The Secret Mother

by Victoria Delderfield

  Yifan spluttered into his tea. “Your plans are very grandiose indeed!”

  “You have to think big, Yifan.”

  “That’s quite a liberalist bourgeois mentality you’ve developed since we met on the train. It shocks me coming from a girl who lived in Hunan, Mao’s own land.”

  What was he talking about? Yifan was too smart for me. But I did know Chairman Mao was from Hunan. No-one in China, not even the stupidest peasant, could fail to know Mao was born in Hunan.

  “Perhaps you’ve left behind more than your village in coming to the city,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. “If you mean I’m not the girl I used to be, then you’re right and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.”

  “I’m not talking about the status of women in our society, Mai Ling, or about education. Clearly, you are very educated indeed. I am talking about your loyalty to the past and the true Chinese way of life – not this fake modernity occurring all around us.”

  My head hurt. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered coming to the teahouse. It was nearly four o’clock and I still had to buy French perfume.

  Yifan reached into his satchel and handed me a battered book, not the Little Red Book. It was called Traditional Tales and Other Stories from our Great Past. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me to read, my comprehension was still only average.

  “I want you to have this,” he said, “I think it will help.”

  He was right, if my literacy improved, Manager He and Schnelleck might think better of me. I took the book and opened it at the first page. The inscription read: To our pride and joy, our dear son, on the occasion of your graduation with distinction and successful completion of your high school education. May you live a long and happy life, working your hardest for the good people of China. It was signed by his parents and grandparents.

  “I can’t take this.”

  “I want you to hang onto it for a while”

  “But I hardly know you and this must be very precious.”

  “It is.”

  “Well then, you keep it. Really, Yifan, I’ve done nothing to deserve this gift.”

  Yifan shook his head, insistent, and I slipped it inside my shopping bag.

  Manager He would never read such a book. For him, there was nothing great about China’s past. There was only the death of his family, the starvation of his fellow villagers. I would have to hide the book under the loose floorboard in the dorm.

  As I thanked Yifan, the feeling of being watched returned. I glanced over my shoulder to see if anyone had entered the teahouse – a quick movement, a swish of hair! It was so sudden I couldn’t tell exactly. When I looked again, there was no-one. I hurried my tea, unnerved, and made my excuses to Yifan.

  “So soon? But there’s more tea in the pot.”

  I didn’t want to hear about how wonderful Hunan was and how I should treasure the place above all else. Where I’d come from was becoming less and less to me. I said my polite goodbyes and was almost to the door when he caught up with me and put a hand out to bar the exit.

  “Mai Ling, wait. I don’t want you to go like this. I’m sorry if I said too much. I didn’t mean to upset you. I can see how seriously you take your work. It’s not my place to tell you what to think … At least say you’ll meet me again. A new ferris wheel is coming to town. A group of us from the university are going. Please, come with us.”

  “Maybe. I need to get back to work.”

  “Very well, I must let you. But here’s my dorm number, take it and call me if you’re able to.”

  He passed me a page ripped from his notebook. I buried it inside my trouser pocket.

  “Take care of yourself, Mai Ling. It’s easy to get carried away. Even with the best intentions, you might find yourself in a situation you can’t –”

  “Let me go.”

  Yifan stepped aside and whispered, “Just don’t forget: there are people, forces, in this city who wouldn’t be so tolerant if they were to hear you speak. Nanchang’s heartbeat remains strongly traditional.” He glanced over his shoulder at the cast of ageing men, some playing cards, others puffing Red Double Happiness cigarettes.

  I forced a smile and flung open the door, desperate to get away from the small, old-fashioned teahouse that stank of smoke and incense. As I hurried away, eager to find a shop that would sell perfume, the alcohol still sloshed in my stomach and I felt queasy. I couldn’t wait to get back to the factory and the safety of Manager He. The yellowing sky had turned dark amber. Unexpected hailstones began to beat against my Western-white face.

  In her dreams, Nancy returns to the sea.

  She takes up the latch of the picket gate and wades through the lumpy dunes, desperate to get to the pier in time to save her mom. The seaweed feels soft as it wraps around her toes, holding her back.

  She is too late.

  Her mom’s housecoat flaps against the granite, slapped in and out by the tide. The same one she wore every day, sometimes to the corner store. Her hair floats on the surface, bobbing in and out of view as the sea coughs up foam. Nancy screams into the wind. No sound comes out.

  She dives in, kicking like a frog, but her mom’s swollen body is too heavy. Seagulls rebound in the wind above, cawing as though laughing at their own game. Sunlight floods the waves. Then the shape of a man, a fisherman, drags them out.

  Her mom whispers. Please put your things away. It’s time for supper. Her voice turns to thin air.

  Nancy wakes in tears, always.

  Iain squeezed her hand. “Should I call Dr Emery, maybe you do need antibiotics?”

  Nancy could still taste the saltiness of the Atlantic Ocean and her legs felt tired from running through the dunes, though she had not left her recliner all day.

  “It will pass,” she told him. The dream will fade, she reassured herself.

  “You nodded off again.”

  She vaguely remembered Countdown. Bada-bada-badabadum … pooum! Iain must have turned the TV off. Falling asleep in her chair! How much longer before she started playing outdoor bowls on a Sunday afternoon? Or occupying her time with hobbies she’d never imagined satisfying in youth. Suddenly, the room felt stifling: the carpets and cushions and coal-effect fire were closing in on her.

  “I think we need to get away,” she said, panicked, “someplace sunny.”

  “Away? I don’t think now is a good time.”

  “Geez Iain, nobody’s actually died.”

  He let go of her hand.

  “Let’s do it,” Nancy urged.

  “How can we, with the business of May hanging over us?”

  “Let’s go to China.”

  “Nancy, that’s ridiculous.”

  “Not it’s not. It could be weeks, months, until something happens with May – God knows, she might never wake up … Can’t you see we’re stagnating here? This is not my vision for us.”

  Iain searched her face.

  “These four walls …” she looked around her; the heating was unbearably stuffy. “You’ve got your own business, I don’t expect you to understand. My work – well, I’ve already been made redundant. The girls are growing up. I need to get out before it’s too late. I need to …”

  “I know, Nancy, but you’re not like your mother. You don’t need to run away. And the girls aren’t going anywhere yet. We are not going to lose them.”

  “I need to lie down,” she said, exhausted.

  “Let me bring you up a camomile tea.”

  “No,” she held up her hands, “I want to be alone.”

  Iain gathered up her leftover toast.

  “Don’t think I’m not feeling it too, Nancy. I’m just trying to hold things together.”

  At times, and in certain lights, Iain looked like her dad. A man worn back to sand.

  Upstairs, their bedroom was cooler. The day had turned out bright; clouds scudded across the sky. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched them change shape. She thought of pebbles skimme
d into the sea as a child, her attempts to shatter its surface and destroy memory, undo death.

  Nancy reached into her bedside cabinet for her favourite photo of the twins, taken on the beach at Formby one exceptionally hot day in July, when the girls were about three. In the picture, Ricki’s sun hat flopped over her eyes and Jen lifted its edges, poking a triangle of peanut butter sandwich into her mouth. Afterwards, they followed the red squirrel trail up through the forest. The smell of cool, soft pine needles, the springy path beneath her flip-flops. It was a relief to be out of the bright sun. The twins slept all the way home, and Iain carried them to bed.

  May’s effects and belongings were under police charge; her life reduced to the dank and poky bedsit on Burton Road, so different from Nancy’s own, with its high walls and picture rail, her Regency dressing table bought from an antique shop in Chester. What would someone make of Nancy from these things? Could they boil her down like jam?

  There was the jewellery box, the one with the ballerina in a pink tutu. Her sister Lizzie had given it to her at JFK the day she emigrated. Nancy had clutched it as she crossed the sea: a piece of home. Also a locket, the last shred of her mom. It had been her eleventh birthday present and inside was a happy photo of her parents. No warning of the tragedy that would blast them apart.

  She wished her mom was alive now to tuck her up; wished she could pick up the phone and call home. “Hi Mom, it’s Nancy … No, things aren’t so great, can we talk?”

  She returned the belongings to her bedside cabinet, climbed into bed and pulled the duvet to her chin. Energy drained from her, like falling from a granite rock, pulling down the fluffy clouds, the broad blue sky, the furniture and her belongings, and she fell into a deep sleep.

  She awoke, sweating, to see Iain holding a cup of tea.

  “Sweetheart, we need you downstairs.”

  “Iain, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Everything’s fine, Nancy.”

  “The girls …”

  “The girls are fine. But the inspector’s here.”

  He put the tea on the bedside cabinet. So much bloody tea in England.

  In the kitchen, Inspector Meadows stood awkwardly by the breakfast bar.

  Ricki leant against the back door, as if she might run away.

  “The news is we’ve found the car, a 4x4, and from that, we’ve traced the driver.”

  “The killer, don’t you mean?” said Ricki, picking at a hole in her tights.

  “It’s early days, but it’s looking like he’ll give a full statement. We’ve been very fortunate. It’s rare in cases like this. Usually the vehicle doesn’t belong to the offender.”

  “That’s fantastic news,” said Iain.

  “I can’t go into too much detail, but the driver was found in possession of drugs, traces of which have been found in the vehicle.”

  “An addict?” said Nancy. But who was she to pass judgement? A few days ago she’d struck her own daughter. She was officially an abusive parent – at least that’s how social workers would have seen it during the adoption process.

  “So what happens next?” said Ricki. “The driver gets nicked while we hold candlelit vigils?”

  “Questioning. The offender will be kept at the station until he’s given a full statement. If we’re satisfied there’s enough evidence, we’ll get it to court as soon as possible. The DNA samples are crucial.”

  “And how long will that take?” said Iain.

  “Hard to say but, at a guess, we’re looking at several months.”

  “Months!” Jen burst out. “Can’t you do anything sooner?”

  “I know this is a difficult time for you all, but trust me, we’re doing all we can to move the case forwards.”

  “So she’s a ‘case’ now?” said Ricki.

  Iain showed Inspector Meadows to the door. Jen helped Nancy wash up in silence. Ricki plugged in her headphones.

  “Girls, I’ve made a decision …” said Nancy with urgency in her voice.

  Jen dried her hands.

  “I’ve decided we should leave sooner rather than later.”

  Ricki, realising something was serious, removed her headphones. “What are you talking about?”

  “About China, I’ve made my decision. We’re are all going, including you, Ricki.”

  “What? You can’t make me do that.”

  “No, I can’t. But I’m hoping you’ll come to the same realisation, that we owe it to ourselves.”

  “But …”

  “Do you mean that?” said Jen, “Can we really go?”

  “We should probably have gone before now. I’m sorry I never bought you tickets for your birthday,” said Nancy.

  Jen hugged her. “Mum, that’s fantastic news.”

  “Ricki?”

  Ricki huffed like the five year old Nancy adored.

  Uniform

  I could hear shouting as I climbed the stairs to the dorm, my arms ladened with shopping bags. Girls queued the length of the corridor as far as the sanitary room. A dirty-faced worker from another floor told me Damei was in the shit.

  “Silly cow shouldn’t have punched someone’s lights out – in the canteen of all places.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In there,” she pointed to the sanitary room. “She’s jammed the door. They’re saying she’s stuck her head in the sink.”

  Girls brayed on the door, calling for her to come out. Sunday, the day off, was also laundry day and we needed the sinks. I squirted on some Chanel.

  “Pew! What’s that?” A girl nearby gawped at my shopping bags. “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the slut of Forwood.”

  I smarted. “What did you just say?”

  Suddenly, the sanitary room door opened and Damei staggered out, dazed. Her hair was wet, but neatly combed, her face strangely vulnerable. She was wrapped in a Forwood towel which, despite its meagre size, enveloped her completely. The girls parted to let her walk through.

  “Hey, Damei, if you like sticking your head in water, there’ll be plenty of that where you’re going. The managers in personnel can be proper nasty,” someone shouted.

  “That’s if they don’t fire you.”

  “Don’t be daft,” said another, “they never get rid of their own. It’s only us on the line that cop it.”

  “She’s used all the hot water,” called out someone from downstairs. “There’s not enough to douse a tic up here!”

  I followed Damei into the dorm. “I hope you think of Zhi when they boot you out onto the street.”

  Damei dried her hair slowly, deliberately, as if drying it strand by strand.

  I slid the shopping bags beneath my bunk and climbed onto my bed. To hell with her – she could spit in her own oil for all I cared.

  There was an eerie silence in the dorm that night. We dreaded work after a day’s freedom. I drifted in and out of sleep. In my dreams Manager He came home to the farm. Mother was stir frying vegetables. There was someone at the door, I screamed not to let them in. It was a cadre ready to shoot us. I woke up panting, tossed over in my bed and told myself that it was just another nightmare, like all the others I’d had since coming to the factory.

  In the bunk opposite, Damei curled against the wall. I sensed she was also awake. The door creaked opened. The loose floorboard squeaked by the door and I heard the sound of slippers shuffling across the floor. Someone whispered, “Damei.”

  I peered into the blue-black shadows. A couple of workers from personnel towered over her bunk. “Quickly now, you’re coming with us.”

  “Where? What will happen to me?” Damei’s voice sounded vague, weak, the fighter resigned.

  They led her towards the door. I flung back my blanket. Ren must have felt the bunk give and she whispered like a bossy mother. I ignored her and slipped out of the dorm, hanging back in the shadows. They led Damei in the opposite direction to the sanitary room. I wavered, eager to see her suffer but, scared of being punished myself, I ran to the only safe
place I knew.

  The lamp glowed in his bureau, warm and reassuring and, through the window, I could see his papers strewn across the desk. I rattled the locked door.

  “Manager … tsst Manager … it’s me, are you there? I need to see you. They’ve taken Damei.”

  Was he alright? Was he asleep? Had he gone home? What if personnel had come for him too? Manager He said if we were ever to be found out, they’d make sure we never worked in another factory again.

  I called his name again.

  A movement from his bureau.

  “Manager!”

  He was frowning and shaking his head. His lips – his lovely, soft candy lips – mouthed something like, “Go away.” Was he saying it wasn’t safe or that I was late?

  “I can’t hear you.”

  He pointed to the green light in the pipework.

  “Open up,” I cried. “Don’t let me get caught. Open it now.”

  Manager He shouted louder. “Get away!”

  I banged on his door until it opened a crack, and I forced it until the door flung open.

  “Hold me.” I threw myself into his arms.

  “No. You have to go, it’s too risky.”

  “But I need you – they’ve taken Damei.”

  “You can’t come here anymore. I don’t want to see you here.”

  He pushed me out onto the staircase. “Get out,” he screamed. The door to his bureau slammed in my face.

  A few hours later, the alarm pierced the silence and the breakfast congee spurted from the pipe. I looked at it, sickened. Fatty straightened the bottom bunk, where Damei’s blanket had been thrown back in the night, and plumped her pillow. I think we all knew there was no hope of her return.

  At work, the seconds dragged like hours. Manager He wasn’t in his bureau. I persuaded myself that he was on business in another part of the factory and would soon return.

  In his absence, the workers chatted more freely over the din of the company song. I could hear them gossiping about my new perfume, which I was happy to wear on the line. Perfume was a luxury no other worker could afford. One of the bolder girls on my line left her station to ask if she could borrow the bottle that night, she wanted to spray some on a love letter to her boyfriend. I explained she needed to earn her own privileges and not rely on handouts. I told her to speed up her work, which she did.