Exciting Times(53)

Inside the flat I made chamomile tea. I said: ‘I know you probably don’t want to talk about Miles, but I’m there if you do.’

‘Thanks, Ava,’ Julian said.

We sat on the couch and watched the news on his laptop. He said he was thinking of getting a real physical TV. I said: ‘Christ, you really are pushing thirty.’ Hong Kong’s government had jailed three prominent pro-democracy student leaders. British McDonald’s workers were striking over zero-hour contracts. (‘How can you agree with me so much and not like Corbyn?’ ‘I think really the difference stems from our feelings on whether it would be in the national interest to turn Britain into a gulag.’) Julian fiddled with his shirtsleeves and said: ‘Do we have a date for moving out?’

‘Maybe in a couple of weeks.’

‘Right.’

I drank some of my tea so I could go and top up the water.

‘If that’s okay,’ I said.

‘Well,’ Julian said, ‘that’s not much time to find somewhere.’

‘Places move quick here,’ I said. ‘And I could get an Airbnb if I had to.’

‘True. Well, just know there’s no rush at my end if you need longer.’

Then he got up and looked for his MacBook charger. He should really just buy another, he said. Buy one for each socket in the flat, still probably manage to lose them all.

‘I’m sorry about the message,’ I said. I directed this comment to the cushion I was holding. ‘It was an accident.’

‘These things happen,’ he said, as though people routinely sent him rambling declarations of who they were fucking. This was not outside possibility. His friends were pretty weird.

‘So, Victoria,’ I said. I didn’t know if she’d been back since, but I hadn’t noticed if she had.

‘How did you –’

‘I’m a very intelligent person.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I did, but if I’ve got someone –’

He laughed. ‘I hope no one holds me to my mistakes as much as all that.’

It had never made sense to me that men thought women they’d had sex with would like to hear them be unkind about other women they’d had sex with. You would have to be a raging egomaniac, I thought, to think those men didn’t also speak about you that way. The worst thing Julian had ever said about Kat was that she was ‘fine’, and that was one of the reasons I trusted him. It wasn’t my business to mind that he was now doing and saying things he wouldn’t have previously, but it worried me.

I went to the window so he wouldn’t have to look at me, and said: ‘Do you want me to stay until Miles is better?’

‘The doctor said he’ll be fine in a few weeks,’ Julian said.

With my fingers I brushed stray soil from a potted plant off the windowsill, then went to the bin and dusted it off my hands. The plant was a gift from Edith. She’d said I couldn’t really feel safe living where nothing grew.

‘I can stay,’ I said. ‘If it would help.’

I expected him to say, ‘If you like,’ and that I’d need a good half-hour to determine whether he could do without me. Women took care of men and let them pretend we didn’t. I knew it was unfair to compare Julian to someone whose entire schooling hadn’t told them crying was for women and poors, but I remembered Edith thanking me for how I’d handled Mrs Zhang.

‘Why are we drinking tea?’ Julian said. ‘Let’s have Pinot Noir.’

‘The Chambertin or the Clos de Vougeot?’

‘That’s not my accent.’

‘Okay, but which.’

‘Wait, fuck, we still have the Clos de Vougeot?’ I saw him think: and she had us drinking tea.

My hand slipped when I poured so I filled his glass nearly to the top. I started saying sorry and Julian said there was nothing in the world less worthy of apology. I said he looked good, and he said that was surprising because the air pollution app I’d shown him had been as negative about London as it was about Hong Kong. I’d deleted it myself long ago. He said that was classic us. He had a point, though I couldn’t decide what it was.

‘Don’t feel obliged,’ Julian said, ‘but I would appreciate it if you stayed.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘I’m happy to.’

‘As friends. Till I know he’s all right.’

Friends could mean anything.





41

October

It was October 1, National Day. Julian and I offered to spend it with Miles, but he laughed and said he had other plans already. Edith suggested we see the fireworks at Victoria Harbour. I wasn’t sure what she was up to asking Julian along, too, but didn’t probe her on it. He agreed to come.

Walking through the crowd, I thought of the conclusions people could draw from seeing us. A tall, fair man and two small, dark-haired women. Two whites, one Asian. We couldn’t be related, but we were too different to be an obvious friend circle. Edith’s clothes looked the most expensive, so perhaps we were her harried personal assistants. But why were we spending National Day together? Possibly Julian and I were Edith’s friends from uni and had flown over from London for the week. We’d all gone to the same Oxford college, and Julian and I were married and visiting Edith following her return to Hong Kong so she could help us dip into the culture. Could you spot a gay woman on sight? It was meant to be one of the superpowers attendant on liking women, but clearly I’d never had it.