My Favourite Wife

by Tony Parsons

  ‘They love each other so much,’ Becca said, squeezing Bill’s arm, as though the visit was a great success.

  Bill nodded, watching his father lift his daughter and hold her above his head. His hands, Bill thought. Those builder’s hands. My father’s hands.

  That had been the big thing when Bill was growing up, the summit of his old man’s parental wisdom – the difference between men who worked with their hands and men who worked with their minds.

  ‘The hands wear out before the mind,’ he told Bill endlessly. ‘That’s why your exams are important. So you never have to work with your hands.’

  How poor we were, Bill thought. His adult world had been full of old men that looked like a different species to his father. He had seen them in law firms in the City of London, he had seen them on beaches in the Caribbean, and he saw them in the restaurants of Shanghai.

  Old men with open-neck blue shirts, tanned from sun and ski slopes, their women still somehow youthful. Bill’s mother had been beautiful, but he didn’t remember her ever possessing that frozen youthful quality that you saw among the people with money. And Bill’s father had never looked like the old men in open-neck blue shirts. They had that soft, spoilt look of men who had never done physically demanding work, who had never worked with their hands.

  So Bill had to study hard at school. He had to sail through exams. He had to be a straight-A student – and it was a big thing, a terrible thing, if he ever slipped. All so that one day he would work with his mind and not his hands and enjoy the soft life, the easy life, the good life. The life his father had never known.

  Oh, Dad, Bill thought sadly, watching the old man roll another cigarette. What the fuck would you know about the good life?

  Not that Bill Holden would ever have said fuck in front of his father.

  Rosalita stepped out of BB’s and its air thick with beer and sweat and smoke and she smelled the flowers immediately. The scent of roses, dozens and dozens of them, cloaking the night-time stink of the traffic.

  The band had gone on ahead of her while she had engaged in some playful goodnight arse-slapping with the owner, just a bit of fun, she was good at that sort of thing, and now the musicians stood in front of the van, its back door open and ready, their instruments cased and in their hands as they all grinned back at her.

  And as the band grinned at Rosalita, she slowly looked down at her feet where her size-four spike heels rested on…roses, the start of a trail of roses, a hand-made road of roses that led from the door of the club and away from the band’s van to a stretch limo – an unnecessarily, ridiculously stretched limo – with its back door open, where Shane sat on the nearside, an iced bucket of champagne resting precariously between his beefy legs.

  Without warning a man began to sing loudly in the shadows. Rosalita jumped back in alarm.

  ‘O Sole Mio’ it was, delivered pitch-perfect by a fat young Italian engineer who Shane had discovered singing Elvis ballads at the Funky Fox karaoke bar on Tong Ren Lu. The young engineer sang with a hand on his heart, as if pleading the sincerity of the man who had hired him for an hour.

  The Roxas Boulevard Boys grinned and chortled at the sheer brazen corniness of the scene, and Rosalita laughed too, although there was a hint of flattered delight in her amusement. Shane smiled bashfully, and glanced quickly from the tiny singer to the boys in the band.

  The drummer angrily jabbered something in Tagalog, and Rosalita angrily jabbered something back at him, and for a moment it could have gone either way.

  The choice was hers – get in the van or go with the man.

  And then Rosalita walked on the flowers of romance, as if the decision had never been in any doubt, her high heels clicking on the crushed petals underfoot, and her grin bone-white in the moonlight.

  ‘Let me help you with that,’ Bill said.

  He knelt before his daughter and tightened the silver buckle on her roller skates. Holly held her foot out for him like a princess trying on a glass slipper, lifting her face to the deafening sound of the skating rink. Bill’s father grinned down at her, holding on to the rail for balance, a pair of prehistoric roller skates already strapped to his feet.

  ‘We have lift-off,’ the old man said, and launched himself into the flow of skating Chinese teenagers. Arms flapping, he struggled for his balance, controlled it, and then skated off with surprising poise, waving back at his son and granddaughter.

  Roller skates in China, Bill thought, as the metallic pounding of wheels on wood roared behind him. Who would have thought the city would have a place for such ancient pleasures? But that was Shanghai, where old-fashioned and even extinct entertainments still lurked in hidden corners of the ferociously modern city. ‘Let me do the other one,’ Bill said, and Holly offered him her skateless foot.

  ‘Actually, it’s a bit difficult for a small person like myself,’ she said.

  He smiled at her serious face as she frowned at her foot and then back at the rink, anxious to be out there with her grandfather and all the big children, and Bill felt an overwhelming surge of love.

  Sometimes he felt that Holly was more Becca’s child than his own. He fought the feeling, but he couldn’t help it. When they spent time together alone he always felt as if he was staking his claim on her. She’s my child too.

  ‘There’s our friend,’ Holly said.

  He looked up and saw JinJin Li laughing at the head of a pack of children. She was good on roller skates, her thin arms held out like a tightrope walker, as delicate as wings. Sometimes it seemed as though she had never really got used to the length of her limbs, but not when she was skating. There must have been about a dozen children following her, boys and girls, all around twelve years of age, and they were playing some kind of game where they held on to the person in front of them. JinJin was leading them. She had her hair pulled back. He had never seen her laughing like that before. Incredible, he thought. Not only can she smile, but she can laugh too. Whatever next? You could see her face better when she wore her hair like that, he thought. And that was a good thing.

  Holly waved and JinJin saw them, her eyes widened with surprise, and she swung towards them, breaking away from the child behind her. Bill felt himself lurch backwards on his skates, and quickly righted himself. Suddenly JinJin was there, holding on to the rail and panting for breath. She seemed to shine with life.

  ‘You like skating, Holly,’ JinJin said. A few of the children followed her, their laughter subsiding, suddenly shy in the presence of big-nosed pinkies.

  ‘It’s my first go,’ Holly said.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Bill said, looking up as the old man expertly skated to a halt. Bill tried to place her in his world. ‘Dad, this is JinJin. Our neighbour.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, shaking the old man’s hand. She didn’t seem so awkward this time. ‘You take care of your father. Very good.’

  The old man shot her a wicked grin. ‘Him take care of me? That’ll be the day, love,’ he said.

  ‘And these are my children!’ JinJin said, indicating the boys and girls standing self-consciously behind her, struggling to keep up their good mood.

  ‘You have a lot of children,’ the old man said.

  ‘From when I was a teacher!’ JinJin said. She was hot and happy. Bill had never seen anyone so happy. ‘I bring them here once a month.’ She searched for the correct idiom. ‘We stay in touch.’

  Bill was taken aback. ‘You were a teacher?’

  ‘Number 251 Middle School, Shanghai,’ she said, as if he might want to check up. She ruffled the hair of a large boy standing near her. The boy blushed furiously. The kid had a crush on her, Bill saw. A crush that would probably last a lifetime. But he guessed that they were all in love with her. Why wouldn’t they be? A teacher who looked like that. And who took you roller-skating.

  ‘Well,’ she said, rolling backwards from the barrier. ‘We must press on.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bill said. ‘You press on. Have fun.’

  She nodded poli
tely at the old man as she rolled away. ‘Nice to make your acquaintance, sir,’ she said.

  Nobody in the world ever really spoke English the way she did. It should have been obvious to Bill that she had been an English teacher.

  ‘You too, sweetheart,’ the old man said.

  JinJin smiled at Holly. Not the polite smile in the courtyard but big and wide and unrestrained. It was a toothy sort of smile, just the wrong side of goofy, a little heavy on the overbite, but Bill liked it. And then he realised there was something he needed to ask her.

  ‘Didn’t you like teaching?’ he called, and JinJin Li laughed happily.

  ‘I loved it!’ she said, just before she was gone.

  And Bill was glad that he wasn’t quite dumb enough to ask the obvious question – Then why did you give it up? Because he knew.

  ‘Come on, slow coach, we’ll race you,’ the old man suddenly said, and he took off holding Holly in front of him, wheeling her between his legs, the pair of them laughing wildly over their shoulders at the sight of Bill lumbering behind, his face creased with effort, losing ground all the time, and aware that he could try as hard as he liked but he would never catch up.

  NINE

  ‘Let the healing begin,’ Bill said, clapping his hands.

  The old man lay flat on his back wearing a T-shirt and swimming trunks, lifting his head as the acupuncturist prepared the needles. The table he was lying on took up most of the little room, and Bill pressed himself flat against the wall, smiling at the worried look on his father’s face.

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ the old man said. He winced as the acupuncturist slipped the first needle into his big toe.

  ‘Relax,’ Bill said. ‘The Chinese have believed in this stuff for thousands of years.’ The needles were deftly slipped into his father’s calf, thigh and hand. It seemed as though the acupuncturist hardly punctured the old man’s skin. ‘Mind you,’ Bill said, unable to resist it, ‘they also believe that eating the testicles of a tiger will make you more virile.’

  The old man shot him a doubtful look, and Bill laughed.

  The acupuncture had been Becca’s idea.

  She had seen the aches and pains of Bill’s father, seen how his body had been worn down by a lifetime of manual work. His back, his knees, the joints in his hands – she had seen the grimaces of pain on his face when he was playing with Holly, seen him flinching when he swung her above his head, or bent down to play on the floor, and she knew that he intended to put up with these pains for the rest of his life.

  But Doris the ayi had her rheumatoid arthritis cured by this acupuncturist and so here they were, in a small room in a Chinese medical centre in the old French Concession while Becca and Holly went shopping in the Xiangyang market, and Bill chuckled with amusement as a needle was slipped into the top of his father’s head and, finally, the old man cried out.

  ‘Now that hurts,’ he told the acupuncturist and the doctor nodded with academic interest. They had been assured by Doris that acupuncture was a gloriously relaxing experience, but to Bill it looked about as relaxing as root-canal treatment.

  ‘And could you describe the pain?’ said the acupuncturist in perfect English.

  ‘I’ll try,’ the old man said. ‘It feels like someone just stuck a needle in my head.’ He craned his neck and looked at the needles rising from his body. ‘I hope you’re going to take them all out again.’

  The acupuncturist lifted a hand, asking for patience. ‘Must leave for thirty minutes,’ he said, gently rotating the needles.

  ‘Or I’ll be picking up Radio Two,’ said the old man.

  Bill leaned back against the wall, laughing harder, and then the acupuncturist left the old man with the needles settled in the meridians of his body, and soon Bill could hear him through the thin wall in the next room, speaking Chinese to another patient.

  The old man lay perfectly still, his eyes closed, his breathing steady, and Bill’s smile slowly faded as he contemplated the thin needles in that hard, scarred old body, and made a silent wish that, in a city full of fakes, this might be the real thing.

  They went to see the brides.

  They had not seen the brides since that first Sunday, when they had watched them in the park from the top of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Now they were in the park, among the brides and their grooms, and there were all sorts of brides. Young and old and plump and pretty. Loud and subdued and flat-bellied and pregnant. As different as snowflakes, Bill thought, and he wondered how anyone could ever believe that the Chinese all looked the same.

  Bill and Becca held hands and smiled at the brides and the grooms and each other as the multi-coloured fish food was thrown on the water and bright flashes of orange splashed and shimmered to the surface. The young men in their suits held the arms of their new wives as they lifted the hem of their wedding dresses and fed the carp.

  The old man held his granddaughter in his arms and Bill wondered if the brides made the old man think of his own bride, Bill’s mother, while Holly solemnly contemplated the dozens upon dozens of young women in their white wedding dresses, her eyes wide with awe and wonder, as if every last one of them was a real-life Disney princess, and as if every one of their stories would surely end with a happy ever after.

  That was a good day, Becca thought, as she stepped back to admire her Sunflowers. The muted yellows and burnished gold of the painting made her remember walking through the art market with her husband and daughter, Bill and Becca hand-in-hand with Holly, playing the game they called one-two-three, swinging her up between them on the count of three, as people stared and smiled at the little family.

  Becca knew what they had looked like, that perfect picture, and it made her feel better than anything in the world. The handsome husband. The beautiful wife. And the adorable child, shrieking with pleasure as she swung between them, her thin legs flying. That’s what she wanted, Becca realised, hearing the soft voices of Bill and his father coming from the second bedroom. She wanted them to always be that perfect picture.

  As Doris the ayi made up Bill’s bed on the sofa, Becca slowly turned full circle, and there was a Sunflowers on every wall of the living room. She had a moment of doubt. Did all these fake Van Goghs look ridiculous? Too camp, too ironic – as if they were trying to say, Look at what they do in this crazy place? Isn’t it hilarious, darling?

  No, she decided, they looked lovely. And the Sunflowers, with The Sower in the spare bedroom, and the Starry Night in the master bedroom, made her hold on to the day just gone, as if it was something she could keep.

  There was packaging all over the floor, all the thick protective cardboard and thin wood that the paintings had been packed in. With the help of Doris, Becca gathered it all up and stuffed it into two large green rubbish bags.

  ‘I’ll take this down, ma’am,’ the ayi said, but Becca shook her head.

  ‘No, Doris, they’re not heavy,’ she said. She didn’t want to become one of those expat wives who treated the ayi like a pack mule. ‘You listen out for Holly. But I don’t think she’s going to wake up.’

  With a rubbish bag in each hand, Becca caught the lift down to the basement. A car was pulling out of the underground car park, and for a moment its lights dazzled her, making her shield her eyes. Then the car was gone, and the basement was silent apart from the soft tread of Becca’s footsteps as she walked across to the long line of giant black rubbish bins.

  She threw in the first sack and had just lifted the second when she heard the noise.

  A thin, mewing sound that made her smile.

  I bet it’s that mangy old ginger cat, she thought. The one that Holly is always following around.

  It seemed to be close but she couldn’t see it.

  ‘No milk tonight, puss,’ Becca said aloud, and her voice echoed strangely in the basement.

  She lifted the second sack, and was about to throw it into a bin when she heard the sound again. And she froze.

  She walked slowly along the line of giant bla
ck bins and the sound seemed suddenly closer, and Becca swallowed hard because the mewing was recognisably crying, horribly and undeniably human, and she knew in a terrible second that it wasn’t an animal that was in one of these rubbish bins.

  Then Becca was tearing desperately at the black bins, pulling out sacks and ripping them open, clawing through the trash, her fingernails breaking and blood on her hands from somewhere, one bin turning over banging hard against her hip, and she was almost screaming now, still scrabbling through rubbish in front of the overturned bin, on her hands and knees, the stinking cans and the unwanted food and the broken bottles spilling out, until finally she saw the fragile white living flesh of the baby, an exposed limb that her fingers closed around and refused to let go.

  Then the baby was in her arms and Becca was desperately patting her pockets with her hand and, there it was, thank God, she had brought her phone with her, and the numbers were there, all the numbers you would need if the worst happened: 110 for the police; 119 for the fire brigade. And 120 for an ambulance.

  She speed-dialled 120 and the woman came on the line immediately with a questioning, ‘Wei?’ and Becca was explaining and pleading and slowly spelling out the address of Paradise Mansions, but the woman at the other end of the phone just said, ‘Wei?’ and then there were a few phrases of impatient Mandarin before the woman hung up, and Becca was running for home with the baby in her arms, skidding in the trash, heading back towards the lift, and she wondered why she had been so stupid, why she had believed she could just store the numbers and everything would be fine, why she had ever assumed that when the worst happened she could call the emergency services and the person on the other end of the line would be able to speak English.

  She had forgotten what it felt like to hold a newborn baby, she had forgotten the milky smell, she had forgotten the weight in her arms.

  It is next to nothing, Becca thought. So light that it is hardly there at all.

  Then Bill was stuffing money into the hands of the taxi driver and they were running through the lobby of the International Family Hospital and Clinic on Xian Xia Lu, and there were nurses around them immediately, taking the baby from her arms and then Becca saw the best sight of all, Dr Sarfraz Khan, taking charge, issuing orders, asking Becca questions about the when and where of finding the baby, all the while moving down that over-lit hospital corridor, leaving Becca and Bill behind as he pushed through a door marked ICU.