Man and Wife

by Tony Parsons

  I could imagine her in the shower. I could see her washing herself with the Body Shop soap in the shape of a dolphin that her grandson had bought her for Christmas. I could see my mother’s face, her kind and irreplaceable face, as she discovered something that had never been there before.

  A small, hard lump.

  That lump the size of a planet.

  When I came home I found Peggy sitting cross-legged on the carpet, studying a book on Lucy Doll.

  ‘Look what I’ve got, Harry.’

  I sat on the floor with her and looked at the book. I Love Lucy Doll: The World’s Favourite Dolly was a serious coffee-table job, full of social analysis and cultural deconstruction. First article – ‘Where Is Lucy Doll From?’ I skimmed the article, because I had always wondered that myself. It turned out that Lucy Doll was born in Paris of a part-Thai, part-Brazilian mother and an Anglo-Zulu father. The book revealed that Brucie Doll was from Ibiza.

  There were more scholarly articles. Lucy Doll as modern icon. Lucy Doll as a feminist role model. Lucy Doll as a repository for traditional values. Lucy Doll as a radical of the sexual revolution. Lucy Doll was the perfect doll – you could get her to be anything you wanted her to be.

  ‘Where did you get this, darling?’

  ‘Uncle Luke gave it to me.’

  ‘Uncle Luke?’

  ‘He came home with Mummy in his racing car.’

  ‘Did Uncle Luke come in?’

  ‘No. But he gave Mummy this book for me. It’s for big girls.’

  I wondered why these creeps always gave this little girl the wrong presents. Her dad with those useless huge stuffed animals that were no good to man or beast. And now a coffee-table book from Uncle Luke. Peggy was at least a decade too young for I Love Lucy Doll: The World’s Favourite Dolly. But what did I know? She loved poring over the pictures, and there were page after page of reproductions from all the Lucy Doll catalogues down the ages.

  ‘All the different Lucy Dolls,’ Peggy said.

  There they were in all their glory. Office Lady Lucy Doll (Lucy Doll when she was working for a giant Japanese corporation before the bubble burst). Rio Dancer Lucy Doll (Carmen Miranda feathers and tails). And Working Girl Lucy Doll (the blonde locks dyed brunette to denote career-girl seriousness, Working Girl Lucy Doll carried a briefcase and wore spectacles with no lenses).

  There was also Space Shuttle Lucy Doll. Funky Diva Lucy Doll. Left Bank Lucy Doll. Hippy Chick Lucy Doll. Chanteuse Lucy Doll. Bungee Jump Lucy Doll. Fighter Pilot Lucy Doll.

  Lucy Doll as singer, shopper, housewife, commuter, cook, warrior, adventurer and tourist. Home and career, love and sex, domesticity and glamour, work and fun.

  ‘Which Lucy Doll do you like best of all, Harry?’

  I looked at Night-Night-Baby Lucy Doll, who wore a see-through white negligee that just about came down to her navel.

  ‘I like Working Girl Lucy Doll,’ I said.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Reminds me of your mum.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Cyd was upstairs getting changed. She was sitting at the dressing table in her bra and pants, staring into the mirror. She looked up at me, already defensive, waiting for me to start complaining about the book, the lift home, Uncle Luke.

  I shook my head, biting my lip.

  ‘My mum,’ I said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She found a lump in her breast,’ I said, my voice catching on those words and all they could mean. And my wife was across the room, taking me in her arms, and holding me in a way that she had only held me twice before.

  When we knew my dad was dying.

  And when my son went to live with his mother.

  The really bad times, the worst times of all.

  She held me. My wife held me. She put her arms around me and squeezed me tight, as if she would never let go, smoothing my hair, whispering words that were as soft as a prayer.

  Gently rocking me as I cried, and cried, and cried.

  My doctor had me swimming. Most mornings I went to the local public pool as soon as it opened, and joined the office workers doing their lengths.

  I swam up and down, chanting my mantra: my heart is a small miracle, my heart is a small miracle. I swam until failure. That was a new expression I had recently learned. It meant doing something until you just couldn’t do it any more. Until failure.

  When I came out of the pool, the rush hour was in full booming flow. The people in the park were all hurrying to the tube station.

  Apart from her.

  Kazumi was crouching on the grass, peering into her camera, the office workers swarming either side of her. A squirrel and I stopped to watch her.

  She was wearing a black parka, boots, and a short beige-coloured kilt. Even I could tell it was from Burberry. Black tights. Good legs. Hair falling in front of her face, getting pushed out again. She looked too good for the rush hour.

  ‘What are you taking a picture of?’

  She looked up at me. Recognised me this time. Smiled. ‘The leaves. All the new leaves. They’re beautiful but they just stay a moment. Like sakura in Japan. You know sakura?’

  I nodded. ‘Cherry blossom, right? The Japanese go to the park to look at the cherry blossom in full bloom for a few days every year. School kids, salary men, office ladies, old people. All watching the cherry blossom before it dies.’

  She stood up, smoothed her Burberry kilt and pushed more hair out of her eyes. ‘You know sakura because of Gina?’

  ‘Yes, because of Gina.’ All those years with my first wife had given me a crash course in Japanese culture. I knew my sakura traditions. ‘I’m not sure a few leaves in north London are in quite the same league.’

  She laughed. ‘Beautiful colours. All the different greens. Not so obvious. You just have to look with different eyes. Are you interested in photography?’

  ‘Me? Absolutely.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. For me it’s not just about getting the holiday snaps developed at the chemist. Photography is, you know, a twentieth-century art form. A, er, genuinely modern medium that hasn’t been fully explored yet.’

  What was I going on about? What was all this rubbish? She must have thought I was a complete jerk.

  ‘Plead the fleeting moment to remain,’ she said.

  I must have looked baffled.

  ‘Someone once said that about photography. A poet, I think. It’s like watching sakura. The moment is interesting, because it is only a moment. Plead the fleeting moment to remain.’ She smiled. ‘I love that. It’s so beautiful.’

  Plead the fleeting moment to remain, I thought.

  ‘I love it too,’ I said. And I meant it.

  She put the lens cap on her camera, smoothed her kilt again. She was getting ready to go. I scrambled to keep the conversation afloat.

  ‘Everything okay with you, Kazumi? You working here?’

  ‘Trying. Looking.’

  ‘You found a place to live?’

  She nodded. ‘Still in Primrose Hill. A few blocks from Gina’s old place.’

  ‘That’s nice. Primrose Hill is great.’

  ‘Saw Jude Law in shop. With baby.’

  ‘Lucky old you.’ Although what I really thought was – lucky old Jude Law. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you – can I order some more of those pictures of Pat? If you’re not too busy? I’ve marked the contact sheet. I know exactly what I want.’

  She nodded. These small, encouraging nods. ‘I post to you.’

  ‘Or I could come to your place and collect them.’

  ‘Or I post.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. Really.’

  She stared at me for a moment, thinking about it.

  ‘You want a cup of tea, Kazumi? There’s a café over by the tennis courts.’

  ‘Sure. British always want a cup of tea.’

  ‘Just like the Japanese.’

  We walked over to the small café by the tennis courts, moving against the scuttling tide o
f office workers. And as we ordered our drinks, I could picture myself in her flat in Primrose Hill, see her pulling off her boots and stepping out of her Burberry kilt. I could see it, and it felt like the best thing in the world. It was that old, dangerous feeling of something about to start.

  ‘How’s Pat?’ she said, and I adored her for that. I would have adored anyone who cared enough to ask me about my boy.

  ‘He’s fine, I guess,’ I said. ‘Started school. Got a dog called Britney. He’s coming over for his holidays. Soon, I hope. We have to work it out. What about you? Happy in London?’

  ‘Happier than Tokyo. Happier than when I was married.’

  I thought of the crying man in Gina’s garden. Part of me didn’t want to know. I hate it when they tell you about the old days. It just puts a crimp in everything for me. But she wanted me to hear. I was too curious to try stopping her.

  ‘He’s a photographer. Famous, sort of. At least in Tokyo. He loved lots of European photographers. Horst, Robert Doisneau, Alan Brooking. Magnum photographers. You know? Magnum agency? He was very brilliant. I was his assistant. First job after college. I – how to say? – looked up for him.’

  ‘Looked up to him.’

  ‘He was very encouraged. Encouraging. Then we got married and he changed. Wanted me to stay home. Have a baby.’

  ‘What kind of man does a thing like that?’

  ‘Didn’t want me to work.’ She sipped her tea. ‘Like you and Gina.’

  I couldn’t let her get away with that.

  ‘Nothing like me and Gina. She wanted to stay home and raise our son. At least at first.’

  ‘Married men,’ she said, as if that explained everything. She stood up, pulled out a little Prada purse. For all her talk about Magnum photographers, she was a classic Japanese girl. Prada and Burberry mad.

  ‘Put your money away. I’ll get these. You can get them next time.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No next time. I post those pictures of Pat.’

  Then she was leaving, watched by our squirrel and me as she disappeared among the office workers. An Asian girl in a Burberry kilt. I called after her.

  ‘But when will I see you again?’

  She raised her left hand, without turning round. ‘When your finger gets better.’

  I looked down at my hand and saw the gold band glinting on my third finger. It felt like there was something wrong with it today.

  It was cutting into me.

  I knew that deep down inside Gina still had a soft spot for me.

  ‘You bloody imbecile,’ she said when I called. ‘You dickhead. You klutz. You 24-carat fool. Do you have any idea what time it is here? Gone one. Pat went to bed hours ago. You moron, Harry.’

  ‘It’s not Pat I want to talk to. It’s you.’

  ‘Make it snappy. I’m just about to floss and go to bed.’

  ‘I want Pat to come back. For a week or so. Seven days. Anything. Easter. How’s Easter?’

  I could hear her putting her hand over the receiver, telling Richard that it was me. And I heard him sigh, slam a door, go into a sulk.

  ‘That’s not possible, Harry.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s too expensive to keep flying him back and forth across the Atlantic. It’s too disruptive. And he’s too young. Who do you think he is? Tony Blair? He’s only seven.’

  ‘He’ll be fine. It will be an adventure. I have to see him. I can’t wait until summer. And the money’s not a problem.’

  ‘Oh really?’ She could be dead sarcastic. ‘It might not be a problem for you. But Richard’s job at Bridle-Worthington has not turned out too well.’ A beat. ‘He quit.’

  ‘Jesus, he can’t keep changing jobs. He’s just going to have to buckle down and start remembering he has some responsibilities.’

  A long silence in reply. And I guessed that my ex-wife had said almost those very words to fussy old Richard. ‘So he’s unemployed?’

  ‘No – he’s looking round. But we don’t have money to go—’

  ‘I’ll pay. Don’t worry about that, Gina. I just want to see my son. I just want him to remember he has a life here. He has holidays, doesn’t he? Send him over at Easter. Send him any time.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Please.’ Begging her to let me see my son. But for some reason I felt no anger. For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, it was something far closer to pity. ‘How’s it going over there?’

  ‘Oh, the New England coast is beautiful. Very historic. Lots of little antique shops and fishing villages. And all these names that remind you of being a kid in England – Yarmouth, Portsmouth. I think there’s even a Little Hampton. All these English names, Harry.’

  ‘Sounds great. I’m happy for you, Gina.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘What?’

  Her voice was just above a whisper. As if she was talking to herself, not me. ‘Well, it’s not really like that where we live. It’s not so quaint and lovely in Hartford. See, Hartford is a big ugly town. There’s crime. And I’m a bit – I don’t know what you would call it. Lonely, I guess. I think I’m lonely. Richard’s off to the city every day looking for a job. Pat’s at school.’

  ‘Doing well?’

  ‘He’s doing very well. He’s not wandering around in the middle of lessons any more.’

  ‘That’s fantastic, Gina.’

  ‘But I don’t know anyone. Everybody’s gone in the daytime, and locked up at home at night. It’s not quite what I expected.’ She recovered, remembered who she was talking to. ‘But we’ll be fine, we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Listen, let Pat come over for a week. He can spend some time with my mum. He’d love that. So would she.’ I didn’t tell Gina about my mum, about the lump the size of a planet. Those days were long gone. ‘Because you never know what’s going to happen in life, do you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said my ex-wife. ‘You never know what’s going to happen in life.’

  sixteen

  If you saw my mum walking down the street, you might think she was just another little old lady on her way to buy some cat food. But you would be wrong.

  She can’t stand cats for a start, because she claims they leave a terrible mess everywhere (although strangely she always stoops to pet and coo over even the most flea-bitten moggy she encounters on her travels). Looking at my mum, you might think you knew all about her. But you would not know her at all.

  Some things I know about my mother.

  She thinks Dolly Parton is the greatest singer in the world and that people shouldn’t make fun of Dolly’s figure all the time. She will watch any kind of sport on TV but prefers the more violent games (boxing, rugby, the NFL). She believes that her grandson was the most beautiful baby in the history of the world. She reckons that is a completely objective opinion, and she is not remotely biased.

  Some more things I know about my mum. She gets unimaginably lonely since my dad died. It doesn’t matter how many people are around her. She worshipped my father, and talks to his photographs when she thinks nobody is listening. A visit to his grave is my mum’s idea of a good day out.

  I know she inspires an incredible love in her family and friends – young neighbours repair her guttering for a cup of tea, her army of silver-haired friends are constantly asking her to hang out at the new shopping mall, and her brothers call her every day.

  My mum is kind, funny and brave. Very brave. Although she doesn’t open her front door after dark, she is always ready to stand up to any passing bully. When Pat was very small she threatened to punch out a gang of youths who were getting what she called wild in the local General Lee’s Tasty Tennessee Kitchen.

  I was angry with her at the time – I thought they might stab her, because even little old ladies are not safe in the lousy modern world – but now I am glad she did it. That’s her. That’s my mum. That’s what she’s like. I am proud of her.

  She doesn’t have the short fuse that my father had. She is tolerant o
f other ways of life, believing in the essential goodness of mankind. But when she loses her temper, she goes…well, wild is what she would call it.

  Her favourite brother, the one who is closest to her in age, likes reminding her about the scar she put in the upright piano in the East End home they grew up in. My mum, enraged at some teasing from her brother, threw a knife at his head. It missed him by inches and stuck in the piano, quivering the way knives only do in cartoons. The attempted murder of her brother was out of character. She was a quiet, shy girl, bullied at school for a slight speech impediment (not bullied by her schoolmates, bullied by teachers, for that East End school was as brutal as a workhouse in Dickens). She always claimed the knife had slipped. Her brother insisted she had aimed the blade to perfection.

  In a house full of boys, she was as distant and regal as a Virgin Queen. Doted on by her parents, encouraged to think of herself as special, she was as indulged as an only child.

  I know my mum was always loved – as the only girl in a large family of boys, and as the only female in the small family that I grew up in – and I believe that is why she is so good at giving love. I know that Pat and I would be lost without her. I can’t even imagine what the world would be like without my mum in it.

  She is full of life. She has more life in her than anyone I’ve ever known. She likes to sing and dance. I know she likes a laugh, even at the worst of times, especially at the worst of times. We still smile about when she slammed her head against my father’s coffin at his funeral.

  Only someone who loves people as much as my mum could ever get so lonely. She carefully plans her evening viewing. She likes the news, real-people documentaries, but she raises an eyebrow at all the pierced tongues and nipples on Six Pissed Students in a Flat. I know she sneers at soap operas, although back in the eighties she liked JR in Dallas. Cartoon villainy amuses her.

  What else? Oh yes.

  I know my mother hates going to the doctor.

  In the end Tex didn’t take my mum to the hospital. Apparently his car was having trouble with its big end, although I suspected that the real problem was Tex having trouble with his nerve.

  My mum told me she would get the bus. I said that I would come to the hospital with her. She said the bus was fine. She didn’t want to make a fuss. That was always one of her big things – not making a fuss. If the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared in her back garden, rampaging through her rose bushes, my mum would try not to make a fuss.