"So . . . what have you been up to? Has Granny got you riding yet?"
"No. And I'm not going to."
"So what have you been doing with yourself?"
Sabine thought about the box of photographs that she had revisited this morning, while her grandmother was out at the shop, and the ones she had found of her mother as a young girl with the Chinese boy. She thought of Annie's house, and the way that Annie had just gone to sleep in front of her last night, as abruptly as anything, as if she didn't care what anybody even thought of her doing so. She thought of Thom asking, with just a shade too much awkwardness, what it was her mother did these days.
"Nothing," she said.
CHAPTER THREE
O'Malley the cat sat, like a stone sentry, on the top of the gatepost, his slightly raised fur a textured gauge of the freezing temperatures outside. Across the road, in a woolly hat, Mr. Ogonye worked on his car, as he so often did, thrusting himself determinedly under the bonnet like a circus tamer entering a lion's mouth, and then withdrawing from it, wiping his hands mournfully backward and forward on a piece of cloth, as if plucking up the courage to do it again. Between the dustbins, most of which were still standing by the curb, abandoned since the morning collection, two crisp packets chased each other in gritty circles.
Have you ever wondered whether you and your child are speaking the same language? Well, according to new research from Switzerland, you may not be.
In a report likely to raise murmurs of "I knew it" in households across Europe, social psychologists from the University of Geneva have discovered that what parents say and what children hear are often two different things.
Agnes, wearing a thin blue coat and walking slowly with her new aluminum frame, stopped and spoke to him as she passed, and Mr. Ogonye shook his head sadly, gesturing toward his engine. As they spoke, the cold air solidified into little mushroom clouds in front of them, like speech bubbles waiting to be filled.
"Parents very rarely put themselves into their children's shoes," said Professor Friedrich Ansbulger, who headed the study of 2,000 families. "Yet if they did, they would understand why often their children completely disregard their instructions. It's not necessarily disobedience--it's just that it doesn't fit their alternative brand of logic."
Kate sighed and made herself look back down at her computer. It had taken her almost an hour to write three paragraphs, and at this rate she was going to be earning an hourly rate that would shock a Bangladeshi sweatshop.
It was not hard for a woman with her imagination to come up with reasons for her inability to work these last days. The house was too silent, for a start. Even though Sabine was rarely in, Kate found their home was curiously deadened by the knowledge that the front door was not about to slam, that she was not going to hear that familiar footfall clumping up the stairs, the closing of her bedroom door, followed by the muffled beat of some inaudible band. And, just occasionally, a muttered hello.
Then there was the central heating, the failure of which had left her swaddled in layers like a bag lady, and at which the plumber had shaken his head with a look of pitied resignation not dissimilar to Mr. Ogonye's own, promising to come back with the right part. That had been three days ago.
Then there was this stupid piece, which just stubbornly refused to write itself. On a good day, Kate could churn out two 800-word features before lunch. Today was not one of those days; contacts failed to return calls, words slid awkwardly around a page; Kate's motivation levels sank underneath her own self-pity.
For this was the first week she had been properly on her own in her adult life. Sabine had always been here; and when she was off on school trips, or away with friends, there had been Geoff, and before him, Jim. She had always known there was going to be someone here at the end of the day, to share a bowl of pasta, a bottle of wine, and mull over the day's events. Now Geoff was gone, Justin was away on a working trip with no discernible deadline, and Sabine was in Ireland, apparently determined to speak to her as little as possible. And it was all her own fault.
She tried, for the umpteenth time, not to think about how Geoff would have gotten the central heating sorted out within hours. He had been the practical one. He had numbers, numbers that summoned reliable workmen whom he had known for years, and who would generally come to them first, as a favor, to be rewarded by a generous "drink," as Geoff always quaintly called it. When he had first urged Kate to give their electrician a drink, she had made him a cup of herbal tea, and the two men had grinned ruefully at each other, then laughed in a backslapping we're-all-blokes-together kind of way. At the time she had hated it, seeing it as evidence of some kind of perceived naivete on her part. In a freezing house, with the benefit of hindsight, she found it quite endearing. But she couldn't ask Geoff. And Justin, as he had told her regretfully, "didn't do domestic."
In fact, three months into this relationship, there were increasing numbers of things Justin "didn't do." He didn't do phoning every night while he was away. ("Look, sweetheart, it's just not always possible. My mobile is always running out and if we work late, or we're in really dodgy areas, the last thing I can do is go out hunting for a phone box.") He didn't do living together. ("I love what we've got. And I don't want to spoil that. And I would spoil that.") And he didn't do planning for the future. ("You are the most fabulous woman I've ever met. I want to be with you more than anyone I've ever been with. And that's just going to have to do for now.") Kate, staring unseeing at her computer screen, made herself focus on the things she did do, scolding herself for looking for problems. He loved her, didn't he? He told her all the time.
Glancing up, she could see Agnes, still gamely shoving her frame before her toward the corner of the street, her white fluffy head bobbing on its frail neck like a dandelion in the breeze. She would be on her way to Luis's Cafe on the High Street, where every day, with relentless regularity, she arrived at twelve-forty-five for her egg, chips, tea, and a solitary chuckle at the tabloids. After that, she would travel, depending on the day, to either the bingo hall, the drop-in center, or the library, returning home only when those institutions closed. It had taken Kate several years of living next door to Agnes to discover that her neighbor's admirably sociable lifestyle disguised her inability to heat her maisonette properly. Come on, she told herself, chilled by her sudden sense of empathy, finish this piece, or you have to go out.
Perhaps all this solitude would be for the best. Because Geoff was coming for the last of his stuff this evening, and after the disaster that was their first meeting, she couldn't cope with having him and Justin together. It was hard enough seeing Geoff by himself.
Kate sat there, staring at the words in front of her, debating her two mutually unattractive options for the afternoon ahead. Then she swapped her glasses for contact lenses, added an extra layer of clothing, and, with a deep sense of foreboding, headed off to the community center.
Can you push those tables over, the ones by the door? I don't think there are enough for everybody."
Maggie Cheung stood wrapped in her padded coat in the middle of the drafty community hall, directing furniture like a drunken police officer directing traffic. Her brow furrowed in concentration, she would gesticulate emphatically, and then swiftly change her mind, sending Kate or one of the students back across the room with their screeching cargo of Formica tables or molded chairs, as she tried to determine the best way to fit everybody in.
Behind her, in a circle, a group of elderly Chinese women chattered loudly and obliviously in Cantonese, engrossed in a game of something like dominoes. On opposite sides of the room, near the old men sipping jasmine tea from plastic beakers, two young women, both silent and miserable as their children, ignored each other and the solitary younger man between them.
"There isn't going to be enough room no matter how you do it," said Ian, the manager, after a quick burst of mental arithmetic.
"The helpers can eat standing up," said Maggie.
"It's still going to be tig
ht. It might be better to do two shifts." Ian's downcast expression and gray pallor illustrated the difficulties of a life of publicly funded compromise.
"Better to squeeze everyone in than do two sittings," observed Maggie. "That way we stay warmer."
"I'm sorry about the heating," said Ian, for the fifth time. "It's the budget cuts. We have to save what we've got for Elderlies and New Mums on Tuesdays and Fridays."
Kate, now warmed through effort, hauled her two tables across the room, and slotted them, under Maggie's instruction, into a circular arrangement close to the kitchen. Despite the other woman's confidence, she couldn't see how everyone could eat lunch at the same time. But Maggie was insistent--this group was meant to forge bonds between the old and the young, the newly arrived and the long-settled--and there was no point at all having an outreach group if all you were going to do was divide them.
"Besides," she said cheerfully, "it's our culture. Everyone eats together."
Kate didn't point out that Maggie's much-referred-to culture was somewhat elastic, taking in trips to McDonald's with her sons, split-shift dining with her doctor husband, who worked erratic hours at the local hospital, and a devotional love of Coronation Street. There was never any point arguing with Maggie; like a well-practiced politician she would simply "mishear" anything that didn't fit in to her current worldview, and cheerfully restate her opinions as if they had never been questioned.
"There! All done!" she exclaimed, some minutes later. "And we can keep the tables like this afterward. Did I tell you I've persuaded one of the teachers from Brownleigh School to come and do reading and writing skills? If I see another housing benefit form I think I'm going to die."
"If I don't have some success with Mr. Yip's form, I think he's going to make sure I'm the one that dies," said Ian. It was the closest he came to humor, and Maggie and Kate smiled obligingly.
"You're not telling me they've sent it back again."
"Fourth time. I wouldn't mind, but it's me who fills it in. If I can't do it, after eleven years working for the council, how the hell can anybody else be expected to?"
Kate had become a volunteer helper at the Dalston and Hackney Oriental Outreach Group almost a year before Geoff left. One night, when he had briefly emerged, blinking, from the American Journal of Applied Psychiatry, he had bemoaned the shockingly high rates of mental illness in immigrants, prompted by the isolation, alienation, and racism of their inner-city placements, and had talked of Maggie's work in trying to combat it. Kate had been surprised at the extent of Maggie's involvement--despite a lengthy friendship, Maggie and Kate tended to restrict their conversations to partner and kids. But then he had brought it up again when Maggie and Hamish had come for supper, and Kate had discovered that Maggie's reticence had only been due to a perceived lack of interest on her own part. She, in turn, had swiftly elicited a feeble promise from Kate to come and help.
"I don't really know what I could do," she said, not sure if she really wanted to. But when Maggie discovered that Kate's early years had been spent in Hong Kong, there was no prospect of escape. "My God, woman. You know Chinese culture!" she had exclaimed. "You are practically Chinese!" And ignored Kate's protestations that from the age of eight her "culture" had consisted of boarding school in Shropshire and village life in southern Ireland. "So what?" she responded. "I've never lived farther east than Theydon Bois."
Even after all these months, Kate was of little practical help. Unlike the other volunteers, she couldn't speak the language, she couldn't cook, and she couldn't find her way around the Kafkaesque requirements of the social security forms. All she could offer was backup help with the reading classes, and her physical presence. But Maggie didn't seem to mind. And Kate had actually enjoyed some of it--watching the volunteer chef from the local take-away cook authentic Chinese dishes in the center's little kitchen, observing the way the older people seemed so much closer and more animated than their European equivalents--had enjoyed her brief immersions into a different world. She liked the way Maggie switched from anglicized to Chinese, the way she gathered these disparate people around her, bringing them together by sheer force of her personality. And in some perverse way, working at the group had helped assuage the guilt she had felt about leaving Geoff, providing an opportunity to buy herself some atonement, once a week, for her sins. Most of the time it worked.
"I didn't think you were coming today," said Maggie, appearing suddenly at her shoulder. Her height meant it was uncommon to view her from any other angle, despite Maggie's fondness for spike heels.
"I nearly didn't," Kate admitted. "Not really in the mood."
"It's always better to get out of the house if you're feeling miserable. Away from gas ovens. Oh, no, you're electric, aren't you? We'll talk at lunch."
"I don't know if I'm really going to stay for lunch."
Maggie didn't appear to hear her.
"Look at them! They should be talking!" she exclaimed, drawing Kate to one side, and pointing at one of the silent young mothers. "Two young girls, two babies. It's absolutely ridiculous having them both sitting there in silence. We must get them talking. Mind you, that one there--we've got to get her to take her baby for inoculations. She's been here nearly six months, but silly girl won't go to the health center."
Four weeks after he had brought her to England, Maggie said, the girl's husband had left, telling her he was going off to earn some money. Apart from an unconfirmed sighting in Nottingham, that had been the last time she had heard of him. She had permission to remain in the country, but no job, a shared bed sit, and not enough money to return home.
"She just needs to get talking to people. Open up a bit. You go and chat to her while I see how lunch is coming on," she instructed, and bustled off.
Working at the center usually put Kate's own problems in perspective. But she had had second thoughts about coming all morning; the mood of despondence prompted by her home's unnatural silence had perversely left her with little appetite for company. Sabine had once told her that they divided girls in her class into "drains and radiators": Radiators being those popular girls who gave out interest and enthusiasm, drawing people around them closer; and drains being . . . well, drains: those who sucked out atmosphere and goodwill like a vacuum. Today, Kate thought, she was a definite drain.
A drain who had to be a radiator. Dragging her feet like a schoolgirl, Kate walked slowly over to the young girl, who sat slumped in her cheap anorak, plastic shoes, and a pervasive stench of misery. She wasn't sure how she could help in the face of such momentous despair. And Maggie knew very well that the girl spoke no English. But with the bossily evangelical air of a Sunday school teacher, she just seemed to expect people to get on with it. Those with a will would find a way.
Kate took a deep breath, stopped a short distance away from the girl, giving her time to realize she was approaching, and then smiled, and gestured toward the baby.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Kate."
The girl, her hair scraped back in a ponytail, and faint bluish shadows denoting more than the young mother's customary lack of sleep, looked blankly at her and then glanced around the room, looking for Maggie, or one of the Chinese helpers.
"Kate," she said, pointing at herself, aware that she was speaking too loud, like an imbecillc colonial expecting that volume alone would help the natives understand.
The girl looked at her wide-eyed and expectant. With a gesture as insubstantial as she looked, she shook her head.
Kate breathed deeply. What on earth was she meant to do? She didn't have that gift for putting people immediately at their ease. Most of the time, she felt too ill at ease herself.
"I'm Kate. I help out here." she said, helplessly. Then: "What's your name?"
The resulting silence was broken by a burst of laughter from the other side of the room, and the rapid gunfire of scattered dominoes hitting a tabletop. The elderly players had concluded their game. Maggie moved among them, exclaiming and congratulating in Chinese, her sleek
black hair obscuring her face as she leaned over to examine the board.
Kate turned back to the girl, trying to maintain her smile.
"Boy or girl?" she said, gesturing toward the infant, whose sleeping face was just visible beneath the layers of donated clothing.
"Boy?" She pointed at the man seated nearby, so that he looked at her with a sudden expression of distrust.
"Or girl?" She pointed at herself.
Oh, God, but she sounded like an idiot. Her smile now becoming painful to maintain, she moved closer to the child.
"Your baby is beautiful." It was. They all were, when asleep.
The girl looked at her baby, and then back at Kate, clutching it slightly tighter to her as she did.
I'm going to give up, thought Kate. I'll just point her over toward the food table and let Maggie do it. I'm just not any good at this. She thought, briefly, longingly, of her empty home. Then suddenly, two words flashed into her brain, a mental echo; two words from her childhood, whispered softly from her amah's lips.
"Hou leng," she said, gesturing toward the child. Then louder: "Hou leng."
The girl looked down at the baby and back up again. She frowned slightly, as if unable to believe what was being said.
"Your baby. Hou leng."
Two sweet, soft words: Very beautiful. The international language of flattery.
Kate felt a surge of warmth. She could do this, after all. She racked her brains, trying to remember whether she had achieved the correct tones.
"Hou leng. Very beautiful," she said again, smiling with benevolent delight.