Man and Wife

by Tony Parsons

  ‘Bad dream,’ Cyd whispered. ‘Something about her dad falling off his motorbike. I’ll make sure she’s off and then take her back to her room.’

  ‘It’s okay. Keep her here.’

  ‘Do you mind, babe?’

  ‘No problem.’

  So I kissed my wife and went to sleep on the sofa. And I truly didn’t mind. Peggy needed her mum tonight. And alone on the sofa I didn’t have to worry about Peggy waking up, or Cyd feeling too tired for sex, or if I was taking up too much of the duvet. There was nobody to cuddle downstairs, but also nobody to spoil my sleep.

  That’s the thing about sleeping on sofas. You get used to it.

  ‘You need to get some romance back in your life,’ Eamon told me. He pushed some pasta from one side of the plate to the other. He wasn’t eating much these days. ‘Some excitement, Harry. Some passion. Nights when you don’t go to sleep because you can’t bear to be apart. You must remember all that. Think back, think hard.’

  ‘You think I should get my wife some flowers?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I think you should get yourself a mistress.’

  ‘I love my wife.’

  ‘So what? Romance is a basic human right. Like food, water and shelter.’

  ‘You don’t mean romance. You mean getting your end away. You’re thinking about your nasty little knob. As usual.’

  ‘Call it what you will, Harry,’ eyeing up one of the waitresses as she took his uneaten food away. ‘But if you got a bit on the side, you wouldn’t be harming your marriage. You would be keeping it together.’

  ‘Try explaining that to my wife.’

  ‘Ah, your wife wouldn’t know.’

  ‘But I would. You don’t understand. I don’t want a new woman. I just want my wife back. The way we were.’

  ‘You married men make me laugh,’ Eamon chuckled. ‘You complain about a lack of excitement under the old marital duvet. But you don’t have the nerve to go out and look for some. You know exactly what you want, but you don’t have the guts to get it.’

  ‘That’s what being married is all about.’

  ‘What – frustration? Disappointment? Disillusion? Sleeping with someone you don’t fancy? Sounds fucking great, Harry. Sounds terrific. Remind me to stay single.’

  ‘I still fancy Cyd,’ I said, and I meant it.

  Sometimes I watched her face when she didn’t know I was looking and I was shocked at how lovely she was, shocked at the emotion she could stir in me without doing a thing.

  ‘And I think she still fancies me. When she remembers to, that is.’

  Eamon had a laugh at that.

  ‘What I mean is – a marriage can’t end just because the honeymoon is over,’ I said.

  ‘But the honeymoon is the best bit.’

  ‘Don’t worry about our sex life – it’s fine. When we can work up the energy. It’s just – I don’t know. The spark seems to have gone out. She’s always busy with work. Or she comes home tired. Or the boiler has burst. It never used to be this way.’

  ‘Women change, Harry,’ Eamon said, leaning back, getting expansive. ‘What you have to understand is that at different times in her life, a woman is like the world.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well, from thirteen to eighteen, she’s like Africa – virgin territory. From eighteen to thirty, she’s like Asia – hot and exotic. From thirty to forty-five, she’s like America – fully explored but generous with her resources. From forty-five to fifty-five, she’s like Europe – a bit exhausted, a bit knackered, but still with many places of interest. And from fifty-five onwards, she’s like Australia – everybody knows it’s down there somewhere, but very few will make the effort to find it.’

  ‘You’re going to need some better material than that when you come back.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eamon said dryly. ‘When I come back. Excuse me.’

  He went off to the bathroom. We had agreed with the station that Eamon would take a sabbatical for however long it took to pull himself together. I knew he was depressed about taking a break from the show. But the station was demanding that he cleaned up his habit before he went back on air. That’s why we were having this lunch. So I could convince Eamon that he needed professional help.

  Eamon came back to the table, his eyes glazed and watery, his skin parchment pale. Not again, I thought. I tapped my nose and he dabbed his linen napkin at a flake of white powder by his nostril.

  ‘Whoops,’ he giggled.

  ‘Listen, there’s a doctor in Harley Street. She treats…exhaustion. The station wants you to see her. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Oh, great big hairy bollocks. What am I? A kid? I don’t need any help.’

  ‘Listen to me, Eamon. You’ve got an enormous talent and right now you’re in danger of pissing it away.’

  ‘I don’t need help, Harry.’

  ‘If you don’t see this doctor, you will eventually lose your show.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You will certainly ruin your health.’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘You will probably get in trouble with the police.’ ‘Fuck ’em.’

  ‘You will definitely put all your hard-earned money right up your nose and straight down the toilet.’

  ‘I can do what I like with it.’

  ‘And you will also shrink your penis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  He stared at me for a moment. ‘What’s this doctor’s name then?’

  His mobile phone began to vibrate. Not ring, just convulse. He picked it up and started talking, even though phones were not allowed in here. It was his ex-girlfriend. It was Mem. He was immediately on the verge of tears, running agonised fingers through his floppy black hair.

  ‘I’m not harassing you…was it twenty messages? Surely not quite that many? Anyway, I just want to see you, my little lemon-flavoured Popsicle…Why? Just to talk to you, to explain…Mem, we can have it all again…I want to be the only man you lap-dance for…please, baby…’

  Two businessmen at the next table stared at him with contempt.

  ‘Who’s the comedian with the mobile?’ one said. ‘There are supposed to be no phones in here.’

  ‘Duh,’ said the other, impersonating a dumb mobile phone user. ‘I’m on the train…’

  Eamon wheeled on the pair of them.

  ‘It didn’t ring, did it?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve got it on vibrating alert and no ring, right? So there’s no fucking difference between me talking into this fucking phone and you two dickheads talking to each other about the financial markets or Tiger Woods or whatever floats your pathetic boats, is there?’

  Good point, I thought, indicating that we would like our bill. He should incorporate that into the act, too. But Jesus – he was ready to explode.

  And as they threatened to punch our lights out, I thought about what Eamon had said about a woman being like the world. If his theory was correct, then that made my wife America. But after a year and a bit of marriage, she still didn’t feel fully explored.

  Sometimes I felt I didn’t know her at all.

  * * *

  I don’t know why I started driving by Gina’s place. I knew there was nobody home. The new people weren’t moving in for a while, and even the dreamy au pair had buggered off back to Bavaria. But I found it – I don’t know – soothing.

  Even though it was not my house, and it was no longer Pat’s home, and I had no warm memories of the place. Driving past my son’s old place, thinking of how only last week his things were waiting for him up in his room – his clothes in the wardrobe, some of them too small for him now, his bed, his Phantom Menace duvet cover, the pillow that he slept on – somehow made me feel a little less lonely.

  So I circled the house like an old lover, filled with longing, worn down by time.

  And that’s when I saw Pat’s bike.

  It had been left in their front garden. He was always doing that – parking his bike on
the little front lawn after returning from the park and then just forgetting it, or trusting that the entire world was as innocent as him.

  The only reason nobody had nicked it already was because it was almost completely hidden behind a scrubby bush. I parked my car, climbed over the token garden wall and picked up the bike. I would take care of it until my son came home. Or maybe they would want me to send it over.

  ‘Is she in?’

  I looked up. He was a very thin young man with dyed yellow hair. Asian. One of those fashionable young Japanese men that you sometimes see in the artier parts of London, haunting galleries and specialist record shops. This one looked as though he had been crying. I stared at him over the small garden wall.

  ‘Who are you talking about? Do you mean Gina?’

  He looked up at the house. ‘Kazumi.’

  The name rang no bells. ‘Wrong house, mate. Try next door.’

  ‘No. This is the place she’s staying.’ His English was good. ‘I’m sure of it.’ He scanned the street, shaking his head. ‘I know this is the place. There she is!’

  A young Asian woman was slowly coming down the street on a bicycle. She had that glossy, swinging Japanese hair, but it seemed just a shade lighter than normal. She stopped in front of Gina’s house and pushed the hair out of her eyes. I saw her face. Pale, serious, slightly older than I had first thought. Not a girl, but a woman. Maybe around the same age as me.

  And she was the most attractive woman I had seen for a long time. Since – well, since I first saw my wife.

  She looked at the young man. Not pleased to see him. The hair swung back in front of her strikingly special face. She left it there, a veil between her and the world.

  ‘Kazu-chan,’ he said, and I suddenly thought – of course.

  Gina’s friend from Japan.

  The one who looked at Pat through her camera and really saw him.

  Kazumi.

  He spoke to her in soft, urgent Japanese, his head slightly bowed, the dyed blond hair masking his grief.

  She shook her head, telling him no, wheeling her bike up the garden path. The young man sat on my ex-wife’s garden wall and began to sob, burying his face in his hands.

  She shook her head again, this time with a kind of exasperated disbelief, and struggled with a big set of keys to open the front door. She was having trouble finding the right two. Then she finally opened it up and the burglar alarm began to sound its warning.

  Just before she closed the front door, she glanced at me for the first time – standing in the middle of the little lawn, holding my son’s abandoned bike, watching her tap in the code to the alarm.

  I caught the expression on her face, saw how she was looking at me.

  As if I was just another lovesick madman.

  eleven

  A postcard from New York.

  On the front, a shot of Central Park with the seasons changing. Silvery skyscrapers peek over a thousand trees of rust, green and gold. Fluffy white clouds in a bright-blue sky.

  On the back, a message from my son, each letter meticulously printed.

  DEAR DADDY

  WE WENT TO THIS PARK. THEY GOT DUCK. I LOVE YOU. LOVE YOUR SON.

  PAT xxx

  ‘Drunk goes into a confession booth in Kilcarney,’ Eamon said. ‘The priest goes, “What do you need, my son?” Drunk goes, “You got any paper on your side, mate?”’

  We were in a waiting room in Harley Street. There were deep sofas, an elderly lady at a small reception desk and real-estate brochures on lacquered tables. Money and ill health filled the air. Eamon’s fingernails were chewed down and bloody.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ I told him.

  ‘School bus in Kilcarney. There’s this old drunk – swallowing his tongue, singing rebel songs, puking up. Completely out of it. The little kids have to help him off. Then one of them says, “Fuck, now who’s going to drive?”’

  ‘She’s a really good doctor. She has seen models, musicians, everybody.’

  ‘Man walks into a Kilcarney bar. “Give me a fucking drink.” Bartender goes, “First perform three tasks. Knock out the bouncer. Pull a loose tooth out of the guard dog. And give the local whore the shag of her life.” Guy knocks out the bouncer with a sweet left hook. Guy goes into the backroom and soon the guard dog starts barking and yelping. Guy walks back into the bar, doing up his flies. “Right,” he says. “Where’s the dog with the loose tooth?”’

  ‘Try to relax.’

  ‘This is bollocks. I don’t need any help. Those bastards at the station.’

  ‘Mr Fish?’ the receptionist said. ‘Dr Baggio will see you now.’

  Eamon was shaking. I put my arm around him as we stood up. And that’s when the room seemed to blur at the edges. That’s when my legs suddenly felt as if there was no strength in them, and as my vision slipped and smeared, my legs went to nothing and I saw the deep, lush Harley Street carpet rushing towards my face.

  When I awoke I was on Dr Baggio’s couch and Eamon was sitting by my side, his face creased with concern. Dr Baggio had wrapped something around my arm.

  I realised she was taking my blood pressure.

  ‘Did your father suffer from hypertension?’

  My dad’s face swam before my eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Your blood pressure is 195 over 100.’

  ‘Fuck me, Harry,’ said Eamon. ‘You’re the sick one, not me.’

  ‘Do you understand what that means?’ asked Dr Baggio. ‘It’s very serious. The first number is the systolic pressure – the pressure in the arteries when your blood is pumping – and the second number is the diastolic pressure – when the heart is resting, filling with blood before its next contraction. Your blood pressure is dangerously high. You could have a stroke. Did your father have high blood pressure, Mr Silver?’

  I shook my head, trying to take it all in.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He didn’t even tell us when he had lung cancer.’

  I knocked on Gina’s door, even though I knew she wasn’t home. And I wondered what I was doing here. I knew it was for something that I couldn’t find at home. But I didn’t know what. Not yet.

  Kazumi’s almond-eyed face appeared above the safety latch. She pushed back that torrent of swinging black hair. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Gina around?’

  ‘Gina is gone.’ I was surprised how little accent her English had. Just a soft burr that sounded almost Scottish. ‘Gina not here any more.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ I looked up and down the street, shaking my head, as if suddenly remembering something. Then I looked back at Kazumi and smiled. ‘I’m Harry.’

  ‘Harry? Not – Gina-san’s Harry?’

  Gina-san. Honourable, respected Gina. I hadn’t learned a lot of Japanese in five years of marriage to a Nihon-obsessed wife, but I knew this much.

  ‘That’s me.’

  For the first time I saw her smile. It was like some magic light coming on in the world.

  ‘I’ve heard about you. Of course. Gina-san’s former – I mean, Pat’s father, yes?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Sakamoto Kazumi,’ she said. Wherever she learned to speak English with a Scottish accent, she was still Japanese enough to give me her family name first. ‘Staying here. Until the new people move in. Keeping eye on the place. And very convenient for me. Very lucky.’

  ‘Kazumi? Did you take those pictures of my son?’

  She smiled again. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. ‘The very same,’ she said. Funny, too.

  ‘I loved them. I mean it. Incredible. You really caught him.’

  ‘No, no. Just taken quickly in the garden.’ Japanese modesty, despite the Scottish accent and good English. She nodded briefly, emphatically, a gesture that seemed so Japanese to me. ‘He’s a beautiful boy,’ she said, and I knew she wasn’t being polite. She meant it. You could see it in those photographs.

  This stranger thought my son was beautiful.

  ‘But you must know that Gina-san i
s in America with her – with Richard. And with Pat-kun.’

  Pat-kun. The affectionate honorific touched my heart. Dear, sweet, little Pat, she was saying. My first wife had taught me more than I realised.

  ‘I forgot,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I forget things.’

  That was a lie, of course. But everything else was true, all that stuff about the brilliance of her photographs. And it was also true that she had a way of making me forget things.

  Like where I was meant to be, and who I was meant to call, and the fact that I was married.

  Kazumi took me in and gave me tea. She didn’t have to do any of that, but she said she felt like she knew me already.

  Kazumi had been Gina’s best friend in Japan. They had shared a tiny flat in Tokyo for a year. Gina was planning to return to Japan, to make the move permanent. And then she met me. Kazumi knew all about that. If she also knew about the reasons we didn’t live happily ever after, and she must have done, she was far too polite to mention it.

  ‘Her boys,’ Kazumi said. ‘That’s what she always called you and Pat. Her boys.’

  Not any more, I thought. But I felt a rush of gratitude that we could sit in Richard and Gina’s house, sipping green tea, and Kazumi could say out loud that once upon a time I had mattered to her friend.

  And she told me her story. Not all of it. But enough for me to know that she had been an interior designer in Japan who had always dreamed of being a photographer. Western photography obsessed her. Weber, Newton, Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, Bailey. For as long as she could remember, that was what she wanted to do with her life, to look at the world and record what she saw. And then something happened in Tokyo – she didn’t say what, but I guessed it had something to do with a man – so she caught a plane to Heathrow, left the old life behind.

  It turned out that the Scottish accent came from three years at university in Edinburgh when she was in her late teens and early twenties, not long after sharing noodles, an apartment and a life in Tokyo with Gina for a year.

  ‘Always wanted to study in Edinburgh,’ Kazumi said. ‘Ever since I was little children size.’ The perfect English had only tiny fault lines in the language, making it sound impossibly charming. ‘Very beautiful. Very ancient.’