by Kris Webb
‘Fine,’ she said frostily as she replaced the bag on the floor, and I cursed myself for having managed to get her offside before we’d even left the ground.
Balancing Sarah on one knee, I rummaged around in the bag with my spare hand to try to find all the things I might possibly need. Karen had told me that feeding a baby during takeoff and landing was the best way to avoid a screaming session caused by the pressure on their ears, and I’d spent the whole day working towards timing Sarah’s feed for takeoff. Thankfully, we left on schedule and Sarah fed happily during the whole process, only finishing as we levelled out and the seatbelt sign was switched off.
I decided that I could no longer ignore Sarah’s nappy and, standing up, grabbed my bag from the overhead locker where the flight attendant had put it just before takeoff, after very pointedly asking me if I had finished with it. Sarah, the bag and I just fitted through the narrow toilet door and I pulled down the baby change table that hinged onto the wall over the toilet and laid Sarah across it. After changing her nappy, I tried to figure out exactly how I could go to the toilet myself, given that the change table would have to be folded up, which meant that I would have to hold Sarah at the same time.
IQ tests have never been one of my favourite things, but after a couple of minutes pondering the situation, I managed to figure out a way to execute the manoeuvre, discovering as I did so the evolutionary reason why women’s ligaments and joints become looser during pregnancy. It is not to facilitate childbirth, as is commonly believed, but actually to enable a woman to perform the otherwise physically impossible act of going to the toilet in an aeroplane cubicle with a baby in her arms.
By the time I returned to my seat, a flight attendant had hooked a baby bassinette onto the bulkhead in front of my seat. I settled Sarah into it and, to my delight, the hum of the plane and the vibrations seemed to soothe her, as she immediately closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Resisting the urge to high-five the flight attendant walking past, I instead took two of the Hong Kong immigration forms she was distributing. The ‘occupation’ section on the form gave me some problems. There was no way that I could see to fit ‘I used to be a high-powered executive but am now caring for my daughter and investigating business opportunities,’ into the space for twelve characters. After chewing the end of my pen for a few minutes, I became aware that the man next to me was peering at my form, obviously trying to figure out what was causing me so much trouble. Reminding myself that the Hong Kong immigration officials weren’t going to be making judgments on my lifestyle choice, I quickly wrote ‘mother’, before signing the form and putting it away in my handbag.
After glancing through the entertainment section in the in-flight magazine, I decided that sleep was more important than having an uninspiring airline meal and watching a movie I didn’t want to see. I pushed my chair back, closed my eyes and drifted off, only dimly aware of the noise as the flight attendants served and collected drinks and meals.
When I heard Sarah’s rustling several hours later, the plane was dark and silent. I picked her up, fed her and laid her back down in her bassinette. She went to sleep and stayed that way until the rattle of the breakfast trolleys woke both of us an hour out of Hong Kong.
As I settled Sarah on my lap for her morning feed, I felt a lot of eyes on us. I looked up, expecting more of the malevolent stares from the evening before, only to see about ten beaming faces.
‘What a wonderful little boy,’ gushed the man sitting next to me, who had not uttered one word last night.
‘Thanks,’ I said uncertainly. ‘Although she’s actually a girl.’
‘Wasn’t he good during the night?’ added the woman across the aisle. ‘I didn’t hear a peep out of him.’
‘She’s a good sleeper,’ I said, emphasising the ‘she’. ‘Although this is her first plane trip, so I didn’t really know what to expect.’
‘Well, I think he is adorable,’ said a woman from the row behind who was peering over the seat at us.
I didn’t know what to make of all this. Last night Sarah and I were pariahs, and now, after she had slept all night, we were the best things since sliced bread. Sarah obviously felt the glare of all the attention and stopped feeding. As I sat her up, she vomited a full stomach of milk over herself, down the front of my shirt and into my lap. At least that got rid of the onlookers.
Blessing Karen, who had insisted that I take a change of clothing for myself as well as for Sarah, I squelched into the toilet where, after a few Houdiniesque contortions, I managed to get both Sarah and myself into clean outfits.
As I walked back to my seat the captain announced that we were commencing our descent. I’d been disappointed when I’d heard that the legendary descent into Hong Kong amongst apartment buildings and office blocks no longer existed as the airport had moved away from town, but the view I glimpsed was still magnificent.
My heart sank as I felt warm liquid seeping through the top of my trousers. I looked down to see that Sarah had managed to be sick again, this time only on me. Unfortunately, the contents of my bag did not stretch to two changes of outfits and I resigned myself to staying sodden until we reached the hotel.
It may have been the fact that I had a baby, or that I had borrowed Debbie’s matching luggage, but something obviously convinced the airport officials that Sarah and I weren’t drug traffickers. I suddenly felt very grown up as they nodded us through without any flicker of suspicion.
The train to the city was waiting as Sarah and I stepped onto the platform behind the arrivals area and it left as soon as I’d sat down. Within twenty-five minutes we were in the steamy heart of the city, and twenty minutes after that we were in our room at the Grand Hyatt.
Sarah fell asleep in the cot the hotel had provided and I decided to take advantage of the quiet and have a quick nap too. I’d arrived the day before the trade fair was to start, and so once Sarah woke we hit the streets.
People had told me that the thing which struck them first about Hong Kong was the smell of money. There were certainly a lot of different smells floating around as we joined the throngs on the footpath, although I wasn’t convinced that money was one of them. After spending a couple of minutes trying to figure out which side people walked on, I came to the conclusion there were no rules and just followed on the heels of the person in front of me. I was very thankful that I’d decided to put Sarah in her sling and so didn’t have to manoeuvre a pram through the mass of humanity on both sides of the street.
Sarah and I took the Star Ferry from Hong Kong Island across the harbour to the bustling madness that was Kowloon. Wandering through the maze of streets, I passed Chinese medicine shops with barrels of dried objects, the identity of which I could only guess at, and street markets selling haunches of meat, live fish and types of fruit and vegetables I’d never seen before.
When I felt hungry, I stopped for a bowl of noodles at a little shop I was sure I wouldn’t be able to find again even if I had a month to do so. My noodles were very tasty but I didn’t want to dwell too long on what was in them, having been unable to communicate at all with the man behind the counter and deciding that this was a time when ignorance was indeed bliss.
We went back to the hotel for a siesta and then, once rested, headed out again, catching a tram which climbed perilously up the side of the mountain just behind the business district to what was unimaginatively known as the Peak. The day was fine and clear and the view was amazing. Sipping a cappuccino on the balcony of a coffee shop at the top, I gazed down at the sprawl of the city at my feet and across the busiest harbour in the world to the rows of buildings on the other side, which were backed by a circle of blue mountains.
By the time I made it back to the hotel, fed and bathed Sarah and had a shower, it was seven p.m. and I was starving. While the thought of room service tempted me momentarily, I decided this was not an acceptable option in a new city and changed into a pair of black trousers and a tailored purple shirt. I pulled a little red
velvet dress – a present from Debbie – over Sarah’s head, ran a brush through my hair and together we headed out to see what Hong Kong had to offer at night.
The concierge told me that there was a bar on the top floor of the hotel and, on walking in, I saw that it had spectacular views. Sarah and I settled on a sofa right next to the double-storey plate-glass windows and I ordered a Bloody Mary from the hovering barman. This had always been my standard tactic whenever I found myself alone in a bar. Times had changed, though, and I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t look quite as sophisticated with a baby in a pram beside me.
I took a sip of my drink and settled back to admire the lights on the buildings ranged across the other side of the harbour. The trade fair started at nine in the morning and I decided that I would have a quick meal at one of the Chinese restaurants near the hotel and then go to bed early, so that I was prepared to deal with whatever faced me tomorrow.
My drink was almost finished when I heard a familiar voice behind me. ‘I need to see some ID for you ladies. We’ve had some reports that the blonde in the red dress is underage.’
I’d decided against calling David to tell him I would be coming to Hong Kong, thinking that to do so would look as though I was angling for an invitation to meet up (which, if I was honest with myself, would have been the truth). Since we’d arrived, I’d been half expecting to see him and I felt a leap in my stomach as I turned and saw him smiling down at me.
‘What are you doing here, Sophie? I thought Debbie was coming to the trade show.’
‘Believe it or not, Debbie broke out with chickenpox three days ago, so Sarah and I are her emergency replacements,’ I answered.
David laughed involuntarily and then stopped himself. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised. ‘Chickenpox isn’t funny. It’s just that it’s such an . . . unglamorous illness. I’ll bet that’s upsetting Debbie as much as the symptoms.’
‘You’re right,’ I smiled. ‘She’s convinced she caught it from her last store visit before she left Mr Cheapy. She said the place was full of mothers with snivelling babies and that she could just about feel the germs settling all over her.’
‘It’s a pretty big undertaking bringing Sarah all this way,’ said David. ‘Did she handle the flight all right?’
‘She slept the whole way. And we’ve had a great day today exploring the place.’
‘Oh, so you flew over last night, did you?’ he asked. ‘That explains why I didn’t see you on the plane. I caught the day flight up and just got here half an hour ago.’
David wouldn’t have seen us even if we had been on the same flight, I thought, sure that he would have been sitting at the front of the plane in business class, a respectable distance from the hordes crammed into economy. Figuring that pointing this out to him would only make me sound bitter and twisted, I decided to let it slide.
‘Would you like to stay for a drink? I can vouch for the Bloody Marys,’ I suggested, my voice sounding a lot more casual than I felt.
‘Thanks for the offer, but I’m heading out for dinner with a supplier,’ he replied. ‘I just dropped in here to check out the view before I left. But do you have any plans for tomorrow night?’
‘Oh well . . . Sarah and I thought we’d have a bit of a girls’ night,’ I joked. ‘You know, drink some beer, do a couple of tequila shots, see if we can tag along with a hen’s party or two. The usual things.’
David laughed. ‘Delightful as that sounds, I do believe I have a better idea. Have you ever heard of Felix?’
I shook my head. ‘Only the cat.’
‘Felix is a restaurant on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. You shouldn’t die without visiting it. I actually wanted to go there tonight, but decided it would be wasted on the people I’m seeing. Now I’ve got the perfect excuse. Why don’t you come with me?’
His invitation caught me off-guard. ‘That sounds great,’ I replied impulsively.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised what a bad idea it was. Not only would it not work with Sarah, there was also the small matter of his girlfriend.
‘Sorry, David. I forgot for a moment that I’m a mother. From the sound of this place, Sarah’s presence would definitely not be cool. Maybe another time?’
‘Would you be happy leaving her with a baby-sitter here?’ David asked carefully. ‘I’d have my mobile phone so they could call us if there was any problem.’
Sarah slept from seven until early morning these days, so it was possible, but I didn’t think I could enjoy myself if I’d left her with someone I didn’t know when I wasn’t close by. My thoughts obviously showed on my face, as David spoke again while I was still choosing my words.
‘All right, here’s another option. Felix is in the Peninsula Hotel. What about if I speak to them about arranging a babysitter there?’
It sounded like the perfect solution. Pushing the girlfriend to the back of my mind (and the thought of how much a babysitter might cost in a town that charged fifteen dollars for a Bloody Mary), I smiled broadly. ‘That sounds great.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, looking at his watch as he stood up. ‘I’m late so I’ve got to go, but how about I pick you and Sarah up from your room tomorrow night at, say, seven?’
‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘We’re in room 1708.’
‘I think you and I have a date for tomorrow night,’ I whispered to Sarah as I watched David walk out of the bar towards the lifts.
TWENTY
The Hong Kong Convention Centre, which the hotel information pack told me had been built to celebrate the handover of Hong Kong from the British to the Chinese, protruded out into the harbour, its sail-like roof reminding me very much of the Sydney Opera House.
Just what kind of celebration they’d had in there I didn’t know. But as I gazed at the huge windows which stretched up to the ceiling at least ten metres above my head, and the expanse of building stretching out in front of me, I figured that they should have been able to invite most of the Hong Kong population.
My assumption that the gift trade show would be the only thing on at the convention centre was obviously way off and I paused in front of a board listing the huge number of events taking place that day. After figuring out where I had to go, I followed the signs and pushed the pram onto one of the many escalators and along the length of one of the floors. Stopping on the way, I gazed out of the windows across the choppy harbour towards the buildings of Kowloon, which were only just visible through a soupy kind of mist, which I hoped was fog but suspected was actually smog.
A huge plastic banner stretched over a double doorway proclaimed the ‘10th Gift Trade Show’. Debbie had already paid the registration fee, and after stopping at the registration booth to pick up my ‘Debbie Campbell’ name tag, I pushed Sarah towards the entrance. As I walked through the doors I stopped dead in my tracks. The flow of people entering the room parted around me and continued on, leaving us in the middle of a moving sea of people.
I hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t acres of booths crammed with samples of merchandise. From where I stood I could see displays of everything from gift boxes to porcelain figurines, and the rows of plywood stalls continued both to my left and right as far as I could see. The noise echoing through the room wasn’t the cacophony that accompanied all the retail markets I’d been to, but was a businesslike hum which rose to the ceiling high above, as vendors and potential purchasers discussed pricing, dimensions and shipping.
What was I doing here, I wondered suddenly. These people were traders who bought and sold products for a living. I was a mother who had pipedreams of making money some other way than by sitting in an office for forty hours a week. The obstacles of sourcing a product and shipping it to Australia, which had seemed manageable in my lounge room, now looked insurmountable.
Conscious that I was standing in the main thoroughfare, I pushed Sarah towards the edge of the room and stood with my back to the wall, surveying the people striding purposefully past me. All m
y excitement at being in a new city had vanished and I wished fervently that it was me in Sydney with chickenpox and Debbie standing here. At the thought of Debbie, though, I felt a surge of confidence. She was one of these people and she believed we could make a success of this deal. I’d come halfway around the world to find what we wanted, and standing meekly in a corner wasn’t going to achieve anything.
Debbie had marked the trade show map, sent with the registration details, with the location of the vendors who sold the covers we were interested in. Orienting myself, I turned left and then headed down the third row on the right. Sarah and I attracted a lot of curious looks, but I concentrated on looking at the stalls we were passing, determined to look confident even if I didn’t feel it.
It quickly became obvious that the vendors were arranged into groups of related products. I passed a series of stalls that held stickers of all sizes and types, which appeared to be designed to cheaply brand products. Following on from them were stalls displaying piles of boxed stationery. Towards the end of the aisle I spotted what I’d been looking for – silk-covered books of all shapes and sizes. Taking a deep breath I headed to the stall closest to me.
An hour later I reached the last stall to hear the same thing the other seven vendors had said to me. Yes, they would love to manufacture four thousand books for the lady with the lovely little boy. But the suggestion that they could be finished and ready for shipping to Australia in six weeks was absolutely hilarious.
Even my desperate suggestion that maybe we could discuss a fee for a rush order proved useless. It seemed that Thai silk books were in huge demand and producing anything this side of Christmas would be impossible. The feeling in the pit of my stomach which had started when the first vendor laughed at my proposed timetable had become progressively heavier. By the time I heard the note of incredulity in the voice of the man in the last stall as he explained my proposal in Thai to his colleague, I felt physically sick.
