Dave turns the computer off and sits in front of the blank, crackling screen.

“Are you done?” Mayling comes in and puts the teacup on the desk.

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that,” says Dave.

“I know,” she says, resting her chin on his head. “Was it important?”

“What?”

“The email you were writing.”

She hangs her arms over his shoulders; he takes her hands, squeezing them.

“You’re cold,” he says.

“Tired.”

“Let’s leave the unpacking till tomorrow. I’ll get a bath going.”

Mayling nods. “Sounds good.”

Over the following months, preparations for the wedding take shape: guest lists are finalized; invitations sent out; speeches written, edited, rehearsed. Dave wants everything to go smoothly and decides that the easiest way to achieve this is to go along with everything Mayling wants.

He does not hear from Yi. He assumes that, for whatever reason, he is no longer needed. He discovers that he doesn’t mind this, and instead of resentment or indignation, it is guilt that he feels.

He still hasn’t replied to her last correspondence; what could he possibly say? He feels he ought to at least acknowledge her situation. But no, he would never be able to leave it at that. He’d want to say more and not be able to. He can’t offer comfort or advice. He doesn’t want to tell her about himself, that he has been having dreams, nightmares really, in which it’s dark all the time, he can’t see, can barely hear anything except the sound of aeroplanes. He doesn’t want to tell her that he feels indecent, wrong and unqualified for knowing all that he has come to know about her, that sometimes when Mayling is out or asleep he reads her emails and afterwards feels craven and sickened and wonders why he can’t get rid of them. He’s afraid she won’t write to him again; he’s afraid that she will.

Then, on a rainy morning in April, as he and Mayling pack for their Lake District wedding:

04-03-03

6:31 pm (GMT +7)

Dave, this is me saying hi/bye before I take off, but also to tell you I had the craziest dream last night and you were in it! You’re in Hong Kong for just one day and we meet in this empty café in TST, on a little side street away from the tourists. I order a pork chop sandwich and I’m drinking tea in this thick white cup. You ask me if it’s Hong Kong coffee tea, the kind with carnation milk and paint stripper strength that gives you a paranoid caffeine buzz for the next six hours. I say yes it is and you say, “I don’t know how you can drink that. Looks like well-blended diarrhea.” And then I say, “I like this shit,” and that makes you laugh. Then I tell you about my plan to quit my job to make a documentary.

You say, “What’s it about? Death rites, something like that?”