that he was a nice guy really, Guy was, and Bill got a bit confused there, because the boyfriend’s name was Guy, and they had a little laugh about that, and that was good, because she had such a beautiful face when she laughed, and then she said that Bill shouldn’t think they were all idiots and Bill said ah, don’t worry about it, he had no objection to spoilt rich kids with no manners, they had to drink somewhere, and she said that was not her, and he didn’t know her at all, getting angry now, and he said,
Well, prove it – let me have your phone number and I might give you a call sometime
, because he really didn’t give a fuck any more and he was sick of not having a girlfriend who looked like her and sick of being lonely and sick of feeling that he had never had the chance to suck all the juice out of being young.
So she wrote her number on the palm of his hand and by the time he got back to his rented room on the other side of town his heart fell to his boots because the eight digits had almost worn off.
But he still had the number. Just.
And that was how he met Becca. She was the first one in thatplace, the very first, who didn’t look straight through him, or look at him as if he was dirt, and he would always love her for that.
And he got scared sometimes. Because his life was unthinkable without her. Because he wondered what would have happened to him if he had not met Becca. He thought – what then?
Who would have loved me?
The three of them walked hand in hand through a warehouse full of old masters.
There was Picasso’s
Weeping Woman
, Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
and Edward Hopper’s
Nighthawks
. There were Degas dancers, Monet waterlilies and haystacks, Cézanne apples and mountains. There were Lichtenstein’s comic-book lovers, Jasper Johns’ flags and Warhol’s Marilyn and Elvis and soup cans. There were canvases stacked everywhere, and on many of them the paint was still wet.
‘Do one-two-three,’ Holly commanded, happy to have a parent on each hand, so Bill and Becca went, ‘One-two-three!’ and swung their daughter up between them, her thin legs flying as they walked past Gauguin native girls, a pile of
Last Suppers
and
Mona Lisas
by the score.
‘One-two-three!’ they chanted, and Holly laughed wildly as they walked past Hockney swimming pools, Jackson Pollock splatter paintings and sailboats by Matisse.
They stopped at the end of an aisle where a girl in her late teens was painting half a dozen
Sunflowers
all at once. She worked quickly, occasionally glancing at a dog-eared
History of Modern Art
.
‘It looks absolutely like the picture in the book,’ Holly said.
‘It looks exactly like the picture in the book,’ Becca said.
‘Is it really real, Daddy?’ Holly said.
The girl artist smiled. ‘Everything is fake except your mother,’ she said. ‘Old Shanghai saying.’
Becca ordered four
Sunflowers
to go with the
Starry Night
and
The Sower
that she had already bought. She laughed happily, in away that she hadn’t laughed for a long time. Vincent Van Gogh was going to fill the walls of their new home.
They caught a cab to the Bund, which by now Bill had learned to called the Waitan, ‘above the sea’, and finally they saw the jazz band in the bar of the Peace Hotel.
The six musicians were in their eighties now, the very same bunch of swing-obsessed Chinese boys who had been playing when the Japanese army marched into Shanghai a lifetime ago, and as the waitress fussed over Holly’s hair and Bill and Becca sipped their Tsingtaos while the band swaggered through Glenn Miller’s ‘String of Pearls’, for a few sweet dreaming minutes Becca thought it truly seemed as though the old world had never been pulled apart.
The next day Bill came back from work early and joined his daughter at the window. Devlin had packed him off home. He wanted Bill’s family to be happy. He wanted them to stay.
‘That’s my favourite one,’ Holly said, indicating a half-starved
Well, prove it – let me have your phone number and I might give you a call sometime
, because he really didn’t give a fuck any more and he was sick of not having a girlfriend who looked like her and sick of being lonely and sick of feeling that he had never had the chance to suck all the juice out of being young.
So she wrote her number on the palm of his hand and by the time he got back to his rented room on the other side of town his heart fell to his boots because the eight digits had almost worn off.
But he still had the number. Just.
And that was how he met Becca. She was the first one in thatplace, the very first, who didn’t look straight through him, or look at him as if he was dirt, and he would always love her for that.
And he got scared sometimes. Because his life was unthinkable without her. Because he wondered what would have happened to him if he had not met Becca. He thought – what then?
Who would have loved me?
The three of them walked hand in hand through a warehouse full of old masters.
There was Picasso’s
Weeping Woman
, Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
and Edward Hopper’s
Nighthawks
. There were Degas dancers, Monet waterlilies and haystacks, Cézanne apples and mountains. There were Lichtenstein’s comic-book lovers, Jasper Johns’ flags and Warhol’s Marilyn and Elvis and soup cans. There were canvases stacked everywhere, and on many of them the paint was still wet.
‘Do one-two-three,’ Holly commanded, happy to have a parent on each hand, so Bill and Becca went, ‘One-two-three!’ and swung their daughter up between them, her thin legs flying as they walked past Gauguin native girls, a pile of
Last Suppers
and
Mona Lisas
by the score.
‘One-two-three!’ they chanted, and Holly laughed wildly as they walked past Hockney swimming pools, Jackson Pollock splatter paintings and sailboats by Matisse.
They stopped at the end of an aisle where a girl in her late teens was painting half a dozen
Sunflowers
all at once. She worked quickly, occasionally glancing at a dog-eared
History of Modern Art
.
‘It looks absolutely like the picture in the book,’ Holly said.
‘It looks exactly like the picture in the book,’ Becca said.
‘Is it really real, Daddy?’ Holly said.
The girl artist smiled. ‘Everything is fake except your mother,’ she said. ‘Old Shanghai saying.’
Becca ordered four
Sunflowers
to go with the
Starry Night
and
The Sower
that she had already bought. She laughed happily, in away that she hadn’t laughed for a long time. Vincent Van Gogh was going to fill the walls of their new home.
They caught a cab to the Bund, which by now Bill had learned to called the Waitan, ‘above the sea’, and finally they saw the jazz band in the bar of the Peace Hotel.
The six musicians were in their eighties now, the very same bunch of swing-obsessed Chinese boys who had been playing when the Japanese army marched into Shanghai a lifetime ago, and as the waitress fussed over Holly’s hair and Bill and Becca sipped their Tsingtaos while the band swaggered through Glenn Miller’s ‘String of Pearls’, for a few sweet dreaming minutes Becca thought it truly seemed as though the old world had never been pulled apart.
The next day Bill came back from work early and joined his daughter at the window. Devlin had packed him off home. He wanted Bill’s family to be happy. He wanted them to stay.
‘That’s my favourite one,’ Holly said, indicating a half-starved
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