‘Thirty-four, and no, I’ve never been married.’
‘But you must have had at least one serious love affair, after the English teacher.’
‘True.’
‘Why didn’t you marry?’
‘Um, I think my experience has been like yours except that I never actually tied the knot. I’ve had one-night stands and disastrous affairs and a couple of really great women with whom I had relationships that lasted a long time – but not for ever.’
Tamara took another sip of wine. It was delicious, she noticed.
Tab was beginning to open his heart to her, and she wanted desperately for him to go on. The morning’s deaths still lingered darkly at the back of her mind, ghosts waiting to spring out at her, but this conversation was comforting. ‘Tell me about one of the great women,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘All right. I lived with Odette for three years in Paris. She’s a linguist, speaks several languages, and makes her living translating, usually Russian to French. She’s really smart.’
‘And . . .?’
‘When I was posted here, I asked her to marry me and come with me.’
‘Oh. So it was really serious.’ Tamara actually felt dismayed that he had gone so far as to propose. Stupid feeling, she told herself.
‘Serious on my side, at least. And she could have carried on her translating work here in Chad – it’s all done remotely anyway. But she said no. Okay, I said, let’s get married and I’ll refuse the posting. Then she told me that she didn’t want to get married either way.’
‘Ouch.’
He shrugged unconvincingly. ‘I was more serious than she was, and I found out the hard way.’
He was only pretending to be insouciant. She could tell that he had been hurt. She wanted to hold him in her arms.
He made a brushing-away gesture. ‘Enough of ancient miseries,’ he said. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I haven’t wanted food all day, but now I’m ravenous.’
‘Let’s see if there’s anything in the refrigerator.’
She followed him into the little kitchen. He opened the fridge door and said: ‘Eggs, tomatoes, one large potato and half an onion.’
‘Do you want to go out?’ she said. She hoped he would say no: she did not yet feel ready for a restaurant.
‘Heck, no,’ he said. ‘There’s enough here for a banquet.’
He diced the potato and fried it, made a tomato-and-onion salad, then beat the eggs and made an omelette. They sat on stools at the small kitchen counter to eat. Tab poured more of the white wine.
He was right, it was a banquet.
Afterwards she realized she felt human again. ‘I guess I should be going,’ she said reluctantly. She knew that when she went to bed alone in her apartment the ghosts would come out and she would have no defence.
‘You don’t have to leave,’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘Do you?’
‘Let me just say that whatever you want will be okay with me.’
‘I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.’
‘Then sleep with me.’
‘But I don’t feel like sex.’
‘I didn’t think you would.’
‘Are you sure that’s all right? No kissing or anything? Will you just put your arms around me and hold me while I go to sleep?’
‘I would love to do that.’
And he did.
CHAPTER 6
The air in Beijing was breathable this morning. The weather girl said so, and Chang Kai trusted her, so he dressed in cycling gear. He confirmed her prognosis with his first breath when he stepped out of the building. All the same, he put on his face mask before mounting his machine.
He had a Fuji-ta road bike with a lightweight aluminium alloy frame and a carbon-fibre front fork. As he set off, it seemed to weigh no more than a pair of shoes.
Cycling to work was the only form of exercise Kai had room for in his schedule. In Beijing’s colossal traffic jams it took the same length of time as driving, so he did not lose any of the working day.
Kai needed to exercise. He was forty-five years old, and his wife, Tao Ting, was thirty. He was slim and fit, and taller than average, but he was always conscious of that fifteen-year gap, and he felt a duty to be as agile and energetic as Ting.
The street where he lived was a main artery with dedicated bike lanes to separate the thousands of cyclists from the hundreds of thousands of cars. All kinds of people rode: workers, school pupils, uniformed messengers, even smart office women in skirts. Turning off the main road into a side street, Kai had to negotiate the four-wheeled traffic, winding between trucks and limousines, the yellow-sided taxis and the red-topped buses.