It seem like we got a family. Tilly still come every day, Zhang got Round Chin and Tartan Socks, and sometime Judge Finley play dominoes. Ma got her mah-jongg friends three times a week. Every now and again she take the children to temple with her, and Zhang busy telling them the same stories him tell us when we young, ’bout the revolution and Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong, and the counter-revolutionary Chiang Kai-shek.
We settled now. We not got nobody disrupting the place coming in and out like she can’t make up her mind if she staying. I read the newspaper and I smoke a cigar which is a regular thing for me now when I feel relax and happy and content with life. Although I don’t do it over Gloria’s because she don’t like the smell.
I say to her, ‘This here is a real good Havana cigar. I would have thought you would like the smell of that,’ because more and more Gloria looking to Cuba and praising all the changes going on over there with education and health and employment.
I start take the children with me when I make the weekly pick-up ’round town on a Saturday. I introduce them to the shopkeepers and market traders; to people in grocery stores and laundries and pharmacies; hardware stores, barber’s; people who just stand on the street with me and talk and smile and bow their heads; and who happy to see me. People who want to make a fuss of Mui and Xiuquan, to give them gifts and pamper them, and tell Mui how beautiful she is like her mama and Xiuquan strong like his papa. I start teach them tai chi and I tell them that Yang Lu-Ch’an who founded and develop Yang-style tai chi during the Manchu dynasty was my great-grandfather. But Ma tell them it not true. We just share our name with the great master.
But Zhang don’t like it. He think that maybe them coming with me not such a good idea. So I remind him that he done the same thing when me and Xiuquan young and him say, ‘That long time back. Now maybe it set bad example.’
I not paying him no mind because I want the children to know Chinatown and Chinatown to know them. I want them to have run of the place just the same way it was for us when we young. Zhang say times changing, that it not the same as when he first come to Jamaica. Back then it was because Chin ask him, and he was doing a service.
‘Things different now. Everybody worried ’bout what legal and how they show taxman what they doing. People think different ’bout you protecting them. They think different ’bout favour they ask you. You not Uncle no more. You Mr Fixit. In old days they happy you call in to share a bowl of tea. Now you need appointment so they can clear all their fancy guests out the way before you turn up. Now they worried maybe one day you ask them do something for you. In old days they looking what to do for you before you ask.’
Maybe Zhang got a point. Anyway I think it time the children meet Gloria. Fay gone and who knows what going happen next. But Gloria no think it such a good idea because she dunno how I going explain to them who she is, and I say it no matter, we can just meet by accident. So that is what we plan to do. Me and the children going to be walking down King Street and stop outside Times Store just at the moment when Gloria step outta the shop like she been doing some shopping in there. And then everybody get introduce and we go get a ice cream together. And this place is good because it got a soda fountain right upstairs in there. Gloria not so keen on the plan but she go along with it anyway.
So Saturday come and I take the children with me on the weekly collection ’round Chinatown and afterwards I say to them ’bout how they fancy going down to Times Store for a ice cream and they say yes. We walk down King Street and just as we reach Times Store Gloria see us coming and step outta the shop right there in front of us. It work perfect.
I act surprise and I say to her, ‘Hello, Gloria. It such a surprise to see you.’
And she say, ‘Yes, quite a surprise.’ And then she look down at the children standing either side of me and she say, ‘And these must be your children? I have heard so much about you.’
And right then Mui just put out her hand and take Gloria’s and shake it and say, ‘I’m Mui.’
Gloria stand there shaking Mui’s hand and then afterwards she turn to Xiuquan and say, ‘You must be Xiuquan?’
But Xiuquan just stare at her. Him no offer no hand for no shaking and him face look vex. Then him say to her, ‘My name is not Xiuquan. It is Karl.’
I grab him by the hand and drag him into Times Store while I saying to him, ‘Yu twelve years old and yu so rude already?’
The four of us sit down with the ice cream. Mui got this big mountain of banana and ice cream and nuts and syrup and god knows what while Xiuquan got to make me force him to have two scoop of vanilla. Gloria order a cup of coffee and I just take some ice water.
So we sitting there squeeze into this little corner table and Mui say, ‘You are a friend of Papa’s?’
‘Yes, a very old friend.’
‘How do you know him?’
‘Your papa helped me when my sister had some trouble. He helped us to sort things out.’
Mui sitting next to Gloria and she look ’cross the table at me. Then she take a spoon of ice cream and say, ‘Yes, my papa is good at helping people.’ And then she pause, and then she say, ‘Do you have any children, Miss Gloria?’
‘I have a daughter. She is called Esther. She is about the same age as Karl.’ Gloria look at Xiuquan, but he got his back half turn to her with the ice-cream dish in his hand.
‘Yu nuh look at somebody when they talking to yu? And put the dish on the table. Yu not just going sit there eating the thing out yu hand.’
But Gloria try hush me down. Maybe she think it not so good me chastising the child like that first time she meet him. So she say, ‘How is school, Karl?’
But before Xiuquan answer Mui start talk. She talk ’bout everything that she do at school like all the singing and the spelling, and she paint picture and read storybook, and write her composition, and how the nuns strict, and how she go to church every morning and say the rosary on her knees, and how she go to Mass at the cathedral on Sunday, and how at the catechism class she learn why God made her, and how she love Father Michael.
And then she start ask Gloria ’bout what her daughter do at school, and if she go to church, and if she know Father Michael. So Gloria have to explain to her that Esther not a Catholic.
‘Not a Catholic?’
‘No.’
‘And you are not a Catholic, Miss Gloria?’
‘No, Mui, I am not. I was brought up Baptist by my mama.’
Then Mui turn to me and say, ‘Papa, do you know that Esther is not a Catholic?’
Well I think the child gone too far now. I just can’t decide what to say to her in case Gloria think I overreacting. But right then before I fix anything in my mind Xiuquan turn ’round and say, ‘Yes he does.’ And then he get up from the table and walk off.
When we get back to Matthews Lane I say to him, ‘How come yu so rude to a woman yu just meet? Yu think she do something to yu?’
But him not answering me. Him just standing there willing me to go do something or say something else to him. Then him say, ‘I may be twelve years old but I am not deaf and blind. I hear and I see, and I have heard that woman’s name before. Many, many times. And I have seen the upset it causes my mother.’
‘This is the way yu talk to me?’
‘I am not afraid of you.’ And he just walk off.
Mui stand there. And then after Xiuquan gone she say, ‘What I don’t know, Papa, is anything about Esther.’ She stand there staring up at me for a good long while, and then she turn ’round and walk off. I look at her strong little legs going up the yard and her hair in them two plaits hanging down her back and I think to myself well I don’t know nothing ’bout Esther neither. I know she older than Mui and taller and darker, and she got the African hair like her mother, even though she got a little Chinese round the eyes. And I know she quieter than Mui and less like she think she can say anything to me she want to. And that is it. But then I think, she a child. What you supposed to know?