It was true. They did.
‘So … So what happened?’
‘Well, I got to the tea room at about ten to three, and I sat there for about half an hour or so, and then it occurred to me that Roger was late, so I checked my phone to see if he’d maybe called and I hadn’t heard it, and that was when I realized that I’d brought the remote control with me by mistake. Well, I didn’t panic, because at that point, as far as I knew, there was only one tea room at the Botanical Gardens, and I was sitting in it. So I waited there for another twenty minutes, and then a girl came over to clear my tea things away, and I said to her, “Incidentally, if you told someone that you were going to meet them at the tea room of the Botanical Gardens, is this where you would come?”, and she smiled at me and said, “Of course it is,” but then just as she was leaving she turned round and said, “Oh – unless you meant the other one, of course.”’
We both swirled our amaretti around in our glasses and took another drink. Both glasses were almost empty.
‘So then I knew exactly what had happened. And I asked the girl how long it would take to walk from one place to the other and she said about ten or fifteen minutes (she could see that I wasn’t exactly in the first flush of youth), and I asked her whether there was more than one path and she said that there were several different paths. So I thought that surely Roger would realize what had happened as well, and it would be best to stay put for a little while. So I stayed there for another fifteen minutes and then I started to panic, because probably I could have asked the people in my tea room to phone the people in the other tea room and ask if they could see if there was anyone like Roger there, but anyway, I didn’t think of that, I just got up and left my table and walked round to the other tea room. Which actually took me more like twenty-five minutes, because I can’t walk so fast these days and I kept getting lost. In any case, when I got there – Roger had gone.’
‘Had he been there in the first place?’
‘Oh yes. The man serving behind the counter described him to me.’
‘But you haven’t seen Roger for forty years.’
My father smiled. ‘I know. But it was Roger he was describing. Some things you don’t forget.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘So then I …’ My father was about to launch into a further narration, but seemed to have lost the will. ‘Oh, Max,’ he said. ‘Do you really need to know? What about another drink?’
We ordered two more amaretti from the waiter: at which point I realized that the Chinese woman and her daughter were no longer sitting at their table.
‘Oh, no – they’ve gone,’ I said, my heart sinking. I’d been so distracted by my father’s story, I hadn’t even noticed they were leaving.
‘Who’ve gone?’
‘The woman and her daughter. The ones I wanted to speak to.’
‘Didn’t you manage to speak to them?’
‘No.’
‘I assumed you’d spoken to them already.’
‘I was just about to speak to them when you turned up. And now they’ve gone.’
I was distraught. I stood up from the table to get a better look around me and spotted them about a hundred yards away, walking back towards Circular Quay, hand in hand. For a moment I actually contemplated running after them. I had come all the way from London to speak to this woman, after all. In fact I would probably have left the terrace there and then and started sprinting off in pursuit if it hadn’t been for my father’s restraining hand on my arm.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘You can talk to them tomorrow.’
‘What do you mean, tomorrow?’ I said, angry with him now. ‘They’ve
‘You can talk to them tomorrow,’ my father repeated. ‘I know where they’ll be.’
Our second round of amaretti arrived. The waiter told us that these were on the house. We thanked him, and my father continued: ‘If you mean the woman and the little girl who were sitting in the corner of the terrace there –’ (I nodded, breathless with the fear that he was about to tease me with some sort of false hope) ‘– I overheard them talking when I arrived. The girl was asking if she could go swimming tomorrow, and her mother said that she could if the weather was nice, and the girl said she wanted to go to Fairlight Beach.’
‘Fairlight Beach? Where’s that?’
‘Fairlight’s a little suburb over towards Manly. There’s a sheltered beach there with a natural swimming pool. So that’s where they’ll be tomorrow, by the sound of it.’
‘If the weather’s nice.’
‘If the weather’s nice.’
‘What’s the weather forecast?’
‘Rain,’ said my father, sipping his amaretto. ‘But they usually get it wrong.’
‘Did they say what time they were going?’
‘No,’ said my father. ‘I suppose you’ll have to get there pretty early if you want to be sure of seeing them.’
I contemplated this possibility. My flight back to London was leaving at about ten o’clock the following night, and I had no definite plans for the rest of the day. The thought of spending hours and hours sitting on some beach looking out for the Chinese woman and her daughter was slightly daunting, however. But what choice did I have? My need to speak to her had become all-consuming, now – even if it meant only exchanging a few words. The thought of going back to London without making some kind of connection with her was insupportable.
