My Favourite Wife

by Tony Parsons

  ‘There are many people no job,’ JinJin confirmed, rising from the table. Her English seemed to crack under stress. It became a pared down, spartan language, largely pruned of personal pronouns and the archaic idioms that he found so enchanting. He saw that it wasn’t the mass unemployment in her hometown that concerned her. ‘I’m not Manchu,’ she informed Mrs Devlin.

  The two women stared at each other.

  ‘Of course you’re not, dear,’ said Tess. ‘Silly of me to think so.’

  ‘Need rest room now,’ JinJin said, her way barred by the Taiwanese, who was still standing up, dabbing his scalded mouth. JinJin squeezed past him. He twinkled, leered, licked his burning lips. JinJin left without looking at Bill.

  ‘What a lovely girl,’ Tess said. ‘Where on earth did you find her?’

  ‘She’s a neighbour,’ Bill said. ‘Just a neighbour.’

  Hugh Devlin looked disturbed. ‘Places like Changchun – breaks your heart when you think about it.’ He carefully sipped his Jasmine tea. ‘China’s rust belt, Bill, that’s what it is. Reminds us that it’s not just rural peasants that have been left behind, it’s entire cities, entire regions.’ He stared thoughtfully at his tea. ‘Changchun is a city of twenty million people, and they are bloody desperate up there. We have to acknowledge that, and do something about it.’ He rose from the table. ‘Excuse us. I must give them the grand tour before they head to the airport.’

  He took the Taiwanese off to see the view from the top of the teahouse, and Bill was left alone with Tess Devlin. She smiled and sighed into the silence.

  ‘Bill, Bill, Bill,’ she laughed.

  He forced himself to meet her eye. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, do be careful there, Bill.’

  He shook his head and laughed. ‘I told you, she’s a neighbour.’

  ‘Really? I could have sworn you were about to start holding hands. I said to Devlin – good God, Bill’s about to start holding hands with that Chinese girl…what’s her name? You do know her name, Bill? You didn’t introduce us and I didn’t like to ask. We’ve been through all this with Shane, of course. Many times.’

  He took a breath. ‘Her name is JinJin Li.’

  Tess Devlin looked hugely amused. He couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. ‘And do you know how many JinJin Lis there are in the PRC? About, oh, one hundred million of them.’

  ‘Really?’ She was getting on his nerves. ‘Who counted?’

  Tess nodded. A serious woman now. ‘I don’t have to tell you to think about your wife and child, because I know you’ll do that. But think about yourself. I’m very lucky with Hugh, I know – he’s not into the bamboo. Never has been. One of the few good men out here that doesn’t like Asian girls. Don’t know why.’ She nodded, as if it was all a mystery. ‘Some of them are lovely when they’re young.’

  Bill warmed his palms on his teacup. It wasn’t so hot now. He took a gulp. ‘They probably say the same thing about us, Tess -Oh, those big-nose pinkies, they’re lovely when they’re little.’

  ‘No doubt,’ she said briskly. ‘But what I never understand is how a man can get serious about a girl like that. Ask yourself – do you really want to be with a little old Chinese lady? What would you talk about? All I’m trying to do is give you some sound advice.’

  ‘Thanks so much, Tess.’

  ‘For your sake. For Becca’s sake. For the sake of the firm – do be careful there.’

  Bill sighed. ‘I had the lecture when I arrived. How does it go? Hard as nails, these Chinese girls. Gold diggers, the lot of them. They don’t see a man – they see a cash-point machine. But I wonder, Tess – what do we see when we look at them?’

  She laughed and poured him some more tea.

  ‘Oh dear – you sound quite keen,’ she said, and he felt his face burning. He was really going to have to stop doing that. ‘A mistress is a great idea in theory, Bill.’

  ‘She’s not my bloody –’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘I don’t want a mistress, Tess,’ he said, and he truly meant it. The idea sickened him. It didn’t fit with his idea of himself, or what he wanted from his marriage. He loved his wife, he missed his wife, and he didn’t want to be like one of those men who drove their cars into the courtyard of Paradise Mansions. He wanted to be a better man than that. He didn’t want to believe that he was just like everybody else.

  ‘Good,’ said Tess Devlin, as if they had come to some agreement. She lowered her voice a notch. ‘Because you don’t fall for a girl like that, Bill – you just fuck her. That’s what she’s for. And if you really get stuck on her – and I can see how you might, she’s such a hot little Manchu slut – then you set her up in a nice little flat and then make your excuses and look for the exit sign.’ She laughed. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘No, I’m fresh off the banana boat, Tess.’ He found he was fiddling with a yellow baseball cap advertising the LA Lakers. ‘I don’t know a thing.’

  Her husband was coming back with the Taiwanese. It took them a while to negotiate the tight wooden stairs.

  ‘Just don’t get carried away, that’s all I’m saying,’ Tess concluded, lightening the tone. ‘These Chinese girls, Bill – they’re just so practical. They are so practical that, if you let them, they will break your heart.’

  Her husband was grinning with pleasure. ‘Any more of that tea?’ he said.

  Bill stared out at the queue for Nan Xiang’s dumplings and was just in time to see JinJin step off the far side of the zigzag bridge, designed so that no evil spirits could ever get across.

  TWELVE

  Awards, Bill thought. Lawyers love awards.

  Best new this. Most promising that. Most valuable the other. Any excuse to get pissed and pat ourselves on the back.

  He was in a ballroom with hundreds of lawyers in dinner jackets, the dresses of the women splashes of colour in a sea of black tie, sitting at the firm’s table between Nancy Deng and Tess Devlin.

  Most of the firm’s table consisted of identically dressed men. On the other side of Tess Devlin was Shane. Then came Devlin. Then Mad Mitch. And finally the two Germans, Wolfgang and Jurgen, with Rosalita laughing between them.

  Too many men at this table, Bill thought, missing Becca, feeling her absence. He realised that for years these events had been made bearable because, no matter how long they dragged on, he could always look up and see her face, or share a silent private joke.

  But the night crawled by in a blur of bad food, harassed waiters and too much drink, the glasses topped up quickly yet sloppily, a strange combination of the servile and the slapdash. A succession of men in tuxedos, and occasionally a woman in an evening dress, went on stage to collect a glass sculpture of a bird from a willowy Chinese woman with a professional smile that never wavered and a man in a dinner jacket who had something to do with one of the sponsors.

  Then came the last award of the night, Foreign Lawyer of the Year, and when Shane’s name was announced Bill was suddenly on his feet, cheering and clapping louder than anyone. ‘Sit down,’ someone shouted from behind him. A disappointed nominee, Bill thought, sitting down. But he got up again, clapping harder and laughing as Shane weaved his way to the stage with an embarrassed grin.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ the big Australian said, squinting at his award. ‘I shall always treasure this, er, glass pigeon.’ Laughter. ‘You know, the public think that lawyers are a heartless, mercenary bunch,’ he said, only slightly slurring his words. ‘But of course we all know that’s not true.’

  Whoops of knowing, derisive laughter. Shane straightened himself up.

  ‘I am reminded of the beautiful young woman who made an appointment to see a lawyer,’ he continued, with inebriated gravitas. ‘She said, “Please take my case. Unfortunately I have no money. However, I will give you the best blow-job in the world.”’

  More laughter, but now mixed with disapproving catcalls and the odd cry of ‘Shame.’ It was a conservative crowd. Bill looked at them. At the tables of rival firms, heads
were being shaken, smiles fading. Shane had gone too far. These people didn’t want blow-jobs with their after-dinner mints.

  But Shane leaned on the podium, and it wobbled dangerously. ‘The best blow-job in the world,’ he repeated, with an edge of defiance, as if every word were true. He paused for effect, glaring at the crowd. ‘And the lawyer said, “What’s in it for me?”’

  He had won them back. And as they all clapped and cheered, even the rival firms who had feigned offence, it seemed to Bill that this was the very essence of his friend. Teetering on the edge of disaster, and then somehow stumbling to glory.

  Shane came back to the table amid much backslapping and congratulations and Devlin sent the waiter off for champagne.

  Bill looked at his watch. Knocking on for midnight. Back in London, Becca would have picked up Holly from nursery by now. If there was no ballet and no swimming lessons, then they would be home and he would be able to talk to both of them. He pulled his phone from his dinner jacket but saw there was no signal.

  The night was breaking up. As the others got up to network and stretch their limbs, Bill was the only one who remained at the firm’s table, the debris of empty wine bottles and coffee cups before him. A waiter appeared with a bucket bristling with champagne bottles and placed it on the abandoned table. Shane and Devlin looked over at Bill as he headed for the exit.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ he mouthed.

  He didn’t notice the four men at another table who got up and followed him out of the ballroom and into the hotel lobby. He was looking at his phone, waiting for the signal to appear, so he still didn’t see them when he stepped out of the hotel and into the soft summer night. It was only when the signal appeared and he was speed-dialling Becca’s number that he looked up and saw them standing there.

  Four men he didn’t recognise, staring at him as though he should know them.

  ‘Hello?’ Becca said, but Bill didn’t hear her because he was closing his phone, and knowing all at once that he had to get away from these men.

  Because now he knew them. Now he remembered them. Now he could see them out on the dance floor of Suzy Too, laughing like lottery winners, with their hands all over JinJin Li.

  Bill moved to walk past them but one of them threw his cigarette away and stepped in front of him.

  ‘A piece of advice,’ the man said.

  They were like one person, Bill thought. Young but running to fat, with those closed, spiteful faces that he knew so well. His countrymen.

  ‘Don’t try to tell us what we can and can’t do with some Chinese whore,’ the man said, and then he punched Bill full in the face. His friends chortled their approval.

  Bill had seen it coming but he was too shocked to move. He had stood there like an idiot as the blow struck the side of his mouth and the force knocked him backwards and he trod on someone in the queue for taxis and heard a girl scream. He was hit again, felt something hard and unbreakable split his lip – maybe a wedding ring, he thought – and crashed into something big and hard. He held on to it for support and saw it was one of the two Chinese lions protecting the entrance to the hotel. He had scuffed his hands on the lion but it broke his fall and kept him on his feet.

  His fingers went to his mouth and came away wet and red. He felt he could smell the blood, rank and metallic. He half-turned and there were three of them in front of Bill now. Fists clenched, working themselves up, all wanting their crack at him. The lips taut on their mean, stupid faces. Oh, he knew them now. The one that had hit him seemed keen to explain something.

  ‘Where do you think you are? The school disco? She would have been happy to fuck the lot of us for five hundred RMB,’ he said. ‘You ignorant fucking tourist.’

  Tourist was the worst thing you could call someone in Shanghai. Tourist made motherfucker seem like quite the compliment.

  Another punch, but Bill had realised that he should possibly be making some effort to duck and this one skimmed off his forehead. Then someone he didn’t see kicked him in the ribs and the wind went whoosh out of him and he was down on all fours, gasping with shock and fear, because the pain in his side was unbelievable. He wondered where this would end, and if they were going to kill him.

  Then from somewhere far away he heard Shane’s voice. Calling his name, calling them bastards, telling them to leave him alone. And at first it seemed as though they were doing just that.

  The blows stopped and as Bill crawled across the pavement towards the lobby of the hotel, aware of the people in the taxi queue backing away from him as though he was carrying some dreadful disease, it felt like a miracle. But they had only turned their attention on his friend.

  Bill lifted his head up and saw Shane going down with all of them around him. Bill held on to the stone lion and got up. Shane was lashing out and cursing, but one of the men dropped on top of his chest, fists moving like pistons, while the others were kneeling on him, pinning him down, making him roar. There were shouts in Chinese and English. People were coming out of the hotel to watch.

  Bill was back on his feet, holding his side as he staggered towards his friend. Something exploded in his ear like a red flash of light and he ducked, almost comically after the event. He saw the faces of two of the men, turning away from Shane, one of them with blood on his dress shirt. That might be mine, Bill thought.

  The other two were still kicking Shane. In the head, between the legs, in the ribs. He curled up and they kept kicking him.

  Bill was aware he should do something. But it was all happening too fast, and there were too many of them, and he didn’t have the fury in him that he had had when he saw them with JinJin Li and felt his blood pumping with rage at the sight of that young, manhandled flesh. Tonight the rage was all in them.

  The men who were stomping Shane were breathing heavily, sweating hard, slowing down. Their bow ties had come loose. Shane had stopped shouting. He was curled up on the pavement, not moving. Bill moved towards him but the talkative one was in Bill’s face, bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists clenched by his sides. His trousers had those long satiny stripes that lawyers liked. That they were all wearing black tie somehow made the scene more grotesque, and made the men seem like a pack of psychopathic penguins.

  ‘Protecting her honour, were you?’ He had JinJin Li on the brain, this one. ‘What do you think, you stupid bastard – that she doesn’t fuck men for money?’

  He punched Bill in the gut and it bent him double, but then it was suddenly all over, because the hotel security were on the pavement and the men were walking off, in no hurry at all, giving each other high fives as though they had just won a basketball game, exulting and laughing and shouting obscenities over their shoulders. The hotel security stared after them, and then at Bill and Shane with equal hostility. Shane was sitting up now but bent forward and moaning with his hands cupped over his groin. He had been sick down the front of his dinner jacket.

  Bill helped Shane to his feet and felt the full weight of his friend leaning on him. They staggered to the road where Tiger was scrambling out of the car and staring at them in horror. He was saying something but Bill couldn’t hear him.

  Yes, that’s exactly what I believe, Bill was thinking, as the humiliation of taking a beating kicked in. I really believe it, you pig.

  I believe with all my heart that she never fucked anyone for money.

  When they were very young and starting out, Becca and Bill had talked endlessly, talked about their relationship, feelings, life, the world, jobs, friends, problems, fulfilment, parents and all the disappointments of the past.

  And then they got married and had a baby, and after that they mostly talked about their daughter.

  ‘She was looking for “YMCA”,’ Becca said on the phone. ‘The CD with “YMCA” on it. By the Village People.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bill said, resisting the urge to say I know who sings ‘YMCA’. He absent-mindedly felt the mess they had made of his face, and smiled at the memory of Holly out on the floor at Shane and Ros
alita’s wedding, facing her mother as they sang and danced along to the Village People. Her thin white arms thrown flamboyantly wide for Y, fingertips touching her head for M, leaning sideways with her arms almost forming a circle for C – that was the funniest part, for some reason – and her hands making a quick triangle above her head for the A.

  ‘It’s on Now That’s What I Call Disco,’ he said. His voice sounded strange to his ears. It was his fat lips, and whatever they had done to his teeth.

  ‘But it’s not,’ Becca insisted. ‘That’s what I thought, but it’s not on Now That’s What I Call Disco. “In the Navy” is on there. Their other hit. The Village People, I mean.’

  Bill sighed. ‘Then look on Super Dance Party 1999,’ he suggested. ‘Might be on there.’

  ‘Okay,’ Becca said doubtfully. If Holly wanted to dance to a certain song, it never occurred to either of her parents to do anything other than search through their entire CD collection until it was found. ‘Hold on, Bill. She wants a word with you.’

  There was the shuffling sound as Becca gave the phone to their daughter.

  ‘Holly?’

  And then her voice in his ear. Sweet and formal, infinitely more grown up than he was expecting, than he remembered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Holly, it’s Daddy.’

  ‘I know.’ A pause. ‘I have a question.’

  ‘Go ahead, darling.’

  ‘Did you have a scary night last night?’

  He stood up abruptly and recoiled as he caught sight of his face in the mirror. He was suddenly aware of what his cuts and bruises looked like, and not just what they felt like. He was a mess, and this would be an embarrassment in the office.

  ‘A scary night, angel?’ But how did she know what had happened? How could she possibly know about that? ‘Why would I have a scary night?’

  A long pause. Then a sigh, the kind of sigh that only an exasperated four-year-old girl can make.

  ‘Because you were alone.’