Tiger Daughter Page 5

  He calls again half an hour later, when Mum is still not home, and this time he threatens to drive home to check on her, even though his shift at Hai Tong Tai has only just started and he’ll get in all sorts of trouble if he leaves. I tell him she’s sleeping now, and that I’ll get her to call as soon as she wakes up.

  ‘What about your dinner?’ he barks and I reply quietly, ‘She made it earlier today, like she always does, because she’s prepared, and a good mother.’

  I pause, thinking about Fay Xiao and all the things people said about her before she died, and were still saying about her now that she was dead. I take a deep breath. ‘We’ll eat together as soon as Mum …’ I almost say gets back but say instead, ‘gets out of bed.’

  I hear shouting in Cantonese in the distance, and Dad abruptly slams down the phone.

  When he calls yet again, another precise half-hour later, I’m feeling desperate. There’s no more clever left in the tank.

  ‘Wake her for me!’ Dad’s voice is brusque. ‘I need to talk to her. If it’s serious, I need to take her to hospital. To see a doctor.’ The emphasis on that last word is bitter, as if he’d actually said real doctor instead of just doctor.

  Having burned off the medical side of himself, Dad never tries to treat any of us anymore. I have no opinions on health matters in any shape or form, he says brusquely, when I try to ask him about a cut, or a sore throat. I’m not ‘appropriately qualified’. When Dad failed the specialist pathway exams the fourth time, I think he threw away all his textbooks and medical equipment in a fit of boiling fury, or maybe he built a bonfire with them and watched them burn down to ashes too. But deep down, he’s still a man of science, and I can tell he’s worried. It’s so out of character for Mum to be sick, or asleep any time before he gets home instead of waiting anxiously for him to return, that I know my cover story is about to fall apart.

  ‘I … uh,’ I reply.

  ‘Wake her up,’ Dad insists. ‘I want to talk to her now, Wen.’

  I put the receiver down on the table and actually walk to the front of the house and pull the curtains aside and look through the windows. I even slam a few doors and open a few drawers loudly near the receiver before I pick it up again.

  ‘She’s in the bathroom again,’ I say bravely. ‘She’ll call you back as soon as she’s out.’

  ‘She can’t do that, you silly girl,’ – Dad’s voice is the iciest I’ve ever heard it – ‘because I’m in the middle of the busiest shift we’ve had this week. Get her now.’

  I almost jump out of my skin – I actually drop the receiver on the kitchen bench with a bang – when Mum walks through the kitchen door with a questioning look as I’m standing there, panicking. I point hurriedly at my tummy, and my forehead, as she runs forward, seeing my stricken expression. She sets her shiny black handbag down on a benchtop and picks up the phone.

  A whole range of emotions flashes across her face as Dad shouts at her down the phone like he’s not a person but a machine gun with words for bullets. I’m still standing there pointing at my tummy and making eating-with-a-spoon gestures in front of my face, pretending to retch, as Mum replies calmly, ‘Yes, yes, much better,’ and ‘No, no, I don’t need to see a doctor – it seems to have passed. The nap?’ She looks at me questioningly. ‘It did me a lot of good. I feel almost myself again.’

  After she puts down the phone we stare at each other for a long moment, caught out in a shared act of subterfuge, or self-protection, maybe our first ever. Then Mum seems to give herself a mental shake, moves her handbag to a kitchen chair, takes off her red jacket – looking more crumpled and stained than it ever has before – and straps on her black apron.

  ‘Get the packet of lā miàn from the refrigerator,’ she says as she turns up the burner flame on the soup she’s been brewing all day, taking out a separate pot to boil the noodles in.

  Mum is very quiet as we walk towards Henry’s house after dinner. When we get there, it’s a lot later than the time we stopped at the Xiaos’ house yesterday. Mum says fretfully, ‘I hope they haven’t already eaten. Ring the bell, Wen.’

  I ring the bell and nothing happens for a while, so I ring it again. Standing there, on the dark front porch, Mum and I wonder if anyone will even come to the door today.

  I know the set of three steel food carriers Mum is holding is heavy. She hasn’t just made dinner for Henry, she’s made enough for his father too.

  In the bottom tier of the carrier is the rich broth Mum has made from the gǒu qǐ or goji berries, lotus root, carrots, mushrooms, dried longan, dried scallops and fresh chicken. She even added a handful of dried white fungus for nourishment and for clearing the lungs, she said. In the second tier is the boneless chicken meat she shredded for them, together with the other ingredients. And in the top tier are the glistening white noodles, or lā miàn, that Mum boiled for less than two minutes, so that they won’t be too soft to eat when the hot broth is added to them.

  I’m about to press the doorbell one more time when the light over the front step snaps on. The wooden front door behind the security door opens and a faint bit of light streams out around the slightly bent figure of a man watching us from behind the wire mesh.

  ‘Zhou Tài tài,’ the man says heavily. Mrs Zhou.

  Dad once explained to me that Tài tài is an honorific that means ‘rich lady who does not work’ because no one would consider housework and raising children actual work. It’s just what women do, Dad had added, snapping his newspaper open.

  I remember, quite distinctly, thinking to myself, Well, no one’s ever going to call me Tài tài, if that’s what it means.

  ‘Wen,’ Henry’s dad adds politely but warily, still not opening the screen door, just studying us through it.

  Mum addresses him in formal Mandarin. ‘Mr Xiao,’ she says in a rush. ‘Apologies for our rude intrusion, but would you take the trouble to eat the dinner we have prepared for you? It is not what you are used to, it is very plain and ordinary, but we would be grateful if you would at least try some. And Henry. Wen says it is important that he keeps his strength up. For study.’ She lifts her burden of cooked food a little higher so that Henry’s dad is forced to look at it, through the wire door.

  ‘I’m not sure if study is what is harming Henry, or keeping him from harm,’ Mr Xiao rasps in reply. ‘He will not eat. He will not sleep. He will not leave his bedroom. The only food he has taken for the last two days was the piece of fish you kindly left him yesterday.’

  ‘There’s an entrance exam,’ I remind the dark silhouette through the wire, afraid that Henry’s dad will shut the door before I can make him understand how important it is. ‘It’s just over a week from now. If Henry wins that place, Mr Xiao, anything is possible. The best education, but for hardly any money. Our teacher, Miss Spencer, says that Henry can get in, that that school will give him wings. Did you know that he wants to build aeroplanes one day … ?’

  ‘Ahhh,’ Mr Xiao murmurs when I falter to a stop. ‘I had forgotten the exam. Henry and I never talk much, you know. He is like me, not very talkative and now …’ I hear the deep sadness in his voice.

  Beside me, Mum hefts the steel food carriers a little higher, her thin arms straining with the weight of the rapidly cooling food.

  Mr Xiao finally unlocks the screen door and opens it a fraction, not wide enough that we can see all of him, although what we can see of his face and person is pretty bad. He looks very pale, unshaven, his short, salt-and-pepper hair uncombed and standing on end, wearing a stained T-shirt and trousers as if he’s come straight from the market, although it’s almost bedtime.

  ‘Hot broth,’ Mum explains quickly as she urges Henry’s dad to take the steel food carriers from her. ‘A bit of meat, vegetable, noodles, all healthy things. Put all the food in a bowl for you, a bowl for Henry, and pour the broth over the top. But it must be very hot,’ she adds. ‘And tell Henry to drink all of it – the soup is very good for you, very nourishing. I made it especially for him, because he is growing.’

  Mr Xiao takes the carriers from Mum, and I see her shoulders droop slightly in relief. She hadn’t expected him to take them. Everyone knows that the Xiaos are very poor, but also that they are very proud; though not in a bad or boastful way. They’ve just never asked anyone for help, even though Fay Xiao was clearly struggling, Mr Xiao can’t afford to buy a car and drives his second cousin’s vegetable delivery truck everywhere, and Henry’s always looked like a gust of wind will blow him away.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Zhou,’ Mr Xiao says quietly. ‘We will not forget your kindness, Henry and I.’ His grip on the food carriers is awkward as he holds the screen door open with just his foot. ‘Henry did mention before my wife, before Mrs Xiao …’ He doesn’t finish the sentence, but starts another one. ‘Henry did mention that you’re sitting the exam together, Wen. I’d be honoured to take you both to the school on the day of the exam. It will save your parents the long drive.’

  I go instantly hot, not daring to look at my mother beside me.

  Mr Xiao turns away and locks the security door once more, murmuring through the wire, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ before shutting the wooden door. The light over the front porch snaps off.

  Mum turns to me slowly in the dark, wide-eyed. ‘What entrance exam?’

  PART TWO

  Meng Yi Tzu asked about being filial. The Master answered, ‘Never fail to comply.’

  — Confucius, The Analects, Book II, 5

  Tzu-chang asked about the way of the good man.

  The Master said, ‘Such a man does not follow in other people’s footsteps.’

  — Confucius, The Analects, Book XI, 20

  CHAPTER 6

  THE RIGHT PATH

  When Mum and I reach Henry’s house on Saturday
after my morning sessions of Chinese school and extra maths tuition, the set of steel food containers is there on the porch, washed and dried and smelling of lemons. But the envelope of homework from Miss Spencer isn’t, and when I look around for it, even poking around in the bushes out the front of Henry’s house in case it’s blown away, Mum murmurs, ‘Even Henry deserves a rest on Saturday, Wen. Leave it now.’

  ‘He’d better not be giving up,’ I mutter in reply as we walk away with the set of food carriers. Mum doesn’t reply. After I’d told her about the entrance exam on our walk home from the Xiaos’ house last night, about how Miss Spencer thought we might even have a chance, she’d been very quiet. As we’d reached our driveway all she’d said was, ‘He will never let you go.’ But she hadn’t said No to the idea completely, and that gave me hope.

  When we pass the open door of Mrs Xenakis’s pharmacy, she waves at us while she’s serving a customer. I see that she notices the set of steel food containers in Mum’s hands, because her eyes narrow briefly in thought before she laughs at something the woman says, and turns away to ring up the purchase.

  After we’ve arrived home and eaten a quick lunch of egg noodles fried with strips of pork, fresh garlic chives and dried black mushrooms, Mum sets about making dinner for us, but also for Henry and his dad. She prepares a hearty stew out of chunks of beef brisket, carrots, turnips, onion and potatoes that she simmers all afternoon until the gravy is thick and shiny; flavoured with things like mushroom soy, shào xīng wine, garlic cloves, ginger and star anise. Before we sit down to eat our own dinner, we walk back to Henry’s house and leave a big saucepan of stew for them, together with more rice than two people can possibly eat. No one comes to the door when we ring the bell, and there’s still no envelope of finished homework on the front step. The Xiaos’ house looks even smaller and meaner in the late afternoon sunshine as Mum and I walk away from it, empty-handed.

  On Sunday, when Mum and I drop by in the afternoon with a large earthenware pot filled to the brim with pork belly braised with finger eggplant and seasoned with garlic, chilli, spring onions and chunks of dried salted fish, together with another huge serving of rice, we are met with the two saucepans we left the day before, carefully washed and dried. The envelope of homework from Miss Spencer is there this time, sitting under the saucepans. Like the envelope before it, all the worksheets inside are carefully completed.

  After I’ve slid all the papers back inside with a feeling of relief that Henry is still on track, still focused on the dream, Mum turns the envelope over gently in my hands and says quietly, ‘Henry has left you some homework of your own. Make sure you do it properly, Wen.’

  In red pencil, on the back of the envelope, he’s written out four long division maths equations. My heart sinks. I know I’m supposed to have them done by the end of Monday, to slip back under the front door after school for Henry to correct. It will take me most of lunchtime tomorrow to get through them, because long division is the worst. To do long division you have to know all your times tables, and I’m not sure that I do. I like to think that I’m affected by selective times tables amnesia. Even with all the extra worksheets Miss Spencer has been giving me, and Saturday tuition, maths is like wading through quicksand. If I flap around too much, I feel like I’m drowning. If I attempt it slowly, I still feel like I’m drowning.

  As we turn the corner to go home holding Henry’s homework and the clean saucepans, Mrs Xenakis shoots out of the pharmacy in her white lab coat, standing right between us and the corner so that we have to stop walking. I’m conscious that Mum and I are each holding a piece of cookware, in the street, in broad daylight, because an elderly woman with a shopping trolley turns to stare at the three of us as she passes. Mrs Xenakis tries very hard not to stare at the saucepans and is very friendly, but determined. She asks if Mum can stop by the pharmacy on the way home from school on Monday afternoon.

  Mum’s expression is immediately wary.

  ‘Say, 3.45pm?’ Mrs Xenakis adds quickly. ‘It won’t take long. Just a small, quick favour.’

  Mum, surprised, nods slowly. She likes Mrs Xenakis, who is one of the few English-speaking shopkeepers in the local shopping strip that Mum doesn’t feel uncomfortable talking to. A lot of the others treat Mum as if she’s slow or hard of hearing, even though Mum is as quick as a bird.

  That afternoon, when Dad rings home to check on us, I notice that Mum doesn’t mention the small, quick favour at all, although I hear her deny that there is anything wrong, that she’s just tired, more than once.

  When I reach my locker on Monday morning, Nikki, rocking a denim onesie under her school sweatshirt, with her beautiful braids pulled into a low side pony, and Fatima, who’s wearing a pretty dark-red headscarf today with a sparkly border over her usual school sweatshirt and jeans, are standing there smiling. Nikki is holding a navy sports bag in a thin shiny fabric, the kind you buy from a two-dollar shop that can fold back up into a tiny purse. ‘Miss Spencer mentioned that you and your mum are bringing Henry food and homework, which is amazing,’ Nikki says.

  ‘Not the homework,’ Fatima laughs, elbowing her. ‘The homework’s not amazing.’

  Nikki shoots her a look that says, Can we be serious for a moment here, please? ‘My mum,’ she continues, holding the bag out to me, ‘heard about Henry and wanted to help.’ She shakes the end of her ponytail of fine braids off her shoulder and looks at me squarely.

  ‘We all want to help,’ Fatima says, not laughing anymore. ‘But as you guys have the food part covered—’

  ‘And we weren’t sure if Henry likes South Sudanese food,’ Nikki interjects.

  ‘Or North Sudanese food,’ Fatima adds, ‘or has even tried it, our mums, and some of the other mums, thought that Henry might need, like, things, you know?’ Fatima’s voice is sombre. ‘Like clothes. It’s getting cold. So we did a small collection.’

  My eyes drop to the navy sports bag as Nikki unzips it and Fatima rifles around inside, showing me what’s in there, the five thin gold bracelets on her wrist jingling.

  ‘Some trousers,’ she says, and we all glance at each other, thinking of Henry’s painfully exposed ankles.

  ‘Two warm jumpers,’ Fatima continues, ‘because it’s really starting to get cold.’

  ‘Some T-shirts,’ Nikki adds. ‘Because maybe his dad isn’t doing much laundry at the moment?’

  ‘Loads of socks, but no shoes,’ Fatima says apologetically, ‘because we weren’t sure what size Henry’s feet are. But we can get some, if you can find out? My uncle has a shoe shop.’ She zips the bag back up. ‘It’s no trouble. We’ve already worded him up and he said Henry can have his pick of the store, any colour, any style, he just has to go in and choose.’

  They help me jam my backpack and the shiny sports bag into my locker and we walk into the classroom together, all smiling, but also feeling a bit like we want to cry. None of us can imagine how it would feel to be Henry right now. Not with our mums at home, doing mum stuff, the way they always do, day in, day out.

  Miss Spencer sees us come in together and smiles, holding her hand out for Henry’s work. I slide all the worksheets out carefully and return them to her, saying, ‘I’ll give you back the envelope at the end of the day, if that’s okay? Henry’s left me some maths exercises.’ I turn the envelope over and show her the four maths problems in red pencil.

  ‘Answer them carefully, Wen,’ she laughs. ‘But in a way that will keep Henry “talking”!’

  And we grin at each other in understanding, before I take my seat between Nikki and Fatima, who’ve saved me a spot.

  At lunchtime, everyone is out on the dusty oval or hanging around near the climbing frames and outdoor gym equipment under the bedraggled eucalyptus trees – everyone except me. I’m in the library surrounded by this week’s usual book display of girls with long flowing golden hair in colourful ballgowns, or the headless torsos of girls with long flowing golden hair in colourful ballgowns, trying to work my way through the long division questions as quickly as possible so that I can go out and sit in the thin sunshine with my friends.

  How do I answer Henry’s questions in a way that will keep Henry ‘talking’? To me and to Miss Spencer?