Читать книгу Made In Japan - S. Parks J. - Страница 15

After supper, Tako skipped in, wearing a clean, pressed T-shirt.

‘Ladies, ladies.’ He chose to pronounce it as if it were a disease for dogs. He started regaling them with earthquake facts which had become a recurring theme with him, and he clearly enjoyed the response.

‘A thirty-nine metre wave.’ If he intended to frighten Hana he often succeeded.

Unexpectedly he produced a bottle of Blossom soap and presented it as a gift. Had he heard them complaining?

Noru scowled at her son as she cleared the table. Her housekeeping didn’t run to gifts for guests.

‘When do I show you round?’ Ever generous. He leafed though a guidebook as he held it under Hana’s nose. What could she tell him? He was the last person she would choose.

Her smile was noncommittal.

‘Okay, so when is best?’ he persisted.

There was something about him she didn’t trust. She searched Jess, who bailed her out very casually

‘We have a few trips planned. Thanks though.’ And she grabbed the soap before marching out.

It was Jess’s turn for the bathroom first and so Hana took out her battered city plan, tracing her finger across the legend of flags and dots and icons. She had scanned the whole of Shimokitazawa and found nothing.

Jess returned in a towel-wrapped turban …

‘Sweet to give us soap.’

‘Sweet?’ Hana hoped he was harmless.

As she scratched at the back of her neck Hana remembered the cat had slept in Jess’s bed for two days. It was sure to have fleas. Resignedly, she held her feet in her hands and rocked back and forth, eventually coming to settle on the uncomfortable homestay bed, intending to broach the subject of the cat with Jess soon.

On their way up the main street the next morning, Hana passed gift-wrapped melons in the window of the supermarket. They were the price of a European flight at home.

‘It is what it is.’ Jess was clearly resigned to the cost of living because she knew the short cuts. ‘I never eat melon,’ she said as if possessed of great wisdom.

Hana would not buy this as evidence of an economic sage but she did realize then, even without giving way to her taste for melon, that she would go to the interview at the end of the week or answer to her roommate, repeatedly. And so, before they reached the rail tracks, she had decided, since she planned to be in Tokyo for at least six weeks or more, she would join Jess at the club. Why not?

Her first quake began halfway to the station with what she thought was a train rumbling. She didn’t see anything particularly odd but she could hear the creaking of wooden buildings bracing against the tremor as if shaken by the vibrations of an ancient engine. It lasted for no more than ten seconds.

‘We should be inside,’ Jess advised and pointed to the pachinko parlour.

‘You okay?’

Once inside she was a little shaken but the vibration stopped as suddenly as it had arrived.

‘An earthquake virgin.’ Jess tried to make light of it to put her at ease. ‘We have loads of these little tremors. And the pressure release is a positive thing.’ She smiled with a bright idea. ‘Let’s play.’

Hana reminded Jess they were headed for Nakajima no Ochaya to drink tea but she was caught by the novelty.

The doors opened to a cacophony that drowned the shouts of welcome; chrome ball bearings in Brownian motion, like so many metallic castanets. Lights flashed in purple, red and emerald green in line upon line, and on the small screen of each pinball display an ancient geisha played out a love story or cartoon boy hero dazzled a conquering light sabre.

There were plenty of empty seats peppered with random regulars, most of whom slumped as if permanently attached to the furniture, spent cigarettes between their lips,

Jess whooped like a cowgirl to straddle a chair. She turned. ‘Are we feeling lucky?’

Hana was happy to observe and took up a position behind her. Winning balls from another machine clattered. She was far from the tranquility of the teahouse.

Jess took the joystick, jabbing at a console worn smooth as washed pebbles. Bearings collided and bounced through a maze of obstacles and at every winning gate more balls fed her play. It was a while before she was conscious of another person standing behind her. Hana turned to find Tako had appeared like a screen genii. He had a habit of turning up like an irritating pop-up ad. Had he followed them? He wore his shiny athletic jacket and bright white T shirt.

He couldn’t stay, but since he knew the game so well he would show them how it was done. Could he show them? Jess made way for him and he flashed his skills until three jackpot winners appeared on screen and a deafening number of balls fell in payout.

He indicated with a generosity as large as the sum was small that it was all theirs.

‘Yeeha!’ Jess called.

Tako rose for Hana to take a turn.

She declined, not wanting to risk the winnings, and thankfully, in the void of any encouragement, he left them.

‘I will add to the money,’ Jess announced, ‘and we’ll go for a big lunch.’

The restaurant was the size of a corridor. A thatch protected an old water wheel and a large, plastic raccoon bear stood to attention.

‘Mickey Mouse? But a bit tanned.’

Jess shot Hana a look. ‘This is Tanuki. He brings good fortune, especially in financial matters. And sex,’ she added in a helpful afterthought.

‘Funny there’s so much superstition. Mickey Mouse doesn’t mean anything,’ Hana said. Here it seemed important to hang on to the significance of things.

‘He has big balls too,’ Jess stated the obvious mischievously. She had an appetite and chose quickly from the menu. They ate and talked of Seattle and London sushi and that thing guys do when they start a row about something trivial when they need to bring up a different injury.

As they left neither could decide who best resembled the potbellied bear raccoon.

‘Go lucky,’ Jess burped solemnly.

‘And you,’ Hana wondered for a moment whether she would ever need anything more than good company and so, ditching the teahouse idea for the day, she fell in with Jess.

Jess wanted Hana to see the city before they got stuck into work, so the next day they crossed the whole of Shibuya, took the metro to Aoyama and walked the hill to Omotesandō. There they peered beyond concave glass so unreflective it seemed they could reach in for the Yamamoto and Gucci bags, too expensive to touch.

To vary the homestay offering of rice, pickles and dried or jellied fish, they chose to eat at the end of the metro line on the pavement terrace of a student café screened off with sculptured tea bushes. They were the only foreigners in the place but drank their way to the point where it didn’t matter.

After plenty of warm sake, they returned to the house where Ukai, oblivious to the hour and to their greeting, was still painting in poor light at the dining room table. He often worked at his SUMI-E, and in the cool of the late afternoons he would trim the kiwi vine that ran over the door. The brushwork was some sort of farewell poem in calligraphy; a tradition, Jess had said. Great big black strokes of angry ineptitude.

Jess cast an eye over progress as they passed. ‘Not bad for a yakuza.’

Now used to her humour, Hana found branding the old man a gangster amusing.

She was sure he had said ‘Naomi’ on that first night. If she could just make herself understood enough to talk to him …

They took the stairs unsteadily.

‘Are these mosquito bites?’ Hana inspected her arms before scaling the stairs.

Jess ignored her and returning to a pet subject said, ‘I think I saw one of the guys I met at the club in that restaurant, If I don’t pull soon …’

She laughed like a hyena as Hana held the banister unsteadily.

‘Tako?’ she suggested weighing both in each hand for comic effect and risking a fall.

She stabilized for a moment. ‘Now, the lawyer from the plane …’ Hana began, holding her forehead in exasperation at losing contact. ‘Fluent. And he was great company too.’

‘Careless at best,’ Jess slurred, and in her optimistic way rambled, ‘confidentially, you know, my Japanese isn’t bad either.’ There was nothing confidential about it and she was, as usual, endearingly keen to come top in the competition for great company.

As Hana jabbed at the air-con remote, Jess promised to search for English law firms in Tokyo and slumped on her bed. Hana found that, on returning to the room this time, it had strangely begun to feel like a haven in the city.

Neither of them saw Tako emerge from the lobby door to listen from the bottom of the stairs.