Tuvalu (32 page)

‘Harry,' he said at last. ‘You know, from the hostel.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Why?'

‘I'm curious.'

Phillip looked sceptical as he pulled on the hood. ‘If you screw this up for me, Tuttle, I swear I'll—'

‘You'll what?' I glared at him but then quickly thought the better of it and almost smiled, allowing the faintest hint of a laugh to fall into my words. ‘For God's sake, I won't screw anything up. Trust me. Now where is he? I'd like to catch up with him.'

Phillip thought a moment, then answered in a murmur almost lost to the rain. ‘Tinkerbelle's Treat.'

‘What?'

‘It's in Musashi-Urawa. That guy's making a name for himself. The rumour is, he owns the place. Now keep your mouth shut and remember there's money in this.'

‘Fine.'

Phillip let himself out, shaking his head. Rain dripped loudly, coldly, until the door banged shut and the silence of the kitchen leant in to hear my whisper. ‘Son of a bitch.'

Tinkerbelle's Treat was a bizarre building, just bizarre enough to be a success in Japan. The country was funny that way—it was the perfect place to launch a ludicrous business. Like, for example, theme parks modelled on Dutch towns, or the ride at Parque Espana, where people become the bull in a bullfight. There was always a new novelty waiting to grab the attention of a population raised on bright lights and kitsch replicas.

I was lucky to find the place. After taking a commuter train to Musashi-Urawa Station I asked locals for directions, but no one had the first idea what I was talking about until one man grinned and pointed down a featureless street. He mumbled instructions in shy, broken English. I thanked him and within a few hundred metres passed the barn he had described. A sign, situated above a huge American flag—flapping like a rug in the strong breeze—read ‘Tinkerbelle's Treat—Authentic American Hostesses'.

I had waited only one day to find Harry. I had no plan for getting back my money beyond asking him for it and again threatening to go to the police. Somehow, never having dealt with unscrupulous, thieving, drug-dealing people, I imagined he would feel bad and offer up whatever he could. In each wood-framed window there were fluorescent lights promoting American beers—Bud, Miller, Coors Light. I could hear the bass of a stereo thumping to a rock song and on the balcony a carpenter was cutting lengths of timber with an electric saw while another stacked them. Without doubt Tinkerbelle's Treat had been built to a theme. There was a balcony and railing, an ornate doorbell, a letterbox and space for a front lawn, now sprinkled with seed. The more I looked at it, the less barn-like it seemed. It was a prairie cabin.

I ignored the workers and rang the bell. Behind me the electric saw wound out. I stood waiting. Finally Harry appeared, short as ever and dressed in a suit with a shiny tie strung loosely around his flabby neck. He was perfectly relaxed, giving the impression he considered me a close friend. He stuck out his hand and I could not help but shake it.

‘Let's go for dinner,' he said.

‘Fine.'

‘I know a good place. Grill your own meat sort of a thing. You'll love it.'

The automatic glass doors slid back. A woman in her early fifties came rushing to assist us, apron around her middle, notepad at the ready. She showed us to a table and, as soon as we were seated, reached to the side and turned a knob. The burner in the middle of our table flared beneath black coals and she stood expectantly with her notepad until Harry ordered two Kirin beers.

‘I want that money,' I said while we waited.

‘I know.'

‘Do you have it?'

‘I've said I'll give it to you.'

‘But you haven't, and it's time you did.' I was doing my level best to sound assertive.

A young girl of five or six in a floral dress entered with her mother, distracting the waitress from our drinks. We sat watching the two women—obviously old friends—talk, while the girl stood facing the counter, head turned towards us. Her eyes drank us up without revealing an opinion. She might have been staring at a television. After they left we received our drinks and clinked them wordlessly.

‘So why won't you pay?' I asked.

Harry leant in, elbows on the table. I had the uneasy sense he was enjoying toying with me, like a cat with a grasshopper, unwilling to kill it outright—letting it go and swiping it back.

‘The world to me,' he said, ‘is nothing more than opportunities, and you're not an opportunity.'

‘Let's confine this to the money.'

‘I am confining it to the money.'

‘I'm serious, Harry. Don't give me the run—'

‘You're not worth repaying, not yet.' He gestured to the waitress. ‘Let's eat,' he said.

‘I know about Phillip, about the grass—what you're up to. It only takes a phone call.'

Harry's face lost its levity. ‘Listen to me, Noah. For whatever—' The waitress arrived and, not understanding a word, waited by our table for an order. Harry glanced at her, but decided to go ahead and finish what he was saying.

‘For whatever reason, you've cut yourself off from this world. You know next to no one and you don't seem interested in getting to know anyone. That's why you're no opportunity. I don't have any need for some kid who sits around staring at his cock all day. You understand? Whatever use you were, I've used. I'm talking plainly now. You somehow want to make yourself of use again, well, maybe you'll see the money sooner rather than later, but you never, ever fucking threaten me. I'll pay you when I'm good and ready.'

He turned to the waitress, smiled and placed an order in effortless Japanese, adding in English for my benefit, ‘It's just for one. My friend has to go.'

I sat for a moment, trying to think up a powerful reply. But I lacked the courage. All those nights planning my invective, and I only stood and walked out of the restaurant. The doors peeled back for me—chimed. Outside the last of the sun glinted in my eyes. Cars roared past too fast for the narrow roads.

Then something struck me hard from behind and the pavement smacked my skull, grazing my face. Someone kicked me sharply in the stomach. Trying to look up I caught sight of the carpenters from Tinkerbelle's Treat, before both men climbed into a car and pulled out into the traffic.

The Winter

S
o began the winter.

I remember thinking, sitting on the train home from Tinkerbelle's Treat, that the season ahead could only improve. I stared out over apartment blocks—thousands upon thousands of staircase safety lights. Somewhere a giant strobe was sweeping the sky and I found myself following it up, down and around. The stations stopped and started. In the carriage I could feel everyone's eyes on me, my face. Presumably it was still bleeding. I could taste blood on my lips and took care licking them clean.

A middle-aged woman would not avert her eyes, even when I stared her down. Others glanced or shared whispers. At home I would have been a ghost, everyone afraid I might stand and hit them. But here I was a spectacle. And no wonder. The train carriage looked like every other. A few boys tended to their streetwear in darkened windows with the fastidiousness of young women. Ugly salarymen read about computers. Make-up-smeared girls typed messages into mobile phones from which dangled cheap toys and tacky plastic jewellery. A bum rubbed at his hands and explained something to himself. Dull men in plain clothes read porn. And attractive women scowled as if they would have their looks forever. There were no children.

Above all this, like an exhaust, lingered an oppressive unease, a nastiness that got into the blood and filled the brain with malice. To blot out the middle-aged woman I pulled a newspaper from the luggage rack. I could read nothing more than the date—two days old. I flicked through the dense pages, scanning pictures. There was a crane, a boy in uniform, a politician and a Bangkok freeway which came to an abrupt halt in midair. Finally I turned to a society page only to find myself staring at a photo of Mami Kaketa. She was with a man. There was no doubt in my mind it was her. I tried to read the article but it was hopeless, so I asked the girl to my left if she spoke English. Startled, she waved her palm rapidly and dropped her head. Same with an old man with gunk at the corners of his lips, though he stiffened stupidly like a hare hiding in a mown field.

It was my stop and I had to get off. I dropped the paper into a bin, deciding it was nothing important, and did not give it another thought until my hotel shift the following day, where it was still news.

It turned out Mami had stolen something—a bag. She had been caught on video trying to smuggle it out of Takashimaya. Oddly, though an accomplished thief, she had set off the store alarms and was taken in for questioning by a security guard who wasted no time turning her over to police. A co-worker of mine with frizzy hair and a degree in English Literature from a top Japanese university raised the matter as we stood in the kitchen, waiting for the same order.

‘It's a shock,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Kaketa-san.'

‘Why?'

‘She was—how do you say? Royal. Famous. No, not famous. Almost, I think.'

‘She was? I didn't know.'

‘But you had heard of her?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then you see.'

I did not explain how I knew Mami.

‘Yes,' he went on, ‘the media in Japan, they used to say the perfect girl. Rich and pretty. Clever maybe, too. Always I think pretty people are clever. Clever ugly get the money to do the sex with pretty people.' He paused. ‘Et al.,' he added.

‘What will happen to her?'

‘Trial. But she had run away. It was on the news— NHK. She had run far, far away. Maybe Hokkaido, the top Japanese island.'

‘Why not leave the country?'

He shrugged.

‘Here at this hotel, I hear she has no money from her father now. Or maybe she likes snow. There will soon be snow.'