve all my problems, but the counsellor is a weirdo. He is a tall, thin man who is always smiling. No normal person would smile if they had to listen to people’s problems all day long. His name is Mr Cosco. Mr Cosco doesn’t look like he knows anything about having a hard time so I never go in.

  Twenty-Nine

  ONE MONDAY I wake up, put on my school uniform, get on my bike, but stop when I get to the park at the end of my street. I hide near the rugby clubrooms and wait for my mother to go to work. When I see her drive off, I bike home, get into bed and go to sleep.

  I do this day after day. One time I am waiting in the park and a lady comes over and pulls out a little note book.

  “You should be in school.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “Tell me your name, girl, so I can write it down.”

  “Mickey Mouse.”

  “If you don’t give me your name, I will report you.”

  “Go ahead, busybody,” I say.

  She snorts through her nose and walks off in a huff. I decide to change
my waiting place to the graveyard where I have an unobstructed view of approaching informers.

  *

  I learn that my father is coming to visit at Easter. I have not spoken to him in the seven months since I left Hong Kong.

  “I don’t want to see him,” I say to my mother.

  “Don’t be silly,” she says.

  He stays at Aunty Brenda’s. When he comes around in the Anglia, he pretends everything is normal. He makes a joke but I do not laugh and shut myself in my bedroom instead.

  “She’s in one of her moods,” I hear my mother say.

  Through the wall in the lounge, they unwrap their presents and eat fish and chips.

  One morning he asks me and my little brother if we want to go to Akaroa.

  “No,” I say.

  “Can I bring a friend then?” says my brother.

  So my father takes Nip instead. His real name is Andrew but his Dad calls him Nip because he’s half Japanese. They are very poor and Nip must buy his underpants from garage sales.

  My father and the boys come back late in the afternoon, tired but happy. Nip has a new baseball cap and a big bag of lollies.

  “We went on the boat and saw the dolphins,” says Nip.

  “You would have enjoyed it,” says my father.

  “I don’t think so.”

  *

  On the second to last night he is there, my father comes over to watch me and my brother because my mother and stepfather go out. He lights the fire and settles back with a vodka and coke as if he’s home. When my little brother goes to bed my father changes the channel to watch the late night news.

  “I don’t want to watch the news,” I say.

  “Too bad.”

  “This isn’t your house.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then don’t act like it is.”

  “Go to bed if you’re going to be cheeky.”

  He takes a pull of his drink.

  “You can’t even go without for one night,” I say.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you, girlie.”

  I look at the offending bottle, sitting on our coffee table that’s seen better days, atop a crochet doily, near the little dish of stale potpourri. I have lived for years with this bottle and its aluminum cap and red label and the regal and stately fluted writing and partially frosted glass and Pure Smirnnoff inscription etched into the thick neck and the stinking petrol-like smell that pulls at my gut. What’s inside the bottle looks like water, harmless water, but it’s not. In the wrong hands, it is acid.