It was fun to do these typically British things not because they reminded us of home but because we had never done any of them at home.
Cricket, rugby, sandwiches with the crusts cut off-who knew about these things? Not me. And not Rose, whose non-partisan accent disguised the fact that she came from a pebble-walled duplex in a modest corner of the Home Counties. Nothing had been given to Rose. She had earned it all with education and hard work.
“So where exactly did you lose your Essex accent?” I asked her once. “University?”
“Liverpool Street Station,” she said.
In Asia we found both the real Hong Kong and a Britain that we had never known.
Rose loved all of that.
And I loved her.
It wasn’t difficult. The only difficult thing was working up the courage to call her after she gave me her business card in the bar of the Mandarin. It took me seven days. Right from the start, she mattered too much to me. Right from the start, I could not imagine my life without her.
Because she was beautiful, smart and kind. She was curious and brave. She had a bigger heart than anyone I have ever known. She was good at her job but her sense of worth didn’t depend on that job. I loved her for all those reasons. And I loved her because she was on my side. She was on my side without conditions, without get-out clauses. It’s very easy to love someone when they are on your side.
Once, when we were all on the roof of the China Club, Josh said this interesting thing-probably a first for old Josh-after a few too many Tsingtao.
“If Rose met God, she would say: why are you so nasty to Alfie, God?”
He said it in this shrill, girlie voice and everyone laughed. I smiled, trying to be polite to the blockhead. But my heart beat a little faster. Because I knew it was true.
Rose was on my side in a way that nobody had ever been on my side. Apart from my parents. And my grandparents. But they were sort of obliged to be on my side. Rose was a volunteer. She cared about me. Those kids in the park-the cheddar gang-would laugh at the idea of a woman like that caring about a man like me. But she really did. I’m not making it up.
And by loving me, she set me free. Free to be myself.
There was a dream I had once had in London-the dream of trying to be a writer-that I had never really had the guts to pursue. Rose made me believe that if I was prepared to put in the hours, I could do it. I could become a writer one day. She saw not only the man I was, but the man I could be. By loving me, she made me believe that my dreams could come true.
That’s why it is all so difficult now.
That’s why I have to force myself to carry on today.
Because for a little while back there, I had it perfect.
The old Chinese man has finished his slow-motion dance.
As I jog past him for the second time-well, by now it’s actually more of a slow shuffle than a jog-he looks at me as though he has seen my face a thousand times. As though he recognizes me too.
He speaks to me again and this time I understand exactly what he’s saying. It’s not breed at all.
“Breathe,” he says.
“What?” I say, fighting to catch my breath.
“Not breathing properly.”
“Who?”
“Who?” he snorts. “Who? You-that’s who. Not breathing right. Too shallow, your breathing. No good. No breathe, no life.”
I stare at him.
No breathe, no life? Who does he think he is? Yoda?
“What’s that?” I say finally, not too friendly. “Some, like, wise old Chinese saying?”
“No,” he says. “Not old saying. Not wise old Chinese saying. Just common sense.”
Then he turns away, dismissing me.
So I try it as I run out of the park. Inhaling deep, filling my lungs, feeling them expand, letting the breath seep out. Doing it again. Inhaling, exhaling. Slow and steady.
Kicking through last year’s leaves, making myself take another breath.
It’s not easy.
You see, she was my reason.
2
W HERE DO DREAMS BEGIN? My dream of becoming a writer came from my childhood. That’s where my dream began, and it didn’t start to die until I was a young man. So that’s not too bad. It lasted much longer than most dreams.
My father was a sportswriter on a national newspaper. His regular beat was horse racing, football and boxing, the sports he had grown up with in the East End. He also covered athletics during the Olympics, tennis during Wimbledon and pretty much anything else when he had to. Toward the end of his sportswriting career he even wrote a few pieces about the modern kind of wrestlers, those angry men in sparkling latex who look as though they have been taking steroids when what they really should be taking is acting lessons.
My old man wasn’t a famous sportswriter. Most of the time he didn’t even get his picture printed next to his byline. But he was always a glamorous figure to me. Other dads, the fathers of my friends, had to be in the same place at the same time every day. My dad traveled the country, interviewing people who were worshipped, and although sometimes my mum and I didn’t see him all week, I always loved it that regular office hours meant nothing to him.
Even when I was a small child I knew that journalism wasn’t the same as two weeks in Benidorm. I understood the tyranny of the deadline, and how subeditors can leave the last line off your piece, and how today’s newspaper is the lining for tomorrow’s cat litter. But my dad still seemed to be about as free as a man could be.
My dad was never very fond of the slog of reporting-sitting in the press box at Upton Park, phoning in copy from ringside in the NEC Birmingham-but when he was given space to write about the men and women behind the results and the statistics, when he told you about the brilliant young footballer whose career had suddenly been ended by an ankle injury, or the Olympic hopeful who had just discovered a lump in her breast, his stuff could break your heart. He was a cockle warmer, my dad. He could warm your cockles in just a twelve hundred-word, two-page spread. And when my old man warmed your cockles, your cockles stayed warm for quite a while.
My dad was never a great sportswriter because he was never that crazy about sports. He would have had a far happier, far more successful career if he had been writing for the front pages rather than the back pages.
But my father was my hero. And for years I wanted to go into the family business.
Then he wrote a book. You probably heard of it. You might even have read it. Because Oranges for Christmas: A Childhood Memoir was one of those books that start selling and then never seem to stop. And after that, my dreams of writing started to seem a little ridiculous. For how could I ever compete with my father now? As a modestly successful sportswriter he had been inspiring. As a wildly successful author, he was intimidating.
I was at teacher-training college by the time my dad’s book came out, so I watched its ascent of the bestseller lists from a distance. It felt like one moment my father was what he had been forever-a journalist hanging around training grounds hoping for a few exclusive grunts from twenty-year-old footballers on thirty grand a week, and the next he was a bestselling author, cocooned by six-figure royalty checks, regularly appearing on the artier kind of talk shows, getting recognized in restaurants.
I know it wasn’t that easy. Oranges for Christmas took years to write. But success always looks like it has come quickly, no matter how hard the rock it is carved from. And it felt like almost overnight my father went from being an unknown sports journalist to a respected writer, doing events in bookstores where he gave a reading, answered questions and signed copies of Oranges for Christmas. People actually place a value on his autograph these days, just like those fans at training camps who wait for the twenty-year-old footballers on thirty grand a week.