The Secret Mother (11 page)

Her mum leant against the doorframe, her face pale and vacant. “May Guo,” she said. “That’s all we know.”

The inspector’s pen hovered over his notebook. “Excuse me, Mrs Milne, but I understood your friendship extended over several years? That’s what you said, in your statement at the hospital.”

“Yes. She visited us every week for six years.”

“And you only know her name? I find that hard to believe, Mrs Milne.”

Jen wished the floor would open up and the inspector would disappear. His shirt was pristine, she wondered who ironed it, what he looked like when he undressed at night, whether his wife made him happy? She wondered if he had kids and whether they were clever … whether they were his own flesh and blood and not someone else’s cast-offs? She wished he’d leave, go home to his wife and kids. To a family more perfect than hers.

“We’ll be searching May’s residence on Burton Road for more information. We’ve been unable to trace any family members, seems she was something of a mystery.”

“You mean Yifan doesn’t know?” Jen said. “You haven’t called him?”

“Impossible I’m afraid, there’s no number – we’re not even sure of his surname. I understand you have the keys to her bedsit, Mrs Milne?”

Nancy didn’t respond.

“Nancy.” Her dad placed a hand on her knee. “Inspector Meadows needs to see May’s place.”

“I’m sorry. It’s such a terrible mess.”

“Where are May’s keys?” Iain said, more firmly.

Jen felt like shaking her mum, telling her to snap out of it.

“I never expected her home to look so grubby. I imagined her to live in a nice semi on a leafy street. I even pictured her kitchen to be like ours, because she cooked such extravagant food for us. Her cooker was like your mother’s old Belling. Why did she lie to me, Iain?”

The inspector raised an eyebrow.

“A small misunderstanding, Inspector,” said Iain.

“No, it wasn’t,” Jen interrupted. “She told us the biggest lie of all time. My teacher conned us into believing we were her friends, when all along she despised us.”

The inspector stopped writing and combed a hand through his curly hair. “Mr Milne?”

“Inspector, our daughters were adopted from China. It appears this woman – May Guo – was their mother. We just didn’t know it until after her accident. My wife found several photographs of our daughters in her wardrobe. Today Ricki discovered a birthday gift from May – addressed to
my dear daughter.
”

The inspector stroked his neck, unable to suppress a tic. “I see.”

Nancy handed him the keys to May’s bedsit.

“So no telephone numbers, no names, no addresses, no family in China. We’ll put a call into the Home Office.”

“Are you saying …?”

“I’m not saying anything Mr Milne until we have more facts. We may have to consider repatriation, but first things first. We’ll get this witness appeal out. Don’t be surprised if you see posters up around the place. The photo you gave us was very clear Mr Milne, it should help a great deal.”

Her dad seemed poised to say something. Maybe it was the anxiety of the moment which could easily have led to a half-hearted quip, a dad joke, about his camera never lying. He opened the door wide onto the freezing night air and thanked the inspector for coming.

Jen could feel the bitter cold all the way through to the stuffy living room. She knew her dad would rather stand there all night than turn indoors, to face his home, his wife – the kids that could now never fully be his.

Nanchang crackled with activity. Bayi Square, where I’d first stepped off the bus with Zhi, was awash with Falun Gong practitioners. A teacher on a dais sat cross-legged, arms outstretched. The calm, meditative bodies of the Falun Gong students were so unlike my aching body. My fingers throbbed where I had pushed, prodded and poked the circuit boards. Two weeks! Already I heard the klaxon in my sleep. I woke to the sound of the alarm clanging. Sleep was never long or deep enough for me to recuperate. Dreams were shallow. My head ached constantly. The whites of my eyes were turning pink and my hair had lost its sheen.

I hurried, anxious to find the bus that would take me to the train station and back home to my parents. I couldn’t bear another day checking a thousand circuit boards.

I skirted a path around the square, feeling in my pocket for Manager He’s spending money. He’d slipped an extra wad of notes into my pay packet and I was rich. 300 yuan!

The Falun Gong teacher brought his hands together, and the practitioners dispersed. For a moment I followed the general flow before being swept into the bright lights of a restaurant doorway. I glanced up and saw Chairman Mao, actually
The Colonel,
his benevolent face smiling down on me. Surely this was a sign, a confirmation that I should go home, to Hunan. Mao’s country, my country. The place where Li Quifang waited at the coffin maker’s door.

The smell of fried food wafting down the line was so different to the pig’s blood soup Forwood doled out and it lifted my spirits. Chicken burger, fries, Coca-Cola, chicken nuggets, thousand year old eggs, breakfast
youtiao,
rice … With Manager He’s money, I had enough to buy the entire menu.

“What can I get you?” asked a worker who looked more like an American movie star in her baseball cap.

Even the waitress mopping the floor was nice to me, warning me not to slip with my tray, urging me to walk where it was dry. What a fuss pot. I perched on a stool by the window and gorged myself like a proper peasant, letting the chilli paste drip down my chin, chewing and sucking on the tender wing meat. It was more expensive than I expected: ten yuan for Hot Wings, six for fries and three for a green tea. I gobbled it down, making my toes curl with a strange mixture of pleasure and guilt.

The bizarre slogan said,
Eat your fingers off.
Was this supposed to make customers feel hungry? Maybe westerners weren’t so cultured after all?

In the far corner, a bride and groom were celebrating their wedding banquet with a dozen or so guests. They drank Coca-Cola, flush-faced and high spirited. All around, the Colonel’s smiley face bobbed approvingly, emblazoned on bunches of red balloons. Her wedding dress was western in style and billowed out around her ankles. Honestly, I thought it swamped her. Still, it seemed like a fun way to celebrate and, fleetingly, I dared to imagine my own wedding party. Then mother’s sour face came suddenly to mind as she muttered the word ‘vulgar’.

I thought of Li Quifang, the reality of being his wife: the wedding, the wedding night, followed by a long life serving Madam Quifang. I sat a whole hour in KFC, becoming less and less sure of my decision to leave Nanchang. I took Mr and Mrs Nie from my pocket and asked what they thought, but they remained silent.

Several times, I had the sense of being watched. I had grown used to the electronic eye in circuitry. I turned round, but there was no-one there, no camera. The feeling was hard to shake off.

I wandered listlessly in the direction of the bus stop. If I stayed a little longer at the factory things might improve. It might not be so easy to find another job with my fake high school certificate and documents. Manager He had promised I’d be rewarded for my loyalty, promised I’d see Zhi again.

My head spun as the traffic blurred past. I drifted in search of a water fountain. Someone moved in a doorway and I went to see who it was, but there was no-one. The factory had driven me senseless. The restrictions, the rules – so many stupid, pointless rules! I slumped in the doorway.

The events of the past fortnight flickered one after the other. All those circuit boards … where did they all go? What did they do? And what was Damei’s problem? I replayed the moment she shoved Zhi out of circuitry, the way she continued to taunt Ren. I remembered my humiliation in the showers, Zhi’s blank face as she dropped my overalls on the wet floor. Everyone hated me for being Zhi’s cousin; even Ren cooled off when she heard about the incident with Fatty on the stool.

Night after night, Damei re-enacted Zhi’s departure.
“Let me go, I’ll make sure you’re rewarded. Whatever it is you want: promotion! Wages! A hukou! I can get them all! I am Line Leader Zhen! I deserve respect!”
She would say, refusing to let up until she got bored or until Fatty cajoled her into playing cards.

I heaved my aching body up off the step and dragged a path down the busy street towards the bus stop.

“Sorry, no notes.” The bus driver screwed his nose up at Manager He’s money.

Passengers pushed past me, tutting.

“You can keep the change, it doesn’t matter.” I heard myself begin to rant.

Someone tugged on my coat. “2204.”

The girl was younger than me, her face open to the world and all its possibilities. Her hair was tied back, wisps of it curled around her childish features.

“That’s you isn’t it? You’re the new one?”

She offered a hand, I pulled away.

“Don’t leave now,” she said, “Give the factory another chance. The first month’s always the hardest. It gets better when you have money to spend.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m a cleaner at Forwood. I saw you just now and thought I’d say hi. Where were you going?”

“Nowhere.”

She shrugged. “I’m Sichuan
mei.
My name’s Fei Fei, I noticed you could do with a friend.”

“Why aren’t you with the others?” I asked. “They’ve all gone shopping.”

“Personnel ordered me to buy melons for Cook. The bosses give me all kinds of errands on top of my cleaning work.” She played with the cuff of her cardigan the way Little Brother did when he had something to hide.

“I’ve not tasted fruit for so long …”

“Then come with me to the market, there’s bound to be a little they won’t miss,” she offered.

The bus was about to leave, there was no way of getting on without loose change. My best option was to go with Fei Fei to the market and get the fruit. After that I’d be able to shake her off, pretend I had to wire money home at the Post Office, then return to the bus depot. There was still time to escape Nanchang, if I kept my head about me.

But Fei Fei dawdled by the shops. On Ladies Street, she paused in front of a shop called
Phoenix
whose window mannequin posed naked apart from a short jacket made of paper and a leather mini skirt emblazoned with the national flag; its yellow star barely covering her privates. The outfit was labelled
Neo-Punk,
but I knew what Mother would have called it.

“Have you worked at Forwood long?” I asked.

“About a year. They say my salary will go up this month because I’ve been a good worker and not caused the company any bother. I hope so, I have dreams.”

“What kind?”

“The kind your cousin had before …” Fei Fei tugged nervously on her sleeve again. “I’m sorry,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard innuendos about Zhi. At lunch, the girls from circuitry whispered about her, but when I sat down their gossip trailed off, they changed the subject and left me to eat alone. Once, in the dinner queue, I overheard someone say, “Line Leader Zhen could no more keep her mouth shut than she could her legs.”

Did Fei Fei think my cousin was a slut too?

We sauntered from one shop window to the next. Fei Fei irritated me. The clothes would look awful on her scrawny body. How naïve to think she could ever afford them. Who did she think she was? I was the one walking around with 300 yuan in my trouser pocket. I was the one Manager He called ‘worker of the future’ – not Fei Fei with her silly pigtail and goofy eyes.

I pulled her sleeve. “I thought you had to buy melons?”

Fei Fei’s giggle faded quickly.

“Listen,” I said, “There’s something I want to ask you. I’ve heard rumours about my cousin and I don’t know what to think. Do you know if she had a boyfriend at the factory? I heard there are some cute guys in engineering. Is that why personnel fired her?
Rule 46: Any worker caught engaged with a male on factory premises, either employed by the corporation or otherwise, faces immediate dismissal.

No-one’s willing to talk in that place. They’re all watching their backs the entire time.”

Fei Fei’s face still bore the softness of youth. For a brief moment I thought she might blurt something out, then suddenly she changed her mind.

She pulled away. “Say you’ll come with me. Let’s enjoy ourselves. You should spend your first pay packet on yourself. Don’t send it all home. All that work without any fun, we might as well be dead.”

The moment for revelations was gone.

At The Pacific Department Store, I felt out of place in my sloppy, unwashed cardigan and trousers encrusted with red mud from the farm. Even the air inside the store smelt expensive, a heady mixture of perfume and fresh coffee. Around me women browsed, unhurried, through the shoe section, taking time to feel the quality of leather or hold a handbag to their side, checking in the mirror to see if it matched their coat. The women bore the same grave seriousness as Madam Quifang, deciding whether I was a good enough prospect for her spoilt brat.

Fei Fei headed to a nearby shoe display. “It’s not only urban people who can afford these,” she said, squeezing her foot into a black shiny slip-on. “I earned a hundred yuan because of my extra errands this month, that’s on top of my cleaning salary. If I keep putting some aside and don’t tell my family, I could own a pair like this.” She held up the hem of her frayed jeans. The shoes were far too stylish for a girl playing fancy dress. Realising the shoe was too small, Fei Fei placed it back on the stand.

“Here, this one’s lovely. Try it on,” she held out a different shoe for me.

The pink satin opened at the toe and strapped around the ankle, with a jewel on the buckle that demanded my attention. The sole was like a tongue, uncurling itself into a question:
can you resist me?

I kicked off my trainers and slipped it on. I would need a smart dress with a matching pink handbag to be like the ladies milling around the store. Madam Quifang’s words came back to me:
Your feet are too broad … I cannot allow a peasant’s foot to rest under my table.