Susan Barker - The Incarnations

‘ Get out! Or I will call the police !’ Lin Hong rushes past Wang, to stand between him and old man hiding under the bedcovers. She waves a cell phone at Wang. ‘I am dialling now! I will tell them you are having a psychotic episode and they will throw you back in the hospital!’

The dial pad beeps as she presses the keys. Wang shakes his head at his stepmother, and steps back. ‘You deserve each other,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t wish any worse for you both than the lives you have now.’

Then he turns and walks out of the apartment, slamming the door.

Out in the street, he is shaking. They are not humans but monsters hiding behind human masks. He won’t speak to his father for as long as he lives. Or as long as his father lives. Whoever is first to die.

WANG HAD SHOWERED, dragged a razor over his stubble and changed before meeting Echo, hoping to counter Yida’s slander by looking the part of a respectable father. But he’s not sure this has worked. Opposite him, Echo is paler than usual, with dark circles around eyes that don’t seem to trust him. Since leaving her and Yida, he has not seen her as often as he said. Over the past fortnight he has seen her three times, and each time Echo has been more like a stranger to him. She hands the menu back, solemn in her T-shirt and dungarees.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Are you sure?’ Wang says. ‘You can order whatever you like. .’

But she’s not even tempted by fizzy drinks, so he orders for them both and then asks in an over-bright voice about school and her plans for the summer holidays. Echo scratches at a mosquito bite on her arm and gazes at the table of sunburnt American tourists and the laoban in polo shirts and suit trousers clinking glasses of baijiu to celebrate a business deal. When the dishes arrive Echo nibbles at a lamb kebab, while Wang eats from an earthenware pot of spicy chicken and potatoes. He swigs some beer from his glass and belches gently.

‘How’s your ma?’ he asks.

Echo looks guiltily at the half-eaten kebab on her plate. She says in a small voice, ‘She says I’m not to talk to you about her.’

‘Really?’ Echo reaches for a napkin and Wang frowns at her nails, bitten to the quick, the cuticles ragged and raw. ‘What’s she been saying about me?’ he asks. ‘Don’t worry. You can tell me. She won’t find out. .’

Echo doesn’t look up as she folds the napkin into origami.

‘I can’t say.’

Wang smiles tightly. He should shut up. He shouldn’t drag Echo into this. But when it comes to Yida he has no restraint, he can’t do what’s right.

‘Bad-mouthing me every chance she gets, eh?’ Wang says. ‘Is she still saying that I am ill?’ Echo puts her origami crane on the table, looking miserable. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with me,’ Wang says. ‘Your mother is making it up. You don’t think I am ill, do you?’

Echo looks up at her father. ‘No,’ she says quietly.

Wang is stung by her lack of conviction. ‘Listen, Echo, there are two sides to every story. There are lots of bad things I could tell you about your mother. But I won’t, because I don’t want to upset you.’ Wang drinks the last of his beer, choking back the urge to rant on. Then he pushes back his chair and leaves the table.

In the bathroom he splashes water on his face over the sink. He hasn’t slept properly in days and is in a dark, irritable mood. How much had his mother suffered during the last two years of her life? Why was she homeless on the streets of a town in Heilongjiang? These questions go around his mind at night, sabotaging sleep. He wipes his face with a scratchy paper towel from the dispenser. After leaving his father’s, he called Yida to warn her to keep Echo away from them, and explained why. Yida needed no persuading. That his father and Lin Hong were despicable was one thing on which they agreed.

When Wang returns to the table, Echo is looking through one of her own comics, illustrated in black and white.

‘Can I see?’ Wang asks.

Echo hands over the stapled sheets, and Wang flips through them. The Watcher is the title of the comic, and it is about a girl called Moon-bird who is stalked by a dark shadow only she can see. The shadow, cross-hatched in ink and swarming with strange, demoniac eyes, lurks in the corner of each panel, watching Moonbird in the classroom, on the way home from school, and in her bedroom at night. No one — not her parents, teachers or classmates — sees the shadow except Moonbird, whose isolation worsens her fear. Eventually Moonbird confronts the shadow. ‘Who are you?’ she asks. ‘What do you want?’ The second-to-last panel shows Moonbird disappearing into the shadow. Whether the shadow is devouring her or she is entering of her own volition, Wang can’t tell. The last panel shows Moonbird’s mother and father calling for their missing child. The End . Wang hands the comic back, unsettled.

‘What a sad story,’ he says. ‘You’re only eight. Why don’t you write a story with a happy ending?’

‘It’s just a story,’ Echo says.

She stuffs The Watcher back in her shoulder bag. Seeing he has hurt her, Wang says, ‘The illustrations are really good. I don’t know where you get your artistic talent from. Not from me or your ma. .’ Echo shrugs and pushes her half-eaten kebab away. ‘Look, Echo. . I know we are going through a rough time right now,’ Wang says, ‘but don’t worry too much about it. Things will get better soon. Don’t upset yourself.’

Echo winces and puts her hand on her stomach. ‘My belly hurts,’ she tells her father. ‘Can we go?’

Not sure how to put things right, Wang calls the waitress for the bill.

Morning. Wang is woken by the slammed door and beer bottles clinking in a bag. ‘Off!’ orders Baldy Zhang, kicking the mattress. Wang drags himself up and rummages through his bin liner of clothes for a crumpled shirt. He is so exhausted after his night of sleeplessness, that if he had a gun he’d put himself out of his misery. He’s so exhausted, even Baldy Zhang notices.

‘Sleepless night, eh, Wang Jun?’ he says, grinning with sulphur-coloured teeth. ‘Still angsting about your wife and kid, eh? Forget ’em, I say. You’re better off without them!’

Wang goes into the bathroom, throws water on his face, and drags a toothbrush about in his mouth. He knows he should take the day off work, but can’t think of where to go. At least driving the taxi will be a distraction from his wretched state of mind.

‘Don’t crash the car today,’ Baldy Zhang calls from the mattress, as Wang picks up his keys and walks out the door. ‘You’re paying for the damage if you do!’

Behind the wheel, buzzing with nicotine and caffeinated energy drinks, Wang barely feels the steering wheel in his hands or the pedals under his feet. His driving is shaky at first, but autopilot soon takes over, controlling his steering and braking. Wang works on automaton too, picking up fares and driving them to their destinations, as though in a surreal dream of a working day.

By late afternoon, he can’t remember one thing about the ten hours he has worked. He can’t remember where in Beijing he has driven to, or any of the passengers he has had. So when he sees Zeng through the windscreen, in the crowds outside Beijing West station, he thinks he must be hallucinating. He swerves over to the kerb anyway, and slams on the brakes, sending the man in the passenger seat lurching to the dashboard. Wang then snatches up the keys and bounds out the door. ‘Where are you going?’ his passenger calls, aggrieved. Wang ignores him. He runs past construction workers digging up the roadside and fights his way through the station crowds, determined not to lose him. ‘Zeng Yan! Stop!’