‘Please,’ said the Chinese woman. ‘Don’t go. You haven’t disturbed me at all. In fact you’ve been more than helpful. And what you’ve done is – well, quite romantic, from one point of view. If you’ve come all the way to this beach just to see me, then the least I can do is to offer you something. A cup of tea, perhaps?’
‘That’s very kind of you, but –’
‘Please, Maxwell, sit down. May I call you Maxwell?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She sat down on the rug and motioned for me to join her: which I did, with a certain sense of embarrassment.
‘My name is Lian. My daughter’s name is Yanmei. Her schoolfriend’s name, you already know. Will you take your tea with lemon? I’m afraid I didn’t bring any milk.’
‘I’ll just have it … as it comes, actually. Whatever’s easiest.’
Lian poured black tea into two plastic cups, and handed one of them to me. I thanked her, and we drank in silence for a moment or two. Then I said, ‘If I can offer you some sort of explanation –’
‘Please do.’
‘The truth is that when I saw you and Yanmei having dinner together at that restaurant two months ago, it made a profound impression on me.’
‘Really? In what way?’
‘I’d never seen anything quite like the … intimacy that I saw between the two of you. I saw that intimacy and I felt the lack of it in my own life, and I started to hope – to fantasize, actually – that I might be able to share in it.’
Lian gave another of her tight but captivating smiles. She looked down into her teacup and said: ‘Well, those dinners we have together are very special to us. We go there on the second Saturday of every month. Once a month, you see, my husband, Peter, has to go to Dubai. The working week there starts on a Sunday morning. So he catches a flight from Sydney at ten past nine the evening before. Yanmei and I go to the airport to see him off, and then she’s always a little downcast, because she loves her father so much, and she misses him when he’s away. So, as a special treat, I take her to that restaurant. Twelve times a year, without fail, be it summer or winter. Children need patterns; they need routine. Well, so do grown-ups, actually. Going to that restaurant is one of the constants in our life.’
‘I love the way,’ I began, feeling that I had nothing to lose now, by speaking my mind as clearly as possible, ‘– I love the way that you play cards together. It’s as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. And Yanmei is just like a miniature version of you.’ I glanced across to where she was poised on the edge of the swimming pool, summoning up the courage for a dive. ‘She sounds the same, her movements are the same, she looks just like you …’
‘Really?’ said Lian. ‘You think there’s a physical resemblance?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you know,’ she said, ‘Yanmei is not my biological daughter.’
‘She isn’t?’
‘No. Peter and I adopted her, three years ago. In fact, we don’t even have the same nationality. I come from Hong Kong, originally. Yanmei is from China – a city called Shenyang, in Liaoning province. So, perhaps the resemblance between us is only in your head. Perhaps it’s something you wanted to see.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, sipping my tea and looking across the bay. I was disturbed by this information, for some reason. Knowing that there was no blood relationship between Lian and Yanmei somehow changed my fantasy about them. ‘You have no children of your own, then?’
‘No. It was a great sadness in our lives, for a while. But now we have Yanmei, so …’
‘She was an orphan?’
‘Yes. Her mother died a few years ago, when she was only three. A horrible death, I’m afraid. You know, the working conditions in some of those factories are beyond belief. The things those workers put up with so that we in the West can have our cut-price goods. Yanmei’s mother worked in the spray-paint department of one factory and she was working fifteen or sixteen hours a day, spraying things with these chemical paints all the time, full of toxic solvents. No proper precautions – no masks, or anything like that. She died of cancer. Cancer of the brain.’
‘How awful,’ I said. It was a weak enough phrase, but the best I could manage. ‘What was the factory making?’
‘Toothbrushes, I believe.’
I looked across at Lian sharply when she said this. Had I heard correctly?
‘Toothbrushes?’
‘Yes – cheap plastic toothbrushes. You look surprised. Is that so surprising?’
I was speechless, in fact.
‘Do toothbrushes have some sort of special significance for you?’
Gradually, I started to find my voice again. ‘Yes, they do. A very special significance. More than that – what you’ve just told me, the story of Yanmei’s mother … Well, I find it astonishing. Incredible.’
‘There is nothing incredible about it at all. These things are happening all the time, in the developing world and elsewhere. Unfortunately, we tend to blind ourselves to them.’
‘No, I mean that what I find incredible is its … its personal significance. The significance to me, personally.’
‘Oh, I see. But could you perhaps explain this significance?’
