White Tiger

as fast as you.’ ‘You’re quite correct. Stop.’ I froze.
    He came to me and pushed my elbow down slightly. ‘Keep your elbow bent. If it’s straight then your opponent could hit the end of your arm and break it. Yin at all times; absorbing.’ He left his hand on my arm and smiled into my eyes.
    ‘Thanks,’ I said softly.
    His other hand came up to my face, but pulled away before he touched me. ‘Punches. A hundred, rolling drill, go.’
    I watched him.
    He moved back, smiled, and gestured with one hand. ‘Punches, Emma.’
    I sighed, took up a narrow horse stance and started punching.
    Maybe it was because he still missed his wife. Maybe it was because he thought an employer-employee relationship wasn’t appropriate. Maybe he felt it was too soon.
    A lot of maybes.
    I sighed and continued to punch. Maybe one day he would get over the maybes and I would see something more definite. I wouldn’t push it. I respected his feelings far too much.
    I walked out of the MTR station underneath Times Square in Causeway Bay, the upmarket shopping mall. Louise and April were waiting for me at thebottom of the enormous escalators that led up into the mall.
    ‘Where we going?’ I said.
    April indicated the dirty tenements across the road. ‘Shui gow okay?’
    Both Louise and I nodded.
    We walked through the square at the front of the mall with its huge video screen and crossed the road. The four-storey tenements on the other side were grey with pollution and exhaust fumes. We could catch glimpses through the uncurtained windows of squalid rooms with steel bunk beds.
    A noodle shop occupied the ground floor of one of the tenements. We walked past the glassed-in area at the front of the shop where the sweaty chef prepared the shui gow and won ton, dumplings in soup, and searched for a table with three spare chairs. We found one but had to share with a workman by himself, wearing a filthy singlet, and a pair of young office girls in pastel business suits.
    The restaurant was tiny, with rubbish on the floor and a ceiling black with grease, but it was packed to the rafters with people eating the dumplings so it had to be good.
    April pulled the green plastic chopsticks out of the metal holder in the centre of the table. ‘Shui gow or won ton?’
    ‘Shui gow,’ I said.
    ‘Won ton mien,’ Louise said.
    April ordered for us. The waiter plonked three glasses of black tea onto the table, scribbled the order and ran off.
    Louise and I pulled out our notebooks.
    ‘Desman,’ I said.
    ‘Portcullis,’ she said.
    ‘Whoa, high stakes,’ I said. ‘Vincci.’
    ‘Had that one,’ she said. ‘Rolls.’ ‘Whyman,’ I said, ‘a girl.’ ‘Porky.’
    ‘Wimpy,’ I shot back. ‘Window.’
    ‘Lemon,’ I said. ‘I have no idea why, and neither did she.’
    ‘Cynic,’ she said. ‘Pronounced “Kainic”.’
    I closed my notebook. ‘You win.’
    April watched us with her usual bewilderment. ‘What is that all about? You keep doing that.’
    ‘Geez, April, you should have worked it out by now,’ Louise said. ‘How’s everything?’
    ‘I’m going to Australia soon,’ April said. ‘Another week or so, I’m off.’
    The noodles arrived. ‘What about Andy?’ I said.
    She waved the chopsticks dismissively. ‘He went to Thailand on holiday with a friend, but he’ll be back to see me off.’
    Louise stopped dead. ‘Wait a minute. Is he still spending most of his time in China?’
    The dumplings arrived. April used the chopsticks in one hand and her spoon in the other to fish one out and try it. ‘Still good,’ she said.
    The other people at the table stopped and watched Louise and me carefully as we ate the dumplings. When they saw that we could handle chopsticks competently they returned to their own food.
    ‘Still most of the time in China,’ April said. ‘Very busy at work. A lot of sales work around Guangdong.’
    ‘Why did he go to Thailand with his friend, and not you?’ I said.
    She shrugged. ‘He just wanted to go with his friend. They went water-skiing or something.’ Louise and I shared a look. ‘Is this friend a guy or a girl?’ Louise said.
    April stiffened, shocked. ‘Of course a man! Don’t be silly.’
    Louise and I shared another look.
    ‘I talked to him about having a baby when we’re in Australia, and he thinks it’s a good idea.’ April beamed with satisfaction. ‘Very soon.’
    ‘You need to have your husband around to make a baby, April,’ Louise said.
    ‘I know that,