Hotel China

CONNECTION 

by Jane Wallace

 

Evening had come early with the storm clouds. An unremitting rain hammered on the roof of the taxi. They were driving blind. The wipers flicked across the windscreen at double speed, sluicing aside the water only long enough for a blurred glimpse of the road ahead before the aqueous veil descended once more. The thronged streets of Wan Chai were washed empty, leaving only the neon signage to glimmer on the wet and lonely pavements.

Charlotte Simmonds smoothed down the satin of her skirt where it had rucked into corrugations over her thighs. Her black gauze shirt was wet from half an hour’s queuing at the rank on Pedder Street and she shivered in the glacial blast of the cab’s air-conditioning. A stray curl nagged at the underside of her chin and she pressed it back into position with the other blond ringlets she spent so much time keeping under control. The humidity was already weakening the fragile blow-dry from lunchtime, egging the fine hair into a wayward frizz that would be a puff ball around her face by the morning. She sighed as they halted at traffic lights yet again. Already five minutes late and it would take another ten to get there. It was not an auspicious start to a first date.

Nick Wu. It was a romantic name, she thought. Aged 26, the same as her, Hong Kong Chinese but British-educated, now a lawyer with a multinational firm. That was all she knew about him. Her imagination filled in the rest. His profile on the dating website had been brusque to the point of anonymity. Compared to the other lonely hearts, who had painted themselves with all the enthusiasm and competency of a college yearbook, the clipped CV looked as if Nick Wu wasn’t really bothered. The slot for his photograph was vacant. He was a blank space. That was what she liked about him.

They crawled forward again. She watched the sheathed pedestrians scuttle between dripping awnings or look miserably out of the brightly-lit shops with a guilty empathy, wriggling her toes at the thought of making the journey on foot. The Hotel China was a fair distance from the nearest MTR station. It was a fair distance from anywhere. She had never heard of it before and thought it was a strange choice for a first meeting. A bland business hotel in the middle of Wan Chai. More of a transit point than a destination. It was somewhere that you went on the way to somewhere else: always travelling never arriving. The sort of place that married men took their lovers so that the anonymity would somehow snowpake the affair into never having happened. It was the sort of place where you would commit suicide. Eventually.

Charlotte would have preferred to meet Nick Wu in a small and intimate bar. She would have perched on a velour banquette and sipped at cocktails with a heartbreaking elegance as she listened to details of his fascinating life story. But she had learned that the bar did not make the date. Eric with the sweating palms had taken her to Ikon, a tiny club hidden in a Soho alley. His attention had lodged on her breasts not her words and when he revealed his wife no longer understood him, Charlotte left with a deep-felt relief that his marriage excused her from ever enduring those clammy fingers on her skin. Ikon however had been polluted by the memory and she had not returned to a once favourite haunt. At least she would not make the same mistake with the Red Bar at the Hotel China.

She sighed again as she thought of Eric and all the other embarrassing interludes. In a city of so many souls, among so many disparate entities packed shoulder-to-shoulder, was it so outlandish to hope that there might be a match for her? Yet nothing seemed to fit. Like a bag of old buttons, she and the other singles bumped around each other, never finding an exact match, the cloth they came off cut up for dusters a long time ago.

Anthony had put her in this position. He had made her the singleton. If only … She halted the thought as a repressed image of him laughing as he ripped open the curtains to let in the Sunday morning sunlight floated free in her mind. It had been their first night together, the culmination of months of unrequited passion, at least on her part. He had been released, but the shade of the ex-girlfriend still paced the room. Charlotte had expected to feel glorious in her triumph. Instead she had felt craven, the remains of the relationship still warm in the corner as they slept.

What a fool she had been. But then she was yet to discover any better. She bit her lip. There was no gold where she was panning. The more she sorted through the gravel, the more she found only Anthony at the bottom. Self-pity welled in her eyes before she forced it back with pragmatic fingertips, afraid that it would smudge her mascara. Two years on and six thousand miles away, the tawdry little love affair in Oxford haunted her still.

Her flatmate attributed her failures to desperation. ‘You’re trying too hard,’ Candy had diagnosed, wrapping her French manicured nails around a coffee cup. Candy herself was resolutely unattached and nightly fended off the attention that buzzed and rebounded against her pert presence. ‘You have to let them chase you, ah? You push all the time. It won’t happen.’ Her tamarind eyes fixed on Charlotte. ‘I get you date, la!’ She waved her mobile. ‘Reggie will take us to Gucci bar and we’ll find you a nice banker. Very rich, very handsome. Come on!’

As Charlotte considered whether internet dating was pushing too hard, they drew up outside the lavish glass porch of the Hotel China. Charlotte paid the fare and the door opened into air like moist cotton-wool. Rain seeped between her toes as she hurried the short distance from the roadside to the hotel entrance, arriving with a fluster of clammy skin and dripping nylon. Passing into the foyer, she noticed that the clock behind reception that marked Hong Kong time was showing a quarter to eight. She sidestepped a newly arrived coach party of mainland tourists and headed for some unremarkable swing doors. The name plate above them was so fashionably minimalist the word ‘Red’ was barely legible in insipid burgundy.

The cream-painted room was empty apart from a couple of elderly tourists doing pre-prandial drinks on automatic. It was dimly lit apart from pools of light thrown from the circular red shades suspended over each table. At the bar, a weary westerner in a shabby suit was hunched over a whisky and a newspaper. He looked round as she entered, expectation alight behind the dark-framed glasses which faded with middle-aged resignation as she passed over him to the row of tables that lined the windows. Only one was occupied. Its tenant was a spruce young man in a pastel pink shirt. He was not quite handsome but pleasant-looking, with Asian colouring and a conservative haircut. Intent on his Blackberry, he did not notice her until she approached the table.

‘Nick?’ She smiled hesitantly.

‘Er, yes. Hi.’ He lifted himself a few inches off the seat, one eye and one hand still on the gadget, the other held out to her. He looked her up and down efficiently, lingering on the gauze shirt that was revealing enough to be interesting but not blatant. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. His accent was politely British. She took the hand in an abbrievated shake.

‘Have a seat.’ He indicated a lipstick-crimson bucket opposite him that teetered on spindly chrome legs. She sat down gingerly.

‘Sorry I’m so late. I had to wait ages for a taxi and then the rain and everything.’ The chair didn’t collapse under her weight and she shuffled it closer to the table, placing her handbag and umbrella on the ground between it and the window. She noted uncomfortably they were on view to the whole street.

‘Don’t worry. Gave me some time to catch up on my emails.’ He pushed a few final buttons on the Blackberry before tucking it into the breast pocket of the jacket thrown over the chair back. ‘What would you like to drink?’

She scanned the expanse of white plastic in front of her on which lay silver coasters and a single orange gerbera in a transparent vase. There didn’t seem to be a menu. She looked to him for guidance. He was drinking Tsing Tao straight from the bottle.

‘Um, glass of white wine?’

‘Okay.’ He waved at the petite waitress who was polishing glasses behind the bar and she came over. He ordered in Cantonese, earning an obsequious smile from the girl who Charlotte observed sadly to be prettier and slimmer than herself. When she moved away, they looked at each other hesitantly. Closer up, she saw that his eyes were round not slanted and guessed one of his parents was western.

‘So,’ he said finally. ‘Tell me about yourself.’ He clasped his hands together as if he was conducting a formal interview.

‘Well….’ She started but then stopped, wondering what would sound interesting. She had no hobbies outside work and all her and Candy seemed to do in their spare time was shop or go to bars. ‘Just trying to think of something that you don’t already know from the profile,’ she apologised. ‘You know what I do.’

‘I’m not sure I do, actually.’ He leaned his head on one side. ‘What exactly is a landscape architect?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Well, it’s everything around the building, but not the building itself.’

He laughed. ‘You mean you do gardens.’

‘It’s a bit more than that.’ She knew she sounded defensive. ‘It’s the whole environment, what’s already there and how it might be affected. You have to look at where the roads are going to go, the car parks, whatever.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He suppressed a smile. ‘I didn’t think you looked like a gardener. Sounds interesting. A lot more interesting than law, that’s for sure.’

‘Oh yes, your profile said you were a solicitor. What kind of law do you do?’

‘You don’t want to know. It’s really boring.’

‘I do.’

‘You don’t, believe me.’

She detected a certain smugness in the non-sequitur which she disliked but she was afraid to let the conversation run dry.

‘Try me,’ she said.

‘Alright, securities. The legal bits of buying and selling companies. Shares, bonds, that kind of thing.’

‘Oh, okay.’ Her wine arrived and she took a sip. It was reassuringly sharp and cold. ‘I know the score.’ She looked at him levelly. ‘Lots of money but long hours. Never leave the office and there’s no time to do anything let alone meet anyone.’

He nodded slowly. ‘That’s about the sum of it.’

‘Hence the internet dating?’

His face clouded. ‘Everyone else seems to be doing it. Even you.’

‘It’s the trend of the moment,’ she said brightly, pretending not to notice the barb. ‘Just another way to meet people. Now nobody goes to church any more or anything like that. There’s nothing wrong with it.’

‘Maybe.’ His tight smile suggested otherwise.

An uncomfortable silence followed. Charlotte contemplated the watchful face across the table from her and wondered if it was worth pursuing the conversation. Eventually politeness forced her to restart it.

‘Your profile said you studied in England?’ Her voice was stilted and unnatural.

‘Yes.’ He pulled himself upright. ‘Uni, then two years of a law conversion course.’

‘So how come you’re in Hong Kong?

‘On rotation with the firm. I’m doing my articles. It takes two years. Six months in London, six months in Hong Kong, six months in New York and the last leg back in London. It’s supposed to be a perk – the travel, that is.’

‘What company is that?’

‘Dewitt & Taylor.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Charlotte was secretly impressed. It was the largest law firm in Hong Kong. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Fine. Well, good, I suppose,’ he relented.

‘And what do you think of Hong Kong. Do you like it here?’

‘Of course. I’m a Hong Konger! Well, it’s where I grew up. My Mum’s from Shanghai originally, my Dad’s English. The family’s still here so that kind of makes it easier – or more difficult, depends how you look at it.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘It’s very different to London. Kind of on hyperdrive.’

‘Definitely.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘There’s so much work. With China and everything. Well, there was. It’s slowing down a bit now but we’re still busy. So different to Europe. When I was in Oxford – my last job in UK – there just wasn’t the scope that there is here. Everyone was coming east to get on the good projects.’

‘Do you go up to China a lot then?’

‘Not really. Once or twice for each job. It’s mainly desk-based though. How about you? I bet you travel a lot. You obviously like hotels.’

His forehead wrinkled. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, like you wanted to come here. I mean…ah, it’s a hotel,’ she said, wilting under his suddenly hard stare. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily come to a hotel bar myself. It’s quite far out. Of the centre of things,’ she finished lamely.

He shrugged. ‘I like it for that reason. It’s nice and quiet. You can always get a seat and no-one bothers you. Not normally, anyway.’ She followed his line of vision to the bar where a very young Chinese girl in precipitously high-heels and a mini-skirt had just sashayed in. ‘I live just round the corner so it’s sort of my local.’

‘You live in Wan Chai?’

‘Yeah. Well, I don’t go out in Wan Chai,’ he said, picking up on her surprise. ‘But it’s handy for work. And it’s a real neighbourhood, you know? I can leave work at eleven and get a beer or noodles and there’s still people around.’

‘I would have thought you’d live with your family. Or in Mid-levels,’ she said. Most of the financial types she met seemed to live there. So he was a bit different. It didn’t show on the surface. She reappraised his flawless skin and the thickly fringed brown eyes which viewed her so dispassionately. Other than a garish purple tie that he was tugging loose, there was no chink of any alternative to the stereotypical façade he presented.

‘You haven’t met my family,’ he grimaced. ‘How about you?’

‘Me? I live in Sheung Wan.’

‘Really? I like it down there. All the tiny bars that stay open all night. Like Ikon and Number 58? They’re great. I like that Bird Cage restaurant too.’

She glowed at the unexpected enthusiasm. ‘Ikon is my favourite bar! Well, I haven’t been there for a while… But yeah, it’s a really cool area. Our place is a bit of a tip though.’

‘All the best ones are. What’s the problem?’

‘It’s on the top floor of a walk-up. Eight flights of stairs!’

‘That’s not so bad. Save on the gym.’

She laughed. ‘I suppose it’s good exercise. We’ve got a roof terrace too. That’s great. Especially for parties and stuff. But it does leak.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, loads. Especially in weather like this. Drips through the sitting room ceiling. Buckets everywhere. Stinks too.’

He smiled genuinely for the first time, revealing a glimpse of a warmer personality through a chink in the icy exterior. ‘Reminds me of my student house in Bristol,’ he said. ‘God, it was terrible. I’m sure it had been condemned. Mould everywhere, snails in the lounge. Toilet kept breaking down.’

‘Shared houses are always like that. Our place in Oxford was a hole too. The last place I lived before I came here. We were all doing first jobs or PhDs so we could only afford standard student accommodation. It was fun but it was filthy.’

He pondered his beer bottle. ‘It doesn’t have to be. Where I lived in Guildford for my conversion course was quite civilised. But then Sylvie kept the place tidy.’

‘Sylvie?’ The emphasis on her name suggested she had been or still was an important figure to him.

‘My ex.’ His eyes dropped and he grasped the beer bottle, only to find it was nearly empty. ‘Do you want another?’

‘Yes.’

The waitress was passing and he motioned to her to bring the same again. ‘Sorry, I just need to go to the bathroom,’ he told Charlotte.

‘No problem,’ she smiled and watched him stand up, appreciating the wide shoulders in the cotton shirt, the slim waist and the strong curves of his buttocks evident through the light wool trousers. As he walked away, she sneaked out her compact mirror and checked her appearance. The maquilled blue eyes stared back at her unsullied. She flattened down a few stray hairs and her mobile beeped an incoming text message which read: HOWS IT GOING?

Charlotte smiled at her flatmate’s precipity.

FINE I THINK, she typed back. HE IS NORMAL ANYWAY.

MAKES A CHANGE, came the response. JUST DONT GET DRUNK SHAG HIM THEN REGRET IT.

A withering reply was on the tips of her fingers when Nick returned to the table. He settled back into the chair.

‘Anything important?’ He indicated the phone.

‘No, no,’ she said, hurriedly zipping it away into her handbag. ‘Just, ah, my mum.’ She smiled at him in a way she hoped was winningly. ‘So, er, you were talking about Sylvie?’

‘Sylvie?’ He affected confusion.

‘Just before you went to the toilet,’ she pressed, not reading his signal. ‘Your ex.’

‘Ah, yes. Her.’

‘Oh. Would you rather not talk about it?’

‘No, it’s okay. There’s nothing much to say anyway.’

The drinks arrived and he picked up the fresh beer bottle with a deep sigh. ‘All the usual crap. Went out for a couple of years then she left me for someone else. Like you do.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. How long ago was that?’

‘A couple of years.’ He gave her a resigned smile. ‘Shit happens, huh?’

‘Anyone since?’

‘No.’ He started to chisel off the pulpy label on the bottle with a thumbnail. ‘Well, no-one who compares.’

‘That good, huh?’ Charlotte felt a small pique of jealousy for the unknown stranger.

‘Yeah, she was.’

‘How so?’

His eyes drifted outside the window to a place in the distant past. ‘I met her through a friend of mine. I remember the day specifically. It was a Friday in November, very cold and damp. We went back to his place for a beer after lectures had finished. I was just about to leave when she came through the front door with Fenella – the other girl who lived there. It had been raining and she hadn’t got an umbrella. They were laughing and she looked so beautiful and fragile with her hair all wet under this enormous newspaper. I suppose I fell in love with her right there and then.’

‘Was she a lawyer too?’

‘God no! She was a dancer – or had been, in France, where she came from – but she had given it up. The training was too hard, the rewards not so great. She’d done it all her life, made so many sacrifices. All the things you do when you are growing up, she had never done. She wanted to have fun. Have a life. So she had a total career change. She was doing some degree in textile design when I met her.’

‘Sylvie, huh? You know, that’s not a good name for me either.’ A long-buried resentment surfaced as she remembered the silent waif in Ant’s room in the house at Oxford. The dark cloud brooding in the corner, waiting for the drink and the cigarettes to run out so everyone would leave and she could finally be alone with Ant. A pale and mewling slip, she wasn’t half of Charlotte yet Ant was shackled to her with adamantine chains. Charlotte had despised her

‘How so?’

A grim laugh escaped her. ‘I knew a Sylvie once. She was French too, and a dancer or ex-dancer or whatever. Went out with a housemate of mine. Before I did. She was always was like the wicked witch. The bad fairy that gatecrashed the party. For me anyway.’ She took a draft of wine. ‘Ant never seemed to let go of her.’

He was staring at her oddly. ‘Where did you say you lived before Hong Kong?’

‘Oxford.’

‘In Southmoor Road, up past the Jericho Tavern?’

‘Yes,’ she said, puzzled he should know.

He nodded abruptly. ‘That was her. Sylvie de Bonard. That was my ex-girlfriend.’

‘What?’

‘She went out with Anthony Fairman. He was doing a PhD in physics at Balliol College. Lived in London, they met in the sixth form…’

‘… and had been going out ever since. Yes yes, that was him.’ She looked at him wonderingly, not believing that they could be so closely linked. ‘That’s an amazing coincidence. Two random people in Hong Kong and yet we’re so closely connected. Jesus Christ.’ She pinched out some of the hairs in her eyebrow and let them fall to the ground through her fingers. ‘How far do you need to travel to escape the past?’

He was sitting very still, his eyes burning and tense, like he was struggling to contain a secret, or was waiting for her to find it out. She shook her head, still trying to figure out the twigs and branches of the connection, working back through the years. ‘They broke up at the start of the summer term. It was May. Definitely May. So you must have gone out with her after Ant, right?’

‘Yes.’ Something unintelligible flicked across his eyes.

‘Well, that’s not so crazy I suppose. You must have been …’ Then she frowned. ‘Oh my god!’ Her hand fled to her mouth as the picture fell into place. ‘You were the one she dumped him for!’

His mouth twisted wryly.

‘Oh my God!’ she said again. The events of almost three years ago exhumed with devastating speed. The shaming excitement of living with the object of desire so tantalisingly close and yet beyond reach. The drunken near-misses, the petulant breakfasts, not going to sleep until a particular door banged shut past midnight. Then to finally grasp the prize in your hand only for it to turn to dust. Either blood or alcohol was rushing in her head, she couldn’t tell which.

‘I saw the phone call, you know,’ she gabbled. ‘I witnessed it. When she finished with him.’

‘Really?’ He seemed to go cold.

‘Yes! Every detail.’ She covered her face with her hand, ashamed at remembering the first time that someone else’s bad news had sounded so sweet. ‘I was in my room, doing something, I can’t remember what now, and Ant’s phone was ringing in the kitchen. Ringing and ringing. It would stop then start again. I was upstairs in my room. It was driving me mental. I was going to go to the kitchen and turn it off when I heard Ant answer it. There was a conversation – I didn’t hear it. I went back to whatever I was doing. Next thing I knew he had flung open my door, sat on the bed and burst into tears. “She’s dumped me,” he said.’

She stopped, passing over how she had almost laughed with incredulity at this stroke of good luck. Then, seeing his distress, she had tried to hold him, to comfort him, all the time exulting in the possibility that her turn could be next. He had shrugged her off, leaving them both embarrassed. She’d handed him a tissue and he’d slunk off to mourn in his own room.

Nick was rigid in his chair. ‘I saw it too,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘That phone call. I was a witness too.’ He laid his palms flat on the table top, studying them as he spoke, as if divulging some centuries-old secret. ‘She left the house with her mobile and walked up and down the street outside. I watched her from the bedroom upstairs. She didn’t see me. But I saw her alright. Took her a while to get through. At one stage I thought she changed her mind.’

‘She didn’t though.’

‘No. Sometimes I wish that she had.’ His voice was empty and suddenly he looked pitifully lost.

‘Why did they split up?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Ant never really talked about it. Were you the cause?’

‘No, I did the honourable thing, for once in my life. I waited until she was free before I let anything happen. No, it wasn’t just me. I think they had grown apart.’

‘I remember they were very different. He wanted to hang out with his mates and she never wanted to join in.’

‘The parties in the house in Oxford? She really hated those.’

‘They were quite messy.’

He looked at her straight. ‘She also suspected there was something going on between Ant and one of the girls in the house.’

‘Really?’ Charlotte tried every housemate for suspected infidelity then dismissed the idea. ‘No, no. Kate had a long-term boyfriend and Jennie was a lesbian!’

‘The girl had some kind of environmental job, she told me.’

Charlotte blinked. ‘She must have meant me. We were working on a project for the council then. But really, there was nothing going on. I mean, we always got on really well and everything. But nothing happened.’ Charlotte smiled despite herself as she remembered locking Ant outside one time with no clothes on. Endless games of gin rummy drinking Jack Daniels and listening to Eminem who Ant was obsessed by. Constant bantering in the kitchen as he cooked pasta for them both. In retrospect, it must have been obvious. There was an attraction. But Sylvie always stood in the way and she never assumed he would act on it. Perhaps she had been so concerned with her own desires that she hadn’t noticed his.

‘But you got together later?’

‘Yes. For a while.’

‘How soon after?

‘Two or three weeks.’ It was her turn to look down.

‘The rebound.’ He gave a short ironic laugh. ‘So he used you too.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’ She knew there was no point pretending. ‘It was just a mistake. We were better as friends. The more intimate we got, the more he closed off. Another time, another place, maybe it would have worked out. But he certainly wasn’t over her. There were times I felt there were three of us in that relationship.’

‘So he dumped you?’

‘Yes.’ She closed her mind to the conversation in the garden of the local pub, still light at 9 pm but turning cold, this isn’t working out.

‘And you ran away to Hong Kong?’

‘Not exactly. I could see I was never going to get anywhere in Europe. I had applied for the job even before we started going out. When it went wrong, there was no reason to stay.’

‘I know that feeling.’

‘You ran away?’

‘No. I had started working in London. She stayed on in Guildford. Our lives just went separate ways. I was working all hours, she was still a student. I couldn’t see her so much and before I knew it there was someone else in her life. I tried to get it back. Begged her actually. But it was too late. She was gone.’

‘Were you very upset?’

‘Upset?’ he sneered. ‘I was blown to pieces. It was all the worse because I couldn’t stop thinking it was my fault. If I had only given just a little more time, been less concerned with work.’ His eyes swung to hers, suddenly raw, and she saw behind them an aching void where no light shone. He leaned forward. ‘Do you know what it’s like to lose someone you love? Really love?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s like they have died. There was a person in your life who filled your waking hours and dreaming moments and suddenly they are gone, ripped away. There’s a gaping hole in your life which you cannot fill. There’s so much time and nothing to do so you just drift around in a daze. It seems like it will never end and you will be alone forever.’

‘Yes!’ he said, grasping the table. ‘Even now I still think about her. Every day. It’s like a hunger I can never satisfy. Every morning when I wake up and she’s not there is another day I’ve lost. I just go through the routine. Have a shower, go to work, go to bed. All the days are the same. They all turn into nothingness.

‘A meaningless existence in many shades of the same grey?’

‘With no bright spark of tomorrow.’

‘Where nothing gives you any pleasure and you wonder if you’ll ever be happy again?’

‘Exactly.’ The muscles in his strong tanned hands bulged as he gripped the table harder and spat out the word. His gaze did not waver and the air between them seemed to tremble with the force of their shared emotion. Charlotte was pinned to her seat, unable to move.

‘I won’t be happy again, I know it. Not truly happy,’ he hissed. ‘There’ll never be anyone else. There is only her. Only Sylvie.’ He stared at her with such a powerful helplessness that she was unnerved. The hollow eyes seemed to be searching hers for something lost, pleading with her to deliver a solution, or even a finality, to his distress.

Her senses rushed her to comfort him. Instinctively she put her hand over his. ‘There will be someone else. There will. You just have to keep believing it.’

The glimmer of hope that had flickered briefly in his eyes snuffed out with a sudden draught of doubt and the darkness returned. ‘Not for me,’ he murmured, retracting his hand. ‘Not for me.’

‘You will,’ she urged.

‘No.’ He rediscovered the Tsing Tao and drained its dregs, eyeing her cagily as he did so. He replaced it and said nothing more.

‘One for the road?’ she suggested, concerned by his silence.

He glanced at his watch, a thin face on a worn leather strap. ‘Actually I guess I should be getting home.’ He cleared his throat and waved at the waitress to bring the cheque.

‘Oh.’ She twirled the stem of her wine glass. ‘I suppose I should too.’ He seemed distracted and they waited for the bill in silence.

‘How long are you in Hong Kong for?’ she asked finally.

‘I’ll be going to New York in October. Six months there, then back to London for six months. Then I’ll be qualified.’ The tone was cool and formal.

The waitress arrived with the bill. He counted out some cash and folded it into the red leather wallet it had arrived in. She checked it was correct and took it away.

‘Will you come back here afterwards?’

‘I hope so,’ he said, shrugging into his suit jacket. ‘The work prospects are better here certainly.’ He scraped back his chair and stood up, impatient to leave.

‘Well. I guess I’ll see you around then?’ she said.

‘Sure.’ He smiled peremptorily and was gone.

She leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and exhaled a deep breath, trying to calm the whirling of events and histories in her mind. She felt confused and exhausted, punch-drunk from the proximity to his passion. She had wanted a connection: this time she had got too close.

The Chinese teenager she had noticed earlier was now unashamedly hitting on the old gweilo at the bar. She was half his age and he couldn’t believe his luck. Charlotte’s upper lip curled in distaste. Did he really believe she was attracted to his personality? It was the same everywhere in Asia. Money bought youth, beauty was the way out of poverty. It occurred to her then that it was a more honest transaction than most.

Her mobile signalled an incoming message. WHATS HAPPENING NOW? Candy was enjoying the reality TV show aspect of her flatmate’s life.

ANOTHER HOPELESS CASE, she texted. COMING HOME NOW. She finished the white wine. It was warm and cloying on her tongue.

FOUND CATHAY PILOTS IN CAPTAINS BAR, came the response. GET OVER HERE NOW.

Charlotte smiled. That was the kind of tonic she needed. She gathered her bags, took a last survey of the still empty bar and stepped out of Hotel China into the sauna of the summer night.

She never saw Nick Wu again.