Number 9 dream Page 0,32

I don’t have anything as practical as antiseptic fluid, so I go downstairs and ask Buntaro.

Buntaro pauses the video at the moment the Titanic up-ends and people fall down the mile-long deck. He takes a cigarette from his box of Caster and lights it without offering me one. ‘Don’t tell me. Upon receiving another letter from his mysterious lawyer lady, telling our hero it was all over, he becomes so depressed that he decides to disembowel himself, but all he has is a pair of nail scissors, so—’

‘I have a wounded cat on my hands.’

Buntaro clouds over. ‘A what, lad?’

‘A wounded cat.’

‘You’re keeping pets in my apartment?’

‘No. It just wanders in when it’s hungry.’

‘Or when it wants medical attention?’

‘It’s just a scratch. I want to dab some disinfectant on it.’

‘Eiji Miyake, animal doctor.’

‘Please, Buntaro.’

He grumbles and sifts under the till for a while. He pulls out a dusty red box, causing a landslide of junk around his feet, and hands it to me. ‘It better not be bleeding on my tatami.’

‘You tight-arsed, whinging parasite, you’ve fleeced every outgoing tenant for replacement tatami, but you haven’t actually replaced it since 1969, have you?’ is not how I respond to my landlord and job benefactor. Instead I just shake my head meekly. ‘She isn’t bleeding now. She just has this sort of gammy place that needs seeing to.’

‘What’s this cat look like? My wife might know the owner.’

‘Black, white paws and tail, and a tartan collar with a silver bell.’

‘No owner, no name?’

I shake my head. ‘Thanks for this.’ I tap the box and begin my getaway.

‘Don’t get too attached,’ Buntaro calls up the stairs after me. ‘Remember the “Thou shalt not have pets except cactuses” clause in your contract.’

I turn around and peer down at him. ‘What contract?’

Buntaro grins sort of nastily and taps his forehead.

I seal up my capsule and attend to Cat. The witch-hazel must sting her – it always stung me and Anju when Wheatie doused our cuts with it – but Cat doesn’t even flinch. ‘Girls shouldn’t get into fights,’ I tell her. I chuck the cotton wool away and return the first-aid box to Buntaro. Cat makes herself comfortable in my yukata. Weird. Cat trusts me to look after her, me of all people.

A head appears on the claims counter. Its owner is a spindly girl of maybe eleven, in a Mickey and Donald jogging suit with red ribbons in her hair. Her eyes are enormous. ‘Good afternoon,’ she says. ‘I followed the signs. Is this the lost property office?’

‘Yes,’ I answer. ‘Have you lost anything?’

‘Mummy,’ she says. ‘She forever wanders off without my permission.’

I tut. ‘I can relate to that.’ What do I do? Suga skipped the ‘lost child’ chapter, and now he is collecting the trolley from Ueno annexe. Mrs Sasaki is on her lunch-hour. Somewhere a mummy is running around in hysterics, imagining train wheels and organ-harvesting child kidnappers. I flap. ‘Why don’t you sit on the counter,’ I tell the girl. She clambers up. Right. What do I do? ‘Aren’t you going to ask me my name?’ asks the girl.

‘Of course I am. What’s your name?’

‘Yuki Chiyo. Aren’t you going to call Mummy on the big speaker?’

‘Of course I am.’

I go into the side office. Mrs Sasaki mentioned the PA system on my first day, but Suga never showed me how to use it. Turn this key, flick this switch. I hope. A green light flashes under ‘Speak’. I clear my throat and lean into the microphone. The sound of me clearing my throat fills Ueno. When Yuki Chiyo hears her name she hugs herself.

I’m broiling with embarrassment. Yuki Chiyo studies me.

‘So, Yuki. How old are you?’

‘Ten. But Mummy tells me not to speak to strangers.’

‘You already spoke to me.’

‘Only because I needed you to call Mummy.’

‘You ungrateful tadpole.’

I hear Aoyama marching this way before I see him. His shoes, his keys. ‘You! Miyake!’

Obviously I am in deep shit. ‘Good afternoon—’

‘Do not “Good afternoon” me! Since when have you had the authority to make a general override announcement?’

My throat is dry. ‘I didn’t realize that—’

‘Suppose a train were hurtling into Ueno with a snapped brake cable!’ His eyes froth. ‘Suppose I were making an evacuation announcement!’ Veins bulge. ‘Suppose we receive a bomb warning!’ Is he going to fire me? ‘And you, you, blanket out my warning with a request for a lost girl’s mother to proceed to the lost property office on the second floor!’ He pauses to restock air. ‘You,