His father had received a shrapnel wound in his left arm early on, sent back from the trenches before the real tragedies at the Somme, Arras, Ypres and Amiens had begun. The wound had never properly healed but with the Clydeside shipyards in full swing by then, it hadn’t been difficult to be assigned a job at one of the shipping companies. And that was where he stayed for nearly forty years. The stiffness in the arm remained too. Edward could see it now as his father lit a match, drew it awkwardly to the bowl.
‘And how is life in London?’ The first clouds of smoke hung in the humid air, the aroma sickly sweet and heavy.
‘It’s all right.’
‘All right? Is that the best you can muster from my brother’s legacy?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
His father sucked noisily on the whitened stem. ‘There’s not a lassie involved, is there?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Well, just remember what I told you.’
Edward did remember what his father had told him. Almost nothing. He had been sixteen years old when his father had sat him down in the front room, asked him if he knew the Facts of Life. Being one of the youngest in his class, he had already gleaned from the older boys what he felt was enough knowledge to avoid the conversation. He had nodded to his father’s question, and the man had sat back relieved in his armchair, lit his pipe in the same patient manner as he had done now. ‘Good,’ his father had said. ‘Just don’t get anyone in the club before you’re married.’ And that was it. The only advice his father had ever given him. Except to dry thoroughly between his toes after a swim in the Corporation baths.
‘Anyway, I’m glad I’ve got a few moments alone with you,’ his father said. ‘There’s something I want to say.’ Another few sucks on his pipe until a young couple had passed by, pushing a pram with a sleeping bairn tucked up inside. ‘It’s about your mother.’
‘What? Is she ill?’
‘I wouldnae say that. At least, not just yet. It’s just that she’s become awful forgetful. It may be that she’s always been like that and I’ve just never been around to see it.’
‘Isn’t being forgetful a part of getting older?’
‘Aye, maybe. But it’s not just about forgetting to lock the back door or bringing back a pouch of tobacco from her shopping. It’s just things you wouldnae imagine anyone not remembering.’
‘Like what?’
‘Simple things. Dates. The other day she couldnae remember her birthday. And simple arithmetic. I caught her with a box of matches spilled out on the kitchen table. She was counting them out as if she was testing herself. You know, two add another three equals five. She kept repeating the exercise. I heard her talking to herself. Sometimes she got it terribly wrong. It was the smaller numbers that seemed to bother her. Fours and fives and sixes. Not the larger ones as you might expect.’
His father’s eyes glazed over and Edward noticed how the colour had drained out of them. They used to be such a vibrant brown, like leather freshly polished, now they had faded down to a pale dun, worn-out by the years. The shaving wasn’t clean either with a few patches of stubble forgotten by the razor. Tufts of hair grew out of his ears and nostrils. The shirt collar hung loose around his neck.
‘Anyway I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on her while you’re here,’ his father said. ‘See if I’m mistaken.’
His mother made a similar request about his father. She had called Edward upstairs to where she sat on her bed with an opened shoebox on the quilt beside her.
‘It goes under there, back in the corner by the shoehorns,’ she said, repeatedly wringing at the knuckles of one of her fingers. ‘Just so you know.’
‘Just so I know what?’
‘Where the few things of value are hidden.’ She plucked her silver evening-watch out of the box, began to polish the glass with a corner of her apron. ‘My mother’s wedding ring is in there too. And that miniature sword from Japan.’
He sat down on the bed beside her, picked out the sword, ran his fingers along the carvings on the ivory sheath. ‘Will you stop talking like this? There’s a long life in you yet.’
‘It’s your father. He’s got me awfully worried, Eddie,’ she said. ‘He gets these pains in his chest. The doctor’s given him tablets for it. He thinks I don’t notice when he takes them.’ She reached out, stroked the back of his hand. ‘Why don’t you keep that,’ she said. ‘You were always fond of it. Play with it for hours, you would. Like it was the most precious thing on earth.’
‘You remember that?’
‘Aye. It’s funny the things that stick in the mind. Anyway, watch out for father. Make sure he doesn’t overdo it, always wanting to lift things, drag the furniture around when I’m cleaning.’
For the rest of his stay, Edward was on a constant worried vigilance over the two of them. Previously, he had always thought of them as one entity. A single operating unit bound by the vows of marriage and the birth of a son. A bundled package. The Strathairns. His parents. His ancestors. Who looked after him, fed and clothed him, gave him his bus fare, took him on holidays, dabbed his spots with calamine lotion, told him when to get his hair cut, signed off his homework, wrote him letters, bought him birthday presents, kissed him goodnight, came to wave him good-bye. Now they were like separate countries with a shared border, and he was some kind of spy running the checkpoint between them. The onus of care and responsibility had shifted from them to him. And it made him feel both resentful and compassionate at the same time. Resentful for the loss of this taken-for-granted haven that had always been behind him, supplying him, backing him up. Resentful that the son had been forced to become the father of this man and this woman. Compassionate for their vulnerability and vincibility in the face of death.
When he left three weeks later, they came to see him off at Central Station. He held the grip of his father’s hand longer than usual until the man’s fearful gaze strayed away to the station clock. He tried to seal up the memory of his mother’s perfume as he kissed her powdered cheek. He boarded the train, took out his notebook and wrote all the way back to London.
It was hard for Edward to believe Aldous could have had a father and a mother. It was as if the man had arrived on this earth self-contained, self-opinionated and totally developed at the age of forty without the need of a childhood or adolescence. Never younger and never to grow older. Continuing on his merry way, impervious to the slights and slurs of others, exhibiting only the very thinnest cracks of hurt at some of the childish yet sadistic actions of Robert, who this morning had stormed off back to Manchester all because his eggs had not been cooked just right. Or some other petty excuse. Leaving Aldous tied up with rage, quivering lips barely containing the fury backed up behind them, standing by the light of the window in his silk dressing gown, paintbrush attacking the canvas on the easel. It was not easy to assault a still-life painting. Fruit bowl, silver candlesticks and a stuffed pheasant on the sideboard. Absolute realism. No wonder Aldous couldn’t get on with Macy.
‘It’s strange that I’ve known you all this time, Aldous, and I don’t know if your parents are alive or dead.’
Aldous grunted, continued painting.
‘I just wondered. You’ve never mentioned them.’
‘Alive and kicking in Devon,’ Aldous conceded. ‘Kicking each other, no doubt. It’s what’s kept them in this world so long.’
Silence again. But this time an easier quietness. Aldous’ cat M acavity entering the room, a purring slink and slide against his master’s calf before leaping on to the window sill, stretching out in the sunlight. Aldous reaching over, stroking the obscenely proffered belly.
‘I’ve written something for The Londinium.’
‘Ah, finally, some creativity arises out of the misery. What is it called?’
‘Don’t you want to know what it’s about first?’
‘Personally, I do. But my readers these days like a good title to pull them in. Publishing is becoming so crass, so commercial these
days.’
‘It’s tentatively called Against The Odds.’
‘Hmmm. So-so. What is it about?’
‘A man in the twilight of his life. Frustrated, disappointed, full of regrets.’
‘Sounds predictable.’
‘A man who has lived his life according to what has been expected of him. Played by the rules of his parents, his class, his religion, his workplace. Until he realises he has not lived at all.’
‘Bo-ring.’
‘He bets all his life savings on a horse.’
‘Ah. Now it gets interesting. So what happens next?’
‘You’ll have to read it to find out.’
‘Ah, I see.’ Aldous pecked away with his brush. ‘It is the visit home that has inspired. Not the rejection by the beast.’
‘Macy may have been many things. But she was not a beast.’
‘All women are becoming beasts. It was the war that changed them. All those jobs giving them financial independence. They used to be such pleasant creatures before that.’
‘What about men?’
‘Men have no excuse. They have always been beasts.’
The advertisement was tucked away at the corner of the notice board. Normally, Edward wouldn’t have paid it or even the board much attention. But he was looking for an offer of decent rented accommodation among the tacked up scraps of papers announcing the meetings of clubs and societies to which he was not a member. The School of Oriental and African Studies was full of these activities for happy, energetic, well-balanced, sociable human beings who liked to discuss matters relating to Colonialism and the Commonwealth, who were eager to hike in multi-ethnic packs the pathways of the South Downs, who played cricket, football and tennis, who wanted to swap lessons in Swahili for conversation in Hindi. But there was never any bright chit by one aspiring writer craving the companionship of another. Edward was an outsider. And he wondered if he was an outsider first and a writer second. Or whether wanting to write drove him naturally to being an outsider. An observer. Spotting the advertisement which read as follows:
“Argos Motors requires an English copywriter and general liaison officer for position in Tokyo. Some communication skills in Japanese essential. Excellent conditions. Would suit young graduate of Japanese studies. Please contact Mr Peter Digby, General Manager, Argos Motors.”
‘I’m not a young graduate,’ Edward told Digby over the telephone.
Digby laughed. ‘What does that mean? You’re not young or you’re not a graduate?’
‘The latter.’
‘I wish people wouldn’t use that former and latter stuff. It means I have to go back over what they said, which I’ve forgotten anyway, and then try to figure it all out.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m not a graduate. I’ve only just completed my first year in Japanese studies.’ ‘That actually suits us better. You see this job is not about translation.
That’s what I have discovered most graduates want. Spiritless translation work. No, we don’t need a translator. They’ve got a Jap chap doing that over there already.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘Tokyo Autos. That’s the company we’re licensing our engineering technology to. We just need someone to put his formal translations into normal English. So I can understand what it all means.’
‘What kind of translations?’
‘Company stuff. Brochures, reports. Maybe some legal and technical papers. There’s a big motor show coming up in Japan next year. I’d like to see material in both Japanese and comprehensible English for that. Then there would be correspondence to edit. Annual reports. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind having one of my chaps over there on the ground so to speak, just to keep an eye out, keeping Argos Motors’ best interests at heart, if you know what I mean? Does it suit?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Think about it. Then come over and we can talk conditions.’
Peter Digby turned out to be exactly as he sounded on the telephone. A no-nonsense man in tweed sports jacket who was really an engineering genius specialising in the field of crankshafts and gearboxes but had ended up administering his own successful automobile company.
‘This licensing deal is easy money for Argos,’ Digby told Edward over his second pint at a pub near to his office. ‘Let the Japs pay us so they can tinker with their tiny little cars away over there on the other side of the world. Argos is not interested in the Asian market so we’re only too happy to help them out with our technology. Do you know how many cars they made last year? Not even five thousand. And we’re too entrenched here for them to ever challenge us with their Isuzus and Nissans, no matter how much they up their production and exports. Mark my words, fifty years from now, and you’ll still be driving around in an Argos. This deal is money for old rope. Money for old rope is what I say.’
The conditions were good. A company-paid flat in Tokyo. Monthly subsistence allowance in yen, balance paid in sterling direct to his bank account. Annual bonus. Two years minimum commitment.
‘Anything less than that and no sooner you’d be out there, than you’d have to hop on the ship back. It takes nearly a month to sail there. What do you think?’
‘I’ll take it.’
Digby held out his hand. ‘Sealed in flesh. Now before I buy you another drink. Tell me something. Adventure? Or escape?’
Edward thought about this for a few moments. ‘The latter,’ he said.
There had been a narrow street with high walls. The ground was littered with crushed petals, cut-off flower stalks. The odour of a market packed up and gone home, lingering like the perfume of a departed loved-one. Then a large thoroughfare with traffic. How Edward had managed to catch a bus from there he did not know. More of a miracle that he had caught the right one. He couldn’t remember if he had voluntarily disembarked at Tottenham Court Road or whether the conductor had assisted him on prior instruction, but he did remember vomiting into a flower bed in Russell Square. Then standing there, bent over, dry retching for what seemed like an hour. He had felt better after that. His eyes watery and aching, his head throbbing but clear from the effect of God knows how many pints he had downed with Digby at the Bricklayers Arms. Up the narrow stairs to Aldous’ flat, fumbling with the key but Aldous opening the door anyway. So wonderful to see his friend standing there in his pyjamas.
‘So, if I hear you right,’ Aldous said, his blue eyes bearing down on him as twin lamps of interrogation. ‘If I hear you right, you went out to find a flat, which I have to commend you for actually managing to do, but this flat it turns out is in Tokyo rather than Tottenham.’
‘I have a contract sealed in flesh.’
‘So nothing has been signed?’
‘My handshake is my bond.’ Edward held out his hand to Aldous. It was shaking. ‘This is my first job, Aldous. Can’t you be pleased for me? After all, I’m now a man from Argos Motors.’
‘You look more like a man who’s been run over by an Argos Motor. It is not as though I am not pleased. I am just slightly surprised at this sudden career change.’
‘It doesn’t feel sudden. It feels as though little events have been gradually pushing me in this direction. It was the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.’
‘East or west, Tokyo is the furthest place away from a certain young lady in New York.’
‘This has nothing to do with her.’
‘And what will your dear parents say?’
‘I shall not tell them until I am on my way. On my way. Onwards and upwards.’
Aldous was the only person to see him off at Southampton on a grey, blustery, hold-on-to-your-hat afternoon. The kind that summed up Edward’s current feeling about the life he was leaving. Aldous came up the gangplank with him, pressed an envelope into his hand when they reached the top.
‘What is it?’
‘Payment for Against The Odds.’
Aldous then grabbed him by the upper arms, shook him affectionately, his eyes teared from the wind or fr
om emotion or both, then turned quickly and grappled his way back down the gangplank, his long coat flapping madly in the breeze. About halfway down, he turned back round, waved and shouted:
‘Don’t forget to write, Eddie. Don’t forget to write.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tokyo, Japan • 2003
Edward went out on to the terrace for some cool air and to admire the ambassador’s lawn, all lit-up into an unnatural AstroTurf-green by the bathe of arc lamps. Surrounded by those high hedges. It might be the only lawn of such a size in Tokyo. Such a large tract of empty space spared from the clutches of a high-density population. It was probably a pre-requisite for the purchase of the embassy site. Enough room for a good-sized lawn. “We British must have at least a half-acre for our garden parties. You never know when Her Majesty might turn up for a game of croquet.”
He sipped on his malt whisky. He felt quite perked up by the alcohol. He had been so tired earlier on. Such a long day in such a long life. The nap in Jerome’s study had helped, yet he was all ready to take the Shinkansen back to Hakone when Jerome mentioned these invitations. An early evening reception to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Scotch whisky, hosted by the Scottish Malt Whisky Distillers’ Association at the British Embassy. What self-respecting Scotsman could resist? A pure marketing ploy, of course. Who could possibly have known when the first malt whisky was distilled? Was there a plaque somewhere? One of those blue heritage circles nailed into the wall of a tiny Highland croft? “The first whisky was distilled here by Angus MacPherson in 1503”. Perhaps there was a dated recipe written down by a monk, crouched by his still in a freezing Lowland monastery. Or a pot excavated from the spot where a moonshiner had fixed his first brew. Another sip. An excellent idea to come to this little reception. On one condition though.
‘I’ll only go if I can do this incognito,’ he had told Jerome. ‘I absolutely insist on it.’
An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful Page 11