Chapter 7
On his way home, Bing was very unhappy, his face dark and grave. He turned off the music, for he couldn’t tolerate its sentimentality. He felt his emotional resources had been depleted after Serena’s departure, and this hour of his existence was to keep quiet, and unthinking.
At home, like a walking tree, he took a shower, letting the water fall on his head, run over his face, stream past his flat smooth belly, reach and trickle in his groin, where his penis sat brooding. He pressed the bottle for a wad of lotion, rubbed very hard his organs, soaked them full in foams and bubbles. In the water that sounded cheerful, his ego started feeling a pain, a pain that could only be subdued by a weight of anger.
‘So, what a woman,’ he cursed a voiceless curse, ‘she troubled me with such a journey just to tell me that she didn’t like me. And she was dressed like, like a *****. And she was even flushed and coloured like a ripening flower, thirsty for sex right in front of me! Then she told me she didn’t have any feelings for me. Oh, my…!’
Not until late in the night did he settle the larger part of his pique. On second thought, he didn’t have to hate her. In his own dating history, on each date, either the first or the second, had he not tried his best to display his best colours in front of them, in spite of what feelings he might have for them? Had he not stopped calling them without any explanation or the farewell courtesy they might deserve? She must have been lonely on the evening, and even wondering what to eat for the dinner. No wonder she ate a lot in the two dinners he had had with her. No wonder she would feel guilty for not capably rewarding him if she went out 100 times with him, because, she could eat free 100 times, saving 100 times of cooking worries. At any rate, getting a soul out to pass a night was a primitive and just motive for a lonesome life. If she didn’t favour a pet for a companion, then a man like him, though unsuitable to sleep with, was the next best she could wish for.
Yes, a feeling was luxurious, and she didn’t have any feeling for him, which was the reality. And worse, the romantic trial of seeing her unexpectedly in her workplace, a loving test run to which he had dedicated so much energy, was ridiculed by her, in her slight and cruel and indifferent comments. Ah! She said someone else had done that to her before him! And How could he have made such a childish play at his age? And just to think he had not even told her he was actually six years older than ‘his age’!
Now, he could only contact her on some special days, as a passing stranger, which, as she said, would make her forget him entirely. So he must forget her, as a top priority.
During the following week, to cope with the emotional vacancy left over by his short-lived encounter with Serena, Bing checked again the profile of the girl with a doctorate degree, who claimed to be Very Pretty. He half-heartedly initiated a Hi message to her, and got a reply from her the next day. An appointment was thus proposed in Hurstville where she lived, on Thursday evening after work.
Hurstville was the centre of a district in southern Sydney, well-known for its high density of immigrants from Hong Kong. The house price was very high, as a result of rich Hong Kong immigrants swarming into an area crowded with many convenient shops and Chinese restaurants.
Her name was Linda, she was 27 years of age. She came from Qingdao, Shangdong province, worked as an accountant, with an annual salary of A$55,000. In her profile, she said she was self-centred, keen to spend money, generous, very capable, talented, and she played piano. Her three photos, posted in the website, were acceptable, slightly above the average, a near portrait of good and virtuous housewife in his surmise.
The meeting time was set for 6:30pm, at the entrance of railway station. But both of them ran half an hour late, resetting the time while on their way to 7pm.
Bing parked his car in a nearby shopping centre, and after passing through the matrix of the department shops that looked boringly universal all over the world, turned to the tiny one-way Forest Street, which had the features and style of a typical Chinatown. The restaurants were predominately Cantonese. Bing had dined there with other families some years back when he was still married, but since he reclaimed his single status, he had scarcely paid visits to this place again.
At two minutes to 7pm, he was there, with one foot crossed over the other, leaning comfortably against a traffic-light post, facing the escalator that rolled up to the station. From time to time, he would straighten his neck, scouting for any female resembling Linda in her photos.
But five minutes past 7pm, she had not shown up. He was okay, never mind enjoying a little the ambience of the place, safe, warm, human, and Chinese, more so than he felt in the Baulkham Hills.
Then ten minutes past, still no sign of Linda was about the place. He sent a message, ‘I m here.’ No reply. In a few minutes, he got a call from her. She asked, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I am at the entrance of the railway station.’ She replied, ‘but I don’t see you.’
After clearing the most common misunderstanding in the case of appointments, Bing took the escalator up to the train platform, and there, she stood alone in front of a big display of train timetables.
She was not fat, but fleshy, her waist only dipped a little in her middle. In a white collared shirt and a green skirt, she looked professional, confident, and smart.
‘Nihao,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘Nihao’ she returned.
‘So let’s have a coffee, or dinner?’ he gave her a selection.
She didn’t reply immediately to him.
Looking around, he didn’t see any restaurants on the platform. So he said, ‘Let’s go down.’
They took the escalator down, and as soon as they reached the ground floor, she indicated with her hand the Chinese BBQ shop around the corner.
‘This one is not too bad.’
‘Okay then.’
Bing remembered he had once dined there many years before. It was a big place, with more than thirty tables. They went in, decided on a table against the wall, adorned a strip of mirror at head level. A menu and tea were delivered. Then they began doing the business of food-ordering, which, from his long dining-out experience, always took long, too much unnecessary probing and questioning among the diners, with feigned and pretentious remarks like ‘I am all okay,’ yet, at heart, ‘I am all not okay’.
In the end, three dishes, snake bean, tofu, and a dish of seafood became the victims of their eating affair. Waiting, they started to drink the tea. But a bowl of free entrée soup was soon delivered. The soup, though lukewarm, tasted good, soothing his stomach. However, the stuff in the bowl didn’t appear very good. On its surface floated some white streaks supposed to be the marrow from the pig bones; the leaves of unknown vegetables looked less than fresh, reminding him of the food his mother had used to prepare for the pigs; and the pig bones, large and grotesque and with holes at all possible angles, made Bing recall his young and hungry days when he had to pick keenly for the delicious stuff from those holes with chopsticks.
How happy had he been back then?! When there was not enough to eat, a morsel of anything edible was able to send a thrill through one’s gullet. For a moment, his eyes were twinkling, with the silvery fishes he had used to catch in the rivulet in his home village, as well as the wild fruits from the hills and mountains he had used to pick and taste. Ah, how delicious were those little minnows, how sweet were those little black fruits! How happy was he, with his cousin and his sister on those days!
His blissful nostalgic moment was interrupted by the drinking sound of Linda across the table. Linda had filled thrice her little bowl with the soup, and Bing had twice filled his, until the big bowl was empty, and the remnants emerged like a tangle of seaweeds and rugged rocks exposed after the receding tide.
‘How is everything? Have you been busy?’ he knew she had been busy, based on their previous communication, but a question of this fashion was needed to start a conversation.
‘Yes,’ said Linda. ‘There are actually two things that trouble me.’
‘Two things?’
‘One is I don’t have a boyfriend, who can cook for me, and the other, I’m not happy at work.’ Linda answered in a practical manner.
‘Oh,’ Bing half gaped, feeling more amused with her point one. So, she expected a boyfriend to cook for her.
She had a fair and florid skin; a pair of half-framed glasses clung loosely to her eyes. And, as she tight with her shirt, there was a glimpse of flesh escaped between the buttons around her belly.
Their conversation was dominated by her. She revealed that she had been sponsored by her aunt to do Year Ten high school in Sydney, after that she did her accounting bachelor at the University of Technology. In her non-stopping discourse, she seemed to be obsessed with the worries of her workplace. She had a new boss, she said, and she suspected she did not like her. And understanding her state of mind, Bing was consciously directing all the threads of chatter to her work, which effectively spurred her on, and her speech was becoming more and more dynamic and animated.
She had a habit of pursing her lips as if figuring out a riddle, before making a comment or immediately after finishing a piece of food. Now and again, she would throw a quick glance in the mirror on the wall, to check her appearance, and each such glance seemed to boost her self-confidence, which would in turn instil her speaking tone with a renewed life, after as if satisfied with her reflected image. And, doing this more subconsciously than deliberately, she couldn’t possibly know he was aware of her little display of self-love.
She talked about many tactful ways to get along with the colleagues. She said she shouldn’t complain so much about her new boss; it was herself who should seek reconciliatory efforts to be agreeable; and that she had been too slack and fussy during the last few days, which must have been the real cause of the boss’s dislike of her. She said she couldn’t afford to lose the job, as it was too hard to get another one, for many of her friends were looking for jobs.
She grunted often, though mildly, as if she was acknowledging to herself, or to someone she assumed to be listening to her. When asked a question, she acted as if she had just awakened from meditation, and would ask him to repeat the question, but still only part of her attention seemed devoted to him.
Like Serena, Linda was also an active eater at the table. Her keen eyes were most of the time on the food, and she would make an indulgent ‘good-eat’ comment, or a little noise of clearing her throat after each mouthful. Indeed, cooking was such an issue for the full-time-working singles in Australia, where parents were not here to be their servants as in China. That was probably why she had to link food to her boyfriend.
When they had nearly finished eating, all of a sudden, as though she was a sleeping cat alarmed by a disturbing sound, she checked her watch, and declared that a few weeks before she had made an appointment with a friend later on the same night. Bing was curious enough to know if this was just an excuse for her to end their meeting prematurely or if she was in fact heading for another dating.
But he didn’t bother to follow this up.
They walked away from the table. Bing paid the bill. They left the scene. Her direction happened to be towards the Westfield shopping centre. So Bing, chained by politeness, endured a longer time to leave her.
Inside the shopping centre, they said ‘bye’ to each other. She went towards the escalator leading down to the lower level, while he wandered a bit on the shining floor. She stood motionless, slowly rumbling down, her white shirt in stark contrast to the surrounding blackness. With a flash, she disappeared into the underground car park.
On his way home, for the first time, he wondered whether he was actually being used solely to buy dinners, as Serena had hinted during their last conversation. Linda, during the whole length of their meeting, was utterly preoccupied with her anxieties, apprehension, and the politics playing at her workplace. Nevertheless, he believed he could understand her, because if she suspected her boss had a grudge against her, her life was destined to be a misery, until the suspicion, most of the time unfounded and paranoiac, cleared itself, or the boss suddenly one day gave a sun-shining smile to her, or she resigned and found successfully another job…
Maybe Linda should secure her job before she did a hu*****and...
Two days later, the Saturday, marked the passing of a full week since Serena confided her lack of feeling for him. During the week, whenever he felt restless and hopelessly alone, he would review the SMS and QQ messages, ruminating over their meetings and chatting like a cow chewing the cud. Sensibly, he knew she was a vain, love-game player, and she had demonstrated few qualities of a ‘good’ girl or a ‘nice’ wife. Of course, her pose was a charm, but her eyes were rather small, dry, and lacklustre. Compared to his exes, either his wife or lovers, with whom he had been deeply involved if not ‘loved’ for the better part of his life, Serena was the least attractive in both respects of virtues and physicality.
However, he was not a sensible man, the simple fact that he had not yet taken her, who after all was a young girl born after 1980, was enough to stir and disquiet his libido, to provoke his desperation to claw back part of his lost youth. And moreover, in comparison to Linda, who had virtually ignored all of his existence, she had at least communicated quite a bit with him, sharing some fair moments in a social context.
But how could he go from here? Could he contact her again, even if he had already told her that he wouldn’t bother her any more except for seasonal greetings? What could happen if he did? Would Serena be so severe as to scold him for breaking his promise? Well, of course not; all that mattered seemed only to do with his pride, his sensitive face-skin, because, although she had expressed her lack of attraction towards him, it was himself who had whimsically headed for a game exit as if doing so he was able to cling to his middle-age dignity.
In his bachelor solitary, he was pondering the issue over and again, and it didn’t take long before he began to convince himself that the possibility of keeping a friendly basis of contact was positive, so long as he did not do anything as frequently and stupidly as before. The best guess was that he could contact her after an interval of at least two weeks, which would agree well with his self-respect, and at the same time avoid the risk of losing her altogether.
But then, why not once a week instead of two? Wasn’t even one week long and painful enough to him? And, really, if going a stride farther, what the harm would be if he contacted her right now…if, at the moment she was rather unoccupied and desiring for a sort of company as much as he did, or, going for another stride, even expecting a call from him?
Fancying and reckoning, he felt his heart was beating faster and faster, and once the impulse was unleashed, he found his resistance impossible.
He opened QQ, and double-clicked Serena’s Bow-Tie icon.
He typed, ‘There?’ and after a deciding moment of suspension in the air, dropped his finger on ‘ENTER’ key. The time was 5:05pm.
No response. A feeling of dejection washed him down.
Then ten minutes later, her reply of ‘En’ was lively on the little window, lightening him, gratifying the base of his framework.
‘Did you have to work this morning?’ he asked, remembering today as Saturday.
‘No, rest at home.’
‘Whole day?’
‘Sleep, sleep…’
‘You couldn’t sleep this long, could you?’
But she didn’t reply to this specific question, instead she said, ‘You didn’t go out?’
‘Just came back from a little shopping.’ He lied to her, and hastened to change to a topic he thought would maintain the communication, ‘I went to see the “doctor” yesterday, are you interested in hearing about it?’
‘I am actually about to go out for shopping, but yes, I want to know.’
‘Then wait until you come back.’ He felt slightly disappointed in her passionless response.
‘Well, you can tell me now if you like.’
‘She is a very interesting person.’ He grabbed the chance.
‘Doctors are always interesting.’
‘She has a strong egoism, utterly self-centred.’
‘Even more than yourself?’
In his hasty story-telling, he failed to grasp what her message was really about, and even mistook ‘yourself’ as ‘myself’, which caused his pointless reply, ‘No, you are not self-centred, you have a personality,’ then, he set to resume his narrative, ‘all evening she talked about her troubles at her workplace, afraid of losing her job. And in her highly absorbed mind, I was as if nonexistent.’
‘Well, it was the first time, she might not know what to say.’
‘Maybe, but she was so talkative.’
‘But you were also very talkative, weren’t you?’
This time, he did not miss the derisive edge in her tone, and as he scrolled up a bit to review her messages, he came to his realization of her explicit mockery of ‘Even more than yourself?’
Ah, what the hell! She had tried to say he was no less egoistic and self-centred than Linda. How stupid he had not detected her contemptuous hint earlier. What kind of woman was she? Why did she have to ridicule him in such an open, vicious way?
Seized with rising indignation, he typed, ‘Me? Talkative?’ and, to shed his temper, struck hard on the Enter key.
‘So you forgot how much you had talked on the first time we met?’
‘… was I so stupid in your eyes?’
‘You really need to see more people, so as to know what a silly person really likes,’ she sent a message with more cutting sarcasm. He read it twice, enduring the bitterness she had mercilessly inflicted upon him. Why didn’t she directly tell him he was just stupid, a fool, an imbecile, as much as Linda? Ah, what a mean and cunning woman!
Scowling, he stood up from his seat and paced two or three turns in his little den, bearing a furious heart. Then he eased a bit and got himself under control, and without resorting to any retaliating words, he sent resignedly, ‘Hehe, no more, it was just waste of time.’
‘Is there no goodness in the girl?’ her shameless interest hung on.
‘Don’t know, maybe.’
‘You won’t obtain an objective viewpoint from only one meeting,’ she sent. ‘Honestly, I think a doctor-girl is more suitable to you.’
Ah, she was such an idiot!
‘How?’ in spite of himself, he protested impotently. ‘You have such a misunderstanding about me.’
In China, a girl with a doctor’s degree was often considered as having a prim, inflexible personality, high IQ but low EQ. So her last message was deciphered as her belief that he belonged to the odd stereotype of ‘doctor.’
‘Yes, I really don’t understand you!’ She put her words emphatically, and no less caustically.
‘I think you are the kind of person who likes jumping to conclusions.’ He fought back. ‘You are very, very clever.’ His real words in his brain were ‘mean’, ‘wicked’, ‘false’, ‘malicious’, ‘poisonous’, ‘snake’...
‘Well, one needs to make a quick judgment at dating, given the limited time,’ she went on.
‘You can’t get to know a person properly from a small number of meetings,’ he returned. ‘And under pressure, one’s true nature can be easily distorted.’
‘At this age, if distorted so easily under a bit of pressure, then it is just one of his shortcomings.’ She was doubtlessly alluding to his poor performance in her presence, especially his driving skills.
‘Nobody can be completely confident about oneself. The past experience may often lead to a presumptuous bias,’ he sent, but his fighting energy seemed dwindling.
‘I think, after a couple of meetings, one can find out something that you absolutely don’t want in a person.’
‘Well, people may have to spend an entire life to get to that point,’ he sent, obstinate in the waning heat of his debating. ‘Are you so sure and clear of your wants and needs? Dating is not just a primitive survival competition.’
‘We are not doing a choice quiz where you can compare and pick the best, instead, it is a blank field requiring a desperate fitting.’
‘Fitting?’
‘Yes, fill the loneliness and emptiness of my life.’ Upon this message, he felt his dejection was blended with a measure of pity for her. But he replied, ‘The point is that your fitting ought to be ideal to which you have a certain emotional attachment, not like a dumb piece of furniture, nor like a nice and cool but heartless mobile phone.’
‘Yes, I know it is very hard,’ she replied. ‘Frankly speaking, if comparing apples – the pros and cons in physical terms, you are a very good candidate for a hu*****and,’ she was obviously referring to his website profile, ‘even if you are a very, very different person.’
‘Yes, I am sillier and more stupid than others,’ he spoke out the unsaid words for her.
‘I just think you are not a practical person, very strange,’ she sent. Then as if bored with the topic at last, she added abruptly, ‘Well, I need to go out for dinner, chat another time.’
‘All right.’
‘I’m bored, I need to go out with some female friends,’ she was lingering.
‘I may also go to the city tonight,’ he sincerely wished to end the sour conversation with her. ‘Bye.’
The time displayed in QQ was 5:42pm.
Bing didn’t pay a trip to the city on the night as he mentioned to her. Instead, he stayed in his home, having a number of drinks with David, his landlord.
David spoke little Mandarin, so their talk was chiefly done in English, with bits and tones assisted by jumbled Chinese or Cantonese. He was a couple of years Bing’s junior, a sales manager in a company located in Bella Vista. He had two boys, one eleven years old, the other nine. His wife Jane worked in a primary school, as an office administrator. On the surface at least, it must be a happy family.
David was an amiable and smiling man. Indeed, he appeared to be so happy that Bing sometimes suspected its credibility. As more a pessimist than an optimist, Bing had never denied the existence of occasional happiness in a life, but he couldn’t make believe it had stability and durability. In his own life, poor and disorderly though it may be at present, he had enjoyed a great deal of such happiness in the past, which he believed was more intensive in both qualitatively and quantitatively than what David had been showing off from time to time.
Short, less than 165cm, and with a face round and fleshy, David should look considerably younger than his thirty-seven years of age, if one didn’t try to notice the small bald patch in the middle of his head. But, regrettably, by his habitual brushing the surrounding hair to cover it, David made it even more noticeable, for his gesture attracted one’s attention more to the patch and his thinning hair than his plump face. Every morning, his hair was shining, nicely combed, as seen to be necessary in his career; but that was only before he had to ruffle and comb them by his own fingers.
‘So how is everything, good?’ David smiled, with a little humour in his tone, which was his usual way of starting a conversation.
‘Just so and so, hehe..’ Bing answered lightly, after taking a mouthful of beer from a bottle of a lager he was not particularly fond of. His favourite, more because of habit than the taste, was VB, which was the first beer he had drunk in Australia.
‘How is your daughter? She is nine, isn’t she?’ David broached a topic, which was only too natural.
‘Yes, she’ll be ten next month. She’s fine. I took her to movie last Sunday,’ Bing replied. His daughter Adina was born in 2002.
Adina had an active and outgoing personality. she had visited the place only once, spending a whole day with David’s two boys, chasing and screaming and babbling within the house and without. And David’s wife, Jane, seemed particularly adoring her, pampering her, calling her name all the while.
‘Bring her over to play, when you get a chance,’ David said, as he had said many times. ‘She is such a lovable girl.’
‘Hehe. I will, next time,’ Bing smiled, knowing the fact his ex-wife didn’t favour the idea in the least, who had demanded him, on his visiting day of the week, to take Adina to the beach or the cinema or the museum. Why was she against Adina’s stay in David’s house to play with his two boys he didn’t know. But since Adina told her about it, she had called him to specifically express her unexplained opposition.
‘So still good being single?’ David grinned, patronizingly, brushing his hair.
‘So far so good, I’ve seen a number of girls, but no one in particular.’
‘Have you ever considered re-marrying your ex-wife?’ he asked a question he had asked several times.
‘Some of my other friends had mentioned it too, but I don’t think it possible.’
‘Well, I have a colleague, an Aussie, who has just re-married his ex-wife, after four years of divorce.’
‘Really? Do they have kids?’
‘Yes. They have two.’
‘That is interesting.’
‘I don’t know much about their story. But it seemed to me it is not entirely impossible to live together again.’
‘Maybe, but unlikely in my case,’ Bing said, reluctant to reveal the fact that even he had wanted to, his ex-wife would snub the idea at its budding.
Then Jane came out to the living room. She nodded to Bing with a smiling ‘Nihao’ in more Cantonese than Mandarin, and went straight into the computer room, where the two boys were quietly playing the games.
‘Andrew, and Daniel, time is up. You have already been in here for more than two hours.’ Bing heard her speaking to the kids.
‘Just a minute…’ a voice protested, must be Andrew, the older son.
‘One minute? Your one minute is infinite. Stop now,’ Jane increased her voice to a near bawl.
‘Okay, okay, but I have to save it first,’ Andrew grumbled.
At this time, Daniel, who didn’t say much, came out of the room, wearing a weary and sullen face.
‘Hehe, kids, games, an impossible thing.’ David sighed, shaking his heavy head. ‘Does your daughter play games?’
‘Only a little bit. She doesn’t show much interest in computer games. She sometimes plays a little with the mobile, but seldom with the computers.’
‘You are lucky. Boys are invariably addicted to games. Almost every parent I know is struggling with it, and I often wonder why society doesn’t regulate the game industry as it has done with the drugs or alcohol.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course, you may not know how serious it is. Once they get stuck into it, there is no means in the world of getting them out of it. So frustrating and hopeless. So bad to their health and eyes. Frankly, I wish some game designers would be jailed for designing such drug-like stuff to ruin the vulnerable kids,’ David paused to drink to support his vehemence. ‘There are so many things for kids to do. Andrew is about to do the Selective in just four months’ time, and Daniel has to also prepare for his Opportunity Class.’
‘My daughter did the OC three months ago.’
‘Oh, yes, how did she do?’
‘Well, she was not very good at study. Just give her a chance to try. But I don’t have much expectation.’
In the state of NSW, the selective school was the type of high school, year 7 to year 12, which would only enrol the students who had achieved certain test marks after primary school. And the OC was for year 5, providing a special class for presumably talented pupils. However, since both selections were largely based on the test scores, many parents predominately of Chinese and Indian background, sent their kids to tuition after school, creating a competitive environment that overly emphasised the academic results, although not as extreme as the Chinese educational system. The tuition was very expensive, but the parents seemed to have no other choice if they wanted to better the future of their kids. And moreover, apart from the academic subjects such as English, Maths and Science, parents were also very keen for other areas, such as music, dancing, etc. His daughter Adina went to piano lessons, dancing, and drawing class, in addition to her three hours Saturday academic class. The monthly cost could amount to nearly $500 for one child, which was not a light drag on a household budget, especially for those with only one salary earner, and more so if one had a sizable mortgage to service.
With his wife also working, David shouldn’t feel much of the pressure in financial terms. Their concern seemed to be more about the kids’ obsession with games, and their delay in finishing their homework. Scolding, reproaching, threatening, defying and protesting were the chief sounds coming from the comfortable-looking house, and the issue was invariably about games and homework. David, who usually had a gentle and pacific temperament, would oftentimes lose his temper, and like his wife grow frustrated fervently in his parenting exercise and exertion.
Bing, after giving himself another mouthful of lager, decided to ingratiate himself with David, ‘You are a happy man, having two boys.’
In spite of the proudness and satisfaction perceivable in his eyes, David said, ‘But honestly, a daughter seems better in treating the parents. Don’t you think?’
‘Yes, it may be true, and at least true in my situation. I have a sister in Mianyang, Sichuan, who looks after my mother. But as a boy, I am here, far away, selfish, can’t even look after myself. Over the years, my mother has been worrying more about me,’ Bing said in a wistful tone, and for a moment, the faces of his mother and her sister were flashing in his mind. ‘I can’t imagine how I could have handled it, without my sister.’
‘How is your father?’ David asked.
‘He passed away,’ Bing replied. ‘Five years ago.’
‘Oh… sad,’ David wavered. ‘I didn’t know that.’
Bing drank his beer. Jane came out, followed by Andrew, whose face was seething with cold exasperation. Jane was a thin, kind and obliging woman, a good, dutiful and dedicated wife and mother. And, as much as David her smiles were never exhausted in public. It was only when disciplining her boys, her voice and manner and expression were rendered rough and coarse and hysterical.
‘Any plan to go back China soon?’ David invented a new topic.
Bing took another sip, smiled, ‘Not yet on the agenda.’
‘You? Back to Hongkong?’
‘No, we don’t plan on taking any trips until the kids have taken their Selective and OC tests, perhaps the year after the next.’
‘I understand.’
Bing drained the last of the beer, and feeling the topic drying out between the two, he rose and said, ‘Thank you for the beer, time for bed.’
‘With pleasure, Bo Ke Qi,’ David said in half Mandarin, remained seated, and continued his drink.
Bing went back his own room, and out of habit checked QQ, unexpectedly receiving a number of Serena’s messages,
‘Are you now in the city?’ and, ‘There seemed some events going on in city,’ and, ‘But it should have already finished.’ The time stamp was 8:44pm, two hours before.
Bing was immediately buoyant with delight, especially with the intoxication caused by the beer. He replied, ‘I am in a German country bar, in the Rocks, some short distance away from the Opera House.’ He was telling a story that had happened in the past. ‘Have you tried the famous Pig Knuckle?’
No reply, obviously she was offline.
Still no response after ten minutes, Bing closed the screen.
He was thinking what to do. He had an unfinished book, but he could find no peace of mind on that, especially after the beer. The TV set in living room had broken a long time, and he hadn’t bothered asking David to get it fixed, because he was never a TV person. But on the Saturday, it was a bit early to sleep.
Under the similar circumstances, he decided to take a walk.
It was quiet at this late hour. There was no moon in the sky, but the stars were bright. He wondered where the moon went. The stars were there, but not the moon, which puzzled him. His astronomical knowledge was limited, but wasn’t a moon always facing this side of earth at night? It was not as if it was shaded by the clouds or something, for the sky was very clear.
Without the rays of moon, the earth was dark and indistinct, with only the pale lamplight shedding its local beam. The stars, bright as they were when looked at, were too weak to help lighting the broader space. The big trees were just inky silhouettes against the stoniness of sky, and the houses were crouching ominously like breathless monsters. The crickets were awakening; perhaps more of them were still asleep, unconscious of the whining utterance of their peers. But the frogs seemed all coming out, croaking and drumming, and flirting with their most vigorous sound, beefing up their sexual drive as if for their last opportunity in their lifetime.
After all, it was still in spring, or, perhaps the season didn’t matter at all to them in Australia, where the seasons were not felt as distinctly as those in China.
He went this time to the other side of the park. The path was close to a ditch, where a stream was making a noise less plaintive than the crickets’ wailing. He saw a large black bird or bat suddenly shooting out of a tree, silently gliding away into the pitch of darkness, its heavy wings flapping the air with a thumping sound like a body falling dead to the earth.
A line of tall trees edged the sidewalk, creating a loose canopy. Gusts of wind came to rustle the leaves and treetops, producing a murmur or whimper as if of some homeless spirits.
On reaching the wooden bridge, he paused to behold it in duskiness. In his awed eyes, the stillness of bridge seemed to bear a history of ancient struggles. In his life, he had seen and tramped many bridges; each of them earning a measure of his respect. But the number of times of his passing those bridges varied in considerable degree. The bridge in his home village was the one he must have passed the most during his childhood and teenage years; the bridge in Shanghai International Studies University, between his dormitory and the campus, should be the second in his four years of study; the third ought to be the one in Southwest Jiaotong University, which he passed whenever he had a class during his seven years as an English teacher; the fourth should be this one in the park that he had been visiting nearly three or four times in a week since he moved to the current residence; and the list could go on and on…
But which bridge had he spent the most time with? Which one had he been lingering the longest?
It would have to be this one in Australia.
Some bridges were merely for bearing and carrying goods or people, some only for water, like those in rice fields for irrigation, while others, like the one in front of him, were more for musing and pondering by some solitary soul like him, or like the hermit-like her, who had always had her wide-brimmed hat on.
It was just a tiny wooden structure over the ditch, barely five steps in length, with two persons’ passing capacity. Yet, it had been more like a friend, its rail a shoulder supporting his weight of solitude, the water underneath soothing his mind by its soft whispers, and its floor a base for sharing his train of thoughts.
For the next half an hour, he stayed there, now and then shifting to relieve a tired arm or leg.
Then he went back home and went straight to bed, without washing.
-- End of Chapter 7--
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