Bitter Sweet Harvest Read Free Page A

announcement boomed out. Groups of people began to filter through the barrier. She felt a sudden crush of bodies around her as people struggled to get the best view of the exiting passengers. Some broke free to rush forward, arms flung out in embrace; others were more reticent in their reception. Where were they, she wondered anxiously She suddenly felt a rush of longing and love. She could not contain her excitement. She had not seen her parents for nearly a year, not since last summer.
    “An Mei!”
    She turned towards the source of the voice. “Aunt Nelly,” she broke into a run. “Oh Aunt Nelly, how are you?” she asked in Cantonese. She embraced the little rotund lady dressed in a quilted jacket with a Mandarin collar so vigorously that she knocked her spectacles askew. She remembered the jacket. A ‘Mao Tse Tung’ jacket, her aunt had claimed when she bought it back from Hong Kong some years ago. “Very fashionable!” But she had not remembered her aunt as being so short.
    “Fine, fine. I came through first,” she responded in Cantonese, her spoken English being rather poor. Your mother and father will be here shortly. They had to wait for the luggage. I left them to it. I’m no use with bags, too old and too weak to even try,” she said chuckling. Wrapping An Mei’s arms around her waist, she continued, “And, I want a word with you first. Your mum asked me.” She held on to An Mei. “Don’t talk to your father about Hussein. Jenny told us. Just don’t. We’ll work something out. We, your mum and I, would like to meet him and then we’ll talk.”
    Even as she said these words, Nelly was not sure what course of action might be possible. What could she say? Ming Kong had been distraught when he found his stores vandalised and torched. She felt that nothing would ever persuade him to let his daughter marry a Malay man. “Things will never be the same after May the Thirteenth,” he had said. “I’ll not trust them again. I thought they were my friends. I worked with them!”
    “But Aunt Nelly,” An Mei began to protest.
    “Promise me. Not a word until we have sorted things out,” admonished Nelly. They saw Mei Yin and Ming Kong coming towards them, pushing a trolley piled high with suitcases.
    “Here they are. Remember what I had just said. Shhh,” she added for caution.
    An Mei broke free from Nelly and ran to her parents, all thoughts of Hussein momentarily wiped from her mind.
*****
    Mei Yin stepped eagerly into the hallway. A steep, narrow, carpeted stairway led up to the two floors above. She inhaled deeply the potpourri of scents, vanilla and rose vying with the unmistakable whiff of new paint. “So delightfully cool,” she said. “The air feels fresh. Everything feels fresh, even the smell of paint.” She followed the weak ray of sunlight that had seeped through to the hallway from the door on the right, and entered the living room. “I like it,” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, taking in the bare wooden floor and the white-washed walls of the long narrow room.
    Relief showed on An Mei’s face. “I know it is small, but Mum, you did say to find something that was... that is inexpensive. This is a Victorian terrace cottage. They are rather long and narrow. But it is well located. We can walk into Oxford within minutes. The house backs on to a playing field and beyond that, is the river. There is a wonderful river-side walk that takes you through a park.”
    Mei Yin turned to look at An Mei, her eyes lingering with affection on her daughter. “Yes, dear girl I like it and very much so. Don’t apologise. There is no need. It is certainly wonderful to be able to move into a house so quickly and certainly better than the small hotel we stayed at when we first arrived.”
    “I thought that you might not like the house. It was a mess before when it was let out to students, but the owner has renovated it completely. Just here,” An Mei pointed to the middle of the room, “there was a