Half the World Away

by Cath Staincliffe

  I found some lesson plans online. It’s hard for us to learn Chinese, the way one word can have so many different meanings, depending on the tones, on how it’s pronounced. I’ll never get used to that. But English is hard for them too – all the tenses we have and they just don’t. Dawn is fine. She is working full time at an English school out near the 3rd Ring Road (more lesson plans for me!) and is looking for an apartment there. It’s still cloudy here and it would be nice to get to a beach sometime and catch some rays but she’s not sure what holiday she can take. It’s pretty restricted.

  I’ve been thinking about a photo project I’d like to do – Chengdu is growing all the time, malls and skyscrapers going up, everyone studying and working and trying to get ahead, get an education, get a good job to buy the shiny things in the shops. Sound familiar? But there’s also surprises, hidden bits, weird hobbies people have on the side. One man I know races pigeons. Someone else is restoring a vintage bike. Shona makes jewellery out of waste material, like crisps packets and so on. Anyway, if I can find a few more examples I’ll give it a go. Watch this space.

  Big hugs to Finn and Isaac.

  Lxxx

  It occurs to me that while the unemployment situation is still so precarious, especially in the north where we live and even more so for young people, then Lori is better off where she is.

  Nick is withdrawing more every day. He’s always been a calm, sociable, happy character. I was attracted by his sense of equanimity as well as his looks, and the way he laughed so freely at my jokes. His attitude to Lori, too – she was twelve when she first met him.

  In the past, when Nick and I had problems, we had at least been able to talk about them, argue even, but now in the wake of his redundancy he is increasingly sullen and tight-lipped.

  ‘How did you get on today?’ I say, and he gives an exasperated sigh and shakes his head. Like my even asking is some imposition.

  Determined to force some communication, I plough on: ‘Did you get any applications in?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ he says. ‘I could apply for a hundred jobs and hear nothing.’ He fetches a beer from the fridge.

  Has he given up? ‘I know it’s hard—’

  ‘Jo, spare me the platitudes, you have no idea.’

  Anger spikes through me. ‘This is not just about you,’ I say. ‘It’s horrible and depressing but, whatever happens, this affects us all. The least you can do is talk to me about it.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me,’ he says quietly, and walks away.

  Bastard.

  Jaws clamped tight, I clear up the kitchen not caring about the noise I’m making even if he is going to bed. We have already agreed that if Nick can find a position with a future outside Manchester we will move, leaving my job, this house, uprooting the boys. Some people thrive on new situations, Tom for example. I am not one of them.

  Stacking pots from the dishwasher on the shelves too fast, I knock over Lori’s favourite cup, which crashes to the floor and smashes. Bought one Christmas, the sort of huge mug that’s great for cocoa, its gold stars have long since faded. She left it at home when she went to Glasgow. ‘It’s bound to get broken or nicked there,’ she said.

  ‘Fuck!’ I blink back tears as I clean up the shards.

  ‘Mummy?’ Isaac is in the doorway, blinking at the light. Serves me right. ‘What’s up, chicken?’

  ‘I heard a noise,’ he says.

  ‘That was me clearing up,’ I say.

  ‘No, in my room.’

  I can’t face this, the ritual of checking and reassurance, the debate about whether Isaac can sleep in our bed ‘just tonight’.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘See if he’s in bed. He can—’ I hear what I’m doing. ‘Never mind, just a sec.’ I put the shards of pottery in the bin.

  ‘What’s that?’ Isaac says.

  ‘Lori’s mug.’

  ‘Her star mug?’

  ‘Yes. I knocked it off.’

  ‘Oh.’ He glances up, no doubt checking I haven’t destroyed his Tiger mug. He gives a little shudder. His feet must be cold and I have a flashback to being that age, to the powerlessness of it, the bewilderment and sudden heady delights.

  ‘Come on, then.’ I scoop him up and take him back to bed.

  Finn is asleep on the lower bunk.

  Isaac climbs up the ladder. I adjust the night light so it’s brighter and he pulls the covers up to his chin. ‘Can I have a story?’

  All I want to do is sleep. ‘One, then I’m going to bed and you go back to sleep. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  Leaning against the beds, I rattle off The Three Bears, the shortest story in my repertoire. Isaac yawns, which is a good sign.

  With the boys safe in their beds, I go to mine. Nick is there, awake. He clears his throat and turns over as I get changed.

  We say no more than ‘Night.’ Drifting off to sleep, I wonder if he’s becoming depressed, and if he is, what on earth I can get him to do about it.

  Lori in the Ori-ent

  Park life

  Posted on 18 March 2014 by Lori

  Back home our park is used mainly by the following people for the following activities:

  a) Parents and kids at the playground

  b) The above feeding the ducks

  c) Tennis players, whose numbers mushroom every year around the time of Wimbledon, then fade away

  d) Bowls players, Wednesday afternoons only, must have a bus pass

  e) Footballers, Saturdays and Sundays on the pitches. Little ones with their parents screaming at the ref, big ones screaming at each other and the ref

  f) Dog-walkers (plus dogs)

  g) Lovers, walking in the rain, lazing in the sun, snogging

  h) Teenagers, smoking, drinking, snogging

  i) Extreme frisbee players, Saturday only, by arrangement

  j) A couple of old men, who share the bench by the rose bed all day long, each with a carrier bag of lager

  Today is a typical day in the park near my flat in Chengdu. There are variations of all the above here but there are also

  1) Tai chi sessions

  2) Ballroom dancing. Really

  3) Mah-jong players

  4) People doing circus skills – juggling, diabolo

  5) Musicians

  6) Tea-drinkers at all the teahouses

  7) Calligraphers who paint the paving stones with characters using giant brushes and water

  8) People selling toffee – it’s shaped like filigree cut-outs of the signs of the zodiac, I think

  9) Sword dancers

  10) Men hitting spinning tops – serious ones, unlike the toys we had. The tops are the size of a large mug, the whips crack

  11) People sketching and painting

  12) People feeding the carp (with baby bottles, I kid you not) – all the ponds are full of them

  The park is heaving. It feels like a carnival or festival but this is just an ordinary day. I am stopped four times by curious people and explain in my atrocious Chinese that I’m from England. I have practised this every day since I arrived. Each time I get a look of total incomprehension. Perhaps I have said, ‘Follow that teabag,’ or ‘How pretty is your camel.’ But the word ‘Manchester’ opens doors. Eyes light up, smiles blossom. Manchester! Manchester United! The Red Devils have paved the way for travellers the world over. Well, those of us from Manchester. I nod and do a little hand cheer, as if we scored a goal. Which we have in a way. Twice people ask to have a photograph taken with me. The last woman pats my arms and chatters away, and I smile and nod and hope I haven’t accidentally agreed to anything, like teaching all her grandchildren English every evening. Or marrying one of her sons.

  The park is open from six in the morning till nine at night, when lanterns and lights glow among the bamboo plants and trees. And it feels safe. Another difference from the one at home where there’s an edginess, the peace shattered by some prat on a mini motorbik
e churning up the field, or a group of drunk kids getting physical.

  Perhaps the biggest difference is that at home we’re out in public but we keep ourselves to ourselves – all that British reserve, we stay in our own little cliques. A nod as you pass someone is the height of interaction – apart from the dog-walkers, who like to mingle with their canine friends. In China, everyone is into everyone else’s business – there doesn’t seem to be any notion of privacy. People stare and interrupt and join in and interfere all the time. A crowd forms at the drop of a hat. It’s like a big party where everyone knows everyone else, except they don’t, they just act like they do. Lxxx

  CHAPTER TEN

  Emailing with Lori is sporadic. She usually replies a few days after receiving a message but rarely unprompted. We keep abreast of what she’s up to by following her blog. She posted a new one today, about parks. I showed it to the boys and we talked about the pictures.

  Isaac kicks off at the tea table. ‘I hate macaroni cheese. It looks like sick.’

  ‘Yeuch! Gross!’ says Finn.

  ‘It’s that or toast,’ I say, my voice calm, not wanting a battle.

  ‘Don’t want toast.’

  ‘You’ll be hungry,’ Nick says.

  Isaac sets his jaw, scowls, pushes at the pasta with his spoon, moving it to the very edge of his plate. A quick look at me to see if I’ll stop him. Another jab and the first of his food spills onto the table. I reach over and remove his plate.

  ‘Isaac,’ Nick shouts, ‘stop messing.’

  Isaac jumps down, runs out and upstairs. I’m disappointed in Nick. If he hadn’t risen to the bait . . .

  Nick shoves back his chair, the scrape on the laminate floor shredding my nerves. ‘Leave him,’ I say.

  He hesitates.

  ‘We’ll finish tea. No point in him disrupting it for all of us.’

  ‘What’s for pudding?’ Finn says.

  ‘Apple pie,’ I say.

  ‘Yum. Is Isaac getting any?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ I jump in before Nick lays down any laws. ‘We’ll see. Are you going to feed Benji?’

  Finn nods and starts to move, but I tell him to have his apple pie first.

  Nick smiles at Finn but I can still feel the tension in him, almost hear the hum of impatience and irritation just below the surface. I’m getting so tired of his bad mood and resent the fact that I have to mediate between him and Isaac. We’ve always been good at parenting, well, good enough, presenting a united front. I’ll have to tackle him about it. Of course it’s the stress of redundancy that’s behind this but his refusal to talk to me about it makes it worse. Like he’s wallowing in it, savouring it. A martyr.

  After another tantrum about toast tasting funny and a crying jag, Isaac is asleep at last. Finn is in bed with his book. He’ll drift off soon enough, and when one of us prises the book from his hands, he won’t wake.

  Downstairs Nick is doing a shopping list, checking the fridge and the cupboards.

  ‘Can we talk?’ I say to him.

  He makes a noise, noncommittal.

  I sit down and pour myself a glass of wine, emptying the bottle. Nick opens another and refills his glass.

  Sitting down, I say, ‘I’m worried about you.’

  ‘He needs clear boundaries,’ Nick says.

  ‘I’m not talking about Isaac,’ I say. ‘I’m talking about you. You’re shutting me out.’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ he says.

  ‘Maybe you should talk to someone.’

  ‘Jo,’ he shakes his head, ‘come on.’

  ‘I think you’re depressed,’ I say.

  ‘This is my problem, I’ll deal with it how—’

  ‘But you’re not,’ I say, more loudly than I mean to. ‘You’re getting worse. Everything’s a problem. You shout at the kids, you freeze me out.’

  He glares at me but I don’t look away.

  ‘Maybe we need a break, a weekend away. Or you have a get-together with the lads, go cycling, have a laugh. Go to that cottage in Cork.’

  ‘What – just spend the redundancy?’ he says.

  ‘Well, a couple of hundred quid isn’t going to make much difference.’

  He snorts, like I said something stupid.

  ‘You suggest something, then.’

  ‘I suggest you just—’ He breaks off. I’m relieved: whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  ‘Nick?’

  He turns away. ‘I just need some time.’

  ‘It’s been six weeks,’ I say. ‘It’s not your fault but you’re punishing yourself and the rest of us.’

  ‘Don’t talk crap,’ he says.

  ‘Everything is so miserable. The atmosphere—’

  ‘Yes,’ he says hotly, ‘it’s called real life. And having you on my back really isn’t helping.’

  Stung and defeated, I pick up my wine and leave him to it. But I won’t give up because we can’t go on like this, not indefinitely. It’s bloody horrible.

  Lori in the Ori-ent

  Weather

  Posted on 2 April 2014 by Lori

  I’m used to rain, coming from Manchester (rainy city). Sometimes we get several seasons in a day. England has a north–south and east–west split in climate. For the north-west we have the weather coming in from the Atlantic rising up over the Pennines. It’s wet and cloudy while the other side of the hills to the east is drier and sunnier. The south is warmer than the north almost always, and that means Manchester (NW) and London (SE) never share the same forecast. So rain I can do. Changeability I can deal with.

  But endless, interminable cloud. Chengdu is known as the city where the sun never shines. Great bumper sticker. Mugs, anyone? Tea towels? It’s in the Sichuan basin surrounded by mountains. This traps the cloud. Swampy best describes the summer I am told. Today it is just sticky. Sticky and airless. The cloud seals in the heat and the pollution. Imagine using a wallpaper steamer on a very old doormat in a confined space. That smell. What’s not to like? The humidity is about a million per cent. Perfect for mosquitoes. So I am sticky and itchy and STILL having an amazing time. Lxxx

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I’m in the office, printing off letters and appointment slips for parents’ evening, which is the week after next. The staff are up to their eyes writing reports on each child, charting their progress in their key stage and the core subjects. Sheaves of paperwork, much of it to be done at home in their own time.

  I break off and check Lori’s blog hasn’t been updated: it’s still the post about the weather. Nine days since she put it up. A week since I sent my last message. Perhaps she’s hard at work, keeps meaning to reply and hasn’t had time. Or she’s been away. Or ill. Perhaps she’s just being Lori, letting it slide, too caught up in her exciting new life. There could be problems with the Internet – the service is a bit patchy at times. I dither over whether to send a new message, and in the end I do. OK, maybe she’ll resent me nagging but I can live with that. She might just need a nudge.

  It’s raining as we walk home from school. Isaac stops every so often, his attention drawn to a pile of litter or something in the hedge. I hurry him along. Finn walks through the puddles. ‘You’ve not got your wellies on,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘So your trainers’ll be wet.’

  ‘Soon dry,’ he says.

  The rain is heavier, cold by the time we reach home. ‘I’m soaking,’ Isaac says on the doorstep. ‘Can I stay here?’ Walking Benji is not usually something they can opt out of.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ I say.

  ‘But if Daddy’s here . . .’ Isaac goes on.

  ‘Daddy’s busy.’

  We get inside. I call, ‘Hello.’

  Nick answers from the dining room.

  ‘Daddy, I want to stay here,’ Isaac says. I motion him to stay in the hall – he’s dripping all over the floor. He shudders.

  I put my head round the door. Nick’s on the computer. ‘Is that OK?’ I say.
‘He looks a bit peaky.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Finn has Benji’s lead and the dog is jumping up at him, ecstatic.

  ‘Go and get changed,’ I tell Isaac, ‘put your wet things in the basket and don’t bother Daddy.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. He gets one bug after another at the moment and most of them make him throw up.

  Finn and I walk partway around the park, then retrace our steps. The rain never lets up. My knees are damp, my trousers sticking to them. Blossom on the cherry trees is battered; half of it lies on the ground, a soggy mess already turning brown.

  ‘My nose is wet,’ Finn says. There’s a drip of water hanging off the end. He sticks his tongue out, shakes his head and catches it.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘I’m wet inside out – even my knickers are wet.’

  He chortles. We walk back, his trainers squelching.

  ‘You take Benji around the back,’ I say. ‘He can do his shaking dry in the kitchen.’

  Inside I am met with the unmistakable acid pong of vomit and Nick is on his hands and knees with a cloth and a bucket.

  ‘Not again,’ I say, peeling off my coat.

  ‘He’s up in bed.’

  ‘Maybe it’s an allergy,’ I say.

  ‘Wouldn’t he swell up or get a rash?’ Nick says.

  ‘Possibly.’

  Finn comes squelching out of the kitchen.

  ‘Go back and take your shoes off,’ I tell him.

  He pulls a face. ‘Urgh – that stinks.’

  ‘Off you go . . . I’ll make an appointment,’ I say to Nick, ‘get him checked out.’

  He sits back on his haunches, looks up at me. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Any luck?’ He has been waiting for a reply from a job application. It’s similar work to what he has been doing but down in Walsall in the West Midlands.

  ‘No.’ He gets up, lifts the bucket. ‘I’d have heard by now. Not even a bloody interview.’ He walks away.

  The smell lingers. Nick has cleaned the floor but there’s a splash against the wall, speckled liquid, that he’s missed.