‘I am not lying! My grandfather was too sick to come, so he sent his friend.’
‘What friend?’
‘Admiral Raizo.’
Stepmother and Half-sister look at each other. Half-sister snickers a jerky laugh and Stepmother smiles so that her mouth shrinks to a lipsticked tip. Those lips kiss my father. ‘Then you did meet Grandpapa,’ slaps Half-sister, ‘but you were too dumb to recognize him!’ My temper takes the strain. I look at Stepmother for an explanation. ‘My father-in-law’s last practical joke.’
‘Why would my grandfather pretend to be this Admiral Raizo?’
Half-sister thumps the table. ‘He is not your “grandfather”!’ I ignore her. Stepmother’s eyes glint with war. ‘Did he give you any documents to sign?’
‘Why,’ I repeat, ‘would my grandfather pretend to be somebody else?’
‘Did you sign anything?’
This is going nowhere. I put my hands behind my head, lean back, and study the ceiling while I calm down. ‘Yes, my friend,’ observes Mozart, ‘you have a problem here. But it is your problem. Not mine.’ I badly want to smoke. ‘Mrs Tsukiyama, is this bad blood necessary?’
‘What do I have to do to prove to you that all I want is to meet my father?’
Stepmother tilts her head. ‘Do calm down, Mr Miyake—’
This makes me boil over. ‘No, Mrs Tsukiyama, I am tired of calming down! I do not—’
‘Mr Miyake, you are making a—’
‘Shut up and listen to me! I do not want your money! I do not want favours! And blackmail! How did you come up with the theory I wanted to blackmail you? I am so, so, so tired of scrubbing around this city trying to find my own father! You want to despise me, fine, I can live with that. Just let me meet him – just once – and if he tells me himself that he never wants to see me again, okay, I will vanish from your lives and start my own, properly. That is it. That is all. Is this too much to comprehend? Is this too much to ask?’
I am so drained.
Half-sister is unsure of herself.
Stepmother has finally put away her unbearable sneer.
I think I got them to listen. And half the customers in the Amadeus Tea Room.
‘Actually, yes.’ Stepmother pours herself and her pouty, piggy daughter weak tea from a fluted teapot. ‘It is too much to ask. Let us concede that I accept you mean my family no malice, Mr Miyake. Let us even concede that I feel some sympathy for your position. The basic situation still stands unchanged.’
‘The basic situation.’
‘There is no nice way to say it. My husband does not wish to meet you. You seem to believe in a dark conspiracy keeping you away from him – this is simply not true. We are not here to confuse your trail. We are at the behest of my husband to ask you, please, to leave him in peace. He has paid for your upkeep not to maintain hopes of a future reunion, but to buy his right to privacy. Is this too much to comprehend? Is this too much to ask?’
I want to cry. ‘Why won’t he just tell me this himself?’
‘In a word’ – Stepmother sips her tea – ‘shame. He is ashamed of you.’
‘How can he be ashamed of a son he refuses to meet?’
‘My husband isn’t ashamed of who you are, he is ashamed of what you are.’
At the far side a customer abruptly stands up, sliding his chair behind him.
‘You are causing pain for him, for us, for yourself. Please stop.’
The waitress walks into the chair. Teacups and raspberry cheesecakes slide off her tray, and fine bone china chimes to pieces in a ripple of ‘Ooooooooo’s. Stepmother and Half-sister watch with me. Butler paraglides over to supervise the clean-up operation. Apologies, counter-apologies, assurances, orders, carpet sponges, dustpans. Sixty seconds later no evidence remains of the great cheesecake crisis. ‘Okay,’ I say.
‘Okay?’ Half-sister returns.
I address the woman my father chose to marry. ‘Okay, you win.’ She did not expect this. Neither did I. She searches my face for a catch. There is none. ‘My father – just by never getting in touch himself – made his, uh, position clear a long time ago. I . . . I . . . dunno, I never wanted to believe it. But tell him’ – an apricot carnation sits in a glass tear vase – ‘hi. Hi and goodbye.’