The Saturday before Christmas they had a tree-decorating party, before the family arrived for the season. Lots of Tamsin’s friends from school came, and a surprisingly large number of the people Trish had randomly invited over the course of the week before. They ate Bethany’s mince pies, helped out by some from Marks and Spencer, and drank tea, Ribena, and a wine punch Helen made. When the tree was decorated and the children were in bed the last survivors of the party sat around in the kitchen drinking peppermint tea and eating bread and cheese. Kevin was missing, he had been spending a lot of time away from home recently in a way Trish tried not to see as ominous. The lingerers were Bethany, Helen, Duncan, Barb, Barb’s new partner Jack, and one of Helen’s tutors, a visiting American who had been introduced as Doctor Lin.
Trish found herself talking to Doctor Lin, who was about her own age. “I’m spending a year here as part of a faculty exchange program,” he said. “And before you ask, yes, this is my first time in Europe, and I like it very much.”
“Where do you usually teach?” she asked.
“Berkeley, near San Francisco,” he said.
“My son is at MIT.”
“I did my Ph.D. at MIT.”
Trish confessed that she had never been to America and would like to visit. “George keeps suggesting it, but it’s so far, and so expensive. I’ve never flown. There’s so much I’ve never done.”
“That’s sad,” he said. “I’m very much enjoying having new experiences.”
“Are you enjoying British food?” she asked.
He laughed. “I think the mince pies are wonderful. They remind me of Chinese food, sweet but not sweet, and spiced.”
“Chinese food is something else I’ve never had, except for takeaways. Are you Chinese?” she asked.
“I was born in New York. But my parents came from Hong Kong.”
In the New Year of 1981 Doctor Lin telephoned Trish and invited her to eat Chinese food with him at the Jade Garden restaurant which he thought the most authentic of the local possibilities. She recognized his voice at once. She pulled out her diary and arranged to do it on her next free evening.
“A date!” Bethany said, when Trish mentioned it.
“He’s a lonely American far from home, and he’s just being kind and friendly,” Trish said. Then she paused and looked at Bethany. “What should I wear, do you think?”
Bethany laughed. “When did you last go on a date?”
“I’m not sure I ever did in the sense you mean. Certainly no more recently than 1949.”
“Let’s look through your wardrobe.”
“I’ve got clothes that look like a schoolteacher and clothes that look like a town councillor and clothes that are only good for gardening and housework,” Trish said.
In the end she wore a skirt and a blouse that Bethany said went well together, with some jet beads that had belonged to her mother and now belonged to Helen. She was nervous waiting for him to arrive, but not at all nervous when he was there. He was shorter than she was, which was subtly reassuring. They didn’t run out of things to talk about, which had been one fear, nor did he talk endlessly about computers. The Chinese food was delicious, though it didn’t remind Trish at all of mince pies—it was much like the Chinese takeaways she had bought when the children had been teenagers and she had been too busy to cook. He showed her how to use chopsticks and asked her to call him David.
“Is that your real name?”
“It’s the English form of my name.”
“What is it really?”
“Da Wei,” he said. “Lin Da Wei. Chinese people put the surname first. But David is what I’m used to being called, so please call me that.”
The next week he took her to a concert at the university, and the week after that she invited him to Sunday lunch, a meal cooked by Bethany and attended by all of Trish’s household. Afterwards she and David went for a walk alone down the canal as far as the aqueduct. It was a brisk walk, because the air was cold.
“Is it much warmer than this in America?” Trish asked, looking at how he kept his hands in his pockets.
“In California it is,” he replied. “In New York where I grew up it’s much colder in winter. But this is a damp cold. It gets inside you.”
He admired the views from the aqueduct, which took the canal over the Lune river far below.
“When the spring comes we must go for some walks up to Silverdale, on the limestone. It’s a different landscape. And also you should see the Lake District before you go. It’s the most beautiful part of England. It would be a shame to come and only see Lancaster.”
“I don’t like driving on the wrong side of the road, so I haven’t been to many places.”
“I can drive you there,” she said.
Two weeks later he invited her to Manchester to see the celebrations of Chinese New Year. She had to miss a meeting of the peace group to make it. Manchester was about an hour away down the motorway. Trish drove. It was the year of the Rooster, and there were big pictures of brightly colored roosters displayed in Manchester’s Chinatown. Trish liked the dancing dragons and thoroughly enjoyed the food and the friendliness everyone showed. “We should have brought Tamsin, she’d have loved this,” she said.
On her next free evening they had dinner at Jade Garden again and when they were finishing David put his hand on hers. He had not touched her before, except to position her fingers on her chopsticks. “I like you very much, and I think that although your life is so busy there are ways you’re lonely. It’s the same for me. At the end of June I will be going back to San Francisco. My life is there, and so are my wife and family. But between now and then you and I could have fun together.”
Trish moved her hand away. “I don’t think—”