Heart of Us Read online

  Every few hours, the train would pull in at a station, and people would get on and off, and Jack would get off the train to buy some treats at the platform snack trolleys. My heart was in my throat the whole time he was off the train. I worried he wouldn’t make it back before we took off again, but he always did. And the treats he got us were worth it. Forgoing the Hundred-Year-Old Eggs, which Jack told me were fermented using rather questionable processes, we opted to buy nuts and crisps, and jujubes instead. Jujubes were fruit similar to pears in taste and consistency but had a big stone like a plum on the inside. He also bought tea leaves which we put in our travel mugs and filled up with hot water from the urn.

  Travelling for thirty-six hours had sounded incredibly boring when Mr Chen had first mentioned it, but it turned out to be amazing. Hanging out with Jack like this felt like a dream. There were no expectations to make anything happen – it was like a break from reality. At ten, the carriage lights were turned out, and things quietened down. At that point, we were sitting on my bunk listening to music on Jack’s phone, with an earphone each. His arm was wrapped around me, I was knitting, and Oasis was in our ears.

  ‘Are you tired?’ Jack lowered the volume on the phone, and I nodded. ‘I’ll watch our stuff if you want to go to the toilet first.’

  I scrunched my nose. I wasn’t keen on the toilets with a hole in the floor which appeared to go straight onto the track. ‘Ok. Great.’ Putting away my knitting, I kissed his cheek before untangling myself from the earphones and heading for the toilet. When I came back, I found him asleep on my bed. Unsure if I would fit next to him, I decided to sleep in his bed and let him get his rest. It was dark outside, so I let the train rock me to sleep.

  I woke up a few hours later, as the train had stopped at a station and new people were getting on. The cold night air was a nice break from the smoke, but it also made me feel wide awake. Looking over at my bunk bed, I saw Jack was still fast asleep. His messy hair was standing on end, and after having been clean shaven during our time in Hong Kong, his cheeks were now sporting some scruff. Watching him sleep, I thought about all the smiles, and the ways he had kissed me during the day. The sting of longing in my heart made me wish our history had been different and that we could be together for real.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned onto my other side. Putting all thoughts of Jack out of my mind, I turned my thoughts to what I wanted to get out of my visit to the silicone factory.

  Soon, the train had rocked me to sleep again, and the next time I woke up it was light out and the lady with the shrill voice was announcing her presence. Jack quickly climbed down the bunks and dashed after her, coming back with oranges and more noodles to have for breakfast.

  The day passed quickly, and soon we arrived at the busy train station in Kunming.

  Chapter 13

  Jack

  Being in Hong Kong with Miranda was better than I could have hoped, considering our history. When I moved to Hong Kong six years earlier, we had video called a few times in the first few weeks of me being there. It had started off ok, but the distance between us felt so tangible and deep that I soon knew I had to break off our engagement. Still, I couldn’t break up with her on a video call. I couldn’t cope with seeing her crumble as I tried to explain why.

  So… I wrote her an email.

  Yeah, I know. It wasn’t my finest moment. But she sent me a nice reply a few days later, and things seemed fine. She seemed sad, but she understood what I was trying to say.

  I’d done the right thing in breaking up with her.

  As days turned into weeks, and months turned into years, however, breaking up with her via email seemed less and less clever. I realised just how stupid it was when I told my shrink about it a few months later, and she struggled to keep from wincing.

  I wanted to bang my head against a wall when I thought about how stupid that had been. But though Miranda still wouldn’t talk about the past, she seemed more and more comfortable around me now. Having this little window of being just us, away from everything, seemed like the best gift.

  After spending the previous six years apart, a small part of me had worried we would have changed and were no longer compatible.

  And we had changed. We both had.

  We were no longer the innocent couple with no worries. Life had happened to us, and where she might have jumped before, now she seemed to hesitate. Still, she had – somewhat uncharacteristically – agreed to have a fling with me, and I counted that as a win.

  Now I only had to convince her to keep it going after we returned home.

  She had spent hours poring over her spreadsheets before we left, trying to work out all the details for the trip, and I had worried we would get there and she would freeze when things didn’t go as planned. Consequently, I was relieved to find that she wasn’t married to her plans, but was open to adjusting, even when major parts of her plan needed to change. Like when one of the businesses she was going to visit didn’t pan out, or our spur of the moment trip to Yunnan province became necessary.

  After spending most of the train journey snuggled up together on a single bunk bed, it felt like we were closer than we ever had been – even when we had been engaged. Miranda’s eyes seemed to shine when she looked at me, and I was sure she could see my love for her in my eyes too. We both avoided telling each other though, and I wondered if Sophia’s idea of a fling in China was genius, or if it would come back and bite me later.

  We arrived into Kunming at the end of the day and got some food. Sitting next to each other on stools close to the ground, we ordered lots of different dishes, which we tried with rice.

  The food in Yunnan province was spicier than the Cantonese food we had been eating in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, but every bit as good. Miranda fell in love with the spicy deep-fried beans, but for me it was the meats that were most exciting. I tried everything from kung-pao chicken to deep-fried grasshoppers, and even some dog meat.

  When I offered Miranda a taste of the dog meat, she laughed and put on a Northern Irish accent to say, ‘No, thank you.’

  I smiled and shook my head. ‘Such a shame you’re a vegetarian. You’d love the taste of this.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes sparkled as she returned my smile. ‘Regrettable indeed.’

  With a sudden need to touch her, I reached for her face and gently wiped my thumb under her lip. Her lips were full and soft, and I wished we were somewhere more private so I could have kissed her. ‘You’ve got something there.’

  Her eyes grew suspicious. ‘You know, you’re the only one I’ve ever met who does that. Nobody else will wipe food off my face or tell me I’ve got food stuck. So, I’m thinking either everyone else is letting me down – letting me walk around with food all over my face – or you’re making it up.’

  I was totally making it up. ‘Or maybe you eat more sloppily when you’re around me?’

  She elbowed my side. ‘You calling me a sloppy eater?’

  ‘Ouch.’ I tried to keep a straight face. ‘It’s okay. Really, you’re not that bad.’

  She tutted, but wiped at her lips, as though she was self-conscious despite herself.

  I laughed, and she reached over and rubbed my hair.

  ‘Whatever.’

  After eating, we took a taxi to the bus station to catch the bus, which left at midnight, as Mr Chen had instructed us to do. The sleeper bus had bunk beds, and again we found top bunks next to each other. Here, though, there was less space, so we each lay on our own bunk and held hands as the bus rocked us, rather violently, to our destination. The bus stopped at five am, an hour before we were meant to arrive, and we wondered if we had arrived at the right place, but as everyone else got off the bus, we got off too. We took our bags and went to find a place to have breakfast.

  The town smelled like dust and food. Scruffy looking dogs lay in the alleys, and noodles were hanging from frames on the pavements.

  We found a little restaurant and had spicy noodles for breakfast.r />
  ‘You awake?’ I smiled at Miranda as she yawned.

  ‘Didn’t get much sleep on that bus, but this soup is helping clear my head. That man in the bunk under yours snored like an asthmatic buffalo the whole trip.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve never heard anything like it.’

  I snorted. ‘Yeah, that’s some talent.’

  We sat in the restaurant for a few hours, trying to warm up, and playing cards to stay awake until it was late enough in the morning that we could take a taxi to the factory.

  They were expecting us, and we were showed around the factory as Miranda asked all the questions she had about how it all worked. It seemed like a good place, and Miranda seemed happy enough to sign a contract for the order.

  By the time we were done at the factory, it was only eleven am, and we had hours before the bus would go back to Kunming.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Miranda asked. ‘Should we try to find a hotel and get some sleep?’

  ‘Psht. Sleep is for babies.’ As much as I wanted to spend the day cuddling with her, I also saw the opportunity for an adventure. I grinned at her. ‘I vote for taking a bus out to some little village and seeing the countryside.’

  She frowned. ‘Are you not tired?’

  ‘Exhausted. But we’ve only got today to experience this. We can sleep some other time.’

  She studied me, and I saw the moment she decided to throw caution to the wind. Her eyes changed from uncertain and suspicious to resigned, and then excited. ‘Okay, show me.’

  Putting my very broken Mandarin – and plenty of Google Translate – to use, we found a bus that would take us three hours west, to a little village in the mountains. We found seats next to each other toward the back of the bus, and Miranda took the window seat.

  Soon, we were out of the city, and rolling hills became steeper mountains as straight roads turned narrow and windy. The bus climbed the steep mountain roads faster than what seemed safe, considering the sharp drop on the side of the road.

  I glanced at Miranda. She was taking deep breaths and appeared to studiously ignore looking out the side window at the sharp drop. Instead, she was sitting as straight as she could, trying to see out of the front window.

  ‘You okay?’

  Without looking at me, she held out a hand and said, ‘Can I have your cap, please?’

  Knowing what to expect, I rushed to pull it off my head and handed it to her. She nodded her thanks as she sat herself up straighter and took a couple of deep breaths before the retching started.

  ‘Oh, Miranda.’ I winced at how ill she was and reached for her hair to hold it away from her face.

  People around us started to notice what was going on, and soon the bus driver had been alerted. He pulled to a stop and let us off the bus so Miranda could finish puking her guts out.

  Once she was done, I took the cap and threw it in a plastic bag to be binned, before handing her my bottle of water.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was frail as she wiped her face with her sleeve. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I flinched. ‘It’s only a cap. Come here.’ I pulled her in for a hug, rubbing her tense back gently. I wished she would relax. ‘Take a few deep breaths, and you’ll soon start feeling better.’

  The bus driver had taken the opportunity to have a cigarette, but now that Miranda was done puking, he made a show of throwing the butt on the ground and putting it out. He gestured toward the bus, and I nodded.

  ‘We’ve got to get back on now; will you be ok?’ Why couldn’t I have agreed when she had suggested getting a hotel room and resting? Why did I always have to push us that bit too far?

  ‘Yeah. I feel better now.’ She wiped at her face again. ‘Thank you.’

  I grabbed her hand and tugged gently. ‘Come on. Let’s get back on the bus before they leave without us.’

  I spent the rest of the journey glancing at Miranda, passing her water and sweets and a pack of biscuits out of my backpack. As we came closer to our destination, the road straightened and widened, and Miranda perked up again.

  It was only when we got to the little village at the end of the bus route that we were told there was no return bus until the following day. I glanced at Miranda, relief flooding me as her eyes sparkled, and she elbowed me in the side.

  ‘You come up with the best adventures.’ Her whole face shone.

  I couldn’t help grinning at how delighted she seemed, despite obviously being way outside her comfort zone. ‘Yeah. I planned this, you know.’

  ‘Uh-huh, of course.’ She bit her lips, trying to hold back her smile. ‘So what do we do now?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘We find our hotel of course.’ I looked around, hoping there would be a place we could stay that night. From what I could see, the village had a petrol station, a primary school, and a little shop. Not sure at all what to do, I smirked at Miranda and said, ‘I’m sure they’ll be able to help us at the shop.’

  At the village shop, we found out there was only one hotel in the village, but fortunately it was just across the road and very cheap. At ten Yuan per person, our overnight stay only cost the equivalent of one British pound. We soon discovered that the reason for the bargain price was that our bedrooms were above the pigsty, which was also next to the hole in the ground that functioned as a toilet.

  I tried breathing through my shirt as we dropped the bags in our room, but the stench was invasive, and I wondered again why I had thought going for an impromptu trip to the countryside had been a good idea. ‘I’m willing to accept that this wasn’t one of my brighter ideas.’

  ‘You what?’ Miranda sat down on her rather dirty looking bed. She swiped at her hair as her shoulders shook with laughter. ‘Y’wanna go fer a walk?’ Her words came out slurred around her cackles. ‘Or do y’wanna sit here fer a bit?’ She was writhing on the bed now, her giggles bursting free.

  I shook my head at her and wondered how I had ever spent six years apart from her. How had I lived without her for all those years? ‘Um… let’s go explore the area. Let’s do anything other than sit here with the pigs.’ I shook my head.

  ‘I gotta pee so bad.’ Miranda wiped at her face as she tried to sit up.

  ‘Come on, you can stop by the facilities on our way out.’ I chuckled at the thought.

  ‘The facilities…’ Miranda bent over in another fit of giggles.

  I took her hand and pulled her in for a hug before we left the building. Smiling down at her, I nodded. ‘This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I suggested going for a nice walk in the countryside.’

  She shrugged and grinned at me. ‘On the upside, I don’t think the pigs can possibly snore as loud as that man on the bus last night, so there’s that.’

  I bent down and kissed her forehead as I remembered the earth-shaking snores we had listened to all night. ‘At least there’s that.’

  Our walk took us along the hillside trail, where we discovered banana plants and rice fields, and across the river we could see what people we met told us was Myanmar. We ate jujube as snacks, and at dinner time we ended up back at the hotel, which was the only restaurant in the village.

  We were the only customers apart from a group of men playing mah-jong in the corner. There wasn’t a menu; instead, you ate what you were served, and that night, they served rice and chicken and leafy greens.

  Miranda filled up on rice and the leaves, but I lucked out and ended up with chicken feet. I took a deep breath and made sure to keep the smile on my face as we thanked the waiter.

  Miranda’s eyes gleamed with delight when she watched me attempt to keep my facial expressions in check as I gnawed the meat off the feet of the chicken. It didn’t taste as bad as the idea of it seemed, and I was thankful to have ended up with the feet rather than with the head. Still, it wasn’t something I would order again.

  After dinner we went back to our room – pushing through the stench of the pigs below us – to have an early night, as we were both exhausted after not sleeping much the previous night. Miranda
couldn’t stop the tears from leaking from her eyes as she laughed at the way our day had turned out. ‘I can’t believe you ate those chicken feet!’ She wiped at her face. ‘And then when they brought more…’ The laughing started again. ‘Best trip ever.’

  I smiled as I watched her from where I was sitting on the stained mattress on my bed, until she eventually quietened down. I could have listened to her laugh all day. I lay awake for a long time after Miranda had fallen asleep, wondering how I would ever go back to being just friends with her if she followed through on her decision to end our fling at the end of our trip.

  The following day, we travelled back to Kunming, and we spent the next few days sight-seeing there before flying out to Beijing, where we spent a day going to The Forbidden City and visiting Tiananmen Square, where Mao Zedong still lies in formaldehyde as a visitor’s attraction.

  The Forbidden City and Mao were amazing, but I found it hard to look anywhere other than at Miranda. Her eyes were soft and full of light as she looked at me, and her smile made my heart sing.

  I listened to her talk about Project Cup, and her commitment to making a difference in the world stirred something deep inside me. In the six years we had spent apart, she had only grown more attractive, and walking down the street with her, I felt like I had won the lottery. How I had managed to convince her to have a fling with me, however short, was a mystery and a dream, and I didn’t want to wake up.

  We were both anxious, because our trip was about to end, and we still hadn’t talked more about what would happen to us when we landed back in Scotland. This time, though, I was determined not to let circumstances or difficulties pull us apart.

  Then, we flew back to Edinburgh via Helsinki, and our trip was over.

  And, as it turned out, our fling was over, too.

  Chapter 14

  Past

  Miranda