by Susan Barker
‘What a disgusting pack of lies!’ Sally laughed. ‘You ought to be ashamed!’
Widening her eyes, Frances breathed, ‘But it’s true!’ and continued to spin her urban myths, gaily depicting her neighbours as cannibals, freaks and vampires.
They silenced the radio after midnight, clicked out the light and stumbled through clouds of cigar smoke to bed, where they’d lie together under the canopy of mosquito nets, the room swaying in their drunkenness. As Sally’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she was able to distinguish the shape of her friend: the hillocks of her knees; the ridge of collar-bone and the rise and fall of her chest under her camisole. The girls always lay awake until they’d sobered up. They wouldn’t let each other sleep – one murmuring as the other began to drowse, nudging her bedmate back to consciousness.
Sally remembers little of those nocturnal conversations and the dreamy silences in between. But she recalls the darkness was permissive of anything, tolerant of any aberrant words or thoughts that popped into their heads.
‘When’s your dad coming back from Brunei?’ Sally once asked, after weeks of Mr Milnar’s absence.
‘Tuesday,’ said Frances. ‘But I wish he would stay there for ever.’
Sally lay on her side, elbow on the mattress, head in her hand. Frances stared at the ceiling. It wasn’t the first time she’d expressed sentiments like this about Mr Milnar. Sally couldn’t imagine wishing her father exiled to another country. What a sad thing to wish for.
‘Why do you hate him so much?’
‘Because.’
‘Because what?’
‘Because he’s a murderer.’
‘Oh?’ Sally said casually, expecting this was another one of Frances’s absurd tales. ‘Who did he murder?’
‘My mother. When I was a baby.’
Sally narrowed her eyes. ‘Y’know … it’s not funny to joke about stuff like that. My father would be really hurt if he overheard me saying that about him. And it’s disrespectful to make things up about the dead. Especially your mother.’
‘I’m not making it up.’
‘Right. And I suppose he killed her to sell her kidneys on the black market.’
‘If you don’t believe me, fair enough. But if it wasn’t for him she’d still be alive today.’
‘If your father’s a murderer, then why isn’t he in prison?’ Sally asked.
‘Because he didn’t do it in cold blood – he’s not a murderer in the eyes of the law.’
‘C’mon, Frances,’ Sally said impatiently, ‘you can’t have it both ways. Either he killed her or he didn’t. How did she die?’
There was a long silence, then Frances said: ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Please don’t mention it again.’
This was fine with Sally, who thought Frances’s storytelling had crossed the line from funny to disturbing. The lie was ludicrous, yet at the same time part of Sally believed her – felt a thrill of fear to be in the home of a murderer. The room was quiet and tense with mutual irritation. When Frances spoke again, her words chimed in the dark.
‘Promise you won’t tell anyone at school.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Sally replied, ‘I won’t.’
They were outside a herbalist when their careers as petty criminals began. Piled up along the shop front were sacks of dried sundries – beans and lotus root and woven baskets of candied mango and papaya. As they lingered, dithering over whether or not to go in, Frances whispered: ‘I dare you to steal some sweets.’
Sally glanced at her, wondering if she’d misheard. She had coins in her purse and had no desire to steal anything. She glanced in the shop. The assistant was busy at the counter with his pestle and mortar, and no one else was paying them any attention. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to impress Frances, Sally dipped her fingers into the basket of dried fruit and scooped up a fistful before moving into the street. She broke into a trot, pandemonium in her heart, convinced she’d hear the shout of Stop, thief! at any moment. They turned into an alleyway and Sally’s knees shook with relief when she realized they hadn’t been followed. She unfurled her fist to show Frances the sweets she’d stolen, which glistened like sugared jewels in her palm. And, grinning her baby vampire’s grin, Frances unclenched her own fist, to show off her copy-cat theft.
They stole more and more recklessly; light-fingered thrill-seekers, filching and pilfering wherever they went. They flitted past diners in the hawker centres and pinched chopsticks from plates (while the diner had turned his back to greet a friend or to check his lottery ticket against the winning numbers on TV). They thieved from the fruit carts, stuffing pineapples into their satchels, cheering ‘Happy National Pineapple Day!’ as they handed them out to passers-by in the street. They became the opposite of pickpockets, smuggling stolen lollipops and paper fans into handbags, giggling to imagine the victim’s surprise when they reached for their wallet, only to find a bright yellow starfruit, or some lychees nestling like eggs against the pocket lining. Once Sally was caught in the over-ambitious act of sneaking up behind an old lady to balance a mango on her sun bonnet. The mango wobbled on the bonnet for a second, before toppling forwards into the basket of the woman’s push-bike. Baffled, she picked up the reddish-yellow fruit and held it up towards the Foreign Devil culprit, who was now legging it from the scene of the crime.
One day after school they made the pilgrimage to the Guandi temple, the shrine of Kuan Ti, the Taoist god of war. At the temple gates a group of beggars sat, bony arms outstretched, rattling tins for alms. Frances glided through the gates as if she had neither seen nor heard them, but Sally hesitated, her eyes meeting those of an ageless man in rags, with matted hair and a misshapen proboscis for a nose. The man shouted at Sally in Malay and grabbed the hem of her skirt. Sally couldn’t have panicked more if her skirt had caught fire. She tore the hem free and ran into the temple, shuddering in disgust.
Sally had always found Chinese temples ostentatious and the Guandi temple was no exception. Banners of red and gold were draped everywhere, and dragons perched on the jade-tiled roof, tails coiled round the temple pillars. Joss-sticks burned in great brass urns and spirals of incense gently snowed ash from the ceiling. A furnace incinerated origami cars as offerings for the afterlife, and vases and golden statues dazzled the eye. It was as if the Chinese feared the slightest hint of austerity would offend the gods. On a marble bench at the side of the temple, Sally and Frances sat and watched as the caretaker swept ash from the tiled floor and a row of men bowed their tonsured heads and waggled incense sticks at the altar.
‘It’s mostly businessmen that come here,’ Frances said. ‘They’re praying for money and success in the business world.’
‘I thought this temple was for the god of war,’ said Sally.
‘It is. The businessmen think they’re warriors.’ Frances snorted her contempt, then gave Sally a sly, sidelong smile. Sally knew what was coming.
‘I dare you to nick one of the cakes from the altar.’
Sally glanced at the offerings of fruit and little pink cakes. She’d no steadfast opinions on God and the status of His existence, but thought it wise to avoid sacrilegious behaviour until she was firmly committed to atheism. Frances clucked a few times and fanned her elbows in a disheartening chicken imitation.
‘Scared old Kuan Ti will come after you with his sword?’ she scoffed. ‘Since when were you Buddhist?’
Sally was scared – even though in the hierarchy of religions she thought Buddhism inferior to Christianity or Islam. If they had to steal from a Buddhist god, why not the goddess of mercy? Surely she would be a far safer bet.
‘I think it’s lame to steal from temples,’ Sally said.
‘OK,’ Frances said. ‘If you won’t do it, I will. I’ll take a cake and give it to the beggars outside. Watch!’
Frances strode to the altar. She stood for a moment, head lowered before the golden statue of the god of war as though in silent prayer. Then, hands flying out, Frances swiped a couple of cakes
and whirled round so fast her grey pleated skirt flared behind her. Stolen offerings in her hands, Frances hurried to the temple gates, the cocksure confidence that had taken her to the altar no longer in evidence. She’d almost succeeded in her getaway, but, reaching the threshold of the shrine, she rushed smack bang into a tall, blond man in a linen suit. The man caught Frances by the shoulders and steadied her, before both parties stepped back from the collision.
‘Frances,’ he said, ‘what do you have there in your hands? What are you playing at?’ The man towered over her.
Frances flushed and said nothing.
‘Frances, answer me this minute. Did you take those from the altar?’
‘They’re for the beggars,’ said Frances stubbornly.
‘You’ve more than enough pocket money if you want to buy cakes for the beggars. There’s absolutely no need to go about stealing. This has to stop, Frances. I’ve only been back five minutes and already I’ve had nothing but complaints about you. Now, put those back where you found them.’
That must be Mr Milnar! thought Sally, Frances’s father! The Aryan-looking man was completely unlike how she’d imagined Frances’s father to be. Mr Milnar was very handsome; firm-jawed like the heroes on the covers of her Harlequin romances, he had a distinguished hump-back nose and elegantly receding fair hair. Though he was forty-ish, he had the clean-cut air of a public-school boy about him. He looked nothing like the murderer Frances claimed he was. Mr Milnar watched sternly as his sulky daughter replaced the cakes on the altar. And as he nodded to himself, satisfied the crime was undone, Sally felt herself fall slightly in love with him.
Mr Milnar frowned as Sally approached him and she guessed her feelings weren’t reciprocated.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘Sally Hargreaves, sir. I’m in the same class as Frances at school. We’re friends.’
‘Ah yes, I’ve heard about you. You and Frances are fast acquiring reputations as trouble-makers here in Chinatown. You’re nowhere near as discreet as you think you are!’ He looked Sally up and down. ‘And it’s not as if you’re inconspicuous, is it?’
Sally hung her head, blushing red as a brick.
‘No, sir.’
‘A fine friend you are, encouraging Frances to steal!’
They left the temple in disgrace. Mr Milnar flung some coins to the beggars, then ordered the girls into the back seat of a stuffy overheated Morris Minor parked outside, ignoring Sally’s protests that she could make her own way home.
They drove to Petaling Jaya in silence, the scorching leather upholstery searing the back of Sally’s legs. She was deeply ashamed, but beside her Frances fumed as if she’d suffered a great injustice. Frances didn’t speak for the entire journey – not even to say goodbye when Sally was dropped off at her home. And Sally realized it was the maddest that she’d seen her.
11
OVER THE YEARS the biochemistry labs have become Adam’s second home. He belongs there, like the odour of halogens, the hum of the fume cupboards, and the iodine splashes on the benches. Every morning before the first session of practicals, he wheels a trolley around his appointed lab, pausing at intervals to set out volumetric flasks, pipettes, stoppered bottles of 0.1 molar sodium hydroxide. Adam is efficient and methodical, completing his tasks like an automaton, thoughts free to roam elsewhere.
When the biology undergraduates straggle in, tugging white lab coats on and whinging about deadlines and hangovers, Adam withdraws into the clutter of the preparation room, to the perpetual de-ionizing trickle of the distiller. Throughout the morning gum-snapping students in oversized safety glasses knock on Adam’s door; Where are the 50ml cylinders? Where are the latex gloves? More often than not Adam will stop whatever he’s doing and direct them back to the cupboard under their bench.
Most of the other laboratory technicians are women, a decade or two older than Adam. At break time he joins the circle of comfy chairs in the tea-room and listens to the chatter about families and last night’s TV while steam from the electric kettle fogs the windowpane. Adam likes his colleagues, though he can’t endure their mundane chit-chat for longer than it takes to gulp down a mug of coffee. The other technicians like Adam too. They like the youth he takes for granted, and are intrigued by the diffident way he carries himself – like an outsider, a mysterious refugee. They like his shyness – the way he blushes and stutters and gets the syllables of words back to front. They think it’s endearing that Adam is often stage-struck mid-sentence or mid-word, as if he lacks the confidence to finish his lines. The women technicians mollycoddle Adam, flirt with him, relishing his obvious discomfort. Every one of them projects upon Adam a romantic back story of their own invention, to explain his notorious timidity. Three of Adam’s colleagues regularly fantasize about seducing him; of bursting into the stock-room where he eats his lunch and knocking him off his stool; of popping open their lab-coat stub buttons and peeling off knickers and support tights to let him fuck them – gleefully betraying their husbands to shatter the boy’s celibacy (or virginity, as some imagine).
What would Adam think if he knew about these daydreams? If he knew what these middle-aged women wanted to do to him, as he sits among the shelves of hazardous chemicals and stacks of scientific catalogues, eating the bread and cheese he brought for his lunch? Adam would probably be a little embarrassed, a little scornful, though amused enough to smile. But he wouldn’t dwell on it for long as his habitual obsessions return to haunt him: his ex-boyfriend Mischa and his sister and Rob. If one of his colleagues were to take the initiative and barge in, grabbing him by the lapels, Adam would be annoyed. He likes to be left alone at lunchtime to brood. If it were a girl who exiled herself in this way the other technicians would be offended. They’d wage a whispering campaign until the offender meekly returned to the tea-room. But Adam is forgiven his solitariness because he is a man, and his co-workers have long taken it for granted that men are different.
Some nights he leaves his flat and walks. He’ll walk into the city, cold draughts of air ventilating his lungs, the austere slap of the pavement against the soles of his shoes, the stone vaulted architecture belonging to him alone. Or he’ll walk to a street of restaurants, slowing to stare at the candlelit diners – the woman in the silk scarf, lifting a forkful of linguine, throwing her head back to laugh at her male companion. Sometimes Adam goes further east, over the flyover to Stratford, past the mosques and churches, night sky impaled by steeples, to the dingy bedsit land of Romford Road (where he lived after his grandfather died and swore he’d never go back to, though he often does). On these city rambles Adam loses track of time, ceases seeing, only maintaining the level of perception necessary to avoid colliding with lamp-posts, drunks stumbling out of pubs. Only after he has retraced his steps back to Mile End, to flop exhausted into bed in the early hours, do the muscles in his legs begin to ache. When Adam walks, introspection staves off fatigue, distracts him from other night prowlers and the possibility of violence. To walk is to remember, and possessed by memories of Mischa Adam has traversed every inch of London. He has meandered along the banks of the Thames to Hammersmith, mind cast back to the nights of lying awake beside him as he slept, his heart speeding in fear of being discovered as a fraud, inept at intimacy. Ill-equipped for something as simple as happiness. Adam has lost his way in the suburbs of Essex, taking wrong turning after wrong turning, remembering Mischa’s coarse tongue tracing the outline of his spine, fingers blossoming into touch. Mischa’s childhood memories are lodged in Adam’s mind. Mischa the clown, the class chatterbox, exiled to the hall by his teacher, only to get another bollocking minutes later for joking with passers-by. The pale scar above his left eyebrow, from the time he flew over the handlebars of his bike, in a street in Cambridge when he was eleven years old.
The memory of infatuation is as bittersweet as yesterday. The shadows under his eyes, his stomach turning over, words freighted by fear. Mischa came and went like a firework, a chrysanthemum of light, before vanishi
ng from Adam’s life. Resign yourself to it, Adam thinks. Get over it. Walk it off. Like a drunk walking off inebriation in the cold.
12
THE BROUGHTON FAMILY, minus Jack, left Heathrow airport early one morning in April 1995 on a flight to Kuala Lumpur. For thirteen hours they flew against the spin of the earth, the aeroplane scudding through darkness and oceans of cloud, before soaring into the sunrise of the East. Frances had swallowed a sleeping pill in the departure lounge and lost consciousness before the plane left the runway (seat-belt clipped on, chair aligned for take-off), but Adam and Julia didn’t sleep a wink the entire journey. The furthest they’d been before the midnight flit was Southend-on-Sea and the long-haul flight was an adventure.
A taxi drove them from the airport to the shop house on Sultan Road where Madame Tay had lived alone for twenty-five years. She was waiting outside when the taxi arrived, sheltering from the sun under a lacy parasol. When Frances saw her old ayah she gave a cry and flung open the passenger door. She fell out, scraping her hands and knees, staggering up the roadside gutter on to the kerb. From the back seat Adam and Julia watched as their mother doubled over in her nurse’s pinafore, hands pressed to her mouth, shaking as though hysterical with laughter. Madame Tay’s parasol fell and rolled in an arc as she shuffled over to comfort the prodigal daughter. Frances collapsed into the frail old woman’s arms, sobbing in broken Cantonese.
As he and Julia climbed out of the cab, Adam dug his fingernails in his palms and swallowed hard. They’d never seen Frances cry before. She clung to Madame Tay as if she were the last person on Earth, the tightness of her grip bruising her arms (though no pain registered on the ayah’s face). Frances and Madame Tay embraced, blind to all onlookers: the stunned children, curious shoppers, the taxi driver impatient for his fare, and the Good Fortune Fabric Emporium manageress, patting her bouffant grey hairdo and smirking at the messy scene.
