My Favourite Wife

by Tony Parsons

  ‘But I don’t want to go.’

  ‘Why not, Bill?’

  ‘Because I love you.’

  ‘That’s a fucking laugh.’

  ‘And I love my daughter.’

  He thought that it was the one thing she could never deny or refute. But she did. Even that. She stood in front of him, happy to explain why he had to leave.

  ‘You love your daughter but you would break up her home -and break her heart – and give her a wound to carry for a lifetime for some dirty Third World whore. You don’t know, Bill. Your parents didn’t divorce. Your mother died. It’s easy when one of them dies. All you feel is sad. When someone dies, you feel sad. But when one of them goes – when one of them walks out – then you feel so worthless. You just feel so worthless, and I don’t think you ever get over it. I think a part of you always feels worthless, as if you deserved it, as if you made it happen, as if it happened because you were bad.’

  ‘Then let me stay. Let me stay for Holly, if not for you.’

  ‘But you’ve made staying impossible. Can’t you see that?’ She dissolved before him. Something seemed to crumple inside her. ‘How could you be so cruel? To us, Bill. How could you be so cruel to the two people who loved you more than – oh fuck,’ she said, and she sat on the bed, racked with grief, and he didn’t dare touch her again. She pulled herself together, wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Let me ask you a question, Bill.’

  ‘What is it?’ he said, and swallowed, afraid of what she would say, afraid of what was ahead.

  ‘Was it worth it?’ Becca said.

  He knew she hated him now. He knew that he had ruined it with Becca and he knew that it was likely that his daughter’s life would be changed forever by what he had done. And he knew that no matter how many times he talked about how much he loved them, and begged to stay, their little family could never be the same again.

  ‘Nothing is worth this,’ he said, and he believed it with all his heart. She looked into his face, trying to understand him, not getting him, completely mystified by the man she had married.

  ‘Did we mean so little, Bill? I mean you and me. Our marriage. Don’t you get it? Marriage is time. Marriage is trust. Marriage – I don’t know what it is, but I know you don’t get it from somebody you pick up in a bar. You think you’re smart. Sneaking around behind my back, keeping it hidden. You think you’re so smart.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think I’m smart.’

  ‘But you’re stupid,’ she continued, not hearing him, her voice breaking. She breathed hard, struggling to hold herself in one piece. She had things to tell him before she came apart. ‘Oh you’re so stupid, Bill, oh you’re such a fucking cliché. Now Holly is going to grow up with one parent, she’s going to be one of those poor little kids that only has one parent because the other one was fucking around and it will scar her and it will hurt her forever and she will never get over it.’ He thought she was going to hit him again but she shook her head, sadder than he would have believed possible, and that was so much worse. ‘And it will all be your fault,’ she said, and he knew she was right. ‘And you betrayed me. I loved you and I trusted you and you chucked it all away. You treated it like it was nothing. All our time together – nothing. All the things we went through – nothing. You’ve spoilt everything that was good in my life.’

  She hung her head.

  ‘Bec?’ he said. ‘Oh, Bec, don’t cry.’

  But she cried and cried. He tried to hold her but she lifted her hands, forbidding it. ‘She’s not the love of your life, Bill. Is that what you think? She’s just your dirty little secret. And it’s not passion – you think it’s passion? It’s the opposite. All the lies, all the planning – it takes a very cold heart to do all that. You must be a very cold-hearted bastard, Bill.’ She covered her face again, but she had stopped crying. ‘Oh fuck. Why did I choose you? Why did I choose a cold-hearted bastard like you? When I think of all the places I could have been.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, Becca, I swear.’ His voice was desperate now. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’

  She frowned, shook her head. ‘But you could never make it up to me,’ she said. She stood up and walked wearily to the door. ‘I’ll sleep with Holly. I can’t stand to be around you. I loved you so much and now I can’t stand to be around you. How did you manage that, Bill?’

  ‘Bring Holly in here with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll go in the other room.’

  But she had had enough.

  ‘Oh just get out of my life,’ she said quietly. Dead on her feet, as if the strongest feeling of all was exhaustion. ‘Just pack your bags and go. I’m sick of looking at you.’

  He stood up, but made no move towards her. ‘I’m so sorry, Becca.’

  She exhaled wearily. ‘How many times are you going to say that?’

  ‘Until you believe me.’

  Then she seemed so sad and exhausted, leaning in the doorway of their bedroom, as if she was already in mourning for the marriage, as if it had been a beloved living thing that had died.

  ‘Oh, it’s too late to be sorry,’ she said.

  Then she left him and he heard her getting into bed with Holly and after a while he took off his clothes and got into bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to them stir in the other room from time to time. It was Holly that always started it – he could hear the distressed waking from dreams, and then Becca’s soft, reassuring words, followed by the long silence of sleep, or at least the attempt to find sleep.

  Bill did not sleep, but he must have been close to it because at some point in the night he realised that she was suddenly standing over his bed.

  She had been awake too, and she had been thinking, and she wanted some answers.

  ‘Who is it?’ she said, her voice hoarse from the crying. ‘Is it one of the girls here?’

  He nodded. ‘But she’s gone. She doesn’t live here any more.’

  He had visions of Becca at the window of JinJin’s flat, tipping her possessions into the street, although he knew that would never happen in a million years. She had too much pride, too much class. Becca would just cut him out of her life and would never treat JinJin as a rival. Nobody had stolen her husband. He had given himself away.

  ‘What one?’ Becca said. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffed up with all the hurt and anger of the night, but her voice was controlled now. She just wanted to know. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, as if it was some sort of game. ‘I can guess. The one with the red Mini and the legs. Is that the one?’ She looked at his face and she nodded, not even needing a reply. ‘Oh, Bill – she’s nothing special. She’s not a world-beater. There are younger and better out there.’ She saw the look on his face. Of course there were younger and better out there. That was the world. There was always younger and better out there. But that didn’t mean you wanted them.

  ‘I don’t care what you do, but keep her away from Holly, keep your whore away from my daughter,’ Becca said, her question answered, the fury coming on like a fever, the anger tightening her throat, her face. ‘You think you’re a good parent, don’t you, Bill?’

  He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t claim that for myself.’

  ‘But you will never be a good parent until you put your child before and above everything, Bill,’ she said, as if he had not spoken. ‘Including the woman you want to spend your life with. Including the woman you want to fuck. You know – your Chinese whore.’

  She walked to the door, pulling at her wedding ring, struggling to get it over the big first knuckle, and she threw it at him from the doorway. It clattered against the wall and he could hear it spinning on the floor.

  He had thought on their wedding day that the rings they exchanged would last them a lifetime. Now he saw that wedding rings get lost, they get stolen, they get thrown in anger. Now he saw that you might get through any number of wedding rings in a marriage. Now he found it difficult to believe that he had ever been as young as he was on their wedding day, young en
ough to believe that you only need one wedding ring.

  She came to him in the morning, wrapped up in a robe and shivering as though she was freezing, and she watched him packing a suitcase.

  ‘I love you so much,’ he said, not looking at her, not looking up from what he was doing. ‘You’re the best friend I ever had. You don’t deserve this.’ He was crying now, but a restrained sort of crying, the sort of crying where you clench your teeth and tighten your jaw because you fear that if you let it all out you will just unravel. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. I know you’re sick of hearing it, but I am.’

  She sat down on the bed, next to his suitcase. Her eyes were almost closed now from all the crying. She placed one of her bare feet on the edge of his suitcase. ‘How do I forgive you, Bill?’

  He shrugged, shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how you can.’

  ‘Truth is, I can’t.’ Her face was lovely, even streaked with tears and puffed up with grief, and he thought of all the men that had been after her, and he wondered it too – Why choose me?

  ‘And I can’t trust you,’ she said. ‘Even if we – how can I ever trust you? But this marriage is not just about us any more, is it? It’s about that child asleep in the next room.’

  He looked at her, and he realised what she was saying. What she was offering. She raised a hand, telling him not to get carried away. ‘You’ve ruined it, Bill. You’re ruined it forever.’ Her mouth twisted with resentment at his stupidity, and at all he had inflicted upon her, all that real, unendurable physical pain. ‘Because you fucked around,’ she said, and wiped her eyes. ‘I can find a better husband than you.’ She nodded. It wasn’t open to debate. She knew this to be true. ‘A better man than you. I know I can get a better man than you. You think you’re anything special? But…’ She laughed, shook her head and dragged her hands across her face. ‘But I don’t know that I can find someone who is a better father than you. I don’t know if I can get a better dad for my daughter. Someone who loves her as much as you do. I don’t know if I can find a man who will love Holly as much as you do, Bill. And a man who my daughter will love as much as she loves you. I don’t think so. I don’t think I can.’ She shook her head. ‘Which is a bloody shame, isn’t it? For all of us.’

  ‘Don’t stop loving me,’ he begged her. ‘Please don’t stop loving me.’

  ‘Maybe it just wears out,’ she said. ‘You and me. Everybody. Maybe you just use it up, wear it out. I didn’t feel that we were worn out. You and me, Bill. I loved you. You were the man I wanted to spend my life with. That’s corny, isn’t it? That’s stupid.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But maybe it just changes so much that we all end up married to strangers,’ she said. ‘Total strangers. And if you’re lucky, you like them. Even love them. But you can’t pretend that it’s the same person you married.’

  He touched her arm and said her name but she gave no sign of noticing. He felt like he had killed her.

  ‘Marriage starts off as a love match and ends up as – I don’t know what it is – an economic partnership,’ she said. ‘A home. A place to raise children. It starts as a love affair and ends up as a family.’ She looked at him quickly, as if she was afraid he would miss the point. ‘That doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. But I love our daughter in a different way, in a bigger way, and I am letting you stay because of her. I loved her from her first breath and I will love her to her last breath. And I let you stay because of her. Am I being rational? Am I being mature? Am I thinking about my daughter? Well, fuck you. I feel like teaching you what it feels like. Shall I do that, Bill? Shall I find someone and teach you how it feels?’ She looked at him as if something had suddenly occurred to her. ‘Why did you stop loving me?’

  ‘I never stopped loving you.’

  ‘What’s really funny about you, about all you men, is that you think you’re the only one,’ she said. ‘The only one with choices.’

  What was she talking about? Who was she talking about? But Becca didn’t say and he didn’t ask. He was too afraid of what the answer might be. She was letting him stay. That was enough, and all that mattered.

  He lowered his head and she took him in her arms, but she did not hold him tightly, and her body was tense and trembling, as fragile as a Double Fortune wine glass. They lay down on the bed, and they cried together at how the familiar body beside them had suddenly been changed for all time.

  He knew that this was not the end. He knew that this night would always be with them, although he had no idea how bad the scar would be, or if they would be able to live with it. One day soon there would be questions – terrible questions, heartbreaking questions, all the questions you ask of a divided heart. But right now, as Becca got up to leave and the new day streamed in and they heard their child stirring in the next room, she had only one question.

  ‘Is it over?’ his wife said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The helicopter flew straight up and they were suddenly amid the skyline of Hong Kong, not looking at it but hanging in it, hovering like some giant insect by the steel-and-glass cliff face of the Bank of China, with the serried ranks of tower blocks marching up mid-levels to Victoria Peak, a green summit jabbing out of a drifting necklace of pearly mist, the eagles circling above.

  There was nothing corny about the Hong Kong skyline. It was not like Shanghai where you always knew that the grand old buildings on the Bund were really just the beautiful leftovers of a colonial dream. This was a place that had been untouched by any ideology, a city that had never worshipped any god but money. Even now, reclaimed by the motherland, Hong Kong was all that the great cities of the mainland aspired to be.

  There were seven of them bound for Macau. Bill and Shane together in the back seat of the helicopter with Mitch and Nancy in front of them, leaning into a laptop. Then Wolfgang and Jurgen from DeutscherMonde, looking more alike these days as the old rocker and the weekend golfer both acquired that ripe, over-watered look of the suit who has seen too many Asian nights. And then, Chairman Sun, sitting up front next to the Australian pilot, and staring down at Hong Kong with a proprietorial air from behind his mirrored shades. The pilot said something on the radio and it crackled in Bill’s ear, completely indecipherable, and the helicopter dipped its nose, pointed west and buzzed out across the harbour, a frenetic patch of water crowded with tiny wooden junks and a giant cruise ship and the green-and-white Star Ferries that shuttled between Kowloon and Hong Kong island.

  Soon they were skimming low over the South China Sea, the water rushing beneath them, and ancient fishing boats suddenly coming out of the fog like ghost ships and then abruptly disappearing.

  The waxy yellow earplugs did little to keep out the drone of the engine, and the noise hammered them into silence, and left Bill alone with his thoughts. These days he really only had one thought – the thought that woke him in the middle of the night, his wife asleep beside him, the same thought that kept him from sleeping in the lazy, dreamy hour after making love when JinJin lay in his arms until it was time for him to go.

  Was it over?

  It was over because he saw now that he could never leave his wife and child. Becca could throw him out, that was always a possibility, but he could never just walk away from his wife and child. Was it over?

  He thought that it would not be over until he stopped caring about the red lights of that Spring Festival and her face on the ice rink and how she looked in her yellow coat. It would not be over while he remembered these things, and he was sure that these were among the things that he would remember on the day that he died.

  Was it over? He could never see her again in his life and it would not be over. Was it over? She could marry someone else and have his child and then another child and it would not be over. Was it over?

  Not until he could harden his heart and stop seeing her, not until she stopped loving him as if there was something special about him, not until she stopped loving him as if he was a good man.

>   Not until she stopped loving him all the time. Not until he knew that she would be just fine without him. Not until he could think about what was going to happen to her without being worried sick. It would never be over until then.

  Last night Bill had come home from the office past midnight and found Becca awake and waiting for him, curled up on the sofa with a book, dressed in a robe and slippers. Her face was pale and drawn and when she looked up at him as he came into the apartment, she seemed to shudder. She clutched at the neck of her robe and the gesture made him think of sickness and hospitals.

  He wanted to hold her and he knew he did not dare.

  ‘You didn’t have to wait up for me,’ he said, hating the strained formality that was suddenly between them.

  She laughed and shook her head. ‘Oh, but I did, Bill,’ she said. ‘Oh, but I did because I don’t know where you are, do I? And I don’t know who you’re with, do I?’

  There was no real accusation in the words. It was a statement of brutal fact, quietly spoken. But he could feel the rawness of her feelings, and he could understand why it made sleep impossible. She did not trust him and perhaps she would never trust him again and he didn’t see how they could live like this.

  ‘It’s all this Yangdong stuff,’ he said, taking cover in the mundane chores of work. ‘There’s so much to do before they open.’ He looked her in the eyes and shrugged helplessly. ‘I was at the office, Bec.’

  She laughed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know it, but I don’t really believe it.’

  He sat down on the sofa and she stood up, her book in one hand and the other at the neck of her robe.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ready to say it a million times, to say it until she believed it.

  She nodded and sighed. ‘But sorry’s not enough.’

  Before she turned away he saw the book in her hand and realised that he recognised the thin green paperback. It was something he remembered from school. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. He never knew his wife liked poetry.