It was truly awful. Everything and everyone was grey. I poked around the damp streets for a while until, by sheer good (or bad) luck I discovered what all the fuss was about. There was a chairlift.
Unable to resist I paid my extortionate 10 yuan and found myself bundled into a seat. It was an odd ride in that it only went up a slight incline but it must have covered half a mile of hillside. Even odder was the fact that I recognised most of the people coming towards me, heading back down. They were from the coach I’d taken from Chengdu to Chongqing to board the boat. One small child even smiled and waved so I grinned and managed a hearty ‘ni hao,’ grateful for some sort of human contact.
The chairlift led to a bizarre cross between a temple dedicated to the ‘black arts’ and a fun park. There were all sorts of ways to indulge a superstitious nature, and get seriously ripped off in the process, and a sprinkling of demonic-looking gods and goddesses, no doubt specially designed to frighten small children. I really didn’t know what to make of it at all. I couldn’t even work out if it was meant to be some sort of temple or a tourist place. I’ll probably never know.
I’ve set up camp on the small patch of deck outside our cabin. It’s a great example of Chinese tackiness. I really love the fluorescent green fake grass. Mr and Mrs F-P have gone up to the main cabin (with the bloody thermos!!) so I can sit and relax. There’s a real lack of colour on the river. The water itself is brown, slightly darker than a good cappuccino and similarly frothy in places. The small towns we’ve passed so far are all grey, so dark they’re black in places as though they’ve been carved out of coal. They are possibly the most depressing places I have ever seen.
I don’t know if it’s my surroundings or the strange isolation of living on a boat but something’s making me feel really low. I found myself staring at the cappuccino froth on the river and wondering if my life would be simpler if I threw myself in. I could just float, fat and waterlogged, down to Shanghai and out into the sea. Food for the fish. There’s a strange inertia about travelling by boat. The world seems to pass you by rather than the other way round and the society on the boat seems so self-contained and regulated. There are the honeymooners in first class, those of us who are not really wealthy but determined to enjoy the trip of a lifetime in second, and the unknown masses downstairs with their own canteen and way of life.
For the first time I’ve started wondering if I’m making a huge mistake. How far from my own culture could I possibly get? Is this more an exercise in running away? I started planning this trip over ten years ago. God it all seemed so simple just after I graduated! I was going to work for as long as it took to save enough money then I’d be off. I wanted to be ‘a traveller’. I remember seeing the photos of the Xi’an warriors when some of them were brought to London, and I was transfixed. I’m sure I must have read everything I could find about the country before I left secondary school and that led me on to planning a route through south-east Asia – this route. Then, somehow, I’d saddled myself with a mortgage because everyone said that paying rent was a waste of money. And then there was the job, the pressure to climb the ladder. Christ, what was I thinking? How did I get sucked into the stable job, stable relationship, stable life way of thinking?
And now, here I am, doing what I always dreamed of. I’m travelling and I’m getting ridiculously depressed about it. I should be swinging from the bloody chandeliers – well the crappy-looking light fitting at least. I should be buying champagne and sharing it with the Frosty-Pants, I should be sending jubilant postcards to everyone who smiled tolerantly when I told them that I’ve always wanted to travel. And here I am contemplating chucking myself overboard. This is not the person I want to be. This is not why I’m doing this. Aaagh! I need to get off this fucking boat!
October 15th – Yichan
I’m feeling a bit better today. I’ve just read yesterday’s ramblings and I feel a bit embarrassed. I can only assume that I was tired and sick of the attitude of the F-Ps. They’d really been pissing me off with their monopoly of the bathroom and the thermos. I got so sick of it that I ordered my own thermos from one of the boat crew. She came in and looked around in that officious and slightly mistrustful way that everyone with the slightest bit of authority seems to have towards me. I just pointed to the table and shrugged, then gestured to the F-Ps’ bunk and indicated ‘upstairs’ with my thumb. I think she got the idea and some childish part of me really hopes the F-Ps are in deep shit.
We all got off the boat last night to tour a temple. I just couldn’t be bothered. I really couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for trekking up a hillside with a hundred other people, in the dark, to see something that I probably wouldn’t have understood. Instead I lurked on the pier and feasted on wonderful spicy boiled potatoes. I was still there when the F-Ps came back down and I’m sure Mr F-P smiled at me, just briefly, when the dragon wasn’t looking. Maybe it was just a trick of the light.
I did manage the tourist thing today. There’s a trip up the ‘Little Three Gorges’ that I’d read about in the guidebook. It would have cost a fortune to sign up when I booked my ticket but it was much cheaper on board the boat so I decided to give it a go. I’m so glad that I did as it was fantastic! The scenery was pretty special but it was the whole experience that was really great. We set off into the drizzle with the cover of our little boat hauled over us at a claustrophobic angle and the plastic windows all steamed up. Almost as soon as we entered the ‘Little Three Gorges’ the sky cleared and the crew pulled the roof down. I suddenly realised one of the differences between a trip like this in China and at home. In Britain we would have been issued with life jackets and given a ten-minute safety talk. Here there was a scramble for seats and the ritual pointing and frowning at the big man at the front who wanted to hog a whole double seat and smoke a lot.
The water was completely different from the main river. It was really clear but strangely sterile except for the polythene bags that occasionally floated past us like obscene jellyfish. We even encountered some beggars who really deserved any money they were given. They were all young boys who waded out into the river with nets on really long sticks. They fought the current and the beating of umbrellas against their poles, to thrust their nets under the chins of the unwary. They were all under fifteen and had the physiques of body builders, probably from battling the current and trying to balance the poles.
The real treat came at the top of the ‘Little Three Gorges’. There’s a shingle bank where a small village has sprung up to feed and rip off tourists. This guards the entrance to yet another trip – the ‘Mini Three Gorges’. Incredible! Maybe you eventually end up in a puddle called the ‘Micro Three Gorges’.
Back on the big boat I was approached by one of the crew looking very sheepish. He told me, in broken English, that he was very sorry but he needed to see my ticket for the excursion. I dug it out of my pocket, he inspected it, smiled and went away. I wasn’t sure what was going on until I went back to my cabin and the F-Ps were engaged in a whispered conversation with sly glances in my direction. I couldn’t help but wonder if they thought I’d tried to get my trip for free so I made a great show of removing the ticket from my pocket, inspecting it and placing it on the table with a flourish.
After all this excitement the entrance to the real ‘Three Gorges’ was a bit of an anti-climax. It was spectacular but it was nearly dark when we entered the final gorge so all I saw were the lights around the dam.
After a scary taxi ride in the dark I’m now happily drinking tea in a four-star hotel, wrapped in a towelling robe and contemplating the wisdom of trying the swimming pool in the morning. This isn’t quite what I envisaged when I originally planned this trip. I expected backpacker accommodation and bed bugs most of the time but, what the hell, I can afford it. I do feel like a fraud at times because I don’t have the same difficulties as some of the westerners I’ve met. If I can’t find cheap accommodation then I check into a place like this. In fact, I can stay in a place
like this whenever I feel like I need a treat, which has been a regular feeling for the past few days.
It’s times like now, when I’m warm, calm and contented with a real adventure behind me, that I can truly appreciate what I’m doing. This is exactly where I want to be. I’m learning to enjoy my own company again and my confidence is coming back more quickly than I ever could have hoped. Even tonight when the taxi driver seemed to be heading out of town, I just leaned forward with my guidebook and said the name of the hotel loudly and sternly. I felt like one of those Victorian lady explorers who always seemed to get exactly what and where they wanted. I love my new-found independence and the fact that I’ve got the courage to live out my biggest dream despite the ‘wilderness years’ of work, home and relationship. Now I just sound bloody smug. Time to go to sleep.
VII
A tentative knock on the door brought Kai back to the present with a start. She’d been totally absorbed in the diary, trying to get a feel for the person who had written so enthusiastically and vividly. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that the woman writing and the woman reading were one and the same because Kai couldn’t imagine having such adventures, or even such thoughts. The hints about her past were still maddening. There was clearly some big secret, something that she hadn’t felt comfortable talking or writing about, but Kai’s ideas were still unformed. It obviously had to do with a relationship that went wrong, possibly violently wrong, but the lack of detail was frustrating.
Distracted she snapped, ‘Come in,’ still trying to keep a grip on the delicate link the journal provided with her past.
‘Hello, you busy?’
Mark stood in the doorway. A rogue shaft of sunlight that had defied the blind caught in his hair and turned the pale blue of his eyes electric. He thrust his hands in his pockets and hunched against the wall, barely smiling as though expecting a rebuke.
‘Just reading,’ Kai responded with a smile, surprised to discover that she was pleased to see him.
‘Anything exciting?’
‘My journal.’
‘Oh,’ he nodded sympathetically, as though her revelation was one of a fatal illness or a bereavement.
‘It’s no big deal, I read a little bit every day to see if anything’s familiar. The doctors think it might help. I don’t know if it will but it’s kind of interesting anyway. It’s a bit like reading about someone else’s travels, like in a real book.’
His eyes moved to the diary which Kai had placed in her lap and for a second she couldn’t read his expression. It was as though he was focussing all his energy on the blue cover, willing it to reveal its secrets to him. He was frowning and she could tell that he wanted to ask her more. Unnerved she picked up the journal and put it in its usual place in her bedside cupboard. She wasn’t ready to share its contents with anyone just yet.
‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’
He smiled, all the intensity of his former expression gone in an instant.
‘I just happened to pick up a get-out-of-jail-free card and I thought you could use it.’
‘Sorry?’ He might as well have been speaking Thai.
‘Like in Monopoly? The game?’
She simply shrugged at his pleased expression.
‘Okay, sorry, I asked the doctor if he was ready to take pity on you and let you loose on an unsuspecting town and he agreed to let me take you out for an hour or two. How does that sound?’
It sounded fantastic, exactly what she’d been wanting for days now – finally, a real change of scenery, new places and new faces. But Kai hesitated. Remembering her reluctance to leave the room earlier she knew that this could be even more difficult, she had to leave the hospital and there were people out there, strangers. She studied the gleeful expression on Mark’s face, conflicting emotions warring within her and suddenly she didn’t feel ready. What had seemed like a matter of life and death yesterday seemed less important, less urgent. Perhaps now that she had started to remember something, she was reluctant to leave because she associated the hospital with her returning consciousness. Maybe she was afraid that the darkness might come back if she stepped outside the range of the power of the doctors; if she were beyond Ekachai’s protection how could he save her if anything went wrong?
‘Hey, if it’s too soon…’ Mark held his hands out in a frozen shrug. ‘Don’t worry about it. It can wait another couple of days, I don’t want to push you.’
He was trying so hard to please her and seemed so sincere that Kai felt bad for letting him down. After all, this was what she had wanted, had craved. Was she just being cowardly because she was reluctant to leave the safe and familiar?
‘Where would we go?’ she asked, trying to buy a little more thinking time.
‘How about a walk to a quiet part of town. We’re on the outskirts here; there are some pretty alleyways and old temples.’
‘I like temples, apparently,’ she grinned, remembering the descriptions of the monasteries in the diary. ‘And monks.’
He looked puzzled by her response.
‘Well, according to my diary I do.’
‘So how about it?’ he urged gently. ‘Any time you like we can turn around and come straight back. I’ll tell Doctor Ekachai where we’re going – I’ll even draw him a map if you like.’
Still she hesitated. Mark was a stranger, but then everyone was a stranger and she had to learn to trust people or everyone she ever met would always be a stranger. She felt her hesitancy disintegrating, crumbling beneath Mark’s infectious enthusiasm.
‘Okay, but you’ll have to give me some time to make myself decent.’
‘Take as long as you like. I’ll wait outside.’
He left in a breeze of optimism, leaving Kai to scrutinise her reflection in the bathroom mirror and splash a little cold water on her hands and face. She could tell she was getting better, despite her earlier fatigue and her hands no longer shook when she looked at her reflection – a big improvement: she was no longer afraid of herself. Through the journal she was getting to know herself again and she was starting to like what she’d gleaned of the person she used to be. A good sign she thought. Maybe I’m a nice person when you get to know me. She grinned at herself in the mirror and the smile looked natural, unlike some of her previous attempts, which had a serial killer quality to them. Her clothes were a bit of a let-down though – a nondescript blue T-shirt and a pair of light cotton trousers with a tie-dyed pattern. Not really what she’d have chosen for her re-entry into the world but it would have to do, she didn’t really have much to choose from.
Taking a deep breath she crossed her room, resisting the urge to glance at the bed with her scatter of belongings thrown across the covers, and went out into the corridor. No looking back.
As he’d promised, Mark was waiting just outside the door to her room and his face lit up like a teenager on a first date when he saw her smiling at him. Funny, that’s how I feel, Kai thought, enjoying the unfamiliar sensation, a combination of excitement and nervousness.
Mark didn’t hesitate when she ignored the lift doors and headed for the stairs instead, leaving Kai relieved that she was able to avoid a further confrontation with one of her fears. After a steady walk down two flights of stairs Kai found herself in the hospital reception area, which bristled with efficiency and competence. It wasn’t what she’d been imagining at all. It was a huge atrium, reaching up at least three storeys with clusters of soft seats grouped around brightly painted pillars. In one corner a man in a smart suit sat reading a paper and in another a family were all staring at the screens of their mobile phones. There was little indication that this was a hospital apart from the signs next to the doors, which had English translations of departments and ward numbers.
An attractive woman in a dazzling white uniform smiled politely at Kai and Mark as they passed the main desk, making Kai feel much less conspicuous than she’d expected. A row of chairs guarding the double doors of
the entrance was empty except for an old woman nursing a large shopping bag and looking extremely uncomfortable. Her face was screwed up into deep lines of emotion or pain and she seemed unaware of her surroundings. Kai turned to Mark, suddenly worried. Outside wasn’t as attractive as she’d first hoped – there was pain out here, people who might be even worse off than herself. Mark looked at the woman and shrugged, taking Kai’s arm above the elbow and steering her to the door in exactly the same way as Ekachai had done earlier.
Instead of feeling reassured, Kai felt annoyed. She shook him off and, averting her gaze from the old woman, she strode confidently through the large glass doors as they opened for her with an obliging electrical hum. She’d done it. She was outside.
Her relief was short-lived however, as the heat breathed its dragon breath on her unprepared skin and the sun threw blinding sparks into her eyes.
‘Christ,’ she mumbled, shielding her eyes with the back of her hand and making instinctively for the shade.
‘Here,’ she felt Mark nudge her hand.
Kai squinted up at him and saw he was offering her a pair of sunglasses. Grasping them gratefully and still shading her eyes with one hand, she hurriedly put them on. She lowered her hand slowly and discovered that she could see adequately enough to take in some of her surroundings. Kai was surprised to discover that she was in the car park that was visible from the window of her room. It didn’t quite fit in with her perception of the twists and turns of the corridor and stairs she had followed to get here, or maybe it was the unexpected heat that was disorientating her.
‘You okay?’ Mark asked, his bulk looming over her and blocking out some of the light.
‘Fine,’ she breathed, ‘just a little shocked by the heat.’
‘Just stand still for a couple of minutes. Get used to it.’ He leaned against the wall next to her and together they studied the car park.
Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller Page 9
