This story has been ongoing since I was seventeen, and just to let you know, I’m 71 this year.
Yes, it’s taken a long time to get it done.
Why, you might ask.
Well, I never gave it much interest because I started writing it after a small incident when I was 17, and working as a book packer for a book distributor in Melbourne
At the end of my first year, at Christmas, the employer had a Christmas party, and that year, it was at a venue in St Kilda.
I wasn’t going to go because at that age, I was an ordinary boy who was very introverted and basically scared of his own shadow and terrified by girls.
Back then, I would cross the street to avoid them
Also, other members of the staff in the shipping department were rough and ready types who were not backwards in telling me what happened, and being naive, perhaps they knew I’d be either shocked or intrigued.
I was both adamant I wasn’t coming and then got roped in on a dare.
Damn!
So, back then, in the early 70s, people looked the other way when it came to drinking, and of course, Dutch courage always takes away the concerns, especially when normally you wouldn’t do half the stuff you wouldn’t in a million years
I made it to the end, not as drunk and stupid as I thought I might be, and St Kilda being a salacious place if you knew where to look, my new friends decided to give me a surprise.
It didn’t take long to realise these men were ‘men about town’ as they kept saying, and we went on an odyssey. Yes, those backstreet brothels where one could, I was told, have anything they could imagine.
Let me tell you, large quantities of alcohol and imagination were a very bad mix.
So, the odyssey in ‘The things we do’ was based on that, and then the encounter with Diana. Well, let’s just say I learned a great deal about girls that night.
Firstly, not all girls are nasty and spiteful, which seemed to be the case whenever I met one. There was a way to approach, greet, talk to, and behave.
It was also true that I could have had anything I wanted, but I decided what was in my imagination could stay there. She was amused that all I wanted was to talk, but it was my money, and I could spend it how I liked.
And like any 17-year-old naive fool, I fell in love with her and had all these foolish notions. Months later, I went back, but she had moved on, to where no one was saying or knew.
Needless to say, I was heartbroken and had to get over that first loss, which, like any 17-year-old, was like the end of the world.
But it was the best hour I’d ever spent in my life and would remain so until I met the woman I have been married to for the last 48 years.
As Henry, he was in part based on a rebel, the son of rich parents who despised them and their wealth, and he used to regale anyone who would listen about how they had messed up his life
If only I’d come from such a background!
And yes, I was only a run away from climbing up the stairs to get on board a ship, acting as a purser.
I worked for a shipping company and they gave their junior staff members an opportunity to spend a year at sea working as a purser on a cargo ship that sailed between Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart in Australia.
One of the other junior staff members’ turn came, and I would visit him on board when he would tell me stories about life on board, the officers, the crew, and other events. These stories, which sounded incredible to someone so impressionable, were a delight to hear.
Alas, by that time, I had tired of office work and moved on to be a tradesman at the place where my father worked.
It proved to be the right move, as that is where I met my wife. Diana had been right; love would find me when I least expected it.
It is, but it isn’t. Oddly enough after two weeks in temperatures ranging from -21 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, I think I’m finally used to it.
My early morning walk after leaving the hotel is both for exercise and exploring.
Looking for locations, observing people, watching and learning what it’s like to live, work, and hang out in a city like New York.
It’s so much more interesting than where I come from. There it would be impossible to spin a story in such a small city. You need to be able to hide in plain sight among millions of people over a very large area that encompasses Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and everything else in-between and beyond.
I was looking at going to a Walmart in Secaucus, about three and a half miles from my hotel in Manhattan. Three and a half miles. In my city that’s way beyond the limits of the city and in the outer suburbs.
Here I can spin a tale that could live within the confines of 35th street, 85th street, 2nd Avenue and 10th Avenue, and have so much material, I could probably write a trilogy.
Pity is, I won’t be here long enough to gather enough background.
Still, it’s like being in literary seventh heaven.
I’ve written one book based in New York, I’m sure another is currently writing itself in my head and will be on paper over the next year.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away about ten years ago, and I still miss him.
This is my way of remembering him.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits, I will run the series again from Episode 1
…
There are good days and bad days
This is Chester, a cat looking for trouble
Bad days, today, trying to make the bed and the cat decides to get under the sheet and chase imaginary mice.
Peel the sheet back, toss the cat off the bed, go to remake it, and, you guessed it.
OK, we’ll come back to that.
Good days, sometimes occurring, but not often, he’s off the bed and on the prowl, though what he’s looking for is a mystery.
Perhaps there’s a gecko somewhere.
Good news, he’s out of my hair and not sitting on the keyboard trying to make a statement.
Working on the new chapter, I hear the patter of cat paws on the steps down into my office.
I turn to give him the ‘go away’ icy stare.
He returns it, in equal measure, tentatively puts his paw on the ground, ready to run if need be.
I’ve been looking at the role of the policewoman, and her interaction with the shop’s participants.
I’m still working on whether she needs more or less of an introduction, but, for the time being, this is what I’m going with:
…
It had been another long day at the office for Officer Margaret O’Donnell, or, out in the streets, coping with people who either didn’t know or didn’t care about the law.
People who couldn’t cross the road where there were crossings and lights to protect them, silly girls shoplifting on a dare, and boys who thought they were men and could walk on water.
The one they scraped of the road would never get to grow up, and his mother, well, she was not doing another call on a family to give them the bad news.
That was her day.
So far.
At the end of the day, she was glad to be getting home, putting her feet up, and forgetting about everything until the next morning when it would start all over again.
Coming around that last corner, the home stretch she called it, she was directly opposite the corner shop, usually closed at this hour of the night. It was not. The lights were still on.
She looked at her watch and saw it was ten minutes to midnight, and long past closing time. She looked through the window, but from the other side of the road, she could only see three heads and little else.
Damn, she thought, I’m going to have to check it out.
She was aware of the rumors, from her co-residents and also her colleagues down at the station, rumors she hoped were not true.
Trunk stories – those stories you never seem to finish
…
Yes, the ones that end up in a dark corner of the writing room, if you have one, simply because the ideas ran out, or the next move wasn’t clear.
I have stories like that, quite a few actually, and every now and then I rummage, find one, and make the centre of my next NaNoWriMo project. And since NaNoWriMo comes around twice a year, it means two have done stories come in from the cold.
But, this idea of picking up a story you wrote a long while ago but never finished, mainly because something was missing, is a good one, and recently while I was away, and trying not to work on a new project i found this story I write about thirty years ago, and actually did get to the end, but it wasn;t end I wanted.
So, each night I read a few chapters and made notes.
Then, at the end of the story, I could see what the problem was; it needed to have closure with another event that was overshadowing the life of the protagonist. I had at some point written in a new character, and hadn’t quite got the details right.
There was a hint of a resolution at the end, but it had been hastily put together, or if I knew the me back then, I had written the end long before I got to it, and failed to maintain the plotlines to support it.
Or maybe it just meant that the story had been running around inside my head for the intervening thirty years and now I knew what to write, or how I was going to get to that end.
It needed a lot of rewriting, and in the end, it virtually ends up as two stories, related but independent of each other.
Yes, I have piles of trunk stories, and yes, I do go back a little earlier than thirty years, and yes, some of them become projects that are completed to the first or second draft.
Beijing west railway station is about eight kilometers from the Forbidden City, located at East Lianhuachi Road, Fengtai District. Most trains traveling between south central, southwest, northwest, and south China are boarded here.
This place is huge and there are so many people here, perhaps the other half of Beijing’s population that wasn’t in the forbidden city.
Getting into the station looked like it was going to be fraught with danger but the tour guide got us into the right queue and then arranged for a separate scanner for the group to help keep us all together
Then we decided to take the VIP service and got to waiting room no 13, the VIP service waiting room which was full to overflowing. Everyone today was a VIP. We got the red hat guy to lead us to a special area away from the crowd.
Actually, it was on the other side of the gate, away from the hoards sitting or standing patiently in the waiting room. It gave us a chance to get something to eat before the long train ride.
The departure is at 4 pm, the train number was G655, and we were told the trains leave on time. As it is a high-speed train, stops are far and few between, but we’re lucky, this time, in that we don’t have to count stations to know where to get off.
We’re going to the end of the line.
However, it was interesting to note the stops which, in each case, were brief, and you had to be ready to get off in a hurry.
These stops were Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou East, Luoyang Longmen, Huashan North, and Weinan North. At night, you could see the lights of these cities from a distance and were like oases in the middle of a desert. During the day, the most prominent features were high rise apartment blocks and power stations.
A train ride with a difference
China’s high-speed trains, also known as bullet or fast trains, can reach a top speed of 350 km/h (217 mph).
Over 2,800 pairs of bullet trains numbered by G, D or C run daily connecting over 550 cities in China and covering 33 of the country’s 34 provinces. Beijing-Shanghai high-speed train link the two megacities 1,318 km (819 mi) away in just 4.5 hours.
By 2019, China keeps the world’s largest high-speed rail (HSR) network with a length totaling over 35,000 km (21,750 mi).
To make the five and a half hours go quicker we keep an eye on the speed which hovers between 290 and 305 kph, and sitting there with our camera waiting for the speed to hit 305 which is a rare occurrence, and then, for 306 and then for 307, which happened when we all took a stroll up to the restaurant car to find there had nothing to eat.
I got a strange flavored drink for 20 yuan.
There was a lady manning a trolley that had some food, and fresh, maybe, fruit on it, and she had a sense of humor if not much English.
We didn’t but anything but the barrel of caramel popcorn looked good.
The good thing was, after hovering around 298, and 299 kph, it finally hit 300.
We get to the end of the line, and there is an announcement in Chinese that we don’t understand and attempts to find out if it is the last station fall on deaf ears, probably more to do with the language barrier than anything else.
Then, suddenly the train conductor, the lady with the red hat, comes and tells us it is, and we have fifteen minutes, so we’re now hurrying to get off.
As the group was are scattered up and down the platform, we all come together and we go down the escalator, and, at the bottom, we see the trip-a-deal flags.
X’ian,and the Xi’an North Railway Station
Xi’an North Railway Station is one of the most important transportation hubs of the Chinese high-speed rail network. It is about 8.7 miles (14 km) from Bell Tower (city center) and is located at the intersection of the Weiyang Road and Wenjing Road in Weiyang District.
This time we have a male guide, Sam, who meets us at the end of the platform after we have disembarked. We have a few hiccups before we head to the bus. Some of our travelers are not on his list, but with the other group. Apparently a trip-a-deal mix-up or miscommunication perhaps.
Then it’s another long walk with bags to the bus. Good thing its a nicely air-conditioned newish bus, and there’s water, and beer for 10 yuan. How could you pass up a tsing tao for that price?
Xi’an is a very brightly lit up city at night with wide roads. It is very welcoming, and a surprise for a city of 10 million out in the middle of China.
As with all hotels, it’s about a 50-minute drive from the railway station and we are all tired by the time we get there.
Tomorrow’s program will be up at 6, on the bus 8.40 and off to the soldiers, 2.00 late lunch, then train station to catch the 4.00 train, that will arrive 2 hours later at the next stop. A not so late night this time.
The Grand Noble Hotel
Grand Noble Hotel Xi’an is located in the most prosperous business district within the ancient city wall in the center of Xi’an.
The Grand Noble Hotel, like the Friendship Hotel, had a very flash foyer with tons of polished marble. It sent out warning signals, but when we got to our room, we found it to be absolutely stunning. More room, a large bathroom, air conditioning the works.
Only one small problem, as in Beijing the lighting is inadequate. Other than that it’s what I would call a five-star hotel. This one is definitely better than the Friendship Hotel.
In the center of the city, very close to the bell tower, one of the few ancient buildings left in Xi’an. It is also in the middle of a larger roundabout and had a guard with a machine gun.
Sadly there was no time for city center sightseeing.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Charlene after talking to Boggs
…
Charlene was standing in the elevator lobby, with the look of a person who was waiting.
Perhaps she was expecting Boggs to make a run for it, but that was hardly likely since there was a deputy outside the door to his room, a new addition after Charlene had been asked to leave.
“Have you got a few minutes?” It was a question where the only answer was yes, or else.
I was not going to push the ‘or else’ button.
“Of course.”
She led the way to a room that looked to me like a consulting room for doctors, ushered me through then closed the door. She sat behind the desk and left me to sit in an uncomfortable patient’s chair.
While she consulted her notebook, I took the time to think back to school days and the motley group that had been in my graduation year, of which Charlene was one. She too had chosen to stay, despite the lack of post-graduation opportunities, and it was no surprise she ended up in the police, having once had the ambition of becoming an investigative journalist. It was no surprise then she was now a detective in training.
She left the notebook open on a blank page and gave me her attention. “So, what have you been doing with yourself since school?”
An odd question to ask, but in her mind, I suspect it was an opening gambit to set the interviewee’s mind at rest, a veritable calm before the storm.
Odd also because she knew what happened as well as anyone, her father, the Sherriff, Being an occasional visitor at my mother’s house, an obligation he felt after my father passed.
Other than that, we had run into each other from time to timesince leaving school but she had never shown any interest on any of those occasions.
“Relevance?”
“Just curious.”
“I’m sure your father may have mentioned our family circumstances, so if you’re looking for information on Boggs, come out and say so, don’t try to feign interest in my welfare.”
Perhaps that was a little harsh, and certainly not how I wanted it to sound, but she had written an op-ed in the town newspaper reviling her contemporary’s lack of enthusiasm to get a job, and rather become the problem, not the solution to the counties economic woes.
She looked taken aback, not expecting such a response. Her expression changed, more resolute. “Boggs is looking at an array of charges. What was he doing there? You’re his friend, I’m sure he confides in you.”
“Hoe little you know what bring a friend means, but for the record, we were once, but like he said, my cavorting with Nadia put an end to that.”
“Before that, then.”
“You know as well as I do what the Boggs’s are about, father and son alike.”
“He was looking for fabled treasure.”
“Scaling a rock face? I hardly think so. He does rock climbing, caving, and a variety of things I have no interest in. The Grove shoreline has some of the best rock climbing in the state. The question you should be asking is how did such an experienced climber finish up half-dead on the beach.”
I wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“What were you doing on the beach when you discovered him?”
“Cavorting with Nadia.”
It sounded salacious, and I wished on that moment it had been. It provided the distraction I needed and mademe consider her next gambit because I think I knew why we were in that room.
After a moment or two of silence, I added, “No chance of pinning a trespass charge on me then.”
She took a deep breath, a sigh from a person who knew she was not making any headway, or however she thought this conversation was going to go, it had been blown off course.
“Look, I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying to do my job and find out what happened. We have no problem with Boggs’s conducting a treasure hunt, so long as he doesn’t break the law. Old man Cossatino said Boggs was trespassing, which technically, he was. Do you know why Boggs would think the treasure is located on The Grove?”
“It’s not.”
Time to diffuse this line of questioning.
“You know this or you’re just guessing?”
“There is no treasure, just the Cossatino’s promoting a myth. Pirates may have sailed by, but I’m sure this wasn’t the place to leave their booty. There’s plenty of once uninhabited islands in the Caribbean they could have used.”
“In other words, you really have no idea?”
“I’m a realist, and I’ve told Boggs he should be one too.”
“I hope that will include telling him that trespass is a crime, and if he keeps doing it, we will be forced to arrest and charge him.”
“I’ll tell him anything you want me to.”
“Just that.”
A thought popped into my head, one I probably should have thought of earlier, or perhaps it was because an opportunity presented itself.
The mall, and Alex.
“I have a tip for you, one that might help the case of the dead professor on Rico’s boat. First of all, Rico didn’t do it.”
“He has form and he’s done something similar before.”
“Kill a professor?”
“Shakedown a mark with violence. Only this time he went too far.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t do it. No, that more in Alex Benderby’s department.”
“Alex. You must be kidding. He just acts tough.”
I shrugged. “Being naive about Alex will get you into trouble. Alex is anything but harmless, and I can attest to that, school days and beyond. But, here’s some advice you might want to act on before the evidence is destroyed. There’s a room in the mall on the second level where the mall cops hung out. Back of the second one along there’s a safe. At the back of the top desk drawers, there is a post-it note with the combination. I think that’s where you will find a diary that the professor had before it was taken off him.”
“How do you know about this.”
“I overhead a conversation, remember I work for the Benderby’s and in Alex’s domain, the warehouse.”
“You know what they say about eavesdroppers…”
I shook my head again. “Did the professor’s autopsy and the analysis of the boat show he was killed there?”
That question was met with a furrowed brow, but there was enough expression change to tell me he wasn’t killed on the boat.
“You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
“Don’t have to. You’re going to need to work on your poker face. I think that Alex lured the professor down here with the pirate’s diary perhaps offering a large sum of money as an incentive to share, and when he wouldn’t play nice, they encouraged him to change his mind. I suspect they tried too hard, and the old professor had a heart attack. Alex never was the patient type.”
“It makes a good story.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. I’ll have a go at trying to dissuade Boggs from anything illegal, but you know what the lure of fabulous riches can do. Is the case of Boggs’s father still open?”
“If you mean, is it a cold case, yes, but there’s very little to go on. The evening before he disappeared, he proclaimed he’d found the final resting place of the treasure trove, though he didn’t exactly say where. At the time he was working for Cossatino, making treasure maps for the gullible. Later, outside the hotel in the car park, he was confronted by one of those gullible people, who demanded his money back, a scuffle then fight broke out. By the time the fight was broken up by a passing patrol, we believe that Boggs had sustained severe injuries, serious enough that it’s possible he died of them after blacking out or falling to his death. They dredged the river from the hotel to the sea, but it may have been too late, and he’d been swept of to sea on the tide. The other guy was charged, held in connection with Boggs’s disappearance, but ultimately released through lack of evidence or a body. There may never be a resolution, nor Boggs ever being found, a sad state of affairs for the family.”
It was a sad tale, but one with some information I’d not heard before, and I didn’t think Boggs knew, or I’d he did, had failed to tell me. The fight in the car park, and the fact it could have led to his death. I guess that didn’t fit well with the treasure hunter myth that Boggs junior had built up about his father.
Being killed by a disgruntled punter was not exactly fit the Boggs ethos.
“Not exactly a fitting end, was it?”
“Defrauding people is not exactly going to make you friends, especially when the maps are fake, and they’re all different, purportedly made by the same pirate. He knew what he was doing, and ultimately paid for it.”
Cold, but true.
“Then let’s hope Boggs doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. I hope you consider investigating the mall room because I think you’re going to find something there, even if it doesn’t directly point the finger at Alex.”
“I’ll tell the sheriff, it’s ultimately his decision, not mine.”
“Good. Now, if you have finished, I have a job to go to.”
It was the first time in almost a week that I made the short walk to the cafe alone. It was early, and the chill of the morning was still in the air. In summer, it was the best time of the day. When Susan came with me, it was usually much later, when the day was much warmer and less tolerable.
On the morning of the third day of her visit, Susan said she was missing the hustle and bustle of London, and by the end of the fourth she said, in not so many words, she was over being away from ‘civilisation’. This was a side of her I had not seen before, and it surprised me.
She hadn’t complained, but it was making her irritable. The Susan that morning was vastly different to the Susan on the first day. So much, I thought, for her wanting to ‘reconnect’, the word she had used as the reason for coming to Greve unannounced.
It was also the first morning I had time to reflect on her visit and what my feelings were towards her. It was the reason I’d come to Greve: to soak up the peace and quiet and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I sat in my usual corner. Maria, one of two waitresses, came out, stopped, and there was no mistaking the relief in her manner. There was an air of tension between Susan and Maria I didn’t understand, and it seemed to emanate from Susan rather than the other way around. I could understand her attitude if it was towards Alisha, but not Maria. All she did was serve coffee and cake.
When Maria recovered from the momentary surprise, she said, smiling, “You are by yourself?” She gave a quick glance in the direction of my villa, just to be sure.
“I am this morning. I’m afraid the heat, for one who is not used to it, can be quite debilitating. I’m also afraid it has had a bad effect on her manners, for which I apologise. I cannot explain why she has been so rude to you.”
“You do not have to apologise for her, David, but it is of no consequence to me. I have had a lot worse. I think she is simply jealous.”
It had crossed my mind, but there was no reason for her to be. “Why?”
“She is a woman, I am a woman, she thinks because you and I are friends, there is something between us.”
It made sense, even if it was not true. “Perhaps if I explained…”
Maria shook her head. “If there is a hole in the boat, you should not keep bailing but try to plug the hole. My grandfather had many expressions, David. If I may give you one piece of advice, as much as it is none of my business, you need to make your feelings known, and if they are not as they once were, and I think they are not, you need to tell her. Before she goes home.”
Interesting advice. Not only a purveyor of excellent coffee, but Maria was also a psychiatrist who had astutely worked out my dilemma. What was that expression, ‘not just a pretty face’?
“Is she leaving soon?” I asked, thinking Maria knew more about Susan’s movements than I did.
“You would disappoint me if you had not suspected as much. Susan was having coffee and talking to someone in her office on a cell phone. It was an intense conversation. I should not eavesdrop, but she said being here was like being stuck in hell. It is a pity she does not share your love for our little piece of paradise, is it not?”
“It is indeed. And you’re right. She said she didn’t have a phone, but I know she has one. She just doesn’t value the idea of getting away from the office. Perhaps her role doesn’t afford her that luxury.”
And perhaps Alisha was right about Maria, that I should be more careful. She had liked Maria the moment she saw her. We had sat at this very table, the first day I arrived. I would have travelled alone, but Prendergast, my old boss, liked to know where ex-employees of the Department were, and what they were doing.
She sighed. “I am glad I am just a waitress. Your usual coffee and cake?”
“Yes, please.”
Several months had passed since we had rescued Susan from her despotic father; she had recovered faster than we had thought, and settled into her role as the new Lady Featherington, though she preferred not to use that title, but go by the name of Lady Susan Cheney.
I didn’t get to be a Lord, or have any title, not that I was expecting one. What I had expected was that Susan, once she found her footing as head of what seemed to be a commercial empire, would not have time for details like husbands, particularly when our agreement made before the wedding gave either of us the right to end it.
There was a moment when I visited her recovering in the hospital, where I was going to give her the out, but I didn’t, and she had not invoked it. We were still married, just not living together.
This visit was one where she wanted to ‘reconnect’ as she called it, and invite me to come home with her. She saw no reason why we could not resume our relationship, conveniently forgetting she indirectly had me arrested for her murder, charges both her mother and Lucy vigorously pursued, and had the clone not returned to save me, I might still be in jail.
It was not something I would forgive or forget any time soon.
There were other reasons why I was reluctant to stay with her, like forgetting small details, an irregularity in her character I found odd. She looked the same, she sounded the same, she basically acted the same, but my mind was telling me something was not right. It was not the Susan I first met, even allowing for the ordeal she had been subjected to.
But, despite those misgivings, there was no question in my mind that I still loved her, and her clandestine arrival had brought back all those feelings. But as the days passed, I began to get the impression my feelings were one-sided and she was just going through the motions.
Which brought me to the last argument, earlier, where I said if I went with her, it would be business meetings, social obligations, and quite simply her ‘celebrity’ status that would keep us apart. I reminded her that I had said from the outset I didn’t like the idea of being in the spotlight, and when I reiterated it, she simply brushed it off as just part of the job, adding rather strangely that I always looked good in a suit. The flippancy of that comment was the last straw, and I left before I said something I would regret.
I knew I was not a priority. Maybe somewhere inside me, I had wanted to be a priority, and I was disappointed when I was not.
And finally, there was Alisha. Susan, at the height of the argument, had intimated she believed I had an affair with her, but that elephant was always in the room whenever Alisha was around. It was no surprise when I learned Susan had asked Prendergast to reassign her to other duties.
At least I knew what my feelings for Alisha were, and there were times when I had to remember she was persona non grata. Perhaps that was why Susan had her banished, but, again, a small detail; jealousy was not one of Susan’s traits when I first knew her.
Perhaps it was time to set Susan free.
When I swung around to look in the direction of the lane where my villa was, I saw Susan. She was formally dressed, not in her ‘tourist’ clothes, which she had bought from one of the local clothing stores. We had fun that day, shopping for clothes, a chore I’d always hated. It had been followed by a leisurely lunch, lots of wine and soul searching.
It was the reason why I sat in this corner; old habits die hard. I could see trouble coming from all directions, not that Susan was trouble or at least I hoped not, but it allowed me the time to watch her walking towards the cafe in what appeared to be short, angry steps; perhaps the culmination of the heat wave and our last argument.
She glared at me as she sat, dropping her bag beside her on the ground, where I could see the cell phone sitting on top. She followed my glance down, and then she looked unrepentant back at me.
Maria came back at the exact moment she was going to speak. I noticed Maria hesitate for a second when she saw Susan, then put her smile in place to deliver my coffee.
Neither spoke nor looked at each other. I said, “Susan will have what I’m having, thanks.”
Maria nodded and left.
“Now,” I said, leaning back in my seat, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why you didn’t tell me about the phone, but that first time you disappeared, I’d guessed you needed to keep in touch with your business interests. I thought it somewhat unwisethat you should come out when the board of one of your companies was trying to remove you, because of what was it, an unexplained absence? All you had to do was tell me there were problems and you needed to remain at home to resolve them.”
My comment elicited a sideways look, with a touch of surprise.
“It was unfortunate timing on their behalf, and I didn’t want you to think everything else was more important than us. There were issues before I came, and I thought the people at home would be able to manage without me for at least a week, but I was wrong.”
“Why come at all. A phone call would have sufficed.”
“I had to see you, talk to you. At least we have had a chance to do that. I’m sorry about yesterday. I once told you I would not become my mother, but I’m afraid I sounded just like her. I misjudged just how much this role would affect me, and truly, I’m sorry.”
An apology was the last thing I expected.
“You have a lot of work to do catching up after being away, and of course, in replacing your mother and gaining the requisite respect as the new Lady Featherington. I think it would be for the best if I were not another distraction. We have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves when you get past all these teething issues.”
“You’re not coming with me?” She sounded disappointed.
“I think it would be for the best if I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been keeping an eye on your progress. You are so much better doing your job without me. I told your mother once that when the time came I would not like the responsibilities of being your husband. Now that I have seen what it could possibly entail, I like it even less. You might also want to reconsider our arrangement, after all, we only had a marriage of convenience, and now that those obligations have been fulfilled, we both have the option of terminating it. I won’t make things difficult for you if that’s what you want.”
It was yet another anomaly, I thought; she should look distressed, and I would raise the matter of that arrangement. Perhaps she had forgotten the finer points. I, on the other hand, had always known we would not last forever. The perplexed expression, to me, was a sign she might have forgotten.
Then, her expression changed. “Is that what you want?”
“I wasn’t madly in love with you when we made that arrangement, so it was easy to agree to your terms, but inexplicably, since then, my feelings for you changed, and I would be sad if we parted ways. But the truth is, I can’t see how this is going to work.”
“In saying that, do you think I don’t care for you?”
That was exactly what I was thinking, but I wasn’t going to voice that opinion out loud. “You spent a lot of time finding new ways to make my life miserable, Susan. You and that wretched friend of yours, Lucy. While your attitude improved after we were married, that was because you were going to use me when you went to see your father, and then almost let me go to prison for your murder.”
“I had nothing to do with that, other than to leave, and I didn’t agree with Lucy that you should be made responsible for my disappearance. I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my mother. She hated you; Lucy didn’t understand you, and Millie told me I was stupid for not loving you in return, and she was right. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time? You made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and it nearly changed my mind about everything I’d been planning so meticulously. But perhaps there was a more subliminal reason why I did because after I left, I wanted to believe, if anything went wrong, you would come and find me.”
“How could you possibly know that I’d even consider doing something like that, given what you knew about me?”
“Prendergast made a passing comment when my mother asked him about you; he told us you were very good at finding people and even better at fixing problems.”
“And yet here we are, one argument away from ending it.”
I could see Maria hovering, waiting for the right moment to deliver her coffee, then go back and find Gianna, the café owner, instead. Gianna was more abrupt and, for that reason, was rarely seen serving the customers. Today, she was particularly cantankerous, banging the cake dish on the table and frowning at Susan before returning to her kitchen. Gianna didn’t like Susan either.
Behind me, I heard a car stop, and when she looked up, I knew it was for her. She had arrived with nothing, and she was leaving with nothing.
She stood. “Last chance.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated and then shook away the look of annoyance on her face. “Of course not. I wanted you to come back with me so we could continue working on our relationship. I agree there are problems, but it’s nothing we can’t resolve if we try.”
I had been trying. “It’s too soon for both of us, Susan. I need to be able to trust you, and given the circumstances, and all that water under the bridge, I’m not sure if I can yet.”
She frowned at me. “As you wish.” She took an envelope out of her bag and put it on the table. “When you are ready, it’s an open ticket home. Please make it sooner rather than later. Despite what you think of me, I have missed you, and I have no intention of ending it between us.”
That said, she glared at me for a minute, shook her head, then walked to the car. I watched her get in and the car drive slowly away.
In Beijing Hutongs are formed by lines of traditional courtyard residences, called siheyuan. Neighborhoods were formed by joining many hutongs together. These siheyuan are the traditional residences, usually occupied by a single or extended family, signifying wealth, and prosperity.
Over 500 of these still exist.Many of these hutongs have been demolished, but recently they have become protected places as a means of preserving some Chinese cultural history. They were first established in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368)Many of these Hutongs had their main buildings and gates built facing south, and lanes connecting them to other hutongs also ran north to south.
Many hutongs, some several hundred years old, in the vicinity of the Bell Tower and Drum Tower and Shichahai Lake are preserved and abound with tourists, many of which tour the quarter in pedicabs.
The optional tour also includes a visit to Shichahai, a historic scenic area consisting of three lakes (Qianhai, meaning Front Sea; Houhai, meaning Back Sea and Xihai, meaning West Sea), surrounding places of historic interest and scenic beauty and remnants of old-style local residences, Hutong and Courtyard.
First, we had a short walk through the more modern part of the Hutong area and given some free time for shopping, but we prefer just to meander by the canal.
There is a lake, and if we had the time, there were boats you could take.
With some time to spare, we take a quick walk down one of the alleyways where on the ground level are small shops, and above, living quarters.
Then we go to the bell and drum towers before walking through some more alleys was to where the rickshaws were waiting. The Bell tower
And the Drum tower. Both still working today.
The rickshaw ride took us through some more back streets where it was clear renovations were being made so that the area could apply for world heritage listing. Seeing inside some of the houses shows that they may look dumpy outside but that’s not the case inside.
The rickshaw ride ends outside the house where dinner will be served, and is a not so typical hose but does have all the elements of how the Chinese live, the boy’s room, the girl’s room, the parent’s room, the living area, and the North-south feng shui.
Shortly after we arrive, the cricket man, apparently someone quite famous in Beijing arrives and tells us all about crickets and then grasshoppers, then about cricket racing. He is animated and clearly enjoys entertaining us westerners.
I’m sorry but the cricket stuff just didn’t interest me. Or the grasshoppers.
As for dinner, it was finally a treat to eat what the typical Chinese family eats, and everything was delicious, and the endless beer was a nice touch.
And the last surprise, the food was cooked by a man.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 