The Secret Mother (8 page)

“Hi stranger.” Lowrie leant over the counter and they kissed briefly near the mouth.

“Good to see you, tiger,” Lisa said.

“I’ve brought a friend. This is Ricki.”

“Another BBC thank God, I was beginning to think they’d gone all moral about inking,” said Lisa.

“A what?” said Lowrie.

“A banana like me. Yellow on the outside, white inside.”

“She means I’m British Born Chinese,” said Ricki, “which I’m not.”

“What, you don’t like being half and half?” she said resuming her noodles. “How old are you anyway, kid?”

Lowrie shot Ricki a quick sideways glance. “Eighteen,” she said.

She eyed Ricki with suspicion. “You don’t expect me to believe that. Come on, guys, I’ve got my licence to think about. Imagine what Noel would say.”

“He’ll be sweet, Lisa. You can’t ID everyone; most of them are fake anyway.”

Ricki handed over her design folder. “I’ve been sketching out some ideas.”

Lowrie flicked through, pointing to the double happiness couplet. “I like the way the little people are joined. Are they screwing or what?”

“The frig, they’re not screwing, it’s double happiness,” said Lisa.

“Well I like it.”

“Me too,” said Ricki.

“Lao Lao, that’s my grandma, she lived through such shit under Mao. She used to tell me about the student and the village girl when I was little. It’s a cool love story, all that dreamy destiny shit.”

“So that’s a yes? You’ll do me that tattoo?”

Lisa sighed. “Okay, but I don’t do faces, necks, hands or sleeves.”

Lowrie laughed. “You’ll do anything with a pulse, you old slag.”

Ricki emerged from the room at the back of the shop feeling elated. The skin on her upper arm felt raw, but reborn.

“It looks really distinctive,” said Lowrie.

Distinctive meaning interesting, unique; distinctive in a good way, not a Chinese freak in a class of white kids. Lisa strapped it up, neat and secure. The ointment and tape, the care and cleanliness were reassuringly clinical.

“How long should I wear the bandage?”

“Twenty four hours. If it sticks to your skin, don’t yank it away. Make sure you soak it in warm water and peel it off gently. Wash it and leave it to breathe, okay kid? I’ll give you some Tattoo Goo.”

“And it will be okay?”

“You know where I am if there’s a problem – just make sure your parents don’t look me up.” Lisa snapped off the gloves and tossed them in the waste bin.

Ricki’s hoodie rubbed against her bandage. “You’ve done an awesome job. I’m really pleased, how much do I owe you?” she said, unsticking the red envelope containing her birthday money.”

Lisa stared at May’s Chinese handwriting. “Listen, kid, I don’t want any trouble, I’ve got my licence to think about.”

Ricki took out May’s tenners and fanned them across the counter. “They’re not fake or anything, it’s my birthday money. I promise I won’t tell anyone you did it.”

“Not even your mum?”

Ricki had a sudden vision of her mum crying her eyes out at the sight of it. “Especially not my mum.”

“Won’t she wonder what you’ve done with the money?”

Ricki laughed. “I know how to lie.”

“Lie to the one who wrote a note like this?” said Lisa, pointing to the envelope.

“What does it say? I can’t read Chinese.”

“It says, ‘
To my precious daughter who I wish long life. I am sorry this gift is so poor and I have cost you dearly.’
I think she’ll want to know how you spent her gift. The last thing I need is an irate Chinese ma in my shop, losing me my licence.”

Ricki pulled back the envelope. “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said. “The woman who gave me the money wasn’t my mother. She’s a friend of the family; she teaches my brainy sister Mandarin on a Saturday.”

Lisa shook her head. “No, no, it’s definitely from your mum. Look at the way she’s signed it.”

Ricki stared blankly at the characters. “Why would she call me her daughter?”

“I’m only telling you what it says.”

“That she’s my fucking mother?” Ricki yelled. “My mother’s British, alright!”

“Hey kid, calm down,” said Lowrie.

“She lives in fucking Altrincham and has just been made redundant and likes sewing and watching
The Weakest Link
. I haven’t even met my real mother. I don’t know her. She left me in fucking China, alright? So there’s no way my real mother is ever going to know about my stupid tattoo or your stupid shop so why don’t you … Just shut up.” Ricki snivelled into the sleeve of her hoodie, feeling like a proper lunatic in front of Lowrie.

“Now look what you’ve done,” said Lowrie.

Lisa scowled. “Eighteen my arse.”

Lowrie pushed the cash across the counter. “Come on, kid, let’s go. And I’ll see you later.”

They picked their way towards the stairway.

Ricki tried to stay composed. Man, did her mum have some answering to do. She would make her talk about it all: China, May, all the messy adoption shit. Nikon or no Nikon, flu or no flu, coma or no fucking coma.

Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-

I am running down a corridor whose walls drip with sap, the sap of poison ivy. It oozes from my skin. The poison is within.

A-clang-a-lang-a-lang-lang-a-lang-

Ivy curls around my ankles, tangles me up inside. It will smother me bone by bone if I don’t escape. I can’t find a door. There’s no-one to help, not even Zhi. I’m alone in the dark. I trip and fall and … A noise shakes the walls, roars, sprints through my blood.

Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-clang-clang-a-

The corridor, the shower, my Cousin …

I was awake, screaming into my pillow. Someone took it away steadily, calmly and rocked me until I quietened. Her face as narrow as a sunflower seed. Her eyes, so hauntingly hollow. Had she touched my cheek? Did that grey hand stroking my forehead belong to her or was it the roots of poison ivy retreating beneath the blanket as daylight chased away the nightmare?

“Sky Eyes,” she said. “It was just a dream. Wake up now and eat. Work starts soon.”

This wasn’t my
k’ang.
The room was too gloomy and cold. I heard strange voices – accents different to my own.

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you remember? We met on the bus. I’m Ren.”

I wiped my eyes and spat. There were four bunks besides mine. The windows were shuttered. Wires hung from the ceiling, draped with washing. Sets of blue overalls – one, different to the rest, was an-off white blouse and grey skirt. A pipe jutted from the wall and out of it spewed something sludgy. Girls hurried, jostling to fill their bowls.

Ren took my bowl. “Wait there, I’ll get you some congee.”

Someone shouted, “Stop her! She’s taking double!”

Ren was pushed aside. The pipe spat and puttered out. The small, dingy dorm reverberated with barely satisfied murmurings.

“Thanks,” I said and spooned up the little congee she’d managed to collect in my bowl.

“This shit doesn’t get any better does it?” protested a girl, half-dressed inside the bunk opposite. Her skin was the colour of candle wax, translucent and taut across her chest cavity. Her ribs stuck out in rows like a fire grate. She pulled her blouse down from the wire and her casket black eyes met mine.

“Only slugs can eat that shit, y’know. It’s like slug shit. It’s like eating your own shit.” She pulled her blouse over her shoulders. “What are you looking at?”

I pulled my blanket up under my chin. “Nothing. I …”

“Take your nosy, creeping eyes off me. What are you, some kind of spy?”

The girl’s arms seemed thin as kindling. “New ones are such weirdos these days. Where did they find you two – the Security Bureau? You both act like you’ve got hang ups.”

Ren scraped the last congee from her bowl.

“Stop scraping, slug, it’s getting on my nerves.”

“You heard,” said another, concealed behind a dirty rag of curtain. “We don’t scrape our bowls, OK?”

“I never read any rule,” said Ren, climbing down from our bunk. We watched her limp to the window and pull on the shutters. Light from the courtyard streaked in. The bully shielded her eyes, like a bat blinded by daylight.

“You think you’re so smart,” she said. “I don’t know where you’ve crawled from, slug, but believe me, a few weeks in this shit hole and you aren’t going to think you’re so smart.”

“We’ll see,” said Ren.

The bully laughed. “Stupid as well as ugly. Where are you from?”

“Hubei.”

“Hubei
mei
– so you’re a drudge worker. They must be desperate if they’re hiring cripples.”

“
Forward! Goes the cripple with her little slug
…”
the bully changed the company song and mimicked Ren’s limp. “
Crawling on the earth, begging to be crushed.
”

“Damei,
bee-jway
,” warned another girl, “before your mouth gets us all fired.”

“
Have Joy! For tomorrow you’ll be gone
…”

I wanted to stand up for Ren, but daren’t.

“Look girls, the Hubei
mei
is deaf as well as crippled!”

Ren span round and lurched for Damei, clutching her by the wrists.

“Don’t think you’re hurting me,” said Damei with false bravado.

“
Niou-se
,” spat Ren, as though Damei was a piece of cow shit. She pushed Damei onto her bunk and swung past, out of the dorm.

Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-

The room shook again, in disbelief, relief. Someone had stood up to the scrawny bully – had anyone done that before?

I dressed in silence, pulled down my work cap, rubbed the sleep dragons from my eyes and pushed my feet into the cold, black slippers beneath my bunk. I was lost inside my new shapeless overalls. As I checked my appearance at the mirror, a face I recognised appeared.

“You okay? She’s not always that cruel.”

“It’s Fatty, isn’t it?”

“I was at the train station.”

“Hunan
mei,
I remember. I need to speak to Zhi. Do you know where she sleeps? I want her to find me another dorm.”

“You shouldn’t rely on family any more,” Fatty said. “The managers don’t want us in our village gangs. They say it makes us lazy workers. We’re supposed to leave the countryside behind.”

“But where can I find her?”

Fatty shook her head. “Forget it. She has no authority round here. She won’t help you now. You can only rely on yourself.”

Fatty disappeared into the swarm of girls teeming from their dorms; face after unknown face indistinguishable beneath work caps and matching overalls.

Clang-a-lang-a-lang-a-lang-a-a-a-

I followed the girl in front.

“Blues go that way, idiot,” said a stranger pointing to a door marked ‘Sanitary Room’.

The water was cold as I splashed my face. A girl, a blue like me, said there’d be hot water at ten that evening, when the stove got lit. I went to the toilet and climbed up on the seat to look out the window. The sanitary room backed onto the courtyard. In the distance, over the roof of the factory compound and the high risers beyond, there were pastel mountains. Suddenly, a blast of music, the company song. I sang half-heartedly and filed down to circuitry with the rest of the blue overalls. Waiting at the door, was Cousin Zhi.

“Move it girls, or there’ll be two yuan coming off your pay packet,” she yelled.

I copied another girl and held up my ID badge, wanting Zhi to hold me to her chest like a sister. But she checked my badge without even looking at my face. No glimmer of warmth. We were strangers.

The girl behind pushed me forwards into the workroom. It was an eerie bottle green and smelt of bleach. Several conveyor belts were interlocked in a grid, with work stations on both sides.

I hesitated, unsure where to sit. Then a girl shepherded me onto a stool in ‘Zone B’ and plonked down wearily opposite me.

“Whatever I do, you copy, okay?” she said.

Her accent was southern. Perhaps a Chaozhou
mei
? Just visible beneath her overalls was a pretty heart-shaped locket glinting in the gloom like a small relic from a different world. Her name was engraved in tiny characters,
Xiaofan.
I stared at the locket, wishing it was mine.

The lights flashed above the line, Xiaofan straightened and snapped on a pair of gloves. I did the same and turned the lamp on above my work station to fathom the instructions that hung on my shelf. A klaxon echoed in the cool of the room and the belt began to flow, bringing small plastic boards in front of us. Stationed at the far end, Xiaofan and I were first to start work. I was scared to even touch the board. Xiaofan worked swiftly and handled the board’s minutiae of plastic buttons and wiring with great delicacy, as if plucking fish bones from a
tou yu.

The board was inert in my hands.

I daren’t ask her what to do; factory rules forbid talking on the line. I copied Xiaofan and inserted one of the plastic cards, the size of a fingernail, which were stored in a tray on my desk. A series of English words flashed up; fat and curly as worms.

Zhi’s voice breathed down my neck. “You must follow the instructions precisely, 2204,” She pointed to step two on my diagram. “It’s a six-step process. Soon you won’t need to think, it will be familiar. For now, be sure to study the diagrams. You can follow rules, can’t you?”

I nodded. Was she referring to me running from Li Quifang or what? The coldness behind her eyes told me otherwise; there was no past between us now, no New Year’s Eve, no escape from the farm or bold talk of better futures.

“And remember, for every one you get wrong, we deduct two yuan.”

We.
She counted herself a manager, but where was the real boss?

No sooner had the thought entered my head, I noticed a staircase, leading to an upper office. Inside, a man paced back and forth before slumping onto his chair. It was the young manager who’d hired me.

Zhi stood with her hands on her hips and huffed, “Get on with it then. Time equals money!”

Several boards had piled up in front of my station. The regular, heavy beat of the company song jangled my nerves.