This story is the matching story to 'Faraway', this time told from Lucien's POV. Missouiser had the original idea to tell the other side to the story, so thank you to her for that, and also to her and Bugs for helping me to thrash out what exactly was going on in 1.10 and 2.1. If I've got it wrong, that's my fault, not theirs.
The burn of the whisky was welcome. If it took him a little nearer to oblivion that was welcome too.
Almost every night Lucien sought comfort in the Scotch bottle, and sometimes he hoped the water of life would kill him.
"Mei Lin is dead, Matthew." He broke the long silence between them.
"Who?" Matthew replied. He was tired, and drunk, and Lucien wasn't making sense.
"My wife. Mei Lin. I've wasted seventeen years looking for her, and it turns out she was dead all along."
Matthew opened his eyes. So his wife was dead, and Jean had walked out. He felt a rare moment of pity for Blake.
"How do you know? After all this time…?"
"Private detective. I had just opened the letter when you arrived." He topped up his glass and waved the bottle at Lawson, then slopped some more into the other glass at his nod. Lucien tossed the letter on to the table, and Matthew read it, squinting, and sighed.
They drank again in silence, and Lucien found himself thinking of the early days with Mei Lin: parties, laughter, the feel of her waist under his hands, her long hair tangled in his fingers.
"What about the child?" Matthew asked. "Your daughter."
"Can't think she'd have survived without her mother. Without either of us." He should have been used to the guilt of failing his daughter by now, but it seemed he wasn't. "She'd be twenty one now, a grown woman." He swallowed the last of his whisky with a grimace.
Lawson staggered to his feet. "I'll be going. Better walk, I think, after all that whisky."
Lucien clapped him on the shoulder as they lurched unsteadily to the door.
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Lucien flicked through the autopsy report, strangely unnerved by it. Usually this was the straightforward part: the evidence no one could argue with. But nothing this morning was simple, and everything he had relied on was gone.
Jean had not appeared for breakfast, and he needed her there. He wanted to talk to her about the case, or at least that is what he told himself. He had briefly considered knocking on her bedroom door, but when he had stood on the landing with his hand raised, he had known she was not there.
Her absence today was as strong as her presence usually was, and for the first time he admitted to himself that he needed her, and not just to make his life run more smoothly.
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The weeks in Shanghai had been exhausting, physically and mentally. The heat and humidity were relentless, and although his Chinese was good, it was not faultless, and it was a constant effort to understand the crowds around him.
He had divided his days between seeing something of the city, visiting a few old contacts, and most importantly, getting to know his daughter again.
But now he was a little homesick. For years he had avoided Ballarat, but now he found himself thinking fondly of the familiar house, the spot by Lake Wendouree where he used to go with his father as a boy, and the smell of the blooms in the sunroom. They were home to him, as unexpected as that was.
He took a mouthful of whisky and pulled out his chequebook. If nothing else, he needed to send Jean some money. Swiftly he wrote a cheque for her wages, and another for household expenses, and stuffed them into an envelope, as he had the previous month. He paused, wondering if he should write to her, perhaps apologise for letting her down, and for driving her away, but in the end he again sealed the envelope with no note inside.
He walked slowly through the city, posting the letter on his way. He hesitated as he stood for a moment outside Li's house. More exactly, outside her parents' house, and he had to admit to himself they they were her parents. He could hardly claim to have been any sort of father to her.
The house was small, and in need of some repairs. He had wanted to offer her foster family some money, but he thought they might be offended. But they had brought up his daughter for him, and they had done it well.
Mrs Chen opened the door to him and smiled politely, but without great warmth. This bold Australian was starting to cause them problems. He had been given a good welcome, of course, but the neighbourhood committee members were beginning to ask questions about why he was spending time with their family. Revealing that he was Li's father would only make that worse, and so far they had offered excuses, and assurances that he would be gone soon.
Mrs Chen's initial fears that Li would want to leave, perhaps go to live with her father in Australia, had receded however. She seemed to cling to her foster mother more, the longer Blake stayed in China. The initial delight felt by Lucien and Li on finding each other had shifted now to something more complicated, but more realistic.
"Dr Blake," she greeted him quietly. "Li is in the garden."
She inclined her head towards the small patch of green behind the house, where he found Li tending some cucumber plants. Her hair was tied back tightly today, held out of the way as she worked.
He loved it when she wore her hair long and loose, as Mei Lin used to do. He saw more and more of her mother in her, but Mei Lin had scarcely been mentioned between them, once he had told Li her mother was dead.
"Do you have a garden, Father?" she asked. He raised his eyebrows a little. He had told her about his life in Ballarat, hoping she might be interested in visiting, but until now she had seemed indifferent.
"Yes, I do, though I have to say I don't work in it much. My housekeeper likes gardening, and she keeps it beautifully. She has a whole room full of plants too."
"Jean," Li said.
"Yes," he replied. He had not realised she would remember Jean's name. "She worked for my father too, for many years."
Li nodded. "And Mattie and Danny: they live with you too?"
He smiled with relief. She had been interested in his life, at least a little.
"And Joy? Does she live with you?"
He shook his head firmly. "No, Li. Joy is just a friend." He wondered if that were true.
Li continued weeding between the plants, and eventually Lucien settled on a bench to watch her, loosening his tie.
"I'm surprised you have not found another wife, and had another family." The words were almost an accusation.
"I have spent the years since the war looking for you, and your mother," he said. "Until just a few weeks ago, I hoped Mei Lin would still be found alive. How could I marry again?"
Li lowered her gaze back to the plants, thoughtful.
"But now? You could marry this Joy if you wanted." He smiled ruefully at his daughter's innocence. He was fairly sure Joy had no thoughts of marrying him.
"I don't think so, Li. The war changed me, and I don't think I'll ever marry again." There was a long silence, broken only when Mrs Chen brought them out some tea. She left the tin tray on the bench beside Lucien, but didn't speak.
Li poured the tea and they sat together, sipping it. Not for the first time, Lucien wondered if he should stay in Shanghai. There was useful work he could do here. He understood the language and the culture. So why did he miss Ballarat then? He was torn between his daughter and his life back home.
When the tea was finished, they went into the house, out of the sun. Lucien sat in the cool, dim room in a wicker chair, and watched as his daughter searched for her sewing basket, and began mending what looked like Mr Chen's trousers.
His mind turned to home, and Jean sewing in the evenings, sitting near him.
"When will you go home?" Li asked. He grimaced at the thought that she was reading his mind. "The authorities will soon be asking you this question."
He glanced at her sharply. "Have they been bothering you?"
"The neighbours talk. They know that my parents took me in, that I have a foreign father. Of course they have seen you now. In China, it is not a good thing to be different." She moved her chair to be nearer the window, so she could see to sew better.
"I'm sorry," he said. The apology, for more than just her present difficulties, seemed inadequate to both of them. "I seem to have caused you nothing but trouble."
"I'm glad we met again," Li replied, with more maturity that he would have expected from a woman of just twenty one. "But you do not belong here, and I do not belong in Australia. My parents don't know what to say to you. It is time for you to go home."
The eyes looking back at him were like her mothers': the soft darkness he remembered of Mei Lin's, but also the sense and clarity of Mrs Chen's. He conceded to himself that Li did not need him, and maybe did not even want him.
"You remind me of a bird," she said, with a smile. "You've travelled everywhere, and seen so many things, but you haven't known where you belonged." Li nodded towards a painting in blue inks, hanging on the wall. Next to a simple bird in flight he read the Chinese characters.
"'Land is always in the mind of a flying bird.' Is that right?"
Li nodded. "Your land is back in Ballarat. You should go back to your house, to Jean and Mattie and Danny, and to Joy. They're your land."
He wanted to object, but she was firm. She wanted him to go, so he would.
"Will you write to me?" he asked. "Will you tell me if you need anything? I can send money, or come back if you need me to."
"I'll write," she agreed, but he knew she was dismissing him.
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Lucien could not have imagined that Joy's would be the first familiar face he saw back in Australia. He had hoped to spend the bus journey from Melbourne alone, but when he saw her come and sit across the aisle from him, his heart lifted despite himself.
She chatted happily about her new assignment in Ballarat, managing to make even local politics interesting to him, and he started to remember why he liked her company.
It also gave him the chance to confirm something he had been wondering about.
"Should I be thanking you for finding Li, Joy? The telegram did not come from any of my usual contacts."
Joy smiled enigmatically. "I have a colleague in Shanghai," she replied. "He was interested in your story." She would not tell him any more, and he started to wonder if at some stage she would want to put that story into print: not something either he or Li would want.
As they drove through the outskirts of Ballarat, Lucien found himself hoping Jean would be there. He had sent her a telegram, but in truth he did not even know if she still worked for him. Their argument seemed so distant now, and he had deserved her anger, he knew, but he hoped she would forgive him again.
Li was right, he belonged here in Ballarat, but only because his household were there, his second family perhaps.
And so it was with genuine relief and pleasure that he saw Jean rushing over, chattering excuses and hair all awry. She seemed to have forgotten that they had argued at all, and he felt himself carried along by her haste and enthusiasm.
Turning to say goodbye to Joy, he felt the chill of antagonism from Jean, and idly wondered where that came from. Maybe he would find out in the days ahead.