'I had to come here sometime in Q1 anyway. I've got a full day of meetings tomorrow.'
'You're an incredibly good friend, Robert. I can never repay you for this.'
He makes a dismissive snorty-huff sound, but he's grinning.
Especially considering we've barely spoken in weeks, I want to add, but don't. I don't want to spoil it. This feels almost like our old friendship. I grab the remote and shift position slightly, lying down on my stomach.
'Come and watch Hong Kong TV with me. Ooh! Hong Kong MTV. Awesome.'
'Alright,' says Robert, standing up and coming over to the bed. 'But you'll have to stop hogging the Toblerone.'
Chapter Thirty Nine.
'I'm good as new, Roberto,' I say when I wake up the next morning.
'Good,' he says. He's at the desk, working. Again.
I stretch my arms and legs and yawn noisily. How very nice it is not to want to throw up.
'I will never take being well for granted again.'
'I'll get my own hotel room today, then.'
'Shame. Camping out here last night made me feel like we were escaping reality.' The reality of Dave and Bel ah, don't think about it.
'Alas, my reality has followed me. I have to go to a meeting. Sure you're feeling OK?'
For a second, I consider calling Andre or checking my emails. Or calling Henry's brother Rich, so he can take me out for a flirty lunch. But I feel like being alone. How unlike me. 'I think I'll go for a walk today.'
Robert hands me a bowl of porridge and a spoon. 'It took me a long time to convince them to put chopped almonds on top. I'll be back by 8 pm tonight. Take it easy, alright?'
I beam at him as he leaves, holding my toasty warm porridge bowl against my chest, feeling like a small child. Then I start watching children's cartoons in Cantonese. Foreign language TV is a great way to keep the brain empty, but occupied. This one is about a pig, and from the looks of things, he can't stop farting. It seems hilarious. Then I order a large pot of coffee.
There's a knock on the door a few minutes later, and marvelling at the speed of room service, I skip over to the door to open it.
But it's not room service. It's Dave.
'Abigail.'
My heart is racing in shock. 'What do you want?' I say, without thinking.
'May I come in?' he says tentatively. I've never seen him look so nervous. I think for a second. 'No.'
'I just wanted to say . . . I'm sorry.' He can't meet my eyes. 'I didn't mean to hurt you. I really didn't . . . This thing with Bella goes back years.'
'I know.' He doesn't look as gorgeous as I always thought he was. In fact, he looks sort of . . . small. And pale.
'Robbie told me how ill you've been. I feel fucking awful, Abigail, I'm so sorry.'
'You spoke to Robert?'
'He didn't tell you? He came down and gave me hell a couple of days ago. Bells, too.'
At the mention of her name, I automatically flinch. Bells?
'It's not her fault, Abigail,' he says quickly. 'It was all me. I made her miserable . . . for years. And, um, I really wanted it to work with you, I just . . . I did like you.'
'Well, good for you,' I snap, and try to close the door. I don't need to hear about how he tried to force himself to be with me. In fact, I don't want to see him ever again.
'Please, let me finish. The thing with Bella, I never stopped . . .' he pauses, and sighs. 'We broke up years ago. We tried to be friends but it wasn't possible. It never is, not really.' He's lost in thought for a second. 'Then after Christmas she sent me a letter . . . anyway, I didn't know what to do, it was torture, I was involved with you, but also with her-'
'Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?' I say acidly.
'I can't erase what we did. I was trying to get out of it without hurting anyone. Then I had to come here for work and I was talking to Bella, and it was a crazy last-minute decision . . . She feels awful, she has been so upset about hurting you . . .'
'Poor little Bells. Well, I have to go now, Dave.'
He finally meets my eye. He looks like he might cry.
I shut the door, turn around, and slide to the floor, and gaze into space for a few minutes, thinking.
Suddenly, all I feel all I really, honestly feel is pity for them both. Poor Dave, for being in love with someone else and knowing it would hurt his mother if he continued to see her. Poor Bella, for having her heart broken all those years ago, and never knowing why. No wonder she became a bitter cow. They loved each other and couldn't be together.
What a mess.
I don't even want to cry about it now. I feel sort of . . . dry. I have no tears left for him.
A few minutes later I get up to let the real room service in, and after showering and dressing, I decide to go for a walk around the hotel. It's gorgeous: calm, understated and luxurious.
Eventually, I find myself on a walkway over a busy, traffic-filled road that links the Mandarin Oriental to Prince's Building. I look out the walkway window, and see that almost every building is connected to its neighbour by at least one or two walkways. How funny.
I get a latte from a cafe in Prince's Building, wander through antique and print shops, and find myself on another walkway heading to Alexander House.
There's nothing I have to do. And nowhere I have to be. With no destination, no map, and no agenda, I'm free to just wander. It's something that I never do in real life. Even on shopping/coffee/whatever days with the girls, I have a list of errands to run, shoes to look for, dates to think about, texts to send. Busybusybusy.
But not today.
The French have the perfect word for it: 'flaneur'. It means to stroll around aimlessly but enjoyably, observing life and your surroundings. Baudelaire defined a flaneur as 'a person who walks the city in order to experience it'.
As Plum would say, I'm flaneuring like a motherfucker.
Up some escalators and I'm in another walkway over a much wider road with trams zinging back and forth underneath, over to a building called Landmark.
Landmark is enormous: three floors of fun wrapped around a central courtyard where, for no particular reason that I can discern, a small orchestra is playing tunes from Hollywood musicals. I start singing along to 'What A Swell Party This Is', and walk around, looking into windows and sipping my coffee. Marc Jacobs, Dior, Chanel, all packed full of people . . . This city is luxury-crazy, I muse.
Eventually, after various escalators and detours, I walk out into the street. There are red cabs bottlenecked at traffic lights, and serious, New York-style crowds of people. I walk up, cross the road at the lights, and meander along Queen's Road. I pass street hawkers selling pashminas, and wander up and down alleyways packed with stalls selling cheap watches and silky dressing gowns. I walk into a make-up shop called Sasa, and spend 80 on Lancome skincare that would cost hundreds at home. I walk in and out of Chinese herbal stores, electrical shops, fashion shops and shoe stores. Some of the brands are international, like The Body Shop and H&M, and some must be Hong Kong born-and-bred, such as the delightfully-monikered Wanko.
I decide to get deliberately lost, and turn up a steep hill. The crowd thins slightly, and I cross over two roads till I reach what's clearly a nightlife area that's apparently called Lan Kwai Fong. Every shop front is a bar. I walk into a Happy Days-themed sort of place called Al's Diner. It's empty, with bored waitresses gossiping in the corner, and a jukebox video screen playing Bruce Springsteen.
After ordering a burger, fries and a Heineken, I take a seat at the window and gaze at the people walking past. Lots of business people, a few tourists. Everyone is walking faster than Londoners do: in a hurry to get somewhere. A Porsche speeds down the hill, narrowly missing an old man in pyjama-style trousers and a white vest, wheeling an ancient bike with a huge basket attached. He shouts after it. I don't need to speak Cantonese to guess what he is saying.
I wonder if this is what Dave loves about Hong Kong, I think involuntarily.
Don't think about Dave, I quickly tell myself.
What kind of person must I be to have lost my way so badly, so quickly? I thought I was so clever, so sorted with my glib approach to dating and singledom . . . what a terrible mistake. I knew nothing. I still know nothing.
Thinking this makes me sigh.
I realise, with a jolt, that I essentially ignored all of Robert's surviving singledom tips throughout my entire time dating Dave. My bulletproof dating stance crumbled like an airplane cookie in the face of a handsome, uber-confident man with a sharp line in banter.
I sip my beer. Everyone on the street is seriously rugged up, I notice. The average Hong Kong woman is wearing tights, boots, a hat, gloves, a scarf and an overcoat and it can't be less than 15 or 16 degrees today, i.e. practically swimming weather to the average Londoner.
A man and a woman step up onto the elevated area outside Al's Diner. As they walk in, I meet eyes with the woman and I smile without thinking about it, just as my burger and fries arrive. Mmm. Fries.
'OK, so let's say we start in May,' says a voice. I turn slightly, and see the man and woman now sitting just a few feet away from me. Darn. There goes my quiet time. 'We'll have it wrapped by July and can then start shooting in New York, Zurich and London after the summer.' He's Irish.
'May is pushing it,' replies the woman. She's Canadian, I think.
'This is what we have to work with,' he says. 'I don't want to be in southern focking China during July and August.'
'I'm still not convinced Guangzhou is the right place for the shoot,' she says. (I know I'm eavesdropping, but I can't help it.) 'And that conference was a waste of time. We need to show growth in Asia so that we can highlight the ridiculous money, the total conspiracy that all these luxury brands are-'
'Well, you're the one packaging it to be lowest common denominator,' interrupts the guy.
'Was An Inconvenient Truth lowest common denominator?' she snaps. 'Was Sicko? No. It's accessible but not stupid. There is a difference. If you can't tell it, you're stupid too.'
'I've missed working with you,' he says, laughing.
They pause as the waitress brings out their food. I'm fascinated by their discussion and dying to join in. Being starved for conversation is probably another after-effect of being in bed for five days.
'This is a recon trip, OK?' she adds, after a moment. 'That's the point. So we cross Guangzhou off the list and keep going.'
'We won't be allowed to film in the industrial cities around Shanghai and Beijing,' he says. 'The pollution is bad press for the Chinese government. They're only going to allow us in if we present China in a positive light and show them the dailies.'
'Well, I'm not a fucking propaganda merchant,' she replies.
There's a moment of tension. Then he starts laughing and she joins in.
I clear my throat. I'm dying to say something, but perhaps I'll look crazy, or like an eavesdropper. Hey ho.
'Excuse me,' I say, turning to them. They both turn to face me politely. Shit. What am I doing? Fuck it, I've started now . . . 'I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but, um, I was . . .'
The Canadian woman grins. She's only a little bit older than me, I think. Early 30s, with long brown curly hair that needs a cut. Slightly hippie-ish. The Irish guy is older; tall with slightly thinning hair, wearing a zip-up parka.
'But if you're looking for a Chinese city that's not too polluted and that's growing really fast despite the recession, have you thought about Beihai?'
'We have,' says the man quickly. He's not interested in talking to me. 'We crossed it off the list. Filming isn't allowed.'
'Oh,' I say, abashed, and slightly surprised. Beihai is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, and the beaches are supposed to be beautiful, I would have thought they'd be thrilled to get publicity.
'You're thinking of Baotou,' says the Canadian woman to the man.
'Am I?' he says. For a second, I think he's going to be rude again, but then his face creases up with laughter. 'Sorry. I can't keep track of the focking names.'
'Ignore him,' she says to me. 'He's just a know-it-all.'
'China has 100 cities with more than one million people. It's a lot to keep up with.'
'What else do you know about Beihai?'
I pause, and think for a second. 'You're filming a documentary on the recession, right?'
The woman looks surprised, and grins. 'More or less.'
'Well, Beihai was also part of the Silk Road two thousand years ago, so there's that angle. These days it's the fastest growing city in the world. It's also a major tourist destination for mainland China and they're trying to make it an international one, too. And it's cleaner and prettier than some other areas.'
I pause, and flush. I didn't mean to start making a speech, but she's got such a nice open face. I instinctively warm to her. I thought the guy was ignoring me and typing into his BlackBerry, but then I notice that he's actually making notes.
'B-E-I-H-A-I,' I say helpfully.
He glances up and grins. 'Thanks.'
'I'm Katherine, by the way. I'm the producer.'
'Abigail,' I say. We shake hands.
'Ronan,' says the Irish guy, offering his hand to shake. 'Executive producer.'
Katherine looks at him and barely conceals a snort of laughter. She looks back at me and grins. 'How do you know so much about China?'
'Uh, I'm a research analyst for an investment bank in London,' I say. 'I specialise in luxury and Asia.'
Their eyes light up.
'Tell us everything you know,' says Katherine.