And the Bride Wore Red

And she was glad too, for suddenly the shadows of the day had lifted.

‘Dr Mitchell—’

‘My name is Lang.’

‘And mine is Olivia.’

The waiter appeared with tea, filling Olivia’s cup, smiling with pleased surprise as she gave the traditional thank-you gesture of tapping three fingers on the table.

‘Most Westerners don’t know to do that,’ Lang explained.

‘It’s the kind of thing I love,’ she said. ‘I love the story too—about the emperor who went to a teahouse incognito with some friends and told them not to prostrate themselves before him because it would give away his identity. So they tapped their fingers instead. I don’t want to stand out. It’s more fun fitting in.’

When the first dishes were laid out before them, including the rice, he observed her skill using chopsticks.

‘You really know how to do that,’ he observed as they started to eat. ‘You must have been in China for some time.’

He spoke in Mandarin Chinese and she replied in the same language, glad to demonstrate that she was as expert as he.

‘About six months,’ she said. ‘Before that I lived in England most of the time.’

‘Most?’

‘I’ve always travelled a lot to improve my languages. They were all I was ever good at, so I had to make the most of them.’

‘How many languages do you speak?’

‘French, German, Italian, Spanish…’

‘Hey, I’m impressed. But why Chinese?’

‘Pure show-off,’ she chuckled. ‘Everyone warned me it was difficult, so I did it for the fun of proving that I could. That showed ‘em!’

‘I’ll bet it did,’ he said admiringly, reverting to English. ‘And I don’t suppose you found it difficult at all.’

‘Actually, I did, but I kept that to myself. You’re the only person I’ve ever admitted that secret to.’

‘And I promise not to reveal it,’ he said solemnly. ‘On pain of your never speaking to me again.’

She didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. They both knew that the connection between them had been established in those few minutes of devastating consciousness in his surgery, and today he’d come looking for her because he had to.

Olivia thought back to last night, to the disturbance that had haunted her dreams, waking her and refusing to let her sleep again. Instinct told her that it had been the same with him.

They might spend no more than a few fleeting hours in each other’s company, or they might travel a little distance along the road together. Neither could know. But they had to find out.

‘So you came out here to improve your Chinese?’ he asked in a tone that suggested there must be more to it.

‘Partly, but I needed to get away from England for a while.’

He nodded, understanding at once. ‘Was he a real louse?’

‘I thought so at the time, but I think now I had a lucky escape. He almost made me forget my prime directive. But when I discovered what a louse he really was, I realised that the prime directive had been right all the time.’

‘Prime directive,’ he mused, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘Now, let me see—what would that be? “Only learning matters.” “Life can be reduced to graphs on a page.” How am I doing?’

‘You’re part of the way there, but only part. Beware people, beware relationships—’

‘Beware men!’

‘Hey, you guessed.’

‘It was obviously what you were building up to. Are we all condemned?’

‘It’s not that simple. I don’t just condemn men, I blame women, as well.’

‘Well, that seems to take care of the entire human race. Having disposed of the whole lot of them, let’s go on eating.’

His wryly mocking tone made her laugh.

‘My parents were both wild romantics,’ she went on, ‘and I can’t tell you what a misfortune that is.’

‘You don’t need to. Romance isn’t supposed to be for parents. Their job is to be severe and straight-laced so that their kids have a safety net for indulging in mad fantasies.’

‘Right!’ she said, relieved at his understanding. ‘According to Aunt Norah it was love at first sight, then a whirlwind romance—moon rhyming with June. All that stuff.’

Lang regarded her curiously. Something edgy in the way she’d said all that stuff had alerted him.

‘What happened?’

‘She was seventeen, he was eighteen. Nobody took it seriously at first, just kids fooling around. But then they wanted to get married. The parents said no. He had to go to college. So she got pregnant—on purpose, Norah thinks. They ended up making a runaway marriage.’

‘Wonderfully romantic,’ Lang supplied. ‘Until they came down to earth with a bump. He had to get a job, she found herself with a crying baby….’

‘Apparently I cried more than most—for no reason, according to my mother.’

‘But babies can sense things. You must have known instinctively that she was dissatisfied, wanting to go out and enjoy herself, and your father probably blamed her for his blighted careerprospects.’

She stared at him, awed by this insight.

‘That’s exactly how it was. At least, that’s how Norah says it was. I don’t remember, of course, except that I picked up the atmosphere without knowing why. There was lots of shouting and screaming.

‘It got worse because they both started having affairs. At last they divorced, and I found I didn’t really have a home. I stayed with her, or with him, but I always felt like a guest. If there was a new girlfriend or new boyfriend I’d be in the way and I’d stay with Norah. Then the romance would break up and my mother would cry on my shoulder.’

‘So you became her mother,’ Lang observed.

‘Yes, I suppose I did. And, if that was what romance did to you, I decided I didn’t want it.’

‘But wasn’t there anyone else in your family to show you a more encouraging view of love? What about Norah?’