Chapter 8 - A Letter From The Past
The Wu's are rattled by the arrival of a mysterious letter
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It was almost five by the time Ewan finally made it home. He was relieved to see that house looked dark and empty which meant that his dad wouldn’t be about to see the state he was in. Opening the front door Ewan was a little worried as his dad was would usually be getting ready to open up the chip shop by now.
Ewan’s first priority however was to clean himself up and so he headed upstairs to the bathroom. The cool refreshing water eased the sting in his cheek and washed away the dried tears.
Remembering what Mr Hargreaves had said earlier Ewan looked in the mirror to survey the damage. Trying to look beyond the redness which was already fading he tried to focus and picture the confident young man who was able to stand up to bullies. In stead he found himself muttering, “no pride, no power and saved by a badass Granny who don’t take-a no crap off-a no one.”
He turned away from his reflection, he was in no mode for jokes, right now Ewan felt that he was the joke. How many people end up getting rescued like a damsel in distress, only to find that their knight in shining armour is actually a little old lady with a walking stick and a little fluffy dog.
Ewan doubted Darren or Martin would say anything, he couldn’t imagine they’d want to admit to coming off second best to Old Mrs McHenry. But what about Mackie, Ewan wondered what he was going to do next, and how was he supposed to get Mackie the money he wanted?
Pushing that thought out of his mind Ewan was just thankful that no one else was around to watch what happened. No one apart from that strange looking Chinese guy. He was sure it was the same guy from this morning. It’s not as if there were many other Chinese families around here.
It didn’t take much for Ewan’s mind to wander.
Maybe the guy had just moved in to the area, maybe he has kids, maybe there are other Chinese kids he could make friends with, maybe learn some Chinese culture from. Maybe he could even learn some proper kung fu from them as well and then he’d be able to keep Mackie off his back.
The shrill ring of the doorbell yanked Ewan from his reverie.
Had dad forgotten his keys again?
Was it Mackie come round looking for his compensation?
The bell rang again and Ewan stopped at the top of the stairs
“Who is it, dad is that you?”
In response a strange envelope was pushed through the letter box and landed heavily on the floor. Followed by what sounded like someone running away.
Cautiously Ewan crept down the stairs and stared at the weird looking item that was sitting on the mat before finally plucking up the courage to pick it up.
It was addressed to his dad care of this address, or so he assumed. Ewan was pretty sure the name said Lian Wu, although for as long as he could remember his dad has gone by his English name Lenny. Lenny was what Ewan’s mum had always called him, she’d once told Ewan that she struggled to pronounce his given Chinese name, so Lenny had stuck.
Carefully holding it in his hands Ewan could see that it was like no envelope he’d ever seen before. The paper it was made from seemed really thick and heavy, like some kind of ancient parchment, the kind of thing you saw in medieval fantasy films.
It took a few seconds but then it dawned on Ewan what made the envelope seem really strange. He realised that he could actually read the writing on it.
When he squinted at the words he could just about make out that they were some kind of Chinese ideograms - the funny little symbols that are supposed to be a pictorial representation of words. But when he looked straight at them all the symbols just seemed to make sense, it’s almost as if Ewan knew what the words were trying to say.
Turning it over he could see that there was another funny looking Chinese symbol on the back. It looked like some kind of stylised big cat, like a tiger or a leopard getting ready to pounce. The cat was drawn inside a swirling circle and above it was a red wax seal. The seal had a similar circle design embossed in to it - but this time the design was the ideogram for Wu, Ewan’s family name.
He placed the envelope on the small table beside the front door.
Ewan wondered how was it possible that he could read what was literally a foreign to him. He’d never learnt any Chinese or studied any other aspect of his fathers culture. Any time he’d ever asked his father about anything Chinese, whether it was language, history or even food Lenny had always changed the subject. According to my Lenny they were English and needed to focus on that.
Ewan could only remember one time when his father had made any concession to anything remotely Chinese. Lenny had named the family fish and chip shop, their fish and chip shop The Blossom Garden. Ewan secretly believed that his mum had wanted to open a Chinese takeaway, something to differentiate their shop from the rest of the ones owned by her family. He remembered that his mum would often say that the area could do with some new flavouring, but Lenny was adamant.
Blossom was Sally’s middle name and what everyone knew her as and after she died there was no way the shop was ever going to be known as anything else.
Ewan tried not to think too much about that period of his life, not that he could remember much about it anyway.
With everything else that had gone on today a strange envelope could wait till later. Ewan headed back upstairs to finish getting changed. If his father was not about Ewan knew that he would be expected to handle getting the shop ready for the start of the usual Friday evening rush.
The turning of the key in the front door alerted Ewan to his fathers return. Ewan had decided that enough was enough and he was determined to once more bring up the subject of self defence lessons. He was sick of bullies like Mackie pushing him around all the time.
“Dad, I need to talk to you.”
“Not now Ewan, I'm busy and we need to get the shop open.”
“But Dad it's important!”
His father must have picked up on the insistence in Ewan’s voice as he paused before heading in to the kitchen.
“What is it, make it quick.”
“Dad, Dylan said the kung fu class at the Leisure Centre is having a self-defence crash course over the summer holidays, he’s going and has asked if I’d like to go with him.”
Ewan hoped that the white lie about Dylan signing up would help convince his father by playing on the angle of not letting the person who was his best and probably only friend down.
“Ewan we've spoken about this before, I don't like you getting involved with all this martial arts nonsense, it's too violent and you could get hurt.”
“But dad, I got hurt, today in the park, by some bullies. An old lady walking her dog had to rescue me!”
Lenny’s eyes opened wide. “Are you okay, why were you in the park and not at school. I’ve told you before. Stay out of their way, keep your head down and you won’t get any trouble!”
“But dad, that's why I want to learn kung fu, proper kung fu, so I can protect myself and stay out of trouble.”
Ewan had expected a little resistance, but not the explosion that followed.
“There's no such thing as proper KUNG FU, that stupid stuff on TV will just get you killed! Do you know what kung fu actually means?”
His fathers’s outburst was a little shocking, but having started, Ewan knew he had to press on.
“I don’t know what any Chinese words mean, you won't let me learn anything Chinese,” Ewan shouted back.
“Well, here's your first lesson then. Kung fu literally means hard work, so stop this nonsense now and go practice some potato peeling kung fu in the kitchen. We have a chip shop to open, and soon there will be hungry mouths to feed.”
Ewan sighed, another attempt shot down in flames. He knew he’d made a mistake pushing his father like this. But deep down he knew this was too important to let go. But right now his father was right, there were several bags of potatoes that wouldn’t feed themselves in to the peeling machine.
“Wait, Ewan. What's this? When did this arrive? How did it get here?”
Looking back Ewan could see that his father was gingerly holding the strange envelope. It was almost as if he was afraid of it or it’s contents.
“I dunno, about fifteen minutes ago. Someone rang the bell and before I could get to the door, they’d pushed it through the letter box and ran off. What is it?”
Lenny quickly opened the door and stuck his head out, repeatedly looking up and down the road to see if he could see anyone. A few seconds later he quickly shut and doubled locked the door and then after moments hesitation put on the door chain as well.
“Ewan, go and start the preparation, Anna will be here soon and I…”
The sentence trailed off and he just stood looking at the envelope.
“Ewan! Go! Do as I say, now!”
Ewan knew his father could be a little terse on occasion but his outburst seemed a little excessive even for him. He headed off in to the main kitchen prep area leaving his father alone with his thoughts.
About five minutes later Lenny came in to the prep room.
“Ewan, I’m…”
Ewan stopped loading the automatic potato peeler and looked up at his father.
“I'm sorry about shouting earlier, it's just… I have a lot on at the moment, and, and I made a promise to your mother to keep you safe.”
“But dad, I am safe, or at least I'd be a lot safer if I was able to look after myself. I'm not interested in picking fights or getting into trouble, it’s just…”
Ewan was reluctant to tell him everything about Mackie and what happened today. He thought that maybe his mum would have a been a little bit more understanding. It’s times like this that Ewan missed her the most.
“Look Ewan, something's come up. I have to go out for a while. I might be late back. Will you be okay?”
“Of course, is it about that letter?”
Lenny quickly put the letter away behind his back. Ewan could see that the seal had been broken and assumed that his father had read it.
“What, no, no, it's… it’s just some shop business. I've got to sort out, a supply problem. Anna should be here soon, tell her I had to go out, and she’s in charge and ask her to stay and help close up if I’m not back in time.”
“Dad, are you okay, is everything okay?”
“Yes, Yes, everything's fine, look I have to go. I’ll see you later, be good, stay safe.”
“Okay.” Ewan was about to return to the peeling machine when his father caught him by surprise, he came over and gave Ewan a big hug which was awkwardly returned.
“Ewan, I want you to know, I'm really proud of you, both your mother and I always were and always will be. I know I don't say it enough, but, I love you, son.”
Ewan didn’t know what to say and so just stared as his father left the room.
“Yeah, love you too dad.”
All Ewan heard was the front door banging shut and crossing his fingers hoped his father had heard him.
A few minutes later, Ewan was once more disturbed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. He rushed out in to the hall.
“Dad, is that you? Is everything ok?”
The door opened and Ewan saw his cousin Anna walking in.
“Hi Ewan, everything ok? Where’s uncle Lenny?”
“Dunno he got some strange letter earlier today and as soon as he saw it, he started acting weird and left. He said to ask if you can stay late and help lock up if he’s not back.”
“Yeah, sure, that shouldn't be a problem.”
Anna’s mother Gillian was Sally’s older sister and was the one who had helped dad manage the shop after Ewan’s mum died. Anna had taken over when Gillian had gone back to helping Ewan’s maternal grandparents run the family catering businesses. Anna was a few year few years older than Ewan and along with his grandparents was the only other family he had.
After hanging up her coat and putting on her work apron Anna joined Ewan in the prep room to help with the last few jobs.
“Do you think we’ll need all those chips tonight?”
There were several buckets of freshly peeled potatoes all waiting to go in to the chipper and Ewan looked a little sheepish.
“I hope so, or dad’s going to kill me. You know how much he hates waste!”
“Don't worry if we've got too many left towards the end of the night, we can just start increasing the portion size. He’ll never know the difference,” she said winking.
That’s one of the things Ewan like most about his cousin, she always had a practical solution and was ready to help out.