One for My Baby (17 page)

eighteen

It feels good to be starting something new on such a beautiful day.

There’s a light frost glinting on the park’s stubby grass, but above our heads the usual flat grey shroud has been replaced by an endless blue sky and sunlight that is more dazzling than high noon in August. Although our breath is coming out as chilled steam, George and I are squinting our eyes in the light. We face each other.

“Tai Chi Chuan,” he says. “Means – the supreme ultimate fist.”

“Sounds violent,” I say.

He ignores me.

“Everything relaxed. All moves soft. All things relaxed. But all moves have martial application. Understand?”

“Not really.”

“Western people think – Tai Chi Chuan very beautiful. Very gentle. Yes?”

“Right.”

“But Tai Chi Chuan is self-defence system. Every move has a reason. Not just for show.” His hands glide through the air. “Block. Punch. Strike. Hold. Kick. But flowing. Always flowing. And always very soft. Understand?”

I nod.

“Tai Chi Chuan good for health. Stress. Circulation. Modern world. But Tai Chi Chuan not the weakest martial art in the world.” His dark eyes gleam. “Strongest.”

“Okay.”

“This Chen style.”

“What style?”

“Chen style. Many style from different family. Yang style. Wu style. This Chen style.”

I am not quite following every word of this. How can something so soft also be hard? How can something so gentle be a kind of boxing?

George steps away from me. He is wearing his usual black Mandarin suit and soft, flat-bottomed shoes. I am in a tracksuit with the helpful reminder of Just Do It inscribed down one leg. He moves his feet about shoulder-width apart, standing with his weight evenly distributed and his arms hanging by his side. His breathing is deep and even. His weight seems to sink into the ground. He looks both completely relaxed and yet somehow immovable.

“Stand like a mountain between heaven and earth,” he says.

Stand like a mountain between heaven and earth? No problem, Yoda. This kind of talk should embarrass me. But I find that if I make a big effort, it doesn’t. I try to stand like George. I close my eyes, seriously thinking about my breathing for the first time in my life.

“Open your joints,” George tells me. “Let your body relax. Sink your weight to the centre of the earth. And keep breathing. Always keep breathing.”

Like diving, I think to myself. That’s the first thing they teach you when you learn to scuba dive. You must always keep breathing.

Then I hear the laughter behind us.

“Look at this pair of wankers. Fuck me. It’s
Come Dancing
for benders.”

There are three of them. Saturday-night stragglers, foaming brown bottles in their fists, their faces as pale as curdled milk. Although they can’t be older than about twenty, they already have the telltale swelling stomachs of committed boozers. Yet they are all wearing vaguely sporty clothes – trainers, hooded running tops, baseball caps. Sort of funny, when you think about it.

But I feel a sudden rage inside me. These morons – dressed for sports day, built for happy hour – remind me of all the morons just like them that I taught at the Princess Diana Comprehensive School for Boys. Maybe that’s why, when I open my mouth, I sound just like a teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Haven’t you lot got somewhere to go? Go on, piss off out of it. And take those gormless expressions off your faces.”

Those faces darken, tighten, harden. They glance at each other and then all at once they are coming towards me, the bottles in their hands, their teeth bared like nicotine-stained fangs.

George steps in front of them.

“Please,” he says. “No trouble.”

The biggest one, his podgy face scarred by the livid souvenirs of acne, stops and smiles at his mates.

“No trouble at all.”

Then he goes to put his meaty hands on George’s chest, but as Spotty attempts to grab George, the older man sort of goes with him, transferring his weight to his back foot as he intercepts Spotty’s hands by simply lifting his arms. Those meaty paws do not touch George. And suddenly Spotty is pitching forward, grasping nothing, completely off balance. Lightly holding Spotty’s arms, George seems to twist his waist and casually tosses the youth to the ground. It is far too gentle to be called a throw. It is more as if Spotty is a big insect with rather bad skin and George is gently swatting him aside.

“Jesus,” I murmur.

George tries to help him up but Spotty angrily shakes him off, although he appears to be more humiliated than hurt. I can see that George has used only the minimum of force on Spotty, although I don’t quite understand how that can be. I mean, I don’t understand why George and I are not being given a good hiding right at this moment.

There’s a second where I think it is going to get worse for us, but then the three of them skulk away, their faces twisted with shock and loathing beneath their baseball caps, Spotty still clutching his shoulder, telling us to watch our fucking backs if we know what’s fucking good for us. But he doesn’t sound very frightening any more.

And I stare at George, realising for the first time that I am not in dance class. We look at each other.

“How long before I can do that?”

“Practising hard?”

“Yes.”

“Very hard?”

“Very hard.”

“About ten years.”

“Ten years? You’re kidding me.”

“Okay. Maybe not ten. Maybe more like twenty. But remember – Tai Chi Chuan not about external strength. About internal strength. Not strength in muscles.” He gently slaps his chest three times. “Strength inside.”

Then he gives me a patient smile.

“Lots to learn,” he says. “Better get started.”

I am expecting the girl from Ipanema. What I get is the girl from Ilford.

Jackie Day is standing on my doorstep.

“Alfie? Hi. We spoke on the phone? About the ad? To learn English?”

I am thrown. It’s true that we have spoken on the phone. Unfortunately there have only been a handful of callers, perhaps because we are in that dead period between Christmas and the New Year, or perhaps because they can smell an Alfie-sized rat. But Jackie called. She was shocked and delighted to discover that it was her old pal from Oxford Street who was offering English lessons. And I naturally assumed that the char from Churchill’s was enquiring on behalf of somebody else.

I don’t know who. I didn’t even think about it.

Some hot Hungarian fresh off the Jumbo who Jackie met while cleaning at another language school? Some leggy Brazilian who Jackie bumped into doing the lambada in a suburban nightclub? But there’s no hot Hungarian, no Brazilian beauty.

Jackie brushes past me as she comes into the hall and I see that the roots of her blonde hair need some attending to. As usual, she’s all dressed up, as if she has somewhere to go. For some reason she is acting as though this is the place.

Our telephone conversation was short and sweet. Was that really me? Yes, it was really me. Small world! What were my rates like? How flexible were the lessons? I told her that my rates were reasonable, and my flexibility was endless. She thanked me and said she would think about it. But I swear to God I thought she was thinking about it for some foreign friend.

And now we look at each other. Jackie smiles eagerly. If I were a cartoon, a question mark would be hovering above my head.

“I’m so glad it’s you,” she laughs. “What a coincidence. I can’t believe my luck.”

I show her through to the living room, thinking that eventually all this will be worth the trouble. Be patient, Alfie. Somewhere out in the night the drums are calling and they are doing the lambada.

But it’s still the middle of the afternoon. I’ve only got the run of the house because my mum has taken my nan to the sales in the West End. So I sit on the sofa with Jackie, note her tight little jumper, strappy shoes, the skirt the size of a face towel. I don’t know how she can walk around like that. She dresses for seventies night even when she’s trying to look respectable. She crosses her legs demurely.

“And who would the lessons be for?” I ask her.

She looks a little surprised.

“Sorry, I thought that was clear.” A pause. “They’re for me.”

“But – why would you want to learn English?”

“You told me once you taught English Literature? Before you taught English as a foreign language?”

I nod cautiously. It’s true that Jackie knows the details of my glorious teaching career. But I thought she understood that my ad had nothing to do with the subject I taught at the Princess Diana Comprehensive School for Boys. I thought she was just getting a few details before she introduced me to her Brazilian pal.

So that I could teach English as a foreign language.

“Well, that’s what I want,” she says brightly. “Lessons in English Lit. See, I need to get an A Level in English Literature. I mean, I really need it. So that I can go back to college. So that I can re-start my education.”

“There’s been some mistake,” I say. “My advertisement was for students who want to learn English as a foreign language. Wasn’t that clear? I’m not looking for students who want an A Level in English Literature. Sorry. I honestly thought you were calling for somebody else. Some – I don’t know – Brazilian, possibly.”

“Some … Brazilian?”

“I don’t even know why I said that.”

Her smile fades away.

“You’re not qualified to teach English to A Level standard?”

“Well, I am. But that’s not –”

“I’m thirty-one years old. I was thirty-one on Christmas Day.”

“Well – happy birthday.”

“Thank you. Twelve years ago I was doing really well at school. Top of the class. Straight A student. All that. Then I had to drop out.”

This is more than I need to know. I stand up. She remains sitting.

“I’ve got two A Levels. French and Media Studies. Very good grades.” She looks at me a little defiantly. “I’m not stupid, if that’s what you’re thinking. And I’ve got money. What I need is an English A Level so that I can go back to school.”

“Well, that’s great, but –”

“I know the course I want, I know the college I want. If I get that English A Level, I can study for my BA at the University of Greenwich.”

I stare at her.

“Go to night school,” I tell her.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I need a private tutor. I need to be more flexible than night school would let me be.”

“And why’s that?”

Her pale, pretty face darkens, as though a cloud has suddenly passed over it.

“Personal reasons.”

I let my voice go all firm and commanding. Playing the teacher. Which is sort of ironic, when you think about it.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jackie. I really am. But I’m not teaching anyone A Level English. Not you or anyone else. I’m teaching English as a foreign language. And you don’t need that. Do you?”

She makes no move to get up. I can see how disappointed she is, and I feel a stab of compassion for this over-dressed, under-educated young woman.

I like her. I have always liked her. I just don’t want her for a student.

“If you take an old man’s advice, Jackie, qualifications are just meaningless pieces of paper.” Trying to make my voice all jaunty and friendly. “They do you no good in the end. Believe me, I know.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Because you’ve got them. They’re not meaningless bits of paper to me. They’re a way out.”

Vanessa’s sleepy voice drifts down from the top of the stairs. “Alfie? Come back to bed. I have to go soon.”

I don’t usually entertain at home. I’m lucky that the sales are on.

Jackie Day stands up. She seems to see me for the first time.

“What kind of a teacher are you anyway?”

Sometimes I wonder that myself.

On the first day of the new year my father comes round to pick up the last of his stuff. This is it. He is taking the final traces of his existence from this house. It should feel more traumatic than it does.

But with the shabby white van he has hired sitting outside the house, it feels anticlimactic, like this has all been dragging on for much too long and everybody wants it to be over.

My mother doesn’t even bother disappearing. She doesn’t come into the house while my old man is here, she stays out in the garden with Joyce and her grandchildren. But she doesn’t run away either. She stays in her garden with her friend.

As my father lugs boxes down the stairs I stand in the living room watching my mum and Joyce and Diana and William through the window. I am afraid that Joyce is going to barge into the house and corner my father with one of her impromptu interrogations.

Who is this young woman you live with? How old? Will you marry? Do you want children? Do you think you are a wise man or an old fool? Is this girl just a gold lifter? Is it about more than getting your end far away?