Tony Parsons - One For My Baby

“I want to apologize,” 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 color among the drab grays and traffic fumes of the Holloway Road. There is aCLOSED 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 diving 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 center 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 recognizes, 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 chop-stick 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 pudding,” 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 good-bye 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 realize 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.