One for My Baby (23 page)

twenty-five

“Are you sleeping with Olga?” Lisa Smith asks me.

“Olga?” I say.

“Olga Simonov. One of your Advanced Beginners.”

Lisa Smith squints at me over the top of her reading glasses. On the other side of her wafer-thin office door, we can hear the laughter of the students, the scuffle of their work boots, the rhythmic chatter of Japanese.

“I know her.”

“I know you do. But how well?”

The heat is on again at Churchill’s. Lisa Smith is watching me like a short-sighted, bilious old hawk. I am the focus of her attention once more because the police are not going to press charges against Hamish for what he did in that public toilet on Highbury Fields. My colleague was so relieved to be off the hook that he immediately walked down to Leicester Square and offered oral sex to an undercover policeman.

I really admire Hamish. There are plenty of cute young boys he could be chasing at Churchill’s – smooth-skinned East Asians, brooding Indians, tactile Italians – but he never goes anywhere near them. Hamish has that enviable ability to separate work and pleasure which I so painfully lack.

“I haven’t slept with Olga. On my life.”

“Is that the truth?”

It’s the truth. I have walked to the top of Primrose Hill with Olga on a Sunday morning – the one time of the week when she is free from the demands of both Churchill’s International Language School and the Eamon de Valera public house. We have held hands as we looked down at the city, and then walked to Camden Town where she let me chastely kiss her on the lips over a full English breakfast.

Olga and I have walked by the canals of north London, looking at the house boats as I slipped my arm around her waist and marvelled at the springiness of youth. That’s what you lose as you get older – that springiness. We have wandered the wilder parts of Hampstead Heath on Sunday afternoon, eaten ice cream in the grounds of Kenwood House, and she has told me about her home, her dreams, the boyfriend she left behind. But I haven’t slept with her. Not yet. I’m still waiting for the green light.

Why not? What possible harm could it do?

When I come out of Lisa Smith’s office, I see that Hiroko is waiting for me down the hall. She is pretending to read the notice board – rooms to let, rice cookers for sale, bicycles wanted – but she slowly turns to face me as I approach her, her black hair swinging across her glasses, and I am afraid that she is also going to ask me if I am sleeping with the Advanced Beginner known as Olga Simonov. But she doesn’t.

“I want to apologise,” she says.

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“For standing outside your house that night. I just thought – I don’t know. I thought we were good. You and me.”

“We were good.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

I don’t know how to explain it. You cared too much for me, I think. And if you knew me – really knew me – you would understand that I am really not worth it.

You are kind and sweet and generous and true and decent, and I am none of these things, haven’t been for quite a while. You got me wrong. So wrong that it scared me off. Never give someone that power over you, I want to tell her. Don’t do it, Hiroko.

“You’ll meet somebody else,” I say. “There are a lot of nice people in the world. You could feel something for any one of them.”

“But I met you,” she says.

Then she smiles, and there’s something about that smile that makes me doubt myself. There’s something about that smile that makes me think Hiroko knows more about all this than I ever will.

The window of the Shanghai Dragon is full of flowers and light. Displays of peach, orange and narcissus blossoms are aglow with the warm light coming from dozens of red candlelit lanterns. The restaurant is a riot of scent and colour among the drab greys and traffic fumes of the Holloway Road. There is a CLOSED sign on the door, but the old place has never looked more alive than it does tonight.

We stand on the street looking at this small miracle on this busy north London road. My mother, my nan, Olga and me, basking in the warm glow of all the red lanterns.

“So beautiful,” says my mother.

Pasted to the door of the Shanghai Dragon are two red posters with gold Chinese characters, signifying happiness, long life and prosperity. There are also two smiling, bowing figures on the door, a girl in traditional Chinese dress and a boy also in traditional Chinese dress, mirror images of each other, their hands clasped, open hand on closed fist, in salutation to the New Year. They both look absurdly cute, happy and fat. And, above all, prosperous. We ring the bell.

William suddenly appears behind the plate-glass door, his round face grinning as he fiddles with the catch, swiftly followed by his sister Diana. Then there are the parents, plump Harold and shy Doris, followed by Joyce and George. They are all smiling with pleasure. I have never seen them so happy.

“
Kung hay fat choi!
” the Changs tell us, as we go inside.

“Happy New Year to you too!” My mum smiles, although
kung hay fat choi
means “wishing you prosperity” more than anything to do with the passing of another year. Or perhaps the Chinese believe that prosperity is necessary for happiness. I reflect that sometimes this family seems completely British to me – when George is tucking into his fried chicken wings at General Lee’s Tasty Tennessee Kitchen, or when I see Joyce drinking “English tea” with my mum, or when Doris is watching
Coronation Street
, or when I hear the undiluted London accents of Diana and William, or when Harold goes off to play golf on Sunday morning. But tonight the Changs are Chinese.

Inside the restaurant we can hear the sound of fireworks.

“It’s only a tape,” William tells me, rolling his eyes with all the world-weariness a six-year-old can muster. “It’s not real fireworks.”

“Chinese people invent firework!” Joyce tells him.

“I know, Gran, I know.” Trying to placate her.

“But authority don’t like people having real firework,” she says, calming down a little. “They get all in a dizzy. So now everybody use tape to scare away devil spirits. Works just as well.”

I introduce the Changs to Olga, who Joyce immediately sizes up with an expert eye.

“Alfie not getting any younger,” Joyce tells her. “Can’t live like playboy forever. Need a wife pretty quick.”

Everybody laughs, apart from Joyce, who I know to be perfectly serious.

In any other gathering, Olga, as the youngest, hottest woman on the premises, would be the belle of the ball, the centre of attention and the first to be offered drinks. But in the Shanghai Dragon tonight, and in Chinese homes around the world, it is age that takes precedence. My nan is the star guest here.

She is seated at the head of a table covered with plates of what looks like uncooked dumplings, or triangular ravioli, which she eyes dubiously, as if hoping to spot something she recognises, such as a fish finger or a custard cream. William and Diana both bring her green tea, which she tastes carefully, before giving a jaunty thumbs up.

“Tastes a bit like Lemsip,” she says.

We have chicken for dinner. Chicken and steamed rice and some dishes that I can’t even look at – silkworms, blackened in the pan, full of their white mushy meat – and food that I love, like little sausages that look as though they should be on the end of a cocktail stick.

I sit next to Joyce and she keeps dropping bits of chicken into my rice bowl, making me feel like a baby bird having worms dropped into its nest. Olga says she is not so hungry because she had something to eat at the Eamon de Valera, although I think that she is just a bit embarrassed by her chopstick technique. There is really no need for her to feel bad, because the Changs assume that every
gweilo
needs western cutlery. My nan can’t use chopsticks either, so she saws away at her tiny piece of chicken with a knife and fork.

“My husband was fond of red meat,” she tells Joyce. “Bloody, he liked it.
Just wipe the cow’s arse and bring it to the table
, he used to say. He was a bit of a joker.”

After dinner we make more dumplings to eat at midnight. They look like what Yumi and Hiroko call
gyoza
, but Joyce tells us they are called
jiaozi
. We clear the table and make plates and plates of
jiaozi
dumplings, hand rolling the flour, stuffing in the pork filling, sealing it up and handing it to Joyce and Harold to fry.

Olga can’t quite get the hang of making
jiaozi
, so she sits in a corner, smoking a cigarette, smiling at our efforts. George tells us that three of the dumplings are very special. One contains sugar, one contains a coin and one contains vegetable.

“For love, for fortune, for intelligence,” he says.

We eat the
jiaozi
as the clock chimes midnight and the Year of the Tiger makes way for the Year of the Rabbit.

Diana gets the
jiaozi
that will bring her love.

Her father Harold gets the
jiaozi
that will bring him fortune.

And I get the
jiaozi
that will bring me intelligence.

So everything works out perfectly.

“Like putting a sixpence in a Christmas pud,” says my nan. “They don’t do that any more, do they?”

Then it is time to go.

“
Kung hay fat choi
,” I tell George as we are leaving, sticking out my hand. He takes it, although he is not a great hand shaker, and I am surprised, as always, to feel the infinite softness of his grip. Behind us we can hear my nan and my mum and Olga saying goodbye to the rest of the Changs. Outside it is past midnight, a freezing February in London. The red lanterns in the Shanghai Dragon burn like fire.

“
Kung hay fat choi
,” George says. “How is back?”

“My back’s fine now.”

“No painkiller, okay?”

“Okay, George.”

“Not so good, the painkiller. Sometimes best to just feel the pain. Sometimes the healthiest way. The way to get better.”

I can’t explain why, but I realise that George is not really talking about my back.

He is talking about Olga.

And I suddenly see that bringing her tonight was not the best idea that I ever had. Olga has been made welcome by the Changs, and she has made every effort to enjoy the food and be enchanted by the rituals of Spring Festival, but it was all a bit forced, all a bit of a strain.

I know that in all honesty she would probably have had a better time in the bar of the Eamon de Valera with some disco hunk with a pierced knob and the complete works of Robbie Williams.

She didn’t enjoy Chinese New Year at the Shanghai Dragon the way that, say, Hiroko would have enjoyed it.

I see for the first time that – despite her endless legs, her lovely face and her enviable youth – Olga is not the girl for me and I am not the man for her.

And armed with that knowledge, we go straight back to my place and make our baby.

twenty-six

They have had some kind of argument.

Jackie and Plum come into my flat and the silence between them crackles with resentment. Jackie goes straight over to the table where we work, moving surprisingly fast in those leopard-print boots, unbuttoning her raincoat with barely contained fury. Plum lingers in the middle of the room, staring morosely at her scuffed trainers, her fringe dangling in front of her face, hiding her from the wicked world.

And then I say something stupid.

“What’s wrong?”

Jackie whirls on me.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Madam here gave her dinner money away, didn’t you? And her bus money.
And
her bus money, if you please.”

Plum peers up through her greasy brown veil, her face collapsing with agony.

“I
didn’t
.”

“Don’t
lie
to me.” Jackie takes a step towards her daughter, and for a second I am afraid that she is going to hit her. The girl fearfully retreats a couple of paces. “She lets them walk all over her. Those bloody kids at her school.”

“I
didn’t
. I
lost
it. I
told
you.”

“Do you know how long it took me to earn that money? Do you have any idea how many floors I had to clean to get that money? That money you gave away? Do you?”

Plum starts to cry. These terrible, bitter tears running down her podgy young face.

“I lost it. I did. Really I did.”

“She lets them walk all over her. If they tried it with me, I would have killed them.”

“But I’m not you, am I?” Plum says, and it sounds exactly like something I might say to my father. I feel a stirring of sympathy for this awkward child. “And I
lost
it.”

This feels like it could go on forever. I step between them, like a UN representative mediating between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“Jackie, what were we doing last week?”

“Studying emotions in a dramatic extract,” she hisses, still staring angrily at her daughter. “From
The Heart is a Lonely
pigging
Hunter
.”

“Okay. Well, can you get on with that while I take Plum round to my grandmother’s place?”

They both look at me.

“Your grandmother’s place?”

“My nan would be glad of the company. She’s going back to the hospital next week.”

“What’s wrong with her?” says Plum.

“She’s getting the results of the biopsy they took to find out what caused all that fluid on her lungs. She’s a bit nervous.”

“Okay,” says Plum.

“Fine,” says Jackie.

So while Jackie takes out her copy of
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
and studies emotions in a dramatic extract, I take Plum round to my nan’s. We drive in silence for a while, as Plum flicks through the radio stations looking for something that interests her. Eventually she switches it off with a sigh.

“Who’s bullying you at school?”

She shoots me a look. “Nobody.”

“Nobody?”

She stares out of the window as the shabby end of north London drifts by. Letting agents and old brown pubs, kebab shops and junk stores.

“You don’t know them.”

“I probably know the type. Want to talk about it?”

“What good would it do?”

“Are they boys or girls?”

A moment’s silence. “Both.”

“What are their names?”

She smiles at me. It’s not friendly. “You going to come to my school and give them a detention?”

“Sometimes it helps talking about things. That’s all.”

She takes a breath.

“The girl’s called Sadie. The boy’s called Mick. They’re big. The way some kids are big, you know?”

“I know.”

“He shaves. She’s got tits. They’re only my age. And they’ve got this little gang. All the cool kids. The hard kids. The kids that have been having sex since the first year. And they hate me. They fucking hate me, don’t they? I can’t walk down a corridor without someone saying something. Fatty Day. Fat Slag. Who ate all the pies? Every single day for two years. Since the very first day of the very first year. They think it’s funny.”

We pull up outside my nan’s block of flats. A small white block containing all those little old ladies living on their own. I can’t imagine Plum at that age. It feels like her teenage years are going to drag on forever.

“How much did they take?”

“I told you – I
lost
it.”

“How much?”

“Sixty pounds.”

“Jesus. You must eat a lot of school dinners.” I immediately regret it.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s why I’m so fat. Didn’t you know?”

“Come on. That’s not what I meant.”

“I’ve got a problem with my glands, okay?”

“Okay. Why did you have so much money on you?”

“Dinner money for the week. Bus money for the month. And my savings.”

“Your savings?”

“I was going to buy a book.”

“A book?”

“A book called
Smell the Fear, He-bitch
. It’s a hardback. They don’t come cheap, mate.”

“
Smell the Fear, He-bitch?
Is it the new Salman Rushdie?”

“Who’s Salmon Rushdie?”

“Never mind.”

“
Smell the Fear, He-bitch
is the new book by The Slab. He’s a wrestler.”

“I remember. Sports-entertainment. So you lost all this money. How did you manage that?”

“I thought it might make them like me but –” She stops, laughs, shakes her head. “Tricked me, didn’t you? Typical teacher.”

“It takes your mum a long time to earn sixty pounds.”

“Don’t you start.” She is staring down at her hands. Her fingernails are chewed to the quick and there it is again – a surge of sympathy for this sad, lonely child. “I realise it takes her a long time to earn that money. I do know that. I’m not a complete idiot.”

I take out my wallet and pull out three £20 notes. “In fact, it takes anyone a long time to earn that kind of money.” I hold out the notes. “Be more careful next time, okay?”

She looks at the money, not taking it. “What’s this for?”

“You’ve been good with my nan. I appreciate that. So – just take it, okay?”

“I don’t need paying. I like her.”

“I know you do. And she likes you. I just don’t want you and your mum to fall out over a couple of creeps like Mick and Sadie.”

“How do you know they’re creeps?”

“I’ve met them.”

“That’s a lie. You never met them.”

“Their kind. I met their kind. Lots of times. When I was a teacher. And when I was a kid.”

She looks at the money. Then she takes it. “Thanks, Alfie.”

“Don’t mention it. And don’t tell your mother. Shall we go up and see the old girl?”

“Okay.”

After ringing my nan’s bell we wait patiently as her carpet slippers shuffle slowly towards the door. I turn to face Plum. She is still hiding behind her fringe, but looking a little happier.

“What is it with you and The Slab anyway?”

“The Slab?”

“Yeah. I don’t get it.”

“What do you think I should be into? Some dopey girl singer with long hair and an acoustic guitar going
boo-hoo-hoo, nobody understands me?
”

“Something like that. Why does The Slab mean so much to you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The Slab doesn’t take shit from anyone.”

Olga calls me just before midnight and tells me she has to see me.

I am just about to clean my teeth and go to bed, so I suggest tomorrow at morning break, in the coffee shop across from Churchill’s. She says it has to be now, and something about her voice – how quiet it is, how full of an emotion that I can’t quite place – stops me from arguing with her. I get dressed and take a cab down to the Eamon de Valera.

We sit at a corner table surrounded by the dregs of a dozen glasses, and I expect her to tell me that she has had a conversation with Lisa Smith about me, or that she has some kind of visa problem, or that her boyfriend is coming to London. But it is worse than all of that.

“I’m late.”

“Late?”

“My period hasn’t come.”

“Maybe it’s – I don’t know – can’t it be different every month?”

“I took a test,” she says, and it occurs to me how much of the language of procreation resembles the lexicon of student life. Being late with something, taking tests, getting your results. But what’s a pass and what’s a failure? That’s the question. “One of those tests that you buy in a chemist.”

I say nothing. I am waiting, unable to really believe that this thing is happening at this time, with this girl. This woman. And not my wife.

Rose and I tried for this moment and it never happened. We really tried. It was never-ending. I remember the constant cycle of disappointment and her crippling period pains, I remember being asked to produce an erection every time the ovulation arrived. We laughed about it – “You’re performing tonight, Alfie, so no mucking about with yourself in the shower” – but it was slowly breaking our hearts, this longing for a baby, a baby who would complete our world.

Is it that the people who want a baby don’t get it, and the ones who don’t want a baby do? Is that the way it works? Rose and I tried for almost a year. It didn’t happen for us. It will never happen for us now.

“I’m pregnant,” Olga says, this woman who is not Rose, with a little laugh that signals that she feels the same disbelief as me. “I’m going to have a baby.”

We let the weight of it sink in. They are clearing the glasses all around us. Someone is shouting for last orders.

“A baby. God, Olga.”

“I know. I know.”

On Chinese New Year Olga and I returned to my flat and discovered that the Hong Kong souvenir sugar bowl where I kept my supply of Gossamer Wings was empty. And we decided to take a risk. No, that’s not true. It wasn’t as rational as that. We just didn’t think about it. We did not think.

She starts to cry a bit and I reach out and take her hands. They are sticky with beer, for she has been working tonight. She works every night.

“I’ll stick by you,” I say, unable to come up with anything better than the cliché. “We’re in this together, okay? This is our baby.”

She pulls her hands away from me.

“Are you crazy? I’m not having a baby with you. I’m twenty. You’re nearly forty. You’re just a teacher in some little language school. I’ve got my life ahead of me. My boyfriend would kill me.”

So after that we do not discuss the baby.

We only talk about the abortion.

Later I take her back to the flat she shares with three other Russians in a part of south London that gentrification passed by, a neighbourhood of burnt-out cars and distant cries and sprawling estates.

When I try to kiss her cheek, she turns her face away. After deciding what we are going to do, or rather what we are not going to do – we are not going to have this baby – every gesture of affection or support seems inadequate, laughable, pathetic.

She disappears into her block of flats. We have not even said goodnight.

At the moment of this small miracle, this baby she has growing inside her, we have never seemed more like total strangers.

First Rose, now this baby. I am tired of thinking about it all, too ashamed for words, sick to my stomach with guilt.

I feel like I am getting away with murder.