Back inside, I see a bunch of pictures in frames on a sideboard. I pick one up of a little girl and a woman, both of them grinning at the beach.
I say, This is your wife and daughter?
Charles says, Are you thirsty? How about some fresh dou jiang?
I think I know what that is. Soy milk. My parents loved it. Me? I never tried it. And no playing, milk can’t be as bad as fish head stew.
So I put the picture back down and I say, Yeah, I’d love some.
Whiz whiz whir are the sounds coming out of Charles Hu’s mouth.
Once he kills the blender, he says, Apologies, this thing is much too loud. What I said was, have you ever tried fresh, home-made dou jiang?
I say, I’ve never even tried old, ready-made dou jiang.
Shaking his head, he pours the white liquid into a cloth-covered saucepan, and then, squishing it through with his hands, he says, The secret is to heat it up slowly.
After the milk’s been heated up, the two of us just watching the stuff bubble, he chucks a handful of ice cubes into two glasses and fills them up.
Here. You’ll love it, he says, offering me one of the glasses with a glint in his eye.
I sip. It’s sweet and it’s nice, but then comes the aftertaste on the back of my tongue, which is weird.
Ugh, I say, putting the glass down, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Not for me.
I think I see Charles’s face tighten, but it comes and goes so fast I’m probably imagining it.
You’re so English, he laughs.
For true, he wields that phrase like a weapon. Just like my parents.
S
EVENTEEN
I close the door of Charles’s bathroom and lock it.
While I piss, I feel the heat radiate through my cheeks thanks to Charles’s last words.
And for the first time since I’ve been here, I miss Mia.
I’m on the verge of tears and everything, having a slash in some billionaire’s toilet on the other side of the world.
Pathetic.
Okay.
I have for sure not been all that great to Mia in the last year. I can see that now. I might even go so far as to say that I have been a dickhead of extreme proportions.
But in my defence.
Picture being hot shit at everything you do, all the time.
You can watch people go about their day, doing the same things you do, only worse. And you can tell them, Great job, or, you smashed it, and make them feel nice, but deep down, when you get to the real truth, you know that you’re better than them.
And there’s the love, too. The admiration, the back-patting, the big ups. No playing, people love you when you’re good at things. They might not even say it, but you can tell just by the look in their eyes how impressed they are by you.
I zip up my trousers, wipe the rim of the toilet, and flush.
As I wash my hands, I avoid looking at my reflection in the mirror.
Where were we? So you’re hot shit. Now picture getting sacked one day for screwing up a job in the most basic way.
Your boss is telling you how useless you are, how much of a hindrance you are, and now he’s got to pull some miracle out the bag to get the job done.
Because you suck.
And in the process of you getting fired, and then in the days, and weeks, and months, and even year after, you’re thinking that maybe you’re not as good as you are at the thing you thought you were really excellent at.
And you’re getting this image – of sweaty Tom and his angry, despairing face telling you that your pictures are rubbish – invading your thoughts at random times in the day, every day.
And maybe you don’t want to get up in the morning anymore, or have a shower, or tidy the flat, or go out, or speak to friends, or go out with your girlfriend, or do anything. Except play video games and watch porn.
I’m not trying to make excuses, but, well, yeah.
And thinking about it, Mia didn’t look at me, disappointed, when I told her I got fired from the paper. She didn’t love me any less.
She just… loved me. Because I was me.
