by JH Fletcher
Should Mr Warren prefer to return the discs in person, the Embassy was not in a position to disclose the granddaughter’s address. However, it would be prepared to advise Miss Fukuda of the situation. Should she then wish to communicate with Mr Warren, she would no doubt do so.
Craig hated bureacracy in all its forms and half wished he’d never bothered, but it was too late to back out now. He phoned the Embassy and told them to go ahead.
Within a fortnight he received a letter, typewritten on good quality paper with an address and telephone number engraved upon it:
It was extremely kind of you to contact the Embassy about my grandfather’s military identification discs. If you can see your way to forwarding them to me, my family and I shall be most grateful.
It was what he had originally planned to do but, in the meantime, something had happened to change that. The South Australian Premier had announced that he was leading a trade delegation to Singapore, with agricultural products on the agenda. The Trade Minister and farmers’ representatives were going, too; it was all very high-powered. The station decided to send Craig to cover it.
He wrote to Yukiko Fukuda and told her the news.
I shall bring your grandfather’s discs with me. Hopefully we shall have a chance to meet while I’m in Singapore. If that proves impossible, I’ll post them to you before I leave.
It was a busy trip. There were meetings, statements after meetings, briefings and a couple of press conferences. Craig conducted interviews with the Premier and the Minister, with several of the delegates from both Australia and Singapore. He visited the local radio studios, went on a number of conducted tours laid on for the delegation and its entourage. He made two attempts to contact Yukiko Fukuda at her office but, on each occasion, was told that she was in conference. Finally, while he was getting ready for the gala dinner to mark the end of the visit, she phoned and arranged to meet him there.
‘I have been invited too, so I shall look out for you …’
The banquet was held in the hotel where Craig was staying. The foyer was crowded but, with everyone wearing name tags, finding her was easy.
She was taller than he’d expected, slender and elegantly dressed, and looked very young. She was also the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, with high cheekbones and long and shapely fingers, her skin the colour of aged ivory.
‘You have the discs?’ Her English was perfect, with barely a trace of an accent.
‘In my room.’
The seating plan for the dinner had been prearranged, so there was no possibility of sitting together, but they agreed to meet afterwards so he could give them to her. They had a drink while they waited to go in. As strangers with very different backgrounds, they might have found conversation difficult, but Craig was in the communications business and, within minutes, they were chatting happily together.
A woman whom Craig had once interviewed paused for a word; he introduced her to his companion. ‘Anna Riordan …’
A few pleasantries and she moved on. ‘One of our top businesswomen.’
‘I have heard of her. She is on the board of several Singapore companies, I think.’
A red-coated man with a stentorian voice summoned them to dinner. They smiled, and parted.
It turned out to be a very grand occasion indeed. The tables were decorated with orchids, the waiters in colourful costumes. The food was good, there was plenty of booze, yet all through the meal, Craig was impatient for it to end, his thoughts preoccupied with the woman he had just met, with her extraordinary beauty and his desire to see her again as soon as possible.
He thought, That’d be right. The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, and I’m flying back to Adelaide tomorrow. In the meantime, however, there remained tonight.
After the dinner was over, Yukiko sat in the foyer and watched as Craig Warren walked through the crush of people towards her. She was uncomfortable at the idea of accepting her grandfather’s identity discs so casually from this Australian. The old man would have wanted a good deal more ceremonial in what, after all, was a highly symbolic act. But what ceremonial was possible, in the foyer of a Singapore hotel?
Yukiko belonged to an old Osaka family that was extremely conservative about such matters, but she was also the product of Tokyo and Oxford Universities and prided herself on her international outlook. Don’t worry about formality, she told herself. As long as you get the discs, that’s what matters.
Craig stopped at her side. ‘They’re in my room. I won’t be a minute.’ And was gone.
He seemed a very nice man and it was a good, even remarkable thing that he was doing. He could so easily have thrown them in the bin, after all. She had told herself not to worry about formality, but was glad when Craig Warren returned and presented her not with two pieces of aluminium but with a small wooden jewellery box in which she saw, when he opened it for her inspection, the discs displayed upon a velvet bed.
‘I thought the box would be more appropriate …’
She touched the discs gently with her fingertip. They were soap-smooth; that she felt, but nothing more. If I’d known him, she thought, it might have been different.
Craig presented the box to her, not with a flourish — that would have been completely inappropriate — but in a manner that showed that he, too, realised the significance of the occasion. ‘I am sorry that is all there is.’
She took the box and slipped it into her bag. ‘You said in your letter that no-one knows where the plane is?’
‘Somewhere in the Queensland forest. My father said he found it when he was a kid but, at the time, no-one believed him. As I told you in my letter, I discovered the discs only after his death.’
‘You have gone to a lot of trouble to return them to us. I want you to know how much we appreciate it. Particularly since Japan and Australia were at war.’
She had embarrassed him. ‘All that was long ago.’
‘Let me buy you a drink, at least …’
They both ordered scotch. Perhaps it was for that reason that Craig said, ‘The world’s certainly changed since those days …’
‘Especially in Japan. Most young people don’t follow tradition at all, nowadays.’
‘I think it’s a pity.’
She had such mixed feelings about the subject; it made her touchy. ‘You think I should wear a kimono?’
‘Sometimes, perhaps. Different cultures make the world a richer place; I don’t think they should be allowed to die out.’
Yukiko was sceptical. ‘Before the war my Great Aunt Sumiko had a lady visit her every week to instruct her in the tea ceremony.
‘What is the use of that? Sitting at home all day in a kimono, pouring tea …’
‘Handy for entertaining, I suppose, when she had her husband’s friends over.’
‘She never married. Just as well she was the younger daughter.’
‘Why?’
‘Otherwise, her sister could never have married, either. Older sister first; the younger ones had to take their turn. That was the rule.’
‘Sounds like the land with us. If I’d been older than my brother, I’d be a farmer. Is that why your aunt never married?’
‘No. Marriages were arranged in those days, but girls still had a choice. Sumiko was engaged to a pilot who was killed in the war. I don’t think she wanted to marry anyone after that.’
‘Arranged marriages?’ Craig said. ‘Surely they don’t still happen?’
‘In some families, perhaps.’
‘No-one ever tried it on you?’
She laughed. ‘I’m too independent for that.’
‘Sounds like something out of the ark.’
‘Simply a part of the traditional culture you’re so keen on.’
‘It must make things very difficult for people like you.’
She was defensive at once. ‘I’m glad I live now and not then, that’s all.’ She finished her drink and stood up. ‘I have to go.’
He walked with her to the h
otel entrance, where the doorman summoned a taxi. Craig said: ‘I’m leaving tomorrow so I may not see you again. But I’d like to say it has been a great pleasure to meet you.’
Her dark eyes smiled. ‘Even without a kimono?’
He shared the smile. ‘Even without.’
‘If you come back to Singapore, maybe I’ll wear one. Just for you.’
It was safe enough; there was no reason to suppose they would meet again.
‘Be careful. I might hold you to it.’
The taxi arrived. ‘Thank you once again for the discs.’ Yukiko shook his hand, climbed into the taxi, gave the driver directions. A final, brief wave; Craig was gone.
Yet not. All the way to her apartment she thought about him. Some of his remarks had been almost too familiar, for a stranger, but she had not minded. On the contrary, she had liked the way he had spoken so openly. He had been right; things had changed a lot since the war. Yet he had been polite, not in the least pompous, as so many men were, and a sense of humour had shone through from time to time. If they’d had the chance to get to know each other better, she thought, she might have come to like Craig Warren very well indeed.
Just as well he leaves tomorrow, she told herself. An Australian boyfriend? How delightful. She laughed, thinking of Great Aunt Sumiko, still living in Osaka. The old lady had never admitted that the world had changed since the nineteen-thirties. What would she say if she knew her niece was attracted to a Westerner?
She paid off the taxi and caught the lift to her apartment. She double-locked the door behind her and took from her bag the jeweller’s box containing the two aluminium discs.
Why had her grandfather been flying over Queensland in the closing stages of the war? And what had caused him to crash? She stood motionless, the box open in her hand, but there were no answers to her questions, nor would be. Better to forget them. She shut the box and put it in a chest of drawers in her bedroom. Was glad, all the same, that this much of the past had been restored to her.
She drew a bath and lay in the warm water, thinking warm thoughts about the man she had just left. She was twenty-seven years old and had never had a man. There had been one or two she’d fancied, any number who had fancied her, but she had never been close enough to another person to think of committing herself to a relationship. Whereas this man …
Craig Warren. She spoke his name aloud, tasting it on her tongue. Craig Warren. She knew nothing about him, would never see him again. In a way that was good; it gave her a freedom to play games, imagine what would otherwise have been impossible.
Tentatively, she touched herself. It was something she never did, but she did so now, remembering his voice, his smile, the texture of his hand in hers when they had said goodbye.
Craig Warren …
She climbed into bed and spent five minutes reading the papers for her first meeting in the morning, giving her subconscious something to chew on while she slept.
She had just turned the light out when the phone rang. She thought of letting the answering machine handle it but something made her pick up the receiver.
‘Did I wake you?’
Craig. Something had told her; all the same, she felt her stomach lurch. She smiled into the phone, cuddling it close to her shoulder. ‘Lucky you didn’t.’
‘I meant what I said. I really enjoyed meeting you tonight.’
‘That’s good.’ She was not willing to say that she, too, had enjoyed their meeting, but hoped the tone of her voice might say it for her.
‘Would you feel I was out of order if I kept in touch? By e-mail, maybe?’
All her instincts told her to reject the idea. It was pointless. If not that, it was dangerous. Yet his question had kindled an undeniable warmth. She said, ‘That’s what e-mail’s for, after all.’
‘Will you answer?’
She decided to rein him in a little. ‘You’ll have to see, won’t you?’
‘Something else occurred to me …’ He spoke so cautiously, his words as fragile as crystal. ‘You’re a banker. I’m a journalist.’ And stopped.
‘What about it?’
‘I wondered if you’d have time tomorrow to brief me on the international money scene. As seen from Singapore.’
She almost laughed.
The international money scene … It was a novel approach. ‘What time’s your flight?’
‘Eight o’clock in the evening.’
So they had all day. ‘I’m tied up in the morning. What about three o’clock at Raffles? We could have a cup of tea, or something.’
‘The tea ceremony,’ he said. ‘With you in a kimono.’
‘In your dreams.’
And was still smiling when she hung up. Pointless or not, she was pleased she would be seeing him again. She thought of herself in the bath, told herself she should be ashamed. But was not.
She turned out the light and went to sleep.
Her meeting ran through lunch, but went so well that when it was over, she earned a pat on the back from Des Oliver, her boss. Desmond G Oliver was an unsmiling man who paid for results and expected to get them; a compliment from him was like a ten-carat diamond, seldom found. Which she told herself explained her good mood as she took a taxi to meet Craig at Raffles Hotel.
‘The only reason,’ she repeated, severely. ‘You understand?’ And almost believed it.
As soon as she walked through the hotel entrance, Craig came up to her. ‘Hi.’ And smiled.
She had nothing whatsoever to talk to him about and knew it didn’t matter. He was on the evening flight to Adelaide, there was no purpose in the meeting at all, but she — so disciplined in every respect — was here, with Craig, and glad of it.
They found a shop in one of the arcades, ordered coffee and, in Yukiko’s case, a gigantic slice of cream cake. ‘How do you stay so slim if you eat stuff like that?’
Which again might have been presumptuous, but was not.
‘I never put on weight,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Tell me about your job.’
‘I work for a radio station in Adelaide.’
‘Are you famous?’
‘The people in Adelaide know me. That’s why the station wanted me to cover this conference.’
‘What do you do?’
It was like having the mind of a young child; every scrap of information, however trivial, made an impact, helping to flesh out the image of the other person. As though it mattered, in the circumstances.
‘I interview people.’
‘About the international money scene?’
‘Of course.’
They smiled at each other; Yukiko demolished her cake.
‘Tell me about Australia.’
‘It’s huge. A continent. Most of it’s desert —’
‘Not that. What it’s like to live there.’
‘How I live my life, you mean?’
It was exactly what she meant, but she was unwilling to say so. ‘Not just you; everyone.’
He talked about life in the cities and in the country. ‘I was brought up in the country,’ he said. ‘Most city people know nothing about it.’
‘Everyone who’s been there talks about all the open space.’
‘There’s plenty of that.’
They ordered more coffee. ‘Another piece of cake?’ She shook her head.
‘I think you’re afraid of getting fat, after all.’
‘Just full.’
It was another discovery: that they, who had known each other so short a time, could tease each other like old friends. Once again she thought how fortunate it was that he was leaving that evening, yet knew she did not want him to go at all.
‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Tell me what it’s like to be you.’
‘I don’t know that I can.’
Yet gave it her best shot, telling him of her childhood in Japan, the problems she’d had in persuading her father to let her go to university, first in Tokyo, then at Oxford.
‘He was born before the war,’ she expl
ained. ‘He was very conservative, in some ways.’
‘What did he say when you took a job in Singapore?’
‘My parents were killed in a car accident when I was at Oxford,’ she said sadly. ‘Perhaps, if they’d lived, I would not have done it.’
‘If he was born before the war, he would have remembered your grandfather?’
‘He never met him. It was my mother who was his child.’
Craig did not understand. ‘But if your name is Fukuda …?’
‘My father took my mother’s name when they married. Because he became head of the family. It is the custom, in Japan.’
‘So many differences.’ Craig shook his head. ‘How do you change from all that — tea ceremonies, arranged marriages — to this?’ The sweep of his arm embraced not only the coffee shop, but all the rats’ tails and leavings of western culture. ‘I can’t imagine how you do it.’
She was displeased. ‘There are differences. But I am as much a citizen of the world as you are.’
‘Of course. But —’
She was not prepared to argue about it. ‘You said last night you would like to stay in touch. Do you want my e-mail address?’ Their cups were empty, yet neither of them wanted to leave. When they did, it would mean goodbye. E-mail was better than nothing, she thought, but not to be compared with talking, as they were now, and smiling, as they were now, and feeling the gradual awakening of warmth. She doubted there would be much warmth in an e-mail. It might be possible, provided there was sufficient depth of feeling to start with, but she told herself that could hardly be the case here.
She decided that her thoughts were becoming freighted with too much feeling for comfort. We shall have to see how things go, she told herself. In the meantime I shall not allow myself to think too much about him.
‘What time do you have to be at the airport?’
‘The coach is collecting me at five thirty.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better make a move.’ He reached across the table, took her hand as though to do so were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it was. ‘I would like to come back here, sometime, to see you again. If you would be willing.’