by Susan Barker
Adam and Julia lugged the suitcases up the stairs and Madame Tay put Frances to bed (their own mum – forty-three years old and put to bed like a child!) before turning her attention to the children, unconditional love beaming from the wrinkly depths of her face. Madame Tay had twenty-five years of bottled-up affection to squander, and the object of her doting was Julia (Adam privileged with the privacy and dignity afforded to teenage boys). The old ayah launched herself at Julia, who climbed on top of wardrobes and dived under beds to escape her insatiable liver-spotted arms. As Madame Tay kissed and cuddled her and massaged stinky tiger balm into her mosquito bites – which swelled all over Julia like mumps – Adam got the impression she wanted to eat her alive.
Madame Tay couldn’t speak English and communicated with them by shouting very slowly in Cantonese, as though they were retarded Chinese children. They picked up some of the language this way and were soon able to recognize the words for dinner time, bedtime, bath time, and wake your mother (or Mei Mei ah! as Madame Tay called her). When Madame Tay wasn’t chasing Julia she was cooking up on the roof-terrace kitchen, or cleaning the apartment, or watching Hong Kong soap operas with bizarre plot lines. Adam was ambivalent towards her. Sometimes she seemed little more than an innocuous old lady with ill-fitting dentures and a diaphanous cloud of hair. Other times Madame Tay seemed sinister and he was paranoid she had mind-reading powers and could tell when he’d been bad-mouthing his mother or wanking in the bathroom. Adam and Julia’s caginess around Madame Tay wasn’t helped by the sleep deprivation of the first week. Both cursed by over-sensitivity to disrupted circadian rhythms, they were badly jet lagged, tossing and turning night after night, eyes burning holes in the dark. Tired and apathetic, they rarely ventured out, and the apartment became like some shadowy nether realm between waking and sleep as they wandered listlessly, napping in unsatisfying fits and starts. Every night at eleven o’clock they went to the bedroom they shared (an arrangement they were far too old for, though neither objected when Madame Tay showed them to the room) and lay on beds veiled by mosquito net mantillas. The darkness gave free rein to the unquiet of wakefulness; the mangling of sheets and frustrated sighs; the hourly flush of the toilet after restless bladders had leaked a thimble of urine; shallow breaths never plunging beneath the surface of consciousness. A few times the sleep-starved Julia cried. She’d sit up and sob, calling out to Adam, I hate it here! I want my dad! and Adam would go to her, sweeping aside the netting to sit beside her. He’d give her shoulder a squeeze and reassure her he couldn’t sleep either. One night, when Julia wept, Adam hugged her – something he hadn’t done for years. She was slippery with sweat, her skin searing as though her homesickness was burning her up inside. In his arms Julia was all gangling bones, her shoulder-blades jutting sharply through her thin vest. Her sobs subsided as he soothed her. She shifted closer to him, touched her face to his, her tears wetting his cheek. She hooked her arm round Adam’s neck, and slackened, so her weight would pull them both down on the mattress. Adam teetered for a moment, unsure of whether to let himself fall. He thought of how nice it would be to lie with her, for their bodies to press together. But then, sickening, and with a strange ache of heart, Adam unhooked his sister’s arm from his neck and lay her down alone. He turned his back on her and lifted the mosquito nets to get back to his own bed. Go to sleep, he said, as if that wasn’t the problem, and Julia began to snivel again. Adam lay awake listening for a while, guilty and irritated, but less than an hour later the insomnia broke and they both slept until noon the next day.
During the time her children were wretched with insomnia Frances slept like the dead. She slept around the clock, literally dragging herself out of bed to eat the meals Madame Tay had cooked and stumbling back there as soon as she’d laid her chopsticks down. At first Adam and Julia were jealous of their mother: all she had to do was lay her head on the pillow and that was that – out like a light! But as the sleeping continued, the envy became anxiety. No matter how long Frances spent in bed, sprawled like a lazy starfish, or a swastika of arms and legs, her appetite for sleep was never sated. When Frances spoke she sounded drunk, slurred with fatigue, tongue drained of strength. She’d never been that way back in London. Back home she was always vacuuming, nagging, the knife a blur as she chopped vegetables. She’d eaten her breakfast on her feet, pacing the linoleum as she spooned up her bran cereal. But in Malaysia, helping Madame Tay with the chores, faded headscarf tied over her greying hair, Frances tired in minutes, abandoning feather duster and broom to go for ‘a lie down’. The children harassed her during her brief hiatuses from sleep – You’ve slept the whole week! Are you ill? Drink some coffee! – and Madame Tay quietly took over the duties of motherhood, making Adam and Julia eat their vegetables, sending them to bed at eleven and wagging her finger when they fought.
The sleeping bothered Julia the most. She invented excuses to go and wake her. Mummmy … she’d whine in a babyish voice, tugging Frances until she lifted her head from the pillow and squinted as if trying to recognize the lanky girl with the skinny blonde plaits. Julia usually asked Frances for permission to go across the street and buy ice cream. And Frances would mumble her consent, waving towards the handbag on the dresser. Take what you want, she’d say, eyelids fluttering shut. This liberal attitude to ice cream frustrated Julia. Ice cream wasn’t allowed. Not every day. And definitely not an hour before dinner. And on the rare occasions it was allowed, Frances counted out the money, warning the recipient to return with change.
‘She wasn’t even sleeping. Just lying there with her eyes open,’ Julia told Adam as she licked her flavourless cone. ‘I saw.’
Though Chinatown was on their doorstep Adam and Julia spent most days lazing indoors, cross-eyed with boredom. Stuck with each other, they played hours of blackjack and poker, until Adam shuffled decks in his dreams. When they were sick of cards they persuaded Madame Tay to unlock their grandfather’s study (the grandfather they’d been told was dead, but was actually alive and living two miles from their home in east London). The study was a museum of Mr Milnar’s scholarly past, the shelves stacked with reference books, geographical surveys and travel memoirs; the filing cabinets stuffed with sheafs of foolscap covered in Chinese calligraphy, some characters practised hundreds of times per leaf, as though Mr Milnar had been in a hypnotic trance. On the desk was an Olivetti typewriter with a desiccated ink ribbon, a yellowing wad of manuscript paper (the palimpsest of a letter composed in Mandarin on the topmost layer) and a globe that squeaked when spun on its axis. Adam and Julia spent hours rifling through the old man’s stuff, pulling out drawers and reading his private correspondence (Look at this! they’d cry, waving a photograph of their grandfather in a loincloth and Iban warrior headdress, posing before a jungle backdrop). Imaginations whetted by the roomful of artefacts, Adam and Julia regressed to the role-playing games of their childhood. They adopted secret code-names and pretended to be the CIA, shooting each other in the hallway with their grandfather’s fountain pens. They found a magnifying glass in the bureau drawer and, dressed in his moth-eaten suits and panama hats – Julia with a brown felt-tip moustache on her upper lip – made believe they were detectives. It was the most fun Adam had had in ages, but he was deeply embarrassed to be playing with his little sister at the age of fourteen, and whenever the burden of shame became too much he gave her a Chinese burn.
One afternoon, returning from a trip to the ice-cream vendor, they befriended Malay twin sisters, whose father owned the furniture shop down the road. Adam has forgotten their names, but remembers they were twelve and a half and spoke fluent English in playful lilting tones. Though non-identical, the twins had the same squishy noses (that looked as though they’d been launched by catapult and landed splat! in the middle of their faces) and identical scars on their upper lips left by corrective cleft-palate surgery. Behind their backs Adam called them ‘the Harelip Twins’, and though they were quite ugly he liked to tease them and pull on the thick ropes of plaits dangling
down their backs. The twins left for school every morning at seven thirty and were home again at one fifteen, when their father put them to work polishing furniture in his shop. Adam and Julia would call for them after two, and with a nod from their father the twins would join them in the street. Adam and Julia tried to initiate the Harelip Twins into their secret world of gangsters and policemen, but the twins preferred gentler, unimaginative pastimes such as hopscotch and hand-clapping games that Adam hated (though he always mooched around, partly because he had nothing better to do and partly to bask in what he imagined to be the Harelip Twins’ love rivalry for him). The twins had had a strict religious upbringing and displayed an innocence that shocked Adam and Julia (who’d chant fuck thirty times in a row just to frighten them). Adam and Julia taught them about London, bragging of gangland shootings, teen pregnancies and kids stabbing one another up at school. The twins, who’d also been spoon-fed fear from an early age, responded with the cautionary tales of Kuala Lumpur, warning Adam and Julia about the kidnappers lurking around every corner, ready to bundle people into sacks, to be butchered in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants.
After three weeks of bed rest Frances was still exhausted, surfacing for meals puffy and pillowcreased, her hair mussed up as she stared at the children in mild detachment. Her lethargy rubbed off on Adam, who began to devote hours to lying on his bed.
‘C’mon, get up!’ Julia shouted. ‘How can you just lie there? You’re becoming like Mum!’
‘Get lost, Jules. Go and play with the Harelip Twins.’
‘I will! It’s much better without you there being sarcastic anyway!’
His sister gone, Adam stagnated, not even moving to scratch an itch. He stared at the dust glittering in the blades of light coming in through chinks in the window shutters, every minute suffused by the scent of furniture polish and the ticking of the clock. The city became a fog of sound: of horns beeping, the put, put, put of motorscooters, and foreign shouts. Sometimes, out of nowhere, panic would charge up in his chest. How long were things going to be this way? For the next month? The one after that? Frances’s nurse uniform, washed and ironed by Madame Tay, was hanging in her cupboard. Adam had a strong feeling she was never going to wear it again; that she’d found her true vocation vegetating on the bed. It was all wrong. It was wrong that they’d taken off without telling Jack. It was wrong that he and Julia had missed weeks of school. It was wrong that their mother had become a selfish invalid. Adam blamed Malaysia. Once they were back in England, Frances would be back to her old self.
During the fourth week of the holiday Julia’s battle against Frances kicked off. She waited until lunchtime, when Frances had left the safety of her bedroom and had no choice but to listen.
‘Muuum …’
Frances ignored her, slurped a noodle between her lips.
‘Muuum … Muuum …’
‘What?’
‘When are we going home?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can we go back next week?’
‘No.’
‘The week after that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not? Why can’t we go back?’
‘Julia, shut up.’
‘But what about school? Me and Adam have to go to school. It’s against the law if we don’t go.’
‘She’s right,’ Adam chipped in. ‘It’s illegal.’
‘It won’t kill you,’ said Frances, ‘to miss a few weeks.’
‘Are you going to divorce Dad?’ Julia asked.
‘No.’
‘’Cos I don’t mind if you are. I don’t mind seeing him only at the weekends. But you should go back to England and tell him.’
Noodles dangled down Frances’s chin. She slurped them up and chewed.
‘It’s so unfair …’ Julia whined. ‘I miss Dad. You’re just keeping us here because you want to be here, though me and Adam have fuck all to do! It’s bang out of order!’
‘Julia, shut up. I have a headache.’
‘You always have a headache. Are you sick or something?’
‘Yes. I’m sick.’
‘Well, you’d better go to the doctor and sort it out, then!’
As Julia argued with Frances, Madame Tay sneaked stir-fried green beans into Julia’s rice bowl. She’d got in three chopstick loads before Julia noticed. She glowered at Madame Tay.
‘I don’t want any!’ she hissed, shoving the bowl away.
‘For Christ’s sake, Julia! Don’t speak to Ayah like that.’
‘I don’t care. She pisses me off,’ said Julia. ‘She’s an evil cow. And so are you for making us stay here. I want to go home!’
Tear ducts detonated and Julia thumped the table and shrieked: You’ve kidnapped us! I miss my dad! She stormed up to the roof-terrace kitchen, slamming every door and banging up the stairs as loudly as someone three times her size. Then she stomped back down again, not wanting her fury to go unheard. By then Frances was locked away in her bedroom and, angered by her hasty retreat, Julia hurled her weight at the door, screaming that Frances was a kidnapper and child abuser and a shit mother. Julia attacked the door for half an hour, blonde hair flying as she punched and kicked, throwing her body about as if she didn’t care what bones she broke as she haemorrhaged fury. Back in London Frances wouldn’t have put up with five minutes of Julia’s tantrum. She’d have smacked her and sent her packing. But things were different in Malaysia. What are you looking at? Piss off! Julia shrieked at Adam, before she crashed, weeping, on her hands and knees. Adam was impressed. He’d never seen such a savage tantrum before. He never knew she could be so psychotic. But after a while Julia’s howling got on his nerves and he went to call for the Harelip Twins. When he returned, several hours later, Julia was still crouched outside their mother’s room, but pathetic as a kitten, quivering with the residual spasms of sobs. When Madame Tay clashed saucepan lids to announce supper, the bedroom door opened and Frances barely glanced at her daughter as she stepped around her into the hall.
Julia kept it up for the next two days, harassing Frances at lunch, before flying into a self-destructive rage and spending the afternoon screaming and battering the bedroom door. On the third day Julia changed tack, and after lunch chased Frances into the bedroom before the door could be locked. Adam heard them fighting in there, the mattress springs creaking as Julia bounced on the bed, Frances shouting at her to get down. Adam heard Julia scream and went to the hall. Frances was pushing Julia out of the door, a firm but weary expression on her face, and Julia lashed out at her mother, gouging her cheek. With a cry of pain Frances shoved Julia, forcefully, so she fell on her bum and banged her head against the hallway wall. Though the violence frightened him, Julia’s look of shock was so comical that Adam laughed. Concerned she’d seriously hurt her daughter, Frances stepped forward to get a better look, and Julia sprang up and charged at her. Frances quickly recoiled, slamming the bedroom door shut just as Julia grabbed hold of the door jamb. There was a moment of silent shock, before Julia screamed; not her usual exhibitionist, temper-tantrum scream, but the genuine bewildered scream of a child in pain. Frances opened the door and Julia crumpled into a ball of pain, gripping her mangled fingers as she rolled on the floor. There was blood dripping everywhere, and Frances knelt down, all over Julia, her eyes wide and frantic, the most awake Adam had seen her in weeks. Julia, Julia, Julia, she begged, show me your fingers …
They took Julia to the hospital in a taxi, a towel sopping up the blood from her injury, and when they brought her back late that evening half the index finger of her left hand was gone and the rest were splinted and bandaged up, so her hand was like a swollen paw.
Frances bought Julia ice cream. She told Julia she was very sorry about her finger. And Julia, being Julia, forgave her. But when she asked when they were going back to England, Frances still had no reply.
13
IT WAS 20 FEBRUARY 1969, the date of Frances’s seventeenth birthday. They’d skipped afternoon lessons tha
t day (after forging notes claiming a dentist appointment and the death of a great aunt) and gone to the Lake Gardens’ butterfly sanctuary, returning to Frances’s at six o’clock, grubby and grass-stained, damp blouses hanging over skirt waistbands. Mr Milnar was home early from the office, and the parlour floorboards creaked as he seesawed in the rocking chair. He stood up as the girls entered, folding a newspaper dense with Chinese hieroglyphics. The sight of Mr Milnar alarmed Sally, who feared their truancy had been rumbled. We must destroy the evidence! she thought, glancing at Frances’s jar of butterflies (a glass mortuary of winged corpses picked off the sanctuary floor because they were too pretty to go to waste). Mr Milnar, however, did not seem cross.
‘Happy birthday, Frances,’ he said.
Sally was confused. Frances hadn’t mentioned it was her birthday.
‘We’re going to have dinner at the club tonight to celebrate.’
‘Oh, why?’ scowled Frances.
‘Because it’s your birthday and this is what we do every year, that’s why,’ said Mr Milnar. ‘And it’s too late to do otherwise now, because Madame Tay has gone to see her friends and hasn’t cooked us any dinner. The table is booked for seven. You’ve ten minutes to go and scrub up. And your, er … friend too.’
Mr Milnar sat in the rocking chair and shook open his Chinese newspaper to signal the end of discussion.
As the girls went to the bathroom to wash, Sally whispered: ‘You never told me it was your birthday! Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Frances said. ‘It’s probably not even my birthday today. My father picked this date because my mother wasn’t sure when I was born. My birthday could’ve been last Tuesday, for all I know.’
Not knowing your own birthday? Sally had never heard of such a thing.
