in her arms. Bill touched his daughter’s hair.
‘She’s okay,’ he said. ‘She’s doing really well –’
Becca’s anger exploded. ‘What do you know about it, Bill? You’re never around. How dare you? And she’s not okay. She’s not okay at school because she started in the middle of a term and the other kids already have their friends so she plays alone in the playground.’ It was all pouring out now, even things she had decided not to share with him because she didn’t want to worry him, because there was enough pressure already, he had enough on his plate at work. ‘Did you know that? Of course you didn’t. And her breathing’s not okay because the air here is filthy. All right? So don’t ever tell me she’s okay, because you know absolutely nothing about it.’
They stared out at the elevated Ya’an Freeway. The lights of the city seemed to be glowing somewhere far below them.
‘I’m sorry, Bec,’ he said. ‘It will get better. I’ll make it better.’
Tears sprang to her eyes. This was a good thing about him. He would always reach out a hand to her. It had always been that way when they argued. He wouldn’t allow them to go to sleep angry and hurt. He always tried to make it better. And he didn’t say what he could have said, what most men would have said –
Coming here was
your
idea
. But this life wasn’t what she had expected.
‘I wanted us to see the jazz band at the Peace Hotel,’ she said, almost laughing, it sounded so absurd. ‘And I wanted us to buy propaganda posters and Mao badges in the Dongtai Lu antique market. All these places that I read about, all the great places they say you should go.’
He put his arm around her.
‘And I wanted us,’ she said, snuggling down, adjusting Holly on her lap. ‘I wanted us to drink cocktails in hotels where in the thirties you could get opium on room service. I want to support you, Bill. And I want to be a good sport. And I want to muck in and I don’t want to whine. But why isn’t it like that?’
‘We’ll do all those things,’ he said, and he touched her face, that face he loved so much, and determined to see her happy again.
‘But
when?’
‘Starting tomorrow, Bec.’ He nodded, and she smiled, because she knew that he meant it.
Her unhappiness, and her loneliness, and all the panic of tonight were things he would address with the dogged determination that he brought to everything. My husband, she thought. The professional problem-solver.
He could never understand why people felt sentimental about when they were young. Being young meant being poor. Being young was a long, hard grind. Being young meant doing jobs that sucked the life out of you.
Being young was overrated. Or maybe it was just him. For in his teens and twenties Bill had endured eight years of feeling like he was the only young person in the world who wasn’t really young at all.
At weekends and holidays, he had worked his way through two years of A-levels, four years at UCL, six months of his Law Society final exams and his two years’ traineeship with Butterfield, Hunt and West.
Over eight years of stacking shelves, carrying hods, pulling pints and ferrying around everything from takeaway pizzas (on a scooter) to Saturday-night drunks (in a mini cab) and cases of wine (in a Majestic Wine Warehouse white van).
The worst job was in a Fulham Road pub called the Rat andTrumpet. It wasn’t as back-breaking as lugging bricks on a building site, and it wasn’t as dangerous as delivering pizza to a sink estate after midnight, and it didn’t numb your brain quite like filling shelves under the midnight sun of the supermarket strip lighting.
But the Rat and Trumpet was the worst job of the lot because that was where all the people his own age didn’t even notice that privilege had been given to them on a plate. They had a sense of entitlement that Bill Holden would never have, the boys with their ripped jeans and pastel-coloured jumpers and their
‘She’s okay,’ he said. ‘She’s doing really well –’
Becca’s anger exploded. ‘What do you know about it, Bill? You’re never around. How dare you? And she’s not okay. She’s not okay at school because she started in the middle of a term and the other kids already have their friends so she plays alone in the playground.’ It was all pouring out now, even things she had decided not to share with him because she didn’t want to worry him, because there was enough pressure already, he had enough on his plate at work. ‘Did you know that? Of course you didn’t. And her breathing’s not okay because the air here is filthy. All right? So don’t ever tell me she’s okay, because you know absolutely nothing about it.’
They stared out at the elevated Ya’an Freeway. The lights of the city seemed to be glowing somewhere far below them.
‘I’m sorry, Bec,’ he said. ‘It will get better. I’ll make it better.’
Tears sprang to her eyes. This was a good thing about him. He would always reach out a hand to her. It had always been that way when they argued. He wouldn’t allow them to go to sleep angry and hurt. He always tried to make it better. And he didn’t say what he could have said, what most men would have said –
Coming here was
your
idea
. But this life wasn’t what she had expected.
‘I wanted us to see the jazz band at the Peace Hotel,’ she said, almost laughing, it sounded so absurd. ‘And I wanted us to buy propaganda posters and Mao badges in the Dongtai Lu antique market. All these places that I read about, all the great places they say you should go.’
He put his arm around her.
‘And I wanted us,’ she said, snuggling down, adjusting Holly on her lap. ‘I wanted us to drink cocktails in hotels where in the thirties you could get opium on room service. I want to support you, Bill. And I want to be a good sport. And I want to muck in and I don’t want to whine. But why isn’t it like that?’
‘We’ll do all those things,’ he said, and he touched her face, that face he loved so much, and determined to see her happy again.
‘But
when?’
‘Starting tomorrow, Bec.’ He nodded, and she smiled, because she knew that he meant it.
Her unhappiness, and her loneliness, and all the panic of tonight were things he would address with the dogged determination that he brought to everything. My husband, she thought. The professional problem-solver.
He could never understand why people felt sentimental about when they were young. Being young meant being poor. Being young was a long, hard grind. Being young meant doing jobs that sucked the life out of you.
Being young was overrated. Or maybe it was just him. For in his teens and twenties Bill had endured eight years of feeling like he was the only young person in the world who wasn’t really young at all.
At weekends and holidays, he had worked his way through two years of A-levels, four years at UCL, six months of his Law Society final exams and his two years’ traineeship with Butterfield, Hunt and West.
Over eight years of stacking shelves, carrying hods, pulling pints and ferrying around everything from takeaway pizzas (on a scooter) to Saturday-night drunks (in a mini cab) and cases of wine (in a Majestic Wine Warehouse white van).
The worst job was in a Fulham Road pub called the Rat andTrumpet. It wasn’t as back-breaking as lugging bricks on a building site, and it wasn’t as dangerous as delivering pizza to a sink estate after midnight, and it didn’t numb your brain quite like filling shelves under the midnight sun of the supermarket strip lighting.
But the Rat and Trumpet was the worst job of the lot because that was where all the people his own age didn’t even notice that privilege had been given to them on a plate. They had a sense of entitlement that Bill Holden would never have, the boys with their ripped jeans and pastel-coloured jumpers and their
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