A Girl Like You (27 page)
Authors: Gemma Burgess
I can hear Robert talking on the phone. He sounds angry.
‘You must have a doctor on call. She’s been completely out of it for 24 hours, it could be serious. Fine.’
He hangs up. I try hard to open my eyes and can just make out Robert standing next to the bed. ‘Thank you,’ I try to say, but I have no voice, so it comes out in a husky whisper. I’m boiling hot and my bones are aching, I feel like I’m sinking through the mattress.
‘I feel sick,’ I whisper. Slightly redundantly.
‘I’ve got some cold and flu medicine for you, Abby, darling. I rang my mum, I think you just have the flu . . . Try to keep it down.’
I lift my head off the pillow and drink the orange liquid that he offers me.
‘Good girl.’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ I whisper.
Robert grins. ‘Well, at least you’re talking. It’s been a day since you made any sense.’
‘So it’s Sunday?’
‘Brilliant deduction. Listen, do you want to have a bath so I can get housekeeping to change the sheets? Between the vomit and the sweat, the bed is pretty minging.’
I blink slowly and nod. Oh, nodding hurts. Won’t do that again.
I fall into a mini-sleep while he runs me a bath and then shuffle to the bathroom. As I pass the toilet, my legs buckle, and I get my head over the bowl just in time to throw up the cold and flu liquid. It tastes so nasty, and I feel so sorry for myself, that I start crying. Again.
‘Oh, Robert. I feel like I’m dying.’
‘Self-pity alone isn’t fatal, Abby, darling,’ he says, picking me up and helping me into the bathroom. ‘Do you need me to help you bathe?’
I narrow my eyes at him. ‘No. I’m good, thanks.’
He grins and shuts the door behind him. I have a long bath, then wash my hair, dry myself and dress in the clean t-shirt and shorts that he’s left for me. The whole process is absolutely exhausting. I wrap my hair in a towel turban, and clamber back on the magically-clean-and-new bed. My body aches so much. I want to roll over but I don’t have the energy.
‘You need to dry your hair,’ says Robert.
‘I don’t care,’ I say, and am asleep in seconds.
My dreams are exhausting. I’m always running, trying to find someone, but I don’t know who. Now and again I throw up, but I’m not sure if it’s in my dream or reality. Then I dream about trying to find my parents, but when I do, my dad is shaking his head in disappointment. I’m sorry, I keep saying in my dream, I’m so sorry.
I’m very hot, and someone makes me drink lots of water, and at some point I hear two voices in the room, but I can’t catch what they’re saying.
The next time I’m properly awake, it’s Monday night. ‘I’m starving,’ I murmur.
Minutes – or hours, I don’t know – later Robert is next to me, spoon-feeding me chicken soup. I’m too out of it to even be embarrassed or make a sarcastic comment. Then I fall back to sleep. This time, my dreams are easier, and the stress and panic is gone.
When I wake up again, it’s early evening. The sky outside has a soft peachy glow.
I feel almost normal.
I blink a couple of times. How light my eyelids are today! I stretch, noticing the long-sleep stiffness in my arms and legs has replaced the heavy ache of the last few days. Then I roll my head up and look around the room. Robert’s at the desk, on his laptop.
‘Hey you,’ I say. My voice is back, but croaky, so I clear my throat and say it again. ‘Hey! You.’
Robert turns around. ‘“Hey you?” Is that all you can say?’
‘I’m much better.’
‘I can see that.’
I sit up in bed, and the sudden movement makes my head spin. ‘Whoa. Low blood sugar level. What day is it?’
‘Tuesday. I’ll order you some food,’ says Robert, grinning. It’s so lovely to see him smile that I beam back. Then I replay what he just said. I’ve been sick for
four days
? ‘Robert, have you been here the whole time?’ He nods. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened without you.’
He picks up the room service menu. ‘It would have been . . . difficult.’
‘Did I have swine flu? Bird flu?’ I ask cheerfully, hopping over to the mini-bar. It’s so good to feel like myself again. ‘If I don’t eat something now, I’ll pass out.’ I tear open a Toblerone and start munching.
‘Two ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, two vegetable soups, and lots of warm bread rolls please,’ says Robert into the phone. ‘And two large apple juices.’
‘I’d like a burger and chips and a beer, actually,’ I say, through a mouth full of chocolate.
‘No. And by the way, it wasn’t swine or bird flu. Just plain ol’ gastric flu combined with total exhaustion and mild hysteria.’
‘Well, that sucks,’ I say in dismay. ‘I was sure it was more serious than that.’
‘Sorry. Did you know you giggle in your sleep, by the way?’
‘Really? How adorable of me.’
‘Ah, it’s good to have you back to your annoying self again.’ I lie back on the bed and look around the room. My suitcase has been unpacked, and is standing in the hall next to a carry-on case and suit carrier.
‘Where have you been sleeping, Robert?’
‘Next to you on the bed, some of the time,’ he says, typing at his laptop again. ‘But you thrashed around and talked a lot. So I slept on the floor a bit, too,’ he pauses and looks over at me. ‘I’ll get my own room now that you’re feeling better. I didn’t want you to wake up and be sick and alone.’
‘You’re so lovely,’ I say, without thinking. He looks so exhausted. I bet he’s barely slept at all.
Robert shakes his head and frowns, turning back to his laptop. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’
I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that we’re in Hong Kong and that Robert flew all the way here to find/rescue/nurse me.
I think back to my flight, which has taken on a strange fuzzy haze, and my nightmarish hours in the hotel, and then – gingerly, like someone testing a sprained ankle to see if it still hurts – to seeing Dave and Bella kissing in the hotel lobby. Did that really happen?
Strangely, that memory doesn’t hurt as much as it did before. It feels like a scene in a movie seen long ago.
So – to test the potential pain – I think about Dave lying to me. And about the fact that he could have been cheating on me the whole time with Bella. The girl he always loved. I feel a dull ache, but the searing, clutching, shocked pain is gone. The urge to cry is gone.
‘I don’t feel that upset about Dave anymore,’ I say in astonishment. ‘Not like I was.’
‘Good. He’s not worth it.’
‘Perhaps the hysteria was shock and tiredness. Or perhaps the last four days was a concentrated mourning period,’ I say thoughtfully, chewing a piece of Toblerone. I think about the flight, the first night in Hong Kong, the sleepless, obsessed feeling when I didn’t know where he was. What was I thinking? ‘God, what a nightmare. Perhaps I went temporarily crazy.’
‘Perhaps,’ echoes Robert distractedly.
‘I’ve missed my flight to London!’ I gasp. ‘It was last night! I should call work, I need to get back—’
‘No way. I’ve told your office you’re very sick, there’s no rush.’
‘Should I call Andre? I was here to talk about a job, I—’
‘For once in your life, stop being so conscientious. I delayed your flight by a week, but you can change it whenever you want. Just relax.’
I lie back on the pillow, processing all of this. ‘You’re like my guardian angel.’
‘That guy Andre sent you those flowers. Someone else called Rich sent you those other flowers. You’re quite popular in the Far East, aren’t you?’
I can hardly even remember the meeting with Andre. How would Rich know I’m here? . . . Oh, Henry.
‘Maybe I should call Rich,’ I muse aloud. ‘He’s Henry’s brother, you know, we dated a couple of times. Though he might want to go out, or something. I’m definitely not ready for anything . . . like that. Probably best to ignore it.’
I shuffle to the bathroom and take a look at myself. My hair is so greasy it’s changed colour, and I’m very pale and visibly thinner, especially around my face. The cut on my cheekbone has almost completely healed, and my black eye is now just mildly greeny-yellow. My first black eye, I think mournfully, and I couldn’t even really enjoy it.
I lift up my top a few inches and see that my stomach is concave, and my hipbones are protruding more than normal. Why is it that I can’t help but be slightly thrilled at this? I mean it’s wrong, surely.
I shower, dress in very old jeans and a white top (there’s no Pretty With A Punch today; I’m not feeling pretty and I’m too weak to punch), and stretch out on the bed. Robert is still working. I can see out the window to the twinkling lights across Hong Kong Harbour. I wonder where Dave is, and if he’s with Bella. I want to ask Robert, but at the same time, I’m not ready for the answer.
How could I have gone from confident bastardette to insecure man-chaser in the space of just a few months? Dave was the cool one, the detached one. I was . . . it’s like it wasn’t even me. Perhaps we all have a desperate little bunnyboiler inside us, just waiting to hoppityhop out. I remember Plum acting
un peu
psycho around previous boyfriends, and even Sophie. I always thought, that could never happen to me. What is it about some men that make us crazy? I didn’t feel loved, I wasn’t ecstatically happy . . . I just wanted him. And I wanted him to want me.
And for what? For a spark when he kissed me?
Then again, it was a pretty fucking good spark.
I sigh deeply.
‘You alright?’ says Robert, sitting next to me on the bed. He reaches out and strokes my head again, and I look up at him and think for the tenth time today how glad I am that he’s here. And not because he rescued me from a misery meltdown and nursed me back to health. But just because there’s no one else I’d rather see.
I smile at him, and he smiles back. For the first time since I woke up, I feel calm. What’s done is done.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. And I mean it.
Room service arrives, and we set ourselves up on the little sofa-coffee-table area and start eating.
‘I don’t think food has ever tasted this good,’ I say, tearing into my ham and cheese sandwich.
‘Take it easy, Abby, darling,’ he replies. ‘Chew. Please don’t relapse. I’ve never seen someone throw up green bile before.’
Raising an eyebrow sternly whilst chewing with enthusiasm is almost impossible. Try it.
‘You scared the shit out me when I arrived. All that screaming and crying. I thought you’d lost it.’
‘I had. But then I found it again.’
‘He’s not worth it,’ says Robert.
‘I know. I can’t, um, explain why I acted the way I did.’
‘You can’t control who you fall in love with.’
‘Well, you should be able to . . . anyway, it wasn’t love, it couldn’t be. It was more like I was addicted to him,’ I say slowly. ‘I wasn’t happy. But I couldn’t . . . control myself.’
Robert nods. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘Are they still in the hotel?’ I say quietly.
‘I told them to change hotels.’
We finish our meals in silence, but again, I’m struck by how calm I feel. Like I’m exhaling a breath that I’ve been holding in for months.
After dinner, I call my parents and Sophie and assure them that I’m not on the verge of death. And then, because I’m shattered again, I put on clean pyjamas and curl up on the bed. Robert has been working the whole time. It is only midday in London, I guess.
‘Does your office mind you being out here?’ I say.
‘I had to come here sometime in Q1 anyway. I’ve got a full day of meetings tomorrow.’
‘You’re an incredibly good friend, Robert. I can never repay you for this.’
He makes a dismissive snorty-huff sound, but he’s grinning.
Especially considering we’ve barely spoken in weeks, I want to add, but don’t. I don’t want to spoil it. This feels almost like our old friendship. I grab the remote and shift position slightly, lying down on my stomach.
‘Come and watch Hong Kong TV with me. Ooh! Hong Kong MTV. Awesome.’
‘Alright,’ says Robert, standing up and coming over to the bed. ‘But you’ll have to stop hogging the Toblerone.’
‘I’m good as new, Roberto,’ I say when I wake up the next morning.
‘Good,’ he says. He’s at the desk, working. Again.
I stretch my arms and legs and yawn noisily. How very nice it is not to want to throw up.
‘I will never take being well for granted again.’
‘I’ll get my own hotel room today, then.’
‘Shame. Camping out here last night made me feel like we were escaping reality.’ The reality of Dave and Bel – ah, don’t think about it.
‘Alas, my reality has followed me. I have to go to a meeting. Sure you’re feeling OK?’
For a second, I consider calling Andre or checking my emails. Or calling Henry’s brother Rich, so he can take me out for a flirty lunch. But I feel like being alone. How unlike me. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk today.’
Robert hands me a bowl of porridge and a spoon. ‘It took me a long time to convince them to put chopped almonds on top. I’ll be back by 8 pm tonight. Take it easy, alright?’
I beam at him as he leaves, holding my toasty warm porridge bowl against my chest, feeling like a small child. Then I start watching children’s cartoons in Cantonese. Foreign language TV is a great way to keep the brain empty, but occupied. This one is about a pig, and from the looks of things, he can’t stop farting. It seems hilarious. Then I order a large pot of coffee.
There’s a knock on the door a few minutes later, and marvelling at the speed of room service, I skip over to the door to open it.
But it’s not room service. It’s Dave.
‘Abigail.’
My heart is racing in shock. ‘What do you want?’ I say, without thinking.
‘May I come in?’ he says tentatively. I’ve never seen him look so nervous. I think for a second. ‘No.’
‘I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry.’ He can’t meet my eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t . . . This thing with Bella goes back years.’
‘I know.’ He doesn’t look as gorgeous as I always thought he was. In fact, he looks sort of . . . small. And pale.
‘Robbie told me how ill you’ve been. I feel fucking awful, Abigail, I’m so sorry.’
‘You spoke to Robert?’
‘He didn’t tell you? He came down and gave me hell a couple of days ago. Bells, too.’
At the mention of her name, I automatically flinch.
Bells
?
‘It’s not her fault, Abigail,’ he says quickly. ‘It was all me. I made her miserable . . . for years. And, um, I really
wanted
it to work with you, I just . . . I did like you.’
‘Well, good for you,’ I snap, and try to close the door. I don’t need to hear about how he tried to force himself to be with me. In fact, I don’t want to see him ever again.
‘Please, let me finish. The thing with Bella, I never stopped . . .’ he pauses, and sighs. ‘We broke up years ago. We tried to be friends but it wasn’t possible. It never is, not really.’ He’s lost in thought for a second. ‘Then after Christmas she sent me a letter . . . anyway, I didn’t know what to do, it was torture, I was involved with you, but also with her—’
‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?’ I say acidly.
‘I can’t erase what we did. I was trying to get out of it without hurting anyone. Then I had to come here for work and I was talking to Bella, and it was a crazy last-minute decision . . . She feels awful, she has been so upset about hurting you . . .’
‘Poor little Bells. Well, I have to go now, Dave.’
He finally meets my eye. He looks like he might cry.
I shut the door, turn around, and slide to the floor, and gaze into space for a few minutes, thinking.
Suddenly, all I feel – all I really, honestly feel – is pity for them both. Poor Dave, for being in love with someone else and knowing it would hurt his mother if he continued to see her. Poor Bella, for having her heart broken all those years ago, and never knowing why. No wonder she became a bitter cow. They loved each other and couldn’t be together.
What a mess.
I don’t even want to cry about it now. I feel sort of . . . dry. I have no tears left for him.
A few minutes later I get up to let the real room service in, and after showering and dressing, I decide to go for a walk around the hotel. It’s gorgeous: calm, understated and luxurious.
Eventually, I find myself on a walkway over a busy, traffic-filled road that links the Mandarin Oriental to Prince’s Building. I look out the walkway window, and see that almost every building is connected to its neighbour by at least one or two walkways. How funny.
I get a latte from a cafe in Prince’s Building, wander through antique and print shops, and find myself on another walkway heading to Alexander House.
There’s nothing I have to do. And nowhere I have to be. With no destination, no map, and no agenda, I’m free to just wander. It’s something that I never do in real life. Even on shopping/coffee/whatever days with the girls, I have a list of errands to run, shoes to look for, dates to think about, texts to send. Busybusybusy.
But not today.
The French have the perfect word for it: ‘
flâneur
’. It means to stroll around aimlessly but enjoyably, observing life and your surroundings. Baudelaire defined a
flâneur
as ‘a person who walks the city in order to experience it’.
As Plum would say, I’m flâneuring like a motherfucker.
Up some escalators and I’m in another walkway over a much wider road with trams zinging back and forth underneath, over to a building called Landmark.
Landmark is enormous: three floors of fun wrapped around a central courtyard where, for no particular reason that I can discern, a small orchestra is playing tunes from Hollywood musicals. I start singing along to ‘What A Swell Party This Is’, and walk around, looking into windows and sipping my coffee. Marc Jacobs, Dior, Chanel, all packed full of people . . . This city is luxury-crazy, I muse.
Eventually, after various escalators and detours, I walk out into the street. There are red cabs bottlenecked at traffic lights, and serious, New York-style crowds of people. I walk up, cross the road at the lights, and meander along Queen’s Road. I pass street hawkers selling pashminas, and wander up and down alleyways packed with stalls selling cheap watches and silky dressing gowns. I walk into a make-up shop called Sasa, and spend £80 on Lancôme skincare that would cost hundreds at home. I walk in and out of Chinese herbal stores, electrical shops, fashion shops and shoe stores. Some of the brands are international, like The Body Shop and H&M, and some must be Hong Kong born-and-bred, such as the delightfully-monikered Wanko.
I decide to get deliberately lost, and turn up a steep hill. The crowd thins slightly, and I cross over two roads till I reach what’s clearly a nightlife area that’s apparently called Lan Kwai Fong. Every shop front is a bar. I walk into a Happy Days-themed sort of place called Al’s Diner. It’s empty, with bored waitresses gossiping in the corner, and a jukebox video screen playing Bruce Springsteen.
After ordering a burger, fries and a Heineken, I take a seat at the window and gaze at the people walking past. Lots of business people, a few tourists. Everyone is walking faster than Londoners do: in a hurry to get somewhere. A Porsche speeds down the hill, narrowly missing an old man in pyjama-style trousers and a white vest, wheeling an ancient bike with a huge basket attached. He shouts after it. I don’t need to speak Cantonese to guess what he is saying.
I wonder if this is what Dave loves about Hong Kong, I think involuntarily.
Don’t think about Dave, I quickly tell myself.
What kind of person must I be to have lost my way so badly, so quickly? I thought I was so clever, so sorted with my glib approach to dating and singledom . . . what a terrible mistake. I knew nothing. I still know nothing.
Thinking this makes me sigh.
I realise, with a jolt, that I essentially ignored all of Robert’s surviving singledom tips throughout my entire time dating Dave. My bulletproof dating stance crumbled like an airplane cookie in the face of a handsome, uber-confident man with a sharp line in banter.
I sip my beer. Everyone on the street is seriously rugged up, I notice. The average Hong Kong woman is wearing tights, boots, a hat, gloves, a scarf and an overcoat and it can’t be less than 15 or 16 degrees today, i.e. practically swimming weather to the average Londoner.
A man and a woman step up onto the elevated area outside Al’s Diner. As they walk in, I meet eyes with the woman and I smile without thinking about it, just as my burger and fries arrive. Mmm. Fries.
‘OK, so let’s say we start in May,’ says a voice. I turn slightly, and see the man and woman now sitting just a few feet away from me. Darn. There goes my quiet time. ‘We’ll have it wrapped by July and can then start shooting in New York, Zurich and London after the summer.’ He’s Irish.
‘May is pushing it,’ replies the woman. She’s Canadian, I think.
‘This is what we have to work with,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to be in southern focking China during July and August.’
‘I’m still not convinced Guangzhou is the right place for the shoot,’ she says. (I know I’m eavesdropping, but I can’t help it.) ‘And that conference was a waste of time. We need to show growth in Asia so that we can highlight the ridiculous money, the total conspiracy that all these luxury brands are—’
‘Well, you’re the one packaging it to be lowest common denominator,’ interrupts the guy.
‘Was
An Inconvenient Truth
lowest common denominator?’ she snaps. ‘Was
Sicko
? No. It’s accessible but not stupid. There is a difference. If you can’t tell it, you’re stupid too.’
‘I’ve missed working with you,’ he says, laughing.
They pause as the waitress brings out their food. I’m fascinated by their discussion and dying to join in. Being starved for conversation is probably another after-effect of being in bed for five days.
‘This is a recon trip, OK?’ she adds, after a moment. ‘That’s the point. So we cross Guangzhou off the list and keep going.’
‘We won’t be allowed to film in the industrial cities around Shanghai and Beijing,’ he says. ‘The pollution is bad press for the Chinese government. They’re only going to allow us in if we present China in a positive light and show them the dailies.’
‘Well, I’m not a fucking propaganda merchant,’ she replies.
There’s a moment of tension. Then he starts laughing and she joins in.
I clear my throat. I’m dying to say something, but perhaps I’ll look crazy, or like an eavesdropper. Hey ho.
‘Excuse me,’ I say, turning to them. They both turn to face me politely. Shit. What am I doing? Fuck it, I’ve started now . . . ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but, um, I was . . .’
The Canadian woman grins. She’s only a little bit older than me, I think. Early 30s, with long brown curly hair that needs a cut. Slightly hippie-ish. The Irish guy is older; tall with slightly thinning hair, wearing a zip-up parka.
‘But if you’re looking for a Chinese city that’s not too polluted and that’s growing really fast despite the recession, have you thought about Beihai?’
‘We have,’ says the man quickly. He’s not interested in talking to me. ‘We crossed it off the list. Filming isn’t allowed.’
‘Oh,’ I say, abashed, and slightly surprised. Beihai is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, and the beaches are supposed to be beautiful, I would have thought they’d be thrilled to get publicity.
‘You’re thinking of Baotou,’ says the Canadian woman to the man.
‘Am I?’ he says. For a second, I think he’s going to be rude again, but then his face creases up with laughter. ‘Sorry. I can’t keep track of the focking names.’
‘Ignore him,’ she says to me. ‘He’s just a know-it-all.’
‘China has 100 cities with more than one million people. It’s a lot to keep up with.’
‘What else do you know about Beihai?’
I pause, and think for a second. ‘You’re filming a documentary on the recession, right?’
The woman looks surprised, and grins. ‘More or less.’
‘Well, Beihai was also part of the Silk Road two thousand years ago, so there’s that angle. These days it’s the fastest growing city in the world. It’s also a major tourist destination for mainland China and they’re trying to make it an international one, too. And it’s cleaner and prettier than some other areas.’
I pause, and flush. I didn’t mean to start making a speech, but she’s got such a nice open face. I instinctively warm to her. I thought the guy was ignoring me and typing into his BlackBerry, but then I notice that he’s actually making notes.
‘B-E-I-H-A-I,’ I say helpfully.
He glances up and grins. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m Katherine, by the way. I’m the producer.’
‘Abigail,’ I say. We shake hands.
‘Ronan,’ says the Irish guy, offering his hand to shake. ‘Executive producer.’
Katherine looks at him and barely conceals a snort of laughter. She looks back at me and grins. ‘How do you know so much about China?’
‘Uh, I’m a research analyst for an investment bank in London,’ I say. ‘I specialise in luxury and Asia.’
Their eyes light up.
‘Tell us
everything
you know,’ says Katherine.