by Mick Jackson
There’s talk of tripods and the setting of timers. There is more fussing. Until Yukiko finally announces that she will take the photos. And when a couple of women protest, Yukiko insists with such force that the women are silenced, and almost inclined to take offence. But, one by one, they hand their cameras over to Yukiko. Rather the weird young girl, they’re surely thinking, who never felt like one of the party anyway, than the graceful and much admired Hana Kita. And it is only as Yukiko is taking the third or fourth photograph that it occurs to her why perhaps she is so keen not to appear in the photographs herself. That she is not in fact here – at least, not in any way that she wishes to be recorded. That the whole aim of the enterprise is for her to creep in and go about her business almost silently and to leave no trace.
*
Within ten minutes everyone’s heading back towards the hilltop, supposedly fortified, but in truth growing weary of this moor, the disappointing heather, the dismal weather. Some members of the party might even have asked Hana Kita how much more marching is needed in order to reach the ancient cottage – the place which may or may not have featured in a Brontë novel – if it didn’t risk displaying a lack of gumption, or appear to diminish their love of the Brontë Girls.
Thankfully, after a few hundred yards one of the Elders suddenly stops in her tracks. Looks up at the sky and holds her hand out. And now the whole group is faltering, dissipating, looking about the place. Without a word, backpacks are removed, waterproof jackets are unfurled and hoods pulled up over heads – while Yuki watches. Mrs Kudo’s close by and after pulling on her own raincoat she asks Yuki if she hasn’t at least got a hat. Yuki shrugs and shakes her head. Mrs Kudo roots about in a pocket and produces what appears to be a solid but pliable block of plastic. She gives it a single sharp shake, the folded pleats flap open, like an accordion, and it reveals itself to be a plastic headscarf.
Yukiko stares down at it, disgusted. But Mrs Kudo presses it into her hand. Yuki doesn’t even like the feel of it. She carries on standing there, with it hanging from her fingers, until finally Mrs Kudo tells her, quite forthrightly, that the only person who cares what she actually looks like is her. And since she won’t be able to see what she looks like, then really, what is there to worry about?
There’s a long, long pause before Yukiko finally succumbs and lifts it up to her head. Mrs Kudo turns away and finds something else with which to occupy herself, but once everyone is preparing to move off again, she glances over at Yukiko. Then laughs so hard she has to rest her hands on her knees to stop herself falling over. At such a hat. Such a hat with such a serious young woman under it.
*
And now the party has become faceless, anonymous. Nothing but a shiny great mass of colourful jackets with the raindrops rattling upon them, and the swish-swish of waterproofed arms and legs. It seems they still intend to reach the cottage – to lay their hands on it. Until the wind picks up and the rainfall suddenly intensifies. Then Hana Kita looks up at the sky. If there was just a single gap in the clouds, she thinks. Or a little light, out on the horizon. But the sky is dark and solid, and as she blinks in the rain she sees how several of the women have stopped and are squinting over at her. As if they’re thinking, Is there no part of the Brontë Experience from which we might be spared?
She considers asking the Ladies for their opinion. Of instigating some brief debate. But when she opens her mouth she hears herself announce instead that their attempt at reaching the old wreck of a cottage is now officially abandoned. So that, in an instant, the slow trudge up the hill is transformed into a gleeful race back down it. And everyone goes scurrying down the path over the shiny wet stones at such speed that Hana Kita worries someone might slip and break an aged arm or leg. And that they’ll be calling for helicopters to winch them out of here.
*
They make steady progress through the heather and soon are marching back across the Ancient Bridge of Brontë, curtseying by the Brontë Perching Rock before finally sensing again the presence of Brontë Museum Town in the valley below. Almost imperceptibly, Yuki slows her pace, allowing the other walkers to overtake her. The Elders must be thinking, Ha! These youngsters have no spunk! Can barely lift their little legs.
The rain continues. In the distance a wooden stile bridges the stone wall and Yuki decides that this will be her point of departure so she applies one final little bout of foot-dragging to ensure she’s right at the back of the group by the time they reach it.
Just ahead of her, two Elders stride along, chatting. Yuki slows right down – watches them climb the steps and make their way over, then approaches the stile herself. She climbs the first couple of steps, then stands and watches the tour group push on into the drizzle, including kind Mrs Kudo. Then hops back down from the steps.
She shuffles along the wet wall, head down. Tries to find a crack among the stones to have another peek, without success. So she turns and crouches at the base of the wall, with her rucksack in her lap and her arms wrapped around it and that stupid plastic headscarf still on her head. She looks back up at the open moor, which suddenly feels unbearably wide and empty.
By her estimates she can endure maybe half an hour out here without slipping into a coma. Then a slow, slow walk back into town – with maybe another half an hour or so wandering round the not-so-pretty parts of the village which the tourists tend not to frequent.
She studies the toes of her sister’s trainers, which she took without asking. Kumiko is almost certainly going to kill her. The most sensible option would be to simply dispose of them. Just stuff them in some litter bin and claim complete ignorance. Look her straight in the eye and say, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
Yukiko looks around. A piece of stone jutting out from the wall by her face is trimmed with white lichen, all curled and crimped like lace. She reaches up and nips it between finger and thumb. Carefully lifts and peels it away. She could maybe use it to trim the neckline of some weird, Brontë-era dress. The whole thing made from woven heather, moss, grass, etc. Natural things. And she’d wear it, to the shops – or just sit on a bus in it, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
Despite it being cold and wet she’s getting strangely sleepy. Back home somewhere she has two or three preliminary sketches for a sort of Invisibility Sleep Cape. For those occasions when one wishes to sleep in public. She sometimes convinces herself of its incredible potential and how mind-bendingly wealthy it could make her, but keeps getting stuck on the ‘invisibility’ element.
More recently, she’s devoted some energy to a tiny tent you erect around your head and shoulders. You’ll still be visible, but the people around you – on the tube/bus/ park bench, etc. – will know to leave you alone. The tent will provide that all-important privacy that allows you to sleep without embarrassment. Not so much a Cape of Invisibility; more a Personal Urban Sleep Tent.
She checks the time. She thinks about her mother. About how she too must have walked across these same strange moors, in the company of women not that different from the ones with whom Yuki has spent the last twenty-four hours. And not for the first time, Yuki wonders whether it might be possible to grow so tired – so profoundly, debilitatingly drained and exhausted – that the dead finally come alive to you.
After a while she thinks that this may be a good time to have a little puff on her pipe. To help with her thinking. So she opens up her bag and starts rooting around for it.
The whole pipe-smoking thing kicked off the day she landed. She and Kumi were in a coffee shop on the King’s Road when this big, bald guy went thundering past the window with a battered briefcase swinging in one hand and a lit pipe clamped between his teeth. It would’ve been good to know where he was heading in such a hurry. To deliver a lecture, maybe? Or late for some extramarital rendezvous? All Yuki saw was a big, bald guy in a winter coat, puffing down the pavement like a steam train. It was a most impressive sight.
Two days later she was on the top deck of a bu
s and noticed a man across the aisle, fiddling and fussing with a pipe of his own. Scraping at the bowl with the clean end of a matchstick, pulling the whole thing apart to suck and blow through the various components and bringing the stem up to his eye to see what was going on down there. When he was done and had put the bits back together he gave the bowl two or three sharp taps against the heel of his shoe, slipped it into an inside pocket and headed down the stairs. Yuki thought to herself, Well, that looks kind of fun.
That evening she mentioned her interest in English pipe-smoking to a friend of Kumi’s, who told her about this shop that sells nothing but pipes, pipe tobacco and the little tools and knives you need to keep them clean. Yuki went out and found it the following morning. You couldn’t really miss it. The window was full of pipe holders, pipes, fancy lighters, with a row of ceramic bowls below, each heaped with tobacco, as if some tiny ship had just stopped by and hauled the different tobaccos up from its hold with its own tiny crane.
Before she went in she thought, If anyone asks me, I’m buying a pipe for my dad, back home. But the shopkeeper didn’t seem particularly bothered at having a young Japanese woman about the place and Yuki slowly made her way around, studying all the pipes and lighters and tobacco pouches in their little wooden cabinets, as if she was at the National Gallery, till she found herself at the counter.
About thirty pipes were laid out under the glass. Some had steel stems, some had wooden stems that were kind of curly. The bowls were made from all different coloured wood. The shopkeeper asked if she’d like him to bring out one or two for her to have a look at, so she pointed at a pipe that was just about the most ordinary-looking, with nothing excessive or flamboyant going on, and the shopkeeper pulled back the drawer, took it out and placed it gently on the glass, and Yuki could easily have spent another five minutes peering at it if he hadn’t picked it up again and placed it in her hand.
The bowl seemed to sit quite happily in that soft pad of flesh between her thumb and forefinger. She tried latching her thumb over the stem where it joined the bowl, but this didn’t feel at all right. And at this point the shopkeeper slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out his own personal pipe. His grip was pretty similar to Yuki’s, but instead of locking his thumb over the stem, he brought it up alongside the bowl. Then his other hand went into the opposite pocket and drew out a rectangular leather pouch – soft and worn and looking about a hundred years old. Still holding it in one hand, the shopkeeper adjusted his fingers and let the pouch fall open. Then dipped his pipe into the pouch, where it rummaged about for a moment until it re-emerged with his thumb over the top of the bowl and a few straggles of tobacco sprouting from under it. With the end of his thumb he cajoled the wayward strands into the bowl and tamped them down. The tobacco pouch was flipped shut and posted back in his pocket. Then he nudged a wooden caddy of tobacco across the counter towards Yukiko.
It was harder than it looked. Yuki was determined to only use one hand, but overfilled the bowl, so that no amount of tamping would pack it all in. All the same, the shopkeeper didn’t wince or mock her. He just kept on quietly watching, making occasional encouraging noises until she’d worked out what was more or less the right amount.
She emptied the tobacco back into the wooden caddy and tried some other pipes, but kept returning to that first one. She liked the fact that it was small and neat, with a cherry-red bowl, all super-shiny. And the more she held it the more she liked it until finally she went ahead and bought the thing.
She’s taken it out now and again, but never in front of Kumiko – when she’s been on her own, in the hope that having it nipped between her teeth would help her concentrate, and once or twice as she stood before the mirror in Kumi’s bedroom, to deliver some mimed oratory, using the stem as a little dagger, to add emphasis to particular words.
Sitting on a bench near Leicester Square she gripped it in her pocket and dared herself to take it out. She finally managed to do so only when a middle-aged woman came along, dragging two small children in her wake. She was making such a big deal about how tough it was looking after these children and broadcasting every instruction to the rest of the world. So as they approached, Yuki pulled out the pipe and popped it in her mouth. As the kids went by they had a good, long look at her, and Yuki gave them a big old wink in return. Like some pipe-smoking character from a British movie from the Fifties. Or how she imagined that big, bald guy might wink at someone, when he was relaxing after a little midday sex with his mistress, as happy as a bear.
When Yuki finally gets to her feet about half an hour later her ass is so cold she can barely feel it. I’m going to have to have it surgically removed, she thinks. Then she slowly climbs the stile and heads down the moors towards Haworth.
Having spent so much time in the company of the Crazy Elders and, prior to that, Kumiko and her friends, she now finds it odd not to be part of some larger company. So as she strides along she thinks to herself, Here is Yukiko, making her way through the English landscape. Yukiko, finally on her own.
Despite her plan to try and avoid the village’s more popular areas she’s now so worn down with the cold that she heads into the first teashop, just to restore a little heat. She manages to order a coffee, tucks herself away in a corner and for the best part of an hour reads a magazine, taking tiny sips from her cup.
When she’s done she heads back up the high street, manages to find the lane along which they all came trotting into town this morning and walks back down it, to the car park. She slows right down as she reaches the corner – tiptoes up to it and carefully peeps around – to find that the coach really has left without her. But instead of feeling thrilled and liberated, as she expected, she finds she’s a little put out. Imagine that, she thinks. Going off without me. Leaving a poor little Japanese girl all on her own.
*
Yuki really was convinced she’d be able to find the hotel unaided. The town’s not so very big, after all. Plus, some sixth sense would surely draw her towards it. And yet she walks up and down any number of streets without encountering the door she’s after. Perhaps they’ve changed it? Just to spite her. To stop her getting at the truth.
A couple of times she attempts to retrace her steps and becomes disoriented. There are people she knows who think getting lost is somehow exciting. A short cut to adventures. But to Yuki it is like an illness of the soul. You begin to disappear. Then there’s the looking lost, which is almost as dreadful. All that halting, faltering progress. The pathetic air of bewilderment, with the stench of panic seeping from your skin.
In the end, she gives up and heads for the Tourist Information Centre – the over-lit little office she first noticed this morning on the way into town. She manages to creep in while the woman behind the counter is turned away, talking to someone in the back room. And, man, this woman can really talk. What chance has little Yuki of understanding someone who delivers English at such speed, and with such commitment? So she scans all the racks and noticeboards for any sign of the Grosvenor Hotel. There’s information regarding places to eat, places to walk, places from which to take a steam train, as well as very many places to lay one’s head at the close of day, but no obvious information relating to the particular hotel Yuki is after – none, at least, in pictorial form.
Finally, Yuki picks up an OS map of the area which she’ll probably require in her investigation, takes a deep breath and approaches the counter, gently waving it in the air. Greets the Information Lady just as she’s been taught, with a bright Hello. Places the map on the counter. Hands the woman a ten-pound note and, as she’s taking the change, and without any thought towards constructing a meaningful question in which to give it context, jumps right on in and attempts to pronounce the name of the hotel. Just kind of coughs it up like a hairball and spits it out into the room.
The Information Lady looks back at Yuki, apparently baffled, and at Yuki’s second attempt studies her mouth, to see if she might recognise the words as they’re being form
ed.
All this attention is doing nothing but make Yuki more uncomfortable. She tries again, a little louder, and with extra emphasis on the first syllable. Then finally raises a hand. Bends down and pulls out of her rucksack the folded envelope, with its frayed old corners. Takes out the photographs and, like a poker player, fans them out in her hands. She picks out the one she’s after and places it down on the counter. The Information Lady moves a finger towards it. Oh, please don’t touch it, thinks Yuki. It’s bad enough I’m letting you even look at the thing.
In the photograph, Yukiko’s mother stands on the steps before what seems to Yukiko to be a very English front door. On her mother’s face is that same expression. Her eyes shine, but a smile has yet to materialise. One day, Yukiko is convinced, she will pick up this or any other photograph and the smile will have finally arrived.
Oh, the Grosvenor, says the Information Lady.
And Yukiko thinks, Now, how the hell would I ever have imagined that those letters, in that order, would sound that way?
The Information Lady offers to call the hotel to check that a room is available, miming the picking up of a telephone receiver, but Yuki declines. Let’s keep any chitter-chat to an absolute minimum, shall we? she thinks. So the Information Lady plucks up a Haworth street map, spins it round on the counter so that it faces Yuki and draws an asterisk to mark their current location, another where Yuki is headed and a little line that winds along the streets between the two.
*
Yukiko reaches the hotel in less than five minutes and is initially flummoxed. The word Hotel suggests an establishment of some stature – big enough, at least, to maintain one’s anonymity. But this is essentially just a large English house with the words ‘Grosvenor Hotel’ stencilled in a retro font onto the glass above the door. All the same, it is without doubt the same doorway her mother posed before in the photograph and for that she is tremendously grateful. She climbs the steps and whacks the knocker against the door a couple of times.