The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong

by Kirsty Murray

  ‘It’s okay. I’m here now and Ned’s all right,’ he said. ‘He was at crèche. He’s fine.’ He spoke slowly, as if to reassure himself as much as Maeve.

  Maeve felt a knot of rage form in her throat, so tight she had to choke the words out. ‘I know Ned’s fine, but Mum’s dead. Mum’s dead.’

  ‘Maeve,’ he said. And then he was crying like a baby, the way Ned cried, as if the tears would never stop.

  ‘What are we going to do without her?’ he said.

  Maeve looked at her mother’s hand, still and small on the white hospital blanket.

  ‘Without her,’ she echoed. The future opened up like a black chasm.

  8

  Echoes and angels

  The folding bed creaked as Maeve rolled over and Ned gave a whimpering sigh in his sleep. Maeve had given up her bedroom to Andy’s parents, Nanny and Pa, who had come down from their home in Lismore to help look after Ned. Andy had suggested that Maeve might want to sleep in the living room but she liked sleeping in with Ned. If she woke up during the night she could listen to the soft snuffle of his breath and somehow feel safer than she felt anywhere else.

  She lay watching Ned as he drew the satin edge of his blanket up close to his face and rubbed the silky fabric against his upper lip. When he opened his eyes and saw her, he smiled. ‘May-Yay,’ he said, his voice soft with sleep. He stretched his arms out through the bars of the cot and Maeve touched his fingertips, tickling the palm of his hand until he giggled and pulled it away. She lifted him out of the cot and took him into her bed, feeling the softness of his breath against her as she cuddled him. She drew the covers over their heads and pulled the bedside lamp in as a prop. When the two of them lay safely snuggled in the warm, pink glow of their blanket tent, everything felt normal. It was as if nothing had changed. Any minute, Sue would call for them to come down for breakfast. Any moment, they’d wake up and find their old life had come back and everything that had happened in the past week had been a bad dream.

  Suddenly, the sheets and blankets were ripped away.

  ‘Aren’t you going to be late for school?’ asked Andy tersely.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I won’t go after all,’ said Maeve.

  ‘Oh yes you will,’ he replied. Maeve sighed and got out of bed. As soon as she stood up, her shoulders sagging with misery, he relented. ‘I’m sorry, Maeve. Maybe you should wait until after the funeral.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I know we agreed I’d go today and I want to go, really. It’s just hard getting started.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Andy, his eyes brimming with tears again. Maeve thrust Ned into his arms and turned away. She didn’t want to see him cry. She was tired of tears. She just wanted the funeral to be over, for everything to be finished with. But when she thought about the future, there wasn’t an end to the next phase – life without her mother. It stretched unimaginably into the weeks and months and years ahead, like a dark road winding through fog.

  At the breakfast table, she kept expecting Sue to step out from behind the pantry door and shout peek-a-boo. As if she’d been hiding, as if it had all been a game that everyone had taken too seriously. Andy came downstairs with Ned on his hip. Ned was making that new, whingeing, grumbly sound that he’d only just invented and trying to bite Andy on the shoulder.

  ‘Hey, cut that out,’ said Andy crossly, holding Ned away from him.

  ‘He wants Mum,’ said Maeve.

  ‘I know that,’ said Andy. ‘But I’m all he’s got from now on.’

  ‘And me,’ thought Maeve. ‘He’s got me.’ But she didn’t say it out loud. She was quickly learning that words didn’t work the way they should when people were grieving, as if everyone heard things differently and misunderstood everything she was trying to tell them.

  The phone rang constantly, but now neither Maeve nor Andy bothered to answer it. The hallway filled with echoes as the answering machine clicked into action, Sue’s voice saying, ‘You have phoned Sue, Andy, Maeve and Ned. Please leave a message after the tone.’ Nanny would race to the phone to try and stop the machine, disturbed to hear her dead daughter-in-law’s voice echoing through the house, but Maeve knew Andy felt the same as she did. They couldn’t bear to think of changing the message.

  People kept arriving at the house too, with flowers, with gifts, with food. It was so hard answering the door to people who didn’t know what to say or how to say it, and she grew tired of having to thank them all the time. The kitchen quickly grew cluttered with boxes of Danish pastries, muffins and quiches, but Maeve couldn’t eat any of it. When Nanny and Pa had finally arrived, they’d cleared the benches and set about putting some order in the kitchen. Maeve knew it was good that someone was looking after the practical things, that someone was making sure there was food for Ned. But she had to fight down her constant irritation with them too. When Nanny started clearing out the fridge, reaching to throw away a jar of old jam, Maeve had to run from the kitchen. She wanted to shout, ‘But my mum made that jam, my mum made that jam and now you’re throwing it away.’ It was as if there were two voices in her head all the time, the normal one and another voice that was crazy and irrational with misery.

  When Julie came to pick Maeve up for school, Maeve climbed into the back seat beside Steph and hugged her. Maybe now she could have one almost normal day.

  ‘Thanks for this, Julie.’

  ‘Oh Maeve, it’s nothing. Nothing at all. You’re so brave, going to school the day before the funeral.’

  Maeve knew she wasn’t being brave. She was running away. She just wanted to pretend that nothing had happened.

  But from the minute she walked through the school gate, Maeve realised this was going to be one of the longest days of her life. Nobody knew what to say to her. Girls she thought were her friends seemed to step wide when they walked past her, as if she was a pile of broken glass in the middle of the corridor, as if grief was a disease that they might catch. Even Steph and Bianca kept looking at her with that wide-eyed, miserable expression that made her want to squirm. She knew they were devastated, but she didn’t want to hear them talk about it.

  They sat on the grass during lunchtime, just the three of them, an invisible force-field around them that no one else was willing to cross.

  ‘Can you two lighten up a little?’ said Maeve, tearing up a blade of grass and carefully shredding it. ‘Just say something.’

  Bianca and Steph looked at each other and winced. ‘We don’t want to say the wrong thing,’ said Steph.

  ‘I don’t care what you say. Say anything. I need you to stay the same, guys. Be like you always are. Everything is changing so fast. Home feels – weird. Andy is weird. Everyone is weird. Andy’s mum keeps saying he has to keep his fighting spirit. As if he ever had any. He couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. And now he just walks around and cries more than Ned.’

  ‘It’s good your granny can take care of things for a while. I guess that’s something.’

  ‘She’s not my granny. She’s Ned’s granny. My granny and grandpa are flying down from Queensland tomorrow but they won’t stay with us. They’ll stay in their flat in Potts Point. They have this place that they keep for when they come to Sydney. They never come to our house.’

  ‘Wow, they must be rich.’

  Maeve shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess, maybe. They live in Surfers and travel around a lot, but they’re going to stay in Sydney until everything is sorted out.’

  ‘But the funeral’s all set, isn’t it? What else is there to sort out?’ asked Bianca.

  Maeve couldn’t answer for a moment. ‘Me. They have to sort out what’s going to happen to me.’

  ‘What do you mean? You’re not going anywhere, are you?’ asked Steph, alarmed.

  Maeve lay back in the grass and folded her arms across her face. ‘I don’t know. It’s not like Andy is my real dad. He’s only my stepdad, he didn’t adopt me. I heard Nanny saying it was too much for him to raise two kids on his own. And I bet you she didn
’t mean he should send Ned away. Mum didn’t have a will, so no one knows where I’m meant to go. Andy says it’s up to Por Por and Goong Goong, ’cause they’ll wind up being my legal guardians.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My granny and grandpa. My mum’s parents. That’s their Chinese names for grandparents. They’re okay. But I don’t really know them all that well. I don’t want to think about it. It makes me want to run away. Except I don’t know where to run to.’

  Steph and Bianca looked at each other. ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Steph.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Bianca. ‘Not without us.’

  Something soft and ticklish hit Maeve on the forehead. She uncovered her eyes and stared up at her two best friends. With the sun behind them, Bianca’s blonde hair and Steph’s red curls made haloes around their laughing faces. It almost looked as though they were angels.

  ‘All for one and one for all,’ they chanted together as they scattered handfuls of fallen jacaranda blossoms over Maeve.

  9

  Dark waters

  Maeve woke early on the day of the funeral. Ned lay beside her, curled up against her body like a sleeping possum. When he’d woken during the night and cried for their mother, she’d taken him into bed with her and he’d quickly settled back to sleep. She brushed his cheek with a kiss and slipped out of bed.

  Out on the back verandah, the morning air was cool against her skin. A magpie sitting in the tall, stringy gum tree near the back fence sang to the rising sun. Maeve listened to the bird’s call resounding across the garden. The day was bright and clear. It seemed all wrong. She shut her eyes, wishing that the sky would cloud over, that the day would become black and grey to match her mood.

  Bianca and Steph came by in the morning. Their parents had given them the day off school so they could be there for Maeve. Ned was having a tantrum when they arrived. They came into Ned’s bedroom to find the wriggling toddler pinned to Maeve’s lap as she tried to dress him in his new white suit.

  ‘Hey, monster,’ said Bianca, poking Ned in the tummy.

  Ned bared his small teeth at her and growled.

  ‘Oooh, I am so scared,’ said Bianca, putting her hands to her cheeks and feigning horror. Ned giggled and then growled again.

  Bianca and Steph took one foot each and strapped Ned’s new sandals on while Maeve buttoned up his jacket. Ned grew even more excited by the attention and started trying to press big, sloppy wet kisses on their hands.

  ‘You are turning into a demon toddler, that’s for sure,’ said Maeve as she carried Ned into the kitchen and settled him in his playpen with a pile of toys.

  Nanny and Pa were busy setting out plates of food for the wake and all the girls were set to work unpacking the boxes of hired crockery stacked around the room.

  ‘Your mum’s funeral is going to be so awesome, Maeve,’ said Bianca, as she lined up cups and saucer. ‘I bet there’ll be a million people. She has so many friends. This will be the most amazing funeral ever.’

  ‘Have you been to any other funerals?’ asked Maeve.

  Bianca blushed. ‘No, but I can’t imagine that . . . you know . . . an event or tribute or party or whatever will be better than this.’

  ‘It’s not a party,’ said Steph.

  ‘God, Steph. Undermine me, why don’t you. I’m trying to be positive. Trust me, Maeve, it’s going to be amazing, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I hope so,’ said Maeve. ‘I’ve never been to a funeral before either, but things aren’t shaping up great, so far. Andy wanted Mum to be in her favourite red top but Por Por, my granny, she phoned last night and asked what Mum would be wearing and when he told her, Por Por started wailing down the phone and saying you can’t dress her in red or she’ll turn into a ghost. Andy looked like he wanted to faint.’

  ‘She was probably just really upset,’ said Steph.

  ‘I know that,’ said Maeve. ‘But I’ve got this feeling we’re doing everything wrong. Andy keeps asking me what Por Por is talking about and I feel really stupid, like Mum should have told me about all the Chinese traditions. But she never did. I mean, I know more French words than I do Chinese and I don’t know anything about what you’re meant to do at a funeral.’

  ‘It’ll be okay once they get here,’ said Bianca.

  Maeve put her hands over her face. ‘I hope so. The thing is, they’ve never been here before. I mean, for the wake, that will be the first time they’ve really been inside this house. They never visit us here. We always have to meet them at a restaurant in the city or at their flat and Andy never comes along. What if I have to live with them? What am I going to do?’

  Steph put her arms around Maeve. ‘Hey, you’re going to be okay. Just do one thing at a time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bianca. ‘Good policy. I’ve been trying to get something happening with Josh and with Omar and I’ve decided one boy at a time is a much better idea.’

  ‘You can be such an airhead,’ said Steph, reaching out and drawing Bianca into a group hug.

  Maeve was standing in the hall in her new white sundress, holding Ned on her hip, when her grandparents arrived. The minute the door was opened, Maeve knew something was wrong. Goong Goong winced when he saw his grandchildren. Por Por stared at Maeve and then quickly turned to Goong Goong and started speaking rapidly in Chinese. Andy was trying to greet them but it was as if he were invisible. Maeve set Ned down on the floor and he pelted towards the kitchen, calling for Nanny at the top of his voice.

  The noise broke the spell that had fallen on everyone standing at the threshold. Por Por was dressed in a white silk skirt and jacket. She turned to Andy and took both his hands in hers and mumbled something about it being a difficult time for all of them. Goong Goong stood staring out into the street, his long face etched with disapproval. He was dressed in a silvery-grey suit that almost matched the colour of his hair. Even though Maeve never knew what to say to her grandfather, she had always admired his quiet dignity. But today, there was something icy in his expression, something that made her dread having to greet him. Unconsciously, she took a step back into the darkness of the hall, wishing she could run away like Ned.

  Por Por stretched her arms out to Maeve. ‘Siu Siu,’ she called, her voice cracking with grief.

  Maeve had been taller than her grandmother since she was eleven years old, but it still felt strange to have to bend over to hug her. Por Por stroked Maeve’s hair and held her close, just the way Sue used to, and Maeve felt a little catch in her throat. She hugged Por Por tighter and pressed her face against the smooth, silky jacket.

  ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t come sooner, sweetie,’ whispered Por Por. ‘We’re here for you now. We’ll always be here for you.’

  Maeve fought back tears. She took a step towards her grandfather. ‘Goong Goong,’ she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

  Goong Goong simply nodded. Maeve wasn’t sure if it was because he was upset that they were all still standing outside. She looked to Andy and gestured with her eyebrows, hoping he’d take the hint.

  ‘Oh, would you like to come in for a cuppa? We’re still getting organised but you’re very welcome,’ he said, awkwardly.

  Por Por smiled but shook her head. ‘No, we won’t interrupt. We just wanted to see the children before the funeral. But I’m sure you’ve got much more to organise. Maeve, if you and Ned get dressed, we could take you to the church with us.’

  ‘I am dressed, Por Por,’ said Maeve.

  Goong Goong frowned even more severely and Por Por pursed her lips. ‘But shouldn’t you be wearing black?’

  Maeve glared at Andy. He had told her that she and Ned should both wear white because it was a Chinese tradition. Suddenly her new dress felt tight and uncomfortable. ‘But you’re in white, Por Por,’ said Maeve.

  ‘Isn’t white the Chinese colour for mourning?’ asked Andy.

  ‘For adults. Very disrespectful for children to wear white at the funeral of their mother,’ said Goong G
oong, turning away and walking towards the gate.

  Por Por reached out and grasped Maeve’s hands. ‘He’s very upset, sweetie. It’s too much, too sudden. We’ll wait in the car for you. Come out with Ned when you’re ready.’

  ‘But Por Por, I’ve got my friends with me. I’m going to the funeral with my friends.’

  ‘And Ned is coming with me,’ said Andy. When Por Por turned to answer him, he cut her off before she could speak. ‘He has to go in his car seat. He’s too little to ride in a regular seatbelt. It’s not safe. He’s coming with me.’

  Maeve tried to ignore the angry undertone in Andy’s voice.

  ‘It’s okay, Por Por. We’ll all be together at the funeral.’ She squeezed Por Por’s hands to reassure her and fought down the tears that were still trying to work their way free.

  Steph and Bianca flanked Maeve on either side like bodyguards as they walked into the church together. There were so many people that Maeve hardly knew, spilling out of the aisles of the church, crowding in at the doorway, and everyone was staring at her. She’d never been so glad of her friends.

  A pair of Buddhist monks stood near a small Chinese altar, chanting prayers and lighting incense while the minister of the church greeted mourners at the door. A picture of Sue sat on the coffin amid wreaths of flowers. Shyly, Maeve approached it and placed the card that she had made beside Sue’s photo. Inside was a print of Ned’s small, chubby hand and Maeve’s long, slender one surrounded by a pattern of interwoven hearts. Briefly, her fingers touched the lid of the coffin. It was as if an electric shock charged through her and left her cold and trembling, to know that her mother was inside that box. It was a relief to sit down between Steph and Bianca and feel their warmth.

  Por Por had arranged the Buddhist monks but Andy had picked the church. Maeve had never been inside it before. A song called ‘Forever Young’ was playing in the background as more and more people crowded into the church. She caught sight of some students from St Philomena’s standing with McCabe and Mrs Spinelli at the back and wished she was standing among them, that this was somebody else’s funeral, anybody but her mother’s.