Page 8 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Could see her point. “OK, but I’ve got a meeting in an hour’s time. What’s up?”

She hesitated. Showed she felt some shame, at least. “I’ve been talking to Ba.”

Head started throbbing. Took off my glasses so I could massage my temples.

CG: “Why are you talking to Ba? I told you to block him.”

Ma: “I don’t know how to block him.” (Keeps refusing my offers to walk her through it.) “Anyway, he’s your father.”

CG: “Let me deal with him, then. The whole point of divorcing him was so you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Drives me round the bend. They split almost twenty years ago. Ba didn’t worry about Ma when he cut and ran, leaving her with a mountain of debt and a son to raise on her own. He fucked her over and all she says is,I only had one husband. It’s not so easy to stop worrying.

Ma: “He’s having problems with his business.”

I was going to need fresh air for this conversation. Told Ma to hold on and grabbed my coat.

Went down via the stairs to the back entrance, opening on an alley. Smelled of cigarette smoke and piss as usual. Importantly, nobody there. Kicked a couple of cigarette butts away and leaned against the cold wall after checking it was free of pigeon shit.

CG: “Which business is this?” Ba always has some “business” cooking. “The instant coffee thing? Or is it some new wheeze?”

Ma: “No, but this was very promising. You know gwaat saa? ‘Gua sha’ in Mandarin. You can use it to scrape the face, the body, a lot of benefits. My friend had neck pain and the doctors only told her to take painkillers. She used gwaat saa, no more pain. Now it’s becoming popular among the gwai lo, they’re putting it on their TikTok. You haven’t seen the videos? A lot on my phone.”

Put Ma on speaker and Googled while she was talking.Gua sha are flat stones you rub on yourself. Said to cure everything from acne to liver inflammation. Load of bollocks, obviously.

CG: “Don’t people say ‘gwaat saa’ to mean ‘can’t make money’?”

If we’d been talking about anyone else, I might have suggested he should “gwaat lung.” Get rich doing something shady. Except Ba’s tried that. No one wants him going down that road again.

Thing is, Ba’s probably not wrong there’s money in gua sha. Ba being Ba, he’s not going to be the one to make it.

CG: “Has Ba ever thought about just getting a normal job?”

Ma: “He set up the company already. A big Western company ordered a lot of units. But there was some issue—I’m not sure what happened—Ba said somebody bad-mouthed him to the company—anyway, the buyer pulled out. But Ba already confirmed the order with the factory. Now the factory is saying they will sue him if he doesn’t pay. He’s at his wits’ end. You know, the oldest girl, what’s her name—”

CG: “Teodora.”

Ma: “She’ll be finishing secondary school soon. How is he going to manage her education? He says she wants to study art. Art!”

CG: “Teo’s interested in animation. She’s looking at universities in the Philippines. I’ll sort Teo, don’t worry—”

Ma: “But it’s not only her. It’s everything. Ba’s had such bad luck, these past few years. He’s thinking of borrowing from loan sharks. If he does that and they come after him because he cannot pay, what is going to happen to Iza and the children?”

CG: “He’s the one who decided to marry Iza and have another family. How is it your problem?”

Ma: “You always say this is not my problem. How can I not think about them? I know how Iza feels. And she has threechildren. I only had one, and you were so good, you didn’t cause me any trouble.”

Ma always knows where to stick the pins in. Felt guilty for being exasperated, which made me even more exasperated. Why is she like this? I’ve got nothing against Iza and I get along with the kids, but they’re my half-siblings. Ma doesn’t have to give a shit about them.

After what happened last time, I swore I was going to push back with Ba. Loretta says if I let him fend for himself, he might learn his lesson and stop sinking funds he doesn’t have in pie-in-the-sky ventures.

But I’ve seen what happens when Ba fends for himself. If he didn’t learn from three years in jail, what’s me cutting him off going to do?

Ma: “We can’t punish the children because Ba is not practical.”

Maybe if she got a dog, she’d have less time for Ba. Opened inbox on phone, tapped outMA DOG?and emailed it to myself.

CG: “How much is he in the hole for?”

---