Man and Wife

by Tony Parsons

  A greenstick fracture, the doctor at the hospital called it, meaning an incomplete break of the bone. The outer shell of the bone was intact, and the fracture was inside. The doctor said that a greenstick fracture is what children get, because their bones are so flexible. The bones of adults just break in two. Give them a hard enough knock, and adults just fall to pieces.

  They gave her a CT scan even though her head wasn’t bruised, and it was clear. They gave her junior painkillers, put her in plaster and hiked up her leg in a kind of hammock that sat on top of her hospital bed. She was soon sitting up and gazing imperiously at the other residents of the children’s ward.

  It wasn’t like Pat’s accident. She was never in any life-threatening danger. But I still glimpsed a vision of a world where something unspeakable had happened, and it made my blood run cold.

  There were five of us sitting by her bed. Jim and Liberty. Cyd and Pat. And me. Drinking bad tea from Styrofoam cups, not talking much, still numb with shock. After screaming at each other in the street, we might have felt embarrassed to be here together, if relief had not overwhelmed every other emotion. When the doctor came to the bedside, we all jumped to our feet.

  ‘We’ll keep her with us for a while,’ he said. ‘What we’ve done is reduce the fracture, meaning the broken ends have been restored to their natural position, and now we just have to hold the reduced fracture in place while it heals.’ He patted Peggy on the head. ‘Do you like dancing, little lady?’

  ‘I dance very well, actually,’ Peggy said.

  ‘Well, you’ll soon be dancing as well as ever.’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jim glance at his watch. He and Liberty had a plane to catch. When the doctor had gone, the bride and groom said their goodbyes and rushed off to the airport. Then there were just the three of us.

  We stayed by Peggy’s bed until night had fallen and she had slipped into sleep. Cyd put her arms around Pat and me, and that somehow seemed to be the signal to release all the pent-up tension of the day.

  Keeping the noise down so we wouldn’t disturb Peggy and her sleeping neighbours, Cyd and Pat and I held on to each other as we all cried with relief.

  And for the very first time in my entire life, I couldn’t tell where my family ended, and where it began.

  twenty-seven

  I still went to see Kazumi.

  Despite everything that had happened.

  And as she buzzed me through the front door, I wondered – how can you do it? How can you come to see this girl when Peggy is in the hospital? And, not for the first time, I wondered what my father would have thought of me.

  But I knew I was there simply because it was easier than not being there. I had taken Pat to my mum’s, wanting to spare him from Gina and Richard’s latest reconciliation, and cancelling Kazumi would have been harder – more excuses, more lies – than just turning up late for this appointment with my secret life.

  There was nothing I could do at the hospital. Once the initial shock had passed, Cyd even seemed a little embarrassed to have me touching her – holding her, cuddling her, trying to comfort her. Inappropriate, she seemed to feel, what with all those half-packed suitcases waiting for her in the guest room. We had come too far apart for all that. What good would I have done at the hospital? I couldn’t even hold my wife’s hand.

  So I went to see Kazumi. I came up the stairs, still sick to my stomach from the trauma of the accident and the rush to the hospital, still numb from the hours of waiting around and then more hours crawling on the motorway out to my mum’s place. I had spent the day watching a child in trouble and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The worst feeling in the world.

  Kazumi looked down over the banisters. And when I saw her, the long black hair pulled back from her smiling, lovely face, it occurred to me that this was meant to be our special night. And when she kissed me I was certain. She was ready to take that final step. All my old wedding vows had been declared null and void. We were going to cross the line, and make promises of our own.

  Inside the flat the sound of a cello running through its scales came from the second bedroom. The flatmate was home, but Kazumi smiled conspiratorially.

  ‘Staying in room,’ she said. ‘Has to practise. Don’t worry.’

  The table was set for two, a special dinner for two – champagne flutes, linen napkins, a single white candle in a silver candlestick, already lit, the flame dancing in the twilight. And my heart throbbed like an old, fading bruise when I saw all the trouble she had gone to.

  ‘Pat okay? Mum okay?’

  ‘They’re fine.’

  She was in my life. She knew my son and my mother. She cared about them, they liked her. In time, if you gave it years to grow, they could love her. And she could love them. I knew it. This was all true. She was in my blood now. She was part of it all. Well, not quite all of it. For just as she was locked away from Cyd, so Cyd was locked away from her. And I couldn’t tell Kazumi about Peggy, I wouldn’t know where to start.

  In the middle of the table was a large pan sitting on top of some kind of small gas cooker. Like something you would use for camping, if you were a gourmet chef with a taste for the great outdoors. There were plates of thinly sliced beef, white chunks of tofu and piles of uncooked vegetables, some of which I recognised.

  ‘Sukiyaki,’ I said. ‘Lovely.’

  She was delighted. ‘All westerner love sukiyaki. Began in Japan when Meiji Emperor started eating meat. Start of twentieth century. Until then – fish only.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said, sinking into a chair. ‘I didn’t know any of that.’

  A champagne cork popped, and she filled our glasses.

  ‘Kampai,’ I said.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said.

  She came around the table, placed a quick kiss on my lips and then, smiling, threw some thin slices of beef and some raw vegetables into the sizzling pan, covering them with some kind of sauce. In the bedroom the flatmate had stopped practising her scales and started playing ‘Song Without Words’. And with all its sadness and stillness and sense of things being lost forever, that music was like a fist around my throat.

  ‘Sauce called warashita. Made of soy sauce, sweet rice wine and sugar. You know what happens next?’

  There were two eggs on the table next to a pair of lacquered bowls.

  ‘We whip up the raw eggs, and then dip in the beef and vegetables,’ I said, struggling against the fist around my throat.

  ‘Hah!’ she said. ‘Big sukiyaki expert, I can see.’

  And I saw something too. All at once I saw that the dream I’d had would never come true, not in a million years. I had dreamed of starting again – running away with Kazumi, taking my son with us. That’s what I wanted. Not merely a new woman. Not just that. But a world made whole and a family restored. A new wife. A new life.

  I don’t know where I honestly thought we were going to go. The west of Ireland. Paris. Maybe some other corner of north London would have been enough. Maybe Primrose Hill would have been far enough. Anywhere. But we were going, and in my dream we were already on our way.

  Now I saw that the dream would never come true. It wasn’t Kazumi’s fault. It was because the price was too high to pay. Too much that was precious would have to be discarded, too much life thrown away, before I could start again.

  I thought that my feeling for her – love, romance, you can call it what you like – was the only thing that mattered.

  And that just wasn’t true.

  Other things mattered too.

  I know I could have done the traditional thing. I could have tried to keep Cyd halfway happy, while stringing Kazumi along, keeping her halfway happy too. Screwing the pair of them, in every way possible. And I could have got away with it by lying to everyone, to Cyd, to Kazumi, but mostly myself – telling myself that I genuinely loved both of them. In my own sweet way.

  But try loving two women and you end up loving nobody at all, not in the way they warrant.
r />   Try loving two of them and this is what it does – it breaks you in half.

  You need a heart of stone to lead one of those double lives. And so does she. The other woman. I knew Kazumi wasn’t built for that kind of life. I knew that Kazumi wasn’t cut out to be my mistress. She wasn’t cold enough, old enough, tough enough. All the reasons that I loved her were all the reasons she could never be a bit on the side. She had the sweetest, gentlest heart in the world. I still believe that. Even now.

  In the end, I knew her so well. And I could see glimpses of myself in her, or at least the best of me. She believed, really believed, that she could find a love that would transform her world. And perhaps she was right. But I knew now she was never going to find it with me.

  It was all or nothing with this woman. That’s why I loved her – and I can say that now. I loved her. But she wasn’t cut out for an affair. The right girl in so many ways, she was the wrong girl to play that role. She was a romantic. Say what you like about those starry-eyed souls, about the upheaval and destruction they always leave in their wake, but there is one thing about romantics that nobody can deny. They never settle for second best.

  ‘Kazumi,’ I said, standing up.

  Her face fell. ‘Problem – with egg? You don’t like raw egg?’

  I carefully placed my champagne flute on the table. ‘Raw egg is fine. It’s just that…I can’t do this. I am so, so sorry. I have to go.’

  She nodded, taking it all in, the anger flaring.

  ‘Go on, then. Go back to your wife.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She picked up the silver candlestick and threw it at me, a wild throw that made it fly past my head and left a splash of white candle wax on the tablecloth. She lashed out at our special meal with furious fists, and it all went crashing. Glasses and vegetables, silver cutlery and chopsticks, pretty napkins splashed with soy sauce. Across the table, to the floor, fragments of our special meal smashing against my legs. Just ruined, the lot of it.

  Kazumi with her head hanging. Hair like a long, black veil.

  ‘Kazumi.’

  ‘Go back to your home.’

  I left her then, with the smell of burning beef in the air and the flatmate’s cello coming through the walls and the unwanted champagne in my gut. It was not easy to leave her. But in the end, Cyd’s claim on me was stronger. Cyd had home advantage.

  Whatever happened next, I had to be with my wife.

  Even if the only thing left to say was goodbye.

  Cyd was still at the hospital.

  Peggy looked tiny in the hospital bed, a kind of protective tent above her plastered leg, her sleeping face grave and frowning. She was sitting up in bed, her head tilted to one side, as if she had only just nodded off.

  At first I didn’t see Cyd. Then I noticed her on the far side of the bed, sleeping on the floor, between a couple of blue hospital blankets. It was after midnight now. I crouched by her side and she stirred.

  ‘She woke up. In a lot of pain. They gave her a shot of something and it’s knocked her out. The nurse says she should be all right until morning.’ We both watched the sleeping child. She didn’t move. ‘Not much is going to happen until then. Apart from, you know. All this. The waiting.’

  ‘Come home for a bit, Cyd.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t leave her.’

  ‘Come home. Shower. Get some sleep. In your own bed. Some tea and toast, maybe. Come on. You’ll be stronger for tomorrow.’

  She smiled wearily, and touched my arm.

  ‘Thanks for sticking by me, Harry,’ she said, and I felt my face flush with shame.

  ‘You were there for me,’ I said. ‘When Pat was hurt. Remember?’

  It was almost three years ago now. I could still see my son falling into that empty swimming pool, the dark halo of blood growing around his dirty-blond hair. That’s when I learned. That’s when I discovered that this world could take your children away from you. And Cyd was there for me. With Gina in Japan, getting her life back or discovering her true self or looking for love or whatever the fuck she was doing, there was nobody for me here. Apart from my parents, who would always be there. And Cyd, who could have been somewhere else. Somewhere a lot easier.

  ‘Seems like a long time ago now,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s go home, Cyd. Just for a few hours. Come on, you’re out on your feet.’

  But there was something she wanted to say to me.

  ‘I know you want to be free, Harry.’

  ‘Not now. Not all this talk now. Please.’

  ‘No, listen. I know you want to be free. Because all men want to be free, but you more than most. Maybe because you were such a young dad, such a young husband. And it all went wrong for you so young. I don’t know exactly why you want it so bad. But I know you dream of freedom – you wonder what it would be like with no wife, no kids, no responsibility. But what would happen if you were free, Harry? Do you know?’

  ‘Let’s go home now.’

  She smiled triumphantly. ‘Because I know, Harry. I do. I know what would happen if you were free.’

  ‘Cyd—’

  ‘Listen to me. This is what would happen if you were free, Harry. You’d meet some girl, some sweet young thing, and you’d fall for her. You’d be crazy about her. And you’d end up somewhere not so different from where you are with me, where you were with Gina, where you were with every woman you ever loved. Can’t you see, Harry? If you’re capable of loving someone, then there’s never total freedom. There can’t be. You give it up. You give up your freedom. For something that’s better.’

  I picked up her coat and helped her into it. We both stared at the sleeping child, reluctant to leave her. White on white, Peggy’s face almost seemed to disappear into the pillow.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to trap you, Harry,’ Cyd said. ‘The marriage, the wedding ring, me and Peggy. I know that’s how it made you feel, but it wasn’t meant to be like that. You and me – it wasn’t meant to make you feel trapped, Harry.’

  ‘Let’s go home now, okay?’

  ‘It was meant to set you free.’

  I lay in my bed in the darkness, listening to the sound of the shower, then later her footsteps leading to the guest room. I didn’t notice she had come into our bedroom until she was standing by the bed. Her black hair wet and shining, her long legs bare, shivering a little in the chill of the night. And still wearing her green dress.

  ‘It still fits, Harry,’ she said, and then she was in my arms. And then, as so often happens when illness and death are at the door, the urge for life never greater than when the alternative makes itself known, we made love as if we were an endangered species.

  There are really only two kinds of sex in the world. Unmarried and married. Desire and duty. Passionate and compassionate. Hot and lukewarm. Fucking and making love.

  Usually, in time, you lose one kind for the other. It happens. But you can always get the other kind back.

  It’s like my mum said.

  You just have to fall in love again.

  twenty-eight

  On Primrose Hill we said goodbye.

  I would hardly have been surprised if she had never wanted to talk to me again. But there was something in her, a kind of generous formality – perhaps it was something Japanese – which let her come back just this once.

  It was one of those clear bright summer days when London goes on forever. From Primrose Hill you could see the entire city, and yet the soft boom of the traffic seemed very distant. The real world felt a long way away. But I knew it was getting closer.

  It was still very early. There were dogs and joggers everywhere, people rushing to work with a cappuccino in their hand, and the lights, those old-fashioned lamps that recalled some other lost city, another London, still shining weakly in the morning light all over Primrose Hill.

  ‘Will you stay here or go back to Japan?’

  ‘You can’t ask me that. You don’t have the right to ask me that.’

  ‘I’m sorry
.’

  ‘Stop saying that. Don’t say that again. Please.’

  She held something out to me. It was the Polaroid we had taken ourselves, holding the camera at arm’s length, laughing as though none of this would ever have to end.

  ‘I used to think that if you took someone’s photograph, then you could never lose them,’ Kazumi said. ‘But now I see it’s the other way round. That our pictures show us all that we have lost.’

  ‘We’re not losing each other,’ I said. ‘When two people care for each other, they don’t lose each other.’

  ‘That’s a bollock,’ she said, her temper flaring. I couldn’t help smiling. She always mangled the language just enough to make it special. ‘That’s a complete bollock.’

  I shook my head. ‘You’ll always matter to me, Kazumi. I’ll always care about you. I won’t stop caring about you if you’re with some other man. How can two people who have loved each other ever really lose each other?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I can’t explain it, but that’s what happens.’

  ‘I don’t want you out of my life.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Four billion people in the world, and I care about a handful of them. Including you. Especially you. So don’t talk as though we are throwing each other away.’

  ‘Okay, Harry.’

  ‘Together forever?’

  She smiled. ‘Together forever, Harry.’

  ‘See you, Kazumi.’

  ‘See you.’

  I watched her walking down Primrose Hill, on one of those strange little paths that abruptly crisscross the park, pointing off in completely different directions, just like the impossible choices you are forced to make as you move through your life.

  I watched her until she was gone, knowing that I would never stop wondering how it would have been if we were together, never stop caring about her, and never stop meeting her in dreams.

  And just as she walked from the park and I finally lost sight of her, something happened, although I might have imagined it. It felt like the lights went out all over Primrose Hill.

  I never saw her again.