number last week. Nobody knows it. The telephone riiiiiiiiings. Suppose a pervert is out there, trawling for kicks at random? I answer, and before I know it I have a psycho in my shower. No way am I answering. The telephone riiiiiiiiings. Buntaro? Some kind of emergency? What kind of emergency? The telephone riiiiiiiiiings. Wait. Someone at Osugi and Bosugi knows my number – suppose a co-worker of Akiko Kato read my letter before she shredded it, and felt an unaccountable empathy with my plight? She contacts my father, who has to wait until his wife is asleep before daring to contact me. He is whispering coarsely, fiercely, in a closed-off part of his house. ‘Answer!’ The telephone riiiiiiiiings. I have to decide now. No. Let it die. Answer it! I dive off my futon, trap my foot in a folding peg-frame, stub my toe on my guitar case and lunge for the receiver. ‘Hello?’
‘Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero!’ A singing man.
‘Hello?’
‘Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero.’ A mildly irritated man.
‘Yes, I thought you said that.’
‘I never wrote that stupid jingle!’ A buttered voice.
‘Me neither.’
‘Look here, young man – you delivered some fliers to our office, which promise that the first two hundred people to phone up off-peak and sing “Never fear-o, ’tis a Nero!” are entitled to one free medium-size pizza of their choice. That is what I just did. I’ll plump for my regular Kamikaze: mozzarella crust, banana, quail’s eggs, scallops, treble chilli, octopus ink. Don’t chop the chilli. I like to suck them. Helps me concentrate. So – am I one of the first two hundred or am I not?’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘It had better not be. All-night overtime makes me ravenous.’
‘I think you misdialled.’
‘Impossible. This is Nero’s Pizzeria, right?’
‘Wrong.’
‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Yep.’
‘So I called a private residence after three in the morning?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I am so, so dreadfully sorry. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Not to worry. I have insomnia tonight, anyway.’
‘But I was so patronizing! I thought you were a numbskull pizza boy.’
‘No problem, really. But you have one weird taste in pizzas.’
He chuckles with devious pride. He is older than I thought. ‘I invented it. At Nero’s they nickname it the Kamikaze – I heard the telephone girl tell the chef. The secret is the banana. It glues all the other tastes together. Anyway, I mustn’t take up any more of your time. Once more – my sincerest apologies. What I did is inexcusable. Inexcusable.’ He hangs up.
I wake up alone. A window of summer stars melted to nearly nothing. Anju’s futon is a discarded pile. So Anju. Could she be out on the roof? I slide the mosquito net across. ‘Anju? Anju!’ The wind sifts the bamboo, and the frogs start up. Fine. She wants to sulk, let her. Fifteen minutes later, I am dressed, breakfasted and walking down the track to Anbo harbour with my sports bag and my new baseball cap which Anju bought me with her pocket money from Uncle Tarmac. I catch sight of the Kagoshima ferry lit up like a starship on its launch pad and feel a vhirrr of excitement. This day is finally here. I am leaving for Kagoshima, on my own, and I refuse to let my stupid jealous sister make me feel guilty about leaving her for one night. I refuse. How can I even be sure the stuff she said last night about our mother was true? She’s been acting weird lately. A meteor scratches the dark purple. The dark purple unscratches the meteor. And then a fantastic idea comes to me. It is the greatest idea of my life. I am going to train, train, and train, and become such a brilliant soccer player that I will play for Japan on my twentieth birthday against Brazil in the World Cup final. Japan will be eight–nil down in the sixtieth minute, then I will be called on as a substitute and score three hat tricks by the end of injury time. I will be in newspapers and on TV all over the world. Our mother is so proud that she gives up drinking, but better still our father sees me, recognizes me, and drives to the airport to meet the team jet. Of course, Anju is waiting there too, and our mother, and we are reunited with the world watching. How perfect. How obvious. I am burning with genius and hope. A light is on in Anbo, and crossing the hanging bridge I see a flash.