breezes are not how I feel. Very well, Mother. You are my Plan B. I’ll give you what you want, if you tell me how to find our father. Nearly six o’clock. Early, but people at clinics get up early. That’s the point. Before I change my mind I dial.
‘Good morning. Miyazaki Mountain Clinic.’
‘Morning. Could you put me through to Mariko Miyake’s room, please.’
‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’
‘Is it too early?’
‘Too late. Mrs Miyake checked herself out yesterday evening.’
Oh, no. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. She even took our towels as a souvenir.’
‘Look, this is her son. I need to contact her. It’s urgent.’
‘I’m sure it is, but once our guests decide to leave us they never hang around.’
‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’
She doesn’t bother to pretend to check. ‘No.’
‘How was she?’
‘You’d need to talk to her counsellor—’
‘What time does he start work?’
‘She. But Dr Suzuki would never discuss a patient with anyone. Even her son.’
If only I had called yesterday, if only, if only. ‘Did you meet her?’
‘Mrs Miyake? Of course. I’m a staff nurse.’
‘Can you tell me if she was . . . okay?’
‘It depends what you mean by okay.’
‘Well, you’ve been really helpful. Thanks so much.’
She uppercuts my irony. ‘It was my pleasure, sir.’
Click, buzz, click, purrrrrrrrr . . . . . . . . .
Plan B down the pan. The submarines are running, and I feel wide awake, but it is still too early to leave for work. What a night. It mauled me, not refreshed me. Buntaro called me down for a smoke later, in the quiet hour between eleven and midnight. We talked for a little while. I nearly forgot he is my bloodsucking landlord. I put Plastic Ono Band into my Discman and lie down on my futon, just for a moment. Deep bells and beat boxes.
Plastic Ono Band is long over when a pattering sound pads into my dreams. At first I think it is a pipe dripping splashes, but then I feel her settling inside the curl of my body. I open my eyes. ‘Hey.’ My voice is a croak. ‘I thought you were supposed to be dead.’ She yawns, indifferent to what I think or thought. She regards me with her bronze-spark Cleopatra eyes.
The fibres in the neck of the thunder god tear, snap and scream. I am still gripping it – I never expected it to come loose so soon. It comes away, the saw goes clattering down, I reshift my weight too far, lose my balance and slide down between his back and the shrine wall. I seem to be falling for the longest time. The floor of the shrine whacks the breath out of my body. I don’t break my back, but within an hour I will have turned into the incredible walking bruise. My enemy’s head rolls away, wood on wood, and comes to a rest on its side, looking right this way. Hatred, revenge, jealousy, rage – all twisted into the same contortions, and pulled tight. A smear of my blood over one nostril. The woods are too quiet. No adult, no police car, no grandmother. The blackbird has gone. Only the cannon boom of the ocean against the rocks a long way down. The gods are all related, and from this day on they are going to be in conspiracy against me. I will live a life without luck. So be it. I get to my feet. I pick up the head, cradling it like an infant, and take it outside to the edge of the rock face. The sea breaks over the whalestone’s humpback, and the spray flies. One, two, three – I watch the severed head of the thunder god, all the way down. It vanishes in a white crown. Now I must vanish too.
Three
VIDEO GAMES
I catch a glimpse of my father being bundled into an unmarked van parked across the baseball field. I would recognize him anywhere. He hammers on the back window, but the van is already through the gates and disappearing into the smoking rubble of Tokyo. I leap onto our patrol stratobike, take off my baseball cap and rest it on the console. Zizzi flashes me a peppermint smile and off we zoom. Lavender clouds slide by. I train my gun on a chillipepper schoolboy, but for once things are exactly as they appear. The sunroof of a midnight Cadillac flips open, and out pops a lobstermobsterBang! Shell and claws everywhere. I drill the rear window and the vehicle