Patrick Parker's Progress (24 page)

'Hi
’
she said, with a little wave.

He was flattered, distinctly flattered. They spent the night in his room before he put her on the train, and he had forgotten how good it was to enjoy yourself without responsibilities. Audrey could be quite serious nowadays. Not one question but twenty. She knew all there was to know about beam bridges, arch bridges, suspension bridges - and when he tested her she really did know the difference. 'Talk to me about them, Patrick,' she would say. Tell me more.' Peggy required no such input. She wore amazing lace underwear, too. Amazing. Nevertheless - back on the train she must go. And that must be that
...

Peggy wrote again, this time with endearments. He did not reply. He was busy working on his Tokyo itinerary. Audrey was busy doing something or other about her French - and Peggy wrote again, with more endearments; he sent a card. Perhaps, he suggested, he would see her when he returned from Japan - if he came up to visit his mother. That should do it, he thought. But it didn't. One evening Peggy Boxer telephoned. Saying that she just had to hear his voice because he was going away for so long (two weeks!) and that Florence had given her the landlady's number - and how was he? He, as it happened, was having palpitations and difficulty with his bowels on account of Audrey being in his room at that very moment, with her kit off. He only managed to grunt. Peggy Boxer said that
she
was quite well
thank you,
in a funny sort of voice. And rang off.

Back down to London Peggy came. 'I want to see some of the sights,' she said. But unless you called his room, its posters, the two Heal's mugs and the inside of some rumpled bed linen memorable scenes of interest, she did not achieve her ambition. Or - retrospectively - maybe she did? She certainly went away quite happy. She was - no doubt about it - very attractive and lively, and Patrick was always - after the initial shock - glad to see her. She glowed where Audrey was all vampire pallor (Max Factor panstick being the new thing), she laughed where Audrey questioned
...
She was, he dared to think, something of a relief. The last thing Peggy said to him at the station, was,
‘I
do understand. You are busy. That was fun. Have a wonderful time in Tokyo. Bye.'

Audrey was not so considerate.

If he stayed away for any length of time, or forgot to telephone or cancelled arrangements
...
it was oppressive compared with the way he could stand there on that platform and wave Peggy Boxer away. Comparisons are odious, as he knew, but he could not help making them.

With profound relief, a week later he flew to Tokyo. Audrey cried, his mother cried and the note his mother brought him from Peggy Boxer was covered in tears, too (apparently). If he could shake the dust from his heels over that little lot, he would be happy. What he really wanted, what he dreamed might happen, what he thought was very possible, given his Gold Medal status, was that someone in Tokyo would offer him a job. Then he could stay for as long as he liked and all three women would be quite irrelevant. He'd get himself a geisha. He'd joked about it with Audrey often enough. Though she didn't seem to see the funny side.

13

Darkest Before the Dawn

We're getting married under Brooklyn Bridge. Until you're a bride, you just don't understand. It transforms you, it makes you feel lovely.
Mamie

The first place the welcome party took Patrick to visit was old. The Imperial Palace. More than three hundred and fifty years old, they told him. There it stood, half-ruined, a traditional Japanese royal building, surrounded by a great moat and massive, sloping volcanic stone ramparts. Patrick was unimpressed. Such ancient monuments bored him. They laughed. 'Come closer,' they said. 'Look. See
...'

The building was not traditional at all. It was not even half-ruined. It was being rebuilt and it was being rebuilt from non-flammable ferro
-
concrete. Clever, brilliant in fact.

'Firebombs, nineteen-forty-five,' they said. And bowed.

'And I am from Coventry,' he told them. 'Also firebombed.'

They ah shook hands.

Sometimes one's history could come in useful.

Then they took him to the business area, west of the Shinjuku station. Behold, he thought amazed, Mammon. Here they were making buildings that reached for the clouds - his eyes ached trying to focus on their tops. 'Most expensive real estate in entire world,' said his guide. 'Per metre. Soon.' Patrick licked his lips.

He asked to be taken to the site of the new Olympic Stadium, to pay homage to Kenzo Tange. '
Brunel
is my hero,' he said. 'But Tange comes close.'

They approved.

The rudiments of the building were taking shape, the magical sleight of hand that would one day support - without appearing to the already famous sea-shell roof was beginning to happen. It would one day shelter thousands and make the architects of the world fall to their knees with envy. Patrick would have given his soul to have thought of that.

'Can I have a job here?' he asked, only half playfully.

The escort bowed before him one by one. They were smiling. 'You are not old enough,' he was told. 'Here we value experience.'

A man approached and plucked a grey hair from his head. He placed it on his upturned palm. "When you can do the same,' he said, 'return to us.'

Patrick bowed. 'One day I will. And I will build you such a bridge that Tokugawa himself would approve.' They all clapped.

Personally, Patrick did not think they would need to wait for his hair to grow grey for that little prophecy to come true. But he also realised that now he was out in the big wide world it was better not to say such things. If it wasn't the dash of humility his Course Tutor had asked for, it was a good pretence at it.

He also learned, as many busy high-flying men before him, the usefulness of airport shopping. He bought his mother a duty-free fan and he sent Audrey a postcard of a geisha - full costume, smiling and serpentine, painted as a piece of china. 'My new girlfriend,' he wrote. The card was three-dimensional, very clever, and if you moved it around the geisha would wink and take off her clothes.

He returned to London and prepared to take up his rather inferior position (given that he had hoped to remain in Japan, sitting on the right hand of Tange, it was something of a comedown) with a City-based architect. Humble stuff, all bingo halls and Mecca ballrooms. And the most they allowed was some clever use of glass wall dividers and the occasional bit of drama with an exterior finish. Rough plaster, smooth plaster, plaster to look like a hacienda. But at least it was an income, it was in London, and he could look around for something else. He had a week before he started there. Just enough time to find a proper flat - or at least somewhere with its own front door and no questions asked. Somewhere big for his work table. And somewhere near the river. Definitely near the river. London's artery. He wanted to feel the pulse of it. Audrey was delighted.

'You should do the same, Aud,' he said, get a bit of independence. Which was not exactly what she had in mind. 'D
'accord
’
she said, but she didn't.

Upon one thing he was resolved. He did not have time for two lovers. He asked his landlady to say he was out if Miss Boxer telephoned, and his landlady obliged. She fielded two calls before the letter arrived. He recognised the tiny handwriting and nearly didn't open it but something about the way she had written URGENT all over the envelope made him open it. It would be undying love, he knew, so he was doubly winded when he read it.

He sat down. He got up. He read it again and then he went out into the night and he walked. He felt as if he was floating through a very bad dream - down Ladbroke Grove, along Holland Park, through the decay of Shepherd's Bush - right the way into Richmond. Dark and empty the water below him on Twickenham Bridge - which was how, approximately, he felt about his life at that moment. He had no doubt the baby was his. That, he told himself, nodding at the water, was what happened - a man and a woman made love - they made a baby. He was the fool for having let it happen. At least Audrey - dear Audrey (he winced at the thought of telling her) wore one of those rubber things. She wore it whenever they met, just in case, she had told him. It never occurred to him that Peggy Boxer wouldn't do the same
...
Now what should he do?

And then there was his mother to think of.

There must be a way out.

There was not.

He walked all the way back again, and by the time he let himself back into the house it was another beautiful dawn in early summer. Birds singing, sky blue, air freshened by the night. He should have been stepping out in hope and promise. He had it all to play for. Instead he had this lot to deal with.

He sat in his room with a bottle of Delmonico's roughest red wine. From Soho. Where the real cats hung out. On one level he quite liked the drama of it - drinking at five in the morning, the creator cast down by despair - but every time he thought of his mother he was Coventry all over again. He winced. Every time he thought of Audrey he winced, too. He tried not to think of Peggy at all - because if she floated into his mind he felt very close to tears. He was all buggered up. He ran his hands through his hair over and over again. All buggered up. Bloody well bugger it, as Audrey would say. For what? And for whom? And then - two glasses down - oh Miracle of Miracles - he had a thought
...

He wrote a letter of his own, in his finest hand, and he posted it that morning. The following day, he received a letter back. An appointment for an interview was given at the end of the week. It was successful. Which did not surprise him. The following morning, a Saturday, he took the train to Coventry. Nettles and Horns, he told himself as the nine-forty-two gathered speed. Nettles and Horns. He had grasped them both and come up smelling of roses. He was not surprised at that, either.

Audrey was not surprised when Patrick's note arrived from Coventry. He had only just got back from Tokyo and he would want to see his mother. Besides, she was busy herself, preparing for Night School in September. Her mother and father were still lukewarm about the whole thing, but at least she had given up the vampire pallor and the black and they were grateful for that bit of good sense. If you were going to impress your employer, especially the Post Office, then being a little conventional was wise. She still kept an old black sweater at Patrick's and a pair of leggings - but that was more by mistake than anything else. Well, that was what she told Patrick - but it was not a mistake at all. She admitted, but only to herself, that she left them there because it made her feel part of the place, as if she had a role there, like leaving your toothbrush at a schoolfriend's house because it meant you were part of the family.

Now she wore skirts with nipped-in waists, blouses or thin sweaters, and a little boxy suede jacket in brown. Dolly thought she looked a bit heavy in it all though her height just about saved her -and the milkman whistled when she passed his float in the mornings so she must be doing something right. If she could get her hair cut and then to stay in flick-ups it would be better but you couldn't tell Audrey anything - she wanted long hair and she was going to keep it. She did not tell her mother that it was for Patrick's sake. He thought all girls should have long hair. The longer the better. Even if you were up half the night washing and drying it.

It was in just such a conventional outfit that Audrey arrived at Patrick's the following Friday night. She came straight from work, he straight from Coventry. And she was so happy to see him that she misread his mood. Which, when she looked back on it, was quite obviously pretty bloody bleak. But love is blind. Or hers was. Having learned not to remove her clothes until he said she should (which avoided any further misdemeanours), she sat on the bed and waited, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, sipping the red wine she had brought, and letting a little bit of stocking-top show. It worked. It always did.

‘I
forgive you,' she said, falling back on the pillows and smiling up at him, 'for not bringing me anything back from Japan. But I don't see how you can love me if you can forget me so easily . . .' She did the Kitten Pout. And she waited. Above her, Patrick's facial expression was one of someone with very bad toothache. 'Are you all right?' she said, alarmed.

They made love in silence.

Afterwards, just as Audrey was drifting off to sleep, and bloody well bugger it yourself, her world turned upside-down. 'Audrey,' Patrick whispered in her happy, hopeful ear. 'Yes, Patrick?' 'Sit up. I want to talk.'

She sat up. This was it. This was the big one. She could almost feel the ring on her finger.

He said nothing for a while, just moved around a bit, plumped up his pillow, sipped from a glass of water. And then he asked her how the French was going. Which was odd.

'Very well,' she said.
‘
I
shall be able to translate for you by this time next year.'