The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir (28 page)

‘You can do it if you want. It’s good exposure,’ he said.

I glared at him.

‘Pardon the pun.’

Suzie thought it was the funniest thing ever, and my family also thought it was a joke.

‘Why on earth would they want you?’

I decided I had to see for myself. I went into a newsagent far, far away from home, sneaking in wearing a hat and sunnies, to buy a copy. When I opened it up, there were nude men all through it.
This is not for me
. I rang the producers.

‘I think I might not do this one.’

It turns out the producer who answered the phone was my least favourite of them, and quite a tough cookie.

‘No, you’ve got to do it.’

‘It’s got naked men all through it. My mum likes to collect all the publicity I do and I don’t think she’ll like this one.’

‘Get over yourself, Anh. Just do it.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ I said. ‘If
Playboy
wanted one of our female co-hosts to go in the magazine, you’d advise against it.’

‘You’re right. I would. But this is different, Anh. It’s different for boys and girls. You have to do it for the show.’

I really was uncomfortable with it, and so I went straight over to Brendan who was the top-level producer and told him that I was going to have to be a pain this time, but I wasn’t going to do it.

‘Sweet, Anh. No worries at all.’

Phew.
Throughout my career I’ve always heeded my mother’s advice to me when I was a kid: ‘To thine own self be true, Anh. Never let others force you into anything you don’t want to do. Let your own integrity be the ultimate guide.’

At our next family gathering Suzie decided to tell everyone, and they all thought it was an absolute hoot and laughed their heads off. Uncle Dung, who had a big gut, no hair and several chins, piped up:

‘What about me? Can’t I do it instead? How much will they pay me?’

One of the best things about
Rush TV
was that it gave me a regular income which was written down on paper. Up to this point I had been desperate to get a bank loan to buy Mum a house. I’d tried once before but got knocked back. Now, armed with a TV contract, I went shopping for a place for all of us to live in. After a month of looking around I found a double-storey, four-bedroom, three-bathroom brick house in a cul-de-sac. It had a pool, sunken lounge and an enormous kitchen—an absolute prerequisite because my mum loves to cook and feed people. It was just perfect. The only problem was that there were several other families who thought it was perfect also, and were already making offers on the place. I called up the Century 21 woman and made her an offer that was as far as I could stretch.

‘Yes, Anh, the owner will take your offer because he needs to sell asap, but I need you to sort it all out and come in tomorrow morning to sign the contract.’

Sweet. I went back to the bank, told them the price of the house and showed them my income. The bank manager stroked his chin, ummed and ahhed for a bit, then said yes… on one condition. I needed a letter from my employer to verify my income.

I drove into
Rush TV
, typed up a simple income letter and knocked on the door of the producer’s office.

‘Come in!’

The only producer who was around was the really difficult one that tried to force me to do the
Women’s Forum
shoot.

‘Hi Samantha. I’m buying a house and I just need your autograph on the bottom of this to say I’m earning what I’m earning.’

‘You’ll have to come back later. I’m busy.’

I looked over and she was just surfing the net, researching one of the stories we were filming later that week. Not an urgent task.

‘I’ve only got half an hour to get this back to the bank and I just need ten seconds of your time to sign this Samantha.’

‘I’m busy, Anh. Wait outside the door and I’ll call you in when I’m done.’

‘Okay. Sorry. I’ll just be outside the door.’

So I waited. Twenty-nine minutes left to buy Mum a house. Twenty-eight minutes left. Twenty-seven… ten minutes left.

Just then the big head honcho of the company, the managing director, a gentleman by the name of Michael Duff, walked past.

‘Anh, you’re doing some great work for us, mate.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You look a bit agitated. Something up?’

I was indeed agitated. I had a window of ten minutes left to get a signature on a bit of paper and achieve the greatest dream of my life. I told Mike the scenario. ‘Geez, Anh, there’s not much more important than that, mate. I’ll write you a letter myself. Come into my office.’

Five minutes later Mike and I were faxing the letter to the bank, Mike got on the phone himself to reassure the bank manager and the next day I signed a contract to buy one of the finest houses in Yagoona for my dear mum. It was one of the best days of my life.

I remember taking Mum in to see the place. She walked in, took one look at the polished wooden floorboards and started crying. All she could mutter was, ‘Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.’

I took Suzie out to dinner one night and afterwards we strolled down to a park overlooking the harbour and hung out for a while watching boats and eating chocolates. Then right on the dot of 9 p.m., a guy with a huge bunch of flowers turned up and announced it was for ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’. He handed it to Suzie and she gave me a big hug and kiss. Luckily it was me who had organised it. A little awkward otherwise! I introduced Suzie to my mate Eden, who lived just up the road.

‘Thanks, Edes,’ I said to him.

Suzie, being a polite girl, asked him, ‘Do you want a chocolate, Eden, before you go?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he replied. ‘Lovely night isn’t it?’ He then took a seat next to me and started getting stuck into my box of Ferreros.

‘Edes, don’t you have to get back? You mentioned an assignment you had to do.’

‘Nuh, I finished it. These chocolates are great, aren’t they?’

Surely the idiot could tell we wanted to be alone. I put up with him for another couple of minutes.

‘Eden, thanks for doing this for me, but why don’t you go home before I headbutt the bridge of your nose.’

‘Ahh, okay, see you later.’

He shoved a final chocolate in his mouth, then took another for the road before he disappeared into the darkness. I quietly wished that an escaped panther from the nearby zoo would jump out and eat him.

About three months into our relationship, Suzie and I were walking hand in hand along Ettalong Beach on the Central Coast and I knew I was deeply happy. I remember being captivated by the shafts of sunlight that pierced through the clouds and danced on the glassy water. I told Suzie it was like they were putting on a performance just for us.

All of a sudden there was an enormous boom of thunder, the clouds gave way and rain bucketed down. Suzie giggled and started running along the beach in the rain. The chase was on. I grabbed her, picked her up and looked down at this crazy, laughing, beautiful girl in my arms. Droplets of rain slipped down her perfect face.

I gently put her back on her feet and got down on one knee.

‘You know you are my soulmate and I’ve always loved you. Will you marry me, Suzanne?’

She cried, I laughed, and we kissed. Then we both cried and laughed again. And it was done. There we were, crouched on the wet sand in the rain, laughing, cuddling and kissing; a boy and a girl who had just promised to be with each other for the rest of their lives.

‘If you find the right woman, don’t muck around and waste any time, marry her.’ The advice of a father who’d pissed off many years ago.

When I was twelve years old we would sit as a family on the farm porch on a hot summer night. Khoa and I would be lying on the ground, letting the cold concrete cool our backs. Mum and Dad would be sitting on an old couch with Tram on Mum’s knee. Dad would have one arm around Mum’s shoulder, the other hand holding a beer. Mum would look up at the bright moon and recount stories of the old world.

‘Your father used to love moonlit nights.’

‘Why’s that, Mum?’

‘’Cos it’s easier to catch crickets when the moon’s bright.’ Catching crickets was one of the few pastimes my father and his brothers had growing up in a poor village.

‘Your dad was the best catcher of crickets in the whole district.’

We’d heard this story countless times but we still loved it, so we asked the question we all knew he was waiting for: ‘What was the secret, Dad?’

He grinned. ‘They come out of their dirt hole… when you piss into it.’

Khoa, Tram and I would laugh like he had just told the best joke in the world.

‘You don’t like moonlit nights any more, do you?’ Mum said as she ran her hand through my dad’s thick, wobbly hair (which she loved to do).

‘No,’ Dad said, going a bit quiet like he was remembering something. ‘Moonlit nights were when they dropped the most bombs.’

He’d take a big gulp of beer, kiss Mum on the forehead and pull her closer. Then he’d turn to us and say, ‘If you find the right woman, don’t waste any time, marry her.’