by S. L. Lim
She said, ‘Money is important, you know. You shouldn’t underestimate how important it is. It’s like oxygen – you never notice it until it’s gone. I’m not saying they’re right, but your parents do have a point when they say that you need to think things through. I think you’re doing the right thing, but you must be careful. You are lucky to have the financial scope for your … ambitions.’
Kat rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, really lucky. No, I know you think that I’m totally spoilt. A total spoilt brat. You grew up in a two-room hovel and worked in a shop for a million hours, or something like that. Mum’s told me all about it. You’re, like, her hero. She’s always comparing me to you.’
‘Really? I don’t know about that. Your mother may be exaggerating.’
‘I don’t think she is.’ Kat abruptly showed dimples, a smile that pierced Yannie with calculated charm. ‘And yeah, I know that you’ve done a lot of stuff in your life. Like, I admire you too.’
Yannie smiled in spite of herself. ‘That’s very flattering, Kat. I never knew your mother thought that way.’
‘Oh, she does. Trust me, she does. She rubs it in my face every chance she gets. I mean, I’m not saying it isn’t true. I know that I’ve always been really lucky. Doesn’t mean I like hearing about it, you know? I mean, it’s not my fault. I didn’t choose to be rich. I just want to do the best that I can with what I’ve been given.’
‘That’s a good ambition.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What does doing the best that you can with your life entail?’
Kat looked out the window and was silent for a time. ‘I want to make beautiful things,’ she said at last. ‘Is that totally ridiculous?’
‘No, of course it’s not. There’s nothing ridiculous about that.’
‘Why is everyone giving me shit about it, then?’ She didn’t wait for Yannie to give an answer. ‘Yeah, whatever, I know that I’m spoilt, blah, blah, blah. But you know, lots of cool people in history were spoilt, too. Like Graham Greene, the author? His family totally owned slaves.’
‘His immediate family? I didn’t know that. I don’t think he personally owned any, though.’
‘No, of course he didn’t, but that’s not the point. He inherited some of the cash, that’s how he got the time to do what he wanted. Same with George Orwell.’ Kat pulled the doona up over her legs. ‘Oh, well. I guess you might be a better artist if you were starving in the gutter or something.’
‘I don’t think you would enjoy starving,’ Yannie said.
‘Yeah, whatever. I just want to do my drawings, you know? I don’t need all of this stuff.’ Kat waved her wrist in a vague circle, encompassing the room, the purple bedspread, little tubes of essential and inessential oils oozing herbal fragrances on the table. ‘It’s nice, you know, but I was just thinking the other day – even if I never get a husband, and my own house, and kids, and all that, I don’t think I’d really even mind. I just need my art.’
Yannie tried to keep her face blank. ‘It’s admirable that you think in this way, Kat. It shows that you’ve got character. Still, as I said, your parents have a point. Even if you know things intellectually, it’s hard to explain what it’s like to not have any money. It’s not just about food and water and clothes, although those things are important.’ She hesitated. How to convey in the abstract what it means to live with deprivation? Easier to explain colours to a blind person, or to describe the sensation of cold to a person who has never felt it before. ‘The thing you have to try and understand is, it isn’t dramatic. It’s not this big tragedy that hits you all at once, and then it’s all over – although it can be a tragedy, don’t get me wrong about that. There are lots of smaller aspects, every single day. They sort of crowd in on you, and don’t leave room for anything else.’ A conveyor belt of constant minor indignities. The excuses you devise to miss breakfast with your friend, even though in her eyes the cafe is reasonably priced. Your shoes spring a leak, which you try unsuccessfully to fix at home: do you get new leather ones, or the affordable plastics which compress your toes and give you shooting pains in your right ankle? Repeat, with minor variation, over and over again for the next thirty years. Your mind yearns towards the beautiful, the complex and intangible, but is drawn ceaselessly down towards the pedestrian and mundane. Everything that happens, you see through the filter of your own physical and financial needs. Can you fix the washing machine by yourself, or will you have to call somebody in? And in the meantime you’ll need to handwash your clothes, and will they be crumpled, and what if they aren’t dry in time to get to work tomorrow? Hour by hour, this is just a series of logistical problems – it seems tolerable enough. But when you try to look back on the days, the weeks, the months that have accrued to you over the years, there are tracts of time which have fallen completely from your memory. You can see the constituent parts of your life accurately, if you really must, but you can’t bear to see it whole. And if by chance you should accidentally look at it, this terrible divergence of what you had hoped for and what you have lived, you can’t help but shrink away in horror. Not because your life is frightening or foul but because it is so very comprehensible. There’s no mystery to it at all.
Kat said slowly, ‘I sort of see. Do you mean that when you’re poor you just give up? Like, you run out of energy to try and do anything special?’
‘No, it isn’t as clear-cut as that … I don’t really know what I mean. Look, Kat, I’m not trying to boss you around. I can’t tell you what to do – there are many things I don’t understand about your life and the choices you can make these days. But if you want my advice, this is it: don’t fall out with your family so easily. It isn’t so simple to look after yourself, even though it might be exciting at the start. You’ll be able to survive, I’m sure of it – but you’ll have to do a lot of things that you don’t want to, and you won’t have much time for all the other things you care about, or that you’re interested in. So if you can find a way to compromise with your parents, it will make things so much easier.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, I guess. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’ Kat raised her hands over her face and turned towards the wall, hiding her expression. ‘It’s not even relevant, anyway. ’Cos I know I’m not gonna be like you.’ She put her hands down and looked straight at Yannie. ‘Hey, I have an idea. Do you want to see my drawings?’
Without waiting for an answer, Kat jumped off the bed and reached underneath. Yannie admired the easy grace of her motions, the way the young limbs bent and folded effortlessly in upon themselves. Kat drew out what appeared to be a stack of pages, backed by stiff cardboard and tied together with brown twine in a looped ribbon that was fraying at the edges. She undid the string and laid the pages on the bed, gesturing for Yannie to leaf through them.
The first thing Yannie thought was that the drawings were much better than what she herself could do. This was not a trivial observation. Yannie had never had much interest in or opportunity to think about art; lacking any other frame of reference, she tended to judge it by how complicated it looked rather than with a more nuanced idea of its quality. The drawings were mostly done in ink and featured great masses of flowing lines curling in on each other. The subject was almost invariably a young woman, surrounded by whorls of hair and various more ambiguous shapes and images. Typically, she did not look directly at the viewer, but gazed off into the middle distance. Her expression could be taken to imply deep contemplation, although there was a certain blankness and inwardness about her; it was hard to imagine anything specific she might have been thinking about. The droop of the eyelids, the curve of the lips: it was clear that this figure was meant to be unhappy, but for some reason Yannie did not feel moved. The woman in the picture seemed so aware of being looked at. Or maybe it was just that she was beautiful: swirling masses of hair, the perfect curl of the eyelash on the eye closer to the viewer. You could imagine her crying, but there would be no snot, no facial puffiness, no fluids. No doubt the sorrow depicted in the pictures
was sincere. (She had no reason to think otherwise). But she could not associate it to anything. It bore no resemblance to any part of her own life.
Kat, watching her carefully, said: ‘What do you think?’
Yannie said cautiously: ‘I think they’re very pretty and very complicated and they must have taken you a lot of time.’
‘Yeah, I bet you do.’ Kat cocked her head. ‘You hate them, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But you thought it. Don’t worry, I can tell. So I’m a parasite with no talent. That’s what everyone in this house thinks, apparently.’
‘Kat, you’re not listening to me! I didn’t say that I was any kind of expert. I didn’t even criticise your pictures. I have trouble understanding them, that’s all.’
‘No, but you don’t like any of them, do you?’ Kat stabbed a finger in the air. ‘Come on, don’t lie.’
‘Well, it’s just …’ Immediately as she embarked on the sentence, Yannie felt the inadvisability of continuing. ‘Look, of course I have opinions. But they don’t matter, you shouldn’t listen to me at all. I don’t know how to think, I don’t have a proper education the way you do. There was no internet when I was young. There are many things I was never taught, never even heard of at school, which you know all about. So when you ask me a question, it’s hard for me to answer, because I don’t have any basis … I don’t have any way of judging what I see, other than my feelings. And what I feel about your pictures is … they’re nice, they’re clever. It’s nice to look at, what you’ve done. It reminds me an advertisement – very professional-looking,’ she added, relieved to find something positive to say which was nonetheless honest.
‘Yeah, I hear you. You don’t have to pretend to be polite.’ Kat fiddled with the twine. ‘I guess I suck, then. I guess it’s all a waste of time. I mean, I’m not even saying I disagree with you.’
‘Kat, I didn’t say … You have to try and stay calm –’
‘Don’t tell me that!’ For the first time since they had gone into the bedroom, Kat raised her voice. ‘That’s what everyone is always telling me around here. Everyone is always, like, be quiet, be mature, blah, blah, blah, blah. You’re all such total hypocrites – look at Ma, she gets to hit me in the face, is that mature? And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my dad is a fucking psychopath. And now you think my art sucks. What would you even know? You said yourself, you don’t even have an education. Leave me alone,’ Kat said, rolling back onto the bed and pulling a pillow against her eyes. ‘I just can’t be fucked anymore.’
6
Say What You Mean
Yannie went back to her own room. She lay down slowly on the bed, pressing her face against the mattress. She was angry with Kat: enraged by her complacency, her self-regarding angst, the way she could throw out words with the potential to detonate and then forget about them seconds later. It did not occur to Yannie to feel sympathy for her. Nor was she especially critical of Evelyn for having struck her daughter in the face. During her own childhood, the entitlement of parents – mothers, specifically – to hit their children had gone utterly unquestioned. It wasn’t that you thought it was right, when it happened – or wrong, for that matter – it was just what you expected from life. And in spite of her tears Kat seemed so robust, so very much alive, that Yannie had trouble regarding her as a victim.
The doorbell rang. Yannie instinctively knew, from her months of immersion in the household, that nobody else was going to answer it. Evelyn was too distraught, Kat too embarrassed about her puffy eyes, and Shan was too lazy. Time to make myself useful, she thought. She made her way down the corridor.
The sight of the face out of context jolted her for a moment. It was as if she’d had a mini-stroke – she knew that she had known him for most of her life, but not where she knew him from. Then the blankness dissipated. It was Jun.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Hello. Oh no, you did tell me you were coming, didn’t you? I completely forgot.’ And so she had.
Jun smiled at her. It was a lovely smile – as if merely the sight of her opened up vistas of unrealised possibilities. ‘Hello, Yannie! Did you forget about our appointment? Doesn’t matter – it makes it a surprise!’ On the word surprise, he beamed even more.
‘I see. Well, I’m very surprised. Jun – it’s good to see you.’ They stared at each other – then, after an awkward moment, embraced. Oddly enough, this felt quite natural, although she and Jun had never been physically demonstrative. Yannie lowered her voice. ‘I’m very glad you’ve come, Jun, especially now. You don’t know how it is for me in this house. They’re all one big happy family, until they’re not. Then they all start shouting at each other, and I’m stuck on the inside, and I don’t know where to go. I like my sister-in-law – Evelyn – she’s been kind to me. But I need to speak to someone from outside this house or I’ll go insane.’
Jun looked at her with understanding. ‘Come with me,’ he said, motioning at a black Toyota parked outside. ‘I have my sister’s car. We can go for coffee.’
They drove for a while through the suburban streets, Yannie looking at them anew through Jun’s eyes: how green and orderly they were, how universally familiar (powerlines, asphalt, houses) and yet how foreign, too. She talked and talked, and once the dam was broken, found herself unable to stop. ‘It’s like I have a mental illness – like I’m developing claustrophobia. It’s like this: in their family they all have their own rules, their own way of speaking. They can say one thing, but really, they’re talking about something else. Sometimes they fight, and I’m right beside them, and I don’t even know about it until later. The daughter, Kat – she’s only sixteen, but she knows so much, and she can be very cynical, it’s frightening how many facts she has in that brain of hers. We weren’t like that at her age, we didn’t know anything. And I have to be grateful to them all the time, because they are supporting me – I know it’s my fault, I made a choice to stay here, and I can go back if I want to. But I can’t – I just want the chance to live like they do for a little longer.’
Jun’s brow furrowed. For a moment, she thought he would respond to what she had said. Then he let out a little laugh. ‘We all feel funny sometimes.’ he said. ‘We all sometimes feel cooped up. It’s natural for that to happen, when you have been staying in one place for a long time. Just human nature. Sometimes we all must take a little break.’
Yannie fought back her irritation. ‘That’s not what I meant, Jun. That is not what I said at all.’
‘Ah, well. Family life! Family feud! Just like on the TV.’ Jun laughed again. ‘It must be nice for you to be back together. Here, there is a slot. Good timing.’ They slid diagonally into a parking space. ‘My sister says the coffee here is nice. Very aromatic, she says. Here, I will take you for a treat.’
They sat by the window, spooning the froth from the tops of their coffees. It was aromatic, as Jun had said, although Yannie thought she still preferred the pulled condensed milk tea they had back home. This coffee was too bitter. Jun kept on chattering. ‘It’s so wonderful to reconnect with your brother after all these years. When Shan and I were in school, we had some funny jokes together. Seeing him now, it is just like a trip down memory lane. I used to think that people are like durians – as the years pass, you take the skin off and you reveal a completely different person. Now I think we are carrots – the skin and the body underneath are the same colour. That is how it is with me and Shan. Now we are old men, but we still have the same personality from when we were young!’
Yannie turned the imaginary fruit bowl over in her mind. ‘Jun, that doesn’t make sense.’
‘Ah, you think that now. But one day, you will see!’
‘OK, well then, maybe I will.’ It wasn’t worth fighting over. ‘So I take it that you’ve already met with Shan?’
‘Yes, I have. I saw him yesterday evening. I sent him an email, and he replied straight away and said we must catch up.’ Yannie nodded absent-mindedly in agreement. �
��As you know, he is working very hard on his business. That’s one thing which your family has in common. All of you have such a strong work ethic!’
‘Mmm. Well, I’m not doing much at the moment. Just tutoring the daughter, who is very bright – I don’t know if I’m adding much in this case. I thought I liked living here with my sister-in-law at first, but now I don’t know – maybe it’s just stress. But I’m not ready to go home …’ She passed a hand across her eyes. ‘Jun, it’s very strange, I feel so disoriented. You know, there was a big fight, a big blow-up between Kat and her mother. You would think, look at her clothes! Look at her school! What does a girl like that have to complain about? But I see her position, and I feel a lot of sympathy for her. Even though she has always had everything, and we don’t … Jun, I don’t know how to talk to people anymore. When I speak to Evelyn and Kat, I have to translate certain things compared to the way we see them back home. But now that I’m talking to you, I have to translate the way that I am coming to see things now – I don’t know what I think – I don’t even know how to think anymore.’
Jun grinned widely. ‘What do you mean, you need to translate to talk to me? I understand everything!’ He laughed to show it was a joke. ‘You have always been strange, Yannie. Too many books – it means I cannot keep up with you. But if I may offer you some advice, it is best not to think too hard. It distracts you from real life. Our parents never ruminated, they just had to survive – but in some ways, this was good for them. Otherwise you get caught up, you end up going round and round in circles.’
‘But Jun, the last thing I want to do is end up like our parents.’
‘Well, that is the power of genetics. It comes to all of us in the end.’ She thought Jun was about to wink, and felt with irrational urgency that she needed to do whatever it took to prevent this from happening. ‘Either way, whatever has happened, you are all still family. Blood is thicker than water, remember.’
