Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’She woke up. In a lot of pain. They gave her a shot of something and it’s knocked her out. The nurse says she should be all right until morning.’ We both watched the sleeping child. She didn’t move. ’Not much is going to happen until then. Apart from, you know. All this. The waiting.’

’Come home for a bit, Cyd.’

’No, I couldn’t leave her.’

’Come home. Shower. Get some sleep. In your own bed. Some tea and toast, maybe. Come on. You’ll be stronger for tomorrow.’

She smiled wearily, and touched my arm.

’Thanks for sticking by me, Harry,’ she said, and I felt my face flush with shame.

’You were there for me,’ I said. ’When Pat was hurt. Remember?’

It was almost three years ago now. I could still see my son falling into that empty swimming pool, the dark halo of blood growing around his dirty-blond hair. That’s when I learned. That’s when I discovered that this world could take your children away from you. And Cyd was there for me. With Gina in Japan, getting her life back or discovering her true self or looking for love or whatever the fuck she was doing, there was nobody for me here. Apart from my parents, who would always be there. And Cyd, who could have been somewhere else. Somewhere a lot easier.

’Seems like a long time ago now,’ she said.

’Let’s go home, Cyd. Just for a few hours. Come on, you’re out on your feet.’

But there was something she wanted to say to me.

’I know you want to be free, Harry.’

’Not now. Not all this talk now. Please.’

’No, listen. I know you want to be free. Because all men want to be free, but you more than most. Maybe because you were such a young dad, such a young husband. And it all went wrong for you so young. I don’t know exactly why you want it so bad. But I know you dream of freedom – you wonder what it would be like with no wife, no kids, no responsibility. But what would happen if you were free, Harry? Do you know?’

’Let’s go home now.’

She smiled triumphantly. ’Because I know, Harry. I do. I know what would happen if you were free.’

’Cyd -’

’Listen to me. This is what would happen if you were free, Harry. You’d meet some girl, some sweet young thing, and you’d fall for her. You’d be crazy about her. And you’d end up somewhere not so different from where you are with me, where you were with Gina, where you were with every woman you ever loved. Can’t you see, Harry? If you’re capable of loving someone, then there’s never total freedom. There can’t be. You give it up. You give up your freedom. For something that’s better.’

I picked up her coat and helped her into it. We both stared at the sleeping child, reluctant to leave her. White on white, Peggy’s face almost seemed to disappear into the pillow.

’It wasn’t meant to trap you, Harry,’ Cyd said. ’The marriage, the wedding ring, me and Peggy. I know that’s how it made you feel, but it wasn’t meant to be like that. You and me – it wasn’t meant to make you feel trapped, Harry.’

’Let’s go home now, okay?’

’It was meant to set you free.’

I lay in my bed in the darkness, listening to the sound of the shower, then later her footsteps leading to the guest room. I didn’t notice she had come into our bedroom until she was standing by the bed. Her black hair wet and shining, her long legs bare, shivering a little in the chill of the night. And still wearing her green dress.

’It still fits, Harry,’ she said, and then she was in my arms. And then, as so often happens when illness and death are at the door, the urge for life never greater than when the alternative makes itself known, we made love as if we were an endangered species.

There are really only two kinds of sex in the world. Unmarried and married. Desire and duty. Passionate and compassionate. Hot and lukewarm. Fucking and making love.

Usually, in time, you lose one kind for the other. It happens. But you can always get the other kind back.

It’s like my mum said.

You just have to fall in love again.

On Primrose Hill we said goodbye.

I would hardly have been surprised if she had never wanted to talk to me again. But there was something in her, a kind of generous formality – perhaps it was something Japanese – which let her come back just this once.

It was one of those clear bright summer days when London goes on forever. From Primrose Hill you could see the entire city, and yet the soft boom of the traffic seemed very distant. The real world felt a long way away. But I knew it was getting closer.

It was still very early. There were dogs and joggers everywhere, people rushing to work with a cappuccino in their hand, and the lights, those old-fashioned lamps that recalled some other lost city, another London, still shining weakly in the morning light all over Primrose Hill.

’Will you stay here or go back to Japan?’

’You can’t ask me that. You don’t have the right to ask me that.’

’I’m sorry.’

’Stop saying that. Don’t say that again. Please.’

She held something out to me. It was the Polaroid we had taken ourselves, holding the camera at arm’s length, laughing as though none of this would ever have to end.

’I used to think that if you took someone’s photograph, then you could never lose them,’ Kazumi said. ’But now I see it’s the other way round. That our pictures show us all that we have lost.’

’We’re not losing each other,’ I said. ’When two people care for each other, they don’t lose each other.’

’That’s a bollock,’ she said, her temper flaring. I couldn’t help smiling. She always mangled the language just enough to make it special. ’That’s a complete bollock.’

I shook my head. ’You’ll always matter to me, Kazumi. I’ll always care about you. I won’t stop caring about you if you’re with some other man. How can two people who have loved each other ever really lose each other?’

’I don’t know,’ she said. ’I can’t explain it, but that’s what happens.’

’I don’t want you out of my life.’

’Me neither.’

’Four billion people in the world, and I care about a handful of them. Including you. Especially you. So don’t talk as though we are throwing each other away.’

’Okay, Harry.’

’Together forever?’

She smiled. ’Together forever, Harry.’

’See you, Kazumi.’

’See you.’

I watched her walking down Primrose Hill, on one of those strange little paths that abruptly crisscross the park, pointing off in completely different directions, just like the impossible choices you are forced to make as you move through your life.

I watched her until she was gone, knowing that I would never stop wondering how it would have been if we were together, never stop caring about her, and never stop meeting her in dreams.

And just as she walked from the park and I finally lost sight of her, something happened, although I might have imagined it. It felt like the lights went out all over Primrose Hill.

I never saw her again.

My mum put on her Dolly Parton wig and went shopping.

The little neighbourhood store where she had bought her food for decades had recently closed down after the owner retired, and now she had to go to a huge hypermarket miles away. My mum actually preferred the hypermarket – ’Much more choice, love’

– but the bus service out there was almost non-existent, so once a week Pat and I would go with her in the car.

We were steering our trolley to the fresh meat counter when an old man with a solitary tin of cat food in his wonky wire basket collided with us. He had grey, three-day-old stubble on his sagging old-geezer chin and a cardigan that looked as though it had been feeding a good-sized family of moths. As I dusted down the shabby old man, I realised we had met before.