Half the World Away - страница 48

‘What age are they?’ I say.

‘Four to twelve.’

‘Did you know that Lori’s visa was dodgy?’ Tom says.

Dawn stops walking. Her face flames and her fingers pinch her lower lip. ‘Kind of,’ she says. ‘She really wanted to stay and it was the only way she could do it.’

‘And the people who arranged it, did she have anything to do with them afterwards?’ Tom says.

‘No. That was it.’ Dawn signals to warn us about a scooter mounting the pavement and we hang back as the man, with a child on his lap, steers past us and parks outside a milk bar. Along this street, tree trunks, the pillars of a building and telegraph poles are all wrapped in a stretchy shiny gold material.

‘How did she find people to teach?’ I say.

‘They found her,’ Dawn says. ‘Everyone wants to speak English. We get asked all the time.’

‘And her other friends, the people we’re going to meet, are they all teachers?’ I say.

‘About half and half. Shona’s studying at the university, doing a master’s, Bradley does translation for a software company, Rosemary is a teaching assistant at a school like mine, and Oliver teaches at the petroleum university. Rosemary and Oliver are both Chinese.’

‘The petroleum university?’ I say.

‘There are loads of universities in Chengdu,’ Dawn says, ‘and some of them specialize in certain areas, like science or technology or finance.’

We wait at the lights to cross the road. There’s a marquee going up outside the shopping mall. The frame is built and the roof canopy on. I watch a man on top of a stepladder: he has a foot on either side, and he swings the ladders along underneath the tent, like a stilt walker.

Once we’ve reached the other side, there are steps up to the middle of the ring-road carriageway, where the bus runs. A woman is sweeping the bridge and a guard in a blue uniform, with a baton hanging from his belt, sits near to the ticket booth.

We offer to pay but Dawn has already slid money under the glass screen and the clerk gives her three counters in return. ‘It’s two yuan anywhere,’ Dawn says.

Twenty pence.

‘They can give change here but if you get a bus on the street you have to give the exact money – or pay more,’ she adds.

We copy Dawn, swiping the counter on the toll gate at the bottom of the escalator to release the barrier. At the top the platform is enclosed in a transparent shelter with a curved roof. An electronic display shows when the next bus is due. I look at the route map to the side: the names are in Chinese and English. I try to memorize our stop, repeat each syllable silently. Look around for landmarks. There is the mall, and to the side of it two mirrored towers that cast shadows onto each other creating a trompe l’oeil: it appears as though there is a third ghostly black building between them.

The bus pulls in and the automatic gate opens so we can board. We make our way to the back where there are free seats. A television plays adverts for some sort of takeaway food outlet, then toothpaste.

From this viewpoint I can see the scale of construction work along the route. The base of a huge crater, the size of a city block, has been levelled, its sides banked up, a swathe of red earth. Hoardings at the far side advertise what will come, Forest Heaven Park, illustrated with an image of glitzy towers.

I think of that poster, the construction workers in New York, having lunch on a girder halfway to heaven. No safety net, no harnesses or hard hats.

Every so often a ringtone goes off and each passenger answers exactly the same way, shouting, ‘Wei?’ into their phone.

A recorded voice comes over the speakers, ‘The next stop will be…’ I can’t discern the destination, a string of syllables going up and down, abstract as musical notes.

I’m apprehensive about the meeting to come, these strangers who befriended my daughter, who were part of her new life. It may not be fair but I keep thinking they failed her. Failed to realize she was missing, failed to raise the alarm. The negligence or self-absorption of youth, perhaps. Or did they simply not care for her enough to worry?