The Colour of Tea

by Hannah Tunnicliffe

  “It’s not going to be easy for her. A baby and no father. No support. In this economic chaos …” His voice drifts off.

  I nod; it will be hard in these times. It’s hard enough already. “I wish I could make it different. Help her. Help Faith. Yok Lan. It’s such a mess, and Gigi’s a good girl, really. Tough but kind and … I don’t …” I pause, drinking in his attention. His eyes are so dark in this dim light. “I don’t know what to do for her,” I finish. I can feel the tears, so close.

  He says nothing for a moment. We both look back down at the basketball court.

  “I think she will tell you what she needs, when she’s ready to. Maybe there aren’t many people listening to her at the moment. Maybe that’s what she needs right now, just someone to listen.”

  As he says this, one of the boys puts his ball through the net. The kids yell, jumping around and hugging one another. The boy runs in small circles, shaking his fists in the air in victory.

  “You might be right,” I reply. I try to let my worries about Gigi and Faith and Yok Lan fall to the bottom of my mind. Settle, like sediment in my wineglass.

  I look back to Pete. He arches his foot so his toes press against mine. His socks are shadowed with cool sweat. They leave my feet wet. I make a disgusted face, and he grins. We turn back to the basketball court to see the boys hang their heads. Mum has come to round them up. She is saying something in Cantonese that we cannot hear. She points her finger, and they all march off in that direction.

  “Just be her friend, Grace,” Pete says softly.

  Les Soeurs—Sisters

  Peppermint with Dark Chocolate Ganache

  Later that week, close to closing time, Rilla brings laughter into the kitchen when I need it the most. I am still worrying about Gigi when she interrupts my thoughts by turning up the radio and dancing with her mop. She wiggles her hips beneath her apron and taps her feet. I realize I must have been frowning when I break into laughter. She winks at me as if to say, “That’s better,” and I shake my head. Her dancing ability closely matches her singing skills. Neither is good, but they never fail to make me laugh. I am reminded of how lucky I am to have her in my life, every day, here at Lillian’s with me. I flash her a grateful smile. When the phone rings, it startles both of us. Rilla turns down the radio as I leave the kitchen to answer it. Marjory’s voice is breathless and rushed.

  “Grace, it’s me. Is Rilla there?”

  Rilla comes out from the kitchen, and I meet her eyes.

  “She’s here. Are you okay?”

  “We need to come by to pick her up. It’s Jocelyn.”

  “Jocelyn?”

  Rilla moves quickly to fetch her jacket and bag. I suddenly feel on edge as Marjory presses on.

  “We need to pick her up from the refuge. We think her employers know where she is and we should move her just in case. Not good for her or the other women. It might be unnecessary but …” I can hear the sound of an engine shifting into a higher gear.

  “Is she …?” I start.

  Marjory’s voice gets louder as a car horn sounds. “I’ll have to explain later. Sorry, we just need to get her somewhere safe. She won’t come with me, but she’ll trust Rilla. Is it okay for Rilla to leave early?”

  “Yes, that’s fine.”

  “Good. Grace, can we bring Jocelyn back to Lillian’s? Just until we sort out somewhere for her to go?”

  I nod and then realize she can’t hear me. My heart is beating fast now.

  “Grace?”

  “Yes. Of course. Yes.”

  “Thanks. We’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The line goes dead, and I stare at Rilla putting on her jacket, hastily organizing herself to leave. I feel a bit lost.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask.

  Rilla just looks at me with an odd expression and shakes her head, before dashing off to use the bathroom.

  Within a few minutes Marjory’s white SUV brakes to a stop outside. The Lillian’s sign is reflected in the car’s dark windows, the orange, melting sunset a backdrop. Rilla races out and clambers into the front seat, purse in one hand, apron in the other. Then she holds the apron out to me, her hand shaking. Her face is pale and serious. When I take the apron from her, Marjory catches my eye from the driver’s seat.

  “Hopefully we won’t be long. I’ll explain when we get back, I promise,” she says, then accelerates away. My left hand is limp against my side, still holding Rilla’s mauve apron. A tiny tornado whips up sand and dust from across the road, and I watch it blankly as it twists and dances toward me. It skids to a still pile of dust as it hits the curb. I reach into my pocket for my mobile and call Pete. I barely get two sentences out before he tells me he’ll come straight over. I sit on the edge of the sidewalk and wait.

  * * *

  Pete and I are in the café by the time Marjory’s car pulls up outside. The sun has slid away, to be replaced by a fingernail moon. The back door opens, and Rilla gets out, then helps Jocelyn from the car. Jocelyn starts when she sees Pete. Rilla puts her arm around her friend and ushers her into the kitchen. A cold breeze whips inside as Marjory comes in. Her pretty face is white and pinched. Pete asks if she’d like a coffee, and she nods. She sits opposite me and reaches for my hands.

  “Oh, Grace.” She lets out a big sigh. “Thank you. Thank you for not asking any questions before.”

  “It’s okay,” I murmur, confused.

  “I think it was important to get there fast. You know, I didn’t realize just how bad this kind of thing can be. I didn’t believe it. Or want to. But now … now I know.” She shakes her head.

  When Pete brings over the coffee, Marjory wraps her long fingers around the cup. Pete takes a pot of hot water and cups into the kitchen. I can hear him offering tea to Rilla and Jocelyn but do not hear the replies. When he comes back, he sits beside Marjory and puts an arm around her shoulders. She leans into him gratefully.

  “Rilla told me Jocelyn was in trouble, so I let her know about the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; they run a refuge. I heard about it at a charity auction.”

  “Good Shepherd?” I repeat.

  “The sisters, the nuns, help women who are in trouble. I’ve been out there a few times since Jocelyn moved in, but she’s been too scared to talk to me. When the sisters heard her employers might know where she was, they rang me to see if I could help. They need to protect the other women too.” She puts her hand against her forehead.

  Pete looks to me for clarification, but I’m as confused as he is.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say gently, “but I’m lost. What kind of trouble?”

  Marjory looks at me, her head tilted to one side. “Rilla didn’t tell you?”

  I shake my head, feeling guilty. “No. We haven’t talked much.” Marjory takes a long, steadying breath. “Jocelyn came to Macau to be a domestic helper. These recruitment agents, if you can call them that, put her in a job with a family here. Then they told her she had to pay them a fee every month for the privilege.”

  Pete is nodding, so I look at him.

  “She has to pay them?” I ask.

  “It can work like that,” he says wryly.

  “That wasn’t really the big problem.” Marjory’s voice is bitter. “It’s her employers. A couple and an elderly father. Right away they took her passport and kept her from having a day off. They told her she was too slow. Treated her worse than you would a bad dog.” She shudders. “She appealed to the agents, but they wouldn’t help her. She’s just a paycheck to them. They advised her to stay quiet and keep her head down, and reminded her that a maid here makes more than a lawyer back in the Philippines, and that if she wanted to be a good mum to her kids back home she would work harder.” Marjory laughs cynically. “Work harder! As if she were lazy, as if it were her fault …” Her expression becomes hard. “So Jocelyn ran away. She has been staying at the refuge since that night she and Rilla stayed here.”

  My mind steps back over the last few
months, and I see the two girls lying in my storeroom. Pete looks at me as I shake my head.

  Marjory continues, “No one else could really tell how bad it was and what might be happening; they just thought she was a bit strange and quiet. Or they didn’t want to know. But Rilla knew, because of what had happened to her in Dubai. Probably just from the look on Jocelyn’s face. They became very close friends.”

  “Yes, Jocelyn would come meet Rilla here,” I murmur, remembering her waiting for Rilla outside, hovering at the edge of the door, her long hair across her face.

  “I guess in Rilla she had someone she could trust. But when Jocelyn stopped turning up for their meetings and Rilla wasn’t getting any calls or text messages, she got really scared. She spoke to some of the other Filipinos in Macau about it, and they said they would all keep an eye out for Jocelyn. That was one lucky thing, having such a network everywhere. Guys in security at the banks, the shops, women in most of the apartments, walking with prams. You know what it’s like.

  “Finally someone saw her at San Miu, that Chinese supermarket. Said she had a cap pulled down on her head, so he couldn’t see her face, but it was Jocelyn for sure. That made Rilla happy for a little while, knowing she’d been seen, that she seemed okay, but I think she just knew things were getting worse and worse. Anyway, Rilla got a text message a few months ago asking her to go to the car park outside the racetrack. It wasn’t Jocelyn’s number; it turned out she’d had to steal one of her employers’ phones, but you can’t blame her for that. They’d taken hers and were keeping her penned up in that bloody house.”

  Marjory guesses what I am thinking.

  “That was the night you found them here. The night she ran away.”

  My throat is dry. “What had happened?”

  Her eyes meet mine, and she pauses for a moment before she says grimly, “She’d been beaten with a frying pan.”

  My throat seizes up and my eyes smart. Through tears I can see Pete has his head in his hands.

  “Oh God,” he says.

  “I didn’t know,” I plead, my voice distorted.

  “Hey, hey …” Marjory shushes me. She leans over and pats my arm. “None of us knew, Grace. When Rilla first tried to ask for my help, I wanted to close my ears. I didn’t want to get involved. I figured it was none of my business …”

  “But it is,” Pete says slowly.

  “Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, it is our business. These people come here to work for us—the expats and the wealthy locals. But no one stands up for them, looks out for them, so this is what can happen. This and even worse.” She looks at me sharply. “Grace, it wasn’t your fault. We didn’t know, okay? But now we know, we can do something. We have to.”

  I nod and press my lips together. We can hear Rilla’s comforting whispers coming from the kitchen.

  “They can stay with us tonight,” Pete says firmly.

  Marjory turns her head to me. “Are you sure? I don’t mind …”

  “Yes,” I say. “Please, let them stay with us.”

  “Okay.” She sighs. “That’s good. We can figure out a way to get this resolved. What these women need is an organization that will protect them, help them when things get ugly like this. Don has a lawyer friend who might be able to help file some kind of action and begin the paperwork to get Jocelyn a new passport if necessary. Don is calling around, seeing what needs to be done. Her bosses still have her passport, and they’ll be trying to stop her from talking about what happened with them. Who knows what they’re capable of?”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “We can look after her. We can look after them both. There’s plenty of room.”

  Pete says to Marjory, “You need to go home to Don; you look exhausted. We’ll take them back to our place and get them settled in.”

  Marjory gives him a grateful look, then stands up. Her makeup has faded, and I can see faint age lines by her eyes. She takes the sunglasses off her head and folds them in one hand. As she turns to go, something strikes me. It’s a thought that feels like icy water down my back. My heart skips a beat.

  “Marjory? You said something about Dubai …”

  She turns.

  “Did this happen to Rilla in Dubai?”

  Marjory frowns. “Didn’t you wonder about the long sleeves?” Her voice is soft but pointed. “Yes. It happened to her in Dubai. You need to talk to her, Grace. I’ve been learning more and more about what can happen to these women. It’s not pretty, that’s for sure.” She sighs, then turns away again, promising to call early in the morning.

  * * *

  These days Lillian’s seems full even before the customers arrive. It is a hive, a coven, a sisterhood of women. Women all packed into the hot, tiny kitchen; working, laughing, talking, and looking after one another.

  After a few days and nights, Rilla moves back to her apartment, but Jocelyn continues to stay with Pete and me. She walks to and from Lillian’s with me each day, barely saying a word and practically attaching herself to the kitchen sink when we get to the café. I tell her she doesn’t need to work, but she just shakes her head. She sways from counter to sink to counter again in a graceful rhythm. She washes everything slowly, purposefully, cleaning the handles of the cups, gently wiping the crests on the bottoms of the saucers. The macarons are barely off the trays before she is rolling the metal sheets into the hot, soapy water. Occasionally she murmurs a tune. When I catch snippets of it, I realize she has a good voice, although the notes are so quiet they sound haunted.

  Gigi too has grown quiet. Something I would have once thought was impossible. She comes in before our regulars are waiting at the counter for a morning coffee, or sneaking muffins into their little ones’ mouths, too rushed at home to have fed them breakfast. She is not yet due back from maternity leave, but I can’t keep her away. I’m sure Lillian’s is a friendlier place to be than home. Her face still has that slightly erased look, her skin the color of white socks washed too many times, her freckles standing out on her blanched cheeks. The whole of Gigi seems to have been washed too many times—her voice subdued, her spirits flagging. She talks with me about macarons, all she seems to want to discuss. I assume she has managed to hold at bay her mother’s threat to kick her out, although she doesn’t like to talk about that either. Perhaps she is lying to her mother about where she spends her days; it wouldn’t surprise me. The café and macarons seem to give her steel. She scribbles ideas and thoughts into a notebook she keeps tucked in her handbag, a tiny smile flashing across her face before it too quickly disappears.

  After Gigi there is Rilla, rushing from the bus stop. She carries her head high, racing in to check that Jocelyn is safe. She helps her with the first load of dishes. There is a new strength in Rilla that is hard to explain, a sort of confidence. Marjory tells me Rilla has become known among the Filipinos for supporting girls who have been tricked by so-called recruitment agents or abused by bad employers. They’ve heard her story and have seen the cigarette burns on the insides of her arms. Since I asked she has started to tell me about what happened to her in Dubai: paid much less than promised, indebted to agents for mysterious fees, beaten into submission and silence. She considers herself lucky—some girls are forced into prostitution, and some girls never escape.

  These days she sometimes pushes up her sleeves, and I see the scars for myself. Moons of smooth, red skin tattooed into her. If it weren’t for her head held so high and the pride that radiates from her, they would make me cry. I apologize for the way I treated her and Jocelyn when I found them that morning, and she tells me not to think of it again. “You didn’t know.” I remember how cowed she had been by the businessman complaining about a cold coffee and think about how she would deal with him these days. Look at her now. It fills me with a motherly kind of pride. And somehow she seems to keep Jocelyn and Gigi just buoyant enough, like an emotional life raft.

  Marjory is the last to join the gaggle, arriving in the afternoons, once the lunch rush is over. She settles in her usual
seat and lingers over cappuccinos. She drags Jocelyn out from the kitchen to sit and talk with her, sliding a long arm around her shoulder and speaking in whispers. Marjory passes her tissues, and I see her sliding money into Jocelyn’s pockets when Jocelyn refuses to accept it from her directly. Marjory’s mornings are now spent at the Good Shepherd refuge. She talks rapturously about Sister Julietta, and I tease her about a woman with such good fashion sense hanging out with nuns.

  “She does the most amazing work, Gracie,” Marjory gushes. “We’re working with a group in Hong Kong that might be able to bust some of the agents bringing these poor girls in for domestic work. Domestic work, my arse.” A ferocious look crosses her face. “It’s modern-day slavery and they know it.”

  She even shares her frustrations and stories with Yok Lan, who listens patiently, not understanding a single word. Marjory tells me that they are close to being able to send Jocelyn home to the Philippines, back to her children.

  Gigi brings Faith in with her, swaddled in puffy jackets and woolen hats, the air now chilled with winter. She settles her in a corner by the counter where we can all watch her like a big pack of mamas. Faith blinks at us from her pram, round eyes like currants and cheeks rosy red from the cold. Sometimes she gurgles or stretches out unconsciously in her sleep, hands closed into fists above her soft, dark hair. I am transfixed by her pink mouth and pale skin, even when she is awake and crying the roof off the place. Her babyness seems fresh and hopeful against all the sadness and violence of the last few weeks. I lift her up to hold her close, breathe in the talc and baby scent of her, and tell her stories that Mama used to tell me. Fairies, queens, poisoned apples, princes and flying carpets. I can feel my heart filling up on love and hope when I am with her.

  Yok Lan and I take it in turns to rock her pram and change her nappies. Gigi leaves us to it, passing warmed bottles of formula for her feeds and taking over the till when I tend to her. Part of me feels guilty for latching on to Faith while Gigi works, but she looks at me with relief; serving her regulars seems to make her more like herself, brings a little color to her face. It is like some kind of therapy for her that I can’t explain. And maybe Faith is the same for me.