The Secret Mother (38 page)

Portrait of me is bigger than I expect! And surprise beautiful. Iain some kind of magician.

“Well, what do you think?”

We sit in reception. Photograph on his walls are like audience to my performance.

“I like it. You done very good job, Mr Milne.”

“I must admit, I was pleased with it. The light was just right by the window.”

He must know his camera like an old friend. My Chinese face, it look gentle on picture. My skin is silky like
chang-p’ao.
Nothing like Worker 2204, Electronic Circuitry. It is portrait of a young woman,
alive and kicking.
I feel pride to survive all way to England in secret.

“Would you mind if I do a re-print for display?” Iain points at other photo. I even beautiful enough for his walls – for his posh Altrincham customers! This shock me, seriously.

“It would be an honour.” Perhaps, with my face stuck on a wall, daughters they have more chance of seeing portrait than real face, I think, miserable.

That very same second door open and in walk Nancy with my twins. It like some big God he hear my thought and decide to lend a hand. I not ready. Not knowing what to do: laugh, cry, be serious?

“Nancy, is everything alright?” Iain say.

She has hurricane face. Her arms they heavy with bags from Sainsbury’s supermarket. She look at me like I might try sell her
Big Issue.
I smile polite. It feel like fast river runs between us and we stand either side – but whether she feel this, I doubt.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she say, not recognising me. “Jennifer, Ricki, go play with the toys while I talk to Daddy.”

I repeat their names in my head. Jennifer. Ricki. What kind of names these are?

What they mean?

Nancy angry about her bank card not working. She
sick and tired
of shops.

Twins they start to squabble over toys. Next thing I know, I’m kneeling at coffee table for make jigsaw. Twins, they stop fighting and watch. Ricki’s frown melt. Jennifer, she pass me corner piece. Jigsaw is pony. Jennifer tell me she has pony called Lucy who she share with French girl, Sandrine. I am wondering what French girl doing in Altrincham? I ask if Lucy is good at jumping. She tell me about winning silver medal in
gymkhana.
Jennifer she such a chatter box, she borrow Ricki share of word.

I see Ricki guard final piece of jigsaw under table. “You want to finish pony off?” I ask.

She shake her head. My stubborn baby, she always resist – sleep, food, nappy.

I say, “Poor pony can’t see without your piece.”

She shrug. I see a tide roaring inside my little girl and a piece missing from her also. She not understanding yet. The piece, she come find her.

“Who are you?” asks Jennifer.

“My name is May. Your Daddy take my picture. Look! What you think?” I show her the enormous portrait.

Jennifer tell me pretty. I want to kiss her forehead.

In the background, I hear Nancy explode in angry whisper. She not half as good as me at hiding feeling.

“Are you from China?” asks Jennifer.

“That’s right, how you know?”

“Your face is like mine.”

She not knowing how right she is – her skin from me, her nose, her eyes. I tell her China is where I grew up, but now I live in England. I wonder how much Nancy has told them about their past. It not easy for Nancy to invent story for telling a little girl who so full of question. Jennifer, she probably grow up to be police officer, she so nosy.

“Girls, put the jigsaw away now. We’re going.”

“Mummy, can’t we stay here. I want to stay and play with May.”

Nancy give me a look of question like she want to say, “Who the hell are you?” The look blow over. Perhaps she sense how amazing I am to see my babies again. Amazing and relief. Perhaps not?

“Mummy, you’ve made May cry,” say Jennifer.

Ricki so quiet I am wondering if she speak at all. She still holding tight to the final piece of puzzle under coffee table.

Nancy bend over me. “Excuse me, are you alright?”

I shake my head. Stupid woman, what she expect when I not see my daughters for ten years and suddenly I there making pony jigsaw in the ‘Fleeting Moment’.

Iain pass me another Kleenex. I am only customer in his shop to be using a whole box.

“Is it your fiancé?” he ask. “Just think how much he’ll appreciate seeing your face again.”

I storm into tissue. “It very hard not being with someone you love,” I say, “Sorry I fussy.”

“You have a fiancé?” ask Nancy.

The kids play some more; they not like seeing adult cry.

“He’s in China.” Iain tells Nancy my made-up story.

“Well that’s a long way away. You must miss him terribly. I’m from the States. I know how hard it is to be so far from your family. Listen, what are you doing next Saturday?”

My ears stand up like ears of mountain dog.

“Why don’t you come have lunch with us? Perhaps company might help?”

This is more than I can understand. Nancy, she invite me to her house?

Iain say, “Nancy, sweetheart, this is the lady I told you about – May, the teacher.”

“May. Oh, right. Of course. How silly of me not to realise. Would twelve o’ clock be okay, May?”

Iain he look confused.

Why Nancy change her mind so quick? First I not good enough for Jennifer, who is not ready to speak her own language and now … now it okay to have Chinese woman to lunch! Then I understand she see herself in me: missing home, missing America.

I say, “Twelve o’ clock is perfect. Thank you, thank you. You very kind.”

Nancy gathers up my daughters. I see Ricki put eyes in pony and complete jigsaw.

Sweet daughter.

I struggle home with my enormous portrait on bus. There is nowhere on the Stagecoach to put such strange object. I hold it to my chest. I hold it so tight because it so expensive. I feel like Ricki holding piece of jigsaw where she think no-one can see. I think of Grandmother and her jasmine bowls.

Never let you go.

Milne house it big. My feet go
crunchcrunchcrunch
towards front door. It twice as big as me in every direction and it painted postbox-red. I like letter arriving on mat.

“May, come on in. I’m so pleased you made it!” Nancy sing, opening the door.

Her hall is tidy. She also neat. “Let me take your coat. Goodness, aren’t you too hot in all those layers?”

There is hook waiting for my coat in shape of flying duck. My coat it sit on duck’s feet.

“Thank you, thank you.”

I give her the most expensive chocolate I find in the ASDA. Mrs Eva give me advice about what to buy. She surprised when I tell her about friend in Altrincham, about lunch. She jealous, I think, because she has TV for friend. No-one else.

“So, May, how are you doing?”

“Oh, a little better. Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. I know it is tough living away from home.”

I follow her into a room full of big soft chairs, too expensive to sit on. I sip her tea but it hard to be relax. I wonder,
where my daughters?
I not like to ask in case she think I nosy little Chinese woman and throws me out her big red door.

“I hope you like soup. I’m afraid it’s not homemade.”

“Soup very nice.”

Nancy disappear into kitchen and I
stick my nose where it isn’t wanted,
as Mrs Eva say. The house is not a normal sort of tidy. It like no daughter live here ever. Where all their toys? Where the mess? Few animal books under glass coffee table. But there are more photograph than I ever see in all my life – above Nancy fire, side table, all over window sill. All my twins! So this where she keep them, locked up in photo frame. The pictures are so good they must belong to Iain.

My heart, it stop when I see photo from The Bluewater Hotel. Is really the same one? I stare at reception desk in background and yes, there is Kim looking stressed because she having big baby delivery from welfare. This is picture I take! I remember! Picture, it belong to me.

“So, which part of China are you from May?”

Nancy’s voice make me jump and I drop photo.

She rush over for fluffy carpet and pick it up; her question forgot.

“Sorry, very sorry, Mrs Milne.”

We both have relief it not broken. Mrs Eva tell me I ask seven years’ bad luck when I break hall mirror one day – but seven before they also not lucky for me. Only piece of luck I have is leaving China with fake passport.

Nancy start telling me about photo, her girls they adopted from China and this is moment they are ‘born’. She should see the night they really born! The yīshēng who try drowning; the blood, the syringe, running half-dead in rain, Yifan who save me … Birth at Bluewater Hotel no birth at all. But to Nancy I see it mean everything. She have face like wet stone washed over with memory and suddenly I feel different for her in heart.

“You not able to have children?” I ask.

“We tried. We tried everything. IVF just wasn’t working. I blame myself, even now, for leaving it too late. I put my career first. I was forty and I still couldn’t decide whether I wanted children … All that pain we could have saved ourselves, if only we’d tried sooner. But, I guess you can’t beat yourself up about the past. We might never have conceived, even if we’d started trying sooner.”

What she meaning ‘IVF’? I look it up later in Pocket Collins English Dictionary.

Nancy’s face it hard around her eyes, like she struggle to stay young. She look two times my age? I ask her if getting girls from China is hard. I admit, I not knowing much about adoption.

“Oh yes, a great struggle. We were questioned about every part of our lives. The social worker came to our home, checked our finances, our medical records, asked hundreds of questions about our marriage, our families, our friends, our past. They watched us, closely. We went on parenting courses. They wanted to make sure we would make good parents. Then we waited two years for all the paperwork to go through before we could go to China for our girls,” she say, holding the photograph like it the most precious day of her life.

“Long time for pregnancy.”

A smile warms her face. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

We talk more over soup she buy from the Covent Garden. It taste of carrot and something else; not including noodles, but it quite nice. I try not to slurp like a peasant in Milne’s ever-so-tidy house. We sit on stools like we in a bar, but with no liquor for taking away nerve. Nancy ask me all sort of question. I never speak so much English in all my life. She want to know if I have family, what job I do in China and about my fiancé, Yifan. I take short answer because it hard keeping up so many lies. Tongue, it tired quick.

“Our daughters are from Nanchang,” she say.

“Really?”

“Yes, do you know the city?”

“No.”

I ask more about Jennifer and Ricki. I want know what happen after they leave China, what kind of little girls they are.

“They can be quite a handful at times, but they’re good girls really. Jennifer is very bright, but is going through a phase of being very independent and stubborn. Ricki tends to be quieter, more like her dad – artistic.”

It strange to hear her say ‘dad’ and mean Iain when I know it Manager He’s blood that pump in daughters’ veins. Honest, I prefer think of Iain as Dad. He gentle. He also very good portrait photographer. Manager He shit manager.

“They like school? Good grades? Education very important Mrs Milne.”

“Jen likes school more than Ricki. She got moved up a year because she was ahead of her classmates. Ricki misses her. I’m not sure it was such a good idea to separate them.”

It good Nancy care. Better still if my twins they stay together. That what I always wanting. For them never to part. Not like me who leave. I want them to be family: two parent, two sister. That not possible in China. In England everything possible. Now I here, I wonder if it possible have three parent?

“Ricki – what she like doing?” I ask.

“She’s very creative: drawing, colouring, making things … Iain bought her a Polaroid for her tenth birthday and she loves taking pictures then making collages. There was a time when all her pictures were very dark –
yin
? We asked our social worker to take a look. She said it was normal and not to worry, that it would pass. She was working things through in her own way. But we’re always watching them and worrying.”

I starving for know. “Ricki ever ask about Chinese mum and dad?”

“No, never. We thought she’d have lots of questions. We figure in time she might want to talk more about her past, but for now she’s keeping it all inside.”

“And Jennifer?”

“Jen’s more inquisitive, for sure. She’s already said she wants to learn about China and maybe go back there one day.”

I feel excited when Nancy say this. I want to see her straight away. “Where they go today?” I ask.

Nancy clear away empty soup bowls. “They’ve gone to play with friends. There’s another set of twins in their class at school. I’ve got to go pick them up at four.”

It three o’clock already. Time, it go too quick. I want stay forever and find lost years. I want make new years together. I want to live in family of two children, three parent.

“Mrs Milne, perhaps Jennifer want to learn Chinese?” I say, short of time.

Nancy she at sink, filling kettle. Her shoulders look tense. I know I say something forbidden. She not stop getting cups from cupboard, keeping hands busy so she not have to look at me.

“We’re just not sure it’s a good idea, May.”

“She like China, no?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Then it good to learn language. Improve understanding of culture.”

Nancy rub her head like she rubbing away bad thought. “It’s just … I suppose it is the right thing to do,” she say to herself. “I can’t keep her to myself forever. You’re right, Jen should be able to learn Chinese if she wants to. It’s only fair that she finds out for herself.”

I have no idea the decision is so hard for Nancy. I think it only me who has to make tough choice about whether daughters they stay or go.

“I have very competitive rates!”

Nancy give a broken laugh. I wonder why? Money big consideration; important to know how much lesson cost before she agree. I set careful price. Same as guitar lesson. I check the Indian shop window.