Exciting Times(41)

The Zhangs’ apartment was in Happy Valley, a residential area at the high altitude I had come to expect from rich people’s homes. The floors were treacherous with polish. There were oil paintings propped against the walls, as if the Zhangs had bought them on a whim and would get around sooner or later to hanging them. On the shelves and side tables stood plain figurines: swans, stallions, elks. Edith explained that Mr Zhang had got from somewhere the idea that Mrs Zhang collected porcelain. She didn’t, and scolded him for never remembering, but displayed it anyway so people would see that her husband was thoughtful.

Above the TV was a large framed photograph of a toddler in a gown and mortarboard. I assumed it was Edith at a ceremony for child geniuses, but she told me it was her sister at her kindergarten graduation, which everyone did – except Edith, who’d thrown up in the car and refused to go in. That evening Mrs Zhang took Edith to see the Principal and give a rehearsed apology for her absence. Mrs Shek squinted and said: ‘Thank you, Edith – but Mrs Zhang, this wasn’t necessary,’ and all the way home Mrs Zhang said: ‘Wasn’t necessary!’ sometimes alternating with ‘Unnecessary!’ for syllabic texture.

We watched TV. At the ad break Edith read out posts from her friend Audrey, a micro-influencer. Sometimes she showed her boyfriend’s wallet in brunch flatlays, but never his face. That way when she switched boyfriend the brand endured.

We wondered about the straights.

‘They’re like pandas,’ Edith said. ‘You pity them in the zoo, but fling the cage open and they’ll stay there, chewing.’

‘You know there’s nothing intrinsically radical about us both being women.’

‘No, not intrinsically’ – as if to say: challenge accepted.

She added that her mother would be back soon. ‘Don’t mention the facelift,’ she said.

Mrs Zhang entered. I didn’t mention the facelift. She’d come home from grocery shopping with their helper, Cristina, who was a head shorter than them and wore a T-shirt and track shorts. Mrs Zhang told Edith she was getting fat, then ordered the maid to make us dumplings. The china was painted with leaves and flowers. While we ate, Cristina stood there refilling our water. Edith and Mrs Zhang acted like this was normal, so I did, too. That’s good to know about me, I thought. It’s good to know how I behave in this situation.

Mrs Zhang told us about last night’s charity gala, then looked at Edith, who asked obediently if Tatler had come. ‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs Zhang, eyes cast upwards as though Tatler’s spirit hath moved her.

She didn’t pay me much attention. She asked what I did, and when I said I taught TEFL, she had no further questions. I was grateful. It would have embarrassed us both if she’d pretended to take an interest in someone as unsuccessful as me. Briefly I contemplated standing up, yanking at the tablecloth, watching the silverware crash into Mrs Zhang’s lap, and yelling at her that she had no business giving Edith complexes. But it wasn’t my place.

After dinner, Mrs Zhang showed us her wedding photos. I could see the resemblance to Edith more clearly in them, either because their ages were similar or because Mrs Zhang’s face was as yet unmarked by surgical intervention. Mr Zhang was handsome and wore thick Eighties glasses. The couple looked favoured by destiny, like the subjects of a glossy history-book picture taken before they were famous.

Mr Zhang was in Guangzhou for the day. Edith said I’d meet him soon, and her sister Gabrielle, and her brother Angus when he was back from New York, and her grandparents at some point of course, and then I’d have met the Zhangs.

*

The following evening, Edith and I went to see Vampire Cleanup Department at the Paterson Street cinema. The plot followed Tim Cheung, a Hong Kong student who became an orphan when his parents got bitten on an anti-vampire mission. As Edith said, it fulfilled the functions of a B-movie and if you expected anything else then you’d missed the point.

The light from the theatre screen blinked against her profile. Her lips were slightly open and her neck was long and pale like the filament of an orchid. I nearly reached out to touch her face, but she looked so still in that suspended moment that I didn’t want her to flinch. I mouthed: you’re so beautiful. Then: I love you. Edith broke her pose to chuckle when a character swallowed the protagonist’s iPhone. I laughed, too. Our eyes met and we couldn’t stop. Someone coughed pointedly from several rows down, which only set us off again. She covered her mouth with her hands. She did that when she found something genuinely funny, but didn’t when she was only laughing to be polite. I liked knowing that about her.

It was 2 a.m. when we left. Neither of us needed to state aloud that we’d walk instead of getting a taxi so we could discuss things privately in the night air.

‘Thanks for – you know, my mum,’ Edith said.

‘What?’

‘For how you handled that.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Just her, in general. She’s so rude to Cristina and I act normal about it, like that’ll make it less awkward. But it’s not about social graces anyway. There’s no way of treating her that would make her working conditions okay.’

‘Aren’t working conditions part of how you treat someone?’ I said. ‘That’s why I hate Benny. It’s not that he doesn’t ask nicely. It’s that he’s not really asking.’