It was my last day in Hong Kong and I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to Dee.
We’d only met up once during my visit and I was doing my final walk back up the shoreline path in Lamma. Lamma, with its narrow paths and hustling stalls on either side.
Hopefully I would see Dee on my way.
People, many people were pushing past me as I climbed the path. I knew not where else to go, though I knew that Dee’s house was somewhere off to the right at the end of the path, somewhere after the path split into two.
At the fork, the right turn followed the shore, the left went into the forest, but I reckoned I’d have to turn around before then, to head back to the pier. Any later and I would miss the ferry back to Central.
Further down the path I’d left one of the restaurants and was pushing past people up the hill when, as luck would have it, I saw Dee coming down towards me. She was with a girl.
Dee saw me as she approached. She was wearing a formal pale green frock with pleated skirt. Her hair was short bob blonde.
Once she was near I spoke, “I’m leaving Hong Kong today.”
Her friend carried on down the path to give us some space to talk.
“Oh,” Dee replied, and we hugged.
Her skin was pale, her shoulders rounded and plumper than I remembered, against the pale green straps of the dress.
We embraced and my face was close to her ear. I wanted to say, “I love you,” but her friend was still in earshot and I was afraid.
I thought I would say it just as we were parting, but before I could spit it out, suddenly Dee said goodbye and turned away.
Instead I continued up the hill, following the line of the shore, knowing that I’d missed the chance and that it was gone forever unless I double backed and caught up with her; unless I caught up to wherever she was going.
I was still kicking myself as I approached the fork.
The stalls either side of the path had thinned out.
A couple of lads were walking towards me and one of them made a joke about the other. I caught the joke and tittered as I passed them, and then the first one, the joker, said, “You think that’s funny?”
“No,” I replied, even though I thought it was. Yes, I’d got the joke even though I hoped he hadn’t realized it.
His friend squared up to me and began to push me, and so did the joker. So I pushed the friend backwards until he stumbled and fell hard onto the path.
The joker was harder to deal with, and only when I pushed him against the low cut wall that separated the shore from the path did he fall. He fell over the wall onto the pebbly beach below, and when I looked over the wall to make sure he was OK, all I could see was that he was riled up.
The joker stormed back up the stairs to the path and squared up to me again.
His friend was still lying groggy on the path.
This time I used the joker’s momentum. He ran at me and instead of pushing him away I deflected his force and projected him over the wall good and proper.
By this time the joker’s friend was coming to – just as the joker fell head first over the wall. The joker’s arms and legs were splayed apart as he landed.
I wasn’t afraid of his friend – instead his friend looked over the wall at the joker with me, but the joker looked like he was out cold this time. He looked unlikely to get up any time soon.
Photo by Judy Gallagher via Flickr.
