One For My Baby Read online

  But my nan is no longer listening to me. She turns off Sinatra and Count Basie and hits the mute button on the TV’s remote control, really pushing it as hard as she can, as if she has never got used to remote controls. Then she produces her lottery ticket from an old biscuit tin with a kilted highland piper on the front and stares with rapt concentration at the chortling game-show host who is presenting this week’s live draw.

  My nan is happy to debate adultery, miscarriages and fancy women with me.

  But only if they don’t clash with the National Lottery.

  ten

  I saw them every day, the old Chinese people moving through the morning mist of Kowloon Park, Victoria Park and Chater Gardens. But I never really noticed them. I saw no beauty and no meaning in their unhurried ballet. They were old and I was young and I believed that there was nothing they could ever teach me.

  I saw them doing their slow-motion exercises—saw it most mornings for over two years—but it was never more than a little background colour to me. The Tai Chi I saw in Hong Kong registered on the same shallow level as the stalls selling their nameless herbs on Ko Shing Street, the incense smouldering in a temple’s stone cauldrons on Hollywood Road, the skyline full of countless potted plants on the balconies of apartments ten, twenty, thirty storeys high, the occasional talk of good and bad feng shui among the Cantonese staff of the Double Fortune Language School, the fake money burned in the streets every August for the Festival of Hungry Ghosts.

  I saw all these things but they never even began to have meaning for me, they meant nothing beyond reminding me that I was a thrillingly long way from home. These images were all postcards with nothing written on the back.

  But now, when I huff and puff my way around Highbury Fields, looking for a way to live inside my own skin, I see George Chang doing his Tai Chi and somehow this ancient dance finally starts to make sense.

  Sometimes he is not alone. Sometimes he has a student or two with him, if you can call them students, these long-haired hippy chicks and those guys with non-aggressive shaved heads and John Lennon spectacles. Alternative types, I think to myself, everything in their lives organic. But they never seem to stick at it for very long, and I am sort of glad about that.

  I like to watch him best when he is alone.

  It is always very early, that fleeting moment of the day when the whole city seems to be sleeping. All the night people—the drinkers, the ravers, the screamers—have finally gone home to bed but the day people—the joggers, the go-getters, the early worms earning six figures a year—have yet to stir. The only sound is a distant lorry barrelling down the Holloway Road. This pause never lasts long. But George Chang moves as though he has all the time in the world.

  He moves as though he is at once both rooted to the earth and weightless. His arms and hands have the supple grace of wings, slowly pushing and pulling and rising and falling without ever seeming to make any effort at all. As his weight shifts from one foot to the other, his back remains poker straight and his head stays up, an unbroken line running from the base of his spine to the back of his skull.

  There’s an air about him that I can’t quite name. At first I think of it as tranquillity but it’s more than that. It is more than serenity. It’s a feeling that combines both peace and strength.

  His face is calm, concentrated, composed. His upper body seems impossibly relaxed. It stays relaxed. Perhaps this is what holds my attention so completely. I have never seen anyone so at ease with himself. When he is finished I walk up to him.

  ‘Thanks for the other night,’ I say.

  He looks at me for a second, placing me.

  ‘How is friend’s nose?’

  ‘Covered in bandages. But you were right. About pushing it back in shape straight away, I mean. Apparently it made it a lot easier to set.’

  ‘Ah. Good.’

  ‘I don’t think I told you. I lived in Hong Kong. I haven’t been back in London for very long.’

  He looks up again. I realise he is waiting.

  ‘For two years. I was a teacher. At a language school. I got married out there.’

  He nods with what I take to be approval. ‘Hong Kong lady?’

  ‘English lady.’

  I don’t tell him anything else about Rose. I don’t talk about it all the time. I just don’t want to. Historically, the British are meant to be too shy for this sort of thing, for talking about their deepest, darkest feelings to strangers. But I find that’s something else that has changed while I was away, just like Terry Wogan playing REM and my father acting like Rod Stewart. These days the British can’t stop talking about their feelings.

  Perhaps Diana had something to do with it, perhaps she persuaded us to exchange our stoic, stiff upper lips for emotional, wobbly bottom lips. Perhaps it’s because the hole in the sky is making not only the weather more continental but also our temperaments. But our national character has certainly changed.

  The problem these days is not getting the British to talk about their feelings. The problem these days is getting them to shut the fuck up.

  ‘I saw a lot of Tai Chi in Hong Kong. In the parks.’

  ‘Very popular in Hong Kong. More than UK.’

  ‘That’s right. But I could never really understand what they got out of it. I mean, it looks great,’ I say quickly. ‘Especially when you do it. I just didn’t get it.’

  ‘Tai Chi for many things. For health. For stress. For stopping your body being attacked.’

  ‘You mean for self-defence?’

  ‘Many kinds of self-defence. You know? Many kinds. You can be attacked inside and outside. There’s the cheeky man who broke your friend’s nose.’

  ‘The cheeky man?’

  ‘The cheeky man. There’s also disease. Tai Chi good for internal organs. For sickness. You know what Chinese word chi means?’

  ‘Well, I know it’s supposed to mean your body’s internal energy. The life force.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I don’t think I’ve got any. At least, I’ve never been aware of it.’

  ‘Got any blood in your veins?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you got any blood in your veins?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You aware of that?’ He nods with satisfaction. ‘’Course not. Same as chi. It’s there. If you know it or not. Chi means air. It also means energy. The spirit leads the mind. The mind leads the chi. The chi leads the blood. Tai Chi is about controlling your chi for better life. We say—every journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. The first step—that’s Tai Chi.’

  I nod, sort of getting it, but suddenly feeling a bit peckish. I can feel my life force rumbling, so I pull out a Snickers bar from my tracksuit pocket. George Chang narrows his eyes.

  ‘You want half of this?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I unwrap the Snickers bar, break it in half and hand him his share. We munch in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘Prefer Mars bar,’ he says through a mouthful of chocolate, peanuts and tasty nougat. He examines the Snickers bar like a wine connoisseur considering the bouquet of a particularly fine Burgundy. Then he closes his eyes, reaching for the memory.

  ‘A Mars a day…helps you work, rest and play.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I say. ‘Some old Chinese saying?’

  George Chang just smiles at me.

  For a week the ginseng sits in our kitchen like a piece of modern sculpture. My mother and I spend a long time staring at it, like baffled art lovers searching for meaning in a work we don’t quite understand.

  The ginseng looks like a vegetable from another planet. It is pale yellow and white, horribly misshapen, dangling a tangle of thin roots like tentacles. Those trailing membranes make it look vaguely squid-like.

  ‘And I thought you bought it in Boots,’ I say. ‘In convenient handy-to-swallow capsules.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re meant to boil it,’ my mother says thoughtfully. ‘You know. Like a carrot.’

 
‘Like a carrot. Right. That sounds possible.’ ‘Or maybe you chop it up and fry it. Like an onion.’ ‘Like an onion. So you could even eat it raw.’ We study the ginseng. It is the only plant I have ever seen that reminds me of the Elephant Man.

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy that very much, dear,’ says my mother.

  ‘No. Me neither. Look, why don’t we just ask Joyce what you’re meant to do with it?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not? It’s only six o’clock. The restaurant’s not open yet. You want to use it, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, dear,’ my mother says. ‘It’s meant to be very good for stress.’

  There’s a voice being raised inside the Shanghai Dragon. A woman’s voice. My mother and I hesitate for a moment and then go inside.

  It is cool and dark in the restaurant. We are expecting to find the entire family clustered around the dining table, happily eating their soup and noodles. But tonight there is only Joyce and her small grandson. She seems very angry with him, and barks at him in a mixture of English and Cantonese.

  ‘You think you’re English?’ she asks him. A blast of Cantonese. ‘Look at your face in the mirror!’ Some more Cantonese. ‘Look at your face! You’re not English!’

  Although he can’t be more than five years old, the boy is bent over some homework. He is writing in his little exercise book, his big beautiful moon face all damp with tears.

  ‘You are Chinese! You have Chinese face! You will always have Chinese face!’ Some Cantonese. ‘You have to be smarter than English!’

  Joyce notices us hovering in the doorway. She looks at us without embarrassment. I realise that I can’t imagine Joyce ever feeling embarrassed about anything.

  ‘Hello!’ she seems to shout. She is still very excited. ‘Didn’t see you. I don’t have eyes in the back of my face.’

  ‘Is this a bad time?’ I say.

  ‘What? Bad time? No. Just teaching cheeky grandson that he has to work hard.’

  ‘He seems very young to be doing homework,’ my mother says.

  ‘Father sets homework. Not school. School just let them do anything. Relax. Watch television. Watch video games. Just relax. Like millionaires. Like playboys. As though the world owes them a loving.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ My mother sighs, staring sympathetically at the child. ‘What’s your name, darling?’

  He says nothing.

  ‘Answer lady!’ Joyce roars like a sergeant major faced with a dopey private.

  ‘William,’ he says. A tiny voice, full of tears.

  ‘Like Prince William,’ Joyce says. She ruffles his thick mop of shiny black hair, pinches his smooth round cheek. ‘Sister called Diana. Like Princess Diana.’

  ‘What lovely names,’ my mother says.

  ‘We were wondering how you prepare the ginseng,’ I say. I want to get out of here. ‘How you are meant to take it.’

  ‘Take it? Many ways. Can drink it. Like tea. In a nice cup of tea. Can put it in soup. Like Korean people. Easiest way—just chop up ginseng. Put it in saucepan with water. Boil it. Let it simmer for ten minutes. Strain it off. Use one pint of water for every ounce of ginseng.’

  ‘That sounds easy enough,’ my mother says, smiling at William.

  He stares up at her with blank wet eyes.

  ‘You tried ginseng yet?’ demands Joyce.

  ‘Not yet. That’s what we—’

  ‘Good for you.’ Her fierce brown eyes blaze at my mother. ‘Especially women. Older ladies. But not just older ladies.’ She looks at me. ‘Good for when you not sleep. Tired all the time. Feeling—how to say?—a bit run over.’

  ‘Run down.’

  ‘Yes. Run over.’ She pushes her face close to mine. ‘You looking a bit run over, mister.’

  ‘Just what I need!’ says my mum, clapping her hands with delight.

  Joyce offers us tea—English tea, she calls it—but we make our excuses and leave. Before we are out of the door, Joyce is shouting at William about having a Chinese face.

  And for the first time I get a sense of how hard it is when you want to become international.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ Josh tells me when we meet for lunch in a crowded City pub where I am the only man not wearing a suit.

  ‘Got to reach somebody in Hong Kong before they leave the office?’ His firm still does a lot of business with Hong Kong and I like hearing about it. It makes me feel as though I still have some connection with the place. Something more than memories.

  ‘No. Got a client coming in. A woman. You should see her, Alfie. Top-of-the-range totty, mate. Looks like Claudia Schiffer but talks like Lady Helen Windsor or somebody. A real plums-in-the-mouth job. Not so much tits and arse as tits and class. Quite fancy my chances, I do.’

  ‘A bit of posh? Just right for you, Josh. Knock off your rough edges. Show you which fork to use. Teach you when to say lavatory and when to say sofa. Stop you wiping your nose on your sleeve. Keeping coal in the bath. All that.’

  He flushes, not liking it very much when you suggest that he is not quite the Duke of Westminster. Usually you can say what you like to Josh. He has the sensitivity of a half-brick. But you are not allowed to suggest that he wasn’t born with a silver spoon up his Ponder’s End.

  ‘She’s coming into the office at two,’ he says, looking at his watch. ‘Can’t stay long.’

  I am not offended. Our meetings often begin with Josh telling me that he has to be somewhere else very soon. I’m used to it.

  We order curry at the bar and I notice that the damage to his face is fading. The bandages are long gone and there’s no sign that his broken nose has been re-set. There are black and yellow bruises under his eyes, but they look as though they are the result of a night without sleep rather than a head butt from a drunken middle-aged skinhead. We collect our curries and find a glass-strewn table in a smoky corner of the pub.

  ‘You ever think about that night?’ I ask him.

  ‘What night?’

  ‘You know. That night in the Shanghai Dragon. The night you got your nose broken. The night I got my ribs smacked.’

  ‘I try not to.’

  ‘I think about it all the time. I can’t quite work out what happened.’

  ‘Surprise attack. Caught me off guard. Pearl Harbor and all that. Fat bastard. Should have called the police.’

  ‘I don’t mean what happened to us. I mean the old man. What happened to him.’

  ‘Nothing happened to him. It was all over by the time he showed up.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘That guy—that fat skinhead—was ready to fight anyone. Then the old man turned up. And the skinhead backed down. I didn’t understand it then. I still don’t.’

  ‘There’s no great mystery,’ Josh says through a mouthful of curry. ‘The skinhead probably thought that Charlie Chan had fifty of his relations out the back, all armed with machetes. Come on. I can’t hang about. Eat your curry before it gets cold.’

  ‘That’s not it. At least, I don’t think that’s it. It was just that he was—I don’t know. Perfectly relaxed. You could see it in him. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid of a much younger, much bigger man who was ready to fight anyone. He just wasn’t scared of him. And the skinhead could sense it. There was no fear in him.’

  Josh snorts.

  ‘Did you feel a tremor in the Force, Alfie? Did you sense that the Force was strong in the old cook? Were you once more privy to the mysteries of the East?’

  ‘I’m just saying that he wasn’t afraid. That’s all. And he should have been afraid.’

  Josh is not listening to me. He is quickly shovelling in his curry and thinking about the blonde, upper-class client who is coming into his office at two. He is thinking about his chances with her. But I still feel the need to explain something to him.

  ‘It just made me think how great that must be—to go through your life without fear. Imagine how liberating that must be, Josh. Imagine how free that must make you feel. If you’re not afraid of an
ything, then you can’t be hurt, can you?’

  ‘Only if they’ve got a baseball bat,’ says Josh. ‘How’s your old man? Still shacked up with Miss Sweden?’

  ‘Miss Czech Republic. He’s gone for good. I’m pretty sure of it.’

  Josh shakes his head. ‘You’ve got to take your hat off to him. Still getting the shaven haven at his age. It’s not to be sniffed at.’

  ‘I don’t want some old swinger for a father. Nobody does. Everybody admires Hugh Hefner. Everybody likes the old boy who plays around. But nobody wants him for their dad.’

  ‘Not much of a role model, I suppose. Shagging the hired help.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be a role model. I just want a bit of stability. A bit of peace and quiet. That’s all anybody wants from their parents, isn’t it? That’s the best thing they can give you—a little less embarrassment. I don’t want my dad to be out there chasing young Czech women and trying to pump up his biceps and all the rest of it. I want him to think about other things. He’s had his time. He should understand that. He’s had his time for being young. Nobody wants to get old any more, do they?’

  ‘Not if they can help it.’

  ‘Nobody wants to get out of the way and let the next generation come through. Everybody wants one more chance.’

  ‘What’s so bad about that?’

  ‘It makes a mockery of the past. Every time you start again, it diminishes what you’ve had before. Can’t you see that? It chops your life up into these little bite-sized morsels. If you have endless goes at getting it right, then you will never get it right. Not even once. Because constantly starting again turns the best thing in the world into just another takeaway. Fast love. Junk love. Love to go.’

  ‘Don’t you want one more chance, Alfie?’

  ‘I’ve had my chance.’

  eleven

  Jackie Day is in the staff room when I arrive. She has her bucket in one hand and her copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in the other. She has all her kit on—the yellow gloves, the blue nylon coat, the flat shoes she cleans in—but she is making no move to go to work. It’s nearly nine o’clock but she still has her face buried in that old paperback.