When she got to the hospital they told her that she had a cold, and although they could easily have given her medication for it, the doctor refused on the grounds that it would be bad for the baby. Huang Yiyi counted up on her fingers; during the course of her pregnancy she had in fact taken this medication on at least a couple of occasions. The doctor found a box and took out the instructions leaflet with the words ‘contraindicated for pregnant women’, and gave it to her to read, combined with a verbal explanation that made her skin crawl. It was too late for regrets now though.

Actually the doctor was being far too alarmist: the baby would have been fine. But weighing up the options as she had been told them, Huang Yiyi made the decision which she thought would make me ‘happy now’: she would abort the baby and try again later.

I was happy. But that feeling of unexpected happiness is now inextricably linked with the shadow cast by Huang Yiyi’s death. A few days later, when I went to see her ice-cold body in the hospital mortuary, my legs suddenly buckled under me and I almost fell to my knees beside her. Right at that moment, I could have killed that alarmist doctor, for it was she who tolled Huang Yiyi’s death knell.

29

She didn’t die during the operation; she died when it was over.

She didn’t die in one of the wards, but in the lavatory.

Later on, I went to look at the lavatory with its two wooden cubicles, both of which had spring-mounted saloon doors, which could swing either way. One of the cubicles was out of order and there was a sign up: ‘Pipes Blocked. Don’t Use.’ That cubicle had a lavatory throne and was reserved for patients; the other was a squat toilet. They said that the old springs on these doors had been out of action for ages, so that you could open them but then they would not close again. No one paid any attention, but then about a month earlier, just before an inspection by hospital managers, the springs were replaced. Now, thanks to the new springs, the doors closed properly. When you pushed the door open, it would close itself, though if you weren’t careful it might well hit you on the back on the return swing.