Tony Parsons - One For My Baby

“That’s not the reason.”

“You slip her money for exclusive rights. If that’s not a mistress, then what is? And you see her when you can, right?”

“Not anymore.” He looks at me for the first time with a bit of defiance. “Now I see her all the time. When I want.”

My old man has nearly finished packing. There are lots more of his possessions here. Wardrobes full of suits. A study full of books. Enough sports equipment to stock a small gym. But this is just a quick raid to grab the bare essentials. Today is not the final reckoning. Right now he just wants clean underwear and his Diana Ross compilations.

“How did it work?” I ask him. “How did you get away with it? You must have lied through your teeth. You must have been pretending to do one thing when what you were really doing was Lena.”

“Would you like to watch your mouth?”

“Didn’t that make you feel a bit grubby? Lying like that?”

“I didn’t enjoy it.”

“But you didn’t hate it so much that you stopped doing it.”

“I guess not.”

“And she never knew. Mum, I mean. Never even suspected. Ignorance is certainly bliss, isn’t it? Or at least it’s very underrated.”

“I really must go.”

“Mum trusted you, you bastard. That’s why you got away with it for so long. Not because you’re clever. Because she trusted you. Because she’s kind and good. And you probably think that you’re a decent guy, don’t you? Is Mum just supposed to crawl away and die now? Is that what she’s supposed to do?”

“Christ! You’re making more of a fuss than her.”

He tries to leave. I step in front of him.

“Look, I’m not a kid, okay?”

“Then stop acting like one.”

“I can understand how you would want to go to bed with Lena. I can even understand how you might want to do it more than once.”

“Thank you so much for your understanding.”

“What I don’t understand is how you could be so cruel.”

“I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m just trying to get on with my life. Didn’t you ever feel like that, Alfie? Like just getting on with your life?” He shakes his head. “No. Probably not.”

And there’s something else that I don’t understand. What happens to all the old photographs? All the old photographs in their albums and the shoe boxes and drawers-where do they go now?

My father is not going to take them with him. He’s not going to sit around in his rented love nest looking at all the old photographs with Lena. She doesn’t want to see pictures of me and my mum and my dad at the seaside, in the garden of the house where I grew up, grinning in our party hats at all those lost Christmases.

Lena’s not interested in all that stuff. And neither is my father. Not anymore. He doesn’t want reminders of his old life. He wants to get on with his new life.

And the old photographs are not much good to my mother. She doesn’t want to see them anymore. That’s what I resent most. My father’s actions haven’t just contaminated the present. They have reached back across the years, making our happiness seem misplaced, our innocence seem foolish, all that was good seem second-rate.

Our party hats at Christmas, our smiling faces in the back garden, looking happy and proud in our best clothes at some cousin’s wedding-how wrong it all seems now. The old photographs are all ruined.

My father hasn’t just messed up the present. He has messed up the past.

I buy her some flowers on the way to work. Nothing too flashy. I don’t want to overdo it. Just a bunch of yellow tulips for when we get a moment.

But it’s strange. Yumi doesn’t act differently. That is, she is just the same as she always was-making jokes and cheeky comments in her Advanced Beginners class, but always working hard, getting the job done, being a good, conscientious student. Same as always. As if nothing has happened. As if the world hasn’t been changed. At lunchtime she picks up her books to leave.

“Can we talk?” I ask her, producing the tulips from under my desk.

“Later,” she says, not looking at the flowers.

My heart sinks, but she kisses me quickly on the cheek, slightly crushing my tulips. And my heart soars.

But at the end of the day I take my flowers to the Eamon de Valera and as I stand in the doorway I see that Yumi is at the bar with Imran. I move toward them but then I stop, because Imran has one hand wrapped around her tiny waist while his other hand is giving her small tush a familiar pat.

She kisses him on the mouth, and then rubs her head against his shoulder, like a little cat that hasn’t gotten the cream, but expects to get it some time soon. Like she did with me. I quickly turn and walk out of the pub, holding the flowers so tight that I can feel the stems breaking in my fist.

Then Gen is by my side, looking at me with concern.

“She likes him,” he says simply.

“I don’t care.”

Gen shrugs. “She likes him long time. Since he began at this college.” He stares at me, searching for something else to say. “Sorry.”

“Thanks, Gen.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Come back inside, sensei. Have Guinness. Listen to The Corrs.”

“Some other night.”

“Good night then, sensei.”

“Good night, Gen.”

You’re so stupid, I tell myself, stuffing the flowers in the nearest trash bin. But for a few sweet moments there-dancing in that little club, Sunday morning on Primrose Hill, making love while her red suitcase stood guard-I honestly thought that I heard tomorrow calling.

Whoops, wrong number.

I see her. Rose, I mean. See her on a London street, see her in a place where she could never possibly be.

I am in a cab coming back from the West End. And suddenly there’s Rose-not a woman who looks like Rose. But Rose herself-the same face, the same patient expression she always wore when she was waiting for something. The clothes are different but she is the same girl. And although I know it could not possibly be her, for a long, dizzy minute, I cannot help believing.

She is waiting at a bus stop. I have to restrain myself from shouting at the taxi driver to stop and rushing to her side. I know that if I approach this woman, Rose will disappear to be replaced by some imperfect stranger. It isn’t Rose. She has gone and I will never see her again. At least not in this world.

Me get in touch with the dead?

That’s a joke.

I can’t even get in touch with the living.

I T’S MONDAY MORNING and my students are driving me nuts.

Zeng is nodding off at the back of the class. Imran is staring blankly at a text message on his mobile phone. Astrud and Vanessa are gabbing. Witold is trying to stop crying while Yumi tries to comfort him. Only Gen is looking up at me, waiting for something to happen.

I stand in front of them, waiting for my physical presence to register. Zeng starts snoring.

I clear my throat.

Imran taps a text message into his phone. Astrud and Vanessa burst out laughing. Witold starts weeping, burying his face in his hands. Yumi puts her arm around him. Gen looks away, as if embarrassed for me.

“Right, who’s got that homework for me?” I ask them. “Homework? Anybody?”

By the way they all shift in their seats and avoid eye contact, I can tell that none of them have done it.

Usually I would let it go. But today the lack of homework makes me wonder what I am doing here. And also what they are doing here.

“Can anyone remember what the homework was?”

“Discursive composition,” Yumi says, handing Witold a tissue. “Giving information and your own opinions on something.” We stare at each other. “Very formal style,” she says.