thing I can take to Texas, being as how Saratoga is a top-secret research installation, right, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.’
Suga leaves, I finish the salad and slice a melon for dessert. I take some down to Buntaro, who nods at the ceiling, and waggles his little finger questioningly. I pretend not to understand. No way am I going to make a pass at Ai. There is a sort of not-yetness between us. I tell myself. She is clearing a space on the table. ‘Time for my insulin. Want to watch, or are you squeamish about needles puncturing human skin?’
‘I want to watch,’ I lie.
She gets a medical box from her bag, prepares the syringe, disinfects her forearm, and calmly slips the needle in. I flinch. She is watching me watching her as the insulin shoots into her bloodstream. I suddenly feel humble. Making a pass at Ai would be as uncouth as yelling at a flower to hurry up. Plus, if she rejected me I would have to microwave myself out of existence. ‘So, Miyake,’ says Ai as the needle slides out. ‘What’s your next move?’
I swallow dryly. ‘Uh . . . what?’
She dabs a droplet of blood with sterilized cotton wool – ‘Are you going to stay in Tokyo now you’ve changed your mind about tracking down your father?’ I get up and wipe my frying pan. ‘I . . . dunno. I need money before I can do anything else, so I’ll probably stay at Nero’s until something better comes along . . . I want to show you a couple of letters my mother wrote to me.’
Ai shrugs. ‘Okay.’
I brush the ice granules off the plastic – she reads them while I finish the dishes and take a shower.
‘Long shower.’
‘Uh . . . when I take a shower I feel I’m back on Yakushima. Warm rain.’ I nod at the letters. ‘What do you think?’
Ai folds them neatly into their envelopes. ‘I’m thinking about what I think about them.’ Fujifilm says ten o’clock. We have to leave – Ai wants to be home before the stalkers leave their bars, and I have to get to work before midnight. Downstairs, Buntaro munches Pringles and watches a movie full of cyborgs, motorbikes and welders. ‘Have a nice salad?’ he asks so innocently I could kill him. I nod at the screen.
‘What are you watching?’
‘I am testing the two laws of cinematography.’
‘Which are?’
‘The first law states “Any movie with a title ending in ‘-ator’ is pure drivel”.’
‘The second?’
‘“The quality of any movie is in inverse proportion to the number of helicopters it features.”’
‘In a way,’ Ai says as we arrive at Kita Senju station, ‘I wish you hadn’t shown me those letters.’
‘Why not?’
Ai jangles loose change. ‘I don’t think you’ll like hearing what I really think.’ The last moths of autumn swirl around a stuttering light.
‘Hearing what you really think was the point of showing you.’
Ai buys her ticket – I show my pass – and we walk down to the platform. ‘Your mother wants you in her life, and your life could be a whole load richer with her in it. Your standoffishness isn’t helping you or her. Those letters are a peace treaty.’
I feel sort of jabbed by that. ‘If she wanted me to contact her, why didn’t she give me her Nagano address?’
‘Did it occur to you she might be afraid of giving you the power to reject her?’ Ai hunts out my eyes. ‘Anyway, she did tell you where she is – “Mount Hakuba”.’
I shake my gaze free. ‘“Mount Hakuba” is no address.’
Ai stops walking. ‘Miyake, for someone so bright’ – bzzzzzzzzz! goes my sarcasm detector – ‘you are one virtuoso self-delusionist. There can be no more than ten hotels at the foot of Mount Hakuba. Compared to finding a nameless man in Tokyo, finding your mother is a breeze. You could find her by tomorrow evening if you actually wanted to.’
Now the girl is trespassing. I know I should leave it but I can’t. ‘And why exactly do you think I don’t want to?’
‘I’m not your shrink.’ Ai shrugs curtly. ‘You tell me. Anger? Blame?’
‘No.’ Ai is clueless about all this. ‘She had seven years to unabandon us, and another nine years to unabandon me.’
Ai frowns. ‘Okay, but if you don’t want to know what I really think about your issues, then talk about the weather instead of showing me personal letters. And hell, Miyake—’ I look