Air (or Have Not Have)

audio file from: Mrs Chung Mae

30 December

I do indeed see what stops you helping us.

It was dawn, and in her loft, Mae could hear the weaving machine at work.

It made a neat whirring sound that reminded Mae of hummingbirds. She could hear it through her walls as she worked. She could imagine it extending a tongue of beautiful new knitware.

Her new TV was strung in a hammock and held up by Siao's pulley. It was early morning and Mae was building a new site. It was not going well. Well, at least one screen worked.

____________________

OLD CARS NEVER DIE,

they just go to Mr Pin-sir's

DYNAMIC CAR SURGERY.

Also their cousins tractors, trailers and vans.

All vehicles are charmed by the Car Surgeon s bedside manner and kind,

skilled hands.

____________________

Mae had written letters telling everyone about her new Net services. Her first customer, Mr Pin, had shown up two days ago.

Mr Pin did not want to speak to Madam Owl. He sat with Siao, ignoring Mae and twisting the letter in his hand. He had no more idea of what to do with the Net than use it to make himself seem more modern. That meant, more modern than his great and murderous rival, Mr Enver Atakoloo.

Siao kept trying to defer to Mae, to direct Mr Pin's questions to her. Finally, to relieve everyone's embarrassment, Mae had gone back upstairs into the loft.

She listened from upstairs, and was surprised at how useful Siao was. Mr Pin was a difficult man to help. He did not understand what the TV was for, and was frightened that the government would see anything about him.

Siao kept explaining. It took hours and a bottle of warmed rice wine. Siao's idea was to put a list on the machine called, 'Mr Pin's Helpful Service that Answers Your Questions.'

It would give people advice on how to check the car was working or to make simple repairs themselves. Mr Pin did not understand the principles of Info mat-unrolling – giving something away for free. Siao evidently did. He explained that free Info made friends with the customers and showed you were expert. More importantly, it got rid of the less profitable parts of your business by giving away all the little pieces of advice that made no money.

Pin, drunk by now, finally got it. 'Ah, Mr Siao-sir, what a brain you have! You should be running a bank, sir!'

Siao coaxed out of Mr Pin everything that could go wrong with a car and whether most people could fix it themselves, and if not, how much it would cost.

Siao then clambered up the ladder with a written list. His manner had no pride in it. Businesslike, he had read it out to Mae and into the machine.

Mae was using that information to make her first intelligent voice-form. It was supposed to ask questions and leave time for the innocent to reply into the microphone.

'Nature of the problem?'

'The car won't start when…'

'Huh? Please repeat the nature of the problem.'

'Won't start…'

'Huh? If you are having difficulty, please make an appointment with Mr Pin. Can you bring the car in? Answer yes or no.'

'No!'

'Can you bring the car in? Answer yes or no.'

'Yes!'

The voiceform did a kind of flip and started to repeat over and over. 'Answer … Answer … Answer …'

'Shitcakes,' said Mae, and thumped the TV. 'Stop. Save.' Mae arched herself backwards to bend her spine in the opposite direction. 'Create e-mail to [email protected]. Attach program file Pin-form Three.'

Mae sent the form to the Sloop, the telephone engineer in Yeshiboz-kent who had first tried to explain TV to her. He helped her with difficult encoding. For a fee. How was she supposed to make money from this?

Mae sighed and thought about breakfast.

She went downstairs and was surprised to see Siao and Old Mr Chung were up this early and at breakfast. Then she saw the time. It was eight-thirty a.m. Siao had his head in his hands.

Siao held out a paper towards Mae. 'Your brother,' he said, shaking his head.

'What has he done now?' Mae was prepared to be breezy about her brother. He was inconvenient, like burnt porridge and a pan that needed to be scrubbed.

Siao's face curled inward on itself, lips disappearing. 'You will not believe it. He is claiming your business.'

'What! How can he do that?' Mae made the face she got when she shooed midges from her eyes, a squinting and a shaking of the head.

Siao read the letter to Mae. It was a from a city lawyer.

Under section 99.54 of the Worldly Property Act, it is evident that Madam Chung Mae, having deserted her husband, has no claims on the family property. The residence Down Court 2 on Lower Street having been sold, this leaves only the family's business interests. Since Mr Chung Joe has residence in Balshang, plainly the family business in fashion, Net design, and clothes production has been taken over by his deserting wife, who has no legal entitlement to it.

Mrs Chung has shown continual lack of judgement and bizarre behaviour since an unfortunate incident resulting from the Air Test. This has been fully documented; see affidavits from Dr Bauschu, who attests to an induced schizophrenia following the Test.

Mrs Chung's bizarre behaviour has included attacking a village elder with cleavers, desertion of her husband, an illicit love affair, and a complete rejection of her own maiden family, causing her elderly mother great distress.

As male head of her family, I therefore claim immediate control of all these business interests in order to preserve and protect them and to put them under rightful management…

Hatred came to Mae – pure and whole and all-consuming. She sat down with a bump. Ju-mei was very lucky that he was not in the room, for she would surely have picked up her cleavers again.

'I cannot believe this. He can do that?'

'It is an old law. It is to avoid women taking over things. But the law exists.'

'I will kill him!'

'That will just leave you in prison.'

Siao lit a cigarette and looked Mae in the eyes. 'How much do you trust me?' he asked.

Mae blinked at the unexpected question. 'I don't know. I have never had to trust you, Siao.'

He nodded, and his eyes turned momentarily inward towards himself. He had not made himself present before. 'We could say that this is a Chung family business. And that therefore Mr Wang can keep his nose out of it.'

Mae could see why he had asked. 'We could indeed.' And she did indeed feel mistrust. She did not want Joe or Siao taking it over, either.

'I could say it is Chung family business, and that Ju-mei may be a head of family, but it is the wrong family.