Peter May - The Runner

‘Me?’ Margaret asked. Wen nodded. ‘A month.’

Wen frowned. ‘No possible. You too big.’

For a moment Margaret was perplexed, and then the light dawned. ‘No, not one month pregnant. One month to go.’

Wen clearly did not understand, and Li explained. Then she smiled. ‘Me, too. Another four week.’

Margaret smiled and nodded and wished she were somewhere else. ‘What a coincidence,’ she said, wondering how many pregnant women in a country of 1.2 billion people might be entering the last four weeks of their confinement.

Wen reached out across the table and put her hand over Margaret’s. ‘Girl? Boy?’ And Margaret immediately felt guilty for being so superior.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know.’

Wen’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. The ultrasound technology was easy. How could anyone not want to know? ‘I got boy,’ she said proudly.

‘Good for you.’ Margaret’s cheeks were aching from her fixed smile. She turned it on Li, and he immediately saw it for the grimace it really was.

He said hastily to Wen in Chinese, ‘Have you enrolled for your antenatal classes here yet?’

She shook her head, and glanced at Sun. ‘No, I’ve been too busy unpacking.’

Sun grinned. ‘I told you, we could open a shop with the amount of gear she’s brought with her, Chief.’

Two beers and two glasses of water arrived at the table.

Li said to Wen in English, ‘Maybe Margaret could take you to her antenatal class this afternoon.’ He looked pointedly at Margaret. ‘And you could get her enrolled.’

‘Sure,’ Margaret said. ‘There’s three classes a week, and a couple of extras I go to as well.’ Once she got her there, she knew she could dump responsibility on to Jon Macken’s wife, Yixuan, who could deal with her in Chinese. ‘They encourage husbands to go, too.’ And she returned Li’s pointed look, the smile bringing an ache now to her jaw. ‘Only, some of them never seem to have the time.’ She turned to Sun. ‘But you’ll want to go, Detective Sun, won’t you?’

Sun looked a little bemused. He came from a world where men and women led separate lives. He looked to Li for guidance. Li said, ‘Sure he will. But not this afternoon. He’s going to be too busy.’

‘And I suppose that applies to his boss, too,’ Margaret said.

‘I’m picking up my father at the station. Remember?’ Li said, and suddenly reality came flooding back. For two days Margaret had been able to return to her former self, focused on her work, on the minutest observation of medical evidence, a fulfilment of all her training and experience. And suddenly she was back in the role of expectant mother and bride-to-be. Li’s father arrived today, her mother tomorrow. The betrothal meeting was the day after. The wedding next week. She groaned inwardly and felt as if her life were slipping back on to its course beyond her control.

The food arrived. Fried aubergine dumplings, mashed aubergine with sesame paste, sliced beef and tofu. And they picked at the dishes in the centre of the table with their chopsticks, lifting what they fancied on to their own plates to wash down with beer or water.

‘I thought this was a noodle restaurant,’ Margaret said.

‘Patience,’ Li said. ‘All will be revealed.’ And they ate in silence for several minutes, turning their heads towards the door each time a new group of guests arrived, and the chorus started all over again. The restaurant was beginning to fill up now.

Then Wen said to Margaret, ‘You must have big apartment, Maggee, married to senior officer.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘We’re not married. Yet.’ Wen was shocked, and Margaret realised that it was not something Sun had discussed with her. ‘But we get married next week,’ she added for clarification. ‘And, yes, we will have a big apartment. I hope.’

Li was aware of Sun glancing in his direction, but he kept his eyes fixed on his food as he ate. And then the noodles arrived. Four steaming bowls on a tray, each one surrounded by six small dishes containing beanpaste sauce, cucumber, coriander, chopped radish, chickpeas and spring onions. Four waiters surrounded the holder of the tray, and called out the name of each dish as it was emptied over the noodles.

‘This is one hell of a noisy restaurant,’ Margaret said as she mixed her noodles with their added ingredients. She lifted the bowl and slurped some up with her chopsticks, adept now at the Chinese way of eating. ‘But the food’s damn good.’

When they finished eating, Li said to Margaret, ‘Why don’t you and Wen get a taxi up to the hospital. I’ll take your bike in the back of the Jeep, and you can get a taxi home.’

‘Will I ever see it again?’ she asked.

‘I’ll bring it back tonight.’

‘What about your father.’

Li smiled. ‘He goes to bed early.’ He paused. ‘And your mother arrives tomorrow.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ she said. But she had not missed his point. It would be their last chance to be alone together before the wedding.

Li asked for the check, and Wen and Margaret went to the ladies’ room. Sun sat silently for a moment or two. Then he looked at Li. ‘Chief?’ Li glanced up from his purse. ‘She doesn’t know, does she?’

And all the light went out of Li’s eyes. He supposed it was probably a common topic of conversation in the detectives’ room. But nobody had ever raised it with him directly before. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want her to.’

The crowded sidewalk was lined with winter-naked trees. Pedestrians wrapped in fleeces and quilted jackets stepped between them, in and out of the cycle lane, dodging bicycles and one another. A kind of semi-ordered chaos. On the street, motorists behaved as if they were still on foot, or on bicycles. Four lanes became six. Horns peeped and blared as vehicles switched non-existent lanes and inched through the afternoon gridlock. The voice of a bus conductress cut across the noise, insistent, hectoring, a constant accompaniment to the roar of the traffic.

The taxi had dropped Margaret and Wen on the corner, and they had to make their way back along Xianmen Dajie, Tweedledum and Tweedledee waddling side by side through the crowds, breath clouding in the freezing temperatures. To Margaret’s surprise and bemusement, Wen had taken her hand. She felt as if she had stepped into a time-warp, a little girl again, walking to school hand in hand with her best friend. Except that she was in her thirties, this was Beijing, and she hardly knew the girl whose hand she was holding. Still, even if there was an awkwardness about it, there was also a comfort in it. And Wen was quite unselfconscious. She was babbling away in her broken English.

‘Is verr exciting be in Beijing. I always dream be here. Everything so bi-ig.’ She grinned. ‘I really like. You like?’

‘Sure,’ Margaret said. Although she might not have admitted it, Beijing was probably as close to being home as anywhere she had ever lived.

‘Chief Li, he verr nice man. You verr lucky.’

Margaret’s smile was genuine. ‘ I think so.’

Wen’s face clouded a little. ‘Verr lucky,’ she repeated, almost as if to herself. Then she brightened again. ‘You can have more than one baby, yes?’

‘I guess,’ Margaret said. ‘If I wanted to. But I think one’s probably more than enough.’

‘You verr lucky. I can only have one baby. One Child Policy.’

Margaret nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Maybe we can trade, yes? You have one baby for me, I have many baby for you.’ She grinned mischievously, and Margaret realised that maybe there was more to Wen than met the eye. Language was such a barrier. Without a grasp of its nuances and subtleties, it was nearly impossible to communicate your real self, or to fully grasp the true character and personality of others. And she wondered how she would ever have formed a relationship with Li if his English had not been as wonderfully good as it was. Even then, she had sometimes suspected, there were parts of each other they would never truly get to know.