She had not slept much the night before, unable to decide on what to say to her father, worrying over her decision to move into her grandmother’s home. She imagined how cramped it would be after Li Chang came back. Should she ask to move into her father’s place? He had a spacious three-bedroom apartment to himself. He was getting older, he would surely be pleased to have a daughter around to take care of him, to keep him company, to brew him some tea and chat with him at night. She had made up her mind that this time she was not going to get upset over his usual nonchalance. At the very least, she reasoned, she would have more space to work on her art if she lived with him.
She closed the menu, sipped on the Dragon Well tea that was brought to her, and waited for her father to arrive. An elderly, grey-haired couple was sitting at the table next to hers.
‘I hit my arm on something sharp last night,’ the old woman said. She looked like an older version of Ms Wan – heavy head, bony body. Even her bob haircut was the same.
‘Where?’ the old man asked.
‘In the bathroom.’
‘Are you all right now?’
‘I found a plaster.’
The waitress brought a plate of braised pork belly and carefully placed it between them. The old woman picked up a piece with her chopsticks and dropped it carefully onto the old man’s rice. She then fetched another piece and stuffed it directly into her own mouth. They both chewed.
‘It tastes good,’ she said, munching open-mouthed with difficulty, revealing the few teeth she had left.
The old man nodded.
‘Lunch was good yesterday,’ she said.
‘It was good to see the kids,’ he said.
‘Good, good,’ she said.
They stopped talking and continued to eat. Their eyes were quiet, composed, without a single trace of worry. Sometimes they looked at each other, but most of the time they looked down at their food. They seldom smiled, but through the folds of their skin, Jia Jia saw everything that she did not have. She watched them as if they were the last scene of a film, living a happy ending, entirely removed from her own reality. An overwhelming feeling of dejection rose inside her. Head down, eyes closed, she listened to their silence and yearned for it to be hers.
Jia Jia’s phone rang loudly in her bag.
‘Ms Wu, I have a buyer for you!’ Her estate agent sounded like a TV football commentator, all professional enthusiasm. He spent minutes explaining who the potential buyer was: a family of four, an agreeable couple with two children, earning a high income working for American corporations. It seemed as if he was trying to sell the family to her. Finally, after he was satisfied with his expository prologue, he offered Jia Jia the price.
‘That’s too low. Far too low,’ she said.
‘The market is bad.’
‘Irresponsible!’
‘Ms Wu—’
‘It has to be higher. A one-bedroom sold for that earlier this year! One-bedroom! Mine’s a four-bedroom.’
‘I understand—’
‘No, you don’t seem to. I need more.’
‘Ms Wu, it’s much more difficult to sell your apartment. I’m already trying my best!’
‘You’re not trying at all,’ she said.
Jia Jia detected her father standing at the entrance of the restaurant speaking to the receptionist. He was looking inside, nodding, and scanning the restaurant for her. The receptionist pointed in Jia Jia’s direction, and her father’s gaze followed her arm.
‘It’s much more difficult, you have to understand,’ the estate agent continued. ‘Because of your husband.’
Jia Jia refocused her attention. ‘What?’
‘It’s not good. Buyers don’t like it,’ he said.
Her father was walking towards her table now. He looked old. She had not seen him since Chen Hang’s funeral, and even then, she had not had much of a chance to study him carefully.
‘Your husband killed himself there. It’s difficult to ask for a normal price,’ the estate agent said.
‘He didn’t kill himself,’ Jia Jia said. ‘Tell me, why do you think he would kill himself?’
‘Ms Wu, I wouldn’t know.’
‘He didn’t kill himself,’ she said again, and hung up.
Her father sat down opposite her and beamed. His eyebrows were grey, long and angled upwards, like dragonfly wings.
‘I thought you were in Europe!’ he said.
Still maddened by her agent, Jia Jia snapped at her father, ‘That was before your son-in-law died.’
The old man sitting next to them looked disapprovingly at her. His wife signalled him with her eyes to mind his own business.
‘I see, was it that long ago?’ Jia Jia’s father laughed. ‘When I saw your call, I thought something had happened. Did everything go all right? You said you were moving in with your grandmother.’
‘Oh, sure, it was easy.’ She handed over the menu. ‘It’s really good.’
‘Yes! You’ve been here? They make delicious ribs. Vegetables are—’
‘The menu. The pages.’
‘What?’
‘The quality of the paper is good.’ Jia Jia pointed at the menu and waited for his reaction. He flipped one of the pages back and forth twice, studied the corner briefly, and lost interest.
‘Let me get you some starters,’ he said. ‘Xiao Fang is stuck in traffic.’
‘That woman is coming?’
‘Don’t say “that woman”, it sounds bad. You used to call her Auntie Fang Fang. She just wants to see you.’ He summoned the waitress and ordered some pigs’ ears, marinated bran dough and cucumber salad.
Jia Jia waited until the waitress had walked away before she spoke quietly, trying to make up for her terrible attitude a moment earlier. ‘You look older. Is she taking good care of you?’
‘She’s found me an acupuncture doctor. My shoulder feels better now.’ He patted his left shoulder. ‘If you’re not feeling well, tell your Auntie Fang Fang, she’s done a lot of research on doctors. She’s a good woman. Remember when she used to take you fishing?’
He continued talking about Xiao Fang. Jia Jia struggled not to listen. She searched for an appropriate moment, a small opening in his passionate monologue, to ask him about his own family: her family. What about us? she wanted to know.
‘… after we got married last year,’ she heard him say.
His voice sounded distant and hollow, as if it came from the centre of an empty concert hall. Jia Jia squeezed her left wrist with her right hand and realised that she had forgotten to pull up her sleeve to reveal the jade bracelet that she was wearing. It had been a wedding present from her father. That morning, she had checked three times to make sure that she had remembered to put it on, so that when she poured tea for him, he would be able to see it circled around her pale wrist, pine green and translucent. But she had forgotten about it entirely.
She tried to remain composed and courteous, but she must have reacted in some way; her father was looking around uneasily at the waitresses and customers who had turned to look at their table.
‘You what?’ she asked.
‘We got married in December. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, I didn’t think it was a good moment.’