The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong

by Kirsty Murray

  In that moment, Maeve felt it again – as if her mother was behind her. A breeze swirled up the side of the Peak and blew Maeve’s hair from her face. She shut her eyes, holding the moment, imagining Sue really was beside her, not a shimmering ghost but real and warm and alive again. When she opened her eyes, she felt surrounded and yet utterly alone. It was the weirdest feeling. The other girls had all left the viewing deck and the wind had suddenly become sharp. She stared down at the haze of pollution that blanketed the city, trying to make sense of her emotions.

  ‘Maeve!’ called McCabe, startling her from her reverie. ‘You’re not quite with us, are you?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t think that being here would mean anything. But I keep having all these weird feelings. There’s a lot I have to figure out about this place.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to save that for another trip. We really need to keep moving.’

  Maeve smiled. ‘That’s okay, sir. I’m definitely coming back here one day. The ghosts can wait until then.’

  29

  Secret-keeper

  Maeve glanced across at McCabe as they stood waiting for their bus outside Dublin Airport. Sometimes she felt he was watching her, as if he knew she was planning something. She wished she didn’t feel so edgy. It wasn’t as if she was likely to bump into David Lee on the first street corner. She wouldn’t even recognise him if she did. But as the bus moved into the traffic, she pressed her face against the glass, trying to take in every sight and sound of Dublin, wondering if he was out there somewhere.

  Rain sleeted down as the mini-bus pulled up outside their accommodation. The B&B was a tall Victorian terrace house with six steps up to a shiny black front door. Maeve, Bianca and Stephanie dragged their suitcases up a narrow flight of stairs lined with fading line drawings of the sights of Dublin. The whole building smelt faintly of bacon, but it was warm and cosy in their room at the top. The ceiling sloped down on all sides and Bianca insisted they toss a coin to see who shared the double bed and who won the only single.

  ‘I hate that carpet. That’s the sort of carpet that used to give me nightmares when I was little. You know, you look over the side of the bed and the swirly bits look like giant spiders.’

  ‘What are you worrying about the carpet for?’ said Maeve. ‘We’re in Dublin! This is where the tour really starts. This is where things are going to happen!’

  Maeve hurried over to the window to look out into the street. They were near a canal in a long line of terraces. Maybe her father was just around the corner. Maybe her whole life was about to change.

  In the morning, they were served huge plates of fried eggs with bacon, tomatoes and something that looked like a dark sliced sausage.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Bianca, prodding the speckled circle of meat.

  ‘It’s black pudding,’ said McCabe, amused.

  ‘Black pudding?’

  ‘It’s traditional. They make it with blood, that’s why it’s so dark,’ he said.

  Every girl in the breakfast room pushed the little dark circles to the corner of their plates except Maeve.

  ‘Black pudding is no big deal. My granny makes me eat pig’s blood congee. If I can handle Chinese food, I can handle Irish. I mean, I am half-Irish.’

  ‘Well, so am I,’ said Steph. ‘Like, all my ancestors came from Ireland, but that doesn’t mean I have to regress!’

  After breakfast they met in the street. There was a bite in the spring air and Maeve plunged her hands deep into her pockets.

  Ms Donahue handed out copies of the day’s itinerary plus a list of emergency procedures. On the back was a map of how to get back to the B&Bs if they got separated from the group. Maeve slipped the sheet into her pocket. She was definitely going to be separated from everyone and she couldn’t wait. She had her own plans.

  As they walked along the streets of Dublin, Maeve found herself looking into the faces of the crowd, searching for a man with pale eyes and wild hair, a scary ghost of a man who might be her father. She turned at the familiar sound of a voice but it was only an Australian tourist. Of course her dad wouldn’t sound Australian. No, he’d have a soft Irish accent and he’d look much older than the face in the photo. But the more she searched the crowds, the more daunting her task became. The faces on the street were young, with pink cheeks, not the weathered face she imagined her father would possess. The only older people seemed to be the beggars on the footpaths. A man lying asleep in a doorway caught her eye. What if she pulled back the green chenille bedspread covering his face and discovered her father? The possibility sent a chill down her spine.

  In O’Connell Street, they boarded a double-decker tour bus. ‘It’s a good way for you all to get your bearings, girls,’ announced Ms Donahue, as the bus wove its way through the streets of Dublin.

  ‘It’s a good way to freeze our arses off,’ said Bianca, pulling the collar of her coat up high. It started to rain and most of the girls went below, but Steph and Maeve stuck it out on the open roof of the red double-decker.

  Maeve noted where everything was, as if she was soaking up a map of the city, soaking it into her bones. As the bus drove past the General Post Office she sat up and craned to see it.

  ‘And in 1916, the post office was the site of the famous Easter uprising that turned the tide against the English,’ said the guide.

  ‘I read about that!’ said Steph, turning to Maeve in her excitement. ‘This is so cool. It’s all, like, weirdly familiar. My great-great-grandparents came from Ireland. It’s sort of like finding my roots, seeing all this.’

  ‘McCabe told me there’s this theory that people can remember their ancestors’ past,’ said Maeve.

  Steph nodded, as if she could believe it was possible. ‘Where is McCabe?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since breakfast,’ said Maeve. She flicked open her guidebook and put a star next to the post office. That could be a good place to start a search for her father. Then she felt a flash of doubt. What if she actually found him?

  As the morning passed, Maeve started to worry she’d never be able to separate herself from the group. Ms Donahue was constantly counting students. There were only fifteen of them and Maeve was the youngest and the only Asian-looking girl. Having her own agenda could be a serious problem.

  After the bus trip, they walked to Trinity College for their second tour of the morning.

  ‘When can we go shopping?’ whispered Bianca.

  Steph smiled. ‘Hang in there, Bunka. Just a little bit more culture and then you can start spending that fistful of euros.’

  Inside the College’s Long Library, bookshelves rose up to a dark, vaulted timber ceiling, and thin spring sunshine shone through elongated windows onto the wooden floors. Long ladders ran from the floor to the top shelves. In a room beyond, a special darkened cell housed an ancient book called ‘The Book of Kells’.

  ‘It’s incredible. It’s so old, so precious,’ said Steph.

  ‘Who cares,’ said Bianca, flipping through her guidebook, searching for the shopping district.

  Steph was about to launch into a defensive rant but Maeve stopped her and turned to Bianca. ‘Don’t do that, Bunka.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dis all the important bits. The past is important.’

  ‘Not to me, it isn’t,’ said Bianca. ‘Now is what matters.’

  ‘If you didn’t know that your grandfather was from Italy, if you didn’t know who your mum or your dad was, if you didn’t know who you really were, maybe you’d understand.’

  Maeve hadn’t meant to sound so fierce. Even Steph was staring at her, startled by her outburst.

  ‘Um, yeah, that’s what I think too,’ added Steph uncertainly.

  When the tour finished, the girls were allowed to go off in twos and threes to shop. The Musketeers headed for Grafton Street, the bustling centre of the shopping area.

  Maeve felt as if her feet were dragging as she followed her friends. She needed to
get back to the post office on her own. They zigzagged up and down the streets of Dublin until they found themselves walking through Temple Bar, a tangle of tiny side streets near the Liffey River. Suddenly, Maeve realised the post office was just the other side of the river.

  ‘Hey look,’ said Bianca. ‘It’s an Internet café. Let’s send some emails home.’

  ‘There was something in that shop around the corner that I wanted to look at again,’ said Maeve.

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ said Steph.

  ‘No, it’s cool. I’ll only be a minute. You get started on your emails. If we get separated, I’ll meet you back at the B&B,’ she called over her shoulder as she ran down the cobbled laneway.

  A steady rain started to fall as she crossed O’Connell Bridge. The traffic was thick and for a minute, Maeve found herself stranded under a tall statue of an Irish politician. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and shivered as she watched for a break in the stream of cars and buses.

  Inside the General Post Office there were long queues waiting to use the phones. A polished wooden bench ran along one wall, with stacks of phone books slotted into the shelves above it. Maeve pulled out a Dublin directory and flipped through to the letter L. But when she found the page for ‘Lee’, her heart sank. There were hundreds of Lees in Dublin alone. Any one of them might be her relative, but she couldn’t possibly phone them all.

  She stood in the colonnaded entrance to the post office and stared out at the rain. It was so frustrating. Maybe he was still in Nepal. Or maybe he was living just around the corner. She’d counted twelve David Lees and three D. Lees in the Dublin directory alone, and there was a directory for every county. How many were there in all Ireland, and which one was her father? As she turned to walk away, she was startled to realise McCabe was standing only metres away from her, hunched over a pay phone as if he was a spy intent on a secret mission. Maeve hurried away. She couldn’t afford for him to see her alone.

  She stopped on the bridge and leant over to stare into the dark waters of the Liffey. Had her father ever stood here and wondered about her mother? She tried to conjure him in her imagination but nothing came. He didn’t haunt her like the memory of her mother. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe that meant he was still alive.

  By the time she made her way back to Temple Bar, Steph and Bianca had disappeared. Inside the Internet café, she slipped two euros into the coin slot and opened up her hotmail account. There were two emails from Jackson and she felt that warm, electric tingle that thinking of him always brought.

  It was so good to have one person she could tell everything to, one person who knew all her secrets.

  I keep thinking I’ll see him any moment. It’s crazy. I don’t even know what he looks like. Except for one old photo. And it shouldn’t matter that I can’t find him. I’ve been fine for 14 years without him. I guess I shouldn’t worry about it. Sorry, this is a stupid email. Hope everything in Sydney is cool. MLK

  She pushed the Send button and then browsed through the rest of her emails. As she started to log off, a new message popped into her mailbox. Jackson. It was short, to the point and exactly what she needed to hear.

  Hey MLK. It is important. Go for it. Find him. xxxxxxx Love you all ways, JDT

  30

  Chameleon man

  Maeve headed back to the B&B as if she were walking on air. She knew she was late but she couldn’t care. She started quietly singing a Bright Eyes song, ‘This is the first day of my life . . .’ People turned to stare at her, but it only made her want to sing louder. Jackson had said she should find her father. Jackson had said he loved her.

  Steph was in their room, trying on different items of clothing and flinging the rejected pieces onto the bed. Maeve longed to tell her about Jackson but it was so tied up with the search for her father that she couldn’t think how to explain one without the other. Before she could say anything, Steph spoke.

  ‘You are going to be in deep trouble. They’ve all left for the theatre tour. McCabe had to stay back to find out what happened to you.’

  ‘Well, why are you still here?’

  ‘Ben’s coming to get me. He’s in Dublin and I’m spending the afternoon with him. Just the two of us. He’ll be here any minute!’

  ‘You don’t need to get so stressed out,’ said Maeve. ‘It’s only your brother.’

  ‘My brother who nearly died. My brother that I thought was dead,’ said Steph. ‘How’s this look?’

  She had on a pink hooded windcheater and black jeans and looked the same as usual, but Maeve could see she needed reassurance. ‘You look nice, Steph.’

  Downstairs in the front sitting room, Ben and McCabe were waiting for them. Steph hugged Ben and squealed when he lifted her up in a bear hug.

  ‘Back by six sharp, please, Ben. We have a show to go to at the Abbey Theatre tonight,’ said McCabe.

  ‘No worries,’ said Ben.

  ‘And you and I, Maeve Kwong, we need to have a serious talk. It’s not acceptable for you to go off on your own and you should know that. Everyone on this tour has to co-operate by being on time, every time. You’ve put me in a really awkward position. I had a number of personal commitments this afternoon and now I’m going to have to cancel them so I can take you chasing around Dublin, trying to catch up with the rest of the group.’

  ‘Maeve could come with us,’ said Ben. ‘We’re doing our own mini-tour of Dublin. It would be nice to have Maeve along as well. As long as that’s okay with you?’

  Maeve looked at McCabe beseechingly. She’d much rather spend the afternoon with Steph than have to drag around in pursuit of the rest of the group and get a lecture from Ms Donahue as well. McCabe ran one hand through his hair and sighed.

  ‘Thank you, Ben,’ he said, looking relieved. He turned to Maeve. ‘But don’t think this lets you off the hook, young lady.’

  Out in the street, Ben’s car stood waiting. ‘Bags the front seat!’ said Steph as she skipped towards it, but then she stopped, confused, as a woman got out of the driver’s seat.

  ‘Margaret,’ said Ben. ‘I’d like you to meet my little sister Stephanie and her friend Maeve. All the way from Oz.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Steph. ‘I mean, hi.’ She grimaced as she climbed into the back seat with Maeve.

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered Maeve. ‘For tagging along like this.’ She could see the day wasn’t turning out the way Steph had envisaged.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ said Steph. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she whispered, shooting a look of annoyance at Margaret.

  ‘I’m going to take you on the “other Dublin” tour. The places your old schoolteacher won’t show you,’ said Ben, turning and flashing a grin.

  He drove out of the city along winding, tree-lined roads. At the top of a hill he pointed to a long wall with a tall bronze gate. ‘That’s Bono’s house. You want to hop out and have a look?’

  Steph shook her head. ‘No thanks. He’s okay but he’s kind of last century.’

  Ben and Margaret laughed. ‘If Bono doesn’t impress you, maybe the tower will,’ said Margaret. ‘You ever heard of James Joyce? The famous Irish writer.’

  ‘No,’ said Steph flatly.

  ‘Oh well. You will one day. That’s his tower, where he went to write,’ said Ben, looking to Margaret for affirmation.

  Steph scrunched up her face. ‘Ben, you don’t have to impress me with anything. I’m just happy that you’re alive and coming home soon.’

  Ben coughed into his hand and then turned the car around. They parked at a beach and bought a packet of fish and chips. Sandy mudflats stretched to a shimmering line where two big boats were moored and the harbour was layered in soft greys, blues and purple. The clouds reached down like smudgy thumbprints against the afternoon sky.

  Ben picked up a stone and sent it skipping across the still, silvery water. When he sat down on the low sea wall between his sister and Margaret, he winced.

  ‘Does it hurt much? Where you got wounded?’ asked
Steph. ‘Are you going back to Iraq soon, or do they think you should have a longer rest?’

  Ben looked away. ‘I haven’t been able to tell Mum and Dad about it yet. I’m not going back. Ever. I’m finished with the army.’

  ‘But Dad will go crazy. He was so proud of you. And I’ve had to defend you. When people say you’re fighting a crap war, I’ve stuck up for you.’

  ‘Look, Steph, all wars are crap.’

  ‘But Dad—’ began Steph.

  ‘I can’t live Dad’s dream for him. I can’t live my life worrying about his pride and what he thinks is important. I’ve changed, Steph. I don’t want to be a soldier any more.’

  ‘He’s a good man, your brother. He’s not taking the soup,’ said Margaret.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Steph.

  ‘It’s an old Irish saying – that you sell out for the sake of the soup. The Protestant churches, during the famine, they offered soup so that the Catholics would give up the faith. So that’s taking the soup. But your brother, he’s a brave man. He’s following his heart. You should respect him for it.’

  ‘There are things I need to do here in Dublin, Steph.’

  ‘But what about coming home?’

  ‘Home’s with Margaret now,’ said Ben.

  ‘With Margaret?’ echoed Steph.

  Ben looked at Margaret and raised an eyebrow, then he took Steph by the arm and walked off with her along the beach. Maeve and Margaret waited by the sea wall while Steph and Ben stood arguing on the shoreline.

  ‘Families! God love ’em. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,’ said Margaret, trying to make light of it, though Maeve could tell she was upset. They sat in silence for a while, picking at the chips and waiting for Ben and Steph.

  ‘Ben said you work in a gallery,’ said Maeve, trying to make conversation.

  ‘Just a small one. We represent local artists mostly. Though we’ve got an exhibition of work from a fabulous Japanese artist at the moment. You should come by and have a look.’