My Favourite Wife (22 page)

‘I’m coming back,’ Bill said. ‘Next flight. Give me Sara’s address.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you can’t take care of her, then I will.’

‘You’re not coming back,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to come back. Look, I know how you feel about Sara. And it’s true she has had problems in the past. But she’s calmed down so much over the last few years. Since she stopped drinking and the other stuff, she’s so much nicer, so much more herself. Therapy has done wonders for her. And Holly is totally safe and happy, and I was going to tell you – really – but I knew you’d fret.’

Then he lost it. ‘You knew I’d fret? I’m doing more than fret, Becca. When were you going to tell me? And let me know when I’m fretting too much for you.’

‘But it’s only until my dad is well enough to take of himself.’ Genuinely astounded that he should feel this way. It drove him crazy. ‘And they’re all really great with Holly. They love her so much. Sara. Her kids. All of them. Especially Sara’s partner.’

Sara’s partner.

Sara’s fucking partner.

‘It’s temporary, Bill,’ Becca said, very calm, and wanting him to be calm too. ‘Until my dad is a little better. And Holly’s very happy. Please believe me.’

‘I don’t like it.’

And then her sighing. Her sighing was driving him nuts. It would be wonderful if he never heard her sigh again.

‘What don’t you like?’

‘I don’t like Holly being with strangers.’

‘My sister is not a stranger.’

‘No, she’s a flake. She’s a lunatic. Always has been. One minute she’s married, the next she’s a lesbian –’

‘Oh, that was just a phase after her first marriage broke up. She’s settled down a lot, Bill. Do you think I’d put Holly somewhere there was any sort of danger? Sara’s been a great help to me. You have to trust me on this.’

But he didn’t trust her on this.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘She should be with you.’

‘But I’ve been with my dad.’

‘I still don’t like it.’

Then her patience was gone, and she was sick and tired of him, and there was the coldness that was always waiting there to greet him when he stepped too far out of line.

‘But you’re not here, are you?’ she said. ‘So I’m the one who has to deal with it.’

‘If anything happens to Holly,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll never forgive you.’

‘Oh fuck you, Bill. How dare you suggest I would put my daughter in any kind of danger? If you want to know the truth, she’s having a lovely time. More fun than she ever has with us. Sara’s family eat their meals together, they spend time together –’

‘And we don’t? Why’s that, Becca? Because I’m working twelve hours a day to give you a lifestyle of the rich and famous.’

‘You think that because you make the money you’re excused all other duties.’

‘You’re always telling me what I think.’

‘Does that annoy you?’

‘No, I love it. Really. Truly. I fucking love it.’ He looked up
and saw Shane waiting at the other end of the corridor. Beyond him the others were waiting for him in the conference room. ‘You should put Holly first,’ Bill said, turning his back on Shane. ‘You should put her before everything.’

‘I do, Bill, and one day you’ll realise that,’ she said. ‘What about you? What’s your number one priority? Sara and I were discussing this last night. Some men clock off with their family as soon as they clock in at the office.’

‘Don’t you ever discuss me or my business with that crazy bitch,’ he shouted, and heard the line go dead. A hand lightly touched his shoulder. He turned to look at Shane’s face.

‘Family all right, mate?’ his friend said.

‘Never been better, mate,’ said Bill.

Becca watched Sarfraz Khan walking towards them down the corridor of the paediatric clinic with a big smile and for a long moment she thought she was seeing things.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, thinking how rude that sounded.

‘Seeing some friends,’ he said. He crouched down to say hello to Holly. He was good at that, Becca thought. He always arranged himself so that he was on the same level as the child. ‘I’m getting the train up to Liverpool tomorrow morning.’ Something passed briefly across his face. ‘My mother hasn’t been well.’

He stood up and looked away, running a hand through his glossy black hair, and she recognised that feeling. The guilt of the absent adult child.

Becca was aware of her sister staring at her, and at Sarfraz Khan, and she hastily made the introductions. The doctor shook Sara’s hand, his eyes flicking almost imperceptibly over her cropped orange hair.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked Becca, and she knew he was talking about Holly.

‘Good,’ Becca said. ‘Very good. No more attacks. She likes being back in London. Misses her father, of course.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and he dropped into his professional squat again, smiling at Holly. ‘How was that long plane journey?’

‘I saw the cockpit,’ she said.

‘Did you?’ he said.

‘It’s where the pilot goes,’ she nodded. ‘They invited me.’

‘Wow,’ he said, standing up and smiling at Becca. ‘I wish I got invitations like that.’ He hesitated for a moment, as if summoning up his courage. ‘You’re not free for a quick coffee, are you? It turns out my old friends here have other plans.’ He tried to make a joke of it. ‘How quickly they forget.’ He looked at Holly and Sara. ‘I mean – all of us. If you’re free.’

Becca shook her head. ‘Sorry, I can’t.’

‘Oh go on,’ Sara said, nudging her, and Becca caught a glimpse of the old recklessness. ‘I’ll take Holly home and you have coffee with your friend.’ She turned to Khan. ‘She’s hardly been out of the house since she came back, unless it’s to see some kind of doctor.’

‘Well, he’s a doctor too, of course,’ Becca said, but somehow it was settled. Becca and Sarfraz watched Sara and Holly walking up Great Portland Street until they disappeared into Regent’s Park. Then he turned to her and clapped his hands. She didn’t think she had ever seen an Indian blush before.

‘Starbucks?’ he said. ‘There’s one right across the street from my hotel.’

Becca grimaced. ‘Don’t we see enough of Starbucks in Shanghai?’ she said.

‘Then the café at my place,’ he said, and she found herself accompanying him to his hotel.
Should have gone to Starbucks
, she thought.

He had a room at the Langham on Portland Place. There was a café in the lobby, full of tourists buttering scones and enjoying high tea. They ordered their coffee and she started to relax. Khan
was so clearly a decent man, and he was so open about his guilt about his mother – struggling with the early stages of MS while her only son was on the other side of the world – that she found herself opening up and telling him how torn she also felt. Torn between their family life in Shanghai and her responsibility in London, between the roles of mother and daughter and wife.

‘Sometimes I just don’t know what to do,’ Becca said. ‘No, that’s not true – I never really know what to do.’ She stared at her coffee cup. ‘Because the most important things in my life -my father, my husband, my daughter – are all pulling me in different directions.’

Khan stared at her thoughtfully, and she thought that mentioning Bill had subdued him somewhat. And she was glad about that because she did not want him to confuse a coffee break with a date. But then she realised that he was just trying to remember something.

‘This is what you shall do,’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘This is what you shall do,’ he said again. ‘Love the earth and the sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men.’

‘Well, thanks for the advice,’ Becca said. ‘I’ll certainly keep all that in mind.’

He was crestfallen. ‘Don’t you like it?’ he said.

‘I think it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life,’ she said. ‘What is it? A poem?’

He nodded. ‘Walt Whitman. Did you know he was a doctor of sorts? Cared for the injured and the dying during the Civil War. It was the defining experience of his life.’

He called for the bill and tried to put it on his room but Becca
insisted on paying it. She was glad he didn’t offer much of a fight. When they were in the lobby she said she hoped that things worked out with his mother and his trip up to Liverpool.

‘Take good care of your mum,’ she said.

‘Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,’ he said, stepping sideways to avoid a bellhop wheeling a stack of suitcases, ‘and with the young and with mothers of families.’

And Becca thought – a doctor who quotes poetry.

‘Read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life,’ he said, as if she was no longer there, ‘re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem…’

She wasn’t sure how it happened.

She told him that she was going to the little bookshop in Primrose Hill first thing in the morning to buy everything she could find by Walt Whitman. And Khan said he had a copy of the collected works in his hotel room and he wanted Becca to have it.

She said
oh really that’s okay no thanks
but he insisted, and she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. That would have been even worse. So they walked through the gilded old lobby of the Langham because somehow it would have seemed inappropriate to wait in the lobby while he went off to fetch Walt Whitman and then they got into the mirrored lift and said nothing as the floor lights ascended and they went up to his room.

Khan let himself into the hotel room. Becca followed him. It was a suite, far larger than she had been expecting.

‘They upgraded me,’ he said, picking up the chocolate truffle that had been placed on his pillow. ‘I always stay here when I get back from Shanghai on my way up to Liverpool. It’s too far all in one day.’ He was talking too much. He turned to face Becca and they stared at each other for a moment and then he popped the
chocolate in his mouth. ‘I’ll get you that book,’ he said through a mouthful of chocolate, and went into the other room.

She went to the window and stared out at the lights of Broadcasting House, the flags flying outside the embassies, the long sweep of Portland Place leading all the way to Regent’s Park, Primrose Hill and the secret giraffes.

And when Khan came back with the book in his hands, Becca was gone.

The lift doors opened and suddenly she was standing there.

JinJin looked from Bill’s face to the suitcase in his hand, her all-conquering smile not wavering. She made no attempt to leave the lift. The doors began to close. Bill stuck out a foot and the doors clunked open again. JinJin stepped out, the doors closing behind her.

‘I was bringing this for you,’ she said, offering him a small square of plastic. There was a tiny DVD inside. ‘The film we made,’ she explained. ‘It’s very good, William.’

Bill smiled politely. ‘I’ll watch it when I get back,’ he said, taking it with his free hand.

JinJin looked again at his suitcase. ‘Holiday?’ she asked him. ‘Holiday in London?’

He slipped the DVD inside his jacket. ‘Business trip,’ he said. ‘Excuse me.’

She stepped aside and he hit the down button. She looked disappointed but she was holding on to the smile. ‘You are a good film maker,’ she said.

‘I look forward to seeing it,’ he said, glancing at his watch. Tiger should be waiting for him downstairs. The lift came and they stepped inside together. ‘When I’ve watched it I’ll drop it in your mailbox,’ he said as the lift began to descend.

‘You can bring it to me,’ she said. There was still some of the smile left. ‘Bring it to me anytime you are free.’ Her face brightened. ‘We could watch it together!’

Bill nodded. ‘I might just drop it in the mailbox,’ he said.

They reached the ground floor. The lift doors opened and he saw that Tiger was there, the engine running and ready to drive him to the airport.

‘As you wish,’ said JinJin.

They stood there in awkward silence, the lift behind them and the glass doors to the courtyard in front of them. When they went through those doors they would go their separate ways.

‘Where are you off to?’ she said, and something about her choice of phrase made his heart feel like it was being squeezed. It sounded like something his mother would have said.

What a shame, he thought. What a shame we can only ever be friends.

‘The Pearl River Delta,’ he said. ‘Shenzhen.’

She pulled a face and it was full of the northerner’s instinctive distrust of southerners. ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘Many bad people down there.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘You be careful.’ He found himself fumbling for the words. ‘Drive safely and everything.’

He saw the sudden sting of tears in her eyes, like a child just told that their best friend is moving to a new school.

‘Why are you crying?’ he said.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I’m not,’ she insisted.

He looked out at Tiger. ‘I have to go,’ he said, reaching out to touch one of those long slim arms.

‘I know you do,’ she said, abruptly pulling away, and she stepped through the automatic glass doors with a swish of air.

He watched her walking across the courtyard of Paradise Mansions with that strange, awkward gait of hers, like a colt that
was still getting used to the length of its legs, and she had one hand lifted to shield her face against the merciless morning sun, as though that was another one of the things that she had never really got used to.

Their car came to a halt, and beyond the stalled traffic ahead Bill could see the lorry on its side, its nearside wheels in a ditch.

The driver stood next to it, staring at his vehicle in bewilderment, as if he could not quite believe this betrayal. He was still holding the portable DVD player that he had been watching at the wheel when he went off the road.

It was a fruit lorry, and it blocked the road from Shenzhen to the factory of the Happy Trousers Trading Company. A garish avalanche was spread across the road, a vivid mass of apples, bananas, melons, plums, oranges, mangoes and lychees that had tipped out of their cardboard boxes but remained in their individual wrappers of cellophane and paper, as if tempting the palates of the bystanders who had gathered to gawp by the side of the road.