The way was becoming familiar. Even in the dark, I could navigate the thirteen steps to the sanitary room, though it took a little more effort in high heels.
The place was eerily quiet without any workers. I walked over to the sink and set about refreshing my make-up. The mascara had smudged, my white skin was blotchy. I washed it away then re-applied the whitener, concentrating on my dimples. White, said the beautician, was the desirable colour for women who wanted to look beautiful: Western white, the shade of a garlic skin. I re-curled my lashes, freshened the eye shadow and softened my lips with gloss. It glided on easy as a silk ch’ang-p’ao.
Already three o’clock. My feet hurried down the corridor into circuitry. A green light flashed above the pipework. I could have sworn it tracked me down the line, but I was distracted by a sudden movement in the bureau. It was him! I recognised his outline and the ruffled look of his hair. I teetered up the staircase, my knees wavering like willow. He sat hunched over his desk.
I expected him to tell me I was late, to point at his watch, to sigh, to set about shuffling his papers, but there was a silence between us that made my throat feel suddenly dry. I took up my stool in the corner, poured two cups of green tea and waited for him to speak.
He tasted the tea quickly, a few mouthfuls and it was gone. He poured another, his hand shaking.
“Let me,” I offered.
He startled as I moved closer.
“Productivity dropped again on Friday by half a percent.” He pulled back his swivel chair, crunching over some papers. “That’s almost a quarter of a car we’re losing every day.”
I hadn’t noticed before, but Manager He had a habit of resting the tip of his tongue on his bottom lip.
“A quarter of a car per day, a whole car every week, two cars per fortnight …” he gasped. “Something must be done before Schnelleck arrives. If he sees us in this state, our chances are up in smoke, along with our exhausts.”
I waited patiently for him to notice my shoes. “Every four days,” I corrected.
“Eh?”
“We are losing a car every four days, not every week; that is if we are losing a quarter of a car per day,” I said.
Manager He gulped. “Yes, exactly.”
Maybe my transformation was not so successful after all? Perhaps it was my turquoise eye shadow or the shape of my lips or the way my dimples looked beneath the white powder?
“What’s the news on the floor, 2204? How are they responding to the new food?”
“New food?”
“I had the menus changed yesterday after you said the pig’s blood soup wasn’t filling enough.”
“You listened to me?”
Manager He let out a laugh. “Don’t sound so surprised, that’s why you’re here. I can trust you. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you.”
He glanced down at my shoes. I tried not to bunch my toes. “I see you made a purchase,” he loosened his tie. “Have the others seen them?”
“Not yet,” I said, “I’m waiting for the right moment. Tonight the lights went out early and …”
“Alright, alright, just don’t leave it too long, we’re in a sticky situation and I have to do everything in my power to speed up the department.”
Over his shoulder, I could see the towering papers on his desk. The sight of all that mess made my hands itch.
“Manager.”
“What is it, 2204?”
“I see you’re always so busy. It must be hard for you to keep order in your bureau on top of leading our department. Perhaps I could encourage productivity a little by helping you in here, with your papers?” I said, sensing the perfect excuse to see him more often.
He wiped his brow. “I’m impressed by your attitude. The others never … Oh, I’m living in the past, what do they matter now?”
The heat in his bureau seemed to be intensifying.
“So, that’s a yes?”
“Let me take a closer look,” he said suddenly.
At first I thought he was talking about his paperwork, but instead he gestured to my pink satin shoes. I felt myself redden, but lifted my left foot and he grasped it. A shiver ran all the way up to my belly. His hands were warm as newly laid eggs, his fingers solid around my ankle. Was it my imagination or did he stroke the skin there? I kept very still and let him touch me, pushing aside the memory of Madam Quifang’s inspection.
“You’ve done well,” he whispered. “Your shoes, your face, I can see the way you’ve transformed yourself.”
I grinned stupidly and may even have laughed with nerves.
“Aren’t you hot?” he said.
I felt myself swell like a red-lipped eugenia under the noonday sun, but I was frightened to say yes in case it led to something beyond my control.
He lifted the hem of Damei’s stolen skirt and put his hand on my knee. I sensed he was about to move closer and that I would let him. I wanted to know: would the silk of my lips fall away easily? The taste of sugar tickled on my tongue as I remembered his candies.
“Ha-ha! The cherry’s surely ripening by the day,” came a voice from the doorway. “You’d better watch out or she’ll become a weed, growing where you don’t want her.”
Manager He smarted.
Old Artist’s cane clinked the edge of my stool. “What’s this, a new face for old?”
“I was instructed to buy make-up.”
“Ha-ha! Light me the spirit lamp, He-Chuan, before I set to work carving out this beauty.”
“You mean he’s staying?” I said, forgetting my place.
“There’ll be no opium tonight, Old Artist. I need your full attention. The portrait has to look perfect.”
The man removed his deerstalker, his yellow-white hair wafted into soft peaks. “Whatever you say, Manager, whatever you say.” He eased himself into the chair, creaked open his sketch book and began drawing.
Manager He returned to his paperwork. Occasionally, he paused to look at my portrait. “Good!” or “Yes, that’s it!” he’d say.
“Stop gawping at the Manager,” said Old Artist. “Or your likeness will be cross-eyed.”
After that, Manager He did not look until Old Artist declared it finished.
“You’ve not lost your talent,” he said. “Be sure to include the 4x4, as we discussed. Make it shine – shine like a new dawn at the beginning of a new era.”
Of course, I didn’t know what the portrait was for or why anyone would want a picture of me.
“Have you got everything you need? The shoes, the face?”
Old Artist rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I could feel his eyes roving towards my chest. “I suppose, there is more I could do to highlight the girl’s natural assets …”
“No, definitely not. Not this time. She must remain covered. I don’t want a riot on my hands. You know what those squabbling women workers are like these days. Even if the randy monkeys in engineering were to approve, what good are they without the women following suit?”
Old Artist shut his sketchbook and gathered up his battered attaché case. There was an awkward silence and I realised it was time for me to leave the men alone. My job was done, although an aching part of me wished it wasn’t.
Manager He walked with me a little way into the circuitry room. His tongue rested thoughtfully on his lip, as though fishing for the right words.
“You’ve done well, 2204, you’ve made yourself look very different, very … distinctive.”
Distinctive … I breathed in the word. That meant interesting, unique; distinctive in a good way, not a woman hidden in a factory of identical overalls and lives.
I felt his hand squeeze mine and I reciprocated by rubbing my thumb against his. Just this once, what harm would it do? His breath became shallow.
“Am I good enough for you?” I whispered.
“Good as new.”
The green light above the pipework flashed, and Manager He promptly let go of my hand. “Come back tomorrow night and do some paperwork,” he
said.
I nodded, feeling suddenly adrift. He gestured towards the exit and I hurried away, clumsily knocking into a chair. Once in the corridor, I ran dream-like in my beautiful fairy-tale slippers. I ran through a factory of bodies, breathing walls and fading lights, until finally my bunk found me and I became a feather settling down to sleep, falling where the wind had blown me; swept up and weightless in a gust of his breath. Unsure what separated my day from my night. I fell to sleep wearing my Yeh-Shen shoes, my pink satin dreams – content for the first time since arriving at Forwood.
The bitches … traitors. Ricki turned the corner with fire in her heels, her breath whipped by a cross-wind of winter air. Lying, two-faced cows, the pair of them.
The house numbers were too small to see.
Idiot … Moron … Ricki Milne, thick as pig shit. Can’t tell a lie if it bites her on the arse. Can’t tell her real mum a mile off.
The house was somewhere mid-terrace. Princess Street, too run-down even for Cinderella. Ricki rapped on the door of number 28. Please be in. Just answer this one time. The house sat in darkness. Lowrie was probably at a party, her eyes crinkling around a joint in some smoke-filled boomer of a club.
A light came on upstairs then the door opened and Lowrie peered out. She wore a kimono from Kin-ki. It was black, with gold flowers and white cranes flying across the chest. Ricki followed the winding tracery of her veins to where they disappeared beneath the silk.
“Ricki, what are you doing here at this time of night?”
“I needed some place to go.”
“What’s happened? Your tattoo’s not gone mangy has it? Don’t tell me your parents found out?”
“It’s not that.”
Lowrie pulled her dressing gown tighter. “It’s late, kid. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. It’s only for a night. I’ll be out of your hair by morning.” Ricki packed her hands into the armpits of her parka. “It’s cold,” she wheezed, “getting colder.”
“You’re not in a good way, kid.”
“Families fuck you up, isn’t that right?”
“You should try reading less miserable poetry.”
Ricki’s teeth chattered. “Are you going to let me in or what?”
A voice called from upstairs. “Who is it, Lou?” A blonde appeared wrapped in a towel, she was in her early thirties, maybe younger, with a pierced bottom lip.
“Ricki, this is Esme.”
“Your bath’s getting cold, Lou. Don’t be long.”
Ricki had a sudden urge to punch the blonde goddess. “I’ll go.”
“Sorry, kid,” said Lowrie. “Why don’t you talk things through with your twin?”
Ricki gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah,” she said, turning away.
My fucking double.
She didn’t know where to go. Behind the counter of the chippy, the kebab spike was bare, a lace tablecloth hung over the fryers. Pinned above the till was a postcard: Madonna and Child. Mary’s flat, sad eyes met hers. She must have known from the beginning how it would end, losing her baby.
What about May? Had she known? Ricki raged inside her parka. How could May do it? What was she thinking, coming to England? Ricki glimpsed her reflection. Who was this Chinese kid staring back at her? She blew into her hands to keep them warm and hummed.
What about May’s voice? Had she sung to them in the womb? Had she talked to the bump of babies, the stump of flesh heaping up in front of her? What kind of a mother was she all those months and why didn’t she listen when people told her to scrap the babies while she could? Or did May smoke pot and sniff glue? Was she off her head half the time and couldn’t think straight? Maybe that’s why Ricki inherited asthma and Jen’s teeth turned out soft as rotting bark. Did May really – in her heart and in her empty belly – believe they would open their arms, wide as the Yellow River and let her steam on down? Pick up where she’d left off in China?
Fuck you, May.
Ricki sat for a while in the freezing bus shelter. She couldn’t feel her toes. A bus pulled up and she shook her head at the driver. The couple kissing on the backseat faded out of view. She wandered towards the park.
A bench In loving memory of Herbert, 1919-2007 was freckled with frost. Ricki curled up on it, knees tucked beneath her chin, her parka like a fly sheet, her teeth protesting at the cold. She was woken by car headlights.
A guy whistled piercingly. “Hey, lady!”
Ricki’s heart pumped faster. The car bumped over the frozen grass and a guy rolled out with a bottle of beer, burbling about the stars, saying he could see his anus, with its mother of a ring.
“That’s Saturn and you’re talkin’ bollocks.”
A guy staggered towards Herbert’s bench. “Bit young to be here alone,” he said.
“Who’s asking?”
“Come over here will you,” called the driver. He had a thick Manchester accent. A woman in an itsy-bit of vest top sat sideways on his knee and began pouring Woodpecker down his throat. They fell out of the open door, and he groaned.
Ricki stared through the car headlights at the figure on all fours: the leather jacket, the biker boots, the ponytail.
“Stuart?”
Spittle hung from the corner of his mouth.
“Stuart what are you doing? I thought you were with Jen?”
His eyes were unfocused. “I’m letting off steam.”
“Letting off steam? You piece of shit. Who’s that slapper with you?”
He wiped his mouth. “I don’t see you holding Jen’s hand.”
Ricki hugged herself, overcome by the cold inside her. She was miles from home. She couldn’t even remember the way back.
“You want to sleep in the car? There’s room in the back if you can put up with Dave trying to have a feel.”
“Do I look that desperate?”
When she woke, the slapper had gone. Stuart wound down the window and spat a gigantic gob that twinkled on the frosty grass. Ricki caught his eye in the rear-view mirror and looked away.
“Alright?” he said.
“What do you think?”
He got out and scraped the frost off the windscreen with his fingers. She could see tyre tracks in the desolate park. Stuart reversed, wheels crunching, towards a track and an exit leading to a terraced street.
He drove to ASDA and disappeared off in search of breakfast. Dave trailed after him. Ricki stayed in the car and checked her mobile. There were ten missed calls and a text from Jen, Plz, call NOW. The first voicemail was from her dad, telling her to Get yourself home, your mother’s beside herself. The next was from her mum, sobbing into the phone, saying she was sorry, she didn’t mean to hurt her, she didn’t know what to do … Ricki deleted them. The final voicemail was from Jen.
Ricki, I know how you’re feeling. I’m shocked too. I need you. We need to talk right now. I promise I won’t pretend everything’s okay. No-one else understands me. You’re my twin sister.
Ricki’s fingers hovered over the green button to call her back, when something caught her eye. It was a policeman, passing in front of the car on his way into the supermarket. She shrank back in the seat. No doubt her parents had reported her missing. Her mum had probably declared a national state of emergency because she’d stayed out for one poxy night. Abandoned babies aren’t supposed to run off, they’re supposed to be eternally grateful, loyal as rescued puppies.
Ricki watched the policeman hand over what looked like Wanted posters to a member of staff. She waited until the policeman left then went to see what was was going on. A woman from customer services had pinned a poster to a community notice board.
“At least it’s not another shooting,” she said.
Ricki stared at May’s face in the witness appeal poster. It was like a creepy Scooby Doo painting, the kind with moving eyes. So this was her Chinese mother. They even had the same dimples … No wonder May always seemed so lost and out of place in Manchester. She was never meant
to be here, never meant to find her and Jen. That’s what the authorities would have said: the adoption agency, the Home Office, the Chinese government. Was a clean break too much to ask? She’d left them once, in China, wasn’t that enough?
“Can I take one?”
The woman gazed at Ricki. “Why don’t you go and have a nice cuppa, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Stuart appeared at her side. “She’s coming with me,”
At the car, he prised away the poster.
“That’s her innit? Jen’s teacher. Don’t tell me she’s snuffed it? Should have been watching where she was going.”
Ricki looked into his pasty face and wanted to smash it into orbit.
“What did I say wrong?”
“What do you ever say right, wank-stain?”
She snatched the poster and stormed off, to who knew where or how long it would take her … she just wanted …
To be.
Anywhere.
But there.
“And stay away from my sister or I’ll tell my parents you’ve been trying to get her laid.”
“Oooh, big fucking deal,” she heard him laugh.
Portrait of a young woman
Oh, Mrs Nie, his hands are soft, his thumb graceful as a swan’s neck. Last night, when he touched me, I thought I’d float away. His name is Manager He. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve his attention. He says I am the future. He held my hands, those I thought were ugly, and told me I could inspire others. “You are the light,” he said, “shining the way to a brighter future …” Oh, Mrs Nie, how can I work when my hands won’t stop trembling at the thought of him?
Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-
I bundled Mrs Nie into my pillow case. Ren was first to the pipe and brought me a share, as she often did. We hurried to the sanitary room to fight for a place at the sink. There wasn’t a chance to show off my pink satin shoes, but that time would come. Soon they’d all want to be rewarded like me, even cynical old Ren.
I was getting the knack of the circuit boards; although not quite up to Xiaofan’s speed. I completed most of them before the klaxon. The time analysts no longer checked my efficiency or whispered to Xiaofan. My study of basic English was also paying off. I recognised words like quit and defect warning without having to refer back to the instructions. I’d prove to the shoe assistant in the department store, as I did to Madam Quifang: not all peasants are dumb pigs.
The Secret Mother Page 10
