by Tony Parsons
‘It will work.’
And he believed it now. They had travelled across the world to find each other. He couldn’t believe that it was just a coincidence. It was meant to be. Born wrong stomach – find right door. If only he could have kept his side of the bargain. If only he could have done his job. Then everything would have been perfect.
The three of them climbed the stairs. The house finally felt like a home. It had taken so long, but at last they had found their place. And now it will all have to go, thought Paulo bitterly, feeling like a failure for the first time in his life. He remembered when he was a child, and had just lost his first fight in the school playground, and that crushing sense of shame that comes when you have been on the wrong end of a beating. Michael had attempted to restore some of his brother’s pride by ambushing Paulo’s tormentor at the bus stop. But now they were grown-ups and there was no one to heal his battered pride. Now he was on his own.
Little Wei began whimpering when they were in the darkness of the bedroom. Jessica made soothing noises as she rubbed gel on the baby’s gums where the new teeth were pushing through, and Paulo quietly left the room because he knew that his wife would stay with their daughter until she was sleeping.
When Jessica finally came back to the living room, he was waiting for her. He wanted to get it over with. The terrible news that he had let their little family down.
‘Jess, we may have to tighten our belts.’
She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘The business is not good. Michael – well, it’s all gone wrong while I’ve been away. It looks like the business is over.’
‘What about the house?’ A moment of fear in her eyes. ‘Can we keep the house?’
With the baby, the large house and its huge garden had just started to make sense. But with the business gone, the mortgage payments suddenly seemed astronomical, a mountain to climb every month.
Paulo hung his head. ‘The house is going to have to go, Jess.’
Jessica nodded, letting it sink in. But she didn’t look afraid any more. Paulo was the one who was scared.
‘The mortgage – I just don’t think we can do it every month. Not on what I’m going to be earning.’
‘I understand. What are you going to do?’
He shrugged, the sour taste of humiliation in his mouth, as if he were undecided. But he knew what he would have to do. He would have to go all the way back to the start.
‘All I know is cars. If I can’t sell them, then I’ll drive one.’
She reached out and touched him.
‘It’s okay. Really. You mean a black cab?’
‘Yes. A black cab again.’
‘What’s wrong with that? London black cabs are the best taxis in the world. You told me that the day I met you. Remember that? You were driving one.’
Paulo smiled.
‘I remember everything.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, her voice full of feeling. For so long he had been the strong one – encouraging her, urging her never to give up, to keep fighting. And now it was Jessica’s turn. ‘We’ll get a smaller place. Move back to the city. Be closer to our families.’
‘But the baby would love the garden.’
His voice was calm, yet there was dread in his eyes, real despair in his words. The fear of being poor again, of doing a job he hated, and coming home from work so tired that he fell asleep in front of the television set. Then getting up the next day and doing it all over again. The fear of turning into his father.
‘She can play in the park,’ Jessica said.
‘But Jessie – you love the house.’
‘And I’ll love the new one too.’
He looked at his wife and felt like he might come apart tonight. He heard his father’s voice from long ago – you boys will never get rich working for someone else. The thing he wanted most in this world was to be a good provider for his family. He had been proud of making so much money in recent years. He had thought that’s what made him a man. And now it was all over. Now he was going to have to find other ways to be a man.
‘I’ve let you down, Jessie. You and the baby. What kind of man am I? You deserve better than me.’
She smiled. ‘You could never let us down,’ she said, taking his face in her hands, and he saw the thread of steel in her.
From the moment he first saw her, he had wanted to protect her, to take care of her. But perhaps all along she had been taking care of him.
‘You think I love you because you’re a good earner? Because we had a big house? I love you because you’re kind, and you’ve stuck by me, and because you’re not bad-looking, in a certain light. You’ve always been there, Paulo. All those years wanting a baby. All the tests and the disappointments. You never gave up on me, did you?’
He turned his face away from her, ashamed of the tears in his eyes. He had so much to be ashamed of tonight. But she held his face, and she wouldn’t let him go.
‘Why would I do a thing like that?’ he said, his voice choking.
She came into his arms and he again felt the curve of her body beneath the silk of the cheongsam.
‘You could maybe keep the dress on for a while,’ he said, all the hurt and humiliation of the night giving way to something stronger. They looked at each other. ‘If you’re not too tired.’
‘I’m not tired at all,’ she said, getting that sly, sleepy look in her eyes.
It was good to make love again just as they had all those years ago, with their blood up and the lights on and their clothes all over the place, relaxed and excited all at once, and not worrying a damn about the future of the human race.
Twenty-six
Kirk paced the floor of their bedroom, watching Megan pack her bags.
‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave me. Please don’t take my daughter away from me.’
Now she had seen the ending, Megan felt strangely calm. She looked at Poppy’s collection of swimsuits. She wouldn’t need all those in London. One would do. She threw a frilly pink number in the case, and left the rest.
‘You knew what I was like,’ he said, his mood suddenly turning. ‘Look how we met. Hardly a long courtship, was it? What do you expect from a guy you fuck on the first date?’
And then there were all her clothes. Her wardrobe had taken a decidedly tropical turn over the last few months. She wouldn’t need all these T-shirts and shorts. Not in London.
‘You can’t support yourself and our baby,’ he said. ‘On the peanuts the NHS pays you? Even the poor cows drawing benefits on the Sunny View Estate will look down on you.’
We’ll survive, she thought. I’m qualified and I’ve got my family and we will survive. Although I’m not quite sure how. It was all going to be different, living on her own.
But she didn’t feel the need to explain any of this to Kirk. There was an aching sadness in leaving, but this was a good thing. She didn’t feel the need to explain anything any more.
‘You would give up this life for that clapped-out city you come from?’ he said, shouting now. ‘You would give up the sunshine and beaches for those miserable streets and the rain and the bloody tube trains?’
There was so much that she could leave behind. Once she had accepted that she no longer had to carry all this surplus luggage, the sensation was actually quite liberating. All these summer clothes. All these swimsuits. And this man.
‘We haven’t had sex for months,’ he said, pleading again. ‘You and me, Megan – a couple whose entire relationship was built on what we did in the sack. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – but I missed that human contact. You can understand that, can’t you? Some people can live without it. And some people can’t. She was Swedish, in her twenties, and wagging her little tail at me. What was I meant to do?’
Megan closed her suitcase. She didn’t need all this stuff. They could travel light. It was the best way. She turned to face him, trying to explain it.
‘I just think we should have loved each other,’ she said.
‘You’re basically a good guy, and you’ve been a good friend – despite your Swede. But that was what was wrong, and it was wrong all along. If two people are going to have a child together, then they should love each other.’
Then Megan went downstairs and took her daughter from the nanny.
‘Everything all right?’ said Jack Jewell.
What could Cat tell her dad? Could she reveal that the only knickers she could now squeeze into resembled a circus tent? Or that she was so constipated she felt that she had a plug up her bottom? Or that she had a few concerns about vaginal tears? You can’t tell your father all that stuff.
‘Everything’s fine,’ she said.
‘Really? You look tired.’
‘The baby takes a salsa class every time I nod off.’ She smiled. ‘But I’m fine. The baby’s fine. So everything’s great.’
Jack staggered into the flat, loaded down with bags containing new baby clothes. They opened them up on the coffee table, laughing at all these strangely mature numbers like a little denim jacket embossed with hippy flowers, and tiny white Nike trainers, and doll-size camouflage combat trousers, and Cat felt her heart fill up because the moment seemed as though it needed more people. Cat and her father didn’t feel like enough people to enjoy the baby clothes.
‘Are you okay, darling?’ Jack said, his handsome old face creased with anxiety.
She nodded, accepting his handkerchief. Was her father the last man in the world to carry a handkerchief? Look at him, she thought, smiling at his blazer and tie, loving him for the formality of the clothes he put on for a casual visit to her flat.
‘You look very smart, Dad. As always.’
He ran the tips of his fingers down a few inches of silk tie.
‘Hannah’s been trying to get me to loosen up a little. Dress more – well, like this.’ He indicated the funky baby clothes before them. ‘Maybe the baby can give me a few style tips.’
‘I like the way you look,’ Cat said. ‘The only Englishman who would never own a baseball cap.’
Jack winced theatrically. ‘Can’t stand the bloody things. Make me look like Eminem’s grandfather.’
Cat laughed. It had always amused his daughters that Jack Jewell dressed like Edward VIII, and yet could always come up with the appropriate cultural reference.
‘How is Hannah? Still seeing her, are you?’
He seemed embarrassed. ‘Oh, yes. Still seeing her.’
‘I like Hannah.’ Cat kept her tone neutral. ‘She’s nice.’
‘Yes – well. I like her myself. Like her quite a lot. She’s a very special girl. Woman, I mean.’
Cat watched her father carefully, as the penny slowly dropped.
‘Well, that’s great, Dad.’
He nodded. It was almost as if he was working up the nerve to ask Cat for her consent. Would he do the same with Megan and Jessica? Or was it only her?
‘I wonder how you would feel if we, you know, got hitched?’
Cat didn’t know what to say. Ever since the break-up of his marriage, there had always been women in her father’s life. Lots of them. She knew that. But over the last twenty-five years she had grown used to the idea that he would never marry again.
‘If you think it will make you happy, Dad,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘You didn’t land us with a stepmother when we were growing up, and we were always grateful for that. But we’re off your hands now. You deserve to be happy.’
‘Hannah makes me happy.’
‘But – no, it’s none of my business.’
‘What is it?’
She leaned towards him, and she felt the baby stir inside.
‘Aren’t you afraid that it could end again? Doesn’t that frighten you? Your first wife left you, didn’t she? What if the new one does the same?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s the chance you have to take, isn’t it? That’s the chance you take every time. If we were always afraid of being hurt and humiliated, we would never love anyone.’
Cat smiled, folding up the clothes her baby would wear. He will look like a little man, she thought. Like a little man before he can even walk.
‘You’re braver than me,’ she told her father.
Jack Jewell looked shocked.
‘Nobody’s braver than you, Cat.’
She laughed, shaking her head.
‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘I remember coming back from a shoot when you were about twelve. A year or so after your mother left. Jessica and Megan were in the street. Some boys had been bullying them. Making fun of Jessie.’
‘I remember that,’ Cat said. ‘Jessica was wearing a tutu. Wearing all her ballerina clothes, and crying. She thought the other kids would be impressed by her tutu.’
‘You came storming out of the house in an apron and yellow gloves, and you chased those lads from one end of the street to the other. I thought you were the bravest person I’d ever seen. And not just because of that. Every day when the three of you were growing up.’
‘That’s not bravery, that’s just getting on with it. And I liked taking care of my sisters.’ How honest could she be with him? ‘It made me feel stronger.’
He watched her folding the baby clothes he had bought for her unborn child.
‘I’m sorry it wasn’t easier. I wish it had been more settled. I wish I’d chosen someone who would have stayed.’
She laughed, trying to raise his spirits. She didn’t want him to keep living with all that old sadness.
‘But if you had married someone else, then I wouldn’t exist, would I? Neither would Megan or Jessica.’
‘No, you wouldn’t exist if I’d married someone else.’ He smiled, getting up to go. ‘And that would be terrible.’
When they opened the front door they saw the brand-new pram parked in the hall.
It was a 3-series Mamas and Papas stroller, a metallic-blue three-wheeler. Cat thought it looked like something that Paulo might sell. Sleek and low slung, with the promise of speed. Cat pretended that she had been expecting the delivery.
Then she kissed her father goodbye and wheeled the pushchair into the flat, parking it at the end of her bed where she could watch it gleaming in the darkness as she lay awake all night stroking her stomach, and waiting for her baby.
Paulo had forgotten what it was like to live in a flat.
The bass of someone else’s music. The smell of somebody else’s meals. Footsteps on the ceiling. Laughter from under your feet. All these other lives seeping through the wall. The neighbours above liked Coldplay and lamb curry. Paulo had come to loathe Coldplay and lamb curry.
Jessica was bathing Little Wei, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, building a mountain of bubbles for the child to play in. Little Wei waddled from one end of the bath to the other, her toddler’s potbelly sticking out before her, carefully arranging her collection of plastic ducks and frogs and Teletubbies on the edge of the bath.
Paulo smiled for the pair of them, although he wasn’t smiling inside, and kissed them goodbye. Night was coming and it was time for him to go to work.
The door of their home felt like cardboard. Such a flimsy protection against all the rubbish in the world outside. He double locked it behind him and came down the staircase hearing the sounds and smells of all those other lives that seemed to overlap with the life of his family. At the foot of the stairs was a discarded gas oven sprouting some kind of green fungus and a mountain of mail addressed to the tenants of long ago.
We have to get out of here, he told himself as he unlocked his black cab. I have to get us out.
Not because I am a big-shot businessman who should be working for himself. Not because I am too good for this place and these people with their Coldplay and their lamb curry.
But because I am a father, Paulo thought. Because I’ve got a family.
He liked working at night. He liked it that there was less traffic on the roads, and you could drive, and keep going, and not be stuck in the fumes and the clogged city.
&n
bsp; Paulo started the evening down in the City, cruising Cheapside and Moorgate for fares, picking up all the financial types heading for the stations or the suburbs, then he moved across to the West End, which kept going until the middle of the night, when there would be a dead period of a couple of hours before dawn when the first overnight flights started landing at Heathrow from Hong Kong and Barbados.
In that time when the night had stopped but the new day had yet to begin, Paulo would head for the cab drivers’ refuge that was hidden under the Westway, a place as exclusive in its own way as any gentlemen’s club in St James’s. There was a car wash, a garage and a 24-hour canteen that wouldn’t let you through the door without a black cab driver’s badge.
Under the Westway, Paulo would clean out the back of his cab. Vomit. Beer cans. The odd high-heeled shoe. Condoms, both used and unwrapped. Brown scraps of kebab and pearly puddles of semen. Mobile phones, umbrellas and – once – a Mr Love Muscle vibrator. He never talked to Jessica about what was left in the back of his cab.
When the taxi was clean, Paulo would have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea with the other drivers, smiling when they called him ‘butter boy’ – meaning a new cabbie who was taking the bread and butter from more experienced drivers – and he would listen to their banter.
‘So I picks this working tart up on Park Lane and when I gets to her place she’s sitting there with her legs open and she says to me, Can you take it out of that? And I says, Haven’t you got anything smaller?’
There were times when Paulo thought it was a great life, and that it would always be enough for him. When his stomach was full of steaming sweet tea and bacon sandwiches smeared with HP sauce, and his cab was newly cleaned and the laughter of the other drivers was ringing in his ears, Paulo would get in his taxi and feel like the city belonged to him.
London was beautiful. He saw that now.
To see the moon on the great parks, or the sun rising over the docks, or the early-morning mist on the river, and to witness all these things when there was no one else around to see them, to have it all spread out before you while you were driving alone through the empty city, was to feel completely alive.