I click the disconnect button quickly and close my eyes, full of regret, wishing I hadn’t called him. That was another mistake. My voice had been normal, cheery even, but while I was talking an announcement had been made. He will know I am calling from an airport and, being the bright button that he is, alarm bells will be going off as to why if all is well I would be calling him from an airport simply to say hello. With every decision I take I seem to be digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole.
On the spur of the moment I decide not to go back to the company flat, and instead take a taxi to my grandmother’s house. Staring unhappily out of the window I fret about whether to call my mother. I know I should, but ever since Luke died, she has become so fragile I have learned to either bear my burdens silently or take them over to Nan.
The driver drops me off outside her ground floor flat, and I go up to her blue door and ring the bell. Her little face appears at the window. I wave and she breaks into a massive grin. At that moment she is no longer a sprightly seventy-two-year-old woman, but a mere child.
In seconds her beaming face is at her open door.
She greets me in the traditional Chinese way, by asking me if I have eaten.
‘Yes,’ I reply automatically, but she bundles me energetically through the door past the Feng Shui cat with its waving arm, and into her small, rather dim kitchen. It has old-fashioned, dark wood furniture and the air smells of incense that has been lit in the red prayer altar of the Kitchen God, Zao Jun. In front of his statue she has left an offering: a blue bowl of oranges.
‘Sit, sit,’ Nan says, and starts filling her electric steamer with water.
‘I’m actually not hungry,’ I protest.
‘You’re never hungry,’ she grumbles. She switches on the appliance and turns around, her hands on her hips. ‘Look at you, as thin as one of those throw-away chopsticks.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘And have you been lying in the sun again?’
‘It’s called a tan, Nan.’
‘Tan, my foot. These unattractive Western traditions that you have picked up. You should have seen your great-grandmother. She was as white as a lotus blossom.’
‘Talking of traditions, didn’t she also have bound feet?’
She stares at me disapprovingly. ‘What’s that got to do with taking care of your skin?’
‘Nan,’ I say tiredly, ‘I haven’t come here to talk about the state of my skin.’
She shakes her head and moves toward her freezer. She rummages around and brings out white buns made of Hong Kong flour with chicken and pork filling. She shows me the packet. ‘See? Your favorite brand.’
‘Thanks,’ I say weakly. The last thing I feel like is food.
While she busies herself placing the buns into the steamer I look around me. Nothing in Nan’s kitchen ever seems to change. From the time Luke and I were kids everything looks and smells the same. We used to love coming here. There was always some kind of celebration—moon cake festival, lanterns, Chinese New Year festivities when we used to eat sticky sweet cakes, get money in red packets, and burn fire crackers to speed the Kitchen God on his journey back to heaven.
Nan wipes her hands and comes to sit beside me.
‘Nan,’ I begin. ‘You know I became an undercover police officer, right?’
‘Of course. You told me this yourself. I’m not senile yet, you know?’
‘Well, anyway, I was sent on this assignment and…er…’
Her sharp dark eyes gaze at me curiously.
‘I think I’ve developed, well, feelings for my target.’
There is no discernible expression in her face. ‘Tell me about him. What kind of man is he?’
‘He is loyal to his family, kind to animals, and… He is fair.’
‘Why do the police want him?’
‘He’s supposed to be a drug dealer.’
I see fear whip into her eyes and she clasps her hands tightly together.
‘But I don’t think he is one, though.’
Her hands unclasp with relief.
I bite my lip. ‘But I am also afraid that my judgment may be colored by the way I feel about him.’
She leans forward. ‘Can it be the police have got it wrong?’
‘Unlikely,’ I admit reluctantly.
She frowns and studies me. ‘So why have you come to see me then?’
For a moment I stare into her familiar eyes. And then I realize that I have come to see her because I trust her. I trust her not to bullshit me about anything. And because I know she is non-judgmental, except about things like getting a tan and modern Western ways. But more importantly because I know that something is wrong. If I put it all out on the table for her to peer at she might pick up what I have missed.
‘I’ve come because I’m feeling confused and guilty. And I know you can’t make it better, but maybe just talking about it all to you will clear it up for me.’
‘What are you feeling guilty about?’
‘I believe I am betraying Luke in the worst possible way by falling in love with a suspected drug dealer. Even if the police are wrong, and that is a very unlikely scenario, it is still all a horrible, horrible mess. I feel as if I have become so steeped in filth and mire that a part of me will never get out of it.’
Nan leans forward. ‘When you were born I wanted your mother to name you Lotus, but she refused. She said that name was too old-fashioned. In an attempt at compromise she named you Lily, but she didn’t understand. She thought because my name, Lan, means orchid, I wanted you to be named after a flower too. I didn’t. I wanted to call you Lotus because I looked into your big blue eyes and I felt the sheer strength and purity of your personality. My granddaughter is going to grow up to be strong and pure. Like the Lotus she can remain in filth and mire all her life but she will rise out of it clean and pure. Not a tiny drop of mud or slime can stick to her.’
Tears fill my eyes. I blink them away quickly. ‘I don’t feel very pure, Nan. In fact I feel as if my feelings for Jake and my guilt about betraying Luke are clouding my instincts and intellect, and making me miss something. Something very important.’
She covers my hand with one of hers. ‘When you were a baby, not even two years old, I would sit you on that cabinet.’ She points to the high, lacquered cabinet where she stores her odds and ends. ‘And I would tell you not to move. And you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t move at all. You’d sit there with your legs dangling down.’
I look at the cabinet. It does seem a high perch to put a small child on.
‘It was amazing how you were aware of the danger, but unafraid. I could even leave the room. I did a few times too. But I could never do that with Luke. I could never trust him. I always knew he didn’t know what was good for him. You have to trust your instincts. If you think he is a good man, then I trust you. If your instincts are telling you something is not right then I would trust them implicitly.’
I nod gratefully. I know Nan is right. The only times I have gone wrong in my life are when I have not followed my instincts.
‘There is something else, too, that is really bothering me. I am so in love with him I can’t imagine my life without him, but I don’t know whether he really cares about me, or if it’s just sex for him.’
Nan’s eyes flash. ‘A man can find sex anywhere.’
‘Yes, but not the kind of sex we have. We can’t keep our hands off each other.’
‘Intimacy is the flesh clearing the path for hearts and souls,’ she says primly.
‘What happens if the lust goes and there is no love?’
‘Wait here,’ Nan commands, and goes into the hallway. I hear her enter her bedroom and open her armoire. She comes back with a small box. Seashells have been crudely stuck all around it. She puts it on the table in front of me, sits down and looks at me.
‘Go on, open it,’ she invites.
I do and it is full of an assortment of small, worthless objects
, a yellow button, a bit of shiny foil, a bright orange earring, a screw… I raise my eyes back to her. ‘What are all these things?’
‘Don’t you remember them at all?’
I frown. Vaguely. Something…almost dream-like breaks into my memory. I pick up the orange earring. It is smooth and old. I look up at her. ‘I remember this. I know it’s mine, but I don’t remember where it came from or how it slots into my past.’
She smiles.
‘Yes, these are all yours. From the time you were about three years old until you were five you lived with Granddad and me in a rented house close to an abandoned factory. Many crows lived there. At first they would swoop down and eat the food that you accidentally dropped. But then you began to feed them, nuts, breadcrumbs, dry dog food. And they began to bring you presents. All these were brought to you by the crows. They were showing you their love.’
‘I don’t remember,’ I say with a frown.
‘It was a long time ago.’
And suddenly I have a memory, of a flock of crows on the ground beside me. They are all busy feeding. I smile at Nan full of wonder. ‘I remember them now. Why did you show me this today?’
‘Bright shiny things are given to us by people who love us.’ She looks at my rings. ‘Like those.’
‘You noticed?’
‘I’m old. I’m not blind,’ she says, and goes to take the buns out of the steamer.
I sigh. ‘Yeah, we got married. I’m afraid it’s all a huge mess.’
‘Never mind. Let’s eat now. What is this thing the British are always saying? It will all come out in the wash.’
‘Nan, why did Luke and I come to live with you?’
Nan doesn’t turn to look at me. ‘Your mother was ill at that time.’
‘She didn’t want us, did she?’
She whirls around suddenly, her face as fierce as I have ever seen it. ‘She wanted both of you, but she was ill, Lily. She was ill, the same way Luke was.’