Page 51 of Never

Kai stood up. ‘I mustn’t linger. As always, there’s much to be done. I’m sure it’s the same for you.’

‘It is indeed,’ said Wang, looking around the room, which bore no evidence of any work at all.

‘Goodbye, comrade,’ said Kai. ‘I’m glad we had this chat.’

***

Kai’s parents lived in a kind of villa, a spacious two-storey house on a small plot of land in a new high-density suburban development for the affluent upper-middle class. Their neighbours were leading government officials, successful businessmen, senior military officers and top managers in large enterprises. Kai’s father, Chang Jianjun, had always said he would never need a home larger than the compact three-room apartment in which Kai had been raised; but on this issue he had given in to his wife, Fan Yu – or perhaps he just used her as an excuse for changing his mind.

Kai would never want to live in such a boring neighbourhood. His apartment had everything he needed, and he did not have to bother with a garden. The city was where things happened: government and business and culture. There was nothing to do in the suburbs, and the commute was even longer.

In the car on the way there Kai said to Ting: ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll tell the security minister that the information against you came from an envious rival, and Wang will confirm that, so the investigation will be dropped.’

‘Thank you, my darling. I’m sorry you’ve had this worry.’

‘These things happen, but perhaps in future you could be more discreet about what you say, and even what you nod about.’

‘I will, I promise.’

The villa was full of the aroma of a spicy dinner. Jianjun was not home yet, so Kai and Ting sat on stools in the modern kitchen while Yu cooked. Kai’s mother was sixty-five, a small woman with a lined face and strands of silver in her black hair. They talked about the show. Yu said: ‘The emperor likes his senior wife because she simpers and sweet-talks, but she’s got a mean streak.’

Ting was used to people talking about the fictional characters as if they were real. ‘He shouldn’t trust her,’ she said. ‘She’s only interested in herself.’

Yu put out a plate of cuttlefish dumplings with paper-thin wrappers. ‘To keep you going until your father gets here,’ she said, and Kai tucked in. Ting took one to be polite, but she had to keep her waist small enough for the dresses of an eighteenth-century concubine.

Jianjun came in. He was short and muscular, like a flyweight boxer. His teeth were yellow with smoking. He kissed Yu, greeted Kai and Ting, and got out four small glasses and a bottle of baijiu, the vodka-like clear spirit that was the most popular form of booze in China. Kai would have preferred a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks, but he did not say so and his father did not ask.

Jianjun poured four drinks and passed them around. Holding up his glass, he said: ‘Welcome!’ Kai took a sip. His mother touched her lips to the glass, pretending to drink so as not to offend her husband. Ting, who liked it, emptied her glass.

Yu deferred to Jianjun almost all the time but then, once in a blue moon, she would say something sharp in a certain tone of voice, and Jianjun would be quelled. Ting found that amusing.

Jianjun topped up Ting’s glass and his own, then said: ‘Here’s to grandchildren.’

Kai’s heart sank. So this was going to be tonight’s theme. Jianjun wanted a grandchild and thought he was entitled to insist. Kai, too, wanted Ting to have a baby, but this was not the way to raise the subject. She was not going to be bullied into it by his father or anyone else. Kai resolved not to have a row about it.

Yu said: ‘Now, dear heart, let the poor children alone.’ However, she was not using the special voice, so Jianjun ignored her. ‘You must be thirty now,’ he said to Ting. ‘Don’t leave it too late!’

Ting smiled and said nothing.

‘China needs more smart boys like Kai,’ Jianjun persisted.

‘Or smart girls, Father,’ Ting suggested.

But Jianjun wanted a grandson. ‘I’m sure Kai would like a son,’ he said.

Yu took a steamer off the stove, filled a basket with bao buns, and handed the basket to her husband. ‘Put those on the table for me, please,’ she said.

She quickly dished up a platter of stir-fried pork with green peppers, another of home-made bean curd, and a bowl of rice. Jianjun poured more baijiu for himself; the others declined. Ting, eating sparingly, said to Yu: ‘You make the best buns ever, Mama.’

‘Thank you, dear.’

To keep Jianjun off the grandchildren topic, Kai told him about President Green’s UN resolution, and the diplomatic contest over votes. Jianjun was inclined to be scornful. ‘The UN never makes any real difference,’ he said. The traditionalists believed that conflict was never really resolved by anything but fighting. Mao had said that power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

‘It’s good that young people should be idealists,’ Jianjun said with all the condescension that a Chinese father felt entitled to.

‘How kind of you to say so,’ said Kai.

The sarcasm went right over his father’s head. Jianjun said: ‘One way or another, we will have to break the American ring of steel.’