chapter 7 - amity interruptus

I got so mad at Hamish today. We had planned on going to Foshan for the day, but in the morning he rolled over in bed, saying he was exhausted and wanted a day of doing nothing.

I tried to conceal the dismayed surprise I felt at his sudden change of plans, but know in my heart I was not very good at it. “We are only here for a month and there is so much to see!”

“A month is long enough for us to take a day off now and then. Why do we have to go go go every day?”

“I just said. We are only here for a month and there is so much to see.”

“Well you can go if you like but I am sleeping in and just hanging out today.”He knew damned well I wouldn’t go to Foshan on my own. Hard enough to get anywhere in China as a twosome. No one will sell a lone white girl a bus ticket.

“Why didn’t you say this yesterday? I could have made alternate plans. You are being really selfish.”

“Hello Miss Pot, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Kettle. Everything about this trip has been about you – where you want to go, how you want to get there, what you want to see.”

“I thought you were enjoying it as much as I was.”

“I am enjoying it, but I doubt very much if it’s as much as you are. No one can enjoy this guerrilla travelling as much as you do. Every day another bus trip to another town to wander around for hours, six museums, sixty shops, factories, libraries, ‘just another stop’, you say, ‘I want to check this out’. You are obsessed and I can’t keep up. Today I am choosing what I want for a change.”

I slammed out the door furious. Stomping around the neighbourhood I entertained dark thoughts. Ok, maybe this trip has been engineered by me, but I told him right from the start that he could do whatever he wanted. All he had to do was ask. But everyday he says, “I’m happy to do whatever you want to do.” I’m the one that made the plans, did the research, got the maps, made the notes, checked the details. And he’s never so much as questioned it before now. He never mentioned his feelings before. Why all of a sudden does he say this now? Why not yesterday or a day before? Surely he would have felt this way before this morning.

As I fumed it came to me that this isn’t really the first time he’s done something like this. Not often, but occasionally he will go along just fine and then, without warning, dig his heels in.

When I got back to our room he was watching TV and drinking tea. I sat down and confronted him calmy. “Look, we need to talk.”

He rolled his eyes.

Ignoring him, I went on. “I have no problem with you doing what you want, but why can’t you tell me in advance? I get so upset when plans change suddenly.”

“I don’t always know when that is.”

“But you must have known that you wanted to slow down a bit.”

“Yeah of course, we’ve done nothing but charge ahead since we got here.”

“So why couldn’t you say to me that you were finding the pace tiring and wanted to slow down a bit?”

“Would it have made any difference?”

“It might have. How would you know unless you try?”

“I think you’re being unreasonable. I can do what I like. I’m allowed. I'm a grown man.”

“Of course you are. That’s not the point.”

Or is it?, I wondered. Perhaps it's part of the point. But no, there really is more. “You can communicate your feelings to me. We are both equal in this trip and both equal in our relationship. I will really try to make it work for you but I can’t read your mind.”

“Whatever. Ok. Anything to make the peace.”

Anything to make the peace! Is this what he thinks of our relationship? Is this how we will always have to communicate? Just to keep the other from freaking out? I am not for the first time questoning if our relationship - am I cut out to be with someone else at all?