The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong

by Kirsty Murray

  On a cool autumn night a week before they were to depart, Maeve pushed a chair up against the door of the bedroom she shared with Viv. She needed to dance without being interrupted. The music from the portable CD player sounded tinny in the boarding-house bedroom, but she didn’t care. The song was ‘Blue and Yellow’ by The Used, and it suited her mood. She wanted to dance until she didn’t feel anything but the rhythm of the music filling every corner of her mind.

  When Gina banged on the thin partition wall, Maeve turned off the CD player and sat on the floor, annoyed. There were so many thoughts she couldn’t sort through, so much thwarted energy rippling under her skin. She hated feeling this way. When her mobile rang, she didn’t even notice who was calling.

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped. She knew she sounded angry.

  ‘Is that Maeve?’

  ‘Oh, hey,’ she said, taken aback. ‘Hey, Jackson.’

  ‘You want to waste some time with me?’

  Maeve laughed. ‘That’s a line from “Blue and Yellow”. Have you been listening to The Used?’

  ‘Umm, yeah,’ said Jackson shyly, his cover blown.

  ‘That is weird. I love that band. And I was just listening to them too.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what the hell that means. But I guess maybe you should meet me after school tomorrow. Maybe. Because, like, if you want to. Or whatever.’ His words came out in a rush, as if he were racing to get them said as quickly as possible.

  ‘Okay,’ said Maeve. ‘Where?’

  ‘Can you meet me at Central?’

  ‘Why Central?’

  ‘There’s a photo booth there. I thought it would be cool to get a pic of you and me before you go to Ireland. You know, one where we don’t have blue wigs on.’

  Maeve laughed. It would be tricky to go without getting permission, but Central wasn’t too far away. She could probably get there and back before anyone noticed she was missing.

  When she switched off the mobile, she felt as if all the restless energy had settled in her chest like a cloud of butterflies but this time it was a good feeling, a feeling that she wanted to hold onto.

  Jackson was lounging against the side of the photo booth in a pair of low-slung jeans and an oversized windcheater, his skateboard tucked under one arm. Maeve had changed out of her school uniform but suddenly she wished she’d put on something different. The strap on her favourite singlet top was broken and she’d had to use a safety pin to hold it in place. Her black jeans suddenly felt too tight and the daisies on her thongs looked babyish.

  As soon as Jackson saw her, he dropped his board and skated towards her.

  ‘’S’up, Warrior Princess?’ he said. He smiled at Maeve as if she really was a princess and he was ecstatic at the prospect of meeting her. Suddenly, what she was wearing didn’t matter one little bit.

  They squashed into the photo booth, laughing at the simple pleasure of being alone together. There were four buttons to choose from, each offering different photo options. First up they tried the option that produced four different photos, but somehow they managed to both look goofy in every frame. Either Jackson was looking down so you only saw the cowlick on the top of his head or Maeve had her eyes shut.

  ‘If we just act natural we could get a good photo,’ said Maeve.

  ‘Okay, but I’ll have to be kissing you just as the flash goes,’ said Jackson.

  ‘That sounds way too dangerous,’ said Maeve. ‘Why don’t we try being ourselves?’

  They put their arms around each other’s shoulders and stared into the lens. Maeve could feel energy surging through them both as Jackson hit the button. It wasn’t until after the flash had fired that he turned to kiss her.

  The photos were perfect. Their heads were tilted towards each other and they were both smiling. They looked like best friends. As they sat in Subway sharing a vegetarian sub, Maeve opened out her green notebook and slipped her strip of four tiny photos inside.

  ‘Is that your diary?’ asked Jackson.

  ‘Sort of. It used to belong to my mum. I keep all sorts of stuff inside it.’

  ‘Secret stuff?’

  ‘Yeah, secret stuff,’ said Maeve.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be secret if I told you! Stuff about my life and my friends and my mum and dad. Ordinary stuff.’

  ‘There is nothing ordinary about you, Kwong. Absolutely nothing you tell me could be a surprise.’

  Maeve looked into Jackson’s laughing brown eyes. She took a deep breath, flipped the notebook open on the page with the photos of her father and turned them around so Jackson could see. She told him everything she knew, showed him the Weaving Girl and talked about what going to Ireland could mean.

  ‘I haven’t even told Steph and Bianca,’ said Maeve, taking back the notebook. ‘I feel really guilty not sharing it with them. We’ve always told each other everything. But I’m scared that if I tell them, then they’ll pressure me to do something. I’m not sure what I want to do. Not yet. So it’s like the biggest secret. You can’t tell anyone.’

  Jackson leant across the table. For a moment, Maeve thought he was going to kiss her. But instead, he gently adjusted the strap of her singlet top, snibbing the safety pin shut. Then he brushed her long fringe away from her eyes. ‘Your secrets are safe with me,’ he whispered.

  When Maeve got back to the boarding house, she sat down on the bed and pulled the green notebook out of her bag. She flipped through it, searching for a blank page to paste in the photos of Jackson and herself. The notebook was so much thicker now, the pages buckling with the number of images that were glued inside it. She turned back to where her father’s letter was pasted down and smoothed out the ripples of the thin onionskin paper. She squirmed as she read through the first romantic paragraph. This guy was definitely hot for her mother. Why had he disappeared? There was no return address, no indication of where he was heading next or if he’d ever return to Ireland. Maeve looked at the tiny photo-booth image again, studying every crevice of his face. She picked up a pen and began to write in tiny letters around the margins of the page.

  Who is David Lee? Is he still alive? Why did my grandparents hate him? Why did he leave Mum? Why didn’t Mum tell me every secret little thing about him? Why does it matter to me? What if I did find him and he was horrible? Or if he was perfect? A perfect dad who had always wanted a daughter? What if he asked me to stay?

  The next morning, as soon as she could get into the school library, Maeve googled Davy Lee. She groaned when the results came up. Four million and forty thousand! She changed it to David Lee but that got even more results – more than a hundred million sites popped up in the Google listing. It was a name that everyone owned. There were millions of Chinese Lees and millions of Anglo-Irish Lees all around the world. She’d always known it was a common Chinese name but never realised the world was full of Irish Lees as well. Why couldn’t he have been called something unusual, something unique that would make it possible to find him?

  The first Davy Lee that had shown up owned a business selling caravans. Another was an old movie star. It was hopeless. She didn’t have any clues. She flipped open the green notebook and frowned at the drawings on his letter. The bell for first period was going to ring soon and she’d have to come back and try again later.

  Frantically, she tried adding all sorts of different key words; ‘Ireland’, ‘Nepal’, and finally, as a wild guess, ‘artist’. Finally, she got the results down to one million hits. Her dad was one in a million. How was she ever going to find him? Should she even be trying?

  Goong Goong and Por Por arranged to be in Sydney the day before Maeve was to fly overseas. Maeve let herself into the Potts Point apartment. Her bags were waiting for her, neatly stacked beside the bed in the spare room. She sat down at the end of her bed and stared at the suitcases. They didn’t look out of place. It made her realise she’d been living out of a suitcase ever since her mother had died. Nowhere felt like home any more.

  That ni
ght at dinner, Por Por outdid herself cooking Maeve’s favourite dishes: pan-fried dumplings, steamed fish with coriander and chilli, and crunchy Chinese greens with oyster sauce. Maeve had got used to not talking while they ate, so she was surprised when Goong Goong turned to her and said, ‘Siu Siu, this journey, it will change you. There is a Chinese proverb I would like you to think about while you are away. “A tree has its roots, a stream its source.” Do you understand this saying?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Maeve, rolling her chopsticks between her fingers. Was he asking her to be grateful for his generosity or was he warning her against something?

  Goong Goong still wasn’t well enough to drive, so Steph’s parents picked Maeve up from Potts Point the next morning for the trip out to the airport. Por Por hugged Maeve extra tight, holding onto her as if it was the last time they would see each other.

  ‘It’s okay, Por Por. I’ll be back in a few weeks,’ said Maeve.

  ‘I know. But it’s a long way. You take care. Stay close to Mr McCabe and the other girls. Don’t go anywhere alone.’

  It was a relief to get all the baggage checked and finally make it to the gates of international departures. Girls were hugging their parents goodbye and kissing their boyfriends as McCabe and Ms Donahue did a head count and checked that everyone was ready. The St Philomena’s girls were about to pass through the barrier where family and friends couldn’t follow when Andy came running towards them, dodging Ned’s pusher between the crowds. The wheels squealed as he came to a violent stop beside Maeve.

  ‘May-yay!’ shouted Ned, reaching out for her.

  ‘Maeve, I’m sorry we’re late. We were just about to go when Ned pulled a cup of chocolate milk all over himself and I had to change his clothes.’

  ‘You could have brought him sticky. I wouldn’t have minded,’ said Maeve.

  She held Ned in her arms and squashed his face close to hers. It made her eyes prick with tears. Awkwardly, Andy hugged her too, enveloping Ned at the same time.

  ‘Maeve,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry for all the crap that’s gone down lately. Ned is my only son but you’re my only daughter. You can come home to us. Any time. When you’re ready. You can always come home to us. One day, any day.’

  Maeve pressed her face against Ned’s tummy, needing to hide.

  ‘Thanks, Andy,’ she mumbled, and handed Ned back.

  She scooped up her flight bag and followed the other girls through the doors without looking back.

  28

  Ghost world

  Even though Maeve had been in airports more times than she could count, she’d never passed through the doors to international departures. It was like entering another world, a weird holding bay between universes. There were backpackers and businessmen, whole families with sleepy children draped over the parents’ shoulders, and the excited gaggle of St Philomena’s students clustered together in the queue. Ms Donahue stood at the front, clutching the passports and then handed one to each of the girls as they approached the customs checkpoint.

  Bianca looked bored. She’d been through this routine too many times. Then a security guard opened her bag for inspection.

  ‘But they’re only tweezers,’ said Bianca, looking outraged that anything of hers should be confiscated. ‘You know, you pluck your eyebrows with them!’

  ‘Sorry, miss. No sharp objects on board. That’s the rules.’

  Bianca turned to Maeve and muttered angrily, ‘Oh what, like I’m so going to hijack a plane with a pair of tweezers. What do they think I’m going to do? Pluck the air hostess to death? I mean, pleeeze.’

  Steph sighed. ‘I’ll just be glad when we’re on the plane. I won’t believe we’ve made it out of Australia until we touch down in Hong Kong.’

  It was a nine-hour flight but between the meals, the movies and the endless swapping of seats, the hours disappeared quickly.

  Maeve pressed her face against the glass as they descended. She gripped the arms of her seat so tightly that Steph turned to her.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you scared of the landing?’

  ‘No, I’m thinking. About Mum. How I always thought I’d come here with her one day. And now I’m here without her.’

  Steph slipped her hand over Maeve’s and held it tight. ‘But you’re not alone, Maeve.’

  Hong Kong was warm and steamy. The minibus hummed with the excited conversation of girls as it drove along Nathan Road. It was dark by the time they reached the hotel in Kowloon but no one was tired.

  ‘It’s stupid being in Hong Kong first,’ said Bianca. ‘We should be coming here on the way home so we can shop.’

  Maeve shrugged. ‘It’s just meant to break the flight, Bunka. It’s a drama tour, not a shopping tour.’

  ‘They’d better let us at least go to the night markets.’

  Maeve glanced at their itinerary. ‘We’re doing that tonight. Looks like we’ve got something to do every minute of the day tomorrow as well. Por Por gave me this long list of relatives she wanted me to try and contact but we’ve only got twenty-four hours.’

  Ms Donahue and McCabe marshalled the girls into small groups and they headed out into the warm, oily night. Everything about Hong Kong surprised Maeve; the brilliant colours of the neon signs in Nathan Road, the hazy swirl of exhaust fumes mingling with the rich layers of cooking scents exuded by the roadside foodstalls, the bustle of millions of people all hurrying into the night, talking, laughing, intent upon their evening business. People turned to stare at Maeve, taking a second look at the pale-skinned Asian girl walking arm-in-arm with two fair-haired Australians. She’d noticed that reaction to her before in Chinatown, the way some people would turn back to look at her, trying to decide if she was an Asian-looking white girl or a Western-looking Asian girl. She listened to the sound of their voices, the way the words seemed to have a strange lilt to them that went up and down like notes in a song. She made a vow to herself that one day she really would go to Chinese school and learn how to speak the language.

  McCabe stuck close to the Musketeers as they were jostled by the crowds along Temple Street.

  ‘Are you shadowing us, sir?’ asked Bianca.

  ‘You three are the youngest students on the tour,’ said McCabe.

  ‘Oh, I thought you were hoping to pick up some tips on how to bargain,’ said Bianca.

  She stopped at a trestle table laden with old Chinese coins, Communist Party badges and antique-looking chess sets. There were even old wind-up alarm clocks with the face of Mao Zedong nodding in time to the second hand.

  ‘Omar would love one of these,’ said Bianca, picking up one of the alarm clocks.

  ‘Omar?’ said Steph and Maeve in unison.

  ‘I know. He was a jerk. But he’s matured.’

  Bianca held the clock up and the stall-holder keyed a price into his calculator and showed it to her.

  ‘Ho gwai!’ she exclaimed, shaking her head.

  The stall-holder tried another amount but Bianca held out until, sighing, he reduced it to a quarter of the original price.

  Maeve felt embarrassed that she didn’t know what ho gwai meant. She was glad when Bianca explained to McCabe that it was Chinese for ‘too expensive’.

  As they moved deeper into the markets, Maeve kept imagining she caught a glimpse of someone she knew weaving through the crowd. Every few minutes, a voice would make her start, as if someone had spoken her name, as if they were quietly calling her. But when she spun around to try and discover who it was, she was confronted by a sea of strangers. She quickened her pace and kept close to Bianca and Steph.

  When they reached the Tin Hau Temple, Steph was excited to find a row of fortune-tellers. While Steph went to have her fortune told, Bianca haggled with a stall-holder. Maeve glanced over her shoulder again. The feeling wouldn’t go away. It was as if someone was stalking her, but not someone evil. She was sure it was someone she knew. Suddenly, it dawned on her who it was. Every woman behind every stall, every figure disappearing into the shadows see
med to hold an echo of her mother. She stood very still and let the feeling possess her. A wave of déjà vu swept over her.

  ‘Are you all right, Maeve?’ asked McCabe. His voice pulled her back from the edge of darkness.

  ‘I didn’t expect to feel like this,’ she said.

  ‘Are you jet-lagged?’

  ‘No,’ said Maeve. ‘It’s as if I’m being haunted, but not in a bad way. I have this weird feeling that I’ve been here before.’

  ‘Some people believe that we carry our ancestors’ memories with us, even if we never knew them,’ said McCabe. ‘They call it race memory.’

  Maeve nodded. Her heart felt too full for her to speak. She could see Goong Goong here as a young man, she could see Por Por and her mother visiting as mother and daughter. Goong Goong’s proverb came back to her: ‘A tree has its roots, a stream its source.’ Was this the source of her family? She shut her eyes and let the feeling of belonging wash over her.

  The next morning, they caught the subway down to the Star Ferry Terminal from their hotel in Kowloon so they could cross over to Hong Kong Island.

  ‘It’s like being in Sydney,’ said Steph, as they stepped onto the ferry.

  The roar of the ferry engine, the lapping of the waters against the prow, the sharp tang of oil and salt, made Maeve feel at home. The sense of belonging that she’d felt at the night markets was even stronger here. The Star Ferry chugged across the wide harbour in exactly seven minutes and the tribe of St Philomena’s girls marched across the terminal to where trams shot up the side of Victoria Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong.

  When they reached the Peak they could see right across the island and the harbour to the New Territories. The girls all squashed up close as a group while Bianca took photos with her digital camera. She was the only one with global roaming on her mobile, so everyone wanted her to send snapshots home. While she was busy being the official photographer, Maeve leant on the railing and gazed out at the view.

  A dense smog sat like heavy cloud between the skyscrapers. The side of the peak was thick with lush tropical growth, and the city leapt out of the space between the water and the forest like a dream of glass and steel.