There are greetings and enquiries about how she is today. Lori’s replies are brief, muted. I go and say hello to them all.
‘Maybe two of you could do the kitchen and two in here?’ Tom suggests.
They divide up and I go back into the bedroom. I collect her shoes and put them in the case. I bring the clothes in that she’d left drying on the balcony, among them the shirt that I was sure she would have taken if she had been away on holiday.
There isn’t much conversation, but now and again I hear Dawn say, ‘Take or leave?’ and Lori reply, or Lori say to someone, ‘You can chuck that out.’
It doesn’t take long. All of the kitchen equipment is left for the next tenant. Her travel guides and work notes, dictionary and other bits and pieces go into the case.
‘Nearly done,’ I tell them. We will drop the keys at the gatehouse and Dawn will see the landlord to settle the finances. She thinks the deposit will more or less equate to the rent payments Lori missed but will let us know.
Tom takes the photo off the wall and puts it into her case along with the lucky Chinese knot.
I feel a rush of emotion, aware of all the partings that are imminent, but Lori takes it in her stride: telling Oliver to keep in touch; thanking Rosemary for everything and making her promise she’ll visit us in Manchester when she comes to the UK. Shona stoops down and gives Lori a small package: inside is a necklace, glass fragments in cobalt blue and bottle green caught in twisted silver.
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Lori says.
‘You get well now,’ Shona says.
Just Dawn is left. She goes to hug Lori and Lori freezes, then leans forward, her thin arms encircling her friend.
I see Dawn’s back judder and hear her sniff. Lori gives a little cry, then releases her arms. Dawn straightens up, saying, ‘Sorry,’ and blowing her nose. Lori wipes her face with her hands and gives a lopsided smile. ‘Zài jiàn,’ she says thickly.
Dawn hiccups a laugh. She turns to Tom, who pats her arm and says, ‘All the best.’ Tom and I walk her to the door and I give her a quick hug. Her face is working, she’s barely holding it together, and I think we both know it’d be best if she didn’t go to pieces in front of Lori. She whispers her goodbyes and leaves.
Lori asks me to open the balcony windows and Tom takes her out in the wheelchair. With help she gets to her feet, leaning her arms on the rust-pocked railings.
‘It’s clear today,’ I say.
To the right, we can see across to the second ring road, and beyond that the high-rises stretch to the horizon. The sun glints on the windows in the tower blocks opposite us. A crane at work on the construction site to the left swings a load way up high over the roof. The air is filled with sound, the ubiquitous horns, the drone of machinery, someone whistling, other voices raised, as if in argument, and a dog howling.
‘I was so happy here,’ she says.
I touch her back, feel the knobs of her spine, a flicker of tension. She doesn’t say anything else.
The three of us stand gazing at Chengdu until Lori sits down and it’s time to go.
The airport, bright with its shimmering marble floors, is very warm and airless, in spite of banks of air-conditioning vents in the walls. You could look outside, where a thick haze is smothering everything, and think it was a foggy autumn day at home, chilly and damp with the smell of burning leaves and wet wool in the air. It’s fifteen days since we arrived in China, but feels so much longer.
Bilingual announcements echo over the PA system. A Chinese group share a picnic, the spicy aroma percolating through the departure lounge.
I buy pandas for the boys.
We have VIP status, will be fast-tracked to our seats, avoid the queues, get extra leg room, considerate attention. But nothing can fast-track the journey. Over fourteen hours until we reach home. It’s odd at first to see so many Caucasian faces again, Westerners. No one’s staring at us any more. Or not for that reason. Some stare at Lori. Perhaps she is recognizable from the news coverage. Her face and that of Bai Lijuan, along with pictures of Bradley Carlson, have been beamed around the world. A global story for our global village. Or is it simply because she looks so frail? Face still skull-like, no fat on her, shoulders angular, knees sharp, beneath the loose jade silk pyjama-suit she wears.
While we wait at Schiphol for the connecting flight, Tom makes calls, work ones but also to Edward at Missing Overseas – he has been managing the press at this end with Nick. A request has been made for them to respect the family’s privacy with the carrot of inducement that some of us may be available to appear at a press conference in due course. It’s Lori they want, of course, Lori who survived and emerged from the maw of the monster.
We won’t let them do that, we agreed, gawp and preen and pick over her trauma, but as Edward has explained, we wanted the publicity, we courted them when she went missing, invited the press to help us. ‘And now it’s biting us in the arse,’ Tom said.
‘We can speak,’ I said to Tom, ‘you and I can, when we’re ready.’
Lori drowsed a lot of the long flight. I had to hold back from fussing, didn’t comment when she ignored the food and barely had any of the supplementary drinks she’d been given. Tom and I sat either side of her. He drank steadily, taking full advantage of the complimentary bar service. I didn’t dare. I knew I’d suffer with a vicious headache and dehydration. My eyes feel as though they have been peeled.
As we come into the arrivals hall in Manchester, there is a sudden stir: a group of people surge forward, some with cameras, some with microphones, firing questions at us.
‘How are you feeling, Lorelei?’
‘Will you be testifying?’
‘What was your ordeal like?’
‘How did the police find you?’
‘How is it being home?’
I flinch, stop pushing the wheelchair. Lori cowers, her eyes squeezed shut.
Tom has the luggage trolley. He holds up his hands. ‘Wait,’ he says loudly. ‘We’re just glad to be home and we would really appreciate some privacy.’ He’s on edge – I imagine him taking a swing at someone.
‘What’s the first thing you want to do, Lorelei?’
‘Were you happy with the work of the Chinese authorities?’
They continue to call out. Then, with a lurch of anxiety, I see Nick at the other side of the gangway hurrying towards us. He looks worn out, bloodshot eyes, rumpled clothes, his hair in need of a wash. There’s a woman with him and he introduces her as Isabelle – she’ll be helping us with the media. I’m just wondering why Isabelle can’t start by getting rid of the scrum crowding close by when she speaks up: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have a statement here from the family.’
Nick nods to me and gestures we should keep moving.
I can hear the beginning of her speech: ‘ “We would like to say that we are very relieved and very thankful to be at home with Lorelei, who is recovering her strength day by day after excellent care from the Huaxi hospital. We would like to thank all those people who were able to help . . .” ’
Out of earshot, Nick stops walking and crouches to greet Lori. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ he says.
She smiles, wan, tired.
We exit the arrivals hall. Tom lugs his case from the trolley. I feel a clutch of panic at the notion of him leaving us now.
‘I’ll get a cab,’ he says. He bends over Lori. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘OK, Dad,’ she says.
He kisses the top of her head.
As he steps away, I go to him, put my arms around him and hug. There’s a fraction of a pause, then he returns the embrace. My eyes shut tight savouring – for the last time, I imagine – the feel of him, his width and height, the heat of his chest, the smell of tobacco and cedar, the prickle of his hair brushing against my cheek.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He draws away, his eyes on mine, clear and calm.
I take the luggage trolley and turn to Nick. ‘You’ll push Lori?
’
‘Yes,’ he says. He looks at me for a moment too long and my throat closes in panic, but I ignore him and set off across the road to the car park.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
It has been raining and the air is gin clear, everything rinsed bright. The red-brick buildings seem to glow, the trees are a riot of lush vivid greens, the sky a high, aching blue.
And it is so quiet. The streets look empty, only ever a scattering of pedestrians. I had never thought of Manchester as a peaceful place before. I notice the litter, though, cigarette butts and chewing gum on the ground, plastic bottles and takeaway trays at the edges of fences and walls, carrier bags snagged on bushes. The only street sweepers we have here are little trucks with revolving circular brushes that hoover the pavements and gutters on a seemingly random basis.
‘What do you want?’ Nick asks us, when we get home. It is four o’clock in the afternoon. ‘Shower? Food? Sleep?’
I don’t know. I look outside to the garden where the grass has grown long and the bedding plants are thriving, a froth of fuchsia and lavender, red geraniums and blue lobelia.
The air is full of insects, flies and gnats, and I recall the tiny white moths, that night of the kites. Before we knew. Before we found her.
A surge of relief, euphoria, rushes through me. We are back. Home. Safe.
‘Lori?’ I say. ‘What do you fancy?’
She hesitates.
‘Tea and toast?’ Nick suggests.
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Me too,’ I say.
Nick asks about the flight, the weather in Chengdu. Small talk that we can cope with.
The toast is thick and crunchy, soft in the middle. Homemade white bread. Smothered in salted butter and dark tangy marmalade.
‘Penny’s bread?’ I guess.
‘She’s done us a few meals too,’ Nick says, ‘in the freezer, one in the fridge for tea.’
Benji sits at Lori’s side, his eyes on her, ears pricked up, tail thumping, waiting for crumbs.
I drink my tea. It’s perfect, strong and full, nothing like the tea I had over there.
Penny brings the boys home.
They are overjoyed to see Lori, both grinning from ear to ear, eager to tell her their news, show her their latest toys.
Isaac looks wiped out. He shows us his scar. I pat my knee and he climbs on.
‘I’m so glad you’re better.’ I hug his shoulders. He relaxes back against me, one hand tracing round and round my knee.
‘You look funny,’ Isaac says to Lori, when there’s a break in the conversation.
‘Yes,’ she says. She pulls a face, eyes crossed, and the boys laugh.
‘Lori’s been poorly, too,’ I say.
‘Did he have a gun?’ Isaac says. We all know who he means. Finn stops patting Benji and watches to see what she’ll say.
‘No,’ Lori says.
‘A knife, then?’ Isaac says.
Lori looks upset, so I say, ‘What happened to Lori was pretty scary and she doesn’t want to talk about it.’
‘Who’s hungry?’ Nick says, and the boys shout out. Attention turns to the food that Penny left us.
‘Shall we eat outside?’ I say. ‘If we dry the seats, is it warm enough?’
Lori makes it through the meal, then wants to sleep. I carry her case up to the little room. Penny has lent us a single bed – Lori’s double might fit into the small room at a pinch but there’d be no space for anything else. Lori has to take the stairs slowly, bent like an old woman, pausing every couple of steps.
‘Do you want to sleep downstairs?’ I say.
‘No,’ she says quickly.
Of course not. She doesn’t want to feel alone.
Isaac sits with me while Nick clears up and Finn leaps about on the trampoline, calling to us to watch his moves.
I am raw with fatigue, eyes dry, muscles aching, and close to tears of joy at being here.
‘Does your tummy hurt now?’ I ask Isaac.
‘Only if I jump or stretch it.’
‘What was it like in hospital?’ I say.
‘It was really noisy and they kept waking me up.’
‘With the noise?’
‘And a fermometer.’ His voice is growing drowsy, his eyelids drooping.
‘I think you’re a tired boy.’
‘Am not,’ he says, but he seems to grow heavier on my lap. I call Nick, who takes him up to bed.
Lori is still awake when I go in to check on her. ‘Do you want anything?’ I ask.
‘My tablets. I think they’re in my bag downstairs.’
She’s still taking oral antibiotics, she has to finish the course, and she is on the last week of lower-dose sedatives.
I bring them up and she takes them from me. ‘Leave the door open,’ she says, ‘and the light on.’
‘Yes. Do you want a bedside lamp?’ The ceiling light is very bright.
‘No, it’s OK. And tell Nick, too, about the door,’ she adds, a hint of urgency in her voice.
‘I will.’
Finn wants me read him a story.
He’s on the top bunk. ‘Isaac couldn’t climb up,’ he says. ‘We swapped.’
‘So, do you want a book or a made-up story?’
‘About my panda playing football!’ He wiggles the bear at me.
I sit on the chair in the corner, close my eyes and invent a story about a panda who has lost his football, his search in the woods and the stream, and all the creatures he meets who help him look and how he finally finds the football under a giant stork who thought it was an egg and tried to hatch it. I rattle through it but Finn seems happy enough.
‘One more?’ he says.
‘Not tonight, darling. I’m really tired. I’ve been on an aeroplane for hours and hours.’
‘Can we go and get my rocket tomorrow, Mummy?’
‘I’m not sure, but soon,’ I say.
‘What happened to Lori?’
‘She was taken away by a nasty man,’ I say.
‘And you and Tom found her?’
‘We did.’
‘You went and got her?’ His eyes, dark blue with those glints of gold, are wide, fixed on me.
‘Yes.’
‘And the man’s in prison now?’
‘He’s in the police station, locked up.’
My heart feels swollen, tender, as I answer his questions. I want to shield him from it all but I know that’s not possible.
Dizzy with exhaustion, I have a quick shower and find Nick still outside in the last of the daylight. He’s drinking wine and offers me some.
‘God, yes,’ I say, ‘and then I’m going to collapse.’
He pours me a glass, tops up his own and joins me on the bench.
‘Home,’ I say, and touch my glass to his. ‘Oh, and before I forget, Lori wants the light on and the door left open.’
I take a sip of wine: it’s cold, lemony, delicious.
The sun is setting, brazen, a ball of fire in a wash of peach and rose. I look away, blindsided, and see black discs rimmed green with each blink.
‘We need to sort out some follow-up with the GP,’ I say. ‘Maybe physio too. They suggested counselling.’ It is suddenly all too big, too weighty. My head spins. ‘I don’t know how we do this. How do we help her? I keep thinking, all those days, tied up on the floor. What he did to her . . .’
‘Don’t,’ Nick says. He puts his hand on my arm.
Sadness pours through me as if a dam has burst. I start to cry and he takes me in his arms and lets me weep until I am spent and his T-shirt is soaked and the dusk has come down.
‘There were no stars in Chengdu,’ I tell him, making out a few in the darkening sky. ‘Too cloudy. Worse than here.’
Something rustles in the shrubs near the wall. A bird roosting, perhaps, a mouse or a frog. Silence falls, and it’s a couple of minutes before the murmur of a car engine interrupts it.
‘Finn wants me to take him to the museum to get his rocket.’
/> ‘He can forget that,’ Nick says.
‘I promised . . . maybe not tomorrow. But it is Sunday so he’ll be off school.’
‘We’ve Isabelle coming at ten. She needs to talk to us about the media strategy,’ he says.
I groan. I wanted a normal day, mooching around the house, to the park with the kids, washing clothes, and it strikes me that nothing will be normal again, at least not for the foreseeable future.
‘Is she from Missing Overseas?’ I say.
‘Freelance.’
‘So we have to pay her?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Can we afford it?’
‘The way they tell it, we can’t afford not to,’ he says.
The air feels softer, moist, as night sets in. An aeroplane flies overhead, red and white lights winking, and I realize I never saw planes in Chengdu, didn’t hear any either. Among that barrage of sound, no jet engines.
‘What about you?’ I say. ‘How are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nick says wearily. He gets up, crosses to the picnic table for more wine. ‘It’s unbelievable. Just seeing her . . .’
‘I know.’
I wish Tom were here to talk to. Everything we shared in our search for Lori, he’s the only one who knows what it was like, who understands.
My own bed is blissfully soft after the punishing density of the ones in the hotels. My head is still full of the drone of our plane and I have the sensation that the mattress is vibrating.
My sleep is dark and dense and dreamless. Black velvet.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I wake to the swip swip swip of the sparrow on the corner of the guttering. Swip swip swip. Nick’s side of the bed is empty. Even after my sleep, I feel tired.
Lori is still in bed; the boys are glued to games on their tablets. There’s no sign of Benji so I assume that Nick has taken him for a walk. After I’ve eaten, I run Lori a bath, throw in handfuls of salt, to help with the sores, which are almost healed.
Isabelle arrives just after Nick has got back and says she wants to talk to Lori too, about what happens now. Lori is still in the bath so I call her and we fill in the time with coffee and harmless chat about China, the cultural differences, the language barrier. It’s a grey day, the breeze pushing clouds overhead. Still – the air is clear.
Half the World Away Page 27