Li and Sun had picked up Sun’s wife from the police apartments in Zhengyi Road en route to Tiantan, and as Li parked outside a cake shop in the alleyway next to the restaurant, they saw Margaret standing on the steps waiting for them. Her bike was chained with a group of others by the entrance to a shop opposite. Li saw the little piece of pink ribbon tied to the basket fluttering in the chill breeze and felt a momentary stab of anger. He had asked her repeatedly not to cycle again until after the baby was born, but she had insisted that she would be no different from any other Chinese woman, and took her bicycle everywhere. It was his baby, too, he had told her. And she had suggested that he try carrying it around in his belly on buses and underground trains, squeezed up against the masses. She was adamant that she was safer on her bike.
The introductions were made on the steps outside the restaurant. Wen’s English was even poorer than Sun’s. She was in her early twenties, a slight, pretty girl on whom the swelling of her baby seemed unnaturally large. She shook Margaret’s hand coyly, unaccustomed to socialising with foreign devils. ‘Verr pleased meet you,’ she said, blushing. ‘You call me by English name. Christina.’ Margaret sighed inwardly. A lot of young Chinese girls liked to give themselves English names, as if it made them somehow more accessible, or more sophisticated. But it never came naturally to Margaret to use them. She preferred to stick to the Chinese, or avoid using the name at all.
‘Hi,’ she said, putting a face on it. ‘I’m Margaret.’
With difficulty, Wen got her tongue part of the way around this strange, foreign name. ‘Maggot,’ she said.
Margaret flicked a glance in Li’s direction and saw him smirking. She got Maggot a lot. Her inclination was always to point out that a maggot was a nasty little grub that liked to feed on dead flesh. But since this might leave her open to a smart retort from anyone with a good handle on English, she usually refrained. ‘You can call me Maggie,’ she said.
‘Maggee,’ Wen said and smiled, pleased with herself. And Margaret knew they were never going to be soul mates.
Inside, a maitre d’ in a traditional Chinese jacket stood by a carving of an old man holding up a bird cage. ‘Se wei!’ he hollered, and Margaret nearly jumped out of her skin. Almost immediately, from behind a large piece of ornately carved furniture that screened off the restaurant, came a chorus of voices returning the call. ‘Se wei!’
Margaret turned to Li, perplexed. ‘What are they shouting at?’ He had not brought her here before.
‘Se wei!’ Li repeated. ‘Four guests.’ The maitre d’ called again and was answered once more by the chorus from the other side of the screen. He indicated that they should follow him. Li said, ‘It is traditional to announce how many guests are coming into the restaurant. And every waiter will call to you, wanting you to go to his table.’
When they emerged from behind the screen, rows of square lacquered tables stretched out before them, to a wall covered in framed inscriptions and ancient wall hangings at the back, and a panoramic window opening on to the street on their left. White-jacketed chefs with tall white hats worked feverishly behind long counters preparing the food, while each table was attended by a young waiter wearing the traditional blue jacket with white turned-up cuffs, and a neatly folded white towel draped over his left shoulder. A cacophony of calls greeted the four guests, every waiter calling out, indicating that he would like to serve them at his table. As they were early, and most of the tables were not yet occupied, the noise was deafening.
Li led them to a table near the back and Sun and Wen looked around, wide-eyed. The Beijing Noodle King was a new experience for them, too. Margaret imagined that they probably had more experience of Burger King. ‘Shall I order?’ Li asked, and they nodded. Li took the menu and looked at it only briefly. He knew what was good. His Uncle Yifu had brought him here often while he was still a student at the University of Public Security.
The waiter scrawled their order in a pale blue notepad and hurried off to one of the long counters. A fresh chorus of calls greeted a party of six.
‘So,’ Wen said above the noise, and she patted her stomach, ‘how long?’
‘Me?’ Margaret asked. Wen nodded. ‘A month.’
Wen frowned. ‘No possible. You too big.’
For a moment Margaret was perplexed, and then the light dawned. ‘No, not one month pregnant. One month to go.’
Wen clearly did not understand, and Li explained. Then she smiled. ‘Me, too. Another four week.’
Margaret smiled and nodded and wished she were somewhere else. ‘What a coincidence,’ she said, wondering how many pregnant women in a country of 1.2 billion people might be entering the last four weeks of their confinement.
Wen reached out across the table and put her hand over Margaret’s. ‘Girl? Boy?’ And Margaret immediately felt guilty for being so superior.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know.’
Wen’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. The ultrasound technology was easy. How could anyone not want to know? ‘I got boy,’ she said proudly.
‘Good for you.’ Margaret’s cheeks were aching from her fixed smile. She turned it on Li, and he immediately saw it for the grimace it really was.
He said hastily to Wen in Chinese, ‘Have you enrolled for your antenatal classes here yet?’
She shook her head, and glanced at Sun. ‘No, I’ve been too busy unpacking.’
Sun grinned. ‘I told you, we could open a shop with the amount of gear she’s brought with her, Chief.’
Two beers and two glasses of water arrived at the table.
Li said to Wen in English, ‘Maybe Margaret could take you to her antenatal class this afternoon.’ He looked pointedly at Margaret. ‘And you could get her enrolled.’
‘Sure,’ Margaret said. ‘There’s three classes a week, and a couple of extras I go to as well.’ Once she got her there, she knew she could dump responsibility on to Jon Macken’s wife, Yixuan, who could deal with her in Chinese. ‘They encourage husbands to go, too.’ And she returned Li’s pointed look, the smile bringing an ache now to her jaw. ‘Only, some of them never seem to have the time.’ She turned to Sun. ‘But you’ll want to go, Detective Sun, won’t you?’
Sun looked a little bemused. He came from a world where men and women led separate lives. He looked to Li for guidance. Li said, ‘Sure he will. But not this afternoon. He’s going to be too busy.’
‘And I suppose that applies to his boss, too,’ Margaret said.
‘I’m picking up my father at the station. Remember?’ Li said, and suddenly reality came flooding back. For two days Margaret had been able to return to her former self, focused on her work, on the minutest observation of medical evidence, a fulfilment of all her training and experience. And suddenly she was back in the role of expectant mother and bride-to-be. Li’s father arrived today, her mother tomorrow. The betrothal meeting was the day after. The wedding next week. She groaned inwardly and felt as if her life were slipping back on to its course beyond her control.
The food arrived. Fried aubergine dumplings, mashed aubergine with sesame paste, sliced beef and tofu. And they picked at the dishes in the centre of the table with their chopsticks, lifting what they fancied on to their own plates to wash down with beer or water.
‘I thought this was a noodle restaurant,’ Margaret said.