Gourmet Taiwanese food aside, needing someone to do things for you all the time, it’s like you’re a useless hunk of meat and no playing, that isn’t the one.
Charles’s place is all on one level, so that’s something at least.
Deed done, I wipe my arse, use my arms to push myself up and into my wheelchair, and flush the toilet.
I notice a brown bottle of something on the counter – it says post poo drops on the label. I have never seen anything like this before, so I unscrew the pipette, squeeze the rubber top, and drip some drops into the toilet. Orangey. I squeeze some extra drops in just because, and then put the bottle back on the counter.
Like the rest of the penthouse, this bathroom is immaculate and shiny. The marble surfaces are mirrors, the toilet is limescale-free, even in the cavernous shower space there’s no mould.
It looks like the room is brand new, but Charles tells me he’s lived here for years. I haven’t seen a cleaner around, so the only reason it’s this spotless, is because he’s cleaning it himself.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before in my mum – Charles is a certified clean freak. Like one of those OCD people you see who clock a speck of dust on a surface and have to wet wipe it away, otherwise they will die and the world will explode.
I see some pills next to the sink as I wash my hands, but the label is in Chinese, so there’s no figuring out what they’re for.
Hands dried on the plushest towels I’ve ever felt on my skin, I wheel myself into the living room, where I find Charles stood in front of the penthouse’s IMAX-sized windows.
He’s flowing graceful and slow, through what looks like a series of tai chi movements, dressed in a white tee and some sweats.
I think of my dad, who never gave a shit about exercise until the day he got his cancer diagnosis.
After that, it was tai chi in the morning (because growing and harnessing his life force would kill the cancer, naturally), long strolls in the woods, breathing deep in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth, every single day until he couldn’t.
I’d go with him on his walks sometimes, and the swinging of his arms, the bounce in his step, the pointing at trilling birds in the trees, the singing – it felt for a minute like all this fresh air was going to get him better.
But the frailness, it bugged me.
It bugged me that he didn’t spend the time to get physically strong before all this shit happened.
It bugged me that the only real time I got to spend with him was when he was sick and I never got the best of him.
Too little, too late.
Charles Hu catches my eye as he pivots his body in my direction, arms sweeping low and then up like he’s painting the air.
Good morning, he says, lowering his arms and standing straight.
He says, Breakfast?
The table is loaded with food, tea, coffee and OJ. Pastries, croissants, toast, jams, cereals, cold meats, it’s like a five-star hotel breakfast buffet (what I think that might look like, anyway), and there’s also a bunch of unfamiliar foods.
Charles points at each of these dishes one by one: Here we have cong you bing jia dan, mantou, xiao long bao, you tiao, and, your favourite: freshly made dou jiang. We’ve got sweet dou jiang, we’ve got salty dou jiang, and we’ve got my personal favourite, dou jiang with peanuts.
Me, I’m ready to roll, to see what new flavours are going to noodle my mind, but I start off easy and grab the thing that looks most familiar – the dough stick studded with spring onion that my mum used to get in from the street stall when we’d visit my grandparents – and the bite is crisp, hot, salty, oily and delicious.
Charles bites into a dumpling and slurps the soup inside, and we spend a minute or two munching in silence.
I know what you’re thinking, says Charles.
You’re thinking that night in the apartment was a little… unsavoury.
I mean, you could put it that way, I say.
You’re thinking you don’t want to be involved with a strange man you barely know and his perverted jokes, he says.
I mean, you could put it that way, I say.
You’re thinking life is too short, you nearly died, and you’d rather spend your precious time salvaging what’s left of your relationship with your girlfriend.
I mean, you could definitely put it that way, I say.
And then he takes a sip of his soy milk, crunches on the peanuts, pauses for a bit.
And he says, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.
He says, Let me explain.
T
WENTY
-F
IVE
Picture a young Charles Hu, fifteen years old.
He’s just walked the five miles home from school in some old, beat-up sandals handed down through five brothers. This house, it’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by acres of scrubland. And this scrubland, it’s in Yunlin County, right in the middle of the west coast of Taiwan.
