One for My Baby (12 page)

“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 anything, 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.

“How’s Mick?” I ask her. “Still got her dreams?”

“Hello,” she says, not looking up.

Lenny the Lech walks in. Lenny is one of those short, fat men who swaggers around as though he is some kind of tall, thin catch. Like me, Lenny is a former teacher who went out to sell English by the pound in Asia – Manila and Bangkok in Lenny’s case. Something about him spoilt out there. He has that soft, bloated look that Europeans often get when they stay too long in the tropics – or when they stay too long in tropical bars. Lenny got laid a lot more in Asia then he ever did at home and now he looks at women the way that a farmer sizes up his cows. At Churchill’s his lechery is legendary.

“Have you seen that new little Polish number in the Advanced Beginners?” he asks me, rolling his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind showing her a bit of solidarity. What do you reckon, Alfie? I wouldn’t mind letting that comrade get her hot little hands on my means of production.”

“I don’t think the Poles are Communists any more, Lenny.”

“She’s a little red minx, that’s what she is,” says Lenny the Lech. Then he notices Jackie. “Ah, our resident Essex girl. Top of the morning to you, my girl.” He goes over to her and puts a proprietorial arm around her shoulders. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one, darling. Why do Essex girls hate vibrators? Give up? Because –”

Suddenly Jackie is on her feet, her eyes blazing, accidentally kicking her bucket.

“Because they chip our teeth,” she says. “Heard that one already, Lenny. Bit obvious, that one. What else would an Essex girl do with a vibrator but suck on it – right, Lenny? You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Steady on,” says Lenny. “It’s just a joke.”

“And I’ve heard them all,” she says. “Why does an Essex girl wash her hair in the kitchen sink? Because that’s where you wash vegetables. What do Essex girls and beer bottles have in common? Come on, Lenny, come on.”

“I don’t know,” says Lenny, practically scratching his fat head.

“Both empty from the neck up.”

“Now
that’s
funny,” chuckles Lenny.

But Jackie is not smiling. “Think so? Then you’ll like this one. What do a blonde Essex girl and a plane have in common?”

“They both have a black box,” says Lenny. “I know that one.”

“You do? But I bet you don’t know as many as me. I’ve heard the lot, Lenny. What’s the difference between an Essex girl and a mosquito? A mosquito stops sucking if you hit it on the head. Why do Essex girls wear pants? To keep their ankles warm. How do you make an Essex girl’s eyes sparkle? Shine a torch in her ear.”

Lenny smiles, but it is starting to look a little strained. Jackie is standing in front of him, holding her copy of
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
in one of her yellow-gloved hands, trying to stop her voice from shaking.

“I know all the jokes. And you know what, Lenny? I’m not laughing.”

“Keep your hair on, darling,” Lenny says, quite offended. “It’s nothing personal.”

“I know it’s nothing personal, Lenny. And I even know it’s nothing to do with Essex girls. I know that a man like you thinks all women are stupid whores.”

“I love women!” protests Lenny. He turns to me. “If I can say that without sounding like Julio Iglesias.”

“I don’t think you can,” I say.

“From what I hear around this place,” says Jackie Day, “only one person in this room is a dumb tart. But do you know what, Lenny? It’s certainly not me.”

She slips her book inside her nylon coat and picks up her bucket. Then she walks out without saying another word.

“Some people just can’t take a joke,” says Lenny the Lech.

Lena is waiting at the end of our street.

There’s an old brown pub on the corner and grinning men with pints in their fists are looking out of the stained windows at her, leering and evaluating and scratching bellies that are displayed like prize marrows.

“Alfie.”

I walk straight past her.

“You used to like me.”

I look at her, this young woman who has bewitched my father, made him move to a rented flat, encouraged him to search for his youth on a rowing machine, made him drop his swimming trunks in a public place, and I try hard to find her ridiculous. It’s difficult. She has got the blonde hair and legs that go on like a river, but I know she is no bimbo. I know that she is smart. Although how smart can she be if she has shacked up with my old man?

Lena is not ridiculous. It’s the situation that’s ridiculous. It’s my father who is absurd.

“I still like you,” I say.

“You just don’t like the thought of anyone having sex with your father. Except your mother.”

“Not even my mother, now you come to mention it.”

We smile at each other.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Lena. It’s hard to think of you as a friend of the family. My family is in pieces.”

I look at her, trying to imagine how my father sees her. I can understand how he could fall for the face, the legs, the body. I can understand how exciting she must be after half a lifetime of marriage. But surely he can see that wanting her is being greedy?

“You should understand, Alfie. If you love someone, you want to be with them.”

“My father doesn’t know the first thing about love.”

“Why are you like this? I know you feel sorry for your mother. But it’s more than that.”

“Because he wants too much. Too much life. He’s had his life. He should accept that.”

“You can’t want too much life.”

“You can, Lena. You can be a glutton for life, just like you can be a glutton for food or drink or drugs. If this thing with you is more than just a fling, if my dad really wants to start again, if it’s serious, then he wants more than he deserves.”

She asks me if I want a coffee and I agree to go across the road with her to the little Italian café called Trevi, just to get her off the street. It’s not the grinning fat men in the old brown pub that bother me. It’s the thought that my mother might come round the corner at any moment.

“I just don’t understand what’s in it for you,” I say when we have ordered our cappuccino. “You haven’t got any visa problems, have you? There are no problems staying in the country, are there?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Why not? I don’t get it. Even if you want an older man, you don’t have to go for my dad. I mean, there’s old and there’s ready for the knacker’s yard. There’s old and there’s Jurassic Park.”

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s wise. He’s kind. He’s lived.”

“I’ll say.”

“He knows things. He’s seen life. And I love his book.
Oranges For Christmas
. It’s just like him. Full of tenderness and heart.”

“What about my mother? What happens to her? Is she just meant to crawl into the corner? Where’s the tenderness and heart for her?”

“I’m sorry for your mother. I really am. She was always very good to me. But these things happen. You know that. When two people fall in love, someone else often gets hurt.”

“It can never work. He’s an old man. You’re a student.”

“Not any more.”

“He’s not an old man any more?”

“I’m not a student any more. I’m not going to do my MBA. What’s the point?”

“What happened?”

“I dropped out of college. I’m going to be Mike’s PA.”

“Mike doesn’t need a PA.”

“He does, Alfie. There are always people calling him up and asking him to write things. To do events. To appear on TV or radio.”

“What he needs is an answer machine.”

“He needs someone to protect him from the outside world. He can’t concentrate. I can help him. He can take care of the writing. I’ll deal with everything else. That’s more worthwhile than any degree. And it will give us a chance to be together all the time.”

“Sounds like a nightmare.”

“You should be happy for us, Alfie. He needs me. And I need him.”

“You both need your heads examined. Especially you.”

“Older people can be amazing, Alfie. We saw your grandmother. We took her some of those chocolates she likes. With the old-fashioned soldiers and the ladies on the box. Something street.”

“Quality Street. She said that you ate all the soft ones.”

“I don’t blame you for being angry at me.”

“I’m not angry at you. I feel sorry for you. I’m angry at my father. You’re silly. He’s a cruel, stupid coward.”

“Oh, Alfie. He’s a wonderful man.”

I shake my head. “He’s only doing this – setting up home with you – because he was forced into it.”

“It would have happened anyway.”

“That’s not what married men do. Married men stay. They stay in their homes for as long as they can.” Under the table, I touch the ring I still wear. “They stay until they are forced out.”

I get a complaint about Lenny the Lech from one of my students. Yumi, the Japanese girl with all the blonde hair, stays behind after class and tells me he has been pestering her.

“In the corridor he tries to touch me. He always says – come for a drink, baby. Let me give you extra lessons, baby. Oral lessons, baby. Ha ha ha.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want those kind of lessons from Lenny the Lech. He’s not even my teacher. You are.”

“Can’t you tell him you’re not interested?”

“He doesn’t listen.”

Her eyes well up with tears and I pat her arm.

“I’ll have a word with him, okay?”

During morning break I find Lenny in the staff room. He is drinking instant coffee with Hamish, a fit-looking thirty-year-old down from Glasgow who is far too good-looking to be heterosexual.

“So basically you came to London because you’re a bum bandit?” Lenny is saying.

“You could put it like that,” says Hamish. “I came here because it’s the best place to pursue a discreetly gay lifestyle.”

“And does a discreetly gay lifestyle mean you have a committed relationship with one partner? Or that you get wanked off on Hampstead Heath every night by a succession of anonymous strangers?”

“Can I have a word, Lenny?” I say.

I take him to one side. He puts his arm around me. Lenny is a very tactile man. But it’s more than that. I think he actually likes me. Because I have also taught in Asia, he is under the illusion that we are the same kind of guy.

“What is it, my old mate?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing, Lenny. One of my students has had a word with me. About you. Yumi.”

“The little Jap model? Miss Toyota, 1998? Not very big but you can bet she goes like the clappers?”

“Yumi. The girl with all the hair. The thing is, Lenny, she says you’re misreading the signals.”

“Misreading the signals?”

“How can I put it? She’s not interested in you, Lenny.” Lenny’s monstrous sweating head is corrugated with a frown. “God knows why not, Len, but there you go. Women, eh? It’s just not going to happen, mate.”

“I’m sorry, mate,” Lenny says. “I really am. I had no idea little Yumi was spoken for.”

“No, it’s not –”

“There’s plenty more fish in the sea.” He chortles in that Lenny the Lech way. “I’ll cast my enormous hook elsewhere.” He slaps me on the back. “No problemo.”

I turn to leave.

“And Alfie?”

“What?”

“Give her one for the Lech.”

Yumi is sitting by herself in the Eamon de Valera, nursing a mineral water at a corner table.

“He’s not going to bother you any more,” I tell her.

“Thank you. I buy you drink.”

“That’s okay, Yumi.”

“But I want to.” She goes to the bar and spends half the night counting out her money in loose change. Usually I feel a kind of envy for my students but right now I feel sorry for Yumi. Coming halfway round the world to improve your English and then getting some fat old Englishman like Lenny the Lech offering you oral lessons. She returns with a pint of Guinness clutched in both hands and sets it before me.

“He’s a very bad man,” she says. “All the girls at Churchill’s say so. He wants rub-rub with just anyone. Any student with nice face. And even some ugly ones. If they are large-breasted.”

Then she stares at me with these eyes, these moist brown eyes, that make me realise just how lonely I have been.

“Incredible,” I say. “What kind of teacher does a thing like that?”