The first time I saw what Owen Li could do, it happened at school.
We must have been eight or nine, an age when I still considered him one of my best friends. We didn’t always spend break times together, but that day it was just the two of us kicking an old football around, out of sight in an area of the playground between two buildings. We were asking each other stupid questions, as usual.
What would you rather have, a pet snake or a pet tarantula?
If you could have any superpower, what would you pick?
Would you eat the world’s spiciest chilli if I gave you ten quid? A hundred? We were laughing about something when a boy called Jonny rounded the corner and spotted us. He was in our class, scrawny, but tall. He was always swearing at teachers and being sent home.
Oh look, he said. Eddie and Owen, sitting in a tree.
We ignored him like we were supposed to, but Owen Li couldn’t quite hide his expression of panic, or the flush that crept over his face. He’d always been quieter and shyer than me. I kicked the football against the wall, but Jonny kept going.
Are you twins or something? Siamese twins, yeah? And then, nonsensically, Cos I’ve seen your mums, and they’re fat.
I moved towards him before I’d really decided to. I don’t think I wanted to hurt him, only to shut him up. My fist, when it connected with Jonny’s nose, made a sound like I’d thrown an apple against a hard surface. The sound and the immediate pain in my hand surprised me. I’d never hit anyone before.
For a moment Jonny and I both froze. Then he clutched at his face, and bright blood dripped between his fingers on to the faded hopscotch where he stood. He started to make a noise, something strained, but Owen Li was there before he could cry out.
He grasped Jonny’s head with both hands and examined him, not at all like a child dealing with another hurt child, but as if he were much older. Watching him, I thought of a vet or a farmer with a wounded animal in his care. What happened next was strange – with one hand, quickly and precisely, Owen Li tapped Jonny on one side of his head, just by his ear. Then he spoke.
It was an accident. I kicked the ball and it hit you. Ed wasn’t here. OK? Jonny seemed to relax, his face becoming oddly blank beneath the shine of blood that coated his mouth and chin. He allowed Owen to walk him towards the school building. A few paces away, Owen turned around, stared at me, and put a finger to his lips.
Owen Li and I grew up in the same block of ex-council flats near the centre of town. He lived on the ground floor and I lived on the fourth. A few other Chinese families were nearby, and our parents played cards on the weekends, usually at Owen’s. There were five of us boys, all around the same age, and we would scurry out to the park across the road, reappearing at dinner time with grazed knees and grass in our hair. We’d pull faces at each other over the lingering smell of cigarettes and the piles of sunflower seed husks on the table.
Our place next time, my dad often shouted as the families dispersed. Owen’s dad Lao Li would smile and agree politely. I only realised years later that everyone must have preferred their bigger, tidier flat, where the wallpaper was fresh, not peeling like ours, and where the doors opened out on to a patio, decorated by Mrs Li with fresh flowers, instead of our tiny balcony enclosed by chicken wire.
I used to run down to theirs all the time and not notice the difference. Owen Li was my first real friend, more so than Yong, or Pete, or Haohao, simply because of our proximity. Considering how much time we spent together, I have a clearer impression of the cartoons we watched after school, and the crisps and biscuits we ate, dropping crumbs on his squeaky leather sofa, than of any conversations we had.
Of course, I now wonder if everyone recalls their childhood friendships through such a haze, or if there is another reason for my poor memory.
After that day with Jonny in the playground, I went with Owen Li back to his place, as usual. I was sure that Jonny would tell someone about the punch and I would get into trouble. I wanted to ask Owen about it. How had Jonny become so calm? Why had he listened to him so easily? But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if my questions made any sense.
Lao Li joined us on the sofa, throwing peanuts in the air and catching them in his mouth. He and Owen Li had the same narrow shoulders, though Owen had a different way of holding himself – with a sort of tension, instead of his father’s ease.
Watching TV again? Don’t they give you any homework? Lao Li spoke Mandarin with a thick southern accent, and it always took me a few seconds to take in what he was saying. He patted me on the arm while I frowned.
Working hard is what makes a nan zi han, he said. The phrase he used was new to me, but I shook my head confidently as if I understood.
We’re not nan zi han, I said. We’re kids.
That amused him. He laughed so hard I could see the bits of half-chewed peanuts on his tongue.
Of course, he said. Anyway, you have to know some women before you get to be real men, right?
I opened my mouth, and shut it again when I caught Owen Li watching us. The expression on his face might have been jealousy. Lao Li never really had conversations with Owen, he only snapped or issued instructions. I felt bad about that.
After that day, it seemed like Owen Li started avoiding me, but we might have been growing apart anyway. He was always at some sports or music club, or in extra classes with a tutor, even at weekends. When I turned up at their door, Mrs Li would frown at me, stern and suspicious behind her thick-rimmed glasses, as if I shouldn’t have so much free time myself.
The card games with the other families also stopped as we approached the end of primary school. Our parents kept talking about which of us would pass the exams to get into the posh high school in town, where they wore jackets and ties, and I suppose those stakes weren’t as fun for them. In the end only Owen Li proved clever enough for St Phillip’s. The rest of us were never allowed to forget it.
Be more like Owen! Owen zhen guai! We imitated our parents, nasally, when we all gathered for the occasional Chinese New Year or Mid-Autumn Festival party. It made Owen Li blush, but he put up with it, and let us insult him as much as we wanted.
I knew the other boys behaved worse towards him sometimes, especially Pete, who tended to shove him harder than was necessary, and laugh with too much of a sneer when Owen was red and speechless. I decided I never would. I had a sense of owing him something for that day with Jonny, even though I told myself there were plenty of reasons for Jonny not to snitch, and that I must have imagined anything odd. I kept dwelling on the way Owen Li had spoken to Jonny, with an assurance I’d never seen from him before, and the way Jonny’s face had changed. I couldn’t quite forget it.
We stopped giving Owen Li a hard time about private school eventually, but our parents kept at it. Such a good boy, they continued. Top set in all his subjects! Look, he’s got a Saturday job! Nobody needs to worry about him. They said things like that more often, and loudly, when Mrs Li was promoted to head of department at her job, and when their family left the flats for a house in the suburbs with a long, landscaped garden.
That summer, Owen Li’s parents had a party. The kids ended up in the garden studio with a bottle of baijiu we’d sneaked from their drinks cabinet. We were in our teens by then and desperate to impress each other, the boys just emerging from the humiliation of squeaky voices, adjusting to the reach of our longer, gawky limbs.
We played card games, as if we were acting out the roles of our parents, recreating the casual afternoons they used to have. At some point, one of the girls suggested a game of Spin the Bottle. Most of the boys tried to act cool about it, though we ruined it with nudging and grinning. Owen Li refused to play. We watched as he stalked off up the garden, his shoulders hunched under his too-large shirt.
We shrugged and carried on. It was a brief game, resulting in my first kiss with the dimpled and giggly Mary Han, who giggled so much that we barely touched. My second, surrounded by hooting, was a dry peck from her brother Yong. I took a bow, winking at Mary, while Yong wiped his mouth with unnecessary exaggeration.
So gross, he said, making gagging noises.
And it’s basically like you’ve kissed your sister, Pete said. He took another sip of baijiu from the bottle, shaking his head at the taste.
We’ve all shared that anyway, Haohao said. He was lying flat on his back on the wooden floor, and when his words came out slurred, it only made us laugh harder.
Later that night, when the party was winding down, I went up to the house. Mary had gone to the bathroom a few minutes before, and I must have hoped to catch her on the way back. The baijiu had made me optimistic, and it was the sort of evening where the warm air and lingering light made anything feel possible.
Some of our parents were still chatting in the large dining room, where the bi-fold doors that Mrs Li had proudly displayed earlier were left open on to the garden. My dad sighed as I walked past them, mid-conversation. Our Eddie, for example, he was saying. He just doesn’t have any ambition.
I didn’t stop to defend myself. Upstairs, it was the pale, plush carpet underneath my feet that made me pause. I had a strong urge to lie down on it. I wanted to move my limbs across the floor, leaving an imprint of myself the way I’d done only once before, on a still morning years ago, when the park opposite the flats had been covered in a soft blanket of fresh snow.
The impulse passed when I heard raised voices coming from one of the bedrooms. …you weren’t here. OK? You weren’t here.
It was Owen Li. I would have ignored it, but the familiarity of his words sent goosebumps down my arms. And then there was another voice, Mary’s. That’s all you need to do?
Just as I stepped towards the half-open door, Lao Li came out of the room. He didn’t acknowledge me. His face was expressionless. I had never seen anybody sleepwalk, but I imagined it would look like Lao Li then, walking slowly towards the stairs. As he passed, I saw a bad scratch on the back of his hand, fresh and bloody.
In the bedroom, Mary was sitting on a chair, Owen Li standing next to her. They both jumped when they saw me.
What’s going on? I said. They ignored me.
Quick, just do it, Mary said.
She was clutching her cardigan to herself with both hands, because something – something I couldn’t quite interpret – had happened with her shirt underneath. Owen Li was rubbing his eyes with his hand, and Mary was twitchy, one knee jumping up and down, and they both looked like they were about to fold in on themselves.
What are you doing? I said, foolishly, because of course I knew enough from the way Mary was sitting, and from the scratch I had seen on Lao Li. I knew there was something in the room with us, something huge and horrifying, hiding just out of sight, and that it would change everything for the worse. All I wanted was for somebody to say that it wouldn’t. That we would be alright.
Mary shook her head.
Owen, come on, she said.
Owen Li put his hands up to Mary’s face, and then, gently, tapped her temple with one index finger. His hands were shaking, but his voice was steady.
You came upstairs, he said to Mary. You went to the bathroom. You didn’t see anyone. Nobody did anything to you.
I didn’t want to hear any more. I turned and rushed back downstairs, through the dining room, avoiding the adults who called out to me, afraid to look up and see Lao Li in the room. Back in the garden, I felt an intense nausea and bent over the flowerbeds, retching.
You alright, Ed? I hadn’t seen Yong approach, but he was there in front of me, peering at me curiously. I took a breath, but I couldn’t speak.
Oh Ed, you’re such a lightweight! Mary, appearing suddenly too, with Owen Li at her shoulder, seemed perfectly cheerful, perfectly normal.
The three of them stared down at me. I looked at Owen, only Owen, daring him to say or do anything at all, but he didn’t. This time, there was no need for him to tell me to keep the secret.
I didn’t see Owen Li or any of the others for a long time after that. We moved away too, to Birmingham for my dad’s work. I stayed there for university, went to more parties than lectures. I lived just far enough from my parents that they couldn’t drop by unannounced, but didn’t worry about me either.
On one of my visits home, I heard that Owen Li was at Cambridge. My dad reported that Lao Li, smug as ever, had emailed through some photos of him in his college rowing club. My mum told him to show me, and I caught a glimpse of Owen’s skinny, slouching form, but couldn’t tell whether or not he was smiling, before she snatched the laptop away to search for something else.
What an impressive boy, rowing at Cambridge. Zhen guai! Owen also had a pretty, polite girlfriend, who was doing Chinese Studies, and my parents lamented that I would never be able to find someone like that, would I?
It made me feel sick, physically nauseous, to think of my dad still in contact with Lao Li, but every time I thought about saying anything to anybody, I felt worse. I started having dreams. Nothing much happened, but they were full of weird sensations, like I was floating into the sky with no way of stopping, or gliding along the road like a ghoul, inches from the ground, but unable to step down. Some nights I woke myself up speaking, without knowing what I’d said. That frightened me. I dated some girls, but I was afraid to stay the night, and things never got serious.
I couldn’t explain myself. Where would I have begun? I tried writing something down, but the words stuttered and sentences wouldn’t come. Once, I had this friend. Once, at a party. Once, I punched a boy.
Not long after I graduated, Pete got engaged to his high school girlfriend. They were getting married back near their parents; the wedding invitation came to mine, and I was surprised to be included. I hadn’t been in touch with anyone from school. My parents told me that Haohao’s family would be there too, along with some of the others who had all used to play cards together, but I gathered that Yong’s family had moved abroad, and they didn’t mention Owen Li.
If I seemed relieved, my parents didn’t notice. They sighed and worried about how I’d appear to their friends, still living in my damp student house with friends, still doing shifts at the nearby Starbucks. They insisted that I attend anyway.
On the drive to the wedding, my mum continued to fuss. Look at Pete, getting married! When will you find someone to marry, Eddie?
They’re too young, my dad said. I bet they’ll get divorced.
I found Haohao before the ceremony, and we fell into easy, meaningless conversation about our school days. It all felt so long ago, but then watching Pete say his vows, I could only think of him as a teenager, all belligerence and nervous energy. We used to play Five Finger Fillet with a compass in Maths. One day, he’d accidentally stabbed the point of the compass into the soft flesh between his thumb and finger, and the school had banned students’ compasses for a while, lending out their own safely blunted ones.
It was after the wedding breakfast, when we were gathering to watch the couple’s first dance, that I overheard my mum and Haohao’s whispering.
No, I heard he moved to Germany.
I’m sure it was the US. Lao Li always talked about the US.
Well, either way, it’s not a surprise. All those other women.
But did she even know? We only know because our husbands told us about him. I’m sure she did, how could she not know?
I feel sorry for the child, anyway.
They were talking about Owen Li, I thought, with a jolt not unlike the feeling of waking abruptly from one of my dreams. All of a sudden, it was too hot in the room. I slipped outside for some air, and then I found myself walking away.
I hadn’t decided where to go. On the shuttered high street, I wished I was back in the city, where late-night sirens and drunken, shouting crowds were more comforting than this silence. Crossing a dimly lit supermarket car park, I missed the glow of the Selfridges building, lighting my way when I cut through the centre of Birmingham after a night out, and I was thinking about messaging a girl I’d been out with recently as I wandered down empty residential streets, all the way to a familiar park. On the far side, a five-storey block of flats was silhouetted against the sky.
It wasn’t quite dark, and as I approached, I could tell that the place had been done up. The brightly painted balconies and new windows and doors didn’t look right. I couldn’t be certain which had been ours, but it was easier to identify the corner flat on the ground floor where I’d spent so much time, its patio now covered in plastic toys, a mess that Mrs Li would never have allowed.
I made for an old pine tree by the road, and then saw, with the strangest lack of surprise, that somebody else was already there.
We had climbed the tree all the time when we were kids, whooping as we leapt from a low branch on to the ground. The tree looked much smaller now, and the person standing next to it was taller and broader than I remembered. It made no sense that he was here, and yet, it was as if he was waiting for me.
Owen Li didn’t look surprised to see me, either.
We stood side by side, neither of us really making eye contact. A light drizzle began to fall, soft beads of rain settling in my hair and on my suit.
Would you rather, I said, finally, have a friend who tells you everything, even things you don’t want to know, or a friend who never tells you anything at all? I don’t know, he said. He sounded tired. Would you rather be able to fix things that went wrong, or never know about things going wrong in the first place? Who else have you done it to? I said, more roughly than I’d intended.
Don’t, Eddie.
And me? How come – why didn’t you make me forget stuff too? My hands in my pockets were clenched. I had so many questions, but I didn’t even know if I wanted to hear the answers. I wanted to ask how many times he’d covered for someone. How many times he’d covered for his dad.
Owen looked up at me, and his eyes were wet.
You wouldn’t know if I had, he said.
I swore, and moved to step past him, but with a sudden, jerking movement, he caught hold of my arm.
I just, he said.
I struggled, tried to get free. Then, out of nowhere, Owen Li pressed his lips to mine. His skin was scratchy and his hands were hot and it was over in half a second. Sorry, he said, still so close to me that I felt the puff of his breath on my nose. With it came an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, and a new question crossed my mind. Had we done this before?
It was another question I couldn’t bear to ask. I swallowed. This was ridiculous, all of it. The impossible things that Owen could do. The unbearable way that I knew him but still didn’t know him at all. I couldn’t understand why he was messing about with me, and if what I suspected was true, I ought to be furious.
And yet, I thought about reaching out a hand, and it was almost possible, almost. But Owen Li backed away. I recognised the miserable droop of his mouth and the slouch of his narrow shoulders. I saw his hands twitch when he raised them to my shoulders. He hesitated.
Go on then, I said, and braced myself as if I was expecting a punch. I expected it to hurt, whatever it was. I even held my breath and closed my eyes.
But nothing happened. The next thing I knew, Owen Li was gone.
I stood there for a little while, until I realised that the rain had begun to fall harder, and I was growing cold.
It might be pointless to write all of this down. I didn’t want to believe it, but I have been half-conscious of the truth all this time: If there was anything Owen Li already made me forget, either that night or earlier in our lives, then it’s gone. I can’t get it back.
But he could still come and find me whenever he wanted. There is still the possibility that I might lose something else. So when I finally got the words down, after the wedding, I made sure to keep them safe. Every now and then I dig out what I have written and read it again. I need to make sure I still remember all of it. If I ever see him again, I’ll have to add it – whatever I remember.
I visited my parents again recently, and heard from them that Owen Li was getting married too. It wasn’t the university girlfriend, but a woman he’d met more recently. I wish I could say that I was pleased for him, but instead I wondered how much she knew, and whether he’d ever needed to do his trick in front of her. Or to her.
I only shrugged, though, when my parents told me. For once, I had news of my own. I was about to move to London for a copywriting job, my first offer of something permanent, and I was braced for their concern. I expected the usual questions about whether it would make a lucrative career, whether I had found somewhere decent to live, but they surprised me by showing a rare moment of pride, my dad slapping his hand on my back and my mum immediately messaging her siblings. They reminisced over their move to the UK as idealistic Beida graduates, back in the 80s. They even pulled out an old photo album that my dad had been given by one of his cousins the previous summer. They showed me great-aunts and uncles I’d never met, grainy faces staring solemnly at us in black and white.
When my dad asked what my friends were doing these days, it seemed to bring my mum back to herself.
Owen Li is a lawyer now, you know, she sighed. Such a good boy.
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