of warmer climes. (Old Chinese proverb: guests are like fish – after three days they begin to stink.) I hear Monte Carlo is pleasant for ‘wintering’. I hear Prince Charles of England may be available.I had a dream about Anju last night. Anju, a Siberian tiger running past me in a subway (I knew it was Siberian because the yellow stripes were white), and a game where you had to hide a bone-egg in a library. Anju won’t leave me alone. I paid a priest a fortune to perform pacifying rites but I should have spent the money on French wine for all the good it did. I never dream about you – in fact I never remember any of my dreams, except the Anju ones. Why is that? Dr Suzuki seemed to think . . . ah, who cares. Just burn the letter, please.
STUDY OF TALES
Bats streamed beyond bracken-matted dusk. Goatwriter mulled at his writing bureau, watching the forest of moss until shadows danced. ‘I declare, I could swear . . .’ Goatwriter began. Mrs Comb was clog-polishing there on the stair. ‘Not like that sewer-mouthed ScatRat, I hope, sir.’ Goatwriter stroked the fountain pen of Sei Shonagon. ‘I could swear that in the arboreal soul of this forest . . . far and deep . . . I glean gleams of a truly untold tale . . .’ Whether Goatwriter was thinking in words or talking in silence was unclear. ‘The venerable coach penetrated this forest as far as the track permitted, and has not moved on for seven days . . . quite unprecedented . . . I do believe it is trying to tell me something . . .’
The evening cooled and Mrs Comb shivered. ‘Foxtrot pudding for supper, sir. You give your eyes a rest and play a nice round of Blind Man’s Scrabble.’ She hoped the venerable coach would move on that night, but doubted it would.
The following morning, Pithecanthropus was digging through deep creaking coal seams in search of diamonds. Mrs Comb’s birthday was coming up, and several nights ago the venerable coach had been overtaken by a convertible with a radio playing a song about how diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Mrs Comb was no girl, it was true, but Pithecanthropus hoped that the friend part might rub off in his favour. Past tasty pockets of earthworms, truffles and larvae dug the early ancestor, past droll trolls, moles, addled adders and bothered badgers, down where Pithecanthropus could hear the earth furnace boom to a rhythm all its own. Hours cannot dig so far, and Pithecanthropus lost all track of time. ‘You hulking great lout,’ an impossibly distant voice found him, much later. ‘Where are you the one time I need you?’ Mrs Comb! Pithecanthropus swam upward with a mighty breaststroke, up through the loosened earth, and within a minute resurfaced. Mrs Comb was flapping in circles like a headless chicken, waving a note. ‘Here you are last! Muck-grubbing around in a crisis!’ Pithecanthropus grunted. ‘Sir has upped and offed! I knew he wasn’t himself last night, and this morning I find this note on his writing bureau!’ She thrust it at Pithecanthropus, who groaned – all those squiggles skidding over their paper. Mrs Comb sighed. ‘Three million years you’ve had to learn how to read! The letter says Sir has gone into this mucky forest! All on his own! He said he didn’t want to drag us into nowt dangerous! Dangerous? What if he meets a mild cannibal much less a wild animal? What if the venerable coach drives off tonight? We’d never see Sir again! And he forgot his asthma inhaler!’ Mrs Comb began sobbing into her apron, which wrung Pithecanthropus’s giant heart. ‘First his story, then his pen, and now he’s lost himself!’ Pithecanthropus grunted imploringly.
‘Are . . . are you sure? You can track Sir in this thick-as-thieves forest?’
Pithecanthropus grunted reassuringly.
I hear Buntaro let himself in downstairs. ‘Hang on,’ I yell, ‘I’ll be right down!’ Two o’clock already – today is the last day of my exile. I feel tired again – it rained last night, and fat fingers kept prising me awake. I kept thinking somebody was trying to force a window somewhere. I arrange the pages of the manuscript how they were on the writing bureau, and pick my way between the books to the trapdoor. I shout down – ‘Sorry, Buntaro! I lost track of time!’ Goodbye, study of tales. I go down to the