Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’If you don’t see this doctor, you will eventually lose your show.’

’I’m fine.’

’You will certainly ruin your health.’

’That’s my business.’

’You will probably get in trouble with the police.’

’Fuck ’em.’

’You will definitely put all your hard-earned money right up your nose and straight down the toilet.’

’I can do what I like with it.’

’And you will also shrink your penis.’

’What?’

’You heard me.’

He stared at me for a moment. ’What’s this doctor’s name then?’

His mobile phone began to vibrate. Not ring, just convulse. He picked it up and started talking, even though phones were not allowed in here. It was his ex-girlfriend. It was Mem. He was immediately on the verge of tears, running agonised fingers through his floppy black hair.

’I’m not harassing you… was it twenty messages? Surely not quite that many? Anyway, I just want to see you, my little lemon-flavoured Popsicle… Why? Just to talk to you, to explain… Mem, we can have it all again… I want to be the only man you lap-dance for… please, baby…”

Two businessmen at the next table stared at him with contempt.

’Who’s the comedian with the mobile?’ one said. ’There are supposed to be no phones in here.’

’Duh,’ said the other, impersonating a dumb mobile phone user. Tm on the train…”

Eamon wheeled on the pair of them.

’It didn’t ring, did it?’ he demanded. ’I’ve got it on vibrating alert and no ring, right? So there’s no fucking difference between me talking into this fucking phone and you two dickheads talking to each other about the financial markets or Tiger Woods or whatever floats your pathetic boats, is there?’

Good point, I thought, indicating that we would like our bill. He should incorporate that into the act, too. But Jesus – he was ready to explode.

And as they threatened to punch our lights out, I thought about what Eamon had said about a woman being like the world. If his theory was correct, then that made my wife America. But after a year and a bit of marriage, she still didn’t feel fully explored.

Sometimes I felt I didn’t know her at all.

I don’t know why I started driving by Gina’s place. I knew there was nobody home. The new people weren’t moving in for a while, and even the dreamy au pair had buggered off back to Bavaria. But I found it – I don’t know – soothing.

Even though it was not my house, and it was no longer Pat’s home, and I had no warm memories of the place. Driving past my son’s old place, thinking of how only last week his things were waiting for him up in his room – his clothes in the wardrobe, some of them too small for him now, his bed, his Phantom Menace duvet cover, the pillow that he slept on – somehow made me feel a little less lonely.

So I circled the house like an old lover, filled with longing, worn down by time.

And that’s when I saw Pat’s bike.

It had been left in their front garden. He was always doing that – parking his bike on the little front lawn after returning from the park and then just forgetting it, or trusting that the entire world was as innocent as him.

The only reason nobody had nicked it already was because it was almost completely hidden behind a scrubby bush. I parked my car, climbed over the token garden wall and picked up the bike. I would take care of it until my son came home. Or maybe they would want me to send it over.

’Is she in?’

I looked up. He was a very thin young man with dyed yellow hair. Asian. One of those fashionable young Japanese men that you sometimes see in the artier parts of London, haunting galleries and specialist record shops. This one looked as though he had been crying. I stared at him over the small garden wall.

’Who are you talking about? Do you mean Gina?’

He looked up at the house. ’Kazumi.’

The name rang no bells. ’Wrong house, mate. Try next door. ’

’No. This is the place she’s staying.’ His English was good. ’I’m sure of it.’ He scanned the street, shaking his head. ’I know this is the place. There she is!’

A young Asian woman was slowly coming down the street n a bicycle. She had that glossy, swinging Japanese hair, but ’t seemed just a shade lighter than normal. She stopped in front of Gina’s house and pushed the hair out of her eyes. I saw her face. Pale, serious, slightly older than I had first thought. Not a girl, but a woman. Maybe around the same age as me.

And she was the most attractive woman I had seen for a long time. Since – well, since I first saw my wife.

She looked at the young man. Not pleased to see him. The hair swung back in front of her strikingly special face. She left it there, a veil between her and the world.

’Kazu-chan,’ he said, and I suddenly thought – of course.

Gina’s friend from Japan.

The one who looked at Pat through her camera and really saw him.

Kazumi.

He spoke to her in soft, urgent Japanese, his head slightly bowed, the dyed blond hair masking his grief.

She shook her head, telling him no, wheeling her bike up the garden path. The young man sat on my ex-wife’s garden wall and began to sob, burying his face in his hands.

She shook her head again, this time with a kind of exasperated disbelief, and struggled with a big set of keys to open the front door. She was having trouble finding the right two. Then she finally opened it up and the burglar alarm began to sound its warning.

Just before she closed the front door, she glanced at me for the first time – standing in the middle of the little lawn, holding my son’s abandoned bike, watching her tap in the code to the alarm.

I caught the expression on her face, saw how she was looking at me.

As if I was just another lovesick madman. was

A postcard from New York.

On the front, a shot of Central Park with the seasons changing. Silvery skyscrapers peek over a thousand trees of rust, green and gold. Fluffy white clouds in a bright-blue sky.

On the back, a message from my son, each letter meticulously printed.

DEAR DADDY

WE WENT TO THIS PARK. THEY GOT DUCK. I LOVE

YOU. LOVE YOUR SON.

PAT xxx

’Drunk goes into a confession booth in Kilcarney,’ Eamon said. ’The priest goes, ”What do you need, my son?” Drunk goes, ”You got any paper on your side, mate?’”

We were in a waiting room in Harley Street. There were deep sofas, an elderly lady at a small reception desk and real-estate brochures on lacquered tables. Money and ill health filled the air. Eamon’s fingernails were chewed down and bloody.

’You’ll be okay,’ I told him.

’School bus in Kilcarney. There’s this old drunk – swallowing his tongue, singing rebel songs, puking up. Completely out of it. The little kids have to help him off. Then one of them says, ”Fuck, now who’s going to drive?”’

’She’s a really good doctor. She has seen models, musicians, everybody.’

’Man walks into a Kilcarney bar. ”Give me a fucking drink.” Bartender goes, ”First perform three tasks. Knock out the bouncer. Pull a loose tooth out of the guard dog. And give the local whore the shag of her life.” Guy knocks out the bouncer with a sweet left hook. Guy goes into the backroom and soon the guard dog starts barking and yelping. Guy walks back into the bar, doing up his flies. ”Right,” he says. ”Where’s the dog with the loose tooth?’”

’Try to relax.’

’This is bollocks. I don’t need any help. Those bastards at the station.’

’Mr Fish?’ the receptionist said. ’Dr Baggio will see you now.’

Eamon was shaking. I put my arm around him as we stood up. And that’s when the room seemed to blur at the edges. That’s when my legs suddenly felt as if there was no strength in them, and as my vision slipped and smeared, my legs went to nothing and I saw the deep, lush Harley Street carpet rushing towards my face.