should apologize.’ I was ready to stand up and walk out, but my mother beat me to it. She collected her handbag and turned to Aunt Money. ‘There really is no need. He said nothing I disagree with. What I disagree with is forcing us to endure these family discussions when there is quite clearly no family and nothing to discuss. I know you act out of niceness, but niceness can leave nastiness for dead when you count the damage. Give my regards to my brother. There is an overnight train for Tokyo in fifty minutes and I intend to be on it.’ Maybe the passing years have altered the script a little, but this is the gist of what was said. Maybe I added her dark glasses, too, but I have no memory of my mother’s eyes.
Monkfish opens a can of coffee and switches on the radio. The sun switches on, too, as we cross Shimonoseki bridge. I am back on Kyushu. I smile for no reason. A soul returning to a body it gave up for dead, amazed to find that everything still works – this is how I feel. Broken fences, wildflower riots, unplotted space. Kyushu is the run-wild underworld of Japan. All myths slithered, galloped or swam from Kyushu. Monkfish remembers I am here. ‘As my dear old mum said, every single morning, “Rise early – the first hour is a gift from paradise.” Whatever. Twenty minutes to Kitakyushu . . .’
‘Mr Aoyama! Please accept my sincerest condolences on, uh, your death.’
Mr Aoyama lowers his binoculars and fiddles with the focusing. He is wearing his JR uniform, but looks much more distinguished than he ever did at Ueno. ‘Death is not so bad, Miyake, not when it actually happens. It is like being paid. And I must apologize for accusing you of espionage.’
‘Forget it. You were under loads of stress. Obviously.’
Mr Aoyama strokes his upper lip – ‘I shaved off my moustache.’
‘Good move, Station-master. It never suited you, to be honest.’
‘One should commemorate major life shifts, I believe.’
‘And you don’t get much more major than death.’
‘Indeed, Miyake.’
‘May I ask how I died?’
‘You are very much alive! Your body is on the KitakyushuMiyazaki coach. This is only a dream.’
‘I never had such an . . . undreamlike dream before.’
‘Dreams of the living can be calibrated by their Dead. Look closely—’
We are flying. Mr Aoyama is flying Superman-freestyle. I have a Zax Omega jetpack strapped to my pack. Below us are pink meringue clouds. Reams of Earth unroll away. ‘Another privilege we dead are afforded – unlimited freedom to marvel at the majesty of creation.’
‘Are you my Dead?’
‘I hired you and you hired me.’
‘Why has Anju never visited?’
‘Quite.’ Mr Aoyama checks his watch. ‘The matter in hand.’
‘Do the dead really, uh, mingle with the living?’
‘No big deal.’
‘You can really see . . . everything?’ I think of my Zizzi Hikaru sessions.
‘If we so choose. But would you bother watching a billion-channel TV? So little warrants attention. Wrongdoers imagine their sordid crimes to be so unique, but if only they knew. No. My purpose in your dream this morning is redemption.’
‘Uh . . . yours or mine?’
‘Ours. I treated you poorly at Ueno. Even if you did spit in my teapot.’
‘I feel bad about that.’
Mr Aoyama looks through his binoculars. ‘Newspapers of two days hence will be bad beyond belief. Look. Redemption approaches.’ Mr Aoyama points downward. The clouds part, as in ancient scrolls – and I see the secret beach, foot rock and the whalestone. Sitting on the whalestone is a girl, hunched up, miserably alone. Anju, of course. ‘Unfinished business, Miyake.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will.’
My jetpack misfires and dies. My mother – a face on the jacket of a horror video – but already she and the ninth-floor balcony hurtle away into the Tokyo sky. I spin, see a playground flying this way at terminal velocity, and remember that if I don’t wake up before I hit the ground I—
I awake with a ‘Gaaaghhh!’ on the back seat of a coach – its doors hiss shut as it lurches forward. I sit up, blinking. Yes, the coach. Monkfish offered to ask around some Kitakyushu truckers for a ride south to Miyazaki, but my mother is expecting me early this afternoon. I don’t want to risk being late. An old lady has joined me on the back seat since I fell asleep. She knits, has a face as round and chipped as the moon, and does aromatherapy, I guess,