I start to cry.

You look at me one moment, then look at the road. You know why I am crying. You keep quiet. Only the noise from the engine carries on.

“It will be all right,” you say.

But I don’t know what all right even means.

I stop crying. I calm down a bit. It’s only four in the afternoon, but the sky in countryside is already deep dark, and the rain comes with the chilly wind. The wind blows the pine trees, the grass, and the oaks in the fields. The leaves are shivering, and the branches are shaking. There must be too much wind in English’s blood.

Dim and muddy, it is the road leading to your childhood…

That evening, you show me around the farm with the flashlight. It is a big farm, extended to the horizon. Some sheeps or maybe cows in the distance, mooing.

There are four old womans in this house: your mother, your grandmother, your two sisters. Three cats live in this old farm house too. I wonder if these cats are all females? No man. Your two sisters, one is 42, another is 48. You told me they never get married. Maybe they get used to this old-girl-life, so they don’t need or want a man anymore. Your father died long time ago, and so did your grandfather. But all womans survive.

These womans, in your family, they are all farmers. They look like they have had a hard life. Their faces, reddish on the cheeks from the chilly wind. They are simple and a little tough. They are very straightforward, and have very strong impression towards every little thing. Their questions are like these:

“Zhuang? What kind of a name is that? How do you spell it?”

“Do you watch TV, Z?”

“Z, how many hours does it take to fly from China to England?”

“Bloody hell! One billion. Are there really so many people in your country?”

They talk loudly, and laugh loudly, and chop the meat loudly in the kitchen. They remind me of my family. They are very different from Londoners.

There are about twenty silver and golden badges on the wall of dining room. These badges are hung under the photos of sheep and cows, the winners of some farming competitions. Several local newspapers are pinned on the wall, with pictures of your sisters hugging her award-winning cow. And the cow has a big badge hung on its neck too. I don’t understand this competition between cow and cow.

In TV room is a huge poster about sheep. Every sheep has its different name, and they do look like very different. The one on the left is called Oxford Down, look like a big fat dog, but with burnt black nose and ears. The one on the right is called Dartmoor, with messy curly wool like a woman in hair salon having an electricity perm. The bottom one is called Exmoor Horn with curly horns and short body like a snow ball…There are no pictures of human beings. It is like a sheep museum.

I walk into the kitchen. Your mother is preparing Christmas Eve supper. I see the plates with drawing of sheep, and tea cups with the picture of cow, and the tea pot is the shape of a little goat.

Everything in the house looks aged, as old as your grandmother. Your grandmother is ninety-seven. She lives upstairs. You take me to say hello to her. She is skinny. She is too old to move around. Also she is too old to talk. She doesn’t seem to recognise who you are.

I try to understand these four womans, with their strong accent. I can’t tell if they are tough or friendly. There is a certain kind of brutal feel from your sister when she chops the meat that makes me timid. Is that one of the reasons you left your hometown, came to London, and didn’t want to be with any womans when you were young?

After the supper, everybody is tired and goes to bed. We sleep on a sofabed in the living room. It is midnight. The whole farm outside is covered by a big piece of silence. No neighbours, no pub, no shop, no car, no train. It is a place far away from civilisation. It is even worse than my hometown in China. So quiet, like it’s on the edge of the world. Occasionally, one or two fireworks blow in the distance. But rest of the world is as frozen as ice in the Arctic Ocean.

On Christmas morning, it starts snowing. The farm has a layer of light snow. I hope the farm is happy to receive the snow on a very special day. After a big brunch, we watch the Queen’s speech on TV, then we say goodbye to your family, and hit the road again. Your mother and your two sisters are waving their hands in front of the house. When I look at them from the van I feel sad. Maybe we should stay more time here, eat the Christmas turkey they prepare all day. But you say you can’t stay in there any longer. Not even one more afternoon, you say. We leave Lower End Farm behind. We leave the mud, the sheep, and the winter grass behind.

We drive all the way back to London. There is nobody in the street, not even a ghost. It is surreal. Almost too perfect.

The snow is like feathers gradually covers dirty London. The snow knows its own power. It understands how to make a city less bleak and more gentle.

We stop in a local café on Hackney Road, probably the only one open. The café owner is a foreigner, maybe from Middle East. I guess he prefers to work in café at Christmas rather than spend a lonely day on his own in his rented east London basement. There are beautiful red flowers on every table. It is a kind of green-leafs-turn-to-red-flowers. I am having fish and you are having chips. We look outside. The snow is falling from the sky. The café owner says “Merry Christmas” to us. He must be so happy to see eventually two customers visit him on such lonely day.

January

*

betray

betray v. 1. to hand over or expose (one’s nation, friend, etc.) treacherously to an enemy; 2. to disclose (a secret or confidence) treacherously; 3. to reveal unintentionally.

I don’t know if time takes us into its fast whirlpool, or we suck time into our inner world. It feels like Christmas just yesterday, but now here comes New Year’s day. Last night we made love like desperate people. And we made love again this morning. It feels everything so empty. Desperation. Or fear. We need make something unforgettable in our memory.

The only thing I love completely, without any doubt, is your body. I love it. Temperature. Softness. Forgiveness. Maybe I can let you go, but not your body.

Kissing. I hug your warmth. I think of other bodies I encountered, which I never really in love with. I start to talk.

“You know lots of things happened in that month.”

“That month?”

“Yes, that month.”

“…When you went Inter-Railing?”

“Yes.” I look into your eyes. I really want you to know. If we don’t have much to talk anymore, maybe we can talk about that month, when you were absent with me.

“Are there things you didn’t tell me?” You put out your hand touch my face.

“But you never ask me! It’s like the newspaper is more interesting to you than reality. You would rather read the paper every day than talk to me.”

“So, talk to me now,” you say.

I’m annoyed again. Why everything has to be like this? Why I am always demanding? Why there is no curiosity inside your heart anymore?

“OK. I met some mans on the trip, you know.”

“What do you mean you met some men?”

“Yes, one in Amsterdam, one in Berlin, one in Venice and one in Faro…” I suddenly can see all these faces. I can see that Portugal man with the missing teeth walking beside with me down to the dirty rocky beach under the highnoon’s sun…And I can see Klaus standing in a street of Berlin waiting for the bus. Probably now he walks into a shop to buy a bottle of mineral water with red star brand.