Lovers' Lies. Daphne Clair

‘One of the contacts I met at the trade fair lives here. I’m having dinner with him and some other people, and he suggested I might bring a friend. Will you come?’

      She would like to meet some Chinese people. And she ought to act eager to accompany him anywhere he wanted her to. ‘Are you sure it will be all right?’

      ‘Mr Lin was quite insistent that I was welcome to bring someone along. He’s sending a car for me at six. Can you be ready then? I’ll phone him and tell him there’ll be two of us.’

      She gave him her room number and he knocked on her door just before six, casting an approving glance over her short-sleeved blue dress. He was wearing a shirt and tie with dark trousers, and had a matching jacket slung over his shoulder.

      ‘Is it formal?’ she asked, wondering if the dress and the high-heeled sandals were too casual.

      ‘I figured I’d best be on the safe side. If everyone is wearing suits I’ll put on the jacket. You look fine,’ he added, divining her concern. ‘Cool and elegant.’

      Their host arrived, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt worn loose over trousers. Joshua introduced them, and Mr Lin said, ‘My wife is waiting for us at the restaurant. She will like to meet you, Miss Stevens. She is a teacher of English language at the university. She likes very much to practise her English.’

      ‘Yours is very good,’ she complimented him as he ushered them into his car, seating himself beside the informally dressed chauffeur. ‘Did your wife teach you?’

      ‘Some I already learn,’ he said. ‘But she...corrects my mistakes. So I get better.’

      Mr Lin was a district inspector of agriculture, she learned. At the restaurant they were greeted by his wife, a pretty, round-faced woman, and introduced to three other men—two district officials and the manager of a peanut-packing plant.

      The meal was served in a private room, and Felicia lost count of the dishes that were placed one after the other in the centre of the table. Mr Lin’s wife occasionally dropped a special morsel onto Felicia’s plate. Joshua slanted her an understanding grin as she concealed a fried insect of some kind beneath a little heap of leftover rice, unable to overcome her cultural bias even in the cause of good manners.

      Their host got up to switch on the video player in one corner of the room, and the screen soon showed a man and woman wandering along a beach hand in hand, while Chinese words danced across the lower part of the picture.

      ‘Do you like Karaoke?’ their hostess asked Felicia as her husband picked up a microphone and began to sing in a tuneful baritone, soon joined by his wife’s pretty soprano.

      Hosts and guests took turns between courses to sing along to the video music. The factory manager performed a graceful regional dance, and before the end of the evening Joshua and Felicia were persuaded to perform, choosing a couple of pop songs and the New Zealand classics ‘Pokarekare Ana’ and ‘Now is the Hour’.

      The chauffeur dropped them back at the hotel before ten-thirty, and as the car drove away Joshua said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I need to shake that meal down. How about a walk?’

      Gratefully, Felicia agreed. She was not only overfull, she also felt slightly muzzy from the pale local beer that had been liberally dispensed. Joshua had stood up well to the number of toasts that had been drunk, even though he had been expected to down an entire glass at each one, and there had been some hilarity and teasing among the men that easily breached the barrier of language.

      People sat in lighted doorways playing card games or preparing food for the next day. On the corner a melon seller slept on a cot behind his piled wares, protected by a canvas awning.

      ‘I hope you enjoyed your evening,’ Joshua said.

      ‘Very much.’ Being with other people had made it easier, dissipating a little her consciousness of him sitting next to her. ‘I liked Mrs Lin. She sings beautifully too.’

      Joshua gave a small laugh. ‘We didn’t do too badly, ourselves, for an impromptu performance.’

      ‘You carried me along. Experience counts.’

      ‘Experience?’

      She’d spoken without thinking again. She wasn’t very good at this. ‘Someone said you used to be in a pop group. Isn’t it true?’

      ‘In my misspent youth I played guitar in a band and did a bit of singing. The group only lasted for about a year before we broke up. We all had other interests to pursue.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘I don’t recall mentioning it to anyone on the tour.’

      ‘Not to Suzette?’ Surely the woman had fished for some information about his past.

      ‘Definitely not to Suzette. Who told you?’

      Felicia shrugged. ‘I can’t remember. Did you make any recordings?’ As if she didn’t know.

      ‘Only one. The uncle of one of the boys in the group arranged for us to record a few of our songs. The tape had a few airings on radio and then died.’

      Genevieve had bought it though, and played it all summer, and she and Felicia had sung along to it. Felicia still knew all the words by heart. ‘You weren’t really famous?’ she asked innocently.

      Joshua shook his head and grinned. ‘Yellow Fever was hardly a cultural icon.’

      Felicia laughed. ‘With a name like that, I’m not surprised.’

      Joshua grinned. ‘It’s no worse than Pink Floyd. We thought it was pretty damn good, let me tell you.’

      ‘You can tell me all you like. I don’t have to believe you.’

      ‘You think I’d lie to you?’