Tony Parsons - One For My Baby

“Yes.”

“But I don’t think I’ve got any. At least, I’ve never been aware of it.”

“Got any blood in your veins?”

“What?”

“Do you got any blood in your veins?”

“Sure.”

“You aware of that?” He nods with satisfaction. “ ’Course not. Same as chi. It’s there. If you know it or not. Chi means air. It also means energy. The spirit leads the mind. The mind leads the chi. The chi leads the blood. Tai Chi is about controlling your chi for better life. We say-every journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. The first step-that’s Tai Chi.”

I nod, sort of getting it, but suddenly feeling a bit hungry. I can feel my life force rumbling, so I pull out a Snickers bar from my tracksuit pocket. George Chang narrows his eyes.

“You want half of this?”

“Okay.”

I unwrap the Snickers bar, break it in half and hand him his share. We munch in silence for a few seconds.

“Prefer Mars bar,” he says through a mouthful of chocolate, peanuts and tasty nougat. He examines the Snickers bar like a wine connoisseur considering the bouquet of a particularly fine Burgundy. Then he closes his eyes, reaching for the memory.

“A Mars a day…helps you work, rest and play.”

“What’s that?” I say. “Some old Chinese saying?”

George Chang just smiles at me.

For a week the ginseng sits in our kitchen like a piece of modern sculpture. My mother and I spend a long time staring at it, like baffled art lovers searching for meaning in a work we don’t quite understand.

The ginseng looks like a vegetable from another planet. It is pale yellow and white, horribly misshapen, dangling a tangle of thin roots like tentacles. Those trailing membranes make it look vaguely squidlike.

“And I thought you bought it in Boots,” I say. “In convenient handy-to-swallow capsules.”

“Perhaps you’re meant to boil it,” my mother says thoughtfully. “You know. Like a carrot.”

“Like a carrot. Right. That sounds possible.”

“Or maybe you chop it up and fry it. Like an onion.”

“Like an onion. So you could even eat it raw.”

We study the ginseng. It is the only plant I have ever seen that reminds me of the Elephant Man.

“I wouldn’t fancy that very much, dear,” says my mother.

“No. Me neither. Look, why don’t we just ask Joyce what you’re meant to do with it?”

“Now?”

“Why not? It’s only six o’clock. The restaurant’s not open yet. You want to use it, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, dear,” my mother says. “It’s meant to be very good for stress.”

There’s a voice being raised inside the Shanghai Dragon. A woman’s voice. My mother and I hesitate for a moment and then go inside.

It is cool and dark in the restaurant. We are expecting to find the entire family clustered around the dining table, happily eating their soup and noodles. But tonight there is only Joyce and her small grandson. She seems very angry with him, and barks at him in a mixture of English and Cantonese.

“You think you’re English?” she asks him. A blast of Cantonese. “Look at your face in the mirror!” Some more Cantonese. “Look at your face! You’re not English!”

Although he can’t be more than five years old, the boy is bent over some homework. He is writing in his little exercise book, his big beautiful moon face all damp with tears.

“You are Chinese! You have Chinese face! You will always have Chinese face!” Some Cantonese. “You have to be smarter than English!”

Joyce notices us hovering in the doorway. She looks at us without embarrassment. I realize that I can’t imagine Joyce ever feeling embarrassed about anything.

“Hello!” she seems to shout. She is still very excited. “Didn’t see you. I don’t have eyes in the back of my face.”

“Is this a bad time?” I say.

“What? Bad time? No. Just teaching cheeky grandson that he has to work hard.”

“He seems very young to be doing homework,” my mother says.

“Father sets homework. Not school. School just let them do anything. Relax. Watch television. Watch video games. Just relax. Like millionaires. Like playboys. As though the world owes them a loving.”

“I know, I know.” My mother sighs, staring sympathetically at the child. “What’s your name, darling?”

He says nothing.

“Answer lady!” Joyce roars like a sergeant major faced with a dopey private.

“William,” he says. A tiny voice, full of tears.

“Like Prince William,” Joyce says. She ruffles his thick mop of shiny black hair, pinches his smooth round cheek. “Sister called Diana. Like Princess Diana.”

“What lovely names,” my mother says.

“We were wondering how you prepare the ginseng,” I say. I want to get out of here. “How you are meant to take it.”

“Take it? Many ways. Can drink it. Like tea. In a nice cup of tea. Can put it in soup. Like Korean people. Easiest way-just chop up ginseng. Put it in saucepan with water. Boil it. Let it simmer for ten minutes. Strain it off. Use one pint of water for every ounce of ginseng.”

“That sounds easy enough,” my mother says, smiling at William.

He stares up at her with blank wet eyes.

“You tried ginseng yet?” demands Joyce.

“Not yet. That’s what we-”

“Good for you.” Her fierce brown eyes blaze at my mother. “Especially women. Older ladies. But not just older ladies.” She looks at me. “Good for when you not sleep. Tired all the time. Feeling-how to say?-a bit run over.”

“Run down.”

“Yes. Run over.” She pushes her face close to mine. “You looking a bit run over, mister.”

“Just what I need!” says my mum, clapping her hands with delight.

Joyce offers us tea-English tea, she calls it-but we make our excuses and leave. Before we are out of the door, Joyce is shouting at William about having a Chinese face.

And for the first time I get a sense of how hard it is when you want to become international.

“I can’t stay long,” Josh tells me when we meet for lunch in a crowded City pub where I am the only man not wearing a suit.

“Got to reach somebody in Hong Kong before they leave the office?” His firm still does a lot of business with Hong Kong and I like hearing about it. It makes me feel as though I still have some connection with the place. Something more than memories.

“No. Got a client coming in. A woman. You should see her, Alfie. Top-of-the-range pussy, mate. Looks like Claudia Schiffer but talks like Lady Helen Windsor or somebody. A real plums-in-the-mouth job. Not so much tits and arse as tits and class. Quite fancy my chances, I do.”

“A bit of posh? Just right for you, Josh. Knock off your rough edges. Show you which fork to use. Teach you when to say lavatory and when to say sofa. Stop you wiping your nose on your sleeve. Keeping coal in the bath. All that.”

He flushes, not liking it very much when you suggest that he is not quite the Duke of Westminster. Usually you can say what you like to Josh. He has the sensitivity of a brick. But you are not allowed to suggest that he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or up his butt.

“She’s coming into the office at two,” he says, looking at his watch. “Can’t stay long.”

I am not offended. Our meetings often begin with Josh telling me that he has to be somewhere else very soon. I’m used to it.

We order curry at the bar and I notice that the damage to his face is fading. The bandages are long gone and there’s no sign that his broken nose has been reset. There are black and yellow bruises under his eyes, but they look as though they are the result of a night without sleep rather than a head butt from a drunken middle-aged skinhead. We collect our curries and find a glass-strewn table in a smoky corner of the pub.