13. Return the books before I’m finished
Again she invited me out to a restaurant, as a thank-you for helping correct grammar in one of her assignments. I had never eaten sushi. I wanted to try some. I’d seen it on the Internet. The avocado worm on my plate looked appealing. Carol had been watching me enjoy my meal. I put the whole line of avocado into my mouth. Before I had the chance to close my mouth, I heard Carol shout,
“Bruce! That’s Wasabi!”
In the past, I’d eaten only the tiniest taste of Wasabi, the Japanese horseradish sauce, with Vũ many years back. How could I forget how strong it had been?
My lips started to burn. I spat it out immediately. The aftertaste remained, burning the sensitive lining of my mouth. I was relieved that Carol had saved me from the dire consequences of burning my entire throat and stomach. I could only imagine how ill I would have been, the heartburn I would have suffered if she hadn’t been watching so carefully!
One Friday evening Carol brought her automatic rice cooker and the ingredients for Chinese Hot Pot, similar to a meat fondue, to prepare the meal here at my home. The rice cooker kept the spicy stock on the boil while we dipped paper thin slices of beef into it to cook. I have never experienced spicy food that hot! Soon the skin around my lips and my lips themselves had turned bright red, they were on fire! I fetched plain yogurt to soothe my mouth and to share it with my guests.
I noticed almost half of each slice of beef consisted of fat. When it came to washing up after we’d eaten, Carol turned the cooker off to let it cool before we discarded the red, chili stained stock. I was at a loss of how to dispose of the stock with fat floating on its surface. In the end, I threw all of it into the dishwasher. A bad idea, indeed! The cold fat blocked the dishwasher’s drain and water jets. Later I had to clean all the fat and muck out with my hands, me, the one who never likes to get his fingers wet, or hands dirty!
After Carol moved in with her friend, Wendy, they didn’t need Carol’s automatic rice cooker any longer. She kindly gave it to me as a gift together with an anthology of English poetry she’d used when composing lyrics for various assignments.
This prompted me to buy a book, The Book of Musical Anecdotes, from the Oxfam charity shop in Eastleigh. I asked Carol to add a dedication in it from her to me. I wanted to have a handwritten note from her. With all our usual communications being mostly by way of typed messages, it is only in these occasional writings that we leave our scribbles for posterity. I see these documents as being what an archaeologist would find interesting centuries from now if our throw away-culture were to be exposed in a dig of our everyday lives.
I love books. I’m a slow reader. This makes borrowing books from libraries inconvenient because I have to return the books before I’m finished and it also prevents me referring back to them later.
After her exams were over, Carol’s best friend, Emma, the one she called her ‘sister,’ flew here for a quick visit. Under the Chinese ‘One-child policy’ Carol had no other siblings. The Chinese call close friends ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’. Emma enjoys her job as a music teacher in one of the schools in a large city in China, Nanjing. They had studied at undergraduate music school together. Emma and Carol spent a week in Scotland and Sheffield visiting other Chinese student friends of theirs. They’d booked a guided tour with a Chinese speaking tour operator. I would have loved to have joined them, but she told me I would have been lost, not being able to understand their language.
It was then time to end their sojourn in the UK and for Carol and her friends to go back to China.
The night before their trip home, the girls decided to enjoy a girl’s night at home in their flat after a long day spent shopping in Bicester, Oxford. This is the Mall where most of the stores stock luxury goods and designer clothes. (This shopping center is the second most visited location in the UK by Chinese tourists, after Buckingham Palace!)
I was expressly asked not to visit them that evening!
A few days before leaving her lecturer had invited her out for a meal to give her the news that she had been successful. She had passed her year-long Master’s degree course. She had achieved her goal. She would graduate soon.
I was happy for her too. I had helped her with her grammar in her assignments.
From the airport on her arrival back in Shanghai, she contacted me using the WeChat free video link. I was relieved to see her back safely home in China. I looked forward to the day she would greet me in the very same arrivals hall. I was already looking forward to that day. Again we enjoyed another video chat while she was traveling on a noisy train to visit a distant friend. She complained that the trains were noisy and full of cigarette smoke and litter. Though I could not see it myself, I was able to imagine her distaste in that situation.
After taking a break for a month’s holiday, Carol settled down into a teaching post in China, while patiently waiting for Wendy’s illustration business to pick up enough to be able to support both of them full time. They planned to produce animated films for television. Wendy would do the animation and Carol the music, a winning combination, I thought. Little wonder she never wanted to take up my offer to help her start an international website of her own. Carol had a strong will of her own. She believed in her abilities. She was self confident.
