assessment of the character of the recipient Shona received a single earring, for example, Joyce a full set of thermal underwear including a thermal bra, while Sinbad was given two bananas. ‘Why two?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose with a baffled smile, flicking back the corkscrew tendrils of hair that he liked to have fall in front of his eyes. ‘One for each hand,’ Junko said with a polite smile, which silenced him.
She gave me a postcard, bought in Japan, stiff and shiny, a bright picture of seven symbolic figures aboard a junk in an extravagantly stylized choppy sea.
‘Who are they?’ I asked.
‘The Shichifukujin. The seven gods of luck,’ she said. ‘What you must do, Milo, is put this picture under your pillow on the night of January first and in this way your first dream of the year will be lucky.’
‘This will bring me luck?’
‘Of course. I think you are a person who has much need of luck, Milo.’
‘Haven’t we all?’
‘But for you, Milo, I wish you special luck.’
She told me who the seven gods were and I wrote down their names: Fukuro kujo and jurojin, the gods of long life; Benzaiten, the only female, goddess of love; Bishamonten, warlike, armoured, god of war and good fortune; Daikokuten, god of wealth; Hotei, god of happiness with his bulging belly; and finally Ebisu, the god of self-effacement, carrying a fish, the deity of one’s job or career.
Junko said, ‘Ebisu is my favourite.’
That New Tear I did as she suggested and slipped the card under my pillow and tried to dream a lucky dream, endeavoured to force good luck into my life with the help of the seven gods. I dreamt of my father – was that good luck or bad luck? The year turned out to be a bad one for him and a momentously bad, life-changing one for me. The seven gods of luck. Not the seven gods of good luck. Luck, you must remember, like many things in life, is two-faced – good and bad – something I think the seven gods implicitly recognized, adrift in their little boat on their stormy sea. I left my card from Junko behind during my harassed and rushed departure from Inverness. For a while that loss perturbed me more than it ought to have done.
The Book of Transfiguration
He sensed her leave just as their first courses arrived, he glanced over and saw in the corner of his eye a fleeting dark figure for an instant at the stairs’ beginning. He looked around but she was gone.
Stella was talking: she seemed upbeat, cheery today. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ she kept saying. ‘The three of us.’ At one stage she reached under the table and surreptitiously ran her hand up his thigh until it touched his cock.
‘Barbuda’s going to her first proper party –’
‘Mum, I’ve been to tons of –’
‘And I think there’s going to be a certain young man present. Mmm? So we have to find something very ultra mega glamorous, don’t we?’
‘Mum, for God’s sake.’
Lorimer refused to join in. He remembered this mortifying adult banter all too well from his own hellish adolescence. It was only the impending purchase of expensive clothes, he knew, that explained Barbuda’s sullen tolerance of this leering speculation at all. In his own case he recalled similar hours of prurient inquiry from Slobodan about his non-existent sex life, but with no promise of reward to sweeten the pill: ‘Who do you fancy then? Got to be someone. What’s her name, then? She got specs? It’s Sandra Deedes, isn’t it. Doggy Deedes. He fancies Doggy Deedes. Disgusting.’ And so, endlessly, on.
He smiled over at Barbuda in what he hoped was an understanding, non-patronizing, non-avuncular way. She was an ungainly girl, made more lumpy by pubescence, with dark hair and a sly, pointy face. Her small, sharp breasts caused her huge embarrassment and she was always swathed in the baggiest of jumpers, layers of shirts and jackets. She was wearing make-up today, he noticed: a smear of grey above the eyes and a violet lipstick that made her small mouth smaller. She looked a darker, bitterer version of her mother, whose strong features spoke instead of confidence and will-power. Perhaps it was the mysterious Mr Bull’s genetic contribution that brought this out in her – hints of low self–esteem, a mean spirit, destined to find life a disappointment.
‘Mum, tell Lorimer, will you?’
Stella sighed theatrically. ‘Load of nonsense,’ she said. ‘Still, listen to this. Barbuda doesn’t want to be called