Lisa Smith squints at me over the top of her reading glasses. On the other side of her wafer-thin office door, we can hear the laughter of the students, the scuffle of their work boots, the rhythmic chatter of Japanese.
“I know her.”
“I know you do. But how well?”
The heat is on again at Churchill’s. Lisa Smith is watching me like a short-sighted, bilious old hawk. I am the focus of her attention once more because the police are not going to press charges against Hamish for what he did in that public toilet on Highbury Fields. My colleague was so relieved to be off the hook that he immediately walked down to Leicester Square and offered oral sex to an undercover policeman.
I really admire Hamish. There are plenty of cute young boys he could be chasing at Churchill’s-smooth-skinned East Asians, brooding Indians, tactile Italians-but he never goes anywhere near them. Hamish has that enviable ability to separate work and pleasure which I so painfully lack.
“I haven’t slept with Olga. On my life.”
“Is that the truth?”
It’s the truth. I have walked to the top of Primrose Hill with Olga on a Sunday morning-the one time of the week when she is free from the demands of both Churchill’s International Language School and the Eamon de Valera public house. We have held hands as we looked down at the city, and then walked to Camden Town where she let me chastely kiss her on the lips over a full English breakfast.
Olga and I have walked by the canals of north London, looking at the house boats as I slipped my arm around her waist and marveled at the springiness of youth. That’s what you lose as you get older-that springiness. We have wandered the wilder parts of Hampstead Heath on Sunday afternoon, eaten ice cream in the grounds of Kenwood House, and she has told me about her home, her dreams, the boyfriend she left behind. But I haven’t slept with her. Not yet. I’m still waiting for the green light.
Why not? What possible harm could it do?
When I come out of Lisa Smith’s office, I see that Hiroko is waiting for me down the hall. She is pretending to read the notice board-rooms to let, rice cookers for sale, bicycles wanted-but she slowly turns to face me as I approach her, her black hair swinging across her glasses, and I am afraid that she is also going to ask me if I am sleeping with the Advanced Beginner known as Olga Simonov. But she doesn’t.
“I want to apologize,” she says.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“For standing outside your house that night. I just thought-I don’t know. I thought we were good. You and me.”
“We were good.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
I don’t know how to explain it. You cared too much for me, I think. And if you knew me-really knew me-you would understand that I am really not worth it.
You are kind and sweet and generous and true and decent, and I am none of these things, haven’t been for quite a while. You got me wrong. So wrong that it scared me off. Never give someone that power over you, I want to tell her. Don’t do it, Hiroko.
“You’ll meet somebody else,” I say. “There are a lot of nice people in the world. You could feel something for any one of them.”
“But I met you,” she says.
Then she smiles, and there’s something about that smile that makes me doubt myself. There’s something about that smile that makes me think Hiroko knows more about all this than I ever will.
The window of the Shanghai Dragon is full of flowers and light. Displays of peach, orange and narcissus blossoms are aglow with the warm light coming from dozens of red candlelit lanterns. The restaurant is a riot of scent and color among the drab grays and traffic fumes of the Holloway Road. There is aCLOSED sign on the door, but the old place has never looked more alive than it does tonight.
We stand on the street looking at this small miracle on this busy north London road. My mother, my nan, Olga and me, basking in the warm glow of all the red lanterns.
“So beautiful,” says my mother.
Pasted to the door of the Shanghai Dragon are two red posters with gold Chinese characters, signifying happiness, long life and prosperity. There are also two smiling, bowing figures on the door, a girl in traditional Chinese dress and a boy also in traditional Chinese dress, mirror images of each other, their hands clasped, open hand on closed fist, in salutation to the New Year. They both look absurdly cute, happy and fat. And, above all, prosperous. We ring the bell.
William suddenly appears behind the plate-glass door, his round face grinning as he fiddles with the catch, swiftly followed by his sister Diana. Then there are the parents, plump Harold and shy Doris, followed by Joyce and George. They are all smiling with pleasure. I have never seen them so happy.
“Kung hay fat choi!” the Changs tell us, as we go inside.
“Happy New Year to you too!” My mum smiles, although kung hay fat choi means “wishing you prosperity” more than anything to do with the passing of another year. Or perhaps the Chinese believe that prosperity is necessary for happiness. I reflect that sometimes this family seems completely British to me-when George is diving into his fried chicken wings at General Lee’s Tasty Tennessee Kitchen, or when I see Joyce drinking “English tea” with my mum, or when Doris is watching Coronation Street, or when I hear the undiluted London accents of Diana and William, or when Harold goes off to play golf on Sunday morning. But tonight the Changs are Chinese.
Inside the restaurant we can hear the sound of fireworks.
“It’s only a tape,” William tells me, rolling his eyes with all the world-weariness a six-year-old can muster. “It’s not real fireworks.”
“Chinese people invent firework!” Joyce tells him.
“I know, Gran, I know.” Trying to placate her.
“But authority don’t like people having real firework,” she says, calming down a little. “They get all in a dizzy. So now everybody use tape to scare away devil spirits. Works just as well.”
I introduce the Changs to Olga, who Joyce immediately sizes up with an expert eye.
“Alfie not getting any younger,” Joyce tells her. “Can’t live like playboy forever. Need a wife pretty quick.”
Everybody laughs, apart from Joyce, who I know to be perfectly serious.
In any other gathering, Olga, as the youngest, hottest woman on the premises, would be the belle of the ball, the center of attention and the first to be offered drinks. But in the Shanghai Dragon tonight, and in Chinese homes around the world, it is age that takes precedence. My nan is the star guest here.
She is seated at the head of a table covered with plates of what looks like uncooked dumplings, or triangular ravioli, which she eyes dubiously, as if hoping to spot something she recognizes, such as a fish finger or a custard cream. William and Diana both bring her green tea, which she tastes carefully, before giving a jaunty thumbs up.
“Tastes a bit like Lemsip,” she says.
We have chicken for dinner. Chicken and steamed rice and some dishes that I can’t even look at-silkworms, blackened in the pan, full of their white mushy meat-and food that I love, like little sausages that look as though they should be on the end of a cocktail stick.
I sit next to Joyce and she keeps dropping bits of chicken into my rice bowl, making me feel like a baby bird having worms dropped into its nest. Olga says she is not so hungry because she had something to eat at the Eamon de Valera, although I think that she is just a bit embarrassed by her chop-stick technique. There is really no need for her to feel bad, because the Changs assume that every gweilo needs Western cutlery. My nan can’t use chopsticks either, so she saws away at her tiny piece of chicken with a knife and fork.
“My husband was fond of red meat,” she tells Joyce. “Bloody, he liked it. ‘Just wipe the cow’s arse and bring it to the table,’ he used to say. He was a bit of a joker.”