Forgotten: a truly gripping psychological thriller (2 page)

Penny came to the airport to ‘see me off’ as she put it. She did her usual mother hen bit while I tried to be cool and blasé.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ I replied, slinging my rucksack over my shoulder and hoping I looked tough enough to take care of myself. ‘It’s not like I’ve never been away before.’

‘I know, but a whole year, and especially after the past few months…’

I didn’t want to go over the last few months. Penny’s been a rock ever since I ended up in hospital but I really think that the time for talking is over. I had to hug her to shut her up and even then she was speaking into my shoulder. I’m quite glad I didn’t hear the rest of her advice; I’d have either screamed at her or cried. It’s been an emotional few days with all the goodbyes and the stress of sorting out all the final details. I suppose I’m lucky that Penny’s still talking to me after I threw her out of my flat so I could sell it. I did feel a bit guilty: she’s been there pretty much since I moved out, well over two years, but she was so helpful, showing people around and liaising with the estate agent. I checked my bank account one final time before I came through the departure gate and I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that the money is all mine. Thank God for the housing boom and for the fact that I decided to keep the flat as some sort of ‘security’. I now have no mortgage and no job but a very healthy bank balance.

I wish Penny hadn’t mentioned the past though. I just want to enjoy this feeling. I don’t really want to remember or analyse the past few months yet, I’m just not ready. All I want to do is fly off into the great unknown and unravel it all in my own time. I spent way too much time inside my own head while I was supposedly ‘recovering’; it’s time to see the world outside.

So, here I am, sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport completely alone with all the ‘take cares’ and ‘see you soons’ behind me and nobody waiting at the other end. It’s a really scary feeling, knowing that I’m completely on my own in this. I’ve dithered and deliberated. I was ready to cancel the whole thing a few days ago but I know that if I don’t get on that plane then I’ll never forgive myself. And more importantly I’ll never know if I still have the courage and the confidence to do something like this. I really want to live this dream and I desperately want to see if/how it will change me. It’s like I can get on the plane and by the time I reach Beijing I’ll be another person, a different person. Who knows, maybe I’ll even be a better person?

God I hate airports. I think Limbo must be an airport departure lounge. Nothing’s familiar, the people around me are speaking in languages I can’t begin to understand and there’s no continuity. Everyone’s waiting to see what fate brings, which gate they have to go through. Will it be heaven or hell? Rome or Reykjavík? My own personal hell is ten hours to the capital city of the most populous nation on earth. Now I’m really scared!

September 11th – Beijing

Christ, I’m tired. Ten hours on a plane with the most annoying man in the world. Not only did he want to talk loudly to anyone who’d listen, including some guy about four seats in front, he wanted to do it while getting extremely drunk. I’m not naturally a violent person but it would have felt good to whack him round the head with his dinner tray. I must be changing: I wouldn’t have even thought of that a few weeks ago. Maybe I’ve developed some sort of instinctive ‘fight back’ mechanism when I get frustrated. Needless to say I was awake all through the flight and the selection of in-flight entertainment was so dire that I ended up listening to that tape they play to send you to sleep. Fat chance.

I felt more than a little dazed by the time I found myself in a taxi heading towards central Beijing so I didn’t take much in really, beyond the fact that I’d managed to get myself into a taxi with a strange man and I was trusting him to take me to where I wanted to go. The driver turned out to be really helpful which was a bit of a surprise as I’d been expecting to get seriously ripped off – perhaps I’m too cynical for my own good. He dropped me right outside the hotel and, on the way here, he pointed out some ‘sights’. I couldn’t see much though, maybe he was just pointing in the general direction of Tiananmen Square etc. Who knows? No doubt I’ll find out later when I take myself out for a walk.

The view from the hotel room window isn’t very inspiring. I can see some buildings opposite but they could be anything, anywhere. It’s not that different from the view I got used to while I was lying on my back for two weeks, except here I can get to the bathroom on my own and I’m not frightened every time I hear a noise in the corridor. The skyline is mainly skyscrapers, what I can see of it through the haze. It’s hotter and more humid than I expected, a bit like an English summer’s day when the heat’s really building up for a storm. Perhaps there’ll be one here later. The guidebook reckons the hotel’s only fifteen minutes’ walk from the Forbidden City so I think I’ll head there first. What I really want to do is sleep but I know that if I give in it will only take me longer to get over the jet lag. Oh well, time to gird my loins (whatever that means) and get out.

September 12th – Beijing

I didn’t get very far yesterday after all because the heat hit me as soon as I stepped out of the hotel and there was a KFC beckoning me from across the road. I’d made up my mind to eat only local food. That’s all very noble in the comfort of your own country but being tired and hungry at 4pm in a strange city isn’t a very pleasant state to be in, so I caved. It was all so bloody easy. I just pointed at what I wanted, paid (after struggling a bit with my wad of yuan) and ate. What an amazing world we live in! Not only was the food exactly the same as in the UK but I was able to order it with no knowledge of Mandarin. It was strangely soothing to sit in the window and watch people go past, especially as I didn’t see a single western face. I thought that might unnerve me but I found it oddly comforting. There really is no-one here that I know or who knows me. I want to feel nervous – that’s what I expected – but all I feel is anonymous and safe. I can feel some of my old confidence coming back because I have the luxury of time in which to reinvent myself. I don’t have to be the person I’d become at home. I can be a different version of myself, I can live my own life in my own way and, if that means eating junk food and watching the world go by then so be it. There’s nobody but me to give a shit.

I got up early today as I’d collapsed pretty soon after KFC last night. I hadn’t even been able to find enough energy to look round the corner. I feel a bit less tired but I’ve still got that ‘fuzzy round the edges’ feeling. It seemed like a good idea to try and walk it off so I headed for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Luckily I found an excellent bakery on the way, so that was breakfast sorted. The cakes in the window looked like something out of a Hans Christian Andersen story (or the Brothers Grimm by the time they get to my hips!) and the smell inside was amazing. I could almost lick my lips and taste the sugar. I stocked up on chocolate cake and some strange Chinese version of pizza, after eventually working out the system. I had to collect a tray, place my purchases on it, present them to one of the shop assistants and wait for her to put them in a bag and announce the price… in Mandarin. I can’t even count to ten yet so I had to rely on finger-counting and guess what? Even that’s different. Six looks like some sort of rapper’s gesture. I gave the smiling assistant a fifty yuan note and had to count my change to work out how much I’d spent. She must have thought I was mad. Still, the food was as good as it looked.

The weather was better this morning, it was less humid and the sky was blue instead of that oppressive, bruised-looking grey that greeted me yesterday. The walk to Tiananmen Square wasn’t as long as I’d anticipated and it took me down a wide street lined with trees which wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting of Beijing. I’d imagined grimy concrete tenements and factories, all the greenery pulled up to fuel some great national drive. I wanted people in blue, Chairman Mao suits, riding rickety bicycles or walking in huge crowds, surging forward with a sense of purpose. That’s the idea of Chinese communism that I’d grown up with. Quite a few people stared at me as I strolled along
.
I wondered if my bewilderment and slight sense of disappointment were visible to strangers so I tried smiling and discovered it can elicit fantastic responses. Some people smile back, others look embarrassed, one old man nearly tripped over the battered bicycle he was wheeling along the pavement.

God, the bicycles! I knew that bikes were popular in China but nothing I’ve read prepared me for the reality of trying to get across a street in Beijing. The traffic isn’t much different from any big city but to get to it you have to cross the bicycle lanes which are at least half as wide as the roads and look twice as dangerous. I found a gap in the bikes as I tried to cross from the hotel this morning but I made the mistake of stopping halfway across the cycle lane. All I could see was a wall of people on bikes heading towards me. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry, all sitting up tall and looking straight ahead. I just knew that only about one in twenty would have serviceable brakes so I ran.

Tiananmen Square is one of those names that’s really evocative in the west and, after the leafy green streets and western-looking shops and banks, I wasn’t sure what the square would be like. My only image of it is that footage of the student dancing with the tank in 1989. I suppose that’s what most people remember. I didn’t have much idea what to expect but I was surprised to find myself close to tears. It’s just a big open space for God’s sake but I was seriously moved. All I could think about was the people who’d been slaughtered for no better reason than that they wanted the freedom which I was seeing all around me. How times seem to have changed! In the West those students would be martyrs – I bet here most people can hardly remember their names. Perhaps all records of those events have been erased like in Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four
. Now I’m sounding paranoid. It’s probably culture shock and the strange experience of seeing something so familiar yet so strange for the first time.

Mao’s Mausoleum stands at one end of the square. I’d been kind of tempted to pay him a visit but I was put off by the signs instructing me to leave my bag and camera behind. Instead I watched the people coming out. I find it quite difficult to read Asian faces, probably lack of experience, but nobody seemed especially moved or disturbed by their visit. Perhaps it was the prospect of having to run the gauntlet of hawkers on the steps on the way out. The spirit of free enterprise seems to be alive and well all around the mausoleum. There were people selling snacks, water, souvenirs, postcards and maps. I was even offered a copy of Mao’s
Little Red Book
‘very cheap’. I think most people must pay their money to see Mao turning in his coffin!

By the time I’d taken a few photos of the square and the mausoleum, the memory card in my camera was full and, after rummaging in my bag frantically, much to the amusement of passers-by, I discovered that the spare one that I’d brought was still in my rucksack in the hotel. I had two choices: go back and get it or buy a new one from a shop. The bakery experience must have given me some confidence because I opted for the latter.

The shop I chose turned out to be more like a supermarket – it sold everything and I immediately knew that I was out of my depth. Even at home I’m still a bit intimidated by, of all things, shopping for myself and making small, everyday decisions. I step inside a shop and it’s like my confidence has been undermined so far that I don’t trust my own judgement any more. I know that’s ridiculous. I’m in China on my own for God’s sake, but it was weird how I was more than a little unnerved by the vastness of the store and the frenzy of shopping that greeted me.

I studied my trusty phrase book trying to memorise the phrase, ‘I’d like a memory card for my camera’, approached the photographic counter… and completely bottled it. I found myself pointing pathetically to the item that I wanted and nodding eagerly when the young woman placed it on the glass-topped counter in front of me. I picked it up to take it to the till I’d spotted on my way in and felt a firm hand on my wrist. I flinched and pulled away, puzzled. I’d read somewhere that the Chinese rarely use the word ‘no’ but that’s what I read in the brown eyes that were studying my face.

Frustrated I put the card down and tried to look helpless. I saw a smile flicker across the lips of the girl serving me. She held up a hand for me to wait while she scrawled something on a slip of paper. She then gave me this and gestured towards the till. I dutifully followed her mute instruction and took the paper to the till where I was charged fifty-five yuan for the privilege. My slip was stamped and then I was inspired. I returned the stamped slip to the original woman and she gave me my memory card. Simple. It seemed a long-winded way to buy something but I suppose in a country of over a billion people a system like this keeps the unemployment figures down.

Armed with my new card and a sense of achievement, I headed for the Forbidden City. The size of the place is phenomenal. At first I found it strange that its inhabitants would have lived most of their lives in such seclusion but, as the vastness became clear, it didn’t seem so claustrophobic and by the time I’d been lost twice I realised that perhaps a life of privileged seclusion would have its advantages. Don’t we all want to escape from the ‘real world’ at times?

As I explored I found myself wondering how in hell the place had survived. China is well known for having destroyed its history and tradition with enthusiasm, so why is the Forbidden City and all it symbolised still such a big draw? It’s fairly obvious now that it’s a big tourist attraction but what about the last fifty years or so? Perhaps it’s one of those famous paradoxes that the Chinese do so well. Whatever the reasons, it was well worth preserving and restoring. The central areas are obviously polished for tourists and even at that early hour (about ten o’clock but it felt early for me!) there were plenty of people around. I bought some postcards on the way in. They clearly date from the seventies because all the people are in blue suits and caps. The contrast with today is striking – most people wear clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in central London, although they’re a shade smarter than your average cross section of the British public. The men tend to wear trousers and shirts and the women are nearly all in skirts and blouses. I saw one young guy on the street yesterday in bleached jeans and a rock T-shirt. He’d even bleached his hair to go with the jeans – he was getting nearly as many stares as I was!