CHAPTER SIX
We Skype Lori on Christmas Day. Isaac is exhausted – he’s been up since four, desperate for his big presents. I sent him back to bed but he didn’t sleep. We’ve had our ritual opening and the boys clutch their gifts to show Lori. Finn has a mini-scooter and Isaac another Lego kit, City Coast Guard Patrol.
‘Hi, guys.’ She waves. She looks relaxed: she has a turquoise vest on and cargos, her hair is shorter – the pink has gone – and she’s sitting on a single bed. I can see the metal bars of the headboard.
The lag between speaking and hearing adds to the chaos of four people trying to talk to one.
Lori makes a fuss of the boys, responding with appropriate excitement to their presents. Isaac wants to list all of his, including the trinkets in his stocking, but Finn keeps butting in. Eventually Isaac loses it, shouts and shoves his brother off his chair.
Nick pulls the boys aside for a talking-to and I get a chance to concentrate.
‘What did you do today?’ I ask her.
‘A meal, then cocktails.’ It is seven o’clock in Hong Kong. ‘We’re going out to a bar in a bit – there’s a party.’
‘It’s going well?’
‘Brilliant. See the room?’ She swoops her laptop up and swerves it round. Green-painted walls, piles of her clothes, her backpack, a lamp and a mirror. Her face again.
‘Is Dawn staying there?’
‘Yeah, next door. She’s sleeping. Heavy night.’ Lori laughs.
Isaac yelling afresh at Finn makes further conversation impossible. I twist round. ‘Isaac, do you want to talk to Lori or do you want to go to bed?’
‘Talk to Lori.’
‘Right. Two minutes.’ I swing him up and plonk him on the chair directly in front of the webcam. ‘And then Finn two minutes,’ I say. Finn nods.
Isaac goes through his list, then Lori tells him about the aeroplane she’s been on, the snakes she’s seen and the flying squirrels.
‘Time’s up,’ I say.
Isaac and Finn swap over and Finn shows her his scooter, then asks Lori when she’ll be home.
‘A few weeks,’ she says.
‘I miss you,’ he says.
‘I miss you, too, but it won’t be long. Have you got any new certificates?’
‘Yes!’ He flies out of the room.
Nick sits down. ‘Missing anything apart from us?’
‘My bed,’ she says. ‘They’re all like concrete here.’
‘We like the blog,’ Nick says.
‘It’s fun.’
‘And the photos,’ he says. ‘Lovely stuff.’
‘Here!’ Finn is holding his latest swimming badge. He waves it at Lori.
‘Awesome,’ she says. ‘You’re a champion, Finn.’
A howl goes up from Isaac who, down on the floor, has managed to clout his head on one of the chair corners. Lori pulls a face, ‘So, I’d better go.’ She smiles, a dimple on each cheek.
I pick up Isaac so his face is against my shoulder and rub the back of his head with my hand. It comforts him but it also muffles the crying.
‘Anyone special on the scene?’ I say, before we get to goodbyes.
Lori grins. ‘Maybe.’
‘Dawn?’ I say.
‘Maybe. It’s—’ Then she’s tongue-tied.
‘Jo,’ Nick chides me, ‘leave her be.’
‘Only asking.’
‘Digging.’
‘I’m going now,’ Lori says. ‘Happy Christmas.’ She waves both arms and Finn copies her. Isaac digs deeper into my neck.
‘Bye-bye, Isaac,’ she calls. He glances back to the laptop, shakes his hand.
‘Happy new year,’ Nick says.
‘Love you,’ I say. ‘Have fun.’
‘Will do. Love you too.’
She waves again, blows kisses and cuts the connection.
‘You going to have a nap?’ I murmur in Isaac’s ear. He shakes his head.
‘OK.’ I swap a glance with Nick. ‘Milkshakes and Kung Fu Panda, then.’
‘Whooo!’ Finn dances, his approximation of martial-art shapes.
‘I want to play Angry Birds,’ Isaac says.
‘You can do that after the movie or you can do it on my phone now.’
‘I don’t want to do it on your phone,’ he whimpers.
‘That’s fine. After the movie.’ I brace myself for more crying or a full-on tantrum but he gives a sigh of resignation.
The day stretches ahead. I work out we have another seven hours until they’ll be in bed. Another three till the turkey will be done.
‘Lori had cocktails,’ I say to Nick, as I line up the DVD player.
‘Cocktails.’ He catches on immediately. ‘Now there’s an idea. Not sure what we’ve got, spirit wise.’
‘Surprise me,’ I say.
Lori in the Ori-ent
China
Posted on 20 January 2014 by Lori
First impressions. It is big. It is incredibly busy. Everyone is Chinese – does that sound daft? It’s just there are very, very few non-Chinese faces in the crowds. I can’t understand anything. At all. It is really, really noisy. Like everything is turned up to eleven.
Everyone stares at me. It’s like living in one of those embarrassing dreams where you’re onstage and have no clothes on, except you’re awake and it’s happening even though you’re dressed. People laugh at me too.
Thailand and Vietnam felt new and totally different from home but China – it’s like another planet, not just another country.
And I am the alien.
The most important thing I have learned is how to say ‘No – don’t want it’. Loud and proud. ‘Bú yào.’ Because everyone is hustling and you can’t walk along the pavement without getting hassled to buy stuff.
In these first photos you can see the view from my room. There are three ring roads in Chengdu and this is the middle one. The tower blocks around are enormous, over thirty storeys high, and at street level there are shops and bars and street stalls. I love the old architecture, the teahouses along the river, the beautiful pagodas and bridges. There are lots of parks but there’s also loads of building work everywhere (more tower blocks). The pictures of the park make it look old and peaceful. Maybe I’ll add a soundtrack sometime so you can hear how loud it all is. It’s a bit overwhelming but my travel mate Dawn says to go with the flow. So that’s what I’m doing. Lxxx
CHAPTER SEVEN
The new year doesn’t bring all those things we hope for – health, wealth and happiness. Things start to unravel at the end of January. Nick is standing in the kitchen, his face several shades paler than usual, his eyes darker, inky, angry.
‘They say there’s no need to panic,’ he says, ‘but everyone’s tarting up their CVs and rediscovering LinkedIn. Fuck, Jo.’ He refills his whisky glass.
‘They’ll keep some people on,’ I say, ‘surely, even if the merger goes ahead. The project will still need finishing.’
‘I don’t know. Andy’s not giving anyone straight answers.’ Andy is his boss, the project manager. ‘He probably doesn’t know himself,’ he adds, still anxious to be fair, even though he might be getting shafted. ‘It’s an awful time to be looking for jobs.’
‘It might not come to that. We’ll manage,’ I say.
‘How? On what you earn? On bloody benefits?’
‘We’ll have to,’ I say. ‘People do.’ I’m being optimistic. I’ve seen families at school go through the mill, plunged into free school dinners, shocked at the reality of life on the welfare system. And others who, despite all their efforts, have never been able to escape from it, now shamed and hounded by the rhetoric of blaming the poor for poverty. But I’m determined to remain positive, ignore the way my stomach dropped when he announced the risk of redundancy.
‘Besides,’ I say, ‘you’ll get some money.’
‘Yes,’ Nick says, ‘twenty grand.’
‘Breathing space. Then you could look for—’
He holds up his hands,
he doesn’t need any more blithe reassurances.
A week later I get a call from Sunita, Isaac’s teacher. Can I come to the classroom?
She sounds strained, or am I imagining it?
The rest of the class are playing out. Isaac is there and his best friend Sebastian. Sebastian is in tears.
‘What’s the matter?’ I say.
‘I’m afraid Isaac bit Sebastian,’ Sunita says.
‘I didn’t,’ Isaac says.
Crouching down so I’m level with the two boys, I say to Isaac, ‘What happened?’
His face is tight, a scowl scored deep on his brow. ‘He’s stupid,’ Isaac says.
‘Calling people names is naughty. What happened, Sebastian?’ I say.
Sebastian’s lower lip is quivering and his eyes well up again. He talks in hiccups. ‘He bit me.’ He shows me the evidence, tooth-marks on his forearm.
‘You need to say sorry,’ I tell Isaac, ‘and you’ll have to go to time-out.’
Isaac looks murderous. If he could bite me too, he would.
‘He said Benji was a pig,’ Isaac says.
‘I did not,’ Sebastian retorts. ‘I said he was big. You didn’t listen.’
‘It doesn’t matter what he said,’ Sunita tells Isaac. ‘You do not hurt other people. If someone is mean to you, you tell a teacher.’
Thank God it was Sebastian, I think. His mum, Freya, won’t make a big deal of it. I hope the boys’ friendship will last. Isaac needs all the friends he can get.
‘Say sorry,’ I say.
Isaacs spits out a ‘sorry’.
‘Isaac,’ Sunita says, ‘that doesn’t sound like you mean it.’
It takes two more attempts but we get a halfway decent apology and Isaac spends the rest of the morning in time-out.
There’s a darkness in Isaac I don’t understand. It’s not just the biting – that’s one of the ways he expresses it. While the world is Lori’s oyster and Finn’s happy home, for Isaac it often seems to be a place of treachery and shadows. Glass half empty and witches under the bed. Where does it come from?
Lori in the Ori-ent
Food: the good, the bad and the . . . What is that?
Posted on 12 February 2014 by Lori
Sichuan province, and Chengdu in particular, is known for its spicy food. If you are lucky enough to stumble upon a waiter who has any English you might be able to negotiate a mild version of the day’s dish. For mild read fiery.
The cuisine comes in three levels of spiciness. Spiciness is a bit of a euphemism. We’re talking chilli at industrial concentrations. But also Sichuan peppers – little round peppercorns that are like culinary grenades, zapping the nerve endings and destroying all sensation in the mouth. Raised in Manchester, I am quite familiar with the delights of the curry house, and can scarf down a vindaloo with the best of them. I had no idea.
Here the meals are
1) hot
2) blazing hot
3) scorching.
It would be handy to have some sort of rating system on the menus, sticks of dynamite, maybe, or little bonfires. Until that is introduced (don’t hold your breath) the dining-out experience can best be described as a minefield. One advantage of this custom of drenching everything in fiery, sweat-inducing chilli sauce is that while I am trying to tell if my tongue has melted or there’s any enamel left on my teeth I am less anxious about what lurks within the sauce. Whether it is lamb or pork or chicken or, to be more precise, a bit of the animal I have ever allowed past my lips before. Armpits, eyeballs, testicles, toes? Or any of those inside bits I prefer not to think about? Nothing is wasted.
There is no bread. There are no chips, no mash or jacket potatoes. There is always rice or noodles – as long as you ask for it. I have never been so hungry in my life. You’d think three honey buns would fill up a girl with an appetite but the effect lasts for about ten minutes.
On Saturday I was out with friends (you can see us in the last picture). Bradley, Dawn and Shona. Bradley has better Mandarin than me (hah! everyone has better Mandarin than me), and by the end of our meal, with a little help from an app on his phone, he’d worked out that among our dishes of baby lamb and big pig we had also enjoyed sea slug.
I could’ve lived without knowing that. Lxxx
PS Mum, send cheese. And baguettes. Now. *joke*
CHAPTER EIGHT
Saturday, and Nick has taken Finn to his swimming practice. Benji and Isaac are lying sprawled on the floor. Isaac has been drawing – his pictures are astonishing for his age: intense, accurate, forensic in their detail. This morning it’s been pirates, pirates and their ships, cutlasses and earrings, rigging and sharks in the water. Now he has one hand on Benji’s chest and is murmuring.
I am ironing.
‘What are you saying, Isaac?’
‘A story.’
‘He likes it,’ I say.
My phone sounds an email. Lori.
‘Mummy,’ Isaac says, ‘I feel sick.’
‘Oh, no – come on.’
There are no false alarms with Isaac. We reach the downstairs toilet just in time.
When he’s done I clean his face, give him water to drink. His forehead is dry and very hot.
‘Bed,’ I say.
He doesn’t argue or even ask for any toys.
‘Isaac’s poorly,’ I tell Finn when they get in, ‘so play down here.’
‘Why?’
‘So he can sleep.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Finn says.
‘I don’t know. He’s been sick.’
Finn grimaces. ‘Yuck.’
‘How was swimming?’
‘Good,’ he says.
‘He was great,’ Nick says. ‘The teacher says he’s good enough to try out for the shrimps but he has to be eight.’
I pick up Lori’s message.
From:
[email protected]
Date:
21 February 2014 01:08
To:
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject:
News
Hi guys, amazing news. I’ve got a job! I’m working for an agency – Five Star English – as a private English tutor. They sorted out my visa, I had to fly to Hong Kong and back, but it’s all done and I can stay for a year. And so many people want lessons that I’ll soon have enough money to get a decent place to live. The only thing is I can’t get a refund on my return ticket for next week. Sorry Dad, but I should be able to pay my own way home when the time comes. It’s all happening so fast!
Lxxx
‘God!’
Nick looks up from the paper.
‘Lori,’ I say.
I hand him my phone.
‘Another year,’ he says. ‘It’s a fantastic opportunity if she can make a go of it.’
‘I know.’ I’m still disconcerted, adjusting to the fact that I won’t see her for twelve more months.
‘And one less mouth,’ Nick says.
We share a look. He’s received his redundancy notice and has started applying for jobs.
Changing her plans again. Then why shouldn’t she? She’s not beholden to anyone. It’s not as if I was relying on her to come home for any particular practical reason. So why do I feel so let down?
Lori in the Ori-ent
What’s in a Name 2?
Posted on 9 March 2014 by Lori
Call me Bird’s Net Jasmine. Those of you who landed here before will know I’ve already posted about my name, Lorelei, and its meaning here. It’s a common custom in China for people to work out a Chinese version of their name and likewise for Chinese people who work with Westerners as guides and translators or teachers to take on an English name. Among the Chinese friends I’ve made are Rosemary (Mo Li) and Oliver (Zhong Pengfei). Looking online, thanks to www.wearyourchinesename.com, I came up with these suggestions for Chinese versions of Lori. Lori is made up of two characters. The first means ‘net’ or ‘bird’s net’ or
‘sieve’ or ‘twelve dozen’, among other things. The second comes from the word ‘jasmine’. I could go for Li instead, meaning ‘plums’ or Lei (pronounced Lee), a ‘flower bud’. This might be a slight improvement on ‘alluring rock’ (see earlier post). My surname is Maddox. This is not a reference to a deranged bull but apparently comes from the Welsh name Madog, meaning ‘goodly’. Maybe I should just call myself Manchester or I could double up on the Lei and call myself Lei Lei, or Lilo? Lo means ‘dredge’. ‘Plum dredge’?
The jury’s still out. All suggestions gratefully received in the comments below.
Lxxx
CHAPTER NINE
From:
[email protected]
Date:
11 March 2014 22:19
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Hello
Hi Mum,
Tell Nick I hope he gets something soon and that it’s way better than his old job. Yep, I’m busy. I have some school-age students, little ones that I teach in the evenings, three different families on different days. Then a graduate who wants to improve his spoken English, and I’ve just taken on a friend of his too. There’s a couple who are learning together (Saturday) and some high-school students – their parents clubbed together. It’s quite a big deal here if they can speak English: more opportunity for jobs in tourism and business. I get stopped all the time by people asking me if I can teach them.
Half the World Away Page 3