CHAPTER 86
Life went on, though, as it almost always did. Ish went to school, where he switched his sports to rugby and swimming, Maz and I started the ‘matrix’ training, and the ‘protection’ stayed in the bedside cabinet’s drawer.

The letters became more frequent, eventually becoming bulkier as her mother started sending her own photos down, all of older members of her family, according to Maz.

“That one’s my Uncle Amir, the one who’s dying. That’s his brother Tunku, and his wife, Amir’s, that is, Aunty Soraya. She’s apparently pining. Wants to be with her man, yeah? All the way”

She caught my wince, and shook her head.

“No, love. Suttee’s an Indian, Hindu thing. Wife on the pyre with her husband. We just… It’s all South and South-East Asia, really. Religion’s pretty irrelevant. An awful lot of women die in house fires, even if many of the fires are in the back yard or garden, Usually connected to dowry disputes, I’m told. At least we’re clear of that rubbish”

“How much would I have had to pay for you, then?”

I was trying to make a joke of it, but she was in one of her fierce moods.

“No, love. Not like the Western idea, woman as a precious prize that needs buying. Here, it’s woman as a waste of flesh that should have been a boy, where a man has to be paid to take her on. The disputes are usually where the new husband demands an uplift--- more money for the burden he’s picked up”

She shuddered.

“Worse cases, very much so: where a man simply decides he fancies something fresher. With a fresher dowry. The law’s complicated, and simple all at once. He just needs to say ‘I divorce you’ three times, and that’s it, but he usually has to hand back the dowry money. That’s the reason for many of the fires”

She was so close to tears I had to pull her to me as a comfort, and she clung to me as if drowning.

“I am going to have to go, love. They’re still my family, even with their attitude to Alan. And to you, to be honest. Missing two funerals would mean absolute freezing out, and…”

She pulled herself into my chest, inhaling deeply.

“I love you so much, Mike. I never thought I could find such a thing, and it’s twice now, and three times if we include our son. I want another, boy or girl doesn’t matter, but it’s like Ish says about our lost ones: they’re still family. He has to have the opportunity to know where he comes from, and that means his grandparents. I’m going to have to go and see them”

“And what happens if they get silly?”

She actually laughed at that one.

“Like they said in the Fast Show, love. Me? With my reputation, I mean dowry? Nothing to get upset over. And… It’s Friday evening, Ish is asleep, so could we do another Fast Show catchphrase?”

“Which one?”

“I was…of course…”

“Ver’ ver’ drunk? I’ll get a bottle”

We spent that Saturday morning quietly by the pool, at least in our cases. Ish had other ideas, especially as he had learned how to fold paper boats and was testing them to destruction by overloading them with bits of Lego or dropping Plasticine ‘Tall Boy’ bombs at various distances. He also had some pieces of wood he had whittled into boat shapes, with masts made out of straightened paper clips. Cocktail cross yards and little cotton sails. He hadn’t yet worked out the concept of ballast, so all of his ‘ships’ ended up turning turtle, but what the hell: he was having fun, and definitely learning stuff the school was not going to teach him.

Maz was snoring softly, open book lying on her front, sunglasses over closed eyes. I moved one of our garden umbrellas to shade her, trying not to swear as my bare feet found a patch of that thorny little sod mimosa, but I managed not to drop my burden.

I was hoping our rather debauched night had lifted, or maybe shunted, my wife out of her rut of worry, and for the next fortnight or so it seemed to be working. The major conference was looming, and our second evaluation/inspection/homework marking was due from the local employees, or ‘Mrs Chao’, in essence. I wasn’t worried in myself, but I needed to get Maz in as fine a focus as we could manage. There were also the small matters of reporting progress to Sheffield and seeing our local minders weren’t unhappy with anything. That largely meant Andy, as Bobby was back in Australia for his day job, plus Gary on behalf of his mucker Beaton. Oh for the simple life, the one where we weren’t surrounded by people with axes to grind or personal interests to manage.

In the end, we had nothing to worry about. Sheffield was receiving a serious uplift of income, our trainees were frightening in their enthusiastic efficiency, and the FCO and Aussie people seemed content, or were at least keeping their dominance games out of sight

Maz and I backed off the debauchery quite a bit, but the letters kept arriving. The bright spots in our social life were a lifeline just then, whether it be a Teams conference with the Butts and Bets or a miniaturised pool party cum barbie in our back yard, and each week we went climbing, as a gamily.

Additional distraction was provided by our son, of course, for he was bestriding two parts of his own life like an apprentice colossus, or something similar. For some reason absolutely unrelated to his size, balance, speed, courage, familiarity with bloody hard playing surfaces and experience in ‘Footy’, he was now playing Number Eight for his year, which meant regular matches against other schools. When we could, we went along to support him, and I had to stifle my laughter as I heard equally regular comments along the lines of “No wonder—look at the size of his father!”, or “What do they feed him? Trees?”

He raced for his year over a hundred metres, and threw various things, as well as competing in the breast stroke, which was, of course, turned into a rather rude joke by Kul. Our boy was finding his own life, despite our strict adherence to tradition whenever we held a kids’ pool party, in getting out the baby photos.

That shadow was still there, though, and the subject of so many late night discussions it was like a boil, and it needed lancing.

“Mike, love; it’s game theory. If neither side reaches out, we all lose. She won’t take that step, so I have to”

“And what if she still won’t budge?”

“Then I come home, we three sigh in bloody disappointment, but we have the high ground, and we don’t spend the next however many years wondering ‘what if?’ and beating ourselves up. She’s still my mother, love. I can’t just turn my back”

Over and over again we argued the issue, but not in a nasty way, until she had me reluctantly agreeing that yes, we must try. The e-mail announcing her uncle’s death was the clincher, along with a fact that floored me: the burial had to be almost immediately.

“Loads of flights, and they only take about an hour and a quarter, love. If it’s really bad, I can be back the same day. I just need to make sure I’m there, take away an opening they could use to be nasty”

That was my realisation that she would be going, whatever I said, and I had to remind myself that it was actually a vital decision, and would have been for anyone. Writing off your own parents is not an easy decision, to put it mildly, and so we had a day of frantic shopping for the appropriate dress and accessories before Ish and I went with her in a taxi to Changi.

“Maz, love, we’ve got the money. Ish and I could come with you”

Her face clenched, and her mouth moved a few times as she sought the words, then she turned to the lad.

“Darling, could you please grab me a bag of mints from the shop?”

She handed him some coins, and he was off like a shot as she turned back to me.

“Remember what I said about sons, love. I can always just walk out, but they might try and hang onto him. We don’t risk that. I go up, I tick their boxes, and if it works, we get her down here on a visit and, well, we… Ish and you, how could she not love you?”

“If it goes badly?”

“I get the first flight home. End of”

Ish trotted back with the mints, and she hugged him, and then crushed me, whispering, “I will be back for you, my love, and Ish will have a brother or a sister, but we will be a family, whichever way your in-laws jump. I will give them a choice: they can either gain you and our son, or lose me. Kiss me and smile for Ish”

I watched her enter the security check, and Ish and I continued to the ‘viewing mall’, staying there until we were sure we had seen his mother’s plane take off.

Come home soon, love.