The Yellow Papers (34 page)

‘What does the doctor say?'

The woman shrugged. ‘There's nothing to say, really. He's just old. Older than most folks around here, I'd say. It's just that his time's come …' She pulled a chair beside the bed for Edward. ‘I'll give you some privacy. Call out if you want anything.'

Edward watched Chen Mu sleep. What would he say to him when he woke? How would he explain being back three years and not once visiting in all that time?

Chen Mu breathed gently, and every few breaths he seemed to stop for a few seconds, then he'd take a deep breath and breathe normally again. The bedroom window was open and a soft afternoon breeze fluttered the curtains. From the kitchen Edward could hear Betty Ingram pottering about. He was glad Chen Mu slept – it gave him time to examine his own feelings. Did he, as he had expected, feel hate? No. Not hate. Fear, at first, yes, when he'd walked up to the cottage, but this thin wrinkled little old man was no threat. But he did feel anxious. Why? He didn't want to examine why right now. He looked around the room. Though he'd been to Chen Mu's cottage many times in the past, he'd never been in this room. A wardrobe, a matching tallboy. By the window, a small table with photographs in frames. He rose to look at the photographs.

The first was more a card than a photograph. On thick cardboard with bevelled edges painted gold, it showed a sepia portrait of a young Chinese man that could only be Chen Mu. He wore a dark morning suit and a tie in a Windsor knot. His hair was parted in the centre and he sat ramrod straight on a chair. Beside him stood an Indian woman in a dark, slim fitting, pinched-waisted dress that looked like taffeta. The skirt was trimmed with shirring and pleating, and the cuffs and yoke were ruched. She wore a small bonnet, and held a posy of flowers in her right hand. Both had a serious, formal expression, and the photograph could have been considered impersonal if not for the woman's left hand – with its shiny new wedding band – resting on the man's shoulder.

Edward replaced the card and picked up the next photo in a frame. It was of himself – his graduation photo from Oxford. How did Chen Mu come to have a copy? The rest of the photos on the table explained its presence – a photo of Charlotte on her wedding day, photos of Charlotte's children. Another of Charlotte and her husband each holding a child. One with Chen Mu holding Maggie as a toddler – it must have been taken when Edward was in Korea. At the back, a photo of Chen Mu wearing his air raid tin helmet and armband, gas mask hanging off the handle of his bicycle. He was smiling broadly at the camera. Had Charlotte taken this photo?

‘I thought you might be hungry, so I made you some sandwiches.' Betty Ingram carried in a tray laden with sandwiches, a pot of tea and a cup. ‘Hello, he's awake. I'll let you visit then, shall I?'

Edward sat beside Chen Mu's bed, embarrassed, not knowing how to begin. Chen Mu watch Edward for a while, then closed his eyes. The silence between them grew and Edward wondered if Chen Mu had fallen asleep again.

‘I knew you'd come, Master Edward,' he whispered at last.

Edward nodded, then realised Chen Mu still had his eyes closed.

‘I couldn't. Not before.' Chen Mu nodded but still did not open his eyes. ‘I'm sorry.'

Chen Mu smiled and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. Edward waited for him to say something else. Knew he should explain himself, apologise with more than an
I'm sorry
, but he didn't know what to say, what words to use to explain. So he sat there, watching Chen Mu, until he heard him begin to snore softly. He rose quietly and took the untouched tray back to kitchen.

‘Will you be staying?' Betty Ingram asked, pouring a cup of tea and placing it, and the plate of sandwiches, on the kitchen table in front of Edward.

Should he stay? They'd barely said two words to each other, and suddenly that wasn't enough.

‘Yes, I think so. I'll sleep on the couch.'

‘I'll make it up for you then, before I go.'

‘No need, I can manage. Mrs Ingram, I appreciate what you're doing for him. You must let me pay you for the work you're doing.'

‘But I'm already being paid, Mr Billings. Your daughter and her husband – they hired me months ago. Didn't you know? Though to tell you the truth, I'd have helped out for nothing. Lovely gentleman, Mr Chen. Everyone in town thinks so. But your son-in-law, he said no, he wanted someone here every day, to look after Mr Chen properly like, and cook and keep the place clean, so he pays me a wage; puts it straight into my bank account, he does, every week. He does it all from New Zealand. I thought you knew. ‘

‘Yes. Yes, of course. I forgot – overtired, I imagine.'

‘Of course. Well, I'll be off then. If you need anything, my number's by the phone. The doctor's too. Well, goodbye. I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘Goodbye, Mrs Ingram. Thank you.'

He'd been sitting beside Chen Mu's bedside for hours, unable to sleep, feeling shamed by his daughter and her husband. And in the silent hours of the night, he came to admit that this man had, indeed, been more of a father to him than his own grandfather. His assumed hate for Chen Mu, his refusal to face the man, had been his refusal to face his own fears, his own guilt.
‘If you don't understand what life is, how will you understand death?'
Chen Mu had once quoted in a letter. He'd never really thought about those words before …

It had been so much easier to lump them all in the one box – the Koreans, the Chinese, Chen Mu – and label the box ‘hate'. Because then you didn't have to question. Didn't have to face your own behaviour. You could pretend you'd never weakened – that there were never times in Korea when you would have done anything to get them to stop – that you never told yourself
next time, next time I'll sign whatever they want and then the pain will stop
. You could forget that you'd slit Chinese and Korean throats with no regret or pity. That you'd been willing to kill your own team if need be. Chong Lueng. Thinking of Chong Lueng meant admitting that he probably wouldn't have died if he hadn't gone to find Ming Li in your place. Your fault, your guilt. How many
had
you killed in Korea?

And when you'd come back, hate had made it easy to ignore someone who had always been there for you, ever since you were just a very lonely little boy, because deep down you'd known that if you didn't hide behind hate, you could never look at yourself in the mirror anymore.

‘I'm sorry, Mā. I'm sorry!'

‘Chen Mu? What's wrong?'

‘Mā? Please, I didn't mean to kill them. Please Mā, I'm sorry! Don't send me away!'

‘It's all right, Chen Mu. You're all right. Everything's all right.'

Chen Mu shook his head, then sighed. Edward took the old man's hand in his and stroked it, hoping to calm him. Outside a wind sprung up, rustling the trees. Chen Mu laughed.

‘His queue's like a mouse's tail! Cut the tail! Cut the mouse's tail!'

‘Chen Mu? Wake up. It's me, Edward.'

Chen Mu frowned, then opened his eyes, confused.

‘It's all right, Chen Mu. Everything's all right.'

‘Master Edward?' His voice was weak.

‘I'm here, Chen Mu. How are you, old friend?'

‘I'm dying. Yes, I am. I don't mind, Master Edward. It's the universal order of things. I've been here too long already.' He coughed and Edward helped him sit up. When the coughing subsided he laid him down again. ‘I'm leaving the cottage to Miss Charlotte,' he said, his voice weaker still. ‘Everything else – nearly everything – to you.'

‘Don't talk about that now. Chen Mu, listen. I have to tell you something. Explain. When I came back from Korea—'

‘You don't have to explain, Master Edward.'

‘I want to. Have to. When I came back, I hated you. Or I thought I did.' Edward felt like a small boy again, admitting some naughtiness to Chen Mu. ‘I thought I hated you but I was wrong. So wrong …'

‘I understand, Master Edward. No need to explain …'

Chen Mu closed his eyes. His breathing became so soft Edward thought it had stopped. He stroked the old man's hand.

‘Chen Mu?'

‘Did you ever …'

‘What? I'm sorry, what did you say?'

‘The woman. Did you ever find her?'

‘No.'

‘Aah …'

Chen Mu coughed again, and this bout seemed to tire him even more.

‘Don't talk, my friend. Don't talk. I'll be here. We'll talk in the morning.'

He sat holding Chen Mu's hand for the rest of the night. Sometimes Chen Mu would call out, talking to people Edward didn't know. He called to Sahira once, urging her to go swimming, and another time he spoke to Mrs Hannigan, the Dawsons' cook on Walpinya Station when Edward was a boy, about rabbits that needed skinning. And as the night deepened, Edward allowed himself to open some of those little boxes he had buried deep inside, and peer into them. Hesitantly. Carefully.

The hours dragged into dawn, and Edward rested his head on the bed but didn't let go of Chen Mu's hand. He knew now that he could tell Chen Mu anything, and that Chen Mu would still never judge him.

When he woke to the sound of a kookaburra laughing at the dawn and Betty Ingram's keys in the lock, he saw that Chen Mu had died.

PART
Three

27

Ming Li dusted the glass cabinet that held an assortment of hairpins. Made of gold and silver, and decorated with jade, pearls or feathers, they made attractive souvenirs for Westerners. Over the seven years she'd had this shop she'd amassed quite a collection. Their small size made them easy to hide and smuggle into Hong Kong by refugees who risked their lives for freedom.

Whilst the borders between China and Hong Kong remained firmly closed, the flow of refugees continued, though now illegally, and with them came news of Mainland China. Ming Li had heard the results of Mao's Great Leap Forward – the blast furnaces, the forests stripped of vegetation, the agrarian reforms – and with it the political meetings, imprisonments and re-education farms. She could well imagine what people were going through. And now there were reports of droughts and typhoons such as had never been seen for generations – maybe, she thought, nature had finally decided to seek revenge.

She worried constantly about MeiMei and the boy. How old was Huang Ho now? Ten? No, he'd been born in ‘49 – that would make him eleven. But were he and MeiMei even alive? She knew famine had China by the throat, and had heard how millions were dying, falling wherever they stood, left unburied in the fields and muddy paths, or in streets whose buildings were plastered with brightly-coloured posters showed plump, rosy-cheeked children cavorting amongst abundant fields of giant vegetables, and where those surviving crawled on hands and knees amongst the bodies to hunt for something to eat – maybe a frog, or a weed struggling through concrete. Was MeiMei one of those crawling on her hands and knees? Was Huang Ho? No wonder so many were willing to risk their lives to reach Hong Kong. Here, at least, if they managed not to be caught at the border, they could present themselves the next day at the police station for a Hong Kong identity card, thanks to the Hong Kong government's ‘reach base' policy, which stated that if the Chinese illegal immigrants were not caught at the border and managed to reach town, they were permitted to stay and begin a new life.

Ming Li shuddered, remembering an old couple who had swum across the shark infested water to freedom – a desperate act by two desperate people. They had tied themselves together so as not to lose each other, but had been attacked by a shark, and when the old woman reached land exhausted and distressed, she was still firmly tied at the waist to the legless corpse of her husband. Ming Li constantly wished MeiMei would try to escape, but what if something similar happened to her? To Huang Ho?

The small brass bell on the door of the shop announced customers. Ming Li smiled and nodded at the two women – obviously tourists – but did not offer help. Experience had taught her she was likely to sell more if she first let them browse.