Fragile

The bright white sign with big black lettering said the lifts were temporarily out of order and would return to service shortly.

Paul Carrick stood in front of the stainless steel elevator doors and looked down at the sign. It was the size of his black briefcase. He scratched his head for a moment and ruffled his grey flecked, mousy brown hair. Then he turned and looked wearily to his right, to the bright mid-blue, heavy steel door marked, ‘Stairs.’

‘That’s why all the porters are super busy,’ he whispered, glancing behind him at the hotel lobby. Paintings with floral etching for borders, carpeted floors and beige coloured wallpaper. Somewhere above a gentle breeze from the air-conditioning system caressed his forehead. He smoothed down his striped tie and adjusted his navy suit jacket before moving towards the stair door. This was not exactly what he wanted after returning from a quick business trip to Singapore

‘Oh well. The exercise will do me good.’ He had a quiet, smooth, calm voice when he spoke to himself.

He picked up his suit bag and loped towards the stairwell. His American accent was still noticeable, but nine years of travelling back and forth to Hong Kong had smoothed it out considerably and didn’t sound as if he had just arrived in this busy metropolis.

At the other end of the lobby, the outside door opened. The doorman was letting someone inside. He felt the hot wind like a hot poker in his face. The air smelled of the pollution. He turned to look.

It was someone he had met a hotel cocktail party a few nights previously. ‘Well, hello Miss Wong,’ he said, smiling. ‘Let me help you.’

He put his briefcase and suit bag down awkwardly, and half-jogged the length of the brief lobby to the front door. The attractive, young looking Chinese woman, another guest at Hotel China, was weighed down with large bags identifying where she had shopped, Tiffany, Gucci, Lane Crawford. It had been an expensive day.

All of the porters were busy helping other guests with their luggage so it looked as if she, like him, had decided not to wait but to carry her own stuff to her room.

‘Let me help,’ he said. ‘I can take these for you. They're bulky and you look like you are struggling.’

‘Yes,’ she laughed. “Thank you. Many things. Too many things. I should not buy all this stuff. Just trying to distract myself.’

Paul smiled at her pleasant accent.

‘Come, come in. It's cooler back here. You should have told me you were going shopping.’ He said in an effort to be helpful, ‘I would come and help. It's too hot to carry all these bags alone.’ His voice was loud, confident.

‘Yes. Too hot.’ She brushed the hair out of her eyes that had blown by the wind outside while carrying her bags.

She was not much shorter than Paul, he noticed, and her face was one of those perfect quietly beautiful Asian faces often seen in magazines and catalogues. He wondered if she knew just how beautiful and attractive she looked. If she did she kept it well hidden.

‘And I must be getting old,’ she joked.

‘That's not true.’ They walked towards the stairwell. ‘You must be much younger than me, yes? I'm fifty this year.’

Her eyes made her seem to be smiling.

‘Forty-one.’ She said quietly

‘Ah, see? You are much younger than me. The lifts are not working. Can I take your bags?’

She paused, deep in thought. Her hair had been put up at the back in a pony tail. She was dressed in a light, loose white top that was opaque and cut to accentuate her nice slim figure. She wore plain blue jeans that looked anything but plain on her. Her feet, taking short, determined steps in open toed yellow sandals, were small. It occurred to Paul that her female ancestors may have had their feet bound as young girls and the physical legacy had been passed down to her. She stopped for a moment.

‘I have more, outside. A big box.’ she said, turning around and shaking her head in quiet frustration. ‘The porters are too busy with other guests’ luggage. The doorman is looking after it while he helps others. He wanted to help but I told him I would manage with these bags first and then come back later for the box.’

‘A good day?’ enquired Paul.

‘Too much,’ she whispered, and tapped her forehead with the flat of her palm.

They both laughed quietly in companionship.

‘I will come back,’ Paul interrupted. ‘Come, I will walk with you up the stairs and we can talk along the way. I’ll do what a man is designed for,’ he smiled ‘to be a pack horse and carry the bags after a lady has been shopping.’ They laughed again.

She thanked him and the pair began their climb to the sixth floor.

The stairwell was off white with metallic railings. Everything was newly painted and still smelled that way. The floor was sleek and slippery due to lack of use since the repainting so they needed to be careful. Every sound reverberated off the concrete floor and walls, their shuffling steps, the harsh noise of the plastic and paper bags, the brush of their sleeves, Paul’s briefcase, and their voices, mostly his.

‘In truth, I don't mind walking upstairs. I used to run for aerobic exercise. And I was a football player. American Grid Iron. Very good, too, as a young man. You know American football?’

‘Hmmmmm. Yes, yes. A little.’ She nodded, thoughtfully.

He picked up the bags again, balanced the load, and they continued upstairs.

‘Do you have children?’ she spoke haltingly.

‘Yes,’ he said, with a sense of pride, even though he hadn't seen his children or grandchildren for a few months. ‘I have a son and a daughter, Jesse and Leah. They visit me sometimes. They have children too. And you? What is your first name, Miss Wong? You can call me Paul.’

‘Kitty,’ she said. ‘I have one.’

She held up her open hand, displaying her long slender fingers.

‘One here, in Hong Kong.’ She waved her hand sideways. ‘The rest of my family live everywhere.’

‘How long have you stayed here in the hotel?’

‘Two weeks. I will be here one week longer. My son lives close to here with his new wife,’ Kitty stopped to pronounce the name correctly. ‘Jardine’s Lookout. They want me to stay with them but I want them to have their independence. And I also like mine.’ She smiled.

She took a deep breath and waited as some porters passed them heading down the stairs.. Paul saw how easy the stairs were for her. She was quite fit.

‘No lifts. I hope they fix them soon.’ Kitty said softly while making small talk. ‘What if someone slips and falls as they climb the stairs?’

‘Yes, it could be very dangerous. I wouldn’t like anything bad to happen to you or me for that matter.’ He joked.

While he spoke, Kitty would nod and say, ‘Yes.’ He enjoyed talking with her, and told her.

They reached their floor and stopped a moment to rest. Paul patted his solid but taut waist. ‘Good exercise.’

He had always been a solid looking guy probably due to his Irish heritage. He had once joked that his ancestors must have been potato farmers and that’s why he had a muscular build and big strong hands. Coming in and around 176 centimetres he wasn’t exactly short and looked good in his suits as well as casual clothes.

Pleasant looking, quietly handsome but not a standout he was popular amongst his colleagues and friends because of his pleasant character. His hair had started to get some flecks of grey in at around age 30 but had not continued and his hair remained his natural colour.

Often getting comments about his youthful looks he would often joke and reply that alcohol was a good preservative although in reality he rarely drank and didn’t smoke.

The hallways on every floor of the hotel were wide and well lit, with low white ceilings. Every floor followed a similar layout, and every room or suite looked basically the same. Walls were tastefully papered and commercial carpets that Paul would have described as “autumn tones”. Most rooms had large windows to let in natural light. Good for a short or extended stay.

Being in Wanchai the hotel afforded a busy continuing nightlife for those who liked that kind of entertainment. Restaurants, bars, music, girls, sex workers, it had it all.

For Paul though it had been the hotel that had been recommended to him when he originally started coming to Hong Kong. The location was convenient to transport, was close to his company’s branch office and he enjoyed walking to work through parts of old Hong Kong.

The hotel even had the Red Bar downstairs where Paul would occasionally meet a friend or go for a coffee if he felt like getting out of his suite but not going too far. The bar was a nice place even if some of the local working girls also used it as a place to proposition prospective clients or meet them there for dinner.

‘Here you are.’ He announced when they reached the door to number 6015. ‘Now, you say there is something else downstairs? I will go and get it.’

Kitty made a slight expression of protest, but Paul insisted.

She put her hand on his arm before he left. ‘Thankyou. You are so nice,’ she said. ‘Please be careful.’

He looked at her, puffed out his chest a little, and laughed out loud.

‘Don’t worry. I am a strong gweilo, remember?’

The walk down seemed to take just as much effort as the walk up. Different muscle groups in my legs, he thought, how quickly he lost his base fitness. How he loved to walk often when back in Chicago, his home for many years. He remembered the long walks alone along the banks of Lake Michigan and around Grant Park. He remembered how he often used to walk along the waterfront from Navy Pier past the marina to the Shedd Aquarium and back several times on a weekend, through its crowds: the tourists, people on rollerblades, cyclists, street performers, prostitutes, sidewalk vendors, occasional drunks, and women in expensive clothes who looked like they belonged in a nightclub rather than at the lake.

He remembered how he and some of the other members of his boyhood college sports club had travelled into the Italian precinct one summer evening in the 1970s after a few too many beers. It was there at Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant on North Clarke Street that he had first seen the raven haired beauty Bianca working as a waitress. He had fallen in love with her at first glance and, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of his buddies, had returned the next night alone and asked her to come out with him at some time when she was not working. She had agreed and they had married 18 months later.

Their marriage had been one of those close, extremely loving unions only read about in magazines. Their love for each other had produced two wonderful children in quick succession and they had been a close-knit unit right up until the time of Bianca’s death in a car accident at age 36. After the initial grieving Paul had set himself to the task of bringing up his children alone and had done a great job even if he personally didn’t think so.

Deep down he still missed his wife dearly and he had wondered if he would ever meet someone once again that he could give his love to. When his children had both reached their early 20s and become independent, they had been the ones to release him from the nest, not the other way round. They had known of his emptiness ever since their mother had died and, while they had also felt their individual black holes in their own respective worlds, they had given Paul the blessing to go out and find a new partner. After all, they had told him a long time ago, the love you had for our mother can never be taken away from you but you have so much love to give it really is selfish to keep it all to yourself. He had valued and appreciated their frankness but he was yet to allow himself the luxury.

After his children had left the family home in Naperville, a leafy and relaxed community outside Chicago he had sold the house and moved to an apartment on South Michigan Avenue not far from the stately Convention Hotel overlooking Grant Park and the lake. It was lonely but at least it saved him the hour train trip to work and back each day.

He had then been offered a directorship in the company he had been with for many years. It also meant travelling periodically to the branch office in Hong Kong and that had been fine with him.

That was nine years ago and his life had been stable but quiet ever since.

He stopped inside the lobby near the exit door to look for the parcel that Kitty had left there. It was a hot, extremely humid day. The air was thick with pollution and sat still in the street. He pushed the door open, and stepped into the furnace. He saw a big cardboard box, over knee-height, near the doorman should have been. Instead the doorman was helping to do porter duties as many guests had arrived and their luggage needed to be brought inside.

He bent to pick it up, and found that it was quite heavy.

‘My stars! What’s in this?’

He picked it up and struggled through the door and to the stairs. The size of the box made it difficult to look over the top or to look around the side. This time the trip up the stairs took longer than before as he had to negotiate each turn in the staircase with the huge box.

‘She's really nice pal, that one,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I wonder what she thinks of me.’

Every so often, he rested the box on the stair railing to give himself a break. The weight was really nothing; it was really just the awkward angle that he had to hold the big box at that strained his arms. He wondered how he had ended up doing this. Stop kidding yourself, he chastised himself. You like her, just accept it, he laughed to himself.

‘Hell. I'm too old to get involved with someone again.’ He said out loud as he struggled his way distractedly up a few more stairs. ‘I'm just a goody-two-shoe.’ He laughed ‘I've always tried to be too much of a gentleman.’

Suddenly, his foot slipped on the shiny, newly painted floor. Without even realizing it, he had lost his grip on the box and it hit the stairs and rolled end over end to the landing below. Something made a breaking sound as it had hit. Glass, he thought.

‘Shit!’ His voice echoed around him, up and down the walls in the empty, hollow stairwell. ‘You idiot! Now what have you done?’

It was difficult to think. How could he have been so careless? What would he say to Kitty? He could forget any romantic thoughts that he might have had towards her now that he shown her how stupid and clumsy he was.

He picked up the damaged box and continued on to the sixth floor, no need for special care any more.

He stood outside Kitty's door for a few moments, holding the box before him before pushing the doorbell. When she opened the door, she was smiling happily, but then looked concerned at his expression.

‘I'm really very sorry,’ he said, entering her suite. He stood, sheepishly, in the middle of the lounge area. ‘It was just as you said. Someone could have slipped and it was me who did exactly that. I'm so very sorry. I think I've broken what is in here.’

He shook the box.

‘Are they glasses?’

Paul set the box down. Kitty tore off the strip of masking tape along the seam sealing the box and opened the top.

‘A porcelain vase. I bought it at that new department store in Queens Road, Central this afternoon. I don’t know what the name is. I saw it in the window and thought it would look nice on a window ledge at my sons place,’ she said.

She picked out some of the pieces. It was smashed, completely broken, unrepairable. It would have been beautiful too, Paul thought. Bright white, with some nice painting done by hand on the front depicting birds in a scene and with some Chinese characters on the back. Very elegant.

Kitty said something to herself quietly.

‘I'm sorry; I didn’t hear you.’ Paul was ashamed of what he had done. He feared that he had offended her.

Kitty closed her eyes before she spoke.

‘Oh, I said, never mind.’

‘No, please’, Paul pleaded. ‘Please let me pay you for the damage. It’s the least I can do.’

‘Its okay,’ said Kitty, eyes still closed. ‘It was an accident’.

‘Please,’ Paul’s voice sounded strained. ‘I really want to make it up to you’.

‘No, really, it was just an accident. Don’t worry about it.’ replied Kitty calmly looking at him. ‘Would you like some tea?’

Her eyes seemed larger to him than earlier. They were open wider and he could see her black pupils looking straight at him. It seemed like she had decided that the matter was over. Finished. He felt really bad. He looked around for something to distract him, something he could talk about.

‘The view from your room is very nice,’ Paul said quietly, embarrassed, looking away from her. ‘Where do you normally live?’

There was no answer. He turned and saw that she was looking straight at him but her thoughts seemed to be a million miles away.

…and then, after a moment’s hesitation

‘Oh, sorry, I was born in Malaysia. Lived there most of my life. All of my family are from there but now they live all over the place.’ She stood up.

‘My husband was born in Hong Kong.’ Kitty continued. ‘My family and my husband’s family own a lot of property in Malaysia and Hong Kong and are well-off. My husband died of heart disease seven years ago. I couldn’t stay living in our big house with all the memories. I live in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur now. I don't miss anything.’

‘I must go.’ Paul was embarrassed and felt awkward. ‘I'm very sorry about your vase. I’ve been a real idiot.’

‘Paul. Paul please….’ He heard Kitty’s voice behind him as he made his exit quickly before Kitty could say anything more. He hurried along the hallway and entered 6022, his temporary home further along the hall.

He sat on his leather sofa.

‘What an idiot you have been.’ He said to himself. ‘Firstly, you run into someone who has actually taken your interest and next you go and break their new purchase and then, if that’s not enough, you embarrass yourself by not insisting on replacing it and asking stupid questions.’

Without a thought he got up from the sofa and walked out of his suite, the door closing automatically behind him. Back down the stairs again and out the front door to the hotel.

‘Good evening Mr Carrick,’ said Rajah the doorman as he carried a large suitcase for an arriving guest. ‘Would sir like a taxi?’

‘Yes please.’ Paul replied. Rajah stopped and signalled for one of the taxis in a queue to move forward and opened the door for Paul to get in.

‘Queens Road please. Stop outside H&M.’ He said to the taxi driver.

The red, four cylinder Toyota took off through the busy streets of Wan Chai. People and traffic everywhere. Paul struggled with the seat belt. The wearing of a seat belt was compulsory by law but they never seemed to buckle up. Why have a stupid law that people can’t obey, he thought. Once again he just held the seat belt over his shoulder to make it look like he was wearing it. Problem solved provided they didn’t hit anything, By the way the driver was speeding through the traffic in the side streets however, it appeared he was on a kamikaze mission and they might not make it. Soon they were in the mid-afternoon crawl and he felt much safer. Soon Paul found himself arriving at his destination in Central.

It was just a short walk from there across the road to the new Chinese department store where he knew Kitty had bought the beautiful porcelain vase. He made his way inside and soon found the section of the department store that sold the vases. He scrutinised every vase until he found one that was quite close in appearance to the one that he had broken.

Calling to the shop assistant, he asked the price.

‘Four thousand, two hundred Hong Kong dollars.’ replied the Chinese shop assistant in English.

‘That’s quite expensive,’ he sighed ‘Oh well, I’ll take it.’

‘That’s amazing,’ beamed the surprised shop assistant ‘We haven’t sold a single vase in the month since we opened and now we have sold two in the same day.’

‘Yeah, really amazing,’ mumbled Paul smiling wryly as the shop assistant wrote out the docket.

After he had paid for his new purchase the shop assistant wrapped up the vase in layer upon layer of bubble wrap at Paul’s insistence before placing it in a cardboard box. He then went back out to Queens Road and hailed another taxi.

‘Hotel China, Wan Chai,’ said Paul as he manoeuvred the box onto the seat next to him.

The trip back was better. The seat belt in this taxi didn’t want to buckle up either but at least the driver drove at a speed that seemed safer than Paul’s previous trip.

Arriving back at the hotel Rajah the doorman assisted him from the taxi and opened the front door to the hotel allowing him to enter. It looked like things were getting back to normal again. The backlog of guests had diminished and porters were doing routine duties.

‘Good evening Mr Carrick,’ he smiled politely as he turned to attend to some other guest that had just arrived.

Making his way through the lobby he arrived at the stairs only to find that the lifts were working again. ‘Just my luck,’ he mused.

He took it to the sixth floor and proceeded straight to 6015.

He tapped on Kitty's door and waited. A few seconds later the door opened.

‘I'm sorry I left in such a hurry earlier. I was embarrassed.’ He looked at the floor shifting from foot to foot. ‘I got you this. It’s to replace the one I broke earlier.’

Kitty was quiet for several moments and didn't seem to know how to respond. Paul felt his uneasiness eating away at himself again. Kitty then looked surprised as she realised what Paul was carrying.

‘Oh my. This isn't necessary. No,’ she said finally.

Paul insisted, as best he could.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Paul’s uneasiness must have shown on his face. Kitty opened the door wider. ‘Come in, please. Would you like some tea?’

‘Perhaps I had better just leave this with you and go,’ he said sheepishly.

Kitty looked at him, hesitated a moment. ‘Paul, may I tell you something?’

‘Yes. Please tell me.’

Kitty searched for the right words. ‘Paul, you are a nice man. Earlier when you met me in the lift lobby downstairs I was being cross at myself for going out and shopping trying to distract myself from the loneliness I have been feeling lately.’

She stopped briefly, then ‘You see, my husband was my first boyfriend and I have not been out with anyone since he died. Now that Simon has grown up and moved away with his wife my life feels a bit empty.’

‘I know what you mean,’ ventured Paul, glad she was telling him this.

‘And then,’ Kitty continued, ‘you helped me downstairs and I enjoyed our chatting very much as we came up. I felt very happy.’

‘Go on.’

‘When you caught me thinking before when you told me about the vase, I wasn’t thinking about the vase, I was thinking of how you were such a nice man.’ Kitty’s cheeks started to turn red, a seconds pause and then almost blurted out ‘….. and how I would love to have a nice man like you in my life again.’

Now it was Paul’s turn to look straight at Kitty and say nothing.

‘I really wish you would come in, put that box down and stay for some tea,’ Kitty whispered as she nervously studied the carpet at Paul’s feet.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

Paul paused briefly. He knew this had the potential to be a life changing moment for both of them. He wanted that life change. He was ready.

He moved past Kitty into her suite.

The door closed gently behind him.