Peter May - The Runner

Sun said, ‘Where is Lijia?’

‘She is in a clinic in Hong Kong,’ her father said. ‘We have not seen her for nearly two years.’

‘They say she is dying now,’ the mother said.

‘Could Lili have gone to see her?’ Li asked.

The mother shook her head. ‘She never goes to see her. She couldn’t bear to look at her, to see her wasting like that.’

Li said to her father, ‘You said Lili was argumentative.’

‘She never used to be,’ her mother said quickly. ‘She used to be such a lovely girl.’

‘Until she started winning all those big races,’ her father said, ‘and making all that money. It was like she felt guilty for being able to run like that while her sister was withering to a shadow.’

‘If anything made her feel guilty it was you.’ There was unexpected bitterness in the voice of Dai Lili’s brother. ‘Nothing she could ever do would make her as good as her sister. Not in your eyes. And you resented it, didn’t you? That she was the only one who could do anything to help Lijia. While all you could ever do was sit on your fat ass and watch TV and collect your invalidity from the state.’

And Li noticed for the first time that Dai Lili’s father had only one leg. The left trouser leg was empty and folded under him on the settee. Li’s eyes strayed to a crude-looking prosthetic limb propped in the corner of the room, straps hanging loose and unused. When he looked up again, the boy had left the room. ‘Do you have a key for her apartment?’ he asked.

The snow was lying now in the street, the merest covering, pretty in the lights from the windows and streetlamps, but treacherous underfoot. There was very little light left in the sky, helping to deepen the depression that Li carried with him from the house. He checked his watch and handed Sun the keys of the Jeep.

‘You’d better take it,’ he said. ‘You’ll be late for your antenatal class.’

‘I don’t care about the class, Chief,’ Sun said. ‘It’s Wen having the baby, not me. I’ll go to the girl’s apartment with you.’

Li shook his head. ‘I’ll get a taxi. And then I’m going straight on to the betrothal meeting.’ He summoned a smile from somewhere. ‘Go on. Go to the hospital. It’s your baby, too. Wen’ll appreciate it.’

The Tian An Men Fang Shen Imperial Banquet Restaurant stood on the east side of Tiananmen Square behind stark winter trees hung with coloured Christmas lights. Margaret’s taxi dropped them on the corner, at the foot of stairs leading to twin marble dragons guarding the doors to the restaurant. Mrs. Campbell’s knee, bandaged and heavily strapped, had stiffened up so that she could hardly bend it. To her mother’s indignation, Margaret had borrowed a walking cane from an elderly neighbour. ‘I am not an old lady!’ she had protested, but found that she was unable to walk without it. An affront to her self-image and her dignity.

Margaret helped her up the steps, and they were greeted inside the door by two girls dressed in imperial costume — elaborately embroidered silk gowns and tall, winged black hats with red pompoms. The entrance to the restaurant was filled with screens and hanging glass lanterns, its ornamental cross-beams colourfully painted with traditional Chinese designs. A manageress, all in black, led them past the main restaurant and into the royal corridor. It was long and narrow, lanterns reflecting off a highly polished floor. The walls were decorated with lacquered panels and red drapes. There were private banqueting rooms off to left and right. Li had booked them the Emperor’s Room, and Margaret’s mother’s jaw dropped in astonishment as she hobbled in ahead of her daughter. A four-lamp lantern hanging with dozens of red tassels was suspended over a huge circular banqueting table. Each of seven place settings had three gold goblets, a rice bowl, spoon, knife and chopstick rest, also in gold, and lacquered chopsticks tipped with gold at the holding end. Each serviette was arranged in the shape of an imperial fan. At one end of the room, on a raised dais, were two replica thrones for the emperor and empress. At the other, through an elaborately carved wooden archway, cushioned benches and seats were gathered around a low table on which all the presents from each family were carefully arranged. Soft Chinese classical music plinged gently through hidden speakers.

Mei Yuan had been sitting on the long bench waiting for them. Earlier in the day Margaret had taken the gifts from the Campbell family to Mei Yuan’s siheyuan home on Qianhai Lake. Mei Yuan, acting as Li’s proxy, had selected the gifts from the Li family and arrived early at the restaurant to set out the offerings from both families and await the guests. She stood up, tense, smiling. Margaret looked at her in wonder. Mei Yuan’s hair was held in a bun on the top of her head by a silver clasp. She wore a turquoise blue embroidered silk jacket over a cream blouse and a full-length black dress. There was a touch of brown around her eyes, and red on her lips. Margaret had never seen her dressed up, or wearing make-up. She had only ever been a small peasant woman in well-worn jackets and trousers and aprons, with her hair pulled back in an elastic band. She was transformed, dignified, almost beautiful. And Margaret felt tears prick her eyes at the sight of her.

‘Mom, I’d like you to meet Mei Yuan, my very best friend in China.’

Mrs. Campbell shook Mei Yuan’s hand warily, but was scrupulously polite. ‘How do you do, Mrs. Yuan?’

Margaret laughed. ‘No, Mom, if it’s Mrs. anything, its Mrs. Mei.’ Her mother looked confused.

Mei Yuan explained. ‘In China, the family name always comes first. I am happy for you simply to call me Mei Yuan.’ She smiled. ‘I am very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Campbell.’

There was an awkward exchange of pleasantries about flights and weather before the conversation began to run dry. They all took seats as a girl in a red patterned tunic and black trousers poured them jasmine tea in small, handleless, bone china cups, and there was a momentary relief from the need to make small talk as they all sipped at the hot, perfumed liquid. To break the silence, Mei Yuan said, ‘Li Yan did not come for his breakfast this morning.’

Mrs. Campbell said, ‘Margaret’s fiancé takes his breakfast at your house?’

‘No, Mom. Mei Yuan has a stall on a corner near Li Yan’s office. She makes kind of hot, savoury Beijing pancakes called jian bing .’

Mrs. Campbell could barely conceal her surprise, or her horror. ‘You sell pancakes on a street corner?’

‘I make them fresh on a hotplate,’ Mei Yuan said. ‘But really only to feed my passion in life.’

Margaret’s mother was almost afraid to ask. ‘And what’s that?’

‘Reading. I love books, Mrs. Campbell.’

‘Do you? My husband lectured in modern American literature in Chicago. But I don’t suppose that’s the kind of reading you’re used to.’

‘I am a great admirer of Ernest Hemingway,’ Mei Yuan said. ‘And John Steinbeck. I am just now reading The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald.’

‘Oh, you’ll enjoy it,’ Mrs. Campbell said, for the moment forgetting who she was talking to. ‘A talented writer. But Gatsby was the only really great thing he wrote. He was ruined by alcohol and his wife.’

‘Zelda,’ Mei Yuan said.

‘Oh, you know about her?’ Mrs. Campbell was taken again by surprise.

‘I read about them both in Mr. Hemingway’s autobiography of his time spent in Paris.’

‘ A Moveable Feast . It’s a wonderful read.’

‘It made me so much want to go there,’ Mei Yuan said.

Mrs. Campbell looked at her appraisingly, perhaps revising her first impressions. But they had no opportunity to pursue their conversation further, interrupted then by the arrival of Xiao Ling and Xinxin with Li’s father. Xinxin rushed to Margaret and threw her arms around her.