The Secret Mother (17 page)

His voice was disarmingly woeful. “How a small amount of good might come from those bastards of destruction.”

His head drooped and pressed against my thigh.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose someone you love, Mai Ling? How old are you … twenty? The Cultural Revolution would have ended soon after you were born. You were lucky. It would have been better to have grown up in your time – in the new era.”

I realised he was talking about our society and the way things were changing. I’d seen it for myself in Nanchang, what Manager He called the new era. Changes in the way people dressed and spoke, the brightly lit shops and restaurants like KFC which smelt of fresh paint. Even back home in the fields things were going a different way, only worse. Father could no longer rely on the State to buy our grain for a good price. He struggled to know how to be enterprising. The new era was not necessarily better for everyone, but I held my tongue.

Manager He buried his head deeper onto my thighs. “My eyes saw things a young boy should never see. My father, my brother … they refused to give up the little food we had. The men, they didn’t even take them out into the yard. They did it right there in front of mother, I thought they were going to turn the gun on me too. Mother was wailing. She fell to her knees and, in her weakness, she surrendered our grain. One of the militia had a cut across his cheek, where his scarf did not reach. I thought about his scar for a long time afterwards, trying to work out where I’d seen it before. I realised he was the father of a boy I knew from the next village. That’s what happened back then, men betraying men in their commune, fighting to survive. I had barely the strength to pedal my bike, and was terrified of what might happen. I wanted to stay and protect her like a proper son, but Mother ordered me to get out. That’s how I ended up here in Nanchang. I fled to an aunt with every secret
fen
my family ever owned. The last I heard, everyone in the village had starved to death. I never heard my mother’s voice again.”

I stroked his hair. The famine and the Cultural Revolution that followed were times my parents never talked about openly.

“I refuse to worship Mao. I survived and I owe it to my family to seek change. Deng Xiaoping is the one I salute – he’s a realist. He does not make excuses for what happened, but there’s no doubting his change in direction.”

“Yes. President Xiaoping talks about the future, like you.”

“There is nothing in the past worth holding onto, Mai Ling. We must always move forwards. That’s why we must secure Schnelleck, with him on board Forwood can expand. We are ready, I know it.”

If only Ren could hear Manager He speak about change and progress, she would feel less cynical.

“Have you heard about the President’s plans to create Special Economic Zones?”

I shook my head.

“I think we can do it, Mai Ling. If Forwood secures enough business overseas, we can put forward a case to make Nanchang a city for redevelopment. Consider the benefits: we’d be free to trade and make money without all the petty bureaucracy that has stifled business for so long.”

He was talking fast, losing me in a flurry of words. His lips glistened with baijiu. I was still trying to imagine the horror of seeing my father and brother shot in front of me. No wonder Manager He got Chen and Ting to do his dirty work, it was obvious to me now. My instinct was to pull him to my breast.

The bureau fell silent, as if the walls had read my thoughts. His warm hand pressed against my leg. This time, we were alone, no interruptions from Old Artist. The loudest sound was our hushed disjointed breath.

He knelt and put his face to my feet.

“My grandmother’s feet were like hooves, small and deformed. Yours are so long. They curl at the toes when I kiss them here.”

“It tickles.”

I stroked his face as he kissed my breasts. His talk was filthy. A vast impure ocean of desire opened suddenly before me and I felt myself falling and afraid.

His body had a fervency I had only seen in animals. It felt as though he was digging something out of me as we made love. Afterwards, he slumped over his desk. I withdrew, weak and sore, my blood in droplets on the floor.

He re-read Schnelleck’s letter as if nothing had happened. Silently, I willed him to put it down and talk to me. I wanted the comfort of hearing my name.
Mai Ling.
Comfort like a piece of home, like red soil, or the smell of peasant tobacco.

I longed to be innocent again. I wiped my tears, dressed and cleared away the baijiu cups. Replacing the bottle inside his filing cabinet I felt my hands shake. The strange, hot twisting of our bodies had turned to formalities, empty words. He was Manager, I was 2204. I hovered in the doorway. He had been so quick at the end – a fox stealing a chicken.

“Before you go …” he said. “I want you to take this, in addition to your next pay packet.” He held out a thick wedge of yuan. “Go into town on your day off and treat yourself. Buy more clothes, find yourself a suit. Observe what the women wear in the city and emulate them. Buy underwear made in England and French perfume.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Manager. I’m really not like the urban women.”

“You must.”

“I …”

“I want you to look like a lady who belongs to the new era. Come back and show me. Do you understand?”

I nodded and took the money, curling it tight into my trembling hand. It felt as cold as the bureau floor.

“I won’t forget what happened tonight,” he said. “You were very lovely. The best …”

I silenced him with a kiss and pretended that he’d called me his special lady. The alarm was already ringing through the walls.

The restaurant was half full of the usual lunchtime crowd. Businessmen who ate dim sum, a few local Chinese and their kids. On table six, a young couple cosied up in one of the white leather booths, playing footsie under the table. Stuart never took Jen out for a meal. He didn’t earn enough at the vinyl shop.

A guy from the group on table eight signalled her over.

“We’re wondering what the special is today?” He was in his fifties, but acting like a twenty-something. “We can’t see anything we fancy on the menu. It’s not exciting enough.”

“We’re very particular about what we eat,” said his friend.

Five pairs of eyes x-rayed her uniform; Jen felt like a Peking duck hanging in the cabinet.

“We only do dim sum at lunchtime, sir.”

“What a shame. I was just fancying something tasty and exotic.”

“Are you ready to order?”

He reached over and toyed with her apron. “I’d have thought that was obvious, wouldn’t you?”

She flinched, knocking into Michael, a waiter. Jen hurried to the kitchen where the smell of chilli soothed her.

Later that afternoon, her shift over, she gulped a glass of lemonade on the back doorstep.

“Are you alright?” asked Michael. “I’m sorry those idiots tried it on with you.”

“I’m fine, honestly.”

Michael was in his second year at Manchester Uni. His grandparents were from Hong Kong.

“So you’re okay then?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

She hadn’t meant to snap. He wasn’t to blame for May, or Ricki, or the idiots on table eight. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot going on at home, that’s all.”

“Another time maybe?” he said and put on his coat to leave.

Jen pulled her jacket tighter. If only time could go in circles rather than straight lines. If only May hadn’t come to her birthday party, or they had danced a minute longer. If only she’d wake up and explain why she had tracked them down in Manchester. Life felt so tangled, Jen couldn’t find the ends.

She checked her mobile, still nothing from Ricki. Her only text message was from Stuart.

Meet me outside mcdonalds after yr shift. Please?

Maybe she’d got him wrong? He wasn’t all bad.

She texted back,
Cu half hour.

Jen finished her shift and slipped away without phoning her parents as she’d promised.

Stuart tucked into a Big Mac outside McDonalds. He offered to go back in and get her something.

She refused, “I can’t eat when my sister’s missing.”

A woman with a bucket of roses asked Stuart if he wanted one for the lady. To her surprise, he fished out some loose change.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.

“I’ve been an idiot, I owe you an apology.”

They drifted across St Ann’s Square and perched on an oversized pebble near the Royal Exchange Theatre. Stuart wrapped Jen in his leather jacket to shield her from the wind. A quartet in evening dresses and dinner jackets shivered as they played
The Four Seasons
. The air smelt of fried onion from the hot dog stand on the corner of Cross Street. It reminded Jen of good times, trips on the tram into town with her sister. Now Ricki hung out with a different crowd.

Stuart’s biker boots padded the pavement. He lit a roll-up. “About your birthday, Jen … I’m sorry I didn’t stay when your parents were at the hospital. And sorry things have been getting a bit heated about, y’know, sex and everything. I don’t mind waiting if that’s what you prefer.”

“You don’t? But I thought …”

“It’s your choice, I shouldn’t have been so pushy.”

He kissed her forehead.

“Where were you that night? I called your mobile like a million times.”

Stuart dragged on the roll-up. “With the lads. I’m sorry. Like I said, I’ve been an idiot. What can I do to make it up to you?” He held her face in his hands and brushed back the hair that had blown into her mouth.

She had longed for tenderness. The next thing she knew, she was tugging on his arm, beckoning him away from the square.

Lots of people passed by, all too busy thinking about parcels, passports, pensions to look down the Post Office alleyway. She silenced the voice in her head which said STOP. NO. DON’T. Instead, she put her hand up the back of his shirt and clawed her nails into his cold skin. He pressed her to the wall, his kisses little wounds. She fumbled for the zip on his jeans and felt him already hard.

“Wait,” said Stuart, taking a condom from his jacket pocket.

Jen pulled down her tights, then her knickers, enough to guide him inside her. He was eager and cumbersome; she clutched a nearby window ledge to stop herself falling. Just as Stuart was getting close to coming, a voice bellowed down the alley.

“Oi, you!”

He shouted something about calling the police.

She pushed Stuart off and hitched up her tights. He discarded the condom in the alley and made a run for it, fastening his trousers as they ran. They spilled out onto Spring Gardens, breathless and exhilarated.

“Shit,” said Jen outside HMV. “I left my rose.”

They laughed and hugged each other. Jen nestled against his beaten leather jacket.

“You’re fearless. I love you,” said Stuart.

The skin on her back felt raw where it had scraped against the wall. There’d be other times, other men. The right one. At least now she knew how it felt.

“I need to ask you something, Stuart. I want you to tell me the truth,” she said, suddenly serious.

“Sshh, let’s hold each other like this. Don’t talk.”

“We have to. I want you to tell me.”

“Babe, it’s cold. You’re acting strange. What is it?”

“I know about her.”

“Who?” His laugh sounded fragile. “You’re starting to freak me out a little here, Jen. I don’t see you for days, you tell me you’re not interested in sex, then we go at it like rabbits in an alleyway. Who are you talking about?”

She kissed his wind-chapped lips and pushed her tongue into his mouth – their last kiss.

Jen broke off. “I know about the petrol head friend you’ve been screwing behind my back. Don’t pretend. I’ve worked it out. I just need you to admit it.”

He shook his head. “Jen, you’re losing it. I haven’t done anything. I mean … what gave you that idea?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I can’t … Jen, you don’t need to ask me that … Let’s just get in a taxi and you can come back to mine. My flatmate’s out. We can put the heating on. I’ll make you some pasta.”

“Admit it.”

She forced herself not to be swayed by the mournful look in his eyes. It wasn’t his mother in a coma, his sister who’d run away from home.

“Admit it, Stuart.”

He shook his head. “She means nothing to me.”

“How long have you been seeing her?”

“A couple of months.” He wiped the snot on his sleeve. “This is the end isn’t it? I’ve been so fucking stupid, Jen. She’s a mistake.”

“Mistakes are one-offs. What you’ve made is a complete balls-up of everything.”

“I can make it up to you. I’ll never see her again, ever.”

“You know what?” said Jen.

His bloodshot eyes were suddenly hopeful.

“Everyone’s lied to me: my mum, May, even Ricki covers her tracks, but I don’t need to take it from you, Stuart.”

“Then why did we just do it if you hate my guts?”

Because she could, because there was a pain inside that needed to come out, because she was sick of being clever Jen, top of the class, Little Miss Perfect – so studious, so Chinese.

She left him in the doorway of HMV and hurried towards Piccadilly Gardens. The mobile in her pocket was vibrating. From now on, Jen would be in charge of who came and went in her life.

When they were little, Ricki would come running through to Jen’s bedroom in the middle of the night, caught in a reoccurring nightmare about the house burning to the ground. The house was big, Ricki said, like a warehouse, with more rooms than she could count. Jen’s job was to check all the rooms to make sure there was no fire; sometimes they even stood barefoot in the garden which backed onto the railway line. Eventually Ricki accepted it was just a dream and would fall asleep, warm in the nook of her twin’s arm.

So when Jen saw Ricki standing in her bedroom doorway the night she came home it was only natural that she should say, “It’s okay, Sis. Just a bad dream. Everything’s all right now.”

She pulled back the duvet and Ricki climbed in, her knee a small cold slab sliding between hers.

“Everyone’s okay.”

“Yeah,” said Ricki, dragging the duvet around their ears. She snuggled deeper. Inside it they were safe together. Jen held Ricki until the air grew moist beneath the duvet. She had never felt so glad to hold her twin. There had been no asthma attacks, no disasters.