Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [107]
Listen to me. I’m starting to sound like my husband: judging people on their looks. The thing is Roger’s less than sterling appearance would be forgivable if he was a nice person; but he’s not - end of story.
One big plus about living in Hong Kong is that you get a bonus New Year at no extra cost: the Chinese or, more correctly, Lunar New Year. The lunar calendar is based on the moon’s orbit around the earth, so the date of the Lunar New Year isn’t fixed. It’s a lot more of an elaborate celebration than our New Year back home, which is really nothing more than an excuse for a piss-up, a few fireworks over the Harbour Bridge and some resolutions that rarely make it past mid-January. The Lunar New Year also features fireworks, but there is also a Lantern Festival and big street parade with the traditional drums, lion and dragon dances. People decorate their homes with flowers and red paper lanterns and ribbons, exchange gifts, get together for family banquets, and cook special festive foods such as turnip cakes and dumplings. The Lunar New Year actually falls quite late - February 18 to be precise - in 2007. The upcoming year is to be the Year of the Pig, or more specifically, the Year of the Fire Pig.
Anyway, at Lily’s insistence a group of us parents from dance class are going for a Chinese banquet to ring in the Year of the Pig a few days in advance. Tony and I, as resident newbies, are the guests of honour. Roger has made a booking at ‘the best Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong’, one that apparently ‘no-one else knows about’. That’s all happening next week.
So, all in all, things are going okay. Tony has almost finished his training and will be joining the regular roster soon, back doing what he likes best: ferrying passengers around the world on his favourite aircraft, employed by a global airline, living the childhood dream.
He is really happy. Such an elusive concept for most of us - happiness - but if it turns up you are duty bound to grab it and wallow in it like there’s no tomorrow. My husband is right in there right now.
I think it will be some time before happiness finds me again, but life is calm at the moment and I’m finding that calmness has its consolations. I wonder how the Year of the Fire Pig is going to unfold for us all.
20
The Year of the Fire Pig
In preparation for the New Year’s celebrations I decided to read up on predictions for the upcoming Year of the Fire Pig.
Some things sounded pretty promising: for example, with respect to Tony’s career, ‘the tourism and transportation sectors will flourish’. Predictions for our personal life proved less helpful: ‘The Year of the Pig is seen as a good year for marriage and having children, but some couples may separate before the year is out.’
So according to the zodiac Tony and I could either have another child or a separation in the upcoming year. Either was possible. Another alternative is that the whole Chinese astrology thing is ‘bollocks’, as I heard a young English guy on the ferry say the other day.
Two nights ago, Wednesday, was the much anticipated occasion of our Chinese banquet with Lily and Roger and the whole ballet class crowd. After hearing my character description of Roger, Tony wasn’t at all keen to spend the evening with him. ‘Can’t we get out of it?’ he said when he emerged from the bedroom that afternoon. ‘I haven’t been able to sleep all day and I’m feeling like crap.’
Bloody men - it wasn’t like he hadn’t had enough warning. ‘No, it would be totally rude to cancel at this stage. You can catch up with your sleep tomorrow. Roger’s a dick but I don’t want to offend his wife, who is actually very nice. Remember this is Chelsea’s mum we’re talking about.’
‘Oh all right, but don’t expect me to be much company.’
‘Just try and block out most of what he says and nod your head every now and again. He loves the sound of his own voice so he probably won’t even notice.’
Roger insisted on doing the ordering for the entire table. I’m sure he deliberately ordered every dish which contained an endangered species. I