She is right. ‘There was another message,’ I insist. I look around for a practical joker. ‘A message with my name on it.’
Her smile tightens. ‘That would be most irregular, sir.’
People in the queue are tuning in. I flap. ‘I know how irregular it is! Why else do you think I . . .’ A uniform in a yellow armband arrives on the scene. He is only a couple of years older than me but he is already Captain Smug, Samurai of Corporate Finance. ‘Thank you, Mrs Wakayama.’ He dismisses his underling. ‘I am the duty manager, sir. What seems to be the trouble?’
‘I just transferred some money—’
‘Did the machine malfunction in any way?’
‘A message flashed up on the screen. A personal message. For me.’
‘What leads you to conclude the message was for you, may I ask, sir?’
‘It had my name.’
Captain Smug puts on this troubled frown from a training seminar. ‘What did this “message” say exactly, “sir”?’
‘It told me my father wanted to see me.’
I feel housewives in the queue bristle with curiosity and turn to one another. Captain Smug does a passable imitation of a doctor humouring a lunatic. ‘I think it might be more than possible that our machine uses characters that may be somewhat tricky to read.’
‘I don’t work in a bank but I can read, thank you.’
‘But of course.’ Captain Smug eyes my work overalls. He scratches the back of his neck to show he is embarrassed. He glances at his watch to show I am embarrassing. ‘All I am saying is that either some misunderstanding has occurred here, or you just witnessed a phenonemon which has never before occurred in the history of Tokyo Bank, nor, so far as I am aware, in the history of Japanese banking.’
I put my card back into my wallet and cycle back to Ueno station. I am so on edge all afternoon that Mrs Sasaki asks what the matter is. I lie about feeling feverish, so she gives me some medicine. During my tea break I use the ATM in the station which gives balance statements but which does not take payments. Nothing unusual happens. I search the faces of lost property customers for knowing glints. Nothing. I wonder if Suga did it. But Suga doesn’t know about my father. Nobody in Tokyo knows about my father. Except my father.
Riding the submarine back to Kita Senju, I look around. Paranoia, but. No drone catches my eye, only a little girl. Walking back from the station, I catch myself looking in the road mirrors for stalkers. In the supermarket I buy a fifty-per-cent-off okonomiyaki and some milk for Cat. ‘Buntaro,’ I think while I queue. I got my capsule because a relative of my guitar teacher in Kagoshima knows a friend of Buntaro’s wife – could he have found out about my father? But what sort of video shop owner is powerful enough to use ATM screens as a personal telegram system? Some sort of unholy alliance between Suga and Buntaro? I get back to Shooting Star to find my suspect on the phone to his wife, running his hand through his thinning hair. They are talking about kindergartens for Kodai. He nods at me and makes a nagging goose with his hand. I watch a scene or two from a horror movie called You Go to My Head. A cop is on the trail of a psychic killer who discovers his victims’ darkest fear, and murders by trapping them in appropriate nightmares. ‘I know what you’re thinking, lad,’ Buntaro says, putting down the receiver. ‘Kodai isn’t even born yet. But these places have waiting lists longer than Grateful Dead guitar solos. Get into the right kindergarten, and the conveyor belt goes all the way up to the right university.’ He shakes his head, sighing. ‘Listen to me. Education Papa. How was your day? You look like you had your bone marrow sucked out.’ Buntaro offers me a cigarette and strikes himself off my list of suspects. Unlikely as it seems, the sole remaining candidate is now the likeliest: my father. What are we up to now? Plan E.
On Thursday lunch-time I go back to the same branch of the same bank to try out the ATM again. The same woman is on duty – she avoids eye contact the moment she recognizes me. I insert my card, type in my PIN, and the virtual bank teller bows. Look! ‘What dark room has no exits, but only entrances into