On our last morning in Hong Kong we awake to grey skies and an email. My brother has been trying to reach me but we are no longer at home and my mobile contract has been terminated. Our mother has been rushed to hospital where she has undergone six hours of surgery for aortic repair and a bypass operation. She has not yet come round and is breathing with the help of a respirator.
Questions crowd my mind: how, why, when? Will she come through this? My brother is calm but tired when I reach him. It is after 1am in England and he has waited up for my call. He has been at her bedside but there is no development.
Thank God we are going home. Via Bali! Do I abandon the family and head for home, scuppering the holiday we so badly need? Or do I assume she is going to come through and save my strength for nursing her when she comes out of hospital? In my heart of hearts I know my mother would hate to be the cause of a disrupted holiday. I also know I will be consumed with guilt if I never see her again.
With all six of us squashed for one last time in one of Hong Kong’s red taxi’s the Pioneering Accountant takes a call. The landlord of the house our London tenants were moving into has reneged on his acceptance of their offer and has accepted a higher bid elsewhere. If they can’t move out then we are back to square one with nowhere to live.
I speak to my brother again on the way to the airport. There is no further news. The hospital is not concerned. My brother agrees there is little point in returning just yet.
We leave Hong Kong in the rain. It’s always easier to leave a place when it’s raining. I have a heavy heart. It has not been a good day.
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