One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

involved.’
    Kitty nodded. ‘You have my word.’
    ‘Just write whatever you have to write for it to mean something.’
    Kitty completely understood.
    ‘It was Christmas Day and my mother and I were waiting. The food was ready on the table, I can remember the smell, it was so delicious. My mother insisted on traditional Christmas meals.
Her
traditional meals. My father is from Shanghai. He owns a Chinese takeaway in Galway. Wu’s Chinese Takeaway. He was two hours late and, well, we were hungry and I remember my mother looking at me and not saying it out loud, but almost asking me what do I think we should do. You have to be a certain way with my mother, or at least I had to be then. I couldn’t tell her exactly what I thought because then she would do the opposite. It was like reverse psychology: you had to make her think it was her decision and therefore the right one. So she started to cut into the turkey and it smelled so good, even though it was overcooked and had been sitting there too long. I spooned the vegetables onto my plate and I couldn’t wait, I just couldn’t wait, I had to eat it. I had taken the first mouthful when I heard the key in the door and I wanted to just die. I couldn’t swallow it, I couldn’t spit it out. Mother was still carving the turkey for her plate. My dad walked in – I could smell him before I saw him – and he saw us starting dinner without him, which made him angry.
    ‘“Just in time,” I remember my mom saying perkily. Too perkily. He knew that we weren’t going to wait for him. So he left the dining room. He trampled on all of the presents, smashed a china doll that was for me, pulled down the Christmas tree, pulled down the lights from the ceiling so that they crashed on to the dining table, scratching the beautiful wood. He cleared every surface, the fine china from the display cupboard, everything was in pieces.’
    She swallowed.
    ‘Then he went at my mother. Not for the first time either. She still had the carving knife in her hand. It ended up in her arm.’
    ‘Eva,’ Kitty breathed, ‘I’m so sorry.’
    ‘I’m not telling you this so you’ll be sorry.’ Eva looked at Kitty. ‘You want to understand, I’m trying to help you to understand.’
    Kitty nodded.
    ‘I ended up across the road with an old neighbour. We sat in front of her television for four hours before my aunt came to take me home. She only had black-and-white TV and all I remember watching is
I Love Lucy
over and over again. I swear I can’t watch that woman to this day, being so stupid and everybody laughing every time she tripped or fell, or did something ridiculous, and all the time my head was rerunning everything that had happened. The old woman, I can’t even remember her name, didn’t say one word to me for the whole time. She gave me milk and a plate of biscuits and she sat in an armchair beside me and we watched the television in silence. She didn’t even laugh, which made the show seem even more pathetic. But before I left, she gave me a gift. It was a small box, a Chinese lacquered box, with a lock and key. She said it was for all my secrets, that every little girl needed a box for all her secrets. I don’t know why but it was the most perfect, perfect thing that anybody had ever given me. It was so appropriate. She hadn’t said one word about what had happened but she seemed to encompass everything in this one gift.’
    ‘So that’s the gift that started you thinking the way you do, that made you want to help people by giving the perfect thing.’
    ‘Yes.’ Eva ran her fingers over the box George had given her.
    ‘Did you tell George that story?’
    ‘No, I just told him about the box. I’ve never told anyone about it. I lost it, though, years ago, when we were moving house.’
    ‘He must have known it was important to you.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said curiously.
    ‘Eva, do you mind me asking, how old were you when … when you received the box?’
    ‘Five,’ she said quietly, and her eyes filled again.
    Kitty made a mental note in her mind.
    Name Number Three: Eva Wu
    Story Title: Pandora’s Box
    ‘But anyway,’ Eva cleared her throat, her face almost immediately lost the emotion and her beautiful mask was back on, ‘I have a present for you.’
    ‘For me? Eva, you didn’t have to do that. Don’t tell me it’s the old men from the wedding,’ she joked, looking around.
    Eva laughed. ‘It’s really very small. I wasn’t looking for something, I