by Tony Parsons
Little Wei screamed when she was strapped to Jessica’s lap for take-off. She howled with outrage when she was prevented from staggering into the cockpit. Three months on from that first meeting, her walking was becoming proficient, and she liked to try it out at every opportunity.
And although Paulo rocked her and held her and told her that everything was going to be all right, she sobbed her heart out during those endless hours above the black mountains of Mongolia where time ran backwards and the day seemed to go on for ever.
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered a fat businessman who had had one glass of complimentary claret too many.
Paulo, still holding Little Wei, turned on him, his face white with fury.
‘Babies are allowed to cry, you know. Babies are allowed to cry. I’m sorry if she’s disturbing you, I really am, but babies are allowed to cry. And if you have got anything to say about my daughter – then you say it to me. You don’t talk about her under your breath. You say it to my face or you don’t say it at all. Understand?’
The frightened executive retreated behind his John Grisham. Paulo turned away, shaking with emotion as he rocked Little Wei.
Jessica had never seen him so angry. Her husband was a gentle, quiet man – that was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him.
But when the fat executive in business class complained about Little Wei’s crying, Paulo had found a ferocity inside him that she had never seen before.
And the funny thing, Jessica thought, is that it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
Twenty-five
It was hurricane country.
They were born somewhere to the east of Barbados, and though they could come at any time from June to November, they usually passed by far to the north of the island. But not always.
Megan parked her Vitara on a hill above Holetown. She had just picked up Poppy from the Plantation Club Nursery, and the child was now happily playing in her car seat with a purple dinosaur called Barney. Megan looked from her daughter to the skies out to sea, and watched them turning black.
The clouds rolled and churned towards land, and already the rain lashed against her window, and the winds whipped and howled through the bending palms.
‘I don’t know what to do, Poppy,’ she said under her breath. ‘I don’t know if we should try to get home.’
The streets were already emptying. The Bajans were gathering their children, putting up their storm windows and taking cover. An old woman with a small child under one arm and a baby goat under the other tapped on Megan’s window.
‘You want to stay with us, miss? You and the little girl? Until it passes? This one looks like it’s coming our way.’
‘Thanks, but I think I’m going to try to get home.’
The woman nodded and turned away.
Megan stuck the car in drive, and slowly made her way down to St James, afraid she would skid on the torn palm leaves and sugar cane scattered across the road. The wind in the trees took on a shrieking pitch, and for the first time she was frightened, realising there wasn’t much time to make it back to Bridgetown.
She glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw Poppy chatting to her dinosaur. Maybe if she was alone she would have pushed for home, but not with the baby in the back. Megan decided they would take refuge in one of the hotels until the hurricane either hit, or missed them and headed on to Martinique and Dominica.
She was nearly at the hotel when she saw the dive boat. It had been caught unawares by the storm, or perhaps had been at one of the further dive sites, and now bobbed uncertainly towards the shore, its red and white flag madly flapping.
Was it his boat? Megan felt her heart shiver.
She parked her car and quickly unstrapped Poppy from her seat. The hotel lobby was almost deserted but there was a young woman Megan knew on the reception desk.
‘Take her for five minutes, will you?’
Megan placed Poppy in her arms, and the child started to complain, but began smiling when the woman began extravagantly admiring the purple dinosaur.
Megan ran and slid over the wet stone floor of the lobby towards the beach. The wooden shutters were already up on the tiny poolside bar. A blue beach umbrella tumbled past her and suddenly took flight. She looked out to sea, filled with panic when she saw that the dive boat had gone.
Moving slowly now, Megan trudged away from the hotel, towards the dive centre, the wind bringing tears to her eyes and the sand stinging her bare legs.
The dive centre looked abandoned. The jet skis and sea kayaks and the bright sails of the windsurfers had all been pulled up the shore, away from the storm. But it wasn’t locked, and there was some kind of movement inside, and that’s where she found him with the Swedish tourist, the same girl she had seen before, in the unlit back of the dive centre among the clutter of empty tanks and wet suits and the tangled rubber tubes of the regulators.
They were finished by then, and back in their T-shirts and shorts, and not even holding each other. But Megan couldn’t kid herself. She knew what this meant. It meant that she was all alone again, all alone with her daughter.
And, Megan thought, there’s nobody more alone than someone who is alone with a baby.
In the showroom window of Baresi Brothers, in full view of the busy north London street, two youths in hooded tops were working on the door of an Alfa Romeo.
Paulo stood on the pavement, dumbfounded, waiting for his brother to appear with a baseball bat in his hands, or at least a mobile phone, and a call to 999. But there was no sign of Michael, and the two hooded youths went about their business uninterrupted.
Paulo hammered on the plate glass. But by now they had the door open, and the sound of the alarm drowned out his protests. By the time he entered the showroom, they were in the car, and the one in the driver’s seat was trying a selection of keys in the ignition.
‘Hey! I’ve called the law, you little bastards!’
They peered at him from under their hoods, malignant creatures from Mordor, and suddenly bailed out of the car. Paulo had been cautiously edging towards them and now he lurched backwards as they charged at him, the one with the jemmy taking a wild, warning swing at his head. Then they fled, and he let them go, happy to see the back of them, and he was all alone in the plundered showroom.
There were only two cars left. The vandalised Alfa Romeo, and an old Maserati. Two Ferraris and a Lamborghini Gallardo were gone. Half their stock was missing. The good, extremely expensive half. It had either been sold or stolen. They were either rich or ruined.
He found his brother in the office. Flat on his back, an empty bottle of grappa still in his hands.
Paulo got down on his knees and shook him.
‘Where’s the stock, Michael?’
‘What? Eh? Paulo?’
‘Tell me you sold it. You sold it, right? Everything we have worked for was in that stock.’
Michael sat up, groaning. ‘We had a bit of a break-in.’
Paulo picked up the bottle and dashed it against the wall.
‘You stupid, stupid bastard, Michael.’
‘Relax. We’re insured, aren’t we?’
‘You think they’ll pay for this? You pissed out of your head, and half of the wide boys in Holloway in our shop window? The insurance boys will think we’re in on it. We’ll be lucky to stay out of prison.’
‘Well,’ Michael said.
‘Well – what?’
‘Three months you’ve been gone. Three months in China. Three months on my own, with one fleeting visit, and that was just to make yourself feel better about being away.’
‘You told me you could handle it. You told me you could look after the business while I was gone.’ He stood up and paced the room, tearing at his hair. ‘Jesus, Michael, what’s going to happen to us? I’ve got a family to support.’
Michael’s eyes were mean, jealous slits.
‘Lucky you.’
They had nothing when they started this business. A black cab d
river and a minicab herbert, trying their luck with a loan from the bank. And now they had nothing again. He had wanted the best for his daughter. That was the plan. A lifetime of the very best. And he had let her down before they had fully unpacked their suitcases.
There was a sound in the showroom and Paulo stepped outside the office. A heavy-set man with close-cropped hair and a thick pink neck was looking at the damaged door on the Alfa Romeo.
‘We’re closed,’ Paulo said, raising his voice above the alarm.
‘Michael Baresi?’
Paulo suddenly knew the man was Ginger’s husband. He thought of his brother drunk and broken on the floor, and his family scattered and gone, and he couldn’t find it in himself to let one more bad thing happen to Michael.
So Paulo took a breath, and then released it with a sigh.
‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said. ‘I’m Mike Baresi.’
Paulo watched the fist coming and would really have liked to get out of the way, but didn’t seem to have the time, and felt it hammer full flush on his mouth, something hard and metallic – a wedding ring? that would be funny, wouldn’t it? – splitting open his bottom lip. The blow spun Paulo around and almost knocked him off his feet. When he turned back to Ginger’s husband, the man was waiting to say something. It was almost a speech.
‘She’s back with me and the kids now. I don’t know what you did to turn her head. But that’s not her. This – all this – is over.’
When the man had gone, Paulo locked the showroom and managed to disconnect the alarm on the Alfa Romeo. He went back into the office, and found Michael quietly crying. Paulo put his arms around his brother, and kissed him lightly on the head.
‘I’ve lost her, Paulo. Lost the love of my life.’
At first Paulo thought his brother was talking about Naoko, the good wife who had left him, or perhaps even Ginger, the bored wife who had fucked his brains out, and was now going back to her husband.
But of course not. The love of his brother’s life? Paulo had her pictures in a drawer somewhere.
It could only be Chloe.
Cat stopped at the window of a charity shop, her eyes drawn to an old-fashioned-looking pram.
It was the kind of thing you saw in black-and-white photographs of uniformed nannies pushing their charges in Berkeley Square between the wars.
Not a stroller or a pushchair, but a real perambulator. A retro product, of course – a modern version of the original, the way they made contemporary versions of the Beetle and the Mini. But Cat thought that was no bad thing.
She went inside and admired the pram. It was reassuringly solid and secure. It was all the things she wanted for her baby, all the things that she felt were missing from her life. But it was huge – it would be like pushing your baby around in a panzer tank. Cat could envisage struggling with the pram firmly wedged in the doorway of Starbucks, the baby howling, everyone staring.
‘Cat?’
Then Rory was by her side, a shy, surprised smile on his face, and at first she thought he must have been following her. But then she saw the two bags he was carrying, stuffed full of frayed white pyjamas. Karate kit.
‘Just dropping these off. Stuff my students have grown out of. Sometimes kids are put off starting a martial art because of the uniform they need. You think of getting this pram?’
‘Just looking.’
She could feel her cheeks burning. Shopping for her unborn child in a charity shop. What had happened to her? She felt like she had been pushed to the side of her own life.
‘Stuff like this – I’m really happy to help. Whatever’s happened between us. Whatever you think of me. I want to help. All you have to do is ask.’ Rory stared dubiously at the giant perambulator. ‘Maybe we could get something new…’
‘I don’t see second-hand stuff as a sign of failure,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve got two younger sisters. They grew up in my old clothes. Didn’t do them any harm.’
‘Of course not,’ he said mildly. ‘So – is everything fine?’
She touched her stomach, and it seemed like the strangest thing in the world, and yet also the most natural. This new life, joined to her, growing from her. Part of her that would live on long after she had gone.
‘The baby’s doing well.’
She saw the relief on his face. Someone who has been a parent, she thought. Someone who has some understanding of the thousand things that can go wrong.
‘The scans have all been fine.’
‘Don’t shut me out of this, Cat.’
He was a good man. She could see that. It was why she had loved him. But it wasn’t enough. Wanting to do the right thing just wasn’t enough. Because what would happen when he left them? Her heart would turn bitter, and there would be one more fucked-up kid in the world whose parents hated each other.
‘And I told you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want someone who can’t go the distance. They talk about women being too old to have babies, but I think there comes a point when a man is too old. Maybe not biologically. But emotionally. Psychologically. They don’t have the puff. Know what I mean?’
She saw the exasperation and resentment flare up in him – it’s my child too, written all over his face – but then it was gone, replaced by something that he was not prepared to give up on.
‘I admit I had some doubts, Cat. I can’t help that. But I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I don’t think anyone should have a child lightly. You want a lifetime guarantee. But nobody can give you that.’
‘Go on, tell me to buy a toaster if I want guarantees.’
‘You know what I realised? Families are messy. Even when they’re good – they’re messy. Even when they’re good. Do you need money?’
‘Can I help anyone?’
It was the old charity shop lady, peering at them through bifocals.
‘I brought in these,’ Rory said.
The old lady peered into the bags. ‘Ooh, they look very with it,’ she said, trying the expression on for size. ‘Very bling-bling.’
‘Actually they’re clothes for karate,’ Rory explained. ‘I’ve had them dry-cleaned, but some of them are a bit worn out, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, kids are happy with anything,’ chuckled the charity shop lady. ‘That’s the thing about kids – they’ll take anything you give them.’
Cat thought the old woman’s smile was sweet as a child’s face on Christmas Day.
‘What happened to your mouth?’ Jessica said, tucking Little Wei under one arm so that she could touch his split lip.
Paulo flinched under her fingers. ‘A jealous husband punched me in the face because his wife has been playing away.’
Jessica stared at him for a moment, and then she laughed. ‘You’re funny. He’s a funny daddy, isn’t he?’
Little Wei gurgled at him. She was carrying her usual three dummies – one in her rosebud mouth, and one each in her tiny fists. They were all luminous yellow, and when she was sleeping in her cot, which was pushed up tight against Jessica’s side of their bed, the dummies would sparkle and gleam in the dark like golden fireflies.
She was a calm, happy child, and her addiction to dummies was the only sign of some nameless insecurity buried deep inside. It would go in time, Jessica believed. They would chase out the fear.
‘I was about to put her to bed.’
‘I can see that. All dressed up, the pair of you. Little Wei in her pyjamas. And you looking like Suzie Wong.’
Jessica was wearing a black Chinese cheongsam with red trim embossed around the high neck and across one shoulder. It was as tight as a surgical glove, with a slit up one side that reached all the way to her hip. She had taken to wearing the dress when putting Little Wei down for the night.
‘Do you think it’s silly?’
He smiled. ‘You look terrific. To be honest, I think maybe she’s a little young to appreciate it. You know. This nod towards her culture.’
It wasn’t just the dress. In the hall there was a scroll of Chinese call
igraphy where there had once been a framed poster of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. Masks from the Beijing opera adorned the kitchen. And on either end of the shelf in Little Wei’s nursery, sandwiching the talking frogs and dancing dinosaurs and effigies of Winnie the Pooh, there were two red Chinese lions, watching over this child who had somehow found herself in a leafy London suburb. And Paulo’s heart ached because he knew it would all have to come down when they moved, all those lovingly placed things would have to be put into cardboard boxes when they moved to some other place because he had failed them.
‘Is it mad?’ Jessica said, touching the high neck of the cheongsam. ‘Maybe it is. But we don’t know anything about her. We don’t know who her mother was. We don’t know when she was born. Today might be her first birthday. Or maybe it was last month.’ Little Wei looked at Jessica, as if she was following the conversation. Jessica absent-mindedly stroked her daughter’s face. ‘We don’t know, Paulo. And the thing is – we are never going to know. Neither is she. But one thing she will always be certain of – she’s not really our child. She’s Chinese. And I want her to be proud of that.’
Little Wei stared up at them with her wide-set brown eyes, and Paulo wondered, how the hell could anyone give her away? How could anyone give any child away? And how could I let her down so badly?
‘You love her as much as any real mother could,’ he said. ‘More than her real mother. That’s what counts.’
‘I just want her to be proud of who she is, proud of her heritage, proud of where she came from. I don’t want her to feel like it’s second best. Because, you see, I know what it’s like to feel second best.’
Paulo touched his wife’s side, and felt her skin beneath the silk of the dress, and he knew that he would never stop wanting her.
‘You’ve never been second best. Not in my eyes. No one else comes even close.’
‘And after that, after we teach her to be proud of where she comes from, all we have to do is love her. Then it should work.’