‘Oh, it’s wonderful, darling!’
Bridie kissed us both. Sophie and Tom gave us the thumbs-up and said, ‘It’s really good, Dad!’
‘Do you think so?’ I turned to Tom. He would always tell me straight.
He nodded, with a huge smile. ‘Yes, really good!’
We could only hope that the film would go on to please the public just as much when it was released in September.
Then, another milestone. Sophie had been accepted into Melbourne University – long considered one of the best in the country. She was to study a Bachelor of Environments, a new course, majoring in architecture. The academic opportunity would be incredible, but I was more interested in her first foray into living independently, as she had also been accepted into a residential college. Sophie didn’t want to go to the same college as her classmates from Melbourne Girls Grammar, so she had picked one that would give her a fresh start. She would still be fairly close to home.
Newman College is an L-shaped, two-storey sandstone building framing a beautiful lawned courtyard, and I thought it had a nice feel. I helped Sophie set up her room on the Saturday before university started. It was a tiny shoebox with one little window, a sink, a mirror and a wardrobe, with a shared bathroom down the hall. ‘Oh, it’s great!’ I said, doing my best to appear upbeat. We bought a few new things: sheets and towels, a pretty quilt cover. Sophie was a neat person, so it looked homely in the end.
I was going to miss her terribly. ‘She’ll be fine,’ Li reassured me, but Sophie wasn’t the same as other students: she had a disability. There were things like fire alarms, which she could not hear. She had already been using a vibrating alarm clock under her pillow but occasionally the battery would die.
At college on that first February morning, the clock battery did die and she missed her orientation breakfast. She called me, very upset. ‘Mum, I can’t believe I missed the first breakfast!’
‘Sophie, this is a good lesson. You need to have someone next door to check on you,’ I suggested. ‘You’re going to need that if there’s an emergency.’
I knew that I wouldn’t always be there for Sophie, and this was an important life experience for her.
Sophie didn’t like having to ask us for money and wanted to become financially independent. Soon, she got a weekend job selling handbags at David Jones department store. Although I was immensely proud of her, I initially wanted her to work less and get involved in the social activities in college.
I continued to love teaching at the Australian Ballet. This year, the company was doing some classics I adored: The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. Even better, Li and I got to spend time together at the opening night of each ballet. They were dates I always looked forward to.
Sophie was gradually finding her way into uni life, learning to get over her sensitivity about missing out on some conversations in a noisy social setting. But she couldn’t miss out on lectures. This was the first time she’d had to seek assistance on her own. Luckily someone recommended Nola Birch, a caring and dedicated woman in the university’s Special Needs Unit who took her step by step through the process. She became Sophie’s lifeline over the next three years. Sophie asked for a note taker – a person who would sit beside her and take notes for her during lectures. She also had to sit up close to the lecturer so she could hear as well as lip-read. It was agreed that she would get pre-reading notes ahead of the lectures.
By the second semester she had such a workload that she gave up her weekend job to devote more time to study. Still working hard at becoming independent, Sophie then surprised us by getting a job at a small architectural firm in Port Melbourne. However, she soon realised that sitting in front of a computer was a big part of it and she didn’t want that. Architecture, it turned out, was not for her. What she really wanted, she said, was to get out into the workforce as soon as possible. But I felt that emotionally she still had a way to go to reach social maturity.
For me, Friday-night drinks with my friends became a regular event. Parents we’d met through Tom’s kinder introduced us to Amanda Nutting, Tammy Hall and Mandy De Steiger. While some of our children had now gone their separate ways, our own friendships continued to grow. We laughed a lot and I started to feel that I was coming out the other side at last.
The official world premiere of Li’s film was at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2009. We knew it had attracted strong Australian and international distribution interest, but the Global Financial Crisis was in full swing, and finance in the movie industry became extremely difficult. Unfortunately, many distribution companies went out of business overnight.
We were rather bemused when we weren’t officially invited to the world premiere, or to be part of the official red-carpet party. It was a bit strange. However, we weren’t going to miss it for the world, and neither were my sister or our close friends. So Jo, Charles and Lily, Ken and Annie, and Clayton and Ginya made the trip to be there with us. After all, the film was about Li’s life and he had also helped to source a large part of the finance for it. In the end, he was included as part of the VIP group to walk the red carpet.
We were overwhelmed when the audience jumped to their feet and gave the film a standing ovation. Afterwards there was a glamorous rooftop party with all the stars and the movie executives, including Bruce Beresford, Chi Cao and Kyle MacLachlan. We were never going to exclude our friends from this special event, and Li somehow managed to wrangle them past security. Toronto by night was so gorgeous that we didn’t want the evening to finish. Li, of course always thinking of food, suggested we go to Chinatown. We filled three tables in a Chinese restaurant with our friends, including the actors and Bruce. Li ordered for everyone. What a night to remember! Li was thrilled when the film was selected as runner-up for the festival’s People’s Choice Award.
We left Canada on a high and felt that the film’s success there augured well for its release back at home. Jane Scott had agreed to Li’s suggestion to make the Australian premieres in the major capital cities fundraising events to benefit the Australian Ballet and the Bionics Institute. The premiere in Melbourne was a black-tie event at the Regent Theatre. Li’s seventh brother and his wife joined us, as well as our children and some of our nieces. Walking the red carpet with the children by our side was quite an experience, cameras flashing and Li pausing to talk to the media.
The Regent is a grand old theatre rather than a cinema. As we walked down the aisle to our seats, our friends greeted us from every side, wishing us well. The 2000-plus audience spontaneously applauded as we sat down, and we felt the happiness and support in the house. Then the lights went down and the movie began. I held Li’s hand and whispered, ‘This is surreal.’
He just nodded, and we watched our life play out on the big screen once again. I was very concerned about how Li’s family would react to the movie after Dia’s death. Cungui and Xiao Zhu had no English. They had come from China especially to be at this special occasion, with Rong Rong no doubt quietly interpreting. When the film finished, I looked straight at them and could see they were drying their eyes with handkerchiefs, completely overcome with emotion. Everyone in the theatre stood up, turned towards Li and applauded! We walked up Collins Street to the Sofitel hotel for the fundraiser. The organising committee led by Kenneth Watkins and Robin Campbell had created a sumptuous red-velvet Chinese theme.