My Favourite Wife (17 page)

‘I’ll be right back,’ he mouthed.

He didn’t notice the four men at another table who got up and followed him out of the ballroom and into the hotel lobby. He was looking at his phone, waiting for the signal to appear, so he still didn’t see them when he stepped out of the hotel and into the soft summer night. It was only when the signal appeared and he was speed-dialling Becca’s number that he looked up and saw them standing there.

Four men he didn’t recognise, staring at him as though he should know them.

‘Hello?’ Becca said, but Bill didn’t hear her because he was closing his phone, and knowing all at once that he had to get away from these men.

Because now he knew them. Now he remembered them. Now he could see them out on the dance floor of Suzy Too, laughing like lottery winners, with their hands all over JinJin Li.

Bill moved to walk past them but one of them threw his cigarette away and stepped in front of him.

‘A piece of advice,’ the man said.

They were like one person, Bill thought. Young but running to fat, with those closed, spiteful faces that he knew so well. His countrymen.

‘Don’t try to tell us what we can and can’t do with some Chinese
whore,’ the man said, and then he punched Bill full in the face. His friends chortled their approval.

Bill had seen it coming but he was too shocked to move. He had stood there like an idiot as the blow struck the side of his mouth and the force knocked him backwards and he trod on someone in the queue for taxis and heard a girl scream. He was hit again, felt something hard and unbreakable split his lip – maybe a wedding ring, he thought – and crashed into something big and hard. He held on to it for support and saw it was one of the two Chinese lions protecting the entrance to the hotel. He had scuffed his hands on the lion but it broke his fall and kept him on his feet.

His fingers went to his mouth and came away wet and red. He felt he could smell the blood, rank and metallic. He half-turned and there were three of them in front of Bill now. Fists clenched, working themselves up, all wanting their crack at him. The lips taut on their mean, stupid faces. Oh, he knew them now. The one that had hit him seemed keen to explain something.

‘Where do you think you are? The school disco? She would have been happy to fuck the lot of us for five hundred RMB,’ he said. ‘You ignorant fucking tourist.’

Tourist
was the worst thing you could call someone in Shanghai.
Tourist
made
motherfucker
seem like quite the compliment.

Another punch, but Bill had realised that he should possibly be making some effort to duck and this one skimmed off his forehead. Then someone he didn’t see kicked him in the ribs and the wind went whoosh out of him and he was down on all fours, gasping with shock and fear, because the pain in his side was unbelievable. He wondered where this would end, and if they were going to kill him.

Then from somewhere far away he heard Shane’s voice. Calling his name, calling them bastards, telling them to leave him alone. And at first it seemed as though they were doing just that.

The blows stopped and as Bill crawled across the pavement
towards the lobby of the hotel, aware of the people in the taxi queue backing away from him as though he was carrying some dreadful disease, it felt like a miracle. But they had only turned their attention on his friend.

Bill lifted his head up and saw Shane going down with all of them around him. Bill held on to the stone lion and got up. Shane was lashing out and cursing, but one of the men dropped on top of his chest, fists moving like pistons, while the others were kneeling on him, pinning him down, making him roar. There were shouts in Chinese and English. People were coming out of the hotel to watch.

Bill was back on his feet, holding his side as he staggered towards his friend. Something exploded in his ear like a red flash of light and he ducked, almost comically after the event. He saw the faces of two of the men, turning away from Shane, one of them with blood on his dress shirt. That might be mine, Bill thought.

The other two were still kicking Shane. In the head, between the legs, in the ribs. He curled up and they kept kicking him.

Bill was aware he should do something. But it was all happening too fast, and there were too many of them, and he didn’t have the fury in him that he had had when he saw them with JinJin Li and felt his blood pumping with rage at the sight of that young, manhandled flesh. Tonight the rage was all in them.

The men who were stomping Shane were breathing heavily, sweating hard, slowing down. Their bow ties had come loose. Shane had stopped shouting. He was curled up on the pavement, not moving. Bill moved towards him but the talkative one was in Bill’s face, bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists clenched by his sides. His trousers had those long satiny stripes that lawyers liked. That they were all wearing black tie somehow made the scene more grotesque, and made the men seem like a pack of psychopathic penguins.

‘Protecting her honour, were you?’ He had JinJin Li on the brain, this one. ‘What do you think, you stupid bastard – that she doesn’t fuck men for money?’

He punched Bill in the gut and it bent him double, but then it was suddenly all over, because the hotel security were on the pavement and the men were walking off, in no hurry at all, giving each other high fives as though they had just won a basketball game, exulting and laughing and shouting obscenities over their shoulders. The hotel security stared after them, and then at Bill and Shane with equal hostility. Shane was sitting up now but bent forward and moaning with his hands cupped over his groin. He had been sick down the front of his dinner jacket.

Bill helped Shane to his feet and felt the full weight of his friend leaning on him. They staggered to the road where Tiger was scrambling out of the car and staring at them in horror. He was saying something but Bill couldn’t hear him.

Yes, that’s exactly what I believe
, Bill was thinking, as the humiliation of taking a beating kicked in.
I really believe it, you pig
.

I believe with all my heart that she never fucked anyone for money
.

When they were very young and starting out, Becca and Bill had talked endlessly, talked about their relationship, feelings, life, the world, jobs, friends, problems, fulfilment, parents and all the disappointments of the past.

And then they got married and had a baby, and after that they mostly talked about their daughter.

‘She was looking for “YMCA”,’ Becca said on the phone. ‘The CD with “YMCA” on it. By the Village People.’

‘Yes,’ Bill said, resisting the urge to say
I know who sings ‘YMCA’
. He absent-mindedly felt the mess they had made of his face, and smiled at the memory of Holly out on the floor at Shane and Rosalita’s wedding, facing her mother as they sang and danced along to the Village People. Her thin white arms thrown flamboyantly wide for
Y
, fingertips touching her head for
M
, leaning sideways with her arms almost forming a circle
for
C –
that was the funniest part, for some reason – and her hands making a quick triangle above her head for the A.

‘It’s on
Now That’s What I Call Disco,’
he said. His voice sounded strange to his ears. It was his fat lips, and whatever they had done to his teeth.

‘But it’s not,’ Becca insisted. ‘That’s what I thought, but it’s not on
Now That’s What I Call Disco
. “In the Navy” is on there. Their other hit. The Village People, I mean.’

Bill sighed. ‘Then look on
Super Dance Party 1999,’
he suggested. ‘Might be on there.’

‘Okay,’ Becca said doubtfully. If Holly wanted to dance to a certain song, it never occurred to either of her parents to do anything other than search through their entire CD collection until it was found. ‘Hold on, Bill. She wants a word with you.’

There was the shuffling sound as Becca gave the phone to their daughter.

‘Holly?’

And then her voice in his ear. Sweet and formal, infinitely more grown up than he was expecting, than he remembered.

‘Hello?’

‘Holly, it’s Daddy.’

‘I know.’ A pause. ‘I have a question.’

‘Go ahead, darling.’

‘Did you have a scary night last night?’

He stood up abruptly and recoiled as he caught sight of his face in the mirror. He was suddenly aware of what his cuts and bruises looked like, and not just what they felt like. He was a mess, and this would be an embarrassment in the office.

‘A scary night, angel?’ But how did she know what had happened? How could she possibly know about that? ‘Why would I have a scary night?’

A long pause. Then a sigh, the kind of sigh that only an exasperated four-year-old girl can make.

‘Because you were
alone.’

He laughed. She made him laugh. She made him laugh more than anyone he had ever known.

‘No, I’m okay,’ he said, the relief filling him up. ‘And you know why?’

Silence. She was probably shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said eventually.

He could hear her mother’s voice in the background, pulling her away.
She’s my child too
, he thought.

‘Because if ever I’m down or scared, all I have to do is think of you and then I always feel better. Always. I remember that you’re my little girl and that makes me feel so happy.’ His blinked angrily. There was silence at the other end, not even the shuffling sound of the handset being passed like a baton in a relay.

‘Holly?’

‘I have to brush my teeth.’ No note of apology, just a statement of fact. It was the way things were. ‘Before you go –’

‘Night-night,’ she said briskly, and the panic flew up in him. This was no good.

‘Wait, wait – before you go…’ He stopped, not knowing what to say to his faraway daughter. And then he knew. ‘Just remember that I’m your daddy,’ he said. ‘And I will never stop loving you. And whatever happens, and wherever you are, and wherever I am, no matter how far apart, I love you now and I always will and I’m so glad that I’m your daddy. And I am so proud that you’re my daughter. So proud. Remember my face. Remember my voice. Okay,

Holly?’ Nothing. ‘Hello?’

‘Okay, but I really do have to go now.’ Sounding like his girl again. ‘Night-night, Daddy.’

‘Goodnight, angel.’

He paced the floor of his apartment with the counterfeit Lakers baseball cap in his hands, watching the light in her window.

Pathetic, he thought. Another married big nose eyeing the local talent when the wife has her back turned – what a cliché. Oh, you are such a cliché.

Just look at you. Calculating how long you should wait before you make the next move. What are you
doing?
What do you think you’re
doing?
Nothing, he told himself, the cap in his hands. I’m not doing
anything
. I’m just working out the best time to give back her Lakers hat. And I’m lonely. It’s okay to be lonely, isn’t it? Being lonely doesn’t break any of the wedding vows, does it?

It’s all perfectly innocent, he lied to himself.

But he didn’t go over there. He felt too shy, too nervous, too stupid. As far as he could remember, those kinds of feelings always put a girl off.

So on Saturday night Bill just waited, and he watched the light in her window, and then it was too late anyway because the silver Porsche arrived and after a while the light went out in her apartment. He turned away from the window and went to look inside the refrigerator. He didn’t watch her leave. He wasn’t going to put himself through that.

He threw aside the Lakers hat and lay down on his single bed,
the master bedroom abandoned now, and he felt ridiculous. He had imagined that JinJin Li was just like him, that most nights she was home alone, the table set for one and the phone not ringing. Missing someone. That’s what he thought she did with her time – sat around missing someone. But perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps JinJin Li was just fine.

Perhaps it was the man’s wife who was the lonely one.

The next night he went to her flat.

It still felt too soon, but when the weekend was over he would be working late or out with clients and the chance would be gone until next weekend. She would probably have a new baseball cap by next weekend. And what was the big deal anyway?

He was only returning a bloody hat.

He went over there, to the opposite block of Paradise Mansions, and caught the lift to her floor and then paused outside her door. He remembered the last time he was here – the girl drunk and sick, and him struggling to hold her up as he fumbled for her keys.

That should have been the end of it. That should have been enough.

But he rang the doorbell anyway.

Nobody came. Thank God for that. He could hear music inside, but nobody came and Bill was about to escape back to his safe lonely life when the door suddenly flew open and there she was in all her wide-eyed beauty, and he knew that it was simply not true that the Asian face is unreadable because on those high-cheek-boned northern features, on that
Dongbei ho
face, he could see surprise, and a bit of pleasure and a lot of wonder. Her eyes seemed to shine when she looked at him. Maybe she liked him, he thought. Or maybe that was just the way she looked at the world.

Bill had never seen a face that was so expressive, a face where so much was happening, a face that said so much. And it said,
What is this big-nosed pinky doing at my door?

He held out his yellow-and-purple excuse. ‘You forgot your hat,’ he said.

She took it from him. She had small hands. Extraordinarily small hands for such a tall woman. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Tse-tse.’

‘Bu ke-qi,’
he said. And then the awkward silence. He defensively struggled to fill it. ‘What do you know about the Lakers anyway?’

She thought about it. ‘NBA. Magic Johnson. Yellow shirts,’ she said. ‘The Lakers are basketball. Kobe Bryant. Shaquille O’Neal.’

‘That’s more than me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about the Lakers.’

‘LA,’ she said. ‘LA, California.’