Chapter 22
22
SATURDAY, 5 JULY, 2025 – HONG KONG
Moira
‘Moira, you know you’ll enjoy this so much more if you open your eyes,’ Carina suggested.
Moira wasn’t having it. ‘I think a one-night stand once said that to me back in the eighties. I didn’t believe him then and I don’t believe you now.’
Why? Why had she let them persuade her to do this? Thanks to Carina bossing them out of the hotel and on to the MTR – she was definitely power crazy when she was in charge, Moira decided – they’d travelled across the territory, alighting at Tung Chung, and been first in the queue for the Ngong Ping cable car on Lantau Island. They were now soaring high in the fricking sky, which was particularly bloody terrifying given that Moira vehemently disliked being in any situation from which she could plummet to her death. Even the penthouse at the hotel made her queasy if she looked down over the balcony.
‘You know, back when we were here last time we had to get a boat to Lantau island. We used to come here sometimes on our day off and hang with all the hippies that stayed here. Now this feels more like a hostage situation.’
Stevie was on Carina’s side. ‘Honestly, Moira, it really is spectacular. You should definitely open your eyes.’
Heart racing, she decided to pull on her big woman pants and do it. She was already traumatised, so how much worse could it get?
The answer came the second she squinted open one peeper, looked down and then yelped, because she hadn’t realised the gondola had a glass floor. Again, why?
‘What kind of twisted soul would come up with something like that?’ she gasped, pointing downwards, where the treetops and slopes of the terrain below them were clear as day between her Skechers. ‘Like it isn’t terrifying enough?’
Yep, they’d definitely got her at a weak moment when she’d agreed to this. It had been last night in the piano bar, long after the music had stopped and the rest of the guests had gone to bed. The three of them had still been sitting there, exhausted after a two-hour conversation that had run the emotional spectrum from tears, to sadness, to honesty and even, a couple of times, to laughter too. When Stevie had asked to know her mother’s mistakes, they’d been as honest as possible with her. She deserved to know. All this week they’d been protecting Lisa, but now, they knew it was time to protect Stevie too, and that started with answering as many of the questions that were troubling her as they could.
And that’s what they’d done. They’d shared the stories about her drinking, about her melancholy, about the darkness that sometimes consumed her. They’d said that she made questionable choices with men, and that she had no interest in being in a relationship, that she never let anyone get too close.
‘We were her best friends, yet she shut us out too. She talked more to Nate…’ Moira remembered, ‘Because the two of them had been there the longest. I used to think he was like a brother figure to her. He looked out for her.’
Stevie took a second to get her head around that one. ‘Nate, the guy you called? The one you dated?’
‘Yes, but they were just friends – it wasn’t a sharing situation,’ Moira quickly clarified. ‘We were wild, but not that wild.’
They’d talked a while longer, answering every question Stevie threw at them.
Stevie had taken it all in. ‘I think that what I don’t understand is why. Why was she so broken?’
Moira truly wished she had the answers to that. ‘We don’t know. It was just as if she had a self-destruct button, and she couldn’t help pressing it. I suppose nowadays we’re more aware of trauma and mental health issues, even things like PTSD, but back then, we were just young, with no experience or knowledge of anything like that. We just accepted her for who she was. She never talked much about her family, and she shut us down when we asked. All we knew was that her mum had passed away and her gran raised her, then died a few years before she came to Hong Kong.’
‘By the time I came along, there was no one left,’ Stevie said. ‘Mum would just say her family was all in heaven. As a child, you just accept that and let it go. I’m so sorry now that I didn’t ask her more, but like with you, she never wanted to share her feelings.’
‘Maybe that was just who she was, and we need to respect that?’ Carina had suggested.
That was the point when they’d decided to call it a night. ‘Any thoughts about what to do tomorrow?’ Carina had asked in the lift.
Stevie had a suggestion. ‘Actually, I did read about one thing that sounded really cool. The Big Buddha on?—’
‘Lantau Island,’ Carina had finished for her. ‘That sounds like a great idea. It hadn’t been built when we lived here, so no sad memories.’
Tired, aching, desperate to make Stevie smile, Moira had agreed without researching it. That’s why she hadn’t known that this morning she’d be dangling in a tiny box in mid-air, with the ground terrifyingly far below her.
‘Look, there it is!’ Stevie exclaimed, and Moira turned her head so quickly that she almost heaved. But actually, it was worth it. It even took her mind off her terror for a few seconds. There, rising from the trees at the top of a hill in the distance, was a gigantic, breathtaking Bhudda.
‘I looked it up – it’s thirty-four metres tall and it’s made of bronze and steel,’ Tour Guide Carina informed them.
It was enough of a distraction to get Moira through the rest of the journey without more fear-induced sweating, just in time for the doors to open, the heat to hit them and the sweating to start all over again. She was definitely beginning to wonder if she was cut out for this tourist stuff. When she’d planned the trip, she’d envisaged a bit of nostalgia, a lot of relaxing, a fair amount of singing, long chatty lunches and even longer chatty dinners with loads of great food and wine. This most certainly wasn’t any of those things.
‘Right, I think it’s this way.’ Tour Guide Carina was back, and Moira and Stevie were happy to follow her along a wide walkway, with shops on either side selling touristy things, jewellery, snacks and drinks. There was even a Starbucks, which they detoured into for water, before carrying on, most of the rest of the tourists around them going in the same direction, towards the huge statue that sat on a hill and towered over them. When they got to the bottom, Moira stared upwards, puffed out her cheeks. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’
There, stretching up in front of them, was the tallest, most intimidating staircase she’d ever seen in her life.
‘I wouldn’t want to have to sweep that,’ Moira mumbled, mostly to herself.
‘Two hundred and sixty-eight steps to reach the Buddha,’ Carina informed them, reading the information on a pamphlet she’d picked up from the cable car station.
Stevie was already eyeing her expectantly. ‘Shall we?’
Moira was still looking skyward. ‘I hate to be Captain Obvious, but I’ve got that bloke’s figure,’ she said, nodding to the bronze chap at the top. ‘If I climb up there, there’d better be water, a defibrillator and a surgeon to replace my knees.’
‘And yet again, I’m so glad you’re not dramatic,’ Carina piped up, taking the sting out of her mocking with an affectionate nudge on the shoulder.
‘I feel I need to point out that I’m a trained medical professional who could intervene in the case of an emergency,’ Stevie added, laughing.
‘And I’m a trained professional singer, but I’m not standing in for Celine Dion,’ Moira jested back, enjoying the banter, despite the prospect ahead of her. At that point, an elderly lady, maybe in her eighties, marched past her and began taking the stairs at rapid speed. Moira took it as a sign that the Buddha was laughing at her too.
‘I suppose we can’t come all this way and not do this…’
Carina took a sip from her water bottle. ‘Correct.’
‘Okay, let’s do it. And if I die, make sure they put up a plaque here.’
With the renewed determination of someone who doesn’t like to fail, a steely stare, and a prayer of hope, she set off first, with Carina at her side and Stevie one step behind them.
They were a third of the way up, when the phone in her pocket began to ring. ‘That’s God telling me he didn’t build me for stairs,’ she said, managing to keep walking and check the screen at the same time. A Facetime call. There was only one person in the world that she would answer to at this moment, and his photograph was on the screen. She pressed the green button.
‘Ollie,’ she panted, ‘I just want it known that these women are trying to kill me. If anything happens to me, Carina will return my personal effects.’
Still climbing, still panting.
That TV star grin of his made her heart melt as he said, ‘Good to know, Ma. Where are you?’
‘Climbing the stairs to the Big Buddha. Look it up and you’ll understand. Where are you, son?’ she asked, squinting at the screen while still climbing, still panting.
‘LAX. Just about to get on my flight back to the UK. In sixteen hours, I’ll be back in Glasgow.’ He looked like he was happy about that, and Moira didn’t blame him. Last year, with all the travelling he’d done, he’d worked out that he’d spent twelve nights in his Glasgow home in five months. Now that he’d founded the drama and music school, he was aiming for a better balance.
‘Okay, well, I’d love to chat, son, but my cardiovascular system is shutting down and every breath could be my last. Have a safe flight, ma darlin’. I love you and I’ll see you when—’ She paused, a wave of light-headedness taking her words for a second. Then another. Then… She reached out to try to put her hand on the stone banister, but it was too far away and… now she couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t feel where her feet were. Couldn’t make herself go forwards, or backwards, until… It all went black.
And the last thing Moira heard as she began to fall, was her son shouting ‘Mum?’