The Colour of Tea (32 page)

I think about the strange nature of genetics. How life can deal out good people and bad people, just like that. Crazy people and sane people, all from the same deck. All in the same family. I reach out and take Gigi’s hand. She gives me a worn but grateful shadow of a smile, yet her voice is frail. “This is not what I imagined for myself. Being a mother right now.”

I don’t know what to say. I squeeze her hand and hope that she can feel some empathy in it. I want to tell her everything will be okay, but I don’t want to lie; I don’t know if it is going to be okay.

“It’s too hard, Gracie,” she says very softly, as if she might split in two from admitting it.

Words are still stuck in my throat, and I can feel tears of my own threatening.

Faith whimpers in her sleep but doesn’t wake.

“What are you going to do?” I ask gently.

Gigi looks up at me. Tears have dried on her flushed cheeks, but her eyes are still pink-rimmed. “I really don’t know,” she replies. We sit like that, staring at each other, for several long moments. I have the feeling the rhythm of our breath is matched. That perhaps she is breathing in as I breathe out and vice versa.

“We’ll help you, Gigi. We’ll help any way that we can, okay? You just tell us what we can do. Promise?”

She nods. “I promise, Grace.” She pauses. “Thank you. Without
this place, Lillian’s …” She swallows and doesn’t finish her sentence. It hangs between us.

I nod and whisper, “I know.” Because I truly do.

*   *   *

I am sitting on the window ledge with a glass of wine when Pete comes home. He has his laptop bag in one hand, newspaper wedged under his arm. He does a double take when he sees me.

“You’re home early.”

“Rilla is closing up today.”

“Oh, right.” He takes his shoes off and loosens his tie. He goes into the kitchen and comes back holding an empty glass.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Go ahead.”

He wriggles himself back against the window. We lean into the corners and put our feet together. My toes are slender, my feet narrow, but they’re not small. I have struggled to find shoes to fit me in China. I’ve always wished for dainty feet. Pete’s feet are practically the same size as mine, but much broader. He takes a large swallow of his wine and sighs.

The view from up here is still fascinating, although we see it every day. The sun is fading, rather than setting, in the thick pollution. Kids are playing basketball in the apartment complex leisure area below us; I watch them miss shot after shot.

“Everything all right at Lillian’s?”

“Sure. Everything’s fine.”

Pete nods. Encouraging.

“Gigi came in today,” I start awkwardly, committing myself to talk with him. To share more, as we have promised each other we’d do from now on.

“Really? Is she all right?”

“Honestly? No. I’m so worried for her, Pete. Faith’s father, Frank,
has left, and her mum sounds truly awful. She’s threatening to throw Gigi and Yok Lan out of the house if Gigi doesn’t go back to dealing cards.” I take a breath. “No wonder Gigi has been so full of anger.” Pete drinks some wine and frowns. “She’s got a talent for cooking, Pete, I know she does. Now that is going to be taken from her.”

“It’s not going to be easy for her. A baby and no father. No support. In this economic chaos …” His voice drifts off.

I nod; it will be hard in these times. It’s hard enough already. “I wish I could make it different. Help her. Help Faith. Yok Lan. It’s such a mess, and Gigi’s a good girl, really. Tough but kind and … I don’t …” I pause, drinking in his attention. His eyes are so dark in this dim light. “I don’t know what to do for her,” I finish. I can feel the tears, so close.

He says nothing for a moment. We both look back down at the basketball court.

“I think she will tell you what she needs, when she’s ready to. Maybe there aren’t many people listening to her at the moment. Maybe that’s what she needs right now, just someone to listen.”

As he says this, one of the boys puts his ball through the net. The kids yell, jumping around and hugging one another. The boy runs in small circles, shaking his fists in the air in victory.

“You might be right,” I reply. I try to let my worries about Gigi and Faith and Yok Lan fall to the bottom of my mind. Settle, like sediment in my wineglass.

I look back to Pete. He arches his foot so his toes press against mine. His socks are shadowed with cool sweat. They leave my feet wet. I make a disgusted face, and he grins. We turn back to the basketball court to see the boys hang their heads. Mum has come to round them up. She is saying something in Cantonese that we cannot hear. She points her finger, and they all march off in that direction.

“Just be her friend, Grace,” Pete says softly.

Les Soeurs—Sisters

Peppermint with Dark Chocolate Ganache

L
ater that week, close to closing time, Rilla brings laughter into the kitchen when I need it the most. I am still worrying about Gigi when she interrupts my thoughts by turning up the radio and dancing with her mop. She wiggles her hips beneath her apron and taps her feet. I realize I must have been frowning when I break into laughter. She winks at me as if to say, “That’s better,” and I shake my head. Her dancing ability closely matches her singing skills. Neither is good, but they never fail to make me laugh. I am reminded of how lucky I am to have her in my life, every day, here at Lillian’s with me. I flash her a grateful smile. When the phone rings, it startles both of us. Rilla turns down the radio as I leave the kitchen to answer it. Marjory’s voice is breathless and rushed.

“Grace, it’s me. Is Rilla there?”

Rilla comes out from the kitchen, and I meet her eyes.

“She’s here. Are you okay?”

“We need to come by to pick her up. It’s Jocelyn.”

“Jocelyn?”

Rilla moves quickly to fetch her jacket and bag. I suddenly feel on edge as Marjory presses on.

“We need to pick her up from the refuge. We think her employers know where she is and we should move her just in case. Not good for her or the other women. It might be unnecessary but …” I can hear the sound of an engine shifting into a higher gear.

“Is she …?” I start.

Marjory’s voice gets louder as a car horn sounds. “I’ll have to explain later. Sorry, we just need to get her somewhere safe. She won’t come with me, but she’ll trust Rilla. Is it okay for Rilla to leave early?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Good. Grace, can we bring Jocelyn back to Lillian’s? Just until we sort out somewhere for her to go?”

I nod and then realize she can’t hear me. My heart is beating fast now.

“Grace?”

“Yes. Of course. Yes.”

“Thanks. We’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay.”

The line goes dead, and I stare at Rilla putting on her jacket, hastily organizing herself to leave. I feel a bit lost.

“Is everything all right?” I ask.

Rilla just looks at me with an odd expression and shakes her head, before dashing off to use the bathroom.

Within a few minutes Marjory’s white SUV brakes to a stop outside. The Lillian’s sign is reflected in the car’s dark windows, the orange, melting sunset a backdrop. Rilla races out and clambers into the front seat, purse in one hand, apron in the other. Then she holds the apron out to me, her hand shaking. Her face is pale and serious. When I take the apron from her, Marjory catches my eye from the driver’s seat.

“Hopefully we won’t be long. I’ll explain when we get back,
I promise,” she says, then accelerates away. My left hand is limp against my side, still holding Rilla’s mauve apron. A tiny tornado whips up sand and dust from across the road, and I watch it blankly as it twists and dances toward me. It skids to a still pile of dust as it hits the curb. I reach into my pocket for my mobile and call Pete. I barely get two sentences out before he tells me he’ll come straight over. I sit on the edge of the sidewalk and wait.

*   *   *

Pete and I are in the café by the time Marjory’s car pulls up outside. The sun has slid away, to be replaced by a fingernail moon. The back door opens, and Rilla gets out, then helps Jocelyn from the car. Jocelyn starts when she sees Pete. Rilla puts her arm around her friend and ushers her into the kitchen. A cold breeze whips inside as Marjory comes in. Her pretty face is white and pinched. Pete asks if she’d like a coffee, and she nods. She sits opposite me and reaches for my hands.

“Oh, Grace.” She lets out a big sigh. “Thank you. Thank you for not asking any questions before.”

“It’s okay,” I murmur, confused.

“I think it was important to get there fast. You know, I didn’t realize just how bad this kind of thing can be. I didn’t believe it. Or want to. But now … now I know.” She shakes her head.

When Pete brings over the coffee, Marjory wraps her long fingers around the cup. Pete takes a pot of hot water and cups into the kitchen. I can hear him offering tea to Rilla and Jocelyn but do not hear the replies. When he comes back, he sits beside Marjory and puts an arm around her shoulders. She leans into him gratefully.

“Rilla told me Jocelyn was in trouble, so I let her know about the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; they run a refuge. I heard about it at a charity auction.”

“Good Shepherd?” I repeat.

“The sisters, the nuns, help women who are in trouble. I’ve been out there a few times since Jocelyn moved in, but she’s been too scared to talk to me. When the sisters heard her employers might know where she was, they rang me to see if I could help. They need to protect the other women too.” She puts her hand against her forehead.

Pete looks to me for clarification, but I’m as confused as he is.

“I’m so sorry,” I say gently, “but I’m lost. What kind of trouble?”

Marjory looks at me, her head tilted to one side. “Rilla didn’t tell you?”

I shake my head, feeling guilty. “No. We haven’t talked much.” Marjory takes a long, steadying breath. “Jocelyn came to Macau to be a domestic helper. These recruitment agents, if you can call them that, put her in a job with a family here. Then they told her she had to pay them a fee every month for the privilege.”

Pete is nodding, so I look at him.

“
She
has to pay
them
?” I ask.

“It can work like that,” he says wryly.

“That wasn’t really the big problem.” Marjory’s voice is bitter. “It’s her employers. A couple and an elderly father. Right away they took her passport and kept her from having a day off. They told her she was too slow. Treated her worse than you would a bad dog.” She shudders. “She appealed to the agents, but they wouldn’t help her. She’s just a paycheck to them. They advised her to stay quiet and keep her head down, and reminded her that a maid here makes more than a lawyer back in the Philippines, and that if she wanted to be a good mum to her kids back home she would work harder.” Marjory laughs cynically. “Work harder! As if she were lazy, as if it were her fault …” Her expression becomes hard. “So Jocelyn ran away. She has been staying at the refuge since that night she and Rilla stayed here.”

My mind steps back over the last few months, and I see the two girls lying in my storeroom. Pete looks at me as I shake my head.

Marjory continues, “No one else could really tell how bad it was and what might be happening; they just thought she was a bit strange and quiet. Or they didn’t want to know. But Rilla knew, because of what had happened to her in Dubai. Probably just from the look on Jocelyn’s face. They became very close friends.”

“Yes, Jocelyn would come meet Rilla here,” I murmur, remembering her waiting for Rilla outside, hovering at the edge of the door, her long hair across her face.

“I guess in Rilla she had someone she could trust. But when Jocelyn stopped turning up for their meetings and Rilla wasn’t getting any calls or text messages, she got really scared. She spoke to some of the other Filipinos in Macau about it, and they said they would all keep an eye out for Jocelyn. That was one lucky thing, having such a network everywhere. Guys in security at the banks, the shops, women in most of the apartments, walking with prams. You know what it’s like.

“Finally someone saw her at San Miu, that Chinese supermarket. Said she had a cap pulled down on her head, so he couldn’t see her face, but it was Jocelyn for sure. That made Rilla happy for a little while, knowing she’d been seen, that she seemed okay, but I think she just knew things were getting worse and worse. Anyway, Rilla got a text message a few months ago asking her to go to the car park outside the racetrack. It wasn’t Jocelyn’s number; it turned out she’d had to steal one of her employers’ phones, but you can’t blame her for that. They’d taken hers and were keeping her penned up in that bloody house.”

Marjory guesses what I am thinking.

“That was the night you found them here. The night she ran away.”

My throat is dry. “What had happened?”

Her eyes meet mine, and she pauses for a moment before she says grimly, “She’d been beaten with a frying pan.”

My throat seizes up and my eyes smart. Through tears I can see Pete has his head in his hands.

“Oh God,” he says.

“I didn’t know,” I plead, my voice distorted.

“Hey, hey …” Marjory shushes me. She leans over and pats my arm. “None of us knew, Grace. When Rilla first tried to ask for my help, I wanted to close my ears. I didn’t want to get involved. I figured it was none of my business …”

“But it is,” Pete says slowly.

“Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, it is our business. These people come here to work for us—the expats and the wealthy locals. But no one stands up for them, looks out for them, so this is what can happen. This and even worse.” She looks at me sharply. “Grace, it wasn’t your fault. We didn’t know, okay? But now we know, we can do something. We have to.”

I nod and press my lips together. We can hear Rilla’s comforting whispers coming from the kitchen.

“They can stay with us tonight,” Pete says firmly.

Marjory turns her head to me. “Are you sure? I don’t mind …”

“Yes,” I say. “Please, let them stay with us.”

“Okay.” She sighs. “That’s good. We can figure out a way to get this resolved. What these women need is an organization that will protect them, help them when things get ugly like this. Don has a lawyer friend who might be able to help file some kind of action and begin the paperwork to get Jocelyn a new passport if necessary. Don is calling around, seeing what needs to be done. Her bosses still have her passport, and they’ll be trying to stop her from talking about what happened with them. Who knows what they’re capable of?”