Water Lily (18 page)

Although he wasn’t happy, he knew he had done the right thing. He’d stepped forward, reclaimed her, and taken her away. She
was sleepy. Now that he thought about it, she always seemed sleepy. But she was happy enough to walk with him. She was there,
breathing gently and sweetly as they moved from one side of the boat to the other.

Then she had done something strange. A good thing, he had no doubt, but surprising. She showed him where she slept on the
tatami. As she talked, she stared ahead, expressionless and vacant. She looked just like the girl in the department store
elevator. He reached out to touch the place on the tatami where her body would lie. He wanted to know how it felt, wanted
to connect with her sleep. And when his fingers were creeping close to the fair hairs on her calf, she looked right into his
eyes and smiled. She was beautiful. Her eyes grew wider as he looked into them. Her skin glinted and he just wanted to touch
her cheek, to cup her face in the palm of his hand and hold it. He sat beside her and immediately his whole head began to
itch. She said the tatami was very clean, but it must have been full of dust or mites. Within seconds his eyes were streaming
and he was sneezing and snorting. He groped in his pockets for a hand-kerchief but couldn’t find one. He was sure she would
be disgusted and turn away, undoing all his work. But Nanao produced a soft white handkerchief, silently held it over his
nose. He wanted to take it from her but was too confused and did nothing. She gave his nose a gentle squeeze and wiped away
the snot. She smiled at him. He stared back, shocked.

He couldn’t remember what had happened to the hankie. He knew that he had said goodnight in a voice so low it didn’t sound
like his own. Her touch had left him trembling. But he felt strangely healed and warm, so he asked her to say goodnight in
Japanese. She whispered it in the doorway.
Oyasuminasai
. Almost touching his cheek with hers.

He dreamed of taking her home and putting her in his house. He would make her a princess. He’d show her off to people in the
streets and take her shopping for pretty clothes. Barry would have to eat his words. Now that he almost had her, he was a
little scared. She was the girl he had been looking for all along; what if he did something wrong? He remembered her smile,
her fingers tenderly on his nose. He was doing as well as he could, so he must make himself enjoy it.
Wait till you see me, Barry. Wait till you see me
.

Look, Ralph had said to his half-brother before he left England. It was early in the morning, and Barry was making toast in
the kitchen. Barry had come over for the weekend so that Ralph could show him what needed doing while he was away. They’d
played in the garden with the hose, examined the window locks. Then they had watched a couple of videos and had some beers.
Now they were both a little hung-over.

Ralph showed his brother a photograph.

“It’s my fiancée,” he said. “We’re getting married.”

Barry turned toward him, took and scrutinized the picture.

He looked as if he was searching for something polite to say.

“What’s her name?”

Ralph took this as a possible sign of approval. “Li Hua. I’m meeting her in Shanghai. We’re going to spend some time together.
And then we’ll get married, as soon as we can.”

“Are you in love with her?” Barry peered through his straggly bangs, ready to disapprove.

“Very much so. Well, I suppose I don’t know for certain.”

“You don’t know?” Barry stuck a knife into the toaster to pull the toast out.

“That’s dangerous. Turn it off first. I haven’t met her yet.”

“Oh.”

“I found her on the Internet. It wasn’t just that I found the first one I could, you know. I looked at others. I’m going to
meet a few in Japan, but I liked the sound of Li Hua too.”

“You found her on the Internet?”

“And she’s the one.”

Barry’s face showed nothing at all. It was a shame. Ralph had hoped to impress Barry, make him a little jealous. Maybe somewhere
behind that greasy hair he was impressed. It was impossible to tell with Barry.

He pointed at Li Hua’s face. “Is she pretty?”

Barry was surprised. “Why are you asking me?”

Ralph shrugged. “I don’t like looking at the picture. I can see what she looks like while I’m looking at it, and then I forget
what she looks like straight away. I don’t want to know what she really looks like until we meet. She’ll be at the port waiting
for me. Love at first sight.” And then he was mortified for saying,
love at first sight
.

“I see.”

“So, is she pretty?”

Barry tilted his head to one side.

“Is she?”

“She looks like a man.” He had already put the picture down and was looking out at the garden. “You want to get that garage
door looked at before you go.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Sorry, but it could come off in a storm.”

“No. Don’t say that my fiancée looks like a man.”

“I’m not saying she’s unattractive. It isn’t that, but she looks like a man. See for yourself.”

“No. That’s very unkind of you.”

He thought of the transvestites in Bangkok. Could Li Hua be a man? But what would be the point of a transvestite wanting to
marry him? For his money, perhaps, or his British citizenship?

“It’s up to you. You asked my opinion. Aren’t you having any breakfast?”

“Yes. I am. I’ll get something now. I’m not that bothered about the garage.”

He was confused. He returned the photograph to his wallet. Of course, if Li Hua did look like a man she couldn’t be a transvestite.
The point about transvestites, he reminded himself, was that they looked like, very much like women, more so than many women,
particularly the ones Barry tended to go out with. Barry was probably jealous that he hadn’t thought of doing this. His girlfriend,
Meg, was a bus driver, of all things, and expected Barry to arrange his life around hers. Barry never seemed to mind, but
he must have felt a pang seeing Ralph preparing to fly off to bring back better things.

“What did happen to Apple?”

“She went back to Thailand. I told you at the time. I still haven’t heard anything from her.”

“Why’d she do that? What did you do?”

“Me? I brought her here, gave her a house and home, a new life. That’s what I did.”

“All sounds perfect. But she went off, just like that.”

“She was homesick.”

“You could have gone to Thailand.”

“Come on. Why would I want to live there? You know what I’m like in the heat, and mosquitoes love me.”

Barry rolled his eyes. “OK. But she could have gone back to visit and still lived here. Homesickness seems a very small reason
to end a marriage.”

“For your information, culture shock is a very serious thing. People have breakdowns, commit suicide, all kinds of things,
from culture shock. But it wasn’t just that.” Ralph concentrated on finding plates and knives. He took them carefully from
the cupboards and placed them on the table, keeping his back to Barry. “If you really want to know, Apple had an affair. We
broke up over it and she left.”

“Who with?”

“I don’t know. I just know she had one. She told me about it.”

“That doesn’t sound nice. Sorry.”

“Not your fault. I made her pack her bags and leave. I don’t know what happened to her after that. That’s why it’s taken so
long to get the divorce. That’s why I’m going to marry Li Hua and why I’d like some support.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Good.”

“But still. You don’t want to rush into anything.”

“I know that. I’ve been going very slowly with Li Hua.”

“You don’t know her.”

“But I soon will. Don’t worry. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

And while Li Hua was certainly something better, there was no doubt that she was not the best possible.

Nanao. What was it about the way she said her name? It sounded strange, too emphatic, as if she expected you to disagree.

Still, he didn’t know if he could trust her yet.
Steady now. Remember Apple
. She may be manipulating him, somehow. He didn’t know how, but he felt her control over him like little wires being pulled.
It could be love and it could be that she was another Apple. You could never tell.

He found himself standing, putting on his shoes, stepping out of the cabin. He had no idea where he was going.

Wu was passing with Mei Ling at his side. He saw Ralph and caught his sleeve.

“Hello, Ralph. Go outside. You can see dolphins.”

“Pardon?”

“In the sea. Go and look. You’d better hurry”

The sea today was a soft blue sheet. Ralph scoured the water with his eyes until he thought he would pierce it. And then he
saw the dolphins, close behind the ferry. Wet and rubbery they jumped and slipped between the waves. Water flicked from their
tails. Ralph would have loved to touch one. He felt he could just climb over the boat’s side and walk over to them. He tried
to count them but they moved too fast.

His mother always said that when she watched a ballerina or a gymnast, as long as she kept still she found herself believing
that she could leap as high, turn as fast. She believed that whatever they could do, so could she. Ralph had never understood.
He knew what his body would and wouldn’t do. But now he watched the acrobatics on the sea and believed he could swim through
the waves, twist and turn gracefully, swim forever with-out being tired or needing a destination. The water was so peaceful.
He would sketch the scene but not yet. He would watch until the dolphins were out of sight and later see if he could capture
them on paper. He thought that perhaps he could.

It wouldn’t hurt to try to be a little more like his mother, from time to time. She was always looking for things that charmed
her and was beautiful herself. She encouraged Ralph to draw pictures, though he never thought they were much good. She traveled
all over Europe to paint and sketch, skip-ping off with Ralph’s stepfather, and leaving Ralph at home with Barry. He hated
it when they returned, full of their trip, full of their love for each other. Ralph and Barry could only watch. She was too
distant from them; they couldn’t touch her. She would have loved the dolphins, though.

Nanao had appeared beside him. From nowhere, like a scrap of paper blown over by the breeze, she was there. She edged for-ward
until she was standing in front of him, not quite touching. Ralph smiled to himself. He put one arm on the boat’s railing
so that it was almost around her, then waited as she moved closer. There were inches between them, but somehow he could feel
her, the shape of her body against his. He tried to keep his breathing steady. He needed to keep this moment in his grasp.
She twisted around and looked up at him.

“Very beautiful,” she said.

And he took her hand. The previous night when he saw her hand, it had been cold and stiff. Today her skin radiated golden
warmth. He felt the liquid wrinkles on the insides of her knuckles, rubbed his thumb gently across her palm. His heart was
drumming fast. Now that he had her hand he was not sure what to do next. Imagine if he could have made such a move with the
girl in the elevator. Nanao simply stood there, allowing him to hold her. She was so demure, so quietly there. She was waiting
for him to speak first, and he must. He must say something, anything.

“I think it’s called a pod.”

“Pardon?” She opened her eyes wide, waiting to be taught. “A group of dolphins like this is called a pod. A pod of dolphins.”

She nodded and turned back to the water, a gentle smile on her lips. “You know many things.”

An hour later he was sitting on his bed, still glowing. Sam was not there. Ralph was saying her name, again and again, trying
to say it the way she did. There was something so odd and mysterious in the way she said,
My name is Nanao
. He took off his glasses to rub his nose and as the cabin went into a fog he suddenly saw something clearly. She was lying.
Her name was not Nanao. She was someone else. The reason it sounded strange when she gave her name was that she was pretending
to be someone called Nanao. But why would she need to lie about her first name with strangers she’d never see again? It didn’t
make sense.

K
araoke. Would you believe it, Nanao? Here on the boat.
Runa talked aloud to her reflection as she brushed her hair be-fore bed. Her eyes, usually perfect cut jet, were black and
blurry, as if painted into her face by a child. Her lips were uneven. But how could she have stopped herself singing, drinking
too much? She wanted to have fun.

She splashed her face with water, glanced back at her eyes but couldn’t hold her reflection still. It reeled and wobbled.
She cleaned her teeth and sat on the edge of the tatami to dry her face. Two young women were already sleeping. Both were
face down so all Runa could see was tangled black hair on the white pillows. They were images of her sleeping self. A middle-aged
woman entered, nodded, and then began to undress and change into flowery pyjamas. Runa scratched her leg. Something had bitten
her. There were small spots of blood on her ankle.

She crawled under the top futon, curled up in the soft cotton. Her head was heavy and sank deep into the pillow. She shut
her eyes and felt as if she were spinning. She had no sense of the boat’s rocking, only her own. She rolled onto her side.
at had happened tonight? Bits of the conversations were coming back while others had disappeared. at if the pieces that wouldn’t
come back were the important ones? She knew that he’d asked her to marry him and somehow, in the idiotic language they were
speaking, she had said yes. It was what she had wanted. She could trust no one who might have followed her from Japan. The
heron, though, was safe.

She had gone to the bar hoping that she would find someone to talk to, but not the old woman. The ceiling was dotted with
spotlights and the room was sparkly. It didn’t seem like a room on a ferry. Small snatches of sea showed through gaps between
the curtains, but as if on a flickering film projection. They weren’t real. Runa stepped forward, looking for a face she recognized.
There were fifteen or twenty people in pairs and groups at the small tables. All the faces were new and yet all were familiar.
Runa felt she almost knew them and might have passed some on buses, in shops. She might have been to school with them, but
they weren’t quite familiar enough to be sure, to be able to walk up to any particular table and say hello. She had a feeling
that everything was changing, and that was good, but when you were traveling, when you were surrounded by strangers, it was
hard to make a decision and measure it against the backdrop of ordinary life. The backdrop wasn’t there.