The Healing Party (4 page)

She sat in the family room, listening to an American preacher shout his message from the CD player. ‘Amen,' Mum muttered, nodding her head. As he moved into the final part of his sermon, I went to the kitchen to prepare a pot of tea, determined to talk to her when the CD had ended.

Dad had said that when he married Mum, he thought her profound because of her beautiful, enigmatic smile. He would talk about anything on his mind, philosophise, even read her his poetry or sing to her. She would keep quiet and listen, and always that smile played upon her lips. I knew what he meant. I had seen her with some men, particularly those with an eye for women. One of the leaders of the Charismatics was a dashing Maltese man. He knew how to wear a suit and he always smelt good. Everyone wanted a piece of him, but he would always seek Mum out. He would talk and gaze into her smiling face. She would say nothing, and afterwards he would tell Dad, ‘You're a lucky man, Paul. What a woman – she just radiates wisdom.' Dad would agree, even though disillusionment had set in soon after their marriage.

‘Your mother is a good woman,' he would confide to me in my early teenage years, ‘but I am continually offended by the way she speaks. “Boon Chin, what for doing nothing?” she says when I am preparing my next artwork; “Boon Chin, stop showing off!” she says when I am telling interesting stories to try to make people happy. Or else she serves me a wonderful-looking bowl of noodles and spoils it with, “Here, eat it!” or “Why you never do the gardening?”

It seemed to me that Mum was most at ease when she was talking to my sisters, or to her female friends from Hong Kong. With her I'd always felt left out. I listened jealously to her talk about nothing with my sisters – what they ate for lunch, who the new priest was, the latest news on the neighbours, where to buy cheap meat, who was wearing what and whether it suited them.

When Mum became Charismatic, she found a new voice. She learnt to pray out loud, direct to Jesus. ‘Alleluia, praise you, Jesus. You are the way, the truth and the light! I worship you. I love you!' My stomach would squirm, listening to her easy words of love to Jesus.

There were only a few times in my childhood that I could recall being alone with Mum. Once was when we were visiting my grandparents' shophouse on Rowling Road in Kowloon for the New Year holidays. Later, my feelings about that place on Rowling Road, or
Loling Load,
as we pronounced it, were of an infected household. There was my uncle with the gold tooth, who was always making sucking sounds and looking at us girls in a way that disturbed me. There were my aunts, who were not allowed to eat with the rest of us, but instead served us or waited in the kitchen until we had finished, and then were left to finish the scraps. There was the oldest uncle whom I saw torment a servant, making her carry a basin of water over her head and threatening to beat her if she spilt so much as one drop. A few times, screaming and banging broke out and my sisters and I would be forced out of the house. The sickness of my caged uncle seeped through the bars and under the door, wafted down the spiral staircase, found my grandparents, Agnin and Ayer, in their bed, and suffused every corner of the house. Even the unsuspecting guests in the front room below breathed him in. But at this time, when I was about seven, I still did not know of this uncle's existence and Loling Load to me was a thrilling, chaotic place filled with strange and debauched characters.

It was the hot, drowsy part of the day after lunch had been eaten. About twenty of us were staying in the narrow two-bedroom house. My grandparents were in their bedroom upstairs and Dad, who as the educated son had a special status in the household, had the other bedroom for our family to share. My parents and sisters were up there taking an afternoon nap but I was not sleepy. I watched my aunts and the servant in the courtyard kitchen hosing down the concrete floor and preparing the next meal. Then I went to the front room where several cousins and uncles lay napping on the floor or benches.

Mum came into the front room. Daintily stepping around the bodies strewn across the floor, she made her way to the outside porch. I followed her. ‘Ping Yu, come!' she called out to the rickshaw driver, who was allowed to park his trishaw on the footpath in front of the house in exchange for free rides. Curled up asleep in the passenger seat, he did not hear her. Half a dozen children in the street started shouting out his name and throwing small stones.

Ping Yu finally woke. ‘Where to, Madam?' he asked, manoeuvring his rickshaw closer to the porch where she waited.

‘Nam Cheong Street,' she said.

I called out to Mum to ask if I could come with her. She said yes. Unable to believe my luck, I squeezed onto the plastic passenger seat next to her.

We alighted in an old part of town, where it was thick with crowds, traffic and the acrid smell of open gutters, food frying and car fumes. Shops crammed the streets, their merchandise spilling out onto the footpaths and causing us to edge towards the drains. Mum kept a protective hand on my shoulder. She seemed to know which shops to go to. We walked in and out of one shop after another until it seemed we had been in dozens. Shopkeepers crowded around her. Most of the time she ignored them, except when she wanted to know the price of a pretty item. She reached for bolts of fabric, unfurled them with a smooth flick of the wrist, and yards of shimmering colour would float in front of her. She walked away if she thought the price was too expensive; if it seemed reasonable, she got down to business. She told them how many shops she had been to, how she could go into the next shop and get a better price. In a haughty voice, she told them that their item was not worth even half what they were asking. If they did eventually come to a deal, it was all friendly goodwill – they would then chat about the heat and humidity, how busy it was and how Kowloon was getting too crowded.

Just when I had tired of the heat and the noise, Mum, laden with shopping bags, led me away from the main street down a cool laneway. Up winding stairs was a door with a sign on it saying
Fine Tailor
. Mum seemed to know the lady who opened the door. The tailor stood my mother in front of the mirror and swathed, pinned and tucked the gleaming fabrics around her in a multitude of arresting concoctions. All the while, in a mixture of Cantonese and English, they chatted about clothes, figures, fashion, their husbands and the shop's clients. When they laughed, they covered their mouths with their hands, as though telling secrets.

I never saw Mum so confident and self-possessed in Australia as she had been then. Maybe it was because of the change in culture, or maybe because my perceptions had changed as I grew older. That day, though, I followed her around, dizzy with admiration and feeling the chasm between us deepen.

*

Returning with Mum's cup of tea, I placed it on the side table and sat down in the armchair facing her. She smiled at me, pleased that I was listening to the American preacher. Sitting opposite felt too direct. I moved to the space beside her on the sofa, where we wouldn't have to stare at each other if we were to talk. Mum let out a gassy burp and I caught a whiff of something rancid, the smell of the cancer eating her insides.
Please help Mum, don't let her suffer, and please help me get to know her
, I prayed in silence, and wondered how I would start our conversation. The CD whirred off.

I decided to appeal to Mum's strong sense of family duty. Mike, her highly esteemed nephew, had rung earlier from Hong Kong. ‘Mum, did you know that Mike is writing his family's history?' I began. ‘He said we should write our own history.' It was true that Mike was writing his family history, but I made up the part about urging us to do the same. ‘Since I'll be here for a while, we could spend some time talking about your family.'

‘What for ask me? Ask your dad. He is the clever one,' Mum said.

‘You are too!'

‘What for I need to be clever!'

She had said similar things before. If I challenged her, she would look at me as if there was something wrong with me. Why didn't I understand it was not her job to be clever? ‘We have heard all of Dad's stories.' I said. ‘Several times! We could repeat them back to you word for word. But we never hear your stories.'

‘What for talk about the past? The past is the past. Why don't you —'

‘So what were you like as a child?' I said.

She made that high
hmmmph
sound through her nose that she often made when she thought something was a waste of time. ‘Just a child. Just like any child.'

‘But what kind of child were
you
? What did you like doing?'

‘Play, climb trees, that kind of thing, la.'

‘What games did you play?'

‘Uh … Tim Kong Kong.'

‘How do you play it?'

‘You throw a tin or something and then have to hide. Quickly, quickly hide. When he gets it he will try to see you.' She opened her eyes wide and turned her head slowly from side to side as though searching. ‘If he sees you, he says, “Eh, Voon Leong, there you are,” and then you are out.'

Thrilled that she should share so many details, even if only for a childhood game, I kept the questions coming. ‘Where do you throw the tin?'

‘You throw it far, la.' She gestured with her hand.

‘How many people play?'

‘Can be many children. The more the better.'

‘Were you good at it?'

She nodded. ‘Yes, I was very good at hiding. They could never find me.'

‘Did your sisters play too?'

‘No. My mother always told me off for being a tomboy.' She reached for her book. ‘What for you need to know about a child's game?'

‘Okay, we'll leave the game. Were you a tomboy?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘In what way?'

‘Climbing trees, that kind of thing.'

‘What was your relationship with your mother like?'

‘Good. I am her daughter. She is my mother.'

‘What was she like?'

Mum's hand flapped around her neck. ‘A good woman.'

‘Did you talk with your mother much?'

‘Why not? She's my mother.' She turned around to look at the clock.

‘Do you have a favourite sister?'

‘All my sisters. Sisters will always be close.'

‘Were you close to Monica?' I asked, knowing from another aunt that Monica, the eldest, had been the big boss.

‘Of course, she's my sister.'

‘What was Monica like?'

‘What for ask? You know her.'

‘Yes, I know her as my aunt, but what was your relationship like as sisters?'

‘Such silly questions.'

I kept pressing her until finally she took up her book and put an end to our session. I told Mum we would spend at least a few minutes every day talking about her life. I could be a bully too.

‘H
ELP!
C
OME NOW!
'

I jolted awake. Flinging off the bedclothes, I sprang to my feet. Mum called again, her voice, distressed, coming from the bathroom. I raced to the bathroom and threw open the door. Her wheelchair was empty, parked beside the closed shower curtain. I pulled aside the curtain, fearing she had fallen on the floor. Instead, she sat wet and naked on the shower chair. She gasped and her hands flew to cover herself.

I snapped the curtain shut. I struggled to compose myself. Perhaps it was the fact that this was the first time I had seen my mother naked, or that I had not seen her when she was healthy and now that time had passed forever, or that the only part of her tired body that looked taut and vigorous was her swollen stomach where the cancer grew. Passing her a towel around the curtain, I asked if she was all right. She exhaled heavily.

‘Where is that girl?' Mum said. ‘Rosa left, so this new girl comes. The new girl is no good! She has to wash dishes in the kitchen and wait where she can hear me call!'

‘I'll help you onto the wheelchair.'

‘No!
The girl
is supposed to help me!'

‘But you're cold. Let me —'

‘Caroline! Caroline! Come here!' Mum shouted, her voice quavering.

Sticking my head out of the bathroom door, I also called, ‘Caroline! Caroline!' When there was no answer, I went to find her.

Two voices could be heard in my father's studio. As I approached on the stairs, they did not notice me above their talking and laughing. Through the studio's doorway, I saw an attractive woman around my age standing with Dad in front of his large worktable. She wore the Red Cross uniform tight and short. Dad said something, his eyes rolling sideways towards her. In response, her shiny blonde ponytail bounced and swung, and her shoulders shook with laughter. He pointed to a print still wet on the table. Leaning over, she gasped, ‘Oh' and ‘Wow.'

They looked the part, I had to admit: old male artist wearing a black beret and paint-streaked shirt with nubile woman, poring over artworks on a worktable strewn with brushes, photochemical trays and rollers in a high-ceilinged studio decked with large dramatic works. The scene brought to mind other young women I had seen in the studio being regaled with stories by my father. They were models, my sisters' friends, my friends, the eager-eyed girls from the Charismatic groups, and, of course, Bonnie.

‘Oh, Natasha!' he called out when he saw me. ‘Meet Caroline! Caroline, this is my daughter, just down from Darwin where she is a crusader for the disadvantaged and the sick. And Caroline is a most wonderful artist.' His face and voice were animated and warm.

‘No, I'm not, Paul,' she protested, laughing.

‘But you are,' he insisted. ‘It is self-evident from the inspired comments you have made about my artworks. I must say you have an eye and an aesthetic that I find truly —'

‘My mother was calling you,' I said, glaring at her.

Caroline stopped smiling. ‘I didn't think she'd need me while she was having a shower. I've only been up here a few minutes!'

‘Never mind, Caroline,' Dad said. ‘Time spent on art is never wasted. I'm sure Irene doesn't mind —'

I continued, louder. ‘Next time, wash the dishes while she's in the shower. From the kitchen you can hear her call. Now you need to come downstairs and help her out of the shower.'

‘Uh-huh,' she said.

Suddenly embarrassed by my bad temper and the baggy tracksuit I had slept in, I led her back downstairs in silence.

The bathroom mist had cleared and the shower curtain had been pulled back. Wrapped in a towel, Mum perched on the shower seat. Her jaw was tight and the skin on her arms and legs was tinged grey and pimply with cold.

‘Where were you?' she said to Caroline.

‘Sorry, Mrs Chan,' Caroline said, ‘I didn't realise you needed me. Your husband was showing me his art.'

Dad had followed us down and stood outside the bathroom, peering in. ‘Everything okay, Irene?'

‘
Cho meeyah?
' Mum asked him.

‘I came to help,' he answered.

‘We're fine,' I said, shutting the door on him.

‘I'll lift you on the count of three,' Caroline said. ‘One, two, three!' She curved her long, supple back, flexed her shapely arms and legs, and in a fluid motion, hoisted Mum off her feet. Mum flopped against her like a dead weight.

After she left, I heard Mum and Dad arguing in the bedroom.

‘Why talk to her? She is here to work, not look at your art!' Mum said.

‘We are Christians, Irene! We have to be generous with everyone.'

‘Then how come you never show your photos to Rosa? How come only this girl?' she cried in a shrill voice.

‘Why do you have to be so suspicious, Irene? She was nervous because it was her first time here. We must show her some Christian kindness. Reject such bad thoughts, Irene, so Jesus can heal you.' He walked out of the bedroom with an injured look on his face.

I went in to Mum and wheeled her in front of the dressing table so that she could do her hair and face. ‘We don't need a replacement for Rosa. I can do the mornings,' I said. ‘Shall I ring the agency to cancel her?' She nodded. Waiting on the phone, I watched her stare at herself in the mirror. Her troubled eyes scanned up and down, and from side to side. With jerky hands she pulled at her hair, then took the brakes off the wheelchair and turned herself to the window.

As a girl, I had often watched Mum checking her appearance. She did this with scrupulousness and regularity, as though it were her job. The mirror on the dressing table and the one inside the wardrobe door were used for long, careful scrutiny. The hallway mirror was for last-chance checks before stepping out the door, and compact mirrors that popped out of her handbag, car mirrors and reflecting shop windows were also frequently consulted.

One day, when I was about fifteen years old, she held me by the shoulders and forced me to face the full-length wardrobe mirror. ‘Just look at yourself and enjoy it,' she ordered. My reflection scowled back as I pulled away from her. Mum remained in front of the mirror. ‘When I was your age,' she said, ‘I always peek at myself and say, “Hey, who is that pretty girl in the mirror? Is it really me?”' With one hand on her hip, she spun from side to side, swishing her skirt around her legs.

A woman from the agency came on the line. After some discussion, she agreed to cancel services and we ended the call. I walked towards the sombre woman staring out of the window. Taking her wheelchair handles and turning her to face the dressing table, I said, ‘Look at yourself, Mum – you still look so young!' I was searching for something comforting to say, too embarrassed to say what I was thinking – that she really was beautiful, even more beautiful, in a way, than she had been as a young woman. Her cheekbones were high and thin, like a bird's wings, and her eyes were dark and dramatic in her face.

‘I am sixty-two years old, my dear. I am a grandmother!' she said. ‘Who cares how I look! Don't think of me, think of yourself!' Her face brightened. ‘We must always try to look our best, but so what? Only God matters.' She raised an open hand to the ceiling and flashed a smile. ‘Alleluia. Jesus is Lord!'

Standing behind her I saw my own face look back from the mirror – serious, round and taut, unsubtle in its even proportions.

*

I took my dishwashing gloves off and opened the front door. Patsy's stick of a body was bowed over to one side, dragged down by her guitar in its angular hardcase. I pulled the guitar off her as she came in the doorway and scolded her, as Mum would have done, for carrying something so heavy. She had come straight from the conservatorium where she studied music, and wore a blue corduroy pinafore over leggings.

‘You look like a schoolgirl,' I said. She raised her eyebrows and walked away to see Mum in the kitchen.

Doing housework always put me in an irritable state. For the past two hours I had stomped from room to room with my bucket of sponges, scrubbing brushes and detergents. Who could have left that piece of biscuit to be crushed into the carpet? Are they blind to the mould growing on the kitchen bin lid? How many weeks of scum have been allowed to build up under the taps? It's disgusting that anyone could leave their shit stains on the toilet for others to clean! I recognised this irritation at housework as a trait of Mum's. I had an image of her squatting on the floor, flushed and scowling, muttering about the filth as she scrubbed at the carpet. But that was when Mum worked on her feet from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every weekday at the Arnott's biscuit factory, and I had no excuse for not helping.

My final task was to wipe down the tables in the lounge room. Mum's medicines, cups and cloths had piled up, leaving rings and stains on the coffee table by the couch where she lay during the day. I cleared and cleaned the table so that it looked barely used. Then I removed Mum's pillow and blanket from the couch and straightened the cushions. All was looking fresh and gleaming, ready for the ladies' cell group.

For a few years after becoming Charismatic, Mum and Dad had led the St Joseph's Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting. Perhaps Mum was too reserved and Dad too unorthodox, or perhaps some felt uncomfortable that the majority of the group were Chinese, but it never took off like the other Charismatic prayer groups. Mum would count the number each time – for us, twenty-five was a good turnout, whereas the other Catholic groups like Oakleigh had 150. Dad, Mum and Maria would go to great lengths to lift the numbers, preaching to any person they met, ringing them to remind them to come, offering to pick them up. There was a creep who lived in St Kilda whom my parents saw as their project. They would drive forty minutes out of their way to pick him up from his hostel. Once, sitting in the back next to me, he put his hand up my dress. I was too ashamed to do or say anything.

At these meetings, Maria, Patsy and I quickly learnt the easy guitar chords and beat of the hymns and became the ‘music ministry'. Patsy, we discovered, had the gift of an unusual voice, and she threw herself into the music ministry role.

Today's cell group was an offshoot of the old prayer group. It met for morning tea once a week at the parish house, but since Mum's cancer the ten or so ladies, including Patsy, had been meeting at my parents' house instead.

In the kitchen, Patsy and I laid out the cups, saucers and cakes on a trolley that we kept under the stairs for entertaining. We were to wheel it out when the ladies arrived. Mum sat at the kitchen table, watching us and smiling. ‘Everything is just right! Sit down and rest now. Why don't you two start on the cakes?' she said. ‘Come on, take your pick. They all look so nice.' She was looking at Patsy.

I picked up a sticky pink-and-yellow vanilla slice and took a big bite. Custard squirted out on both sides. ‘Yum,' I said.

Patsy, not moving, stared at the cakes. She got up. ‘Anyone want a glass of water?'

‘Sit down and take a cake!' Mum ordered.

Patsy selected the smallest – a mini fairy cake in a paper patty. She played with the paper, picked up a crumb with one finger and put it into her mouth.

‘Put it all in your mouth,' Mum said. ‘Eat it and enjoy it, like Natasha.'

‘I'm sorry, Mum, I just don't feel like cake. I'll have an apple,' she said.

‘Apples, apples, that's all you eat. Did you have breakfast this morning? You didn't, did you! You want to go to hospital?'

‘I'm fine, Mum.' Patsy put the fairy cake back and pushed the trolley into the lounge room.

I picked up the plates and followed her. Out of earshot of Mum, I said, ‘Go back and have a bit of cake. Can't you at least pretend for Mum?'

‘Like you?' Patsy said.

We arranged the trolley and plates and returned to the kitchen. Patsy pulled up a chair next to Mum. ‘Do we have time to say a prayer before the ladies come?' she said.

‘Yes, let's pray. Natasha, you too,' Mum said.

I told Mum I had to get ready to go out shopping with Dad. As I left the kitchen, Patsy opened a bible and started to read a verse from Mark: ‘“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues. They will …”'

Some minutes later, I was drawn back to the kitchen by the sound of Patsy singing in tongues. She stood behind Mum with her hands laid upon her head. Both faces, so enraptured that I could not say which was young or old or beautiful, tilted upwards as though bathing in life-giving sun. ‘
Ushti, kasha, unak-unay-unay asti, shaya
,' Patsy sang in a minor key. I shivered at her voice, which was soft yet piercing, angelic yet eerie.

*

Dad was still driving the yellow Holden station wagon he had bought thirteen years earlier, soon after we arrived in Australia. The four of us sisters would sit shoulder to shoulder in the back, and since there were only three seatbelts, none of us wore them. The paint was faded and rusting in places, but it was in good shape for its age. He had it serviced on time and treated it well – not out of any interest in cars, but out of fear, since he had no mechanical knowledge. Only he drove the car. He had discouraged Mum from getting her licence, and my sisters and I, who did get ours, had not been allowed to drive it. The bottom of the rear window was lined with three stickers. One said
God is Life
above a picture of a foetus in a womb. The middle sticker said
Pray the Rosary
, and the one on the other side,
Honk if you love Jesus
. Dad had also painted a fish symbol in red on the bonnet and the boot of the car. The same symbol appeared on some of Dad's clothes, hand-painted on his shoes, hats, lapels and breast pockets.

I got into the back seat and waited. Even if the front passenger seat was vacant, my sisters and I, with the exception of Anita, always sat in the back. I wondered if I should move to the front, but just the thought of sitting next to him made me uncomfortable.