Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

So I went to see Kazumi. I came up the stairs, still sick to my stomach from the trauma of the accident and the rush to the hospital, still numb from the hours of waiting around and then more hours crawling on the motorway out to my mum’s place. I had spent the day watching a child in trouble and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The worst feeling in the world.

Kazumi looked down over the banisters. And when I saw her, the long black hair pulled back from her smiling, lovely face, it occurred to me that this was meant to be our special night. And when she kissed me I was certain. She was ready to take that final step. All my old wedding vows had been declared null and void. We were going to cross the line, and make promises of our own.

Inside the flat the sound of a cello running through its scales came from the second bedroom. The flatmate was home, but Kazumi smiled conspiratorially.

’Staying in room,’ she said. ’Has to practise. Don’t worry.’

The table was set for two, a special dinner for two champagne flutes, linen napkins, a single white candle in a silver candlestick, already lit, the flame dancing in the twilight. And my heart throbbed like an old, fading bruise when I saw all the trouble she had gone to.

’Pat okay? Mum okay?’

’They’re fine.’

She was in my life. She knew my son and my mother. She cared about them, they liked her. In time, if you gave it years to grow, they could love her. And she could love them. I knew it. This was all true. She was in my blood now. She was part of it all. Well, not quite all of it. For just as she was locked away from Cyd, so Cyd was locked away from her. And I couldn’t tell Kazumi about Peggy, I wouldn’t know where to start.

In the middle of the table was a large pan sitting on top of some kind of small gas cooker. Like something you would use for camping, if you were a gourmet chef with a taste for the great outdoors. There were plates of thinly sliced beef, white chunks of tofu and piles of uncooked vegetables, some of which I recognised.

’Sukiyaki,’ I said. ’Lovely.’

She was delighted. ’All westerner love sukiyaki. Began in Japan when Meiji Emperor started eating meat. Start of twentieth century. Until then – fish only.’

’I didn’t know that,’ I said, sinking into a chair. ’I didn’t know any of that.’

A champagne cork popped, and she filled our glasses.

’ Kampai ,’ I said.

’Cheers,’ she said.

She came around the table, placed a quick kiss on my lips and then, smiling, threw some thin slices of beef and some raw vegetables into the sizzling pan, covering them with some kind of sauce. In the bedroom the flatmate had stopped practising her scales and started playing ’Song Without Words’. And with all its sadness and stillness and sense of things being lost forever, that music was like a fist around my throat.

’Sauce called warashita . Made of soy sauce, sweet rice wine and sugar. You know what happens next?’

There were two eggs on the table next to a pair of lacquered bowls.

’We whip up the raw eggs, and then dip in the beef and vegetables,’ I said, struggling against the fist around my throat.

’Hah!’ she said. ’Big sukiyaki expert, I can see.’

And I saw something too. All at once I saw that the dream I’d had would never come true, not in a million years. I had dreamed of starting again – running away with Kazumi, taking my son with us. That’s what I wanted. Not merely a new woman. Not just that. But a world made whole and a family restored. A new wife. A new life.

I don’t know where I honestly thought we were going to go. The west of Ireland. Paris. Maybe some other corner of north London would have been enough. Maybe Primrose Hill would have been far enough. Anywhere. But we were going, and in my dream we were already on our way.

Now I saw that the dream would never come true. It wasn’t Kazumi’s fault. It was because the price was too high to pay. Too much that was precious would have to be discarded, too much life thrown away, before I could start again.

I thought that my feeling for her – love, romance, you can call it what you like – was the only thing that mattered.

And that just wasn’t true.

Other things mattered too.

I know I could have done the traditional thing. I could have tried to keep Cyd halfway happy, while stringing Kazumi along, keeping her halfway happy too. Screwing the pair of them, in every way possible. And I could have got away with it by lying to everyone, to Cyd, to Kazumi, but mostly myself- telling myself that I genuinely loved both of them. In my own sweet way.

But try loving two women and you end up loving nobody at all, not in the way they warrant.

Try loving two of them and this is what it does – it breaks you in half.

You need a heart of stone to lead one of those double lives. And so does she. The other woman. I knew Kazumi wasn’t built for that kind of life. I knew that Kazumi wasn’t cut out to be my mistress. She wasn’t cold enough, old enough, tough enough. All the reasons that I loved her were all the reasons she could never be a bit on the side. She had the sweetest, gentlest heart in the world. I still believe that. Even now.

In the end, I knew her so well. And I could see glimpses of myself in her, or at least the best of me. She believed, really believed, that she could find a love that would transform her world. And perhaps she was right. But I knew now she was never going to find it with me.

It was all or nothing with this woman. That’s why I loved her

– and I can say that now. I loved her. But she wasn’t cut out for an affair. The right girl in so many ways, she was the wrong girl to play that role. She was a romantic. Say what you like about those starry-eyed souls, about the upheaval and destruction they always leave in their wake, but there is one thing about romantics that nobody can deny. They never settle for second best.

’Kazumi,’ I said, standing up.

Her face fell. ’Problem – with egg? You don’t like raw egg?'

I carefully placed my champagne flute on the table.

’Raw egg is fine. It’s just that… I can’t do this. I am so, so sorry. I have to go.’

She nodded, taking it all in, the anger flaring.

’Go on, then. Go back to your wife.’

’I’m so sorry.’

She picked up the silver candlestick and threw it at me, a wild throw that made it fly past my head and left a splash of white candle wax on the tablecloth. She lashed out at our special meal with furious fists, and it all went crashing. Glasses and vegetables, silver cutlery and chopsticks, pretty napkins splashed with soy sauce. Across the table, to the floor, fragments of our special meal smashing against my legs. Just ruined, the lot of it.

Kazumi with her head hanging. Hair like a long, black veil.

’Kazumi.’

’Go back to your home.’

I left her then, with the smell of burning beef in the air and the flatmate’s cello coming through the walls and the unwanted champagne in my gut. It was not easy to leave her. But in the end, Cyd’s claim on me was stronger. Cyd had home advantage.

Whatever happened next, I had to be with my wife.

Even if the only thing left to say was goodbye.

Cyd was still at the hospital.

Peggy looked tiny in the hospital bed, a kind of protective tent above her plastered leg, her sleeping face grave and frowning. She was sitting up in bed, her head tilted to one side, as if she had only just nodded off.

At first I didn’t see Cyd. Then I noticed her on the far side of the bed, sleeping on the floor, between a couple of blue hospital blankets. It was after midnight now. I crouched by her side and she stirred.