He dug into his shorts pocket and dropped into my hand a bunch of keys, attached to which was a red-cased penknife. The keys were warm, almost hot. The physics of it: the heat from the surface blood in his groin had heated the metal of the keys in his pocket, which in turn were now warming my palm. A chain of heat-agitated atoms.
He was reattaching the wheel to my bicycle, breathing hard as he turned the wrench. I examined the back of his neck and shoulders as I used the blade of his penknife to slice through the material of my skirt above my knee. ‘There!’ I exclaimed, balling up the ruined excess and chucking it into the bin.
He looked up, the wheel in place, and a rush of red fired his face. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘right. Looks OK. I mean it looks better like that, I think. I mean, I liked it before and everything but, you know, it’s good. Yeah. It’s great.’
I took the weight of the bike from him, balancing it against my leg. ‘Thank you so much for helping me. You were brilliant.’
He was sheepish, looking down at his feet, which he was shifting around on the pavement. ‘That’s fine. Anytime.’
There was a pause. Marcus scratched the back of his neck. I examined the plastic rimming of my bicycle seat.
‘So,’ I said eventually, ‘er…what are your plans for the summer?’
He pushed something up to my face and for a moment I didn’t recognise it.
‘Didn’t you have a look at this while I was gone?’ he was saying. It was the folder he’d left in my basket.
‘Er. No. What is it?’
He put it into my hands. I read the label on the front: ‘The Beaufort Chinese Architecture Grant’.
‘I’m off to Beijing tomorrow.’
‘Beijing?’ I repeated.
‘Yeah,’ his face was confused, almost apologetic, ‘I got this grant to go to China. To study…’ He was staring at me and seemed to lose his thread. I waited. He rubbed his thumb across his nose.
‘To study…?’ I prompted.
‘To study the processes of developing Chinese architecture. For three months. Initially. But then…’ he trailed off again, but rallied himself ‘…it could be extended. I don’t know.’
‘China,’ I declared loudly, as if preparing for a lecture on the subject. I swung my leg over the crossbar of my bike. ‘China,’ I repeated. ‘I see. Well.’ I was furious. I knew that. But I didn’t quite know why. All I did know was that I had to leave. Fast. Or I might do something embarrassing. Something I’d regret. ‘WellImustbeoffnow’ bye,’ I gabbled and leaned my weight on the pedal. The bike ground into movement agonisingly slowly.
‘Sinead,’ Marcus said, apparently alarmed that I was leaving, ‘wait a sec.’
The bike picked up momentum. I waved in what I hoped was a cheery, carefree manner as I swept away. ‘’Bye! Have the time of your life!’
By the time I reached the library, the bones of my fingers were hot and sweat itched at my hair.
Four, or maybe five days later the phone rang late at night. I wasn’t asleep but lying on my front on my bedroom floor reading a book I shouldn’t have been reading – a contemporary novel. Nothing to do with post-feminist readings of medieval literature. The phone rang, four, five, six, seven times. I propped myself up on my elbow and peered at my watch. Eleven forty-eight. I returned to my book. The phone carried on ringing. Where the hell were Kate and Ingrid? It was bound to be Kate’s boyfriend – an emaciated medic from Birmingham with a sparse goatee. After the fifteenth ring, I hauled myself to my feet, my finger still hooked into my place in the novel’s spine, and pulled open my door.
‘Bloody bastard phone, won’t be for me anyway, who rings this late anyway, bastard,’ I grumbled to myself, as I stomped down the stairs, slipping slightly in my socked feet. ‘Yes,’ I barked into the receiver.
‘Can I speak to Sinead, please?’
I frowned. Didn’t recognise the voice. The line blizzarded with static and distance. ‘Yes. Speaking.’
‘Oh. Hi. Sinead, it’s Marcus.’
I clutched my novel so hard my finger popped out of my page. I looked down at it in annoyance – I’d never find my place again now.
‘What?’ I said, bizarrely, then tried again: ‘Marcus. Where are you?’
‘I’m sitting in a small glass booth in the Friendship Store.’
‘The…?’ I shook my head, as if to try to understand what was going on. ‘I thought you were in Beijing.’
‘I am.’
‘But…’
‘The Friendship Store in Beijing.’
‘Oh. OK.’
‘It’s like a supermarket for foreigners.’
‘Right.’
There was a silence. I panicked, ran through the limited things I knew about China to think of a question to ask.
‘Sinead?’ said Marcus’s voice, from a huge distance.
‘Yes?’
‘I realised I never asked you what you were doing this summer.’
‘Huh? Oh. Staying here mostly. I’ve got work to do. You know – meetings to go to. Courses to prepare. That kind of thing.’
‘Well, I was wondering…I mean, you can say no if you want. You hardly know me and everything – I mean you don’t really know me at all. But,’ Marcus said with emphasis, as if gathering courage, ‘I just thought I’d call and see if you wanted to come out here to meet me.’
‘To China?’ I said. ‘You’re asking me to come to China?’
‘Er. Yes.’
I would later try to convince myself – and all my friends, and all my family – that I thought it over, that I considered it, that I understood and assessed and came to terms with all the problems of abandoning my life and plans to go travelling in a developing country with a man I hardly knew. But I didn’t.
‘Yes,’ I said instantly, ‘yes, I will.’
She leaps on to a chair and by the time he’s opening the door, she’s standing on the table. The door opens and there he is. Her initial impression is his tan – his skin has been turned a warm, even colour by the American sun – and he’s smiling. She wants to close her eyes, to still this moment, not let it pass, to let them wait there before they get their hands on each other.
He is laughing now at the sight on her on the table, slinging his backpack to the floor and coming towards her.
‘Wait!’ she cries. Marcus stops immediately. ‘I have something to show you.’
He smiles. ‘Do you want me to close my eyes?’
‘No.’
Slowly, slowly Sinead raises the hem of her dress. Centimetre by centimetre it creeps up over her thighs, the tops of her legs, her mound of Venus, her hipbones. She is wearing new black lace knickers. He watches, eyes fixed on her hem. Neither of them breathes. Finally, she stands with her belly button exposed.
They stare at each other. He puts out one foot, then another and another, coming towards her slowly across the floor. ‘You know what I think?’
‘What?’
He is in touching distance now. If he raised his arm, his fingertips would brush her skin. ‘I think that they look great, but there is one slight problem.’
She is covering her mouth with one hand now, suppressed laughter jamming up her throat. She knows what comes next. He is standing right in front of her now, looking up, his head on one side.
‘I’m not entirely sure that they fit you very well.’
‘Really?’ she says in mock-concern. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Yeah. I’m actually very worried. In fact,’ and he unfolds his arms and puts out his hand, ‘I think I may need to check.’ Very, very slowly, he puts his hand under the skirt at the back and rubs his palm over her left buttock.
‘Hmm.’ He frowns, puts out his other hand and runs both over her backside. The palms of his hands feel roughened and create a static frisson on the material. Sinead is holding her breath now. This is almost more than she can bear. ‘Well, they fit OK at the back, but what I’m more worried about is round the front. If I could just…’ He brings his hand up over her
hipbone and it inches down. ‘It’s here that really worries me. I’m just not sure if they fit here,’ and he plunges his fingers between the tops of her legs. Sinead gives a piercing shriek, Marcus buries his head between her legs, she leaps down on top of him, he grabs her round the waist. Entwined and paralysed with laughter, they crash backwards into the kitchen cabinet.
‘Ow,’ says Sinead, as their combined weight glances off her backbone, but it doesn’t really hurt because they are kissing and kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes. She has her legs wrapped round his waist and she is pulling at his hair and he is ripping down the straps on her dress and laughing and they are very good at this, very practised, their lips meet exactly and she remembers this even before she remembers remembering it. And all the time they are talking and the words come out a bit like this:
‘Oh, God…how was…the flight…hey, it’s so good…did you miss me…so good…this much…so good…I’m so glad…so good to see you…glad…those pants…you’re back…where did you…your hair…get them…it’s fab, I love it…it’s great, it suits…and the dress, are they…you…new…Sinead, oh, Sinead…you don’t look…are you hungry, are you…any different…jetlagged…God, I’ve missed…you smell the…you all the time…same, just the same…really?…my love, my love…you’re back…I’m back…you’re back…how was it…show me, tell…in New York…me everything you’ve done…did you take…since I went away…any photos…can’t believe you’re really…some, I’ll show you…back…later.’
I stepped off the boat on to the small, rotted wooden jetty. It swayed and buckled, and I had to bend my knees so as not to stumble. I wanted to take my rucksack off my back. The muscles in my neck and shoulders were stretched like cello strings, but I was too afraid to put it down.
Behind and ahead of me were other people who’d been on the boat with me: men carrying woven baskets filled with hens, a pig on a leash, women with bright bundles strapped to their back and babies with faces like pansy flowers, a boy with a tyre, women balancing on their shoulders poles weighted with water, vegetables, bales of cotton.
Everyone was shouting and pushing. And staring at me. On the boat, four women had sat themselves round me in a circle on the floor as if I was about to tell them a story. But instead they were contented just to stare – not aggressively. They smiled if I smiled at them. I tried looking out of the window, getting out my book, fiddling with the straps on my rucksack. But everything I did was of interest to them. Their curiosity was entirely open and, it seemed, insatiable. The language wasn’t as I had expected: it was soft, undulating, melodic, with lots of sh sounds and falling scales.
What I felt: tall. Sick from the boat. Afraid. Wet. Ungainly. Sweat down my back under my rucksack. A scratching in my throat as if I wanted to cough. Rich. Alone. My hair plastered to my head like seaweed.
What I could smell: riverwater. Boat diesel fumes. Animals. Feathers. Leather from my wet shoes. A milky, baby smell from the child in front of me. Woodsmoke. Damp soil.
Above me were towering columns of bamboo, creaking and bending in the wind, their ridged trunks the width of a man’s thigh. Ahead of me, beyond the muddle of people who’d got off the boat, was a dirt path. Beyond that, I could see the village – grey buildings and a paved, wide street. Marcus. Marcus was in that village.
I elbowed my way through the small crowd, shifting the weight of my rucksack further up on my shoulders.
I didn’t want to understand what the woman behind the blue-topped counter was saying.
‘Meyoh.’ She shrugged.
‘Emerson,’ I said clearly, ‘Marcus Emerson. Are you sure he’s not here?’
‘Meyoh-la. No here.’ She was wearing high-heeled turquoise wellingtons, I noticed, and a man’s suit jacket.
I looked down at the piece of paper I was clutching. ‘Traveller’s Guest House,’ I had written, ‘Yangshuo.’ I had written that just over two weeks ago while on the phone to Marcus. Only two weeks. ‘Fly to Beijing, then Guilin. Boat to Yangshuo.’ Confident, straight arrows between the words. ‘M will be checked into TGH.’ That meant Traveller’s Guest House. Where I was right now. And this woman was telling me he wasn’t here. I cleared my throat, felt again under my clothes for the pouch containing my money, passport and tickets. I had carried this scrap of paper all the way from the phone in my house.
‘Could I have a room anyway, please?’
I sat on the side of one of the double beds – the room, for some reason, had two. It sagged under my weight. It was a few moments before I remembered the weight on my shoulders, and eased off the straps, letting the bag fall backwards on to the bed. I stared around the room. Chicken wire covering a small space above the door. A red flask standing in an enamel basin decorated with orange fish. A small shadeless bulb beside the bed. Mosquito nets bunched up above the mattresses like great grey puffball mushrooms. The window smeary. The mountains beyond. The mountains. I hadn’t been able to believe what I was seeing as the boat wove up the river: vast, toppling, lumped rocks rearing up from the water, hung with mist. I’d always thought those Chinese silk paintings were of fanciful, mystical landscapes from the imagination of some artist. But they actually existed – weird, looming, almost top-heavy, planted into flat, river-threaded plains. Karst topography – the phrase, appearing unbidden in my head, thrown up from some distance geography lesson, surprised me. I smiled for a moment, then: he’s not here, I thought, he’s not here. Shit.
I woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. The cone of a muslin mosquito net surrounded me. It gave the room the kind of dim, nostalgic haze old romantic films had.
China.
I was in Yangshuo, China.
It was hot.
Marcus had promised he’d be here.
He wasn’t.
It was hot. Very, very hot.
I kicked off the heavy quilted bedcover, rushed to the window and yanked it open, gulping for air. But the air that met me was the same as that in the room – heavy, heated, moisture-filled. I was wearing just pants, I was vaguely surprised to notice. Had I pulled off my T-shirt in my sleep? Around the room were scattered the clothes I’d had on yesterday – jeans, trainers, socks, hooded jacket, vest. I was wearing those when I left my house, I thought.
I picked up my clock. Three twenty. I peered at it. Three twenty? Three twenty? Confused, I looked out of the window. Definitely daytime.
I stood in the centre of my doubly double-bedded room in my pants, uncertain, disorientated. I thought: I’ve travelled non-stop for thirty-eight hours. I thought: Antony gave me these pants. I thought: I’ve taken a break from my Ph.D. I thought: I’ve come all the way to China to meet a man I hardly know. I thought: He hasn’t turned up, maybe—–
Then, without warning, a wave of exuberance sent me skipping across the bare boards. I’m in China! China, for God’s sake! Who gives a shit about some unreliable man? I riffled through my bag, packed so carefully in Britain, tipping its contents out on to the floor, selecting a pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt. Must go out. Can’t lie about in here all day. He might arrive at any moment. Don’t want him to think I’ve been hanging around the hotel waiting for him.
I walked the streets of Yangshuo, Bicycles, tractors and things like big motorised lawn-mowers with seats slewed up and down the streets. I passed open-fronted shops crammed with tailored clothes, kettles, bright plastic buckets, farm tools, the pale globes of pomelos, electrical fuses, the hard, flinty green shapes of jade, stacks of red flip-flops, silk dresses. The women were ruddy-cheeked and dark-eyed, hair pinned up with coloured slides, dressed in navy Mao suits and high heels. The men didn’t look like they deserved them – sitting in glum groups, smoking and drinking tea from jam jars. Everywhere I went people stared and pointed or shouted, ‘Hello!’ or ‘Laowai, laowai!’
I scanned the groups of white westerners sitting around café tables. But no one even resembled him. Approaching the guest house, I had to slow my walk because moisture was crawling down my body like
insects. But the room was empty, the bed undisturbed, my clothes still in arcs where I’d left them.
I couldn’t sleep so later I went out again into the unlit streets, shiny after a quick rainstorm. I couldn’t remember the way to the river but followed the scent of its fecund dampness on the air. Down at the water’s edge the top of the thick vegetation shifted in the hot breeze. I rested on the backs of my heels, arms folded over my knees. I watched as narrow rafts of lashed-together bamboo came gliding over the surface of the blackened water. Three of them. A man stood at the back of each with a long pole like a gondolier’s; at the front sat a large woven basket. And around them, sleek-throated cormorants dipped in and out of the water.
The second day, I woke late again and lay for a while plucking at loose threads in the quilt, watching geckos dart across the ceiling. I ate in a café where I met two men from New Zealand. The three of us then went to a fan-maker’s and watched a boy of about sixteen paint blossom on to the sanded surface of the fan slats. I told them about the fishermen and they explained that the cormorants have rings around their throats to stop them swallowing the fish.
They were going to Xian next, they told me, to see an army of terracotta soldiers, each with a different face. Did I want to come? I shook my head. I can’t, I said, I’m waiting for someone. They nodded. As we parted, the taller one turned round to see me go.
The third day, I woke and my watch said only nine. I’d been dreaming about university and seminar preparation and the writing of my thesis. I got up immediately. I hired a bike, cycled out of the town along the dust road, which meandered between the bulk of the mountains, through glassy-surfaced paddy-fields, herds of crescent-horned water-buffalo, tiny villages where people would shout after me, amazed by this lone white woman on a bicycle. Away from the tourist zone of the town, people were living in shacks with animals, children worked in the fields, and ancient women hobbled on twisted, broken feet, carrying bundles of firewood.
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