Half the World Away

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

We are making dough, the four of us, for Christmas decorations to hang on the tree. Reindeer and penguins to be baked, then iced. Benji patrols around the table for bits of raw pastry. Isaac keeps sneaking bits for him.

I had expected Isaac to be even more unsettled in the wake of everything that’s happened but he’s actually much better. We’ve gone a whole term without any concerns about his behaviour. Sebastian moved schools and Isaac has a new best friend, Imogen. They spend hours drawing and making things together. He can still be gloomy and petulant, quick to take offence and slow to rally, but I think that’s just his personality. I dread his teenage years, especially if I’ve to deal with him on my own, but that is a way off – God knows what might happen between now and then. Because you never really know what’s round the corner, do you?

Lori is back to her normal weight, still skinny, but she has lost that awful gaunt look. In the aftermath of the trial she was interviewed for a feature in the Guardian magazine. Isabelle identified other opportunities but Lori was clear she wanted to limit what she did. Lori said the interviewer was really easy to talk to and Lori trusted her not to misrepresent anything. It was hard to read that feature. Lori has never talked to me in any detail about that time: most of what I knew was from the police statement she gave. One thing she’s said since then has stuck with me: that the worst thing was the helplessness, the total loss of control.

Finn is singing along to the radio and Isaac clamps his hands over his ears and says, ‘Too loud, tell him, Mummy.’

‘You’ve got floury hair, now,’ Lori says to Isaac.

‘What flowers?’ Isaac frowns.

‘Not flowers – flour.’ Lori pats the bag and a puff of white escapes. ‘You’re going white, like a ghost.’

‘Scooby Doo,’ Finn says.

Isaac plunges his hands into the flour and pats it over his head and face. I feel a flash of irritation at the prospect of even more mess to clear up, then Lori laughs, that yelp of pleasure I cherish so, and the mess just doesn’t matter any more.

Finn chuckles. ‘Make me a ghost, too, then. Go on.’

Isaac obliges, leaving Finn dusted white and sneezing.

‘OK, enough,’ I say, before they go any further.

‘Take a picture,’ Isaac says.

‘Wait, then.’ Lori goes upstairs. She comes back with two bed sheets and her new camera, bought with the money she’s been saving up.

She wraps the sheets around the boys and gets them to pose. ‘Spooky faces,’ she says, and reels off a sequence of snaps.

‘Shower,’ I say, ‘both of you.’

‘What about the decorations?’ Isaac says.

‘They can go in the oven now and we’ll do the icing in the morning. Are you at work?’ I check with Lori. She’s been working for Tom, doing admin for tenancy agreements and filing, and more recently taking viewings, showing people properties in Manchester.

‘Yes, ten till four. You two can show me what you’ve done when I get home,’ she says.

The boys trudge off, trailing puffs of flour.

Lori and I put the trays into the oven.

‘Aphrodite’s moving in with Dad,’ Lori says, taking the cookie cutters to the sink.

I feel a pang of dismay but chastise myself. What did I expect? For Tom to carry on rootless, restless, unattached for ever? ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Wow. What’s she like?’

‘She’s nice, actually, really nice. She’s doing business studies at Manchester Met.’

‘I thought she was a model,’ I say. A hand model. The time we had in China, Tom and I, seems like a mirage now, rippling in the haze. Unreal. And that night, that precious night, when we found sanctuary together amid the horror, it feels like it happened to other people, in a parallel universe.

Losing Lori, looking for her, threw us together and forced us to move beyond the confines of our past. Brought us to a new understanding. Did I ever wish it might be more than that? At times, if I’m honest. I cannot speak for Tom. He never gave me cause to hope. And, realistically, I think we’re still too different, and that those differences would rankle and chafe and soon corrupt any shared future we might have together. Better to cherish the memory: desire in his eyes, the beat of his heart, the warmth of his skin. That love, as if we would call her back to us.

Lori runs the water, squirts in some washing-up liquid. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘but she wants to do the other stuff and help Dad build his empire.’

I laugh. ‘When I met your dad I never for one minute imagined he’d become a property developer.’

Lori closes the tap. She turns. The smile fades from her face. ‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’

She looks so serious. I don’t know what’s coming. She rubs at her shoulder. She’s had a tattoo done there, a Chinese phoenix.

‘I’m going back one day,’ she says.

My heart turns over. ‘Right.’

‘Not yet. I know I’m not ready yet,’ she says. ‘And I’ll need to save up. I could probably stay with Shona. I’m sure I could get a job with one of the English schools eventually, and Rosemary would help me apply. It might be hard, bad days, but that’d be the same wherever I was. And there must be some therapists there.’

‘Right,’ I say again. A wash of fear and panic laps at the back of my mind but I ignore it, instead cleaving to the burst of elation that swells in my chest. See the set of her jaw, the determination in her eyes. ‘You are brilliant, you know that?’ I tell her. ‘I am so, so proud of you.’

She opens her arms and comes to me. And I bite my teeth together tight and breathe through my nose and blink like mad and hold her, hold her close.

Lori in the Ori-ent

Part 2

Posted on 30 February 2016 by Lori

Nĭ hăo! I’m back. Apologies for the long absence but I was a bit tied up. (Sorry, sometimes the darkest, weirdest humour helps.)

Most of you will know things got very bad for a while and I’ve been home in the UK. Please send thoughts and prayers and love to the family of Bai Lijuan and, if you can possibly manage it, give donations to Missing Overseas. They are an amazing charity who were there for my family at the most difficult time. To those of you who left messages, many, many thanks, you are awesome. If you don’t know what I’m on about, or need to know any more, search Bai Lijuan and Lorelei Maddox.

I’m going to draw a line under all that now.

Here is the line.

A little wobbly but unbroken.

So… what’s new in Chengdu?

My building is gone! You turn your back for five minutes… Gobbled up by development. Here are the before and after pics. Mine is the stylish blue block on the left. As you can see in the picture, the new apartments are already occupied. All twenty-eight floors of them.

One place I never got to visit is Flower Town so I’ll be making a trip soon and reporting back. I’m pleased to say the hotpot is still as fierce as I remember and the park is as beautiful. Now we just need some of that weather engineering. How about it, guys? Sunny Chengdu, pearl of the Sichuan Riviera!

Klaxon! I’m proud to announce the opening of a new gallery space on the fourteenth of next month. More publicity coming soon but the inaugural exhibition will feature framed photos by me, original pieces of amazing jewellery by Shona Munro, and prints and etchings by Mo Nuwa, one of Chengdu’s most inventive emerging artists. Our preview will feature a live DJ and cocktails courtesy of Bar None.

It’s sooo good to be back.

And I leave you with a few words from Xue Tao’s poem, ‘West Cliff’.

Raising my wine against the wind, I wave my hand.

Zài jiàn.

Lxxx