Tony Parsons - My Favourite Wife

‘And the authorities just condone all this, do they?’ said Bill. He knew he sounded like a prude. He knew the tone was all wrong. He liked Shane. He wanted to understand. But the world was turned upside down. Commercial sex was not morally reprehensible out here. It was a career option, or a part-time job, or something a teacher did when she should have been marking homework.

‘Not at all,’ Shane said. ‘When they hear about it the authorities are shocked – shocked! Let’s see – year before last we were all in Julu Lu. Last year we were all in Maoming Nan Lu. Now we’re in – where are we now? Oh yeah – Tong Ren Lu. Next year we’ll be somewhere else. Every now and again, the authorities get tough and move us a block down the road. That’s China.’

A skinny woman in her middle thirties danced herself between Bill and Shane, her arms above her head, a smile splitting her face. She was ten years older than most of the women in here, but in better shape. It was the one who looked like a dancer. She was a beauty, Bill could see that, but the beauty had been worn down by time and disappointment. You would not mind growing old with a woman who looked like that, just as long as you met her early enough. For he could not help believing that some man or some men long gone had had the best of her, and he thought that was a terrible thing to believe about anyone. But he could not help it. She was smiling in his face.

‘This one won’t dance,’ Shane told her. ‘Please don’t ask as refusal can cause offence.’

‘I teach,’ she said. ‘I give lessons.’ She had an improbable French accent. Teech , she said. I geeff . She actually spoke English with a French accent. How did that happen? Shane said something in Chinese and she shrugged and danced away, giving Bill a little wave. He watched her go, with a pang of regret. Shane laughed.

‘Forget about that one if you’re looking to get your end away,’ he said. ‘You get all sorts in here, mate. That one’s a taxi dancer who’ll boogie all night but that’s it. She dances with men for money and then goes home alone to Paradise Mansions. A taxi dancer in the twenty-first century! Strange but true. Then there are the pro-ams.’ He gestured his empty beer bottle towards the teachers. ‘Shanghai is completely unregulated. It’s not like other parts of Asia. Not like Manila. Not like Bangkok. Not like Tokyo. The women in here don’t work for the bar. They’re punters, like you and me. They work for themselves. Like the great Deng Xiaoping said, “To get rich is glorious.” But don’t think they’re promiscuous. It’s not that. They’re just practical , it’s just too hard a place to not be practical. Hard for them, that is – not hard for the likes of us. China’s not a hardship posting for you and me, mate. Don’t listen to what those whining expats tell you – mostly Poms, mate. No offence intended.’

‘None taken,’ Bill said, sipping his beer. Maybe he should be getting back. Maybe he should have gone straight home. His suit was going to reek of cigarette smoke.

‘China is an easy place to live because everything is on a clear financial basis,’ Shane said. ‘It’s only complicated if you choose to make it so.’

Then the woman with the mobile phone was back, yanking at Bill’s sleeve, giving him a gentle shove and as he turned to her he saw that peculiarly Shanghainese gesture for the very first time -the thumb and the index finger rubbed together, followed by the open palm.

Give me money, mister .

He would see that gesture a thousand times before he left this city. They might have four thousand years of civilisation behind them, but they weren’t too big on please and thank you .

In her free hand the woman was holding a photograph of a small, unsmiling boy. He was about the same age as Holly.

Bill fumbled with his wallet and gave her a 50-RMB note. She stared at it for a moment and then turned away with a disgusted snort.

‘They don’t take fifties,’ Shane laughed, putting an arm around him. ‘There’s a minimum payment of one hundred, even if you’re just being nice.’

‘How the hell can there be a minimum payment for being nice?’ Bill said.

‘Because their motto is “Haven’t you got anything bigger?”’ Shane said. He slapped Bill on the back. He was happy that Bill was here. Bill had the sense that despite living on a beauty mountain, his colleague had been lonely. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ Shane said. ‘And then you’ll find you’re in the closest place to heaven.’

‘Yeah,’ Bill said bleakly. ‘Poverty is a great aphrodisiac.’ He watched the woman with the son and the mobile phone being ignored by a group of young tourists.

‘That’s right,’ Shane happily agreed. ‘And don’t forget – Kai Tak rules.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Bill said, suddenly irritated by Shane’s assumptions, and by all of the big Australian’s unearned intimacy. ‘I can keep my mouth shut. But I’ve got a wife and kid at home.’

Shane frowned, genuinely perplexed. ‘But what’s that got to do with anything?’

Bill looked at the skinny dancer. She waved at him. She was too old to be in here, he thought. But then everybody in here was the wrong age. Too young, too old. He looked away. ‘So I’m not going to be playing around,’ he said, not caring what he sounded like.

But Shane just studied the golden glow of his Tsingtao and said nothing.

And then Jurgen was asking them for cab fare, because he had thrown all his cash away, the stupid bastard, and Bill was looking at his watch and Shane was shouting for just one more round, just one more, come on, Bill, you’re not like the rest of those miserable Poms , and Bill agreed, he wasn’t like the rest of them, those pampered private school wankers, and then suddenly it was three o’clock in the morning and they were having one absolutely last drink, a nightcap, you have to have a fucking nightcap, mate , in a dive Shane knew where a Filippino band did songs by Pink and Avril Lavigne, and some other girl was showing Bill a picture of her daughter and Bill was pulling out his wallet to show her a picture of Holly, and giving her a 100-RMB note, and then giving her another one, and then another, and wishing her luck and telling her that she was a wonderful mother, and Shane was singing along to ‘Complicated’ in his hearty Melbourne baritone and then huddling with Bill in a cramped red leather booth somewhere else and saying, But there are just so many of them, Bill, just so many women in the world – how can you ever choose the special one, how can you ever really know? just before the two teachers turned up, bombed out of their brains and calling loudly for more mojitos all round, and they stumbled off into what was left of the night with Shane sandwiched between them, all laughing happily, as though it was the most innocent thing in the world.

Then Bill was all alone in the tree-lined streets of the French Concession in the soft milky light that precedes dawn in Shanghai, unable to find a cab in the city where they say you can always find a cab, and one solitary street hawker was going to work, setting up his sad little display of cigarettes on the pavement, and on the far side of the street Bill saw a small hotel with a lone taxi parked outside, the driver asleep at the wheel.

Bill paused to let a tow truck rumble past, and on the back of it he saw there was a red Mini Cooper, and although the front half of it was smashed like a broken accordion, the guts of its ruined engine spilling out and the windscreen shattered, the front wheels just ragged strips of mangled metal and rubber, he could clearly make out the undamaged roof with its flag of the People’s Republic of China, the red and yellow glinting in the light of the new day.