The Secret Mother (2 page)

“Long Island.”

She wiped away the condensation, enough to see out. She’d never been to May’s house. May always insisted on coming to theirs for Jen’s Chinese lessons. Nancy closed her eyes and imagined floating in a clear lagoon, as Michael her T’ai Chi instructor had taught her. She breathed in through her nose and, as she exhaled, visualised cooling down from an anxious red to orange, yellow, pale green and eventually blue, but not blue like the ocean. The air flowed out through the ends of her fingertips.

Slow and steady, slow and steady.

When she opened her eyes, there was a ramshackle end-terrace with metal bars over the ground floor windows. The frames were rotten, and one window was covered in sheets of faded newspaper. A skull had been graffitied on the front wall. Nancy checked the house number. Perhaps the cab driver had the wrong street? She wavered by the door, and then rang the bell.

An ancient eye peered through the jamb.

“What do you want?”

“I’m a friend of May’s.”

“She’s not in.”

“I know. She’s been in an accident. She was taken to hospital this afternoon. The paramedics gave me her keys.” She held them up for the woman to see. “I just need to collect some of May’s belongings.”

There was a pause before the old woman slipped the latch. “Better come in then.”

The house smelled of cigarette smoke, there was also the lingering, fusty odour of dry rot. One corner of the hallway was taken up with a cheap motel reception desk where a vase of red plastic roses gathered dust.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
blared from an open door.

The woman stood barring the way to the stairs. “Upstairs on your left,” she said, “May’s number six.”

“I won’t be long; I just need her fiancé’s telephone number.”

“Fiancé? I didn’t know she had a fella.”

Nancy edged past her.

“Don’t go making a din up there. I can’t afford any complaints.”

The staircase was steep. Nancy’s hands shook as she fumbled May’s key into the stiff lock. She put a knee against the door and gave a firm push. Something on the other side prevented it from opening fully. She crouched in the dark and dislodged a shoe. It was black and petite and fitted perfectly into her hand.

Inside the room was a spartan ten feet by ten. The pink lampshade gave off a garish glow and the air felt grubby. Saliva, skin, semen … it was easy to imagine the residue of previous occupants soaked into the bed and carpet; their hair and toe nails lurking beneath the fringes of the candlewick quilt. Instinctively, Nancy wiped her hands on her skirt. Surely May wouldn’t sleep here? But May’s clothes hung on the wardrobe door, her slippers sat neatly paired at the end of the bed, her notebook lay open on the scuffed desk.

Brayn food,
it said in the left hand margin. Nancy leafed through.

British loving animals

Thick as pig shit

Rat arsd

Rabbiting on

Barking!

Ducky (Mrs Eva)

Raining is dogs and cats - or is it cats and dogs???

Not good idea mention dog food in England. British thinking cruelty to animals in China :(RSPCA like police for dogs & cats.

She placed it back on the desk, as carefully as if it were May’s fractured skull, then turned to the task in hand: Yifan’s number.

Inside the top drawer of May’s desk were a Collins Dictionary and some biros, a ruler, calculator, some receipts from ASDA and what seemed to be a high school certificate with a photo of a startled looking May pinned to the top corner. The next drawer down was crammed with teaching materials: a GCSE Mandarin syllabus, past exam papers, Post-it notes spidery with May’s erratic writing. She came across one of Jen’s essays entitled
Me and My Family
, followed by her Chinese translation. Nancy skimmed it for mention of Jen’s adoption, then slipped it into her handbag to read later.

Another drawer was full of old photographs. She recognised May from the distinctive sickle-shaped scar on her cheekbone. Her features used to be more angular and her rough-cut fringe looked androgynous. May hugged two of her girlfriends. It was night time, a funfair. A ferris wheel loomed in the background. The Chinese loved that sort of thing; she remembered riding one like it in Nanchang.
Tallest in the world!
Iain thought it would help take their mind off the waiting – waiting for news of their babies.

Nancy flopped onto the foot of the soft bed, it absorbed her without resistance. Something sharp dug into her backside. She lifted the edge of the quilt. May had tucked her sheet in tightly at the corners, like a hospital bed. Beneath the quilt, was a wooden figurine, small enough to fit in Nancy’s palm. A young waitress at The Bluewater Hotel had given the twins one just like it. She said it would bring them happiness, some sort of Chinese talisman. The waitress had been quite a fusspot, cooing in Chinese as they ate breakfast, even offering to take care of the twins while Iain and Nancy napped. Nancy kept the figurine and later made it into a necklace, fearing the twins might choke on it. Turning it over in her hand, Nancy wondered how to break the news to Yifan.

You don’t know me but …

I’m so sorry, Yifan. May’s been in an accident
…

The only place left to search for his number was the closet. It smelled musty, like a long vacant holiday home.

May didn’t own many clothes: the few dresses she wore for teaching, jeans and a neat pile of sweaters folded on the top shelf. There was nothing glamorous or sexy, nothing bold or unruly – only what was necessary. May didn’t wear hats, or keep outfits that didn’t fit her; there were no flowery smocks or tie-dye, no high heels or power suits – apart from an old skirt and blazer which looked a decade out of date. She hadn’t imagined May to live so frugally.

A tin box was her last hope; tucked at the bottom of the closet, behind a mud-crusted pair of trainers, its lid emblazoned with a Chinese logo.

She paused, then opened the lid.

A photograph of Jen on the beach in Nice! Nancy had spent the best part of a week searching for this photo, hoping to stitch it into a memory quilt for her daughters’ sixteenth birthday. What was May doing with it? As she lifted it to the light, Nancy uncovered photos of Jen riding her bike. Jen on summer camp in the Lake District. Jen in the school play. Jen eating ice-cream under the plum tree. She flicked faster through. Every single one was of her daughter. And not only Jen. There were photographs of Ricki on family holidays, birthdays, days out … What the hell were they doing in May’s closet? The rational part of Nancy said they had something to do with Jen’s studies. A project on the family. Yes, Jen’s essay was on that very subject.

“Stop being a ninny,” Nancy said out loud.

But why had Jen never asked to take the photographs? She knew they were Nancy’s treasured possessions. And why hadn’t May mentioned them? It was practically the twins’ entire childhood.

She knelt amongst the scattered pictures of her girls and held one up to the garish light. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. It was the photograph of the twins in the People’s Park hours after their arrival. In the original, Nancy and Iain’s faces were like sunshine – delighted to be parents after years of waiting. But someone had cut them out, leaving two holes, two dismembered bodies.

She stumbled to the sink, fearing she might wretch.

Did May know about the mutilated photograph lurking in the bottom of her closet? No – no – she couldn’t believe it of her. It must have found its way there by mistake. But how could a whole album find its way into someone else’s closet by accident?

What if … Oh God … what if May was a psychopath? A pervert? A child molester? She’d been coming to the house every week to teach Jen. What if she’d been preening her in secret or …

Nancy lunged towards the desk, flung open the middle drawer and scrutinised the photograph of the ferris wheel. She’d missed it at first: a sign in bold neon letters,
Welcome to Nanchang,
suspended across the centre of the wheel. May had lived there – Nanchang – the very place her daughters were abandoned. Why, in all the years they’d known each other, had May never mentioned that fact?

She stood in the centre of May’s small, dingy bedsit, sweat rings seeping through the underarms of her silk blouse. That’s when the feeling started – beginning in Nancy’s guts and rising. Six years … six years! May had taught Jen Mandarin; six years she’d fetched tureens of Chinese food to the house, treating Jen with respect, admiration, encouragement. All along … lies.

Nancy gaped around her in panic.

Could it really be May’s fingerprints over her precious babies? May’s Chinese blood pumping in their veins? Her Chinese hair on their heads? Her Chinese eyes staring Nancy in the face every day? Mocking her.

Yes, answered her intuition.

Why else would she steal photographs from the twins’ adoption album, or take such an interest in their lives? Or lie about never having been to Nanchang? May was no child molester. She was only five feet nothing in her faded, raggedy heels.

Nancy laughed in horrified hysteria. She had always dreaded this moment. The twins’ past pouncing up on her, devouring the bonds she’d worked so hard to make, the Milne family unit. May the birth mother, the tummy mummy – the person she never wanted to meet.

The sound of her mobile made Nancy jump. Her hand shook so badly she could hardly pick up.

“Nancy?”

“Iain. What do you want?”

“Where are you?”

“May’s place.”

“Are you with anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Look, Iain, now is not a good time. Phone back later can’t you?” Nancy fumbled to disconnect the call.

“Wait,” said Iain, his voice flat and inert.

“What?”

“It’s …”

“What is it?”

“It’s May, darling. You’d better get over here.”

A different kind of girl to the one I was back then – a girl like Cousin Zhi – might have seen it coming. A different kind of mother to my own, a kind and gentle mother, might have warned me childhood was about to end.

Yes, sixteen is an important age for young women like Jen and Ricki. I attend their dreadful birthday party to mark their passing into womanhood, their shedding of years; but my arms come burdened by the past, as well as gifts. Sixteen is an age I cannot easily forget.

I was swilling out the skillet in the yard when I caught sight of Father, making his way home through the rice fields. His head was bowed as if listening to his own whispers. He was early and there were no other workers to share his flask of tea or cigarettes. He bustled past, his cheeks reddened by the wind.

“Don’t stand like a gatepost, Mai Ling, come inside and help your mother. Everything must go to plan.”

I wanted to ask Mother about the plan, but she was busy chopping half moons of garlic. A fresh pot of smoked pork and spices rested on the side. The plan likely concerned Cousin Zhi, who was due to arrive home for Spring Festival. She worked at a car factory in the city and had grown used to luxuries. My parents were keen not to lose face in front of her or Auntie.

I took my place beside Mother and began peeling the ginger. The work was harder when I couldn’t feel my fingers and I nicked my fingertip with the knife. A sliver of blood rose up instantly. I brought it to my mouth, a small pleasure in the taste. My belly growled with hunger. Outside, the pig scratched the earth for something more nutritious than stones and frosted mud.

The sound of their voices in the yard caused Father to leap up from the table and hurry to the door. There on our doorstep stood the town’s most prestigious coffin maker, Gao Quifang and his wife, both empty-handed, bringing only the cold winter draft into our home. It was to be a short visit.

Father bowed and ushered the Quifangs through our dark, smoke-blackened kitchen to the fireside, where three stools had been arranged. I wiped my hands on my trousers and followed Mother, who carried a bowl of dates and peanut candies. The room seemed suddenly too small for us all and I wondered if we still owed them for Grandmother’s funeral.

Mr Quifang’s skin was pallid, his eyes serious. I remembered how gently he’d laid Grandmother out, arranging her white burial robes so as to disguise the thinness of her frame. The same couldn’t be said of his son and apprentice, Li Quifang, who teased the old women of the village by pretending to be their husbands back form the dead.

Father instructed me to sit next to Madam Quifang who squinted in my direction and then kicked the chicken pecking by her feet until it flapped away.

“Is this the girl?” she asked abruptly.

Father bowed again. “Yes, Madam, this is our daughter Mai Ling.”

“She looks reasonably fed and not altogether ugly, a little unfinished, but is she strong?”

“Yes, very strong; she works with my wife.”

“So you can cook?” asked Mr Quifang.

I was unsure whether or not to speak. Father had not yet introduced us.

“She cooks well and knows many local dishes; she can also grow vegetables and understands how to care for animals,” Mother said, proffering candies.

Mr Quifang took one and rolled it slowly, thoughtfully, around his mouth.

“Well I hope the pig I can smell cooking is better than the skeletal beast you have squealing outside,” declared Madam Quifang.

I began to fidget with a loose thread on my cuff. Father filled some cups of baijiu.

“A toast! Let’s make a toast to warm us.”

“I’m afraid that my wife does not drink.”

“Surely a little on such an important day?”

“No.”

“But it is so cold out there,” added Mother.

“No.”

“Perhaps you would prefer wine?” Father fussed.

“I am allergic to both baijiu and wine.”

“Please – do not ask my wife again.”

I gulped back the fragrant, honeyed liquor and hoped they would soon go. Mother had laid out our finest bowls – the hand-painted ones with blue jasmine flowers along the inner rim. They had belonged to Grandmother, who kept them hidden in the ground during the Cultural Revolution.