Number 9 dream Page 0,47

wears a headdress of peacock feathers and sequinned evening gloves, and flutters a faded actress’s wave. ‘How green and growing you all look! That’s young blood for you!’

‘Good evening, Mama-san. Quiet, for a Saturday?’

‘Saturday already? The days don’t find their way up this far.’

Daimon cocks a smile. Coffee and Velvet are welcome wherever there are men’s imaginations to strip them, but in my jeans, T-shirt, baseball cap and sneakers, I feel as out of place as a shit-shoveller at an imperial wedding. Daimon clasps my shoulder. ‘I want to take my brother-in-arms here – and our imperial consorts – to my father’s room.’

‘Sayu-chan can show you—’

Daimon cuts in. His smile is nearly vicious. ‘But Miriam is free.’

Messages pass between Daimon and Mama-san. Miriam looks away miserably. Mama-san nods, and sort of hoicks up her face. ‘Miriam?’ Miriam turns back and smiles. ‘What joy that would bring me, Mr Daimon.’

‘I mostly drive my Prussian blue Porsche Carrera 4 cabriolet. I have a weakness for Porsches. Their curves, if you look closely, are exactly those of a kneeling woman, bent over submissively.’ Daimon watches Miriam pour the champagne. Velvet kneels. ‘What about you, Eiji?’ Wonderful. We are on ‘Eiji’ terms. ‘I’m, uh, more of a two-wheel sort of person.’ Velvet bubbles – ‘Oh, don’t tell me you drive a Harley?’ Daimon barks a laugh. ‘However did you guess? Miyake’s Harley is his, how can I put it, his pelvic thrust of freedom between gigs, right? You get so much shit in a rock star’s entourage, you wouldn’t believe it. Groupies, smackheads, drummers, Miyake’s been through it all. Splendid, Miriam, you didn’t spill a drop. I suppose you get a lot of practice. Tell me, how long have you been holed up here as a waitress Imeana hostess?’ Miriam is ghostly but dignified in the lamplight. The room is intimate and warm. I smell the girls’ perfume and cosmetics and recently laid tatami. ‘Come now, Mr Daimon. Ladies never discuss years.’

Daimon undoes his ponytail. ‘Years, is it? My, my. You must be very happy here. Well, everyone, now the champagne has been poured, I wish to propose two toasts.’

‘What are we, like, drinking to?’ asks Coffee.

‘One: as Miyake here knows, I recently broke free of a sewer woman who peels promises like a whore – a fair description – peels condoms on and off.’

‘I know exactly the sort of woman you mean.’ Coffee nods.

‘We understand each other so deeply.’ Daimon sighs. ‘Shall we get married in Waikiki, Lisbon or Pusan?’

Coffee toys with Daimon’s earring. ‘Pusan? The toilet of Korea?’

‘Poisonous little country,’ agrees Daimon. ‘You can have that earring.’

‘Like, great. Here’s to freedom.’ We chime our flutes.

‘What’s your second toast?’ asks Velvet, stroking the chrysanthemum.

Daimon gestures at Coffee and Velvet. ‘Why – a toast to the flower of true Japanese womanhood. Miriam, you’re a woman, you know about these things. What qualities should I look for in a wife?’

Miriam considers. ‘In your case, Mr Daimon, blindness.’

Daimon places his hands over his heart to stop the bleeding. ‘Oh, Miriam! Where is your compassion tonight? Miriam is the duck-feeding type, Miyake. She treats her waterfowl with more compassion than her lovers, I hear.’

Miriam smiles slightly. ‘Waterfowl are more dependable, I hear.’

‘Dependable, did you say? Or dependent? No matter. Don’t you agree that Miyake and I are the two luckiest men in Tokyo?’

She regards me for a moment. I glance away. I wonder what her real name might be. ‘Only you know how lucky you are,’ she says. ‘Will that be all, Mr Daimon?’

‘No, Miriam, that will not be all. I want some grass. Instant-karma mix. And you know how peckish drugs make me, so bring something peckable in half an hour or so.’

The room has a fusuma screen that opens on to a balcony. Tokyo rises from the floor of the night. Four weeks ago I was helping my cousin repair Uncle Orange’s tea plantation Rotavator. Now look. A six-storey can of KIRIN LAGER BEER pours dandelion neon, over and over. Across the unlit lake of the Imperial Palace I can see aircraft warning lights pulse on the crown of PanOpticon. Altair and Vega pulse either side of the Milky Way. Traffic noises ebb up. Velvet leans out. ‘Miles and miles,’ she says to herself. Her hair shifts in the hot breeze. Her body is made of curves I can feel just by looking. ‘I do declare,’ says Daimon, the friend who is giving me all this on a plate, ‘I have rolled the most perfect