It has been a busy four and a half years since I wrote the passages which appeared in Part 1. I meant to get back to you after a year, but my apologies. Put it down to good intentions and all that.
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Chapter 1. New life
As I said before, I settled in Beijing for a while, even taking Chinese citizenship and adopted a Chinese boy, Billy, as my heir. He impressed me from the first. He was small, the runt of his litter like me, and sent out to serve Western tourists, in any way needed.
I put a stop to that immediately and paid off his drug-dependent minders. I put Billy back in contact with his country-based parents and eventually with his encouragement and their consent I adopted him as my son. I fed him up and gave him an education, although he would always be small for his age, he was at least healthy. I was a lot healthier, too. I ate a better diet and had a personal trainer. I was leaner and fitter than I had been since my 20s.
It was on the second leg of the journey from London Heathrow to Sydney, just after we took off from Singapore, half an hour behind schedule due to an instrument malfunction, that she approached me. I didn't see her coming.
I had had my eyes closed for half an hour or so into the flight, although I wasn't really asleep. She must have touched my shoulder, just firmly enough to rouse me from my reverie.
I had enjoyed that dreamy state, thinking about the new boat and clear blue water to come. I recalled memories of myself in scuba gear and swimming in the warm waters of the Red Sea, rather than the Great Barrier Reef where I would be in a day or so. I had been to the first location a number of times but never the second and I was looking forward to the new experience. I was also relishing my eventual trip - sailing around the eastern and southern coasts of Australia through to my new harbour-side home in Melbourne.
My boat had sailed from the Med weeks ago and in the meantime I had closed down my Beijing apartment and then spent a few weeks in London tying up some loose ends in connection with business. I was quite excited when the text came through that my boat was in Australian waters and would be ready for me in a day or two. I was so anxious to go, that I happily booked cabin class on the next available flight.
I opened my eyes after my shoulder was touched and was very surprised to see my ex-wife's old friend Carol leaning over my aisle seat immediately in front of me. Her hands were leaning on my armrests, so her face was very close to mine. I had to blink twice before my relaxed brain recognised it was her. I assumed she still worked for British Airways, she had been a stewardess on short-and long-haul flights for ten or fifteen years at least, but I didn't think she did flights anymore. Before replying I took in her face and clothes with a quick up and down glance. She wasn't wearing a uniform but, fitting like a glove, she wore a smart business suit in a powder blue colour cloth, cut to finish just above the knee. She was still very slim and remained in possession of the smoothest, shapeliest knees I've every seen. She was smiling at me and repeated what she had said.
"Hello, Mark," she reiterated, her white teeth in contrast to her dark red lips and deep tan, her face framed by her long strawberry hair, still as frizzy as it always was, but quite lustrous and shiny. Her eyes shone too, with faint laughter lines around her soft green eyes. She still looked stunning for a woman in her mid-forties. I had always liked Carol, she was the genuine article, all right.
"Hi, back," I said, returning her easy smile and leaning forward to kiss her on her freckle-speckled left cheek, lifting my hands from my lap to hold her gently on her firm, lean upper arms. "I go by the name Bill, now Carol, Bill Antony. You are looking good!" I commented, "Didn't think you flew any more."
"Well, I don't as a rule," she replied, her voice a little deeper than I remembered, but still recognisable, a most pleasant female voice. "I do go out training and testing flight crews occasionally, I don't sit on my butt all the time, you know!"
I shifted my gaze back down her slim frame once more, taking her all in, lingering at those lovely knees once more. I couldn't actually see her butt from my angle but her hips were certainly in impressive shape and I'm not easily impressed nowadays. I'd stopped looking at women that way, I suppose, a long time ago. Looking at desirable women had become too painful and I'd had my full share of pain. I snapped my eyes back to hers and she was still regarding me, eyeball to eyeball, a playful smile on her ruby lips.
"I can see that," I said.
Carol grinned and cocked one eyebrow, "You checking me out, mister?"
"Oh, I check you out every time I see you, which isn't nearly often enough, I can see."
She laughed out loud and tossed her flowing red mane. "Bob did say you fancied me once upon a time, a long time ago, maybe half a world away." She looked at me and moved her head a fraction closer, pouting her lips, "Was he having me on?"
I laughed back and kissed her on her smooth, beautifully freckled cheek again. "I remember that I was the one who saw you first in that nightclub but Bob got the benefit. I was stuck in the front seat driving, remember? Not sure if I could ever forgive him for that!"
Carol laughed and lightly dropped her butt onto my lap, I didn't have to see it to know her butt was definitely well-toned, perched as she was on my own regularly exercised thighs. She put her right arm round my neck whilst holding up her left hand in front of my eyes, wiggling the fingers, particularly the third finger. Very obviously displayed on the ring finger of her slim hand was a sizeable diamond rock on a thin band of gold, with another plain gold band sitting comfortably next to it.
"Would you forgive Bob now?" she asked with a note of triumphant in her voice, "if you knew he had at last made an honest woman of me?" She fluttered her fair eyelashes in front of her green eyes, with a smile hovering on her lips.
Last time I had seen Carol was at my father's house on the day of his funeral over five years previously and she had never been married to anyone up to that point. As far as I knew she had only gone out with Bob for those first few months while I was courting my ex-wife over 25 years ago, so it seemed incredible to me that they were now married.
"You and ... Bob?" I must have sounded astonished. I hadn't even thought about Bob in those last five years. Suddenly all sorts of memories came flooding back, especially the last time when he had held and given up that fateful life-destroying letter. I wanted to expunge those emerging thoughts, memories I deluded myself that I had successfully submerged for good.
Carol continued to fix me with her emerald eyes, her lovely face becoming concerned at the obvious change in my expression. I am sure my face was drained of all colour.
