Now she spread her arms wide and ran her fingers through the long grass. The earth was warm—she could feel its heat through her palms. She focused her attention on an ant meandering up the back of her hand. She listened to the coo of courting pigeons and the rumble of a faraway tram. She supposed she was practising the mindfulness Anne had always been going on about. Anne had travelled to workshops all over the world to learn how to master it.
Meg groaned as she sat up. Recently the pain in her pelvis had been growing more intense. As she bent her knees she heard a crack and remembered Andy’s word for it—crepitus. She wondered how he was going in Geelong with his father and his aunt. She wondered if his family knew what had driven him to gulp down all those sleeping tablets. She wondered what dreadful thing the boy could possibly have been facing that had made death feel like the best option.
Looking back now, Meg wished she had talked to people more—not small talk but proper conversations. Discussions about life and death and God and the universe. Instead she’d spent her entire life doing what everyone else seemed to be doing—what she and Helen had, in turn, spent years teaching Atticus to do. Talking without really saying anything.
53
By the time Andy and his father appeared for breakfast, order had been restored. Craig was dressed and making a coffee in the kitchen. The twins, in uncharacteristically quiet fashion, were eating cornflakes with their heads bowed over their bowls. Andy couldn’t see Winnie, but he could hear the whirr of her hair dryer in the bathroom.
‘You’re sure you’re right to look after the kids for a couple of hours?’ Craig asked Andy between sips of his coffee.
Andy nodded.
‘Probably the best contraception a man can have is looking after these two little monsters!’ Craig said and laughed.
Andy’s father smiled politely. Andy knew he couldn’t understand a word Craig was saying.
‘Finished!’ the twins said in unison before pushing back their chairs and running from the table. They ran so fast they almost knocked Winnie over as she walked through the doorway.
‘Whoa!’ she said with her hands up in mock surrender. ‘What’s the hurry?’
The twins cackled, and Andy wished he could run away with his cousins.
‘We should get going soon if we want to make the appointment,’ Winnie said as she picked up the empty cereal bowls. She wiped down the table with a sponge. ‘We’re still going to the appointment, aren’t we?’
Andy sneaked a look at his father.
‘Of course.’
Andy felt his aunt’s eyes on him. His stomach was churning so much he worried someone would hear it.
‘All my life,’ Andy’s father said in Cantonese, ‘I’ve been getting pushed around—that’s how I lost the cleaning business.’
Andy watched Craig slink away with his coffee.
‘She’s an old woman,’ Winnie said. ‘Something like this could destroy her.’
‘She put my son in harm’s way,’ Andy’s father said.
Winnie rinsed the sponge in the sink. ‘It wasn’t intentional.’
‘People should pay for their mistakes.’
When Andy glanced up he saw that his father was glaring at Winnie. For once his aunt looked defeated. She turned off the tap and wiped her hands on a tea towel. Andy knew then that he was on his own. If anybody was going to stop this, it would have to be him. But the words were stuck in his throat. Unable to bear the stress anymore, he ran to the bedroom and slammed the door. Nobody followed him. He lay on the bed and stared at the wall. A few minutes later he heard a buzz on the bedside table. His father’s phone. It was his mum.
He pressed the green button. ‘Hello?’
There was no answer, but after a few seconds Andy could hear a quiet sobbing.
‘Ma?’
More sobbing.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘I’m fine. How’s your study?’ She blew her nose into the receiver.
Andy could feel tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He pulled a tissue from a box beside the bed. ‘Okay.’
‘Only okay? Okay won’t get you into medicine.’
‘Study’s good.’
‘Your father insisted on seeing you. He said you needed help moving house.’
‘I couldn’t stay at the other place,’ Andy said. ‘Too many allergies.’
‘I saw something on TV the other night about how Australia is the allergy capital of the world. They said when people from Hong Kong move there, they get bad allergies too.’
Andy wanted to ask his mother how she was sleeping, whether she’d be getting out of hospital soon. But it wasn’t the done thing. ‘How’s the weather? Is it getting cold?’
‘It’s polluted. I can barely see my hand in front of my face.’
Andy looked through the window at the cloudless sky. ‘I might come home, with Dad, for a holiday.’
‘Flights are so expensive this time of year. What about study?’
‘It’s just a holiday. Dad says it’s going to be okay.’
‘Your father always says it’s going to be okay. When you were born and we had nothing, he said everything was going to be okay. When your yeh yeh moved in with us, he said everything was going to be okay. When your yeh yeh died, he said everything was going to be okay. When the cleaning business collapsed, he said everything was going to be okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.’
Just then Andy’s father walked into the room. Like a child caught red-handed, Andy held out the phone. They could hear his mother shouting the word okay over and over and louder and louder through the speaker. Andy’s father took a deep breath and began the slow process of soothing his wife. Mostly he said nothing. Sometimes he made a grunting noise to show he was still listening. After he hung up, he sat on the side of the bed and buried his head in his hands.
Andy wanted desperately to reach out and touch his father—to soothe him in the same way he had soothed his mother. But he didn’t know how.
‘Your mother thinks I’m weak,’ his father said.
‘She’s not well.’
‘She’s honest when she’s not well.’
‘You’re not weak.’ Andy stopped short of saying, You’re the strongest person I know.
‘That’s why it’s so important to stand up for yourself, to stand up for your rights. I’m trying to teach you an important lesson. One I should have taught you a long time ago.’
Andy felt the panic wrapping itself around his chest.
‘I know you feel sorry for the old lady,’ his father said, ‘but it’s not right—’
‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Whether it was intentional or not, you’ve suffered. We’ve all suffered.’
‘Dad.’
‘She made a mistake.’
‘I made the mistake!’ The words exploded through Andy’s lips. He’d never shouted at his father before and the shock of it stunned them both into silence. Andy looked at his dad. Rather than anger, Andy saw confusion on his father’s face.
Andy told him about the overdose. The first few words were difficult to get out, but with each sentence it got easier. Partly because his father didn’t move or react in any way—it was like talking to a wall. Andy told him how Mrs Hughes had discovered him. He told him about Kanbei and the two thousand dollars he’d been willing to pay to cheat on his exams. He even told him about Kiko and how she’d stood him up at the Vietnamese restaurant. The more he said, the lighter he felt. It was as if the words had weight, and they’d been holding him down all this time. His father didn’t interrupt or ask questions. After a while Andy forgot he was talking to another person, let alone his father. He became intoxicated with the freedom he felt with each new declaration.
‘That’s some story,’ his father said when Andy had finished. His face was blank, his voice neutral.
‘Mrs Hughes put me in danger, but she also saved me.’
His father didn’t agree or disagree. Andy felt his body tense up
again. He had confessed to his father to save Mrs Hughes. As big a relief as it was to get his story out, he didn’t want his sacrifice to be for nothing. He needed his father to see that none of this was her fault.
‘I guess these things run in the family,’ Andy said.
‘You’re talking about your mother.’
‘I ruined her life when I was born.’
‘That’s not true.’
Andy clenched his fists, braced himself. ‘You never had another child, because of me.’
There was a long pause. ‘Your mother always wanted another baby.’
Andy didn’t believe him. ‘She said she hated being a mother.’
‘She didn’t mean it,’ Andy’s father said. ‘It’s difficult to be a parent.’
Andy wondered if Winnie had ever told the twins they’d ruined her life.
‘It was me who didn’t want another child. But not for the reasons you think. It was true your mother’s doctors warned against it, but that wasn’t why.’
Andy’s head was spinning.
‘I didn’t need anything else,’ his father said. ‘I had my son.’
The shame dissolved then, leaving Andy empty. He leant back against the head of the bed, saying nothing, looking at his father’s slumped shoulders, savouring his words, listening to his breathing.
‘No family’s perfect,’ his father said. ‘Every family is broken. Even your laughing Auntie Winnie is having an affair.’
54
Meg was studying the will kit she’d bought at the post office when Andy called. The phone caught her by surprise—nobody called her anymore—but she was thrilled to hear his voice. Their last interaction, muffled by face masks, had been like something out of a horror movie. There was a forensic feel about the way his family had taken cautious steps down the hallway—their eyes wide and vigilant, their arms fixed close to their sides. Now he said he wanted to meet her, just the two of them, away from Atticus, at Café Bonjour.
When Meg hung up the phone and turned her attention back to the papers spread out across the breakfast table, she had a sinking feeling. Now she remembered why she’d avoided such things in the past. The will reminded her of everything she didn’t have—her lack of assets, her lack of savings, her lack of friends and family.
She had some cousins in Adelaide, but they’d lost touch years ago. There was an aunt in a nursing home somewhere in New South Wales, but the last time Meg had seen her was at her mother’s funeral. Really, there was only Jillian. Meg reassured herself that this was still more than some people had. At least Jillian would make the house beautiful—painting it a special Scandinavian shade of white and filling it with proteas arranged in old jam jars—before selling it for an outrageous price. The good thing about Jillian was that she’d honour Meg’s wish to sell it to a young family. More than anything, Meg wanted the old house to ring with noise and laughter again—to bear witness to another family’s pain and joy.
What remained of her savings she would donate to a charity. The Paralympics, perhaps. Helen would have approved of that. As for Atticus—whom Jillian hated—Margaret planned on leaving him to Patrick. She was still haunted by the image of him in the waiting room that day at the hospital. She had a feeling Atticus would be good for him. She also knew that Patrick had a history of spending time with African grey parrots and she could be sure he didn’t have a life-threatening allergy to them.
As Meg got dressed for her meeting with Andy, she had a sense of déjà vu. As badly as it had all turned out, she believed there had been something inevitable about her encounter with the young man. She was a different person now from the anxious woman who’d greeted him that day in a red blouse and sheepskin slippers. She was older, of course, but she was wiser too—they were not always the same thing.
In the kitchen she filled Atticus’s bowl with seeds and gave him a quick scratch on the back of his neck.
‘Better late than never!’ he squawked.
Meg pulled down the blinds and closed all the curtains. It was forecast to be a blistering thirty-six degrees. She called a taxi. For once, it arrived within minutes. Thankfully the driver didn’t begrudge her the short fare. She paid him, told him to keep the change—she could be reckless now—and stepped outside into the heat.
When she spied Andy through the window of the café, sipping a glass of water and jiggling his knee, she felt an unexpected wave of tenderness. She knew it was wrong to infantilise him—he was twenty-two and an adult—but she couldn’t help it. She was next to the table by the time he saw her. He looked up and smiled.
Meg pulled out a chair. ‘You look good. Healthy.’
Andy glanced down at his chest and hands as if noticing his appearance for the first time. ‘So do you,’ he said.
Meg knew he didn’t mean it. She’d lost so much weight in the past month she’d had to take in her skirt with a safety pin. But she appreciated the comment. The waitress arrived then to take their order. Meg asked for a cappuccino and, after much prompting, Andy ordered a chocolate croissant.
‘I’m so glad you called,’ Meg said when the waitress had left.
‘I wanted to say goodbye,’ Andy said, taking another sip of his water. ‘And thank you.’
‘You’re going home?’ She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. For some reason, she’d assumed Andy would continue with his studies, perhaps rent a room from another old lady.
‘I’m deferring for a year. To recover. I’m going back to Hong Kong.’
Meg searched his face for fear or disappointment, but there was none. He seemed at peace with his decision. ‘I’m happy for you,’ she said.
‘I’d like to send you something. Is there anything you’d like from Hong Kong?’
Meg thought for a moment. ‘I’d like a photo of you and your dad eating those famous soup noodles.’
Andy poured Meg a glass of water. ‘Is that all?’
‘And a Chanel handbag.’
It took Andy a few seconds to realise Meg was joking. He laughed.
The waitress arrived with their order. When they were alone again, Meg drank her cappuccino and Andy picked at his croissant.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Meg said, after a few minutes had passed.
‘Of course.’
‘It may seem a bit silly.’
‘That’s okay.’
She cleared her throat. ‘When you were unconscious all that time on the floor of the bathroom and in the ambulance, did you see anything, you know, strange?’
Andy’s black eyes darted back and forth across her face, as if the answer lay in the web of her wrinkles. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it—I told you it was silly.’
Andy mopped up stray crumbs of pastry from the table with his finger. ‘I don’t remember anything. No visions. No bright lights. Nothing.’ He flicked the crumbs onto his plate. ‘It’s as if the whole thing didn’t happen. Like someone took a film, chopped out a scene, and stuck the two cut ends together.’
‘Thank you,’ Meg said. It was an intriguing, if unenlightening, explanation.
‘Are you sure everything’s okay?’
‘I’m sure.’ She waved to the waitress for the bill.
As they left the café, a large four-wheel drive pulled up in front of them. Meg recognised Andy’s aunt by her big black bouffant hair.
‘This is me,’ Andy said. As he spoke, the passenger door opened and an elegant man wearing a neatly pressed shirt stepped out. Andy’s father.
‘Nice to see you again,’ Meg said, and held out her hand. Her heart was jumping in her chest. She knew he blamed her for what had happened—she’d seen it in his eyes.
Andy said something in Cantonese. The elegant man stared at Meg’s outstretched hand, and for a moment she thought he would refuse to take it. Perhaps he considered her to be contaminated too. But she was wrong. He took her hand in both of his and his gentleness surprised her.
‘Thank you,’ he sai
d in English.
55
Andy slept for most of the nine-hour flight. When he woke up, the plane was making its descent. He felt his ears pop. The last flight he’d taken with his father was a couple of years ago, when he’d first moved to Australia for his foundation year.
His dad was asleep in the seat beside him. His head lolled to the side. Ordinarily Andy wouldn’t dare stare at his father, but now he had the luxury of studying him—really examining his sleeping face. He looked older. There were new creases linking his nose to his lips and fawn-coloured spots on the crest of his cheeks.
Andy turned to face the window. Even though they were travelling at great speed, the plane seemed to be hovering—helicopter-like—above the clouds. He caught sight of his reflection. He looked different from the baby-faced boy who’d first arrived in Melbourne. He was more angular, more melancholic. More like his mother.
She would be waiting for them at the airport. That’s what his father had said, but Andy had trouble believing it. He wondered how she would greet them. It was different every time. Sometimes she would grip his arm, tightly and urgently, as if she was being held against her will and needed his help. Other times she would launch into a bout of fussing, about his weight, and his clothing—worried he was too hungry or too cold. Mostly she would cry, sometimes hysterically but often silently, the fat tears spilling from her eyes unacknowledged and unexplained, by her or by anyone.
Just then, the plane hit some turbulence and Andy’s father woke up in a fright. The seatbelt sign flashed on with a melodic ding. The flight attendants took their seats. Somebody started praying—a lone, steady beat amid the tremulous din. Andy was not religious. He’d told Mrs Hughes the truth at the café. But the truth was no comfort to him. He’d spent the past few years studying the human body—the astonishing way it worked, the thousands of horrific ways it could fail, the names of all the invisible organisms that could invade and destroy it. Andy had once confused such knowledge with power, with control, but now he knew it provided neither. It hadn’t prevented him from taking those pills, or being attacked from the inside by his own body without his knowledge. Andy knew the passengers, including his father, felt that same kind of helplessness now. He also knew that when the turbulence was over, everyone would return to reading their books and watching their movies and playing their games as if nothing had happened.
Room for a Stranger Page 17
