My eyes looking towards delicious feast on side table. Everything ready waiting but no action.

I think the man gets hint from me, so he introduces me to English food system in pub calling Buffet, is meaning same word for “self service.”

“Why two words for same food system?” I ask him.

He laughs: “Because one is the English word and one is the French word. The French word is more noble.”

All old mans laughing.

Buffet. Now I remember this noble word.

There are some white sticky stuffs on the plate. It looks like Tofu, but smells bad.

“What is this?” I ask bar man.

“That is goat’s cheese, darling. Would you like to try some?”

In China we not have cheese. We not like drinking milk, until last ten years maybe. I feel very surprise. I thought goat is too skinny make cheese.

“No. Thanks. What that? That Blue stuff?”

“It’s another cheese. Stilton.”

“Another stinking cheese with different names?” So many different cheeses! Like our Tofu system!

“Is this made by cow?” I ask.

“That’s right, love,” the barman laughs loudly. “Handmade by Communist cows.”

“What?” I am confused.

“Sorry to tease you, sweetheart. What you’re trying to ask is ‘Is it made from cow’s milk?’ English is a bloody nightmare, isn’t it?”

Back home I write list my new learnings for Mrs. Margaret: made by, made from.

drifter

drifter n. 1. a person who moves aimlessly from place to place or job to job; 2. a fishing boat equipped with drift nets.

Third day you are away. Feels like you are gone for a month. Before, I never be alone living in this house. Now, I realise this your house. Everything yours, and everything in this place made by you. Very little to do with me. But this place completely take over my life. I am a little alone teacup belonging to your cupboard.

I wandering in your house, silently, lonely, like cat without master.

On your dusty books shelf, I take out photo album.

There is picture of you, arms around big tree, like lover. You naked in the picture. Very young and with a brown skin. You smiling at the person with camera. Must be your lover.

Another picture, you on boat. Is old black and white photo, so sea looks totally brown. You only wear shorts, and your muscles are strong. You smile to camera, holding the boat’s paddle.

Who with you on that boat? Which sea it is?

Another old picture, you are with a man, a young man. You both are naked, standing on rock by the sea. The waves coming up on your legs. Man beside you is handsome. Who is person taking this photo? Man or woman? You must be three very intimate, very close friend, if you both naked in front the camera.

Putting back photo album, I am jealous, and I feel the pain from my jealousy.

I open one of your old boxes on top the books shelf. Some letters inside. I think they are love letters. Letters you wrote and being returned from somebody in a one big package. You said in one letter:

Of course I am committed to you, and I always will be. But I can never see myself in a couple. Yes, you are my lover, but you are also my friend, and we will always feel special together. Friendship always endures longer than romance.

Romance not to be found in my Concise Chinese-English Dictionary.

Some your old diaries in box too, from 1970s and 1980s. A long time ago. When I was really little. This is the man really older than me twenty years. Twenty years of extra life. You from such a different world.

Something is very important about this word drifter. I meet it in your letters, or the letters somebody wrote to you, or in diary with broken pages; I meet it everywhere in your long-ago past, but I never understand what it mean.

I have to learning this word first, then to learning something about you.

Open your old Roget’s Thesaurus on your shelf (Thesaurus! More strange word! In Chinese, we not having a second word to replace “dictionary”!) On the cover: first published 1852. 1852! That an old dictionary. In China there is very old Character Dictionary from 1700s Kang Xi era but I only know not half of the characters.

Thesaurus only make me more confusing. Drifter like fishing boat? Drifter goes fishing on a fishing boat? Or situation of a fishing boat swing in the sea is like situation of drifter?

I think of that picture you are on the boat wearing the shorts, holding the paddle, smiling the camera. Behind you is brown colour sea. You a drifter, I believe.

In your diary, you describing your father a drifter. He is bus driver, and he doesn’t like stay at home. Don’t know why. One day he leave you and mother and sisters and never came back. You say you learned your father travels anywhere hot and anywhere can have sex. I can’t believe what I read. Your mother decide buy piece of farm in Cornwall. Farm has a name called Lower End Farm. She live with sheep and goats and cows. Without any mans around.

You grow up, feeling cold from your family. You feel womans so dull and womans not interesting. You wanting something exciting and something desirable. So you decide leave find a place far away from that cold farm, a place cannot reach your mother and your tough sisters. You love the sea and you want see the world.

When nineteen you go to long voyage with man from your hometown. From your diary, I think he called John. Boat belonging to John’s. You young and you write diary because you think that is your historic time in life.

The first page of your sailing diary:

February 6th, 1978

We are all looking forward to sailing but at the moment we’re blinded by the work and preparation needed before we can set out. I think it’s going to be a really exciting trip during which much will be learnt by everyone.

At the end of that day, underneath the page, you wrote a line in capital:

“ROMANTIC IRELAND ’S DEAD AND GONE”-W. B. YEATS

Another page, words is soaked by water. Difficult read:

Sunday 11th February

We have eventually left amidst cheers from our friends on the quayside…

We were all pleased to get away from what was beginning to become a stale atmosphere where no one could do anything without consulting someone else. At first I felt pure excitement, but later when the open sea was below us, I started feeling sick. Our watch began

The writing start becoming very messy and un-readable.

I open last page on diary and find out you spend nine months on boat all together. From February 1978 to 4 November 1978. How a person can do for so long without his feet stand on soil? I imagine you must be suffered from storms. Sometimes you must be burning by sun. Were you ill on boat in all nine months? Did you wish you be anywhere but not on boat?

You saying in your journey sometimes you feel life exciting because you are on enormous sea, sailing and sailing for ever, but sometime you really bored in every single minute because you are always on boundless sea, sailing and sailing for ever. I try imagine to watch sea every single minute but can’t. I never even been close sea. Only watched from plane.

7th June, 1978

Breakfast: tuna. Supper: tuna, I try to eat as much green veg as I can, but the fridge is well guarded (a tomato went missing yesterday)

Panama , Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. These are the central American countries which we have passed, although some we have not seen because the boat has been too far out to sea.

Next page, you arrive San Diego and San Francisco.

You not really write about love. Was love not in your nineteen-year-old life? Is really only blue sea in your brown eyes at that time? What about your dreams?