Running on the Cracks (8 page)

64 Burn Street Glasgow
October 21st

Dear Mr Baldwin

Thank you for your letter. A social worker from the Glasgow Centre for the Chinese Elderly is helping me to write this reply, as I am not very good at writing or reading English.

You are right that my son Matthew stopped being my son when he chose to live together with the English woman you mention in your letter. I did not know they had a child. This child has not been to my house.

Yours sincerely

Chan Jing

‘Hello, Kim Yeung speaking.’

‘Oh, hi. Um, is Jacqueline there?’

‘No, she’s at the art school. I’m her mum. Who’s speaking please?’

‘I’m … well, I’m a friend of Finlay’s. He met Jacqueline at the Barras.’

She’s a devil woman.

Gonna burn, gonna burn my soul.

‘Sorry, I can’t hear you very well. That music is very loud.’

‘Yes, sorry. Mary, can you turn it down?’

‘We can’t turn down the dancing! Only the devil turns down the dancing!’

‘Could you tell me when Jacqueline will be in?’

‘Some time after four. Shall I give her a message?’

I thought I was in heaven
Till I looked into her eyes.

Found my angel woman
Was a devil in disguise.

‘Well, maybe you could say Finlay’s friend called.’ ‘I know who you are now! You’re the girl Jacqueline has been telling me about. She’s never stopped talking about you. She thinks you’re a cousin or something.’

‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to …’

I took my father’s rifle,
Shot her and she fell.

Then I knew my devil woman
Had dragged me down to hell.

‘Listen, why don’t we give Jacqueline a surprise? Why don’t you come round tomorrow? Come to 61 Burn Street.’

‘Well, it’s a bit hard for me to … all right, yes! Yes, thank you very much. What time shall I come?’

‘Don’t go, Leo! She’s at it! She’s devilish! Your woman’s devilish!’

‘Come around six. You can eat with us.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. And you can bring that wee boy if you like. Our Jacqueline keeps talking about him too.’

‘Thank you very much. That’s so kind of you. I’ll ask him.’

‘Don’t ask Sherlock. Sherlock mustnae meet the devil. She’s in with that Lorraine – they’re in it together. They’re at it!’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s OK, that was just my friend Mary.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yes, everything’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow at six.’

Devil woman
Gonna burn, gonna burn my soul.

Here it is – number 61 Burn Street. A red sandstone house, the second to last in a row of no-nonsense tenement buildings.

There are no front gardens, but at the end of the road is a small grassy square. Through the railings I can see a dog lifting its leg against a tree.

‘Look, Finlay, it’s a sycamore!’

‘It looks more like an Alsatian to me.’

‘Not the dog, the tree, silly!’

‘So what? This isn’t a nature ramble.’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Dad said their house was near a big sycamore tree. Finlay, I think this is the right place!’

Finlay rings the bell. I feel shaky, just like when I was changing in the station loo – that fear of the unknown.

‘I’ll buzz you up,’ comes a voice.

A door on the first landing is opened by a pretty Chinese girl with her hair in a ponytail. Her eyes light on Finlay. ‘It’s
you
! My little spy. I should have guessed! Mum’s been playing one of her tricks on me – she said it was … oh, never mind. What a nice surprise anyway! Come in.’

Inside the little hallway, she turns to me. ‘Sorry, I’m Jacqueline. I’m always gabbling away and forgetting to tell people the basic things. And you’re Finlay’s cook friend, but I haven’t even asked you your name.’

Before I have time to answer, an older plumper version of Jacqueline appears and says, ‘Welcome, Finlay! Welcome, Finlay’s friend!’

I hesitate a second. I’m so used to hiding my real name that I nearly say, ‘I’m Emma.’ But if these people are really my relations, it’s time to
drop the paper-round disguise. ‘I’m Leonora,’ I say, ‘but everyone calls me Leo for short.’

The name doesn’t seem to ring a bell with her. She replies, ‘And I’m Kim, Jacqueline’s mum.’

‘My trick-playing mum. She said you were going to be some boring old people from the community centre.’

‘Not a trick – a surprise.’ Kim looks pleased with herself. ‘Like I always say, surprise is the spice of the dumplings of life.’

‘Mum, don’t start up on the Chinese proverbs. In any case, Leo knows all there is to know about dumplings already, so I’ve heard.’

‘No, I don’t …’ I start to protest, but it’s difficult to get a word in edgeways with these two.

‘I am being so rude, not offering you tea straight away. I will go and make some. Jacqueline – you introduce our guests.’

Kim disappears through one door off the hallway, and Jacqueline opens another. ‘The clan is in here,’ she says. ‘Well, most of them. Gran is
in the kitchen and Dad works late on Tuesdays.’

Two boys and a girl are sitting in front of a large television. They get up as we come in, and grin shyly. The girl looks about twelve, and the boys are maybe fourteen and sixteen.

I feel shy too. So many new people, and I didn’t even know they existed. How are they related to me? And what about my grandparents – where are they?

‘Andy and Finlay, you met at the Barras, didn’t you. This is Leo, everyone. She’s a kind of cousin but I expect she’ll tell us all about that. Oh, and this is Suzanne, and this is Jonathan. Of course that’s just their English names. We’ve all got Chinese names too. I suppose you must have a Chinese name as well, Leo?’

‘My Chinese name is nearly the same as my English one – it’s Liu, but no one ever calls me that. Well, my dad used to …’

They’re all looking at me expectantly, but I can’t bring myself to talk about Dad just now. How silly, when that’s why I’m here.

‘Cool pictures,’ says Finlay. Feeling grateful to him I turn and look at the wall behind the sofa.

‘Those are Jacqueline’s masterpieces,’ says the boy called Andy.

There are three of them, and they are more like banners or painted silk shawls than straightforward pictures. The middle one shows a very long aeroplane with a face at every window. The two at each side are tall rather than long: the left-hand one is of a green hill covered in people and cows; on the right is a red house overhung by a tree with a bird perched on it and a fish and bell dangling from two of its branches.

‘They’re lovely. Do they tell a story?’

‘Yes.’ Jacqueline looks pleased to be asked, but Andy groans. ‘Oh no, now we’re going to get the running commentary.’

‘It’s my mum’s story really,’ says Jacqueline. ‘Maybe she’ll tell you later.’

And here is Kim, with a lacquered tray of tiny dainty teacups. She turns off the television
and pours out tea from a china pot with a bamboo handle. It’s Chinese tea, like Dad used to make, pale greenish yellow, with no milk or sugar. Finlay winces as he sips his. The younger boy, Jonathan, notices. ‘We’ve got some Irn Bru if you’d rather,’ he says, and now he and Finlay are drinking the disgusting fizzy stuff from orange-coloured cans and talking about hip hop and heavy metal. The ice is beginning to break.

Jacqueline is perched beside me, on the arm of the sofa. ‘So, Leo, Finlay seems to think you’re a twig on our family tree. How come we’ve never known about you? Have you always lived in Glasgow? You don’t sound Scottish.’

‘How do you know what the poor girl sounds like?’ says Andy. ‘You ask her all these questions, but you never give her a chance to open her mouth.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say. Embarrassingly, I can feel tears pricking my eyes. I’ve waited so long to meet these people and now I should be getting
down to the nitty-gritty of working out who they are, and how they’re related to me. But I just feel so overwhelmed.

Jacqueline must see the budding tears. She pats my arm. ‘Sorry, Leo, I forgot – you really want to hear Mum’s story, don’t you?’

‘I think there is a lot of storytelling to be done,’ says Kim. ‘But remember the proverb – “The one who talks too much will have to eat cold food.” ’

Jacqueline rolls her eyes. ‘Why don’t you just lead us to the hot food then, Mum, instead of talking in ancient Chinese proverbs?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have a proper dining room,’ Kim apologises, as we follow her across the hallway towards some wonderful smells.

Inside the large kitchen/dining room, an elderly lady is bowing and smiling. My heart gives a sudden jump – can this be her? Granny, Grandma, whatever I’m supposed to call her?

But, ‘This is my mother,’ says Kim. ‘I think
she is maybe a kind of aunt for you. You can call her Auntie Luli.’

The old lady smiles again, and gestures towards a table in an alcove.

A sumptuous spread of food is laid out. In the centre is a whole chicken, complete with beak and claws. Actually, it’s not really a whole chicken – when you look closely you can see it’s been chopped into pieces and then reassembled.

‘Leo, you sit next to Suzanne, then you can do some eating, not just talking,’ says Kim. Suzanne smiles shyly as she sits down beside me. On my other side is Finlay, and next to him sits Jacqueline.

Around the chicken are six or seven dishes of food, and every place has its own little bowl of rice and pair of chopsticks.

‘Maybe you would like a knife and fork?’ suggests Suzanne in a whispery voice.

‘No, I’m used to chopsticks,’ I say.

‘Please help yourselves,’ says Kim.

I can see that Finlay is scanning the table
for something familiar-looking.

‘If it moves, eat it!’ says Jacqueline with a laugh. When Finlay tries unsuccessfully to laugh along, she pats his arm and says, ‘I’m only teasing you. There are no sea slugs or beetles here! I’ll tell you what everything is.’ She rattles off the names of the dishes but I only take in a few of them: tofu with pickled cabbage, shredded pork with Chinese radish, and steamed eggs with dried scallops.

This definitely beats Mary’s banquet; it looks more like the food Dad used to cook, but there’s so much of it! And Auntie Luli keeps bringing more dishes: a salad of lotus roots, some pieces of spicy lamb on the bone.

If only I felt hungrier! If only my ridiculous nerves would stop gnawing at my stomach!

The chicken disappears quite quickly, but now an enormous boiled fish has replaced it as the centrepiece.

‘Have an eye, Finlay!’ says Jacqueline. ‘They’re the best part – they’ll make you such a clever
boy at school.’ She laughs when he looks horrified. Instead, she gouges out one of the fish eyes and passes it to Auntie Luli, who is at last sitting down with us. The old lady pops it in her mouth, then smiles and points to her own eyes. ‘Good for see,’ she says.

‘My mother doesn’t speak much English, sorry,’ Kim says. She says something in Chinese to the old lady, who shakes her head and replies.

‘I was asking if she had made any dumplings – but she said no, because she is scared they would not be good enough for you. Jacqueline has told us all that you are a great dumpling chef, Leo.’

‘I’m not!’ I protest. ‘I just used to help Dad sometimes. They were his favourite food, ever since he was a little boy.’ And now it feels easier to talk about home, I don’t know why. ‘Dad always called them village dumplings. They were the kind his mum and dad used to have in their village before they came to Scotland.’

Kim is nodding, and I find myself telling
them all I know about Dad’s childhood, which isn’t much. I don’t get up to the plane crash, but I tell them how he met Mum and quarrelled with his parents.

Again, Kim translates for Auntie Luli. She nods vigorously. Then she puts her hands up to one side of her face and waggles her fingers. She is miming someone playing the flute!

‘Yes, I have heard this story before,’ says Kim. ‘And Jacqueline told me your grandparents were called Chan.’

‘Like me, yes.’

‘Well, it’s a very common name, of course. But I think it would be too much coincidence to have two stories like that. I think that your grandfather is Auntie Luli’s brother.’

‘What, Uncle Jing, you mean?’ says Jonathan.

‘Is he … is he still alive?’ I ask.

‘Yes, he is. Actually, he still lives in the old house – it’s just across the road. But he spends most of his time in the Centre for the Elderly. They have lots of activities there – even Tai Chi
and ping-pong. In the evenings, he’s at home but he just likes being by himself. He doesn’t like going out or having visitors – even us.’

‘And his wife – my grandmother?’

Kim shakes her head sadly. ‘I’m afraid she died four years ago.’

‘Oh.’

Why do I feel so sad about someone I’ve never met?

‘Of course, we didn’t have your father’s address, to tell him.’

‘No, of course not.’

I don’t just feel sad, I feel angry, angry with Dad. Why did he never tell me properly about his mother? Why did he never make up with her? And now it’s too late, for all of us.

A tear drops into my rice bowl, then another one. I wipe my eyes furiously but more tears form.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Could I just go to the toilet?’

When I come out, Jacqueline and Kim are in the
sitting room. Jacqueline pats a place beside her on the sofa and puts a protective arm round me. ‘The boys are listening to music, and Suzanne’s doing her homework,’ she says. ‘Would you like to hear Mum’s story now, Leo, or would it all just be too much?’

‘No, please, I’d like to hear it,’ I say.