Chapter 6

What old Mrs. Chen said was aimed at the eldest's family and the second's family. Neither of them held a good life steady. They stirred things up from morning to night, and if the household ever did split, there was no telling what they would make of it.

The Chens finished their midday meal and Chen Shaoyuan still hadn't come back. Chen Chengcai turned up, timed neatly for the end of the meal. He had been out playing.

Li Yue'e went straight to the kitchen. The food was still warm. She brought out the noodles that had been kept back, compared the bowls, and picked the fuller one.

Yao Shangqing went to the gate and looked out twice. No sign of Chen Shaoyuan. There was nothing for it but to go back inside.

Chen Yougong was worn out from the morning. He lay down after the meal and slept until about two, when they woke him.

Yao Shangqing hadn't slept. When he got up she passed him his clothes. "Have a look for Shaoyuan while you're out. He still isn't back, and I'm starting to worry."

It surprised Chen Yougong that his son wasn't home. The boy wasn't hungry?

"All right. I'll go round and look for him, then get to work."

They talked while they got themselves ready.

He was on his way out of the room when Chen Shaoyuan came running in, filthy.

Yao Shangqing frowned at the state of him. Mud all over his shoes, and his clothes covered in little burrs.

"Where have you been? You didn't come home for dinner, and look at you."

Chen Yougong stood to one side enjoying his son's trouble. It never crossed his mind to step in.

Chen Shaoyuan held out the ragged little cloth bag he was carrying. "Mum, look what I found."

She glared at him, took hold of his grubby arm with distaste and steered him inside. "Go on, get changed. The sun's still good. I'll wash them."

Chen Yougong rubbed his son's fuzzy head. It was the first time he had seen the boy this dirty. Hardly a child in the village was clean, but his were different, each one cleaner than the last. Yao Shangqing put a great deal of herself into the children.

Chen Shaoyuan wasn't frightened of his father. He pushed the hand away and ran off to the inner room to find clothes on the bed the three brothers shared.

Watching him go, Yao Shangqing remembered the bag in her hand. She opened it, and the look inside stopped her.

"Here. Yougong, come and see this."

Chen Yougong had just wiped his face with a cold flannel. He looked into the bag. Several wild duck eggs, and some small quail eggs.

"Would you look at that. The luck on this boy. I went past the little river myself on my way back this morning and saw nothing. He walks over and there they are. He's my son all right." There was no small amount of swagger in it.

Yao Shangqing sighed and called towards the inner room. "Chen Shaoyuan. You're not to go down to the river on your own again. What if you fell in?"

Chen Yougong patted her shoulder. "Don't fret. It's shallow, you can see the bottom. Right. You mind the children and I'll get to work."

She sighed and looked into the bag again. "I'll take the duck eggs to your mother, then."

Before he could answer, Chen Shaoyuan came out of the inner room in clean clothes.

"No. I found those for my sister. They're for her to eat."

Yao Shangqing burst out laughing. "Your sister's too little. She can't eat them."

Chen Yougong found it funny too. "Don't give them to Ma, then. There are only a few in there. Boil the lot and let this crew have them. Every good thing that comes into this house, we hand over, and it's never bought us a kind word from either of my brothers' wives. And our Shaoyuan found these himself, so he should eat them."

Yao Shangqing frowned, then nodded. "All right. Off you go to work."

Chen Yougong brushed her hand as he left.

Her face went red at once.

Chen Shaoyuan looked at his mother, puzzled. "Mum, what's the matter? Why's your face so red?"

She wasn't about to answer that. She took the bag to the kitchen. Luckily there was nobody else about. The eldest and second brothers had gone out to work. There wasn't much left in the fields, but the brigade had other jobs, and doing them earned you work points.

Zhao Qinhua had taken her son out and was off gossiping somewhere. Li Yue'e had gone who knows where. Old Mrs. Chen was at home.

Yao Shangqing counted what was in the bag. Five duck eggs and about ten of the little quail ones. She put water in the pot, washed them, dropped them in, and set the rest of the bowl of noodles on the rack above to warm through.

Under ten minutes and they were done.

Old Mrs. Chen had slept at midday and was just up. She saw smoke from the kitchen, assumed somebody was warming food, and left it alone. She got out a length of cloth and cut it in two, one piece for the eldest's children, one for the little girl in the third's family. She reckoned by now that nobody was coming to claim the child.

Chen Shaoyuan woke his two brothers, dressed them, and brought them through to the kitchen.

Yao Shangqing brought out the rest of the noodles and set the bowl on a low stool. "Eat it while it's hot." She was lifting the duck and quail eggs out with a spoon as she spoke, into cold water.

Chen Shao'er pulled Chen Shaozhi down to squat beside her. They watched the eggs in the cold water and couldn't help swallowing.

Chen Shaoyuan was starving. He took the bowl in both hands and had the mung bean noodles down him in no time.

Yao Shangqing gave him one duck egg and two quail eggs.

"Take these to your granny." She wasn't one for eating alone. If she had been, she would have made a scene years ago, given everything Chen Yougong brought into this house. And this time her mother-in-law had plainly taken her side. She remembered kindness.

Chen Shaoyuan nodded and carried them through to the main room.

Old Mrs. Chen was sketching out a pattern, thinking about the little girl and feeling it ought to be something pretty.

"Granny, Mum said to give you these." Chen Shaoyuan put them on the table.

The eggs on her table startled her. "Where did these come from?" The key to the kitchen cupboard was still on her.

Chen Shaoyuan grinned. "I found them down by the river today. Dad told Mum to boil them and Mum told me to bring these to you."

Hearing him say it, something in her went warm.

"There now. Take them back and eat them. I'm an old woman, it's wasted on me."

He wouldn't take them. He turned and ran.

She shook her head at the sight of him going. This third son of hers was the one she had pinned the most hope on, and then he had married a woman with a bad class background, and she had never been able to swallow it. But the children were this big now, and the bitterness had nearly worn away.

Chen Shaoyuan ran back to the kitchen.

Yao Shangqing was quick-handed. She had the kitchen clean already, the cold water poured away and the eggs lifted out.

"Come on. Back to the room."

She took the three boys back with her.

She sat them on stools with the duck and quail eggs.

Then she sat on the bed with Chen Yuanyuan in her arms, thinking that there was always something to look forward to.

By now Zhao Wanwan and Zhao Fangsong had reached the county town. It was her first time there. The girl before her had never been either.

The smell of meat buns drifted over from the state-run restaurant and she swallowed without meaning to. If she could just sell this chicken, she was sure she could talk Zhao Fangsong into buying her a big one.

"Dad, let's ask over there. Find out where the factory housing is."

It was Zhao Fangsong's first time at anything like this too, and his heart was going hard. He was lazy enough in the ordinary way, but he was a steady worker in the fields and he had never done anything like this.

"Right. Come on."

They stopped a passer-by, asked for the nearest block of factory housing, were pointed the way, and hurried off.

It was gone two o'clock. The workers were heading in to their shifts, and the old people who minded the children were out walking them and gossiping.

Zhao Fangsong stood holding the sack and didn't dare move a muscle.

Zhao Wanwan was mentally tearing him to pieces. The man had no backbone at all. If she waited on him, she would never get that bun.

She put a smile on and walked up to a woman with a child on her hip.

The woman saw a child in rags and took her for somebody's visiting relative.

"Auntie, can I ask you something? Who round here is short of meat? Do you know?" Zhao Wanwan went straight at it.

The woman looked at her as though she were simple. "Child, who isn't short of meat?" Then she looked her over again. "You haven't got meat, have you?"

Zhao Wanwan nodded, mysterious about it.

The woman held the child closer and glanced around. Nobody was watching. "What meat have you got, child? I'll tell you now, I'm not short of any kind of coupon."

Zhao Wanwan hadn't expected it to go this smoothly. She had come here to be the heroine all right. The main-character glow was marvellously useful.

"Auntie, we're from a village. We keep chickens, and we didn't wrap the coop properly, so two of them froze to death. We ate one ourselves. I wanted to see about trading the other."

The woman's eyes lit up. "Come on, we'll talk over there." She drew Zhao Wanwan into a quiet corner.

"Have you got the chicken with you, child?" She looked round and couldn't see anything.

Zhao Wanwan nodded. "My dad's carrying it. I'm a child, nobody notices me."

The woman took her meaning and brought out the coupons she had on her without any fuss. She had been going to buy vegetables at the co-op with them. "Look here. I'll give you some grain coupons and a jin of meat coupons. Will that do?"

Zhao Wanwan had no real sense of what the coupons were worth. She would have to go and ask her stand-in father. "Wait here a minute, auntie. I'll go and ask my dad."