Chapter 21
21
DECEMBER 1990 – HONG KONG
Lisa
Lisa opened one eye, when she heard the footsteps coming out of the bathroom, then waited until her stomach settled before opening the other one.
‘Good morning, gorgeous,’ Ben said, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside her. ‘Happy Christmas Eve.’
‘Morning,’ she groaned, in a voice that came directly from a packet of Marlboro Reds.
‘I stuck around last night to make sure you were okay. You were pretty wasted.’
‘Yeah… I’m, erm… sorry about that.’
‘No worries,’ he shrugged it off. ‘But I need to get going. My flight is in a couple of hours and it’s the last one that’ll get me home by tonight. Should land in London about six this evening.’ He’d told her a while ago that he was going back to England for Christmas. Said something about combining it with a work trip.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be here for tomorrow.’
Lisa pushed herself up so that she was sitting against her pillow. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m working anyway and the show is sold out. You’ll miss a good time.’
‘I don’t doubt it. Look, when I get back…’ he began, and Lisa felt the familiar need to reject affection begin to creep under her skin. She knew what he was going to say because he’d hinted at it before. And she knew how she was going to reply. The same way that she always did.
This guy was way, way, too nice for her. She’d stayed over at his flat a few nights and he’d brought her home many times over the last couple of months, and he hadn’t asked her for money, offered her money, plied her with booze, taken her for granted, or tried to have sex with her when she was wasted then escaped first thing in the morning, saying he’d call and then not bothered – all things that were far easier to deal with than someone who was just a genuinely nice guy and a friend. Last night pretty much summed him up. Like other occasions, he’d come home with her in a taxi to make sure she got back safely. But last night… the memories were hazy, but she tried to piece it together. Last night, she’d been blackout drunk, probably worse than he’d ever seen her before. He’d had to help her up the stairs because there was no way she was making it on her own. She remembered crashing out on the bed and when she’d woken up during the night to pee, she’d had a row of pillows along her back, that he must have put there to keep her on her side, just in case she threw up. On the other side of the pillows, he’d been lying sleeping, still fully clothed too.
All of it was evidence for the prosecution. Way too nice – guilty as charged.
‘Don’t be doing all that soppy stuff,’ she warned him. ‘What did I tell you about that?’
Laughing, he put his hands up. ‘Okay, fine. But, how about we just try a proper date? You know, dinner. Drinks. Just us.’
She stopped him there. ‘That sounds like more of that soppy stuff,’ she warned him, but it did make her smile. ‘Maybe. Just maybe. I told you…’
He put his hands up, conceding defeat, but still in the game. ‘I know – you don’t do relationships. I got the message. But I don’t do random hook ups. So maybe we could just start out slow. Look, no pressure. Let’s just wait and see how it goes. Maybe you’ll miss me so much, you’ll be driven crazy by lust and longing for me.’
‘I highly doubt that, but sure, you can’t knock an optimist.’
That made him laugh again, as he went over to the chair by the window and picked up his jacket.
‘How long will you be away for?’ she asked.
‘See, you’re missing me already. A couple of months. I should be back end of February or early March.’
‘Okay. Well, look me up. You know where to find me.’ It wasn’t exactly a commitment, but it was a start. Maybe by that time she’d have her shit figured out and be ready to try to act like a normal human being. And if she was, then maybe this would be a pretty good guy to have proper relationship with.
As soon as he was gone, she ran through the rest of her morning routine. Cigarette. Paracetamol. This morning it was washed down with a bottle of water that he must have left by her bed. She stretched over, pressed ‘play’ on the tape recorder. Listened to the same message she’d heard every morning for the last five years.
‘This is Netta Dixon. Don’t leave a message because I don’t know what to be doing with this damn contraption anyways. There. Are ya happy now, Lisa?’
Lisa closed her eyes and let the feelings of grief and loneliness consume her. She had no idea why she did this every morning, but she just knew she couldn’t stop. It was her oxygen and also the thing that suffocated her. She felt the familiar urge to reach for the liquid that numbed it all, when her door opened and Carina and Moira came in carrying…
‘Morning! We brought you a Christmas tree. Actually, we stole it from downstairs, but they’ll never prove it was us. Nate agreed to turn his back when we went past reception with it so there are no witnesses. Anyway, since we’re all too skint to buy each other presents, you need to get up, because we’re going out.’
‘Where to?’
‘We’re going for Christmas Eve lunch.’
‘Does that mean getting cheap food from somewhere and going back and forward on the Star Ferry all afternoon?’ Lisa asked. It was their standard celebration treat. Before Moira and Carina had got loved up, they’d spent many days off that way. They’d done the same thing whenever any local newspapers or radio hosts did a brilliant review of their show. And then again for Moira’s birthday last month.
‘It sure does.’ Moira confirmed.
‘Then I’m in,’ Lisa agreed, gingerly pushing herself out of the bed. ‘Let me get a shower and I’ll catch up.’
In the end, it was past twelve by the time they were on the top deck of the ferry, boxes of chicken and rice on their laps. The weather was cooler at this time of year, so for once, they weren’t melting in the heat.
‘Guess what arrived for me this morning,’ Carina teased, before using her chopsticks to pop a chunk of chicken into her mouth.
‘Patrick Swayze’s boxer shorts,’ Moira guessed, before raising her gaze from her lunch. ‘Wait, did I say that out loud?’
Carina wasn’t amused. ‘Your mind is a swamp of a place. Anyway, no, and I’m not letting you spoil my good mood by mocking me. It was a Christmas card from my parents.’
‘No way,’ Lisa said, as she pushed her food away. The ferry must be rockier than usual today because her stomach was churning.
‘Yes. I think the photo I sent them of me and Spencer did the trick. Apparently, my father knows of Spencer’s family, so they think I’m on the road to redemption after all.’
‘And what did your mum say in the card?’ Moira asked.
‘That she hopes my new relationship means I’ve come to my senses and will be coming home soon.’
A cog turned even tighter in Lisa’s stomach. Moira and Carina were the only people she had. Nate too. They were her family. She couldn’t bear the thought that that could change. ‘And will you? Go home?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. At least, for a visit. Spencer is saying that he’s planning to base himself in Hong Kong in the foreseeable future, so maybe I’ll stay here. Depends how it works out. Either way, though, I’m thinking that there’s going to come a time that I’ll leave the agency. It’s been great while it lasted, but we hate that I’m working six nights a week. Doesn’t leave any time for us.’
Lisa felt like she’d been slapped and Carina must have registered her expression because she nudged her. ‘Not yet though. Don’t worry, I’ll give you plenty of notice so you can throw me a party.’
There was a couple of minutes silence while they absorbed that, until Moira shook them out of it. ‘Right, let’s change the subject, because it’s Christmas Eve and I refuse to be sad…’
So they weren’t. They kept up the holiday spirit for the rest of the afternoon, and then all the way to the show, and right through two incredible sets that had the packed crowd on their feet and dancing well after they’d counted down the clock to Christmas Day. Lisa even went back on stage and the three of them did an impromptu hour together, nothing rehearsed, nothing planned, just a crazy hour of three chicks rocking that the crowd adored. They kicked off with one of their favourite songs, ‘It’s A Man’s World’, then ran through a few other hits that they’d sung together at parties for months, just for fun. It blocked out every negative thought and feeling, leaving only pure joy. It had always been the way that no matter how she felt, no matter what was on her mind, the second she was on the stage it was all forgotten until she sang the last note.
Tonight, that had never been more true.
At the end of the show, Spencer whisked Carina off to some flash hotel somewhere, and Moira and Nate were going to Lan Kwai Fong to carry on the party.
‘You’re coming, right?’ Moira asked, probably expecting her to say yes, given that she never missed an excuse to drink and be merry. However, for once, she didn’t want to join the revelry, because as soon as she’d got off stage, the nausea she’d felt earlier in the day had kicked back in.
‘I’ll catch up with you there,’ Lisa lied to them. ‘I’m not feeling great, so I just want to stop off and pick up something to settle my stomach.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Moira offered but Lisa had no intention of spoiling anyone else’s night, so she fobbed her off with another lie. ‘No, no – Zak and Joe are going to come with me.’ The barmen didn’t need to know that she was involving them in her lie.
Outside the Harbour Lights Hotel, she jumped in a taxi, then put the window down, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth to try to fight down the nausea. There was a tiny bit of panic in there too. Had she damaged something by going too hard on the booze? Her gran used to warn her about this, about how easy it was to wreck your body, even when you were young.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
There was a dodgy moment when they were going through the tunnel that took them under the harbour to Kowloon, but she managed to keep it together right up until the taxi turned into her street.
‘Stop here, please. Anywhere.’ She threw some money into the front, then lurched open the door and threw up into the gutter.
Bed. She just needed to get to bed.
She practically crawled up the stairs to reception, where Wai, the night manager, nodded to her from behind the desk.
Almost there. Almost there. She made it down the corridor, into her room, then staggered into the bathroom where she threw up until there was nothing left in her gut.
Unable to stand, she pulled the basket that sat under her sink towards her, looking for any kind of anti-sickness pill or even just some water to make her feel better.
That’s when she saw two things. First of all, a box of tampons. Unopened. Her mind tried to calculate when she’d bought them, but she couldn’t remember. Felt like longer than a month ago, though.
The second thing she saw was the pregnancy test that had been left over from the box of two Carina had bought. ‘You take it,’ Carina had said, when her test had been negative. ‘I won’t need it, because after this, I’m never having sex again.’
Lisa had thought it was funny at the time. She’d just tossed it into this basket and forgotten about it. Now it didn’t seem like so much of a joke.
She couldn’t be pregnant. She was on the pill. And she used condoms most of the time too… At least, when she was sober enough to remember.
In some kind of slow, dread-filled trance, she opened the test and followed the instructions, then, back on the floor, held the stick in shaking hands while she waited for the results.
All day, surrounded by normal people, with normal lives and families and loved ones, she’d managed to block out that dark, creeping thought, that reminder that there were no Christmas cards with her name on them, no presents from any family, no calls from people across the seas that missed her. Nothing. Other than her skint friends here, she was completely alone in this world so no gifts would be coming her way.
But now, as she stared at her destiny in her hand, she saw that for Christmas, she’d just been given a faint blue line in the window of a white stick.