too warm, or who needed a glass of water or a cuddle.
Holly’s crying came through the monitor as Becca was nodding off in front of BBC World, and she knew immediately that it was her breathing.
It was bad. Very bad. And Holly was frightened.
Becca remained ludicrously cheerful and upbeat as she set up the nebuliser, the breathing machine, and placed the mouthpiece over Holly’s face.
‘Deep…deep…deep,’ Becca said, miming inhalation with one hand as she desperately dialled Bill’s phone with the other. ‘Good, baby. Very good.’
No reply.
The nebuliser took the edge off the asthma attack but it wasn’t enough. Becca had never seen her as bad as this, not since that first awful day. Holly’s breathing was shallow and laboured and it scared the life out of Becca. It scared the life out of both of them. She needed a doctor. She needed a hospital. She needed it now.
No numbers, Becca thought, furious. I have no numbers. She had no idea what number to call for an ambulance. How could she be so stupid? How could she have been so certain that nothing bad would ever happen?
Becca quickly wrapped Holly in her dressing gown and grabbed her coat and her keys and dialled Bill’s number again. And again and again and again. No answer.
Then Becca was out of the flat with Holly in her arms, the child surprisingly heavy, and trying to remain as upbeat as a game show host as they went out to the night in search of a taxi.
She saw one the moment she stepped outside Paradise Mansions, a beat-up red Santana, but it didn’t stop for her and she shouted angrily at its taillights.
Holly began to cry and Becca held her tight and rocked her, while her eyes scanned the empty streets for another taxi. She tried calling Bill and there was still no signal and after that she didn’t try again. After that she knew she was going to have to do it alone.
There was something wrong with his home.
It should have been still and dark and both of them sleeping, with just a nightlight left on in the kitchen. But all the lights were blazing. The television was on and BBC World was playing its theme tune. The door to the master bedroom was flung open.
And they were gone.
Bed empty. Duvet on the floor. Lights on. And Becca and Holly were gone.
He flew through the apartment, throwing open doors, calling their names, and the panic was a physical sickness he could feel in his throat and in his gut.
Calling their names, even though he knew they were not there. Shouting their names over the bloody theme tune to BBC World. He didn’t understand what was happening. It made no sense at all. He wanted them back. He looked at his watch and covered it with his hand. It was so late. He wanted to throw up.
‘Becca!’
He walked to the table and picked up the mouthpiece to his daughter’s respirator.
His phone began to ring.
* * *
This was what she was good at. This was what she could do. She could look after her child. She could do that. And as long as she could do that, the rest of the world could go hang.
Holly was sitting up in bed in a private room at the International Family Hospital and Clinic on Xian Xia Lu being examined by a young doctor with an Indian face and a Liverpool accent.
‘Have you heard of a man called Beethoven?’ Dr Khan asked Holly, his fingers lightly feeling her ribs.
‘No,’ said Holly warily.
‘Beethoven had asthma,’ the doctor smiled.
Becca laughed, the tears springing. Devlin was standing by her side and he placed a hand on her shoulder. She touched his hand, sick with relief. Holly was going to be all right.
‘How about Charles Dickens, Augustus Caesar and John F. Kennedy?’ Dr Khan asked Holly. ‘Have you heard of any of them?’
‘I haven’t heard of nobody,’ Holly said, wide-eyed and looking at her mother for prompting. Becca was smiling at her now. ‘Why are you crying, Mummy?’
‘Because I’m happy, sweetheart. You make me happy. That’s all.’
‘That’s a funny old reason to cry. Grown-ups don’t cry.’
‘Well,’ Dr Khan said. ‘Those people all had asthma.’ He pulled down her top. ‘All the best people have had asthma.’ He turned to Becca and nodded. ‘She’s going to be fine.’
Becca nodded, overcome with gratitude. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’
‘Are you a doctor?’ Holly asked him.
‘I’m what they call a Senior Medical Registrar,’ he said. ‘It’s a fancy name for a doctor.’ He sat on the bed, holding Holly’s hand as he spoke to Becca. ‘She’s had a trigger reaction that could have been caused by almost anything. If she’s not around tobacco smoke, then air pollution is most likely. Shanghai is better than Beijing, but it’s still a Chinese city. We have some of the worst car pollution in the country. Then there are all the factories and power plants in the northern suburbs, up in Baoshan.’
‘Thank goodness they’re starting to control that,’ Devlin said. ‘Ten years ago you often couldn’t see Pudong from Puxi.’
‘Asthma is not a disease that we cure,’ the doctor said. ‘But it’s a condition we can control.’ He stood up. ‘But of course you know that already.’
Becca loved this hospital. Outside its glass doors the Changning District was as grubby and down-at-heel as anywhere in Shanghai, but the International Family Hospital and Clinic looked newer, cleaner and more modern than anything she had ever seen back home.
‘All my boys have been in here at some stage,’ Devlin said, as if reading her thoughts and trying to keep the mood merry. ‘The youngest two were born here. And I think we have had – what? -two broken arms, one undescended testicle and a hyper-active thyroid gland.’ He beamed at Dr Khan but Becca knew the words were meant to reassure her. And they did.
It was reassuring to know that this oasis of Western-trained, English-speaking doctors in their clean blue uniforms was available twenty-four hours a day.
Unlike her husband.
Devlin and Dr Khan were gone by the time Bill arrived. Holly was sleeping. Becca was almost asleep herself. Bill stood sweating and panting in the doorway.
‘What happened? What happened?’ he said, coming into the room. ‘Is she okay?’
Becca stirred in her chair. ‘She woke up struggling to breathe,’ she said, her voice sounding mechanical and drained. She wanted to tell him, she really did, but it all seemed a long time ago, and it was all right now, and she really
