by Mick Jackson
Yuki lowers the photograph and stares at her. Then the girl slowly heads on over. Seems to simply float right through the heather. Instinctively, Yukiko gets to her feet – to meet her assailant – but gets up so fast that all the blood seems to drain from her head. She can feel it cascading over her shoulders. And the girl keeps on coming, with her hair, curly and blonde as a doll’s, until she’s right there, and Yuki can see her features. Can see how she doesn’t smile. But reaches out, takes Yuki’s hand and pulls it up towards her. Studies the photo, looks over at the water, and shakes her head.
You got the wrong reservoir, she says.
Yukiko only understands about half of what the girl is saying. So there’s some confusion, before the girl finally takes Yuki’s map, points at the same patch of blue to which Yuki’s been clinging and says, You’re here.
Then takes a moment to find a second location. Points at it, and says, That’s where you want to be.
For a while Yukiko continues to stare at the map, as if it had contrived to trick her. Then the girl points up the hill, back where she came from. Takes a step or two, and beckons to Yuki, to suggest that she should accompany her. And Yuki thinks, Well, she seems to know what she’s doing. So she tucks the photo in her jacket pocket and goes trotting after her.
The girl might be a little older than Yuki had first imagined. In her mid-teens, maybe. And as she’s still a few steps ahead of her, Yuki keeps on looking at her incredible curly blonde hair. If you came to Japan, she wants to say, people would come over just to touch it. You’d have a queue right round the block.
At the brow of the hill they join a path which drops slowly down the other side and they’re halfway along it when Yuki sees the motorbike leaning on its stand in the bottom of the valley. Not a particularly powerful-looking machine – the sort teenage boys ride, with thick-treaded wheels and a high-pitched engine – but the closer they get to it the more convinced Yuki is that it belongs to the girl and that she’s going to expect Yuki to climb onto the back of it, which she’s convinced is not such a great idea.
As they stumble down the path Yuki attempts to ask the girl, in her wretched English, how she knew where to find her, and several times the girl tries, and fails, to explain. Until, finally, she stops and mimes knocking at a door. And Yuki pictures this girl and the B & B Lady talking on the doorstep of the Grosvenor Hotel and the B & B Lady pointing out towards the moors.
Of course, what Yuki really wants to know is why the girl has taken such an interest in her. It’s conceivable that she may just have been passing when Yuki crawled over the wall from the graveyard, but there was nothing arbitrary in her hanging about outside the B & B or showing up just now. There appears to be no easy way of broaching the subject. Yukiko’s only thought is that she might appear to this blonde English girl as strange and exotic as the Brontës do to her.
The girl climbs onto the bike, kicks the stand back and with the toe of her other foot flicks out the kick-start. Jumps down on it, twice, before the engine catches, and pulls the throttle back hard a couple of times, to make sure it doesn’t cut out. Then she looks over at Yuki, with the engine gently rattling, until she finally approaches. Yuki finds a footrest and swings her other leg over, as if she’s mounting a horse. And since there’s nowhere else to put them she places her hands on the girl’s waist. Then the two of them go roaring down the path.
*
The girl seems to know how to handle the bike, following the path along the bottom of the valley with considerable care, but when at last they come up to the side of a tarmac road, she stops and looks long and hard in both directions before pulling back on the throttle with such ferocity that Yuki almost tumbles right off the seat.
As they fly down the road Yukiko thinks what a contrast this is to all the little capsules she’s been travelling in lately. The wind blasts at her face and hair as if they’re pushing through something solid. And Yuki looks down at the blur of road beneath her feet and wonders what condition she’d be in if she were to suddenly meet it, at such ridiculous speed.
Mercifully, within a couple of miles the bike is slowing down and pulling back off the road without them having passed more than a couple of cars coming the other way. This path is a little wider than the last one – more of a dirt track, with two furrows along it and a strip of grass in between – and seems to take them more directly where the girl wants to go. A couple of times she pulls up, to try and get her bearings. Then finally stops, kills the engine, flicks the stand down and, once she’s sure that Yuki is with her, heads off up a steep slope.
The moment they clear the ridge and the water’s spread out below them Yukiko can see how this is an altogether different proposition and recognises it as the location in her mother’s photograph. The water seems closer to the sky somehow and there’s a lot more of it. Down at one end, a stone pier runs out to some sort of small tower and Yuki finds that the tip of this construction appears at the edge of the photo, giving her something solid from which to orient herself.
She makes her way over to where her mother must have stood. Gets within a metre or so of it and glances at the photograph for confirmation. Then just stands and looks around.
The girl comes up alongside her. Asks to see the photo again and studies it pretty hard this time, as if now that they’re here she might see something significant in it. Some monster about to loom out of the water or something just sinking out of sight.
She asks Yuki who took the photograph. Yuki pretends not to have understood, and the girl asks again, which gives Yuki a couple of moments in which to consider how she feels about answering the question honestly. She thinks, Well, she seems quite kind. Brought me all the way out here – to a place I would never have found on my own. So she takes the photos from her pocket, finds the one of her mother standing before the parsonage and hands it to the girl.
The girl looks at it. Then turns to Yukiko and says, Is that your mum?
Yukiko nods. The girl looks back at the photo. She says, And now she’s dead. As if acknowledging it with her own small moment of consideration. Then looks up at Yuki. She died, she says.
Yukiko nods at the girl. Yes, she says.
For a while the two of them just stand and take in the water and the moors around it. Yuki feels herself to be back in her mother’s footsteps. And she sets off down towards the water – which looks black and viscous – apparently quite happy to leave the photos in the hands of the girl. Right on down to the water’s edge, where she crouches. Trying to get her head low, so she can look right out over the water. Thinking of all the tiny vibrations and how this great block of water must consist of a million of them. Because what are waves – these little waves coming ashore at her feet – if not a manifestation of frequency?
She thinks all this and how things are now significantly different – and keeps finding herself drawn to one particular thought. Which is, If the girl wasn’t here then I’d almost certainly do it. The thought slips away, then returns, like a small, rolling wave. And Yuki thinks, Well, in that case, I should do it anyway.
She takes a couple of steps back from the water, drops her rucksack and unzips her jacket. Pulls her fleece up over her head. Unbuttons her shirt, so that the wind strikes right onto her flesh now. Balances on one leg to take a shoe and sock off. Then the other. Unbuckles her belt and pulls down her trousers. Folds them twice and places them with the rest of her clothes, on top of her rucksack. Then heads for the water in her underwear.
She feels the last of the grass and heather beneath her feet, then dirt and small stones just before the water. Is hunched and tense before her feet are even wet. And when she does finally step into the water, just up to her ankles, it’s so cold that a jolt of pain shoots up both legs and forms a knot in her stomach.
But she carries on, stepping carefully forward, and she’s up to her knees before she turns back to the girl, just as she did half an hour ago. Wants to catch her eye – to let her know that there’s nothing to be afraid of �
� but is forced to turn back and look out over the water to keep her balance.
When the water’s up to her stomach it’s as if her breath has been punched right out of her, and she thinks, Well, I may not be able to do this. My body may just lock up, refuse to work. And she can feel her heart clattering now, frantic, her lungs complaining. Then the water reaches her breasts and almost over her shoulders and her hands are numb just from reaching out into the water, for guidance and to stop herself tipping to one side. She thinks, It’s not going to work unless I go right under. If I want to see her and understand where she’s been all this time I have to go so far down that every hair on my head is wet. So she takes a breath – holds it in – and drops down under. And stays there, locked in the freezing cold, for a count of ten. Then fifteen. Twenty.
The girl has come right down to the water’s edge, still holding the photographs. Stands and stares at the place where Yuki disappeared. The ripples continue to spread, like coils of rope. And as they spread out, the moors and their terrible silence seem to move on in.
Until, at last, Yuki comes up in a great rage. Back into the winter air. Wiping the water from her face. Locates the shore, with the girl standing there, waiting – and with her arms and legs already turning to stone, begins wading back towards her.
The moment Yukiko’s skin is exposed to the air it begins to burn, and she wonders if this is what her mother experienced in her last few moments. She walks out of the reservoir, with the water still streaming from her and barely able to feel the small stones beneath her feet. And now the girl has hold of her elbow and is helping her over to her rucksack and her neat stack of clothes, as if she’s just completed some marathon swim.
Before she reaches her clothes Yukiko realises she has nothing with which to dry herself and decides to sacrifice her fleece. She grabs it, wipes her face with it – drags it up and down each limb. Then pulls her trousers on over her damp legs, which are turning red now. Leaning against the girl, who she thinks must be pretty strong. Her shirt and jacket. But it’s only when she sits on her rucksack to dry her feet and put her socks and shoes back on that Yuki really starts to shiver. All the same, she’s thrilled. Feels she’s really achieved something here. Although when she looks out at the water it’s flat and dead again, as if her attempt to get in there and stir things up is already gone, forgotten, and the water’s thoughts have turned back in on themselves.
In her first year at high school Yukiko fainted on two separate occasions. At the time she worried it was a habit her body might get into – something it might grow to like. Even now, in the right circumstances, she’ll be convinced that whatever momentarily removed her from this world has finally managed to find her. That it’s in her vicinity and about to throw its awful cloak back over her.
On the first occasion, she was standing in assembly. Mrs Muroya was up on stage, delivering some speech with that odd little stammer of hers, and Yuki remembers becoming aware of how many other girls were packed into the hall around her. Thinking that if there was a fire, say, or if she were to suddenly decide that she just wanted to get out of there, how much time it would take to get to the door. She continued to dwell on this, and even when she felt she’d dwelt on it sufficiently and would quite like to move on to something else, she found herself being drawn back to it, again and again, as if she’d started up some little inner motor that now refused to stop.
Then it was as if one of the girls over by the light switches started playing about with them. Yuki remembers thinking, Someone’s going to get herself in trouble. And she was about to turn, to try and see what was going on back there, when something happened – as if something new and unusual had been introduced to her bloodstream. As if she was suddenly halfway back to the place where she did her dreaming. And the girl over at the light switches decided, Oh, what the hell, and turned the whole lot out.
When she came round Miss Ueno was crouched beside her looking, it has to be said, pretty irritated. Presumably, at the inconvenience of having to deal with this feeble little girl. She helped Yuki to her feet, then slowly led her through the others. It was good to see everyone give her so much space, though Yuki later concluded that they probably did this through some fear of contamination. Then she was led over to Miss Tanaka’s office, where she was given a seat, a glass of water and all the time in the world to consider the complete weirdness of what had just gone on.
Two or three months later she passed out on the subway, which was even more troubling since she was among complete strangers and far from home. She remembers standing on the platform, the train pulling in and the doors slowly opening to reveal all the passengers squeezed inside. As she stepped into the carriage she looked down and noticed the thin strip of darkness between the train and the platform. And it was as if, having been acknowledged, that crazy darkness decided to come on up from under the train to be with her. She had just enough time to think, Hey, I remember this from last time. Then she was gone.
When she came round, the train was rattling along between the stations, with Yuki being gently shaken from side to side and a bunch of people staring down at her. The fact that the train was moving seemed incomprehensible to her. Surely, she thought, if I’ve fallen apart and ceased to function, then the rest of the world should have ceased to function too.
The next morning her mother took her to see the doctor. He asked her three or four rather mundane questions and took her blood pressure (which he noted was a little low) but his general attitude seemed to be that girls Yuki’s age were prone to over-excitement and occasional fainting and that her most important consideration should be to ensure she had a decent breakfast before venturing out into the world, or risk surrendering herself to more blackouts in the weeks to come.
There have been plenty of times since, when she’s been stressed or emotional, and she’s worried that she was about to go back under. But some telling element was always missing: a bitterness at the tip of her tongue … some vague sense of a fizzing, electrical aura. And, not least, the girl over by the light switches, threatening to get herself into trouble again.
Now she’s got her clothes back on Yuki’s hoping she’s going to start feeling a little warmer but her teeth are chattering and she can feel her shirt and trousers getting damp against her underwear. She thinks maybe moving about might generate a little heat so she pulls her rucksack up onto her back and marches up and down. Then she and the girl decide to head back and they’re halfway down the steep bank when the girl grabs Yuki’s arm and says she has an idea and knows exactly where they should go.
They drive out along the same track they came in on, but when they reach the road the girl pulls them round to the left and they race along it for a couple of minutes, then turn onto a wider road and follow that for a while. Yuki’s hair cracks and flaps in the wind. She thinks, Maybe she’s trying to dry me out by taking me up and down the roads of Northern England. She spots the garage up ahead before the girl starts slowing down for it – nothing more than a forecourt with a couple of cars filling up. But as they near it she sees the cafe beyond it – a bright block of light, a little like an American diner, but wider, with a luminous sign around the edge of the roof. All that light looks pretty warm and inviting. They park the bike and climb the steps, but instead of turning left towards the cafe the girl leads Yuki down a corridor and into the women’s bathroom where she rests a hand on top of an old-fashioned hand-drier, about the same size as a small refrigerator, as if she’s modelling it at a hand-drier fair. Waves Yuki over, then hits the big silver disc on the front and the thing starts chugging and whirring away.
It takes a while to reach its full capacity but once it’s going it’s like standing next to a DC-10. Yuki dips her hand under, to check the temperature. Then bows and slowly moves in towards the jet of hot air, as if inserting her head into a lion’s mouth. It feels pretty good. She drops her head a little, to avoid actually setting her hair on fire, and has just about found the optimum distance when the motor cuts out.
But before she looks up the girl hits the big silver button and the motor starts clanking and whirring away again.
It seems like they could be here for quite a while so Yuki slips off her rucksack and squats down on it so that her blouse billows in and out as the jet of hot air flies down her back. The girl leans against the drier and gives it a clank every time it cuts out, while Yukiko moves on from drying her hair to drying different parts of her clothing. At some point, a woman in a suit comes in – looks over at them, but just kind of ignores them. As if she sees this kind of thing all the time. Fixes herself up in the mirror, then strolls back out.
After five minutes Yukiko’s feeling pretty dry and a whole lot warmer. She has a look in the mirror and finds her hair has gone super-static. She tries patting it down, but it just drifts back up, like she’s got a hold of a Van der Graaff generator. So in the end she gives up and the two of them head for the door.
They walk on down to the cafe and take a seat next to the window. All the tables and chairs are fixed to the floor and made from the same moulded red plastic. At the end of the day, Yuki thinks, they probably just clear away all the dishes and hose the whole place down.
Yukiko does her best to tell the girl that she’ll pay for the food, and that she should order whatever she wants. The menu actually has tiny photographs of what each meal looks like, which immediately bumps the place up in Yuki’s estimation. She orders a tea and a slice of apple tart, and the girl orders a tea and cake.
They’re sitting and staring out at the heavy sky when the girl says, You’re Japanese, aren’t you? Yuki nods and the girl tells her how they get a lot of Japanese visitors because of the Brontës. Yuki wants to say, I’m not like all the loonies. How hers is more of an investigative/spiritual visit, to do with her dead mother, but thinks there’s every chance the girl’s already worked that out for herself. So she just looks back out at the sky and remembers what it felt like to go right under the freezing water. To have the water seal itself over her head and to be momentarily lost down there.