Crimson China (13 page)

He finds it difficult to think of Angie and Jin in the same moment, as if the presence of one somehow erases that of the other. His affair with Jin had been deeply physical at first. After months of privation during the long journey overland, his need for a woman was all-consuming, and he indulged himself greedily. She too had seemed inexhaustible in her desires, and he wondered at the time if she would have behaved the same way at home. Perhaps, he had thought, coming to England had set her free from the constraints of their culture, a culture that still prized virtue and modesty for unmarried females.

But after a few months, the flame that had consumed them gradually burned low, and for Wen at least, extinguished itself. He sensed that it was the same with her, though she refused to admit it. Those last few weeks, her lovemaking developed an angry edge. One morning shortly before he left, he woke to find that she had bitten him the night before: he lay in silence next to her and examined her toothmarks on his arm. It seemed to him the marks were not emblematic of her love, but of her bitterness. He was
slipping away from her, even while she lay in his arms, and she knew it.

The day he told her he was leaving, she had been strangely calm. She sat at the small metal table in her room and smoked a cigarette while he spoke, exhaling through her nose. But when she leaned forward to tap the ash into a chipped mug in front of her, he saw her hand tremble ever so slightly. By then he had already begun to store his savings in her account, and she agreed to allow him to continue. That he trusted her completely with his money was implicit, and she lived up to his belief in her, keeping meticulous accounts of their respective savings over the ensuing months. He sent her emails whenever he made a deposit in her name, and he always received a polite, but brief, acknowledgement. He called her only twice after leaving London, both times within the first month. After that he sent only the occasional email, mostly to let her know he was moving on.

Now he looks over at the phone on Angie’s counter. He pictures himself dialling, and tries to imagine the sound of Jin’s voice on the other end of the line, but he cannot. How could a simple piece of plastic reach across the two halves of his life, from the past into the present, from death by drowning to life in Angie’s house? Instead, he goes and finds his coat and shoes, takes some change from a bowl in the kitchen, finds a spare set of keys, and for the first time since the accident, ventures out alone.

He walks towards the coast, knowing instinctively which direction to turn, for one thing cockling has taught him is how to smell the ocean. Though he grew up some eighty kilometres from the Bohai Sea, he had not set eyes upon it until he was ten, when he stowed aboard a lorry bound for the port city of Tanghai. The lorry was driven by an old school friend of his stepfather’s, who had stopped by on his way through town. The two men had sat reminiscing for an hour in the front room, and Wen had been sent out to buy a large bottle of beer and a bag of sunflower seeds from
a nearby stall. Later, Wen overheard the man say he was bound for the coast, so he crept out to the lorry and hid beneath a pile of burlap sacking. Two hours later, when the red-faced driver found him stowed away, the man swore and clouted him so hard about the ear that it did not stop ringing for the entire journey home. Upon his return, Wen’s stepfather had given him a second beating. But later that night, his stepmother had quietly placed a bowl of dumpling soup in front of him in reconciliation. She sat down opposite him with a troubled look.

“Were you running away?” she asked.

Wen shook his head. “I wanted to see the ocean,” he explained.

She sighed then and he could sense her relief. “And did you?” she asked.

“No. At least, I don’t think so. We stopped at the municipal docks. I saw only buildings, and grey water.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wanted to get to Beidaihe. To the place where Chairman Mao had his villa by the sea.”

“Ah. Beidaihe is further north.”

“They say the beaches there are made of golden sand. And the rocks along the shore are shaped like crouching tigers.”

“That is what they say,” she mused.

“Have you been?”

“No. I haven’t had that pleasure.”

“I’m sorry if I disgraced you.”

“To long to see the ocean is no disgrace.” She smiled at him, as if she knew that he was destined to go, as if her hold on him was only brief. “Perhaps you saw more than you realised,” she added. She patted his hand then and stood, carrying his empty bowl to the sink. At the time he was uncertain of her meaning, but the words stayed with him long after.

Now Wen carries on walking towards the coast, where he knows there will be a high street and shops, and hopefully an internet café. Angie has no computer at home, a fact which surprised him at first, as he’d assumed every English household would have one. But he has come to understand that Angie defies normality in more ways than one, and now nothing about her would faze him.

It takes him longer than he expected to reach the sea. When the vast grey waters of the bay finally appear, he stops dead. The stench of briny air is overwhelming, clogging his lungs. He stands motionless, his eyes fixed on the white caps in the distance, the memories of that night flooding back. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come, he thinks. Perhaps he will never be able to face the sea and its ghosts again.

He does not know how long he remains there, standing on the pavement. An old man walks by, his back hunched with age, but does not appear to notice him. It is only when the purple light of dusk begins to settle on the bay that Wen turns and heads north along the coast road, heading for the high street. He walks for several blocks without success, until he eventually decides to enter an empty shop selling flowers to enquire. He rehearses the words in advance but still panics when he utters them. The shopkeeper, a barrel-shaped woman in her late fifties, frowns with incomprehension. But after three tries her eyebrows lift knowingly, and she directs him further into town.

Fifteen minutes later, he finally reaches the internet café. The neighbourhood looks familiar, and the idea that he may stumble upon his former co-workers, or even worse, his gangmaster, preys upon him. He has worn the red woolly hat as a kind of protection, but however much he wishes, it will not make him invisible.

The café has a small scattering of young people. He pays a bearded cashier for a half-hour and finds a monitor at the back. But once seated, he is reluctant to continue. He had not thought this far ahead, had not considered what sequence of words he
should write to bring about the truth. He sits for ten full minutes without touching a single key. A thin-faced youth at the back coughs and looks pointedly in his direction: Wen does not know how to decipher the young man’s glance. Is it sexual or racist or merely bored? He has no idea, and suddenly he has never felt more foreign than he does right now in this room full of English people.

He takes a deep breath and logs onto his email. A rash of messages come through, one by one. He scans them quickly, reading past what is mostly rubbish. His eyes alight on one near the bottom. It is from Jin, and when he clicks on the message, three words come up. The message says simply:
Is it true
? It is dated four days after the accident. He sits and stares at the words for a long time. In her knowing way, Jin has seen right through his deception. And for the first time, he feels truly ashamed. He should have died out there that freezing night, along with all the others. The answer to Jin’s email should be yes.

But it is not, so he sets about composing a reply. It takes him several attempts. By the time he is finished, the bearded cashier is glancing repeatedly in his direction, for he has overrun his half hour by five minutes. He takes one last look at the message and hits the send button, then rises and walks out of the café without a backwards glance. Suddenly, and without fanfare, he is back among the living.

He walks home slowly, pondering his options, and it is already dark when he finds his way back to Angie’s house. He comes through the front door and she is there, seated on the sofa, her features rigid. Her hands are wrapped tightly around a glass, and when he steps into the room, one glance is enough to tell him he has erred. He stops short and their eyes meet across the silence. He sees her chest rise and fall, and sees her swallow with relief.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I go out.” He motions with a thumb towards the outside.

“Yes,” she replies, her voice unnatural, as if she is squeezing the word out of her throat.

“What time is now?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter.” She sets the glass down carefully on the table in front of her and rises. He takes a step forward but the chunky wooden coffee table is still between them, preventing him from taking her in his arms the way he knows he should. Instead, he extends a hand across to her, and she looks at it a moment before reaching out her own. He gives her fingers a reassuring squeeze, for in the absence of words, he must rely on touch. Finally he pulls her around the table to him and folds her closely into an embrace. He can smell the whisky on her, mixed with her own scent, and he wonders whether she will ever be free of drink.

“You went out,” she says accusingly, her voice a low growl laced with humour.

“Yes,” he whispers into her hair.

“I thought you’d gone,” she adds. This time the humour is gone, and her voice has thinned.

“No,” he says.
I would not leave you
, he thinks.
Not like that
.

The day after she has dinner with Adrian and May, Lili moves out of Jin’s bedsit in Hounslow. That afternoon, Lili is packing her things when Jin returns from the language school. When Lili tells her where she is moving to, Jin raises her eyebrows.

“You work fast,” she exclaims. “Don’t tell Fay,” she adds, flopping onto the bed and kicking off her shoes.

Lili pauses and looks over at her.“Why not?”

“She doesn’t like it when we fraternise with students.”

“I’m not fraternising,” says Lili defensively. “I’m tutoring his daughter.”

“Whatever,” Jin shrugs. “Sounds like it’s the dad who wants tuition,” she adds suggestively.

“It’s not like that,” replies Lili. “The girl is Chinese. Like us. But she’s confused.”

“And you’re going to rescue her?”

“She doesn’t need rescuing. She needs –”

Lili stops short, unwilling to continue. What May needs, of course, is mothering. But she daren’t say that to Jin. And anyway, that is far more than she is in a position to provide. “I don’t know what she needs,” she says finally. “But I can teach her about her culture. And help her make sense of who she is.”

“If she was raised
here
, by an English father, and speaks only
English – then English is her culture,” says Jin staunchly. “She’s certainly not Chinese.”

“Well she can learn,” says Lili.

Jin snorts. “Some things can’t be taught. Anyway, better you than me. I get my fill of English kids at school.”

Lili looks up from her suitcase, surprised by her friend’s tone. Jin does not meet her gaze, but rises from the bed and crosses over to the kettle, filling it with water. Lili closes the lid of her suitcase and locks it. She suspects that Jin is secretly envious of her good fortune: to be given free housing in a nice part of London is not a small thing and Jin knows it. When she has finished packing, Lili arranges her bags by the door and puts on her coat. She wants desperately to ask Jin about the letter beneath the bed, but cannot bring herself to. Perhaps later, she decides. When they are no longer on top of one another. She turns to go and Jin stops her.

“Hey,” says Jin. “Those things I said the other night… about Wen.”

“It’s okay,” says Lili quickly.

“No. I shouldn’t have said it. I was angry. Wen loved you. He would never have done anything to put you in danger.”

Lili stares at Jin. Though she knows this in her heart, a part of her feels enormously relieved.

“Wen and I spent the first nine months of our existence wrapped in each other’s arms,” she says slowly. “I used to think that we could never be separated.” She pauses, choosing her words with care. “Now I know that I was right. Because a part of me died with him that night.”

Jin stiffens. She gives a small shake of her head.

“You’ve lost a great deal, but you are stronger now than you were, Lili. Believe me. In that sense, Wen did you a favour.”

“By dying?” Lili’s voice is incredulous.

Jin opens her mouth to speak, then decides against it. Lili waits
for her to say something. The kettle boils and Jin reaches for it, filling a mug with hot water. “He would not wish you to feel this way,” she says finally, her voice subdued.

“No,” replies Lili. “I suspect not. But it’s not for him to say any longer.”

Lili reaches down and picks up her bags. Jin looks up from the mug, and their eyes meet across the room.

“No,” says Jin.

“I’ll see you at school,” says Lili.

She takes the No. 237 bus to Sheep Pen, then changes onto a 94 for Notting Mountain. As she is struggling to lift her enormous suitcase onto the second bus, her phone rings in the pocket of her coat. She lets it ring as she drags the case through the crowded bus, conscious that her ring tone is drawing looks from those around her. It is Fei Xiang, a famous Taiwanese pop singer, and she had meant to change it after she arrived in London. She flops down into an empty seat, wedges the suitcase between her thighs, and pulls the phone out of her pocket just as it stops ringing. She sees that the caller is Johnny, and feels a surge of relief that she has not answered it. She has not spoken to him since the night they slept together; indeed, she has tried to distance herself from the events of that night altogether. What she did was necessary; she knows that now. But it does not make her feel proud.

The thought of seeing him again makes her feel slightly ill. For most of her life she has believed that sex takes place at the end of a relationship, as a culmination, rather than at the outset. Given that she and Johnny have already slept together, she is confused and completely ignorant about what should happen next. Furthermore, she isn’t even certain what she
wants
to happen. Fragments of that night float back to her: the tangled pale green bedding in the dim light of Johnny’s room, the pile of dirty dishes stacked up in the sink, the circle of male faces reflected in the glow
of the TV set. She does not think she can face these things again.

When she arrives at Adrian’s house, it is empty. He has given her a key and permission to move in at her leisure. Adrian is at work and May has gone to a friend’s house after school, so Lili has time to organise herself before their return. Still, she enters the hallway feeling as if she is trespassing, and at once wonders whether she has made a mistake. Will she ever feel at home here?

She pulls her bag into the hallway and takes off her coat. In the corridor are photos of Adrian’s wife, Sian. Lili had not wanted to dwell on them the other evening, but now she bends down and peers at the woman in the photos. She is thin-faced and pale, with sandy brown hair and a longish nose. Attractive, decides Lili, but not beautiful. Her eyes, surrounded by a web of faint lines, look directly at the camera in an unnerving fashion. As if she is privy to some knowledge that Lili does not have. In the other photo she holds the baby May up next to her. May wears the startled look of an infant – her mouth an open circle, as if she is surprised to find herself in the arms of this pale stranger – while Sian’s expression radiates a complex mixture of happiness and something else. Lili stares at the photo, trying to comprehend the other emotion in her eyes: is it relief, perhaps? Or fear?

The room upstairs is just as she remembered: small but cosy. A room she can definitely colonise. She sets about unpacking her things, storing her clothes in the chest of drawers and stowing her small collection of books upon the bedside table. She has brought few mementoes with her from home: a small framed photo of Wen and a beautifully bound volume of Chinese poetry he gave her on the occasion of their twenty-first birthday. She places the photo atop the chest of drawers, alongside Wen’s book of poetry, just as she hears Adrian and May returning below.

Before she can go down to greet them, May comes rushing up the stairs breathlessly.

“You’re here!” She stops short and surveys the room with wide eyes.

“Yes, I am here,” Lili laughs.

“You don’t have very much stuff, do you?” May wrinkles her nose.

“No, I didn’t bring much from China,” concedes Lili. “Too much trouble.”

Just then Adrian appears in the doorway.

“Hello,” he says. “All moved in?”

“Yes.” Lili smiles at him, feels a slight sense of embarrassment as their eyes meet across the room.

“Who is this?” asks May. They both turn to see her standing by the chest of drawers pointing to the framed photo of Wen.

“This is my brother,” says Lili.

“Oh,” says May. “What’s his name?”

“His name is Wen.”

“Does he live in China?” Lili pauses, her eyes flickering to Adrian and back to May.

“He used to,” she says then. “But he died.”

May’s face falls. Lili has the sudden sense that unlike most children her age, May comprehends only too well the meaning of these words, and their terrible finality.

“Oh,” says May uncomfortably, her eyes sliding towards her father.

“May, why don’t you go take care of your homework before dinner” says Adrian. May nods and slips quickly out of the room, her relief evident. Adrian turns to Lili.

“I’m sorry. She finds it difficult.”

“Of course,” says Lili. “I understand.” W
ho among us does not
find it difficult
? she thinks. Adrian clears his throat a little awkwardly, but does not ask about Wen. Perhaps he too finds the subject difficult, she decides.

“I brought some pizza home for you and May. I was hoping you
might be able to watch her for a few hours this evening. I’m afraid a meeting came up unexpectedly.”

“Yes, of course,” says Lili quickly.

“You don’t mind? It’s very short notice.”

“No. It is fine.” Lili smiles reassuringly. They have not really discussed how her responsibilities with May will work on a day-to-day basis. But she is prepared to be flexible.

“It’ll give you a chance to get to know her a bit better. And anyway, I won’t be late.”

“Don’t worry,” says Lili. “May and I will be fine.”

Later, after they have eaten pizza, she and May sit at the kitchen table writing Chinese characters. Lili shows her how to write the word for woman, and explains that the character derives from a figure holding a broom horizontally in the air. May frowns at the drawing.

“A broom? Really?”

Lili nods. May screws up her face.

“It’s a bit… old-fashioned, isn’t it? A broom?”

Lili laughs.

“Mandarin is an ancient language, May. Five thousand years old.”

“Still,” says May doubtfully. “Couldn’t it have been a flower or something?”

“It could have been, but it wasn’t,” says Lili.

“Show me how to write
man
,” May says.

Lili sketches out the character, first drawing a square, then adding a cross inside.

“The top half is a field divided into four squares,” she explains. “The bottom bit is shaped like a tool used to dig the ground, and  that part means
strong
. A man must be strong to work on the land, so together these two make up the character
nan
, which means
man
.”

“I guess you don’t have to be strong to sweep,” says May.

“But it still doesn’t seem fair.”

“No,” agrees Lili. “Many things in life are not fair,” she adds, thinking briefly of Wen. As if reading her mind, May lays down her pencil and looks at her.

“I’m sorry your brother died,” she says solemnly. “Your mum and dad must have been sad.”

“Well,” Lili says. “They are dead too.” May’s eyes grow round.

“Are you an orphan?”

Lili hesitates. She does not think of herself as an orphan. But perhaps she should.

“You’re just like me! I’m an orphan,” adds May excitedly.

“But you have a father,” reminds Lili.

“But I was an orphan. Before. With my first family. Adrian got me from an orphanage.”

“Oh, yes. I see,” says Lili uncertainly.

“Adrian says he’ll take me there to visit one day. But I don’t know when.”

“To visit would be good,” says Lili.

“But I’d like to go to China with
you
.” May raises her eyes a  little shyly, then picks up the pencil and begins to sketch a person carrying a broom. “I mean, you speak the language and all,” she continues, not looking up. “Adrian would be pretty useless in China, wouldn’t he?”

“Many people learn English now in China. You and Adrian would be fine.”

“But people would talk to me in Chinese and expect me to understand,” says May, her face knit with concern.

Lili ponders the likelihood of this. May does look Chinese. “But they would know from your clothes that you are a foreigner,” she says finally.

May looks down at her school uniform and pulls a face.

“How?”

“They just would,” says Lili.

“Do they have school uniforms in China?”

“Yes, but different from yours. They are all the same colour: blue.”

May frowns, chewing on the end of her pencil.

“I like blue,” she says, as if colour is the only impediment.

Lili smiles. “Anyway, you will learn Chinese from me. So by the time you visit China, you will speak very well.”

“I guess so. Do you like
Friends
?” she asks, abruptly changing the subject.

“Of course. Everyone likes friends.”

“No, I mean the TV show. Adrian says I’m too young for it, but whenever he goes out and leaves me with a babysitter, we watch
Friends
. Adrian has the whole series on DVD.”

“I have seen it in China.”

“So? Can we watch some now?” asks May eagerly. She jumps off her chair, then pauses, eyeing Lili.

Lili is not a parent, and has no idea whether
Friends
is suitable for a child of May’s age. But she does not wish to anger her, so she reluctantly agrees.

Some time later, they are curled up on the sofa in the middle of their third episode when Lili hears the key in the front door. She moves to switch off the TV but May stops her.

“Don’t! It’s nearly over!” cries May.

Adrian appears in the doorway with a smile.

“Hey you two,” he says. He looks pointedly at May. “Bit late for you, isn’t it young lady?”