The Secret Mother (34 page)

At first, I didn’t see her – only her pink trainers, which sparkled in the haze as she skipped towards me. She chased a ball that had rolled beneath the bench where I was sitting. I looked up from her trainers to see a pair of bright, quizzical eyes. The girl was primary school age and wore her school uniform.

“You’re crying,” she said.

I reached beneath the bench for her ball. “Perhaps I need a friend to play with?” I said, wiping my eyes. “How about catch?”

“Don’t you have any children of your own to play with?” she asked, her face full of gravity. “Most people who come to the park have children.”

I felt for the wisps of hair in my coat pocket. “Yes. I do.”

I wanted to tell the girl everything, about their features, their skin, their tears, their sleep-heavy flesh … She smiled when I mentioned they were twins.

“In fact, you remind me of my first-born. I think she’ll look like you one day.”

“Is she pretty?” She wound the ball through the air towards me. The girl was not great at throwing, her aim was wonky. She was probably the last to get picked for games in the school playground.

“No, not pretty,” I said. “Much more than pretty.”

“What? Tell me.” She hopped excitedly.

“They’re beautiful. Like you.”

“Where are they?” she asked.

I threw the ball gently underarm. There was no answer to this. For months they’d formed inside my
infant’s palace
like twin pearls. Now I couldn’t say exactly where they were – which of the fifteen windows in the welfare institute was theirs. I only knew that someday soon, someone else would take my babies.

“My daughters are travelling,” I said. “They’ve gone to America, or maybe Europe. It’s their first big adventure.”

The girl’s eyes widened. She caught the ball. “They’re so lucky! Teacher Xiao says young people should see the world.”

“Your teacher’s very wise. It’s not good for a person to stay their whole life in one place. The world is open to you.” My chest strained with the memory of a home I longed to go back to, a little brother waiting by the gate, the smell of a father’s tobacco and maybe even the chance of a mother’s forgiveness.

The girl was about to throw the ball, when an old man strode towards us. He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“
Jiao Jiao,
what have I said about being late for school? Now hurry up or there’ll be big trouble.”

The girl sighed. “Grandpa, I was only playing!”

He took one look at my grubby clothes and grabbed his granddaughter firmly by the hand. “We can play later, after school.”

They hurried down the gravel path which led past the zoo. The girl skipped at his side, springing along in her sparkly pink trainers. When they reached the panda enclosure, she looked over her shoulder and waved. I waved back until she disappeared from view.

Even after she’d gone, I continued to wave. I stood on the gravel path parting the air with my hands, knowing the air would move in and fill the spaces around me. Fearing I had been erased, fearing my daughters had slipped through my hands, forever.

It took seven hours to reach Hunan by train. Guan slept, unmoved by the changing landscapes of city, suburb, sprawling highway, river, mountain becoming rice field; the layers of change and time peeling back to Hunan and to May’s village, the kernel of our origins.

“You promise me you’ll take good care of them?” Nancy had pleaded.

“I give you my word, Mrs Milne.”

Iain had looked Guan straight in the eye, “You better take care of my girls … and bring them back safely.”

On the train, Jen scanned the faces around her: the same, yet foreign. Despite her restlessness, she couldn’t sleep. Soon, she would give May’s letter to Ricki.

From Yongzhou station they boarded a bus that took them deep into the countryside, where the occasional worker appeared to be stitched into the seams of rice fields. The bus was old and cramped with no air-conditioning and poor suspension. At one point it was held up by of an old lady, sitting on an upturned beer crate in the middle of a dusty track brandishing a sweeping brush as a barrier. The driver handed over a few coins and the brush was raised at the makeshift toll. Ricki took a few shots of the woman swaddled in her padded cotton jacket; she looked well into her eighties, her face riddled with wrinkles.

The bus passengers, which included a dog that didn’t belong to anyone, appeared unfazed by the heat and humidity, some even wore cardigans and black woollen shawls. Jen tried to catch snippets of conversation, but it was so far removed from her knowledge of Chinese that they might as well have been speaking Russian.

On arrival, Guan led them to his
năinai
who lived in the centre of the village in a sturdy, modern house clad in white tiles. “Dad likes to help out wherever he can. He promised Grandad he’d look after
năinai
and renovate the place. I think he feels like he let them down somewhere along the line.”

Guan knocked and they entered, leaving their shoes and bags on the reed mat in the dark vestibule.

“
Năinai
,” he called out.

A small, springy woman with an all-enveloping smile appeared in the hallway. They didn’t hug, that wasn’t the tradition, but she stroked his arm affectionately.

“Look how big you’ve grown and so skinny! What are they feeding you in that big city? All coffee and french fries, your father tells me.”

She let go, noticing Jen and Ricki in the vestibule.

There was a rapid exchange, then his grandma stepped aside and gave a neat bow. “Friends of my grandson are friends of mine,” she said. “Now Guan, you must be thirsty, I will get you all tea – not too watery and with plenty of leaves in the strainer. Show your guests the spare room, Grandson.”

They were to sleep in a room at the far end of the bungalow. The faded blue walls had little in the way of decorations. It was warm from the evening sun and Jen asked if she could open a window?

“Sure,” said Guan, “It’s the double glazing Dad put in, this side of the bungalow soaks up the heat. It used to be his room.
Năinai
uses it to write her calligraphy now because of the light.”

Some of her work was left out on a desk by the window.

“It’s
Nüshu,
a kind of women’s writing from Jiangyong county. She’s been copying it from great grandmother’s missives –
Năinai
says it’s hard to get the strokes so fine now that her eyes are failing, but she’s determined to keep something of the past alive.” Guan smiled, “I guess we’re similar.”

He was to sleep in a large room in the annexe.
Năinai
fussed after him; replenishing his cup as soon as he finished and offering him sugary pastilles, mixed in with spicy peanuts.
Năinai’s
body was rumpled with age, but surprisingly lithe as she climbed the rickety wooden ladder to pick oranges from a tree in her garden. Her eyes twinkled like Yifan’s. Guan translated for Ricki. He seemed relaxed, apart from when
Năinai
probed about his
jian kang
– health.

As the sun dipped below the rim of the valley,
Năinai
suggested they eat indoors. She prepared a feast, humbly passing it off as a few meagre dishes, not edible for guests.

Jen knew to compliment her. The smell of chilli wafted into her face from the steaming platter of fried tofu.

“
Năinai
is asking me who it is you are looking for?”

“The family of Mai Ling Guo. I know they were farmers, from a village somewhere in this area,” Jen said.

“Xiashu Wang.”

“You know it?”

“
Năinai
says only one member remains – the youngest son. His name is Jinsong. He lives with his wife and son on his parents’ farm.”

“It must be him.”

Ricki, who’d been struggling with the spicy tofu, pushed it away. “Sure sounds like our long-lost uncle to me,” she said, before bolting from the table.

Jen apologised and went after her. She found Ricki crouched beside
Năinai’s
calligraphy desk, hugging her knees.

Jen knelt down. “We’ve come so far, Ricki.”

“What if we find out who he is? What if Jinsong tells us about our dad?”

“I don’t know. We’ll be together.” She squeezed Ricki’s hand. For once, her twin didn’t pull away.

Jinsong’s smallholding was on the outskirts of Xiashu Wang, overlooking rice fields. In the yard, chickens pecked the dry earth. Jen ran her fingers through the red soil. She worried as she tried to picture Jinsong’s face, shocked and confused in the sun’s harrowing light, as he realised they were his nieces.

“Wait here,” said Guan, “it’s better if I go in first and explain the situation.”

Jen watched him disappear around the back of the ramshackle farmhouse, his white jeans incongruous in the countryside. They leaned against the wall of an outbuilding, Ricki’s camera swung idly by her side.

Suddenly there was a commotion in the yard. A buzz shot through the trembling heat. It was a young boy, arms outstretched like aeroplane wings.

Rat-a-tat-tat-rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!

He fell to the dust and rolled over, a wooden stick strung to his belt.

“Come out! I know you’re hiding from me. Come out and fight me like a man!” He scrambled behind a water trough.

Ricki bobbed her head around the corner of the outbuilding. The boy crawled a few paces then made a run for her, charging with his stick rifle.

Rat-a-tat-tat-rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat …. DIE!

Ricki fought valiantly but, unarmed, was no match for the young boy; she fell hopelessly on her back making an exaggerated wail as she writhed on the ground dying. The boy grinned. He poked her with the toe of his trainer to make sure she was properly dead.

“Feng-Shu! Feng-Shu!” a voice cried from the porch.

He tied the stick to his trouser belt and dragged his feet through the red soil, becoming a plane whirring through the heat again. A thin, suspicious woman met him at the back door and gathered him to her side.

Jen and Ricki sheltered beneath a prickly bush to finish the last of the mineral water. At that moment, Guan appeared. With him, a man smoking one of Guan’s cigarettes, the remaining packet tucked into his T-shirt. Jen wiped the red soil from her hands and stood quickly to bow.

“I’ve explained everything; he knows who you are and is willing to meet,” said Guan.

Jinsong’s chest rose and fell quickly beneath his T-shirt, imprinted with
Rage against the Machine.
His hands remained stiff by his sides as he spoke.

Guan gave an encouraging nod.

They followed him into the house, where the walls were black from cooking fires. Chickens wandered underfoot. They were asked to sit at the wooden table, beside the ancestral shrine. Jen’s eyes went immediately to a black and white photograph of a couple, presumably May’s grandparents. Jinsong gave them liquor and they drank. He was a solid man, large handed.

The young boy – their cousin, Feng-Shu – lay down and read on a wooden bed in the corner. Jen wondered if he was pretending. She looked back and forth from her cup to the bed, trying to picture May as a child, tucked up with Jinsong. She had adored him, missed him.

Jinsong searched their faces. “Hen-Shu, pour some more baijiu.”

His wife re-filled their cups and returned to her washing up bowl, setting the plates to dry in a beer crate by the door.

“I believe you are my sister’s children?”

Jen nodded, she could just about make out his accent, but it helped that Guan was there to translate.

“What is it you want from Uncle? You can see with your own eyes, I have nothing to give you.”

“Only to meet you,” said Jen.

“Jinsong finds it hard to believe you have come from England. I told him the circumstances, but adoption is not so common here.”

“So what do they do with unwanted girls?” said Ricki. The question hung in the air, unanswered.

“I understand
Mai Mai
is dying? Who is looking after her in England?”

Jen told him the nurses were doing everything they could. It didn’t sound good enough.

Guan puffed a fresh cloud of cigarette smoke into the fug. “The doctors in England are first class, Jinsong; trust me, she will be in good hands.”

“My parents said she would come to no good, but I never believed them. She is my older sister, was my best friend …”

“I’m sorry to break this news to you,” said Jen.

Jinsong rose suddenly. Guan translated, “Come with him, please. There’s something he wants you to see.”

The pine trees provided a welcome shade. They were sweating by the time they reached the gateway that led to the centre of the forest. Guan lit a cigarette, his shaved head pinked by the fierce sun. Jinsong seemed hardly to notice the steepness of the path, and was surprised to find them growing breathless.

“You girls don’t work for
jia,
no?”

“He means outdoors, for your family.”

Jen shook her head. She struggled to translate how vastly different their lives were, how stuffed up into rooms, how centrally heated, polished, dusted; how they were wrapped up, bundled, all their lives spent surrounded by things. No, not outdoors, on the land, no they did not work for family, for
jia
.

Jinsong laughed. “Not so like your mother then.”

They continued to a point where Jen didn’t think the path could get any steeper, clawing a route that slanted diagonally through the trees, the way only obvious to Jinsong, until they reached a clearing and a level plateau where he stopped and looked up.

He got down and stretched out on a bed of pine needles, closed his eyes. “She loved the smell of these trees; every year she gathered wood from up here and used it to make wooden figurines for Spring Festival … I played with them too. What a girl I was! Nothing like Feng-Shu. Always too soft. Father had lost hope of a daughter-in-law before I met Hen-Shu.”

Jen stood silent, taking in the lofty cathedral-stillness of the place. She tried to picture Mai Ling feeling the bark, searching for a piece of wood the right size and colour for her figurines.

“How old was she when she left the farm?” Jen asked.