Half the World Away - страница 37

My neck aches and I’ve a dull, thudding pain in my temples. My eyes feel glassy.

A pagoda frames the entrance to the park, richly carved and coloured. At ground level there is a deep wooden cross-bar that we have to step over and another at the far side. Flower displays greet us. Paths split off among bamboo groves. We follow one round and every so often smaller paths lead to different sections; we glimpse teahouses and a waterfall, an area of sculptures made of bamboo.

It’s still busy in the park but the cacophony of the traffic is muted and the shade from the trees makes the atmosphere more pleasant. In an open area, a calligrapher draws characters in water on the ground with a brush as tall as he is. A ring of children around him try their hand. The characters are ephemeral, drying in minutes. Gone like the breath of a breeze in the trees.

I think of Lori’s post: Call me Bird’s Net Jasmine.

The bamboo groves have been landscaped with rocks and ground-cover plants and small labels identify each variety. The largest plants have canes as thick as lampposts. ‘Graffiti,’ Tom says, pointing out where past visitors have scratched their names on them. I spy a sign that admonishes, ‘No Scribbling’. At the edge of the path a woman has a stall and is drawing with spun sugar. The filigree signs of the zodiac that Lori mentioned. The boys worked ours out back in January when the school had a Chinese New Year celebration. The fact that Lori was in China and that 2014 was the year of the horse, Lori’s sign, made it all the more exciting for them. Finn was delighted to be under the sign of the dog (the same as me). Isaac was born in the year of the rat and Nick the monkey.

People gawk at us and a couple say, ‘Hello, where are you from?’

‘England,’ Tom says.

‘Ah! First time in China?’

‘Yes.’

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.

‘Our daughter,’ I say, ‘she is here.’

‘University?’

‘Teaching English.’

We haven’t got the leaflets yet or I would show them. Missing – please, have you seen her? Edward at Missing Overseas has arranged for them to be printed here in English and Chinese and delivered to our hotel. I can imagine how these expressions of welcome, the interest in us, would curdle in the light of them.

I need to pee. Luckily there are plenty of public loos, unlike at home. But here the stink is overpowering. The toilets are the squat type, in cubicles. Do I face forwards or backwards? I can’t tell. Lori never blogged about toilet etiquette. I balance on the white-tiled footplates undo my drawstring and crouch, pulling my trousers away from my ankles, gagging at the smell of old piss. There’s no toilet paper. I read about this but forgot to bring tissues or hand wipes out with me. I wriggle my clothes back up and press the foot pedal for the flush. There is a cold tap near the entrance – I rinse my hands and flap them dry.

In the next clearing there’s a teahouse, a large wooden pagoda with seating in front, plastic chairs and square tables. Most are occupied. People are playing mah-jong or cards, eating snacks. Large vacuum flasks are on or beside the tables – perhaps they hold tea or hot water. The noise is dense, percussive, the chatter, and the clatter of tiles. A waiter walks among the patrons clicking metal tongs together.

‘We’d better ring the consulate when we get back,’ Tom says, ‘tell the guy we’ve arrived.’

‘I wish we’d insisted on meeting this afternoon,’ I say, ‘to get things moving.’ But we had been persuaded that it would be wiser to wait until the day after our long journey.

We take a small path that leads onto a humpback bridge where there is a gazebo above a fish pond.

‘Stop a minute?’ I say.

I lean on the bamboo bench there, burnished smooth with wear, and peer down. The water is dark, reflecting the delicate tracery of leaves in the canes high above. Large koi, deep orange, some golden, weave and turn. Umbrella plants and ferns, the sort of things we’d keep as houseplants, ring the shore.