by Tony Parsons
And I believe your wife was pregnant during the writing of the book? That must have helped.
TP: It certainly put me in the thick of things. Because we went through highs and lows of our own. It was all going pretty smoothly up until the end, and our daughter ended up being born six weeks prematurely. It was all fine, but she had to spend the first few weeks of her life in an incubator in an Intensive Care Unit – and that was an education in itself, seeing the babies and parents who pass through an ICU.
So you decided to write The Family Way when you learned that Yuriko was pregnant?
TP: No, it came later. Yuriko was pregnant, and we were both incredibly happy, but the idea for the book came a bit further down the line. We went for a Nuchal Scan after about twelve weeks; that’s the one where they assess the chance of Down’s syndrome. And Yuriko’s obstetrician told us, you’ll be fine, but prepare yourself. They can tell you anything in there. Some people go into a Nuchal Scan and leave learning they are not going to have a baby after all. And although everything was all right, thank God, and our baby was healthy and happy, there was a young woman and man standing outside the place where we went for the Nuchal scan, and they were holding each other and crying. I can see them as clearly now as if they were standing in front of me. They were young – only in their twenties. Both dressed for the office. And completely crushed by whatever they had just learned. I saw that couple and my heart went out to them, because it could have been us, it could have been anyone. I could not stop thinking about them, because seeing them proved to me that this was the great human drama. Longing for a baby, that thin line between incredible joy and the greatest sadness you will ever know, the randomness, the unfairness, that feeling of being held hostage by life—nothing comes close to this experience, the experience of wanting to create a new life, and nothing ever will. For me it is the ultimate subject. And when I saw that couple, I knew I was going to write about it.
When did you stop worrying that you might not pull it off?
TP: I am not sure that I ever did. If I was writing about something I had never experienced, I felt anxious until I had talked to someone who knew—like the women I knew who had been through a miscarriage, or IVF, or abortion – and then I felt anxious because I wanted to get it right, and to treat their memories with respect. But The Family Way taught me that it’s not bad for a writer to feel like he has bitten off more than he can chew. I think it produces good work. I am proud of the book, but I couldn’t have written it without help. A woman at a party came up to me and said, ‘I hear you’re writing a book about pregnancy’ And when I nodded, she said, ‘What you have to understand is that pregnancy is just like flying. The difficult bits are take-off and landing.’ As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I knew it was true. I already knew that the beginning and the end of pregnancy were where things could go wrong, but she summed it up in a more beautiful and accurate way than I ever could. Because she had been there.
And what is the Julia Roberts connection to The Family Way?
TP: She read it when she was pregnant with her twins. Somehow my agent got a copy of the book into Julia’s hands. And every few weeks the word would come from LA – oh, Julia Roberts is really enjoying your book. You try not to get too excited. You tell yourself – okay. Julia Roberts is enjoying my book. With that and two quid I can buy a cappuccino.
But she bought the film rights and asked you to write a screenplay?
TP: She did. It was my first experience of being in proximity to that kind of power. Complete and total power. No Hollywood executive was ever going to give me a job writing a movie. But because Julia Roberts wanted it, it happened. It was like being in the court of Queen Elizabeth I – give this man ten ships. A favoured courtier. And the first draft I did was self-consciously filmic – I was really aware that I was writing for a different medium, and tried to write accordingly. Until Julia Roberts said, ‘Listen, just punch three holes in the book.’ Meaning – just get the book and stick it in a screenplay cover. Which of course you can never really do, but I took her point, because it was a point well made and fantastic advice from a woman who had been making movies for half her life. And then she had her little boy and little girl and she eventually decided not to proceed with the project. Probably the experience of being pregnant was totally different from the experience of motherhood. Maybe she had so much baby stuff going on in her life that she didn’t want to make a movie about it. But that’s the way it goes in Hollywood. There’s limitless disappointment. It’s the only town where you can make a pile of money and still feel like a loser. But it was an adventure and I have nothing but good feelings towards her. I always say that I only have one true fan in America, but that fan is Julia Roberts.
Perhaps she will get pregnant again and take out another option on the book.
TP: The thought had crossed my mind.
Exclusive extract from My Favourite Wife—out now in paperback
Bill’s father came through the arrivals gate at Pudong, his tough old face lighting up at the sight of his granddaughter.
‘Granddad Will,’ Holly said, squirming out of Bill’s arms and running to him.
Picasso, Becca had said the first time she met the old man. That’s exactly what Picasso looked like. Bald, broad-shouldered, eyes that stared straight at you and never looked away. Bill didn’t know about Picasso. He thought his father looked like a bull. Old and strong. A tough old bull.
He had a suitcase in one hand – the only suitcase Bill had ever known him to own, the old man was very monogamous when it came to luggage—and tucked under his free arm was an inappropriately gigantic teddy bear.
‘Dad,’ Bill said, ‘they have trolleys, you know,’ and the old man said, ‘Do I look like I need a trolley?’ and so they nearly had a row before they had even said hello, which would have been some kind of record.
‘Please be nice,’ Becca murmured to Bill as Tiger led them to the car, and the old man listened patiently to one of Holly’s meaningless monologues about a character she called her ‘third-favourite princess’. Bill didn’t remember that kind of patience when he had been growing up. Maybe everything was different with grandchildren.
Becca’s father had been scheduled to be the first one to come out to visit, but a heart murmur and endless tests had kept him confined to London. It felt like more than ill health. For someone who had spent his life on the move with Reuters, Bill thought that Becca’s father seemed very reluctant to stray far from home. But Bill’s old man was hard as nails. He blinked back the effects of a ten-hour flight as if he had just woken from an afternoon nap.
‘So what do you want to do?’ Becca said as they drove to Gubei. The Bund was passing by the window. But the old man didn’t take his eyes from his granddaughter. Bill felt he couldn’t look at her without smiling.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I want to see the Great Wall, of course.’
Bill and Becca looked at each other.
‘That’s Beijing, Dad,’ Bill said. ‘The Great Wall is near Beijing.’
Becca was looking concerned. ‘We could fly up there at the weekend,’ she said to Bill. ‘If you could get off work on Saturday…’
Bill shook his head impatiently. Silly old sod. He probably hadn’t even looked at a guide book. ‘What else, Dad?’
‘How about the Forbidden City? That looks nice.’
‘It’s very nice,’ Bill said. ‘But the Forbidden City is right in the middle of Beijing.’
The old man looked at him. ‘I don’t want to be any trouble. If it’s too difficult
‘Oh, it’s not too difficult at all,’ Becca said happily.
‘Granddad, Granddad,’ Holly said, disappointed that his attention had been diverted. She kicked the back of the seat and Becca told her to please not do that.
‘It’s not too difficult, if that’s what you want to see, Dad,’ Bill said, with the exasperated impatience he knew so well. ‘But it’s like expecting the Tower of London when you’re in Paris.’
He felt his wife’s restraining hand resting lightly on his shoulder and said no more.
They were all up early the next morning. As Holly played with her grandfather, Becca took Bill to one side.
‘Make the most of it,’ she said, and Bill thought that she was thinking about her own father. ‘He’s not going to be around forever.’
‘No,’ Bill said, watching his father down on the carpet, doing one-arm push-ups with his granddaughter on his back. Holly squealed with pleasure. The old man’s thick builder’s hand pressed into the freshly cleaned carpet of the company flat. ‘It just feels like forever.’
Holly lost her balance but righted herself by gripping what was left of her grandfather’s hair. They both laughed. Holly held on tight and the old man changed hands and continued with his one-arm push-ups.
Bill made a move towards them but Becca stopped him. ‘Leave them,’ she said.
‘But it’s dangerous,’ Bill said.
His wife shook her head, and he went to work before anything started.
Becca was making tea and toast when Bill’s father came into the kitchen with Holly in his arms.
‘His Lordship gone off to work?’ he said, settling the child on the floor. She clambered up into her special chair.
Becca smiled and nodded. ‘The pair of you were having such fun, he didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘Bill has an early start,’ he noted, spooning three sugars into his tea.
‘He has to work to get money,’ Holly said, repeating the party line. She took a sip of her juice and half of it failed to go inside her mouth.
‘Early starts and late nights,’ Becca said, mopping the juice off the child’s face with a piece of kitchen towel. Then she sat back in her chair and smiled at the unusual sight of three people sitting down for a meal. ‘This is so nice,’ she laughed.
‘Long days,’ the old man observed as Becca lavished butter on to a slice of toast, cut it into four triangles and placed them on a plate featuring the Little Mermaid.
‘Well, he’s either working late at the office or he’s out with clients,’ she said, placing the plate in front of Holly. ‘So yes—they’re very long days.’
The old man frowned with disapproval. ‘He should slow down a bit. There’s no end to that kind of life.’
Becca felt the need to gently defend her husband. ‘He just wants a good life for us,’ she said, buttering more toast for everyone. ‘That’s all. That’s why we’re here.’ She picked up a tissue and wiped a greasy smear from her daughter’s chin. ‘That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?’
The old man chewed his toast. ‘Suppose so,’ he conceded. ‘I think Bill always thought I was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.’ He looked almost shy. ‘That I shouldn’t have been satisfied with our little house. My little job. My little life.’
Becca placed a hand on his arm. ‘I’m sure he never thought that,’ she said.
‘Oh, he did,’ insisted the old man, warming to his theme. ‘And he still thinks it.’ He looked defiant, a slice of toast poised halfway to his mouth. ‘But that’s the difference between me and His Lordship, Bee. He wants it all. And I only wanted enough.’
‘But it was my idea,’ she said. ‘Coming out here. I pushed him. And he’ll do anything I ask him to do. Because he loves me.’ Now it was her turn to look embarrassed. She felt her face turning red. ‘Because he loves us,’ she amended. ‘And he’ll make it work,’ she said, lightening the tone. ‘He will. He’s like you – a grafter.’
‘Never got his hands dirty in his life,’ the old man said, but with a rueful grin.
And Becca could see the pride that the father felt for the son, although she felt like she was the only person in the world who did.
THE FAMILY WAY
Tony Parsons is the author of Man and Boy, winner of the Book of the Year Prize, and translated into 38 languages. His subsequent novels – One For My Baby, Man and Wife, Stories We Could Tell and My Favourite Wife – were all bestsellers. He lives in London.
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Praise
Praise for Tony Parsons:
‘Heartwarming and highly recommended…His most sensitive book yet’
Heat
‘Funny, serious, tender and honest…Tony Parsons is writing about the genuine dilemmas of modern life’
Sunday Express
‘It has it all – parent/child conflict, professional intrusions on personal space, serious illness, life-threatening accidents – a one sitting read’
Mirror
‘He takes as his specialist subject contemporary emotional issues which almost every other male writer has ignored’
Guardian
‘Memorable and poignant – nobody squeezes more genuine emotion from a scene than Tony Parsons’
Spectator
‘Unashamedly touching…funny and well-written’
Telegraph magazine
‘As ever, [Tony Parsons] is in impressively depth-charging, straight-talking form. A broadsheet mind with a tabloid tongue, he remains one of the few male writers prepared to look beyond his own navel in search of answers’
GQ
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Man and Boy
One For My Baby
Man and Wife
Stories We Could Tell
My Favourite Wife
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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This paperback edition 2006
FIRST EDITION
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © Tony Parsons 2004
‘A Girl Like You’ Words and music by Edwyn Collins © Copyright 1994 Island Music Limited. Universal/Island Music Limited. All rights reserved. International Copyright Secured
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Set in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
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EPub Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-37546-2
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