by Unknown
‘Whatever’s the world coming to?’ said Mrs Comb. ‘Rob thy neighbour!’
Pithecanthropus grunted a question.
‘Who? A gloatload of connival rivals have the will to kill my quill!’ Goatwriter groaned tearfully. ‘Without my fountain pen, my career is over, moreover! The critics will de-re-un-in(con)struct me!’
‘Over my dead body, sir! Never you fear! We found us a thief before and we’ll find us one again! Won’t we, you?’ Pithecanthropus was so pleased to be addressed by Mrs Comb directly that he grunted happily, not wishing to point out yet that tracking in the muddy margin was easy, but tracking in a windy baking desert was a different prospect entirely
‘As usual, Mrs Comb,’ said Goatwriter, forcing himself to calm down, ‘you are quite right. Let us apply logic to the dilemma. My pen is missing. Where does one find pens? At the end of sentences. Where does one find the ends of sentences? The ends of lines. Now, how many lines does one find in a desert?’
Mrs Comb looked through the window. ‘Only one line out here, sir.’
‘Which is that, m-my dear Mrs Comb?’
‘Why, sir – the line running down the centre of the road!’
Goatwriter clapped his hoofs. ‘Battle stations, friends! To war we go!’
Mrs Comb was tiring, perspiring beneath her parasol, wondering if the next egg she laid would come out hard-boiled. Pithecanthropus sweated profusely and the road cooked holes in his soles. Goatwriter saw mirages of verbs freeze and melt. The cruel sun shot dead hot lead at high noon. Time itself relapsed and collapsed. Goatwriter dabbed his brow with his drenched handkerchief and checked that what he thought he saw was truly true. ‘Aha! Take heart, my friends! The white lines are veering off the road – my fountain pen cannot be far!’ Mrs Comb insisted they drank a prickly-pear dessert before the desert. Without the white lines to guide them, even Pithecanthropus would have lost his way in the smoulderboulders, jags and crags, rocks and blocks. Reptiles stood still, on alternate legs. Pithecanthropus felt they were being watched, but said nothing for fear of distressing Mrs Comb. ‘I say,’ said Goatwriter, at the head of the expedition. ‘We seem to be . . . here.’ The three drew level at the lip of a porcelain crater, as steep as it was wide. A black hole emerged at the centre. ‘Extraordinary,’ murmured Goatwriter. ‘A primitive culture, evolving radiotelescope technology, unbeknown to the outside world . . .’
‘You can call it a radiotellywhatsit, sir, but I know a kitchen sink when I see one. Must take a month o’ Mondays to polish it, or—’
‘Keeeeeeraaaaaaaaawk!’ An evil-eyed, sawtooth-beaked pterodactyl appeared from the near rear to spear Goatwriter clear down the crater. ‘Sir!’ squawked Mrs Comb – Goatwriter’s hoofs were unable to gain traction on the ceramic surface. ‘Sir! I’m coming! I’ll rescue you!’ Mrs Comb swooped down on an intercept course, but Goatwriter vanished into the blackness. Mrs Comb, unable to pull out of her beak dive, promptly disappeared too. Pithecanthropus watched the pterodactyl circle around for another attack. ‘Keeeraaawkeeeraaawkeeeraaaaaaaaaw!’ Pithecanthropus wasn’t afraid of dinosaurs – or anything else – but the thought of Mrs Comb facing danger alone made his cranium throb with worry. He tobaggoned down the crater. The bottomless blackness boomed.
I sit at the writing bureau with a fresh sheet of paper, and for one moment my letter is perfect. The photograph of my father is open on the bureau too. How do you write a letter a real live private detective? Dear sir, you don’t know me, but – rejected. Dear sir, I am the late Mr Morino’s personal assistant, and I am writing to ask for a replacement – rejected. Dear sir, my name is Eiji Miyake – you spied on me not so long ago for – rejected. I decide to be uncunning and brief. Sir: please send a copy of the ID file on Eiji Miyake to box 333 Tokyo Evening Mail. Thank you. If it works, it works; if it fails, nothing I could say would have persuaded him anyway. I go back down to the garden and burn the three drafts – if Buntaro or Mrs Sasaki found out, they would tell me I am insane – not to mention irresponsible – for seeking out anyone connected with Morino, and of course they are right. But surely if the man posed a threat we would know about it by now. He sifted through my capsule for Morino so he already knows my address. I put the note into an envelope, address and seal it. That was the easy part. Now I have to go out and post it.
I pull my baseball cap down low, take the key from the hook by the door and put my shoes on. I raise the latch on the main gate, and enter the real world. No brakes. No mysterious cars. Just a quiet, residential street, built down a sedate slope. All the houses are set back from the road behind high fences with automatic gates. Several have video cameras. Each building probably costs more than a whole village in Yakushima. I may rain, says the weather, but there again I may not. I wonder if Ai Imajo lives in this sort of street, with that sort of bedroom window, above that sort of privet hedge. I hear a girl laughing, and from out of an alley fly a junior high-school kid on a bike with his girl standing on the rear wheel spindles. ‘What a gross story!’ she repeats, over and over, laughing and flicking back her hair. ‘Gross!’
The slope leads to a busy main road, lined with shops. So weird, all this motion and noise. A mission in every vehicle. I feel as though I am a ghost revisiting a place where I was never particularly happy. I pass a supermarket where mangoes and papayas lie exquisitely ribboned. Kids play tag in the aisles. In the supermarket carpark the men watch TV in their cars. A woman lifts a pooched-up doggy into her bicycle basket. A pregnant girl – my age – walks along, hands on her hump. Builders clamber along girders, a blowtorch hisses magnesium. I pass a kindergarten playground – children in colour-coded hats run along paths of Brownian motion. What is it for? What also weirds me out is that I am invisible. Nobody stops and points; no traffic crashes; no birds fall out of the sky; no ‘Hey! Look! There’s that kid who witnessed thirty or more men get blown away by gangsters three or four nights ago!’ Do soldiers feel this, when they get back from a war? The utter weirdness of utter normality. The post office is full of babies bawling and pensioners staring into inner distance. I wait my turn, looking at the ‘Have you seen this person?’ posters of society’s number-one enemies, with the plastic surgery faces they are fancied to have adopted. ‘Do not attempt to apprehend these criminals. They may be armed and dangerous.’ The person behind nudges me. The assistant asks for the third or fourth time. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Uh, I’d like to post this, please.’
I pay, she gives me my stamps and change. It is true. What happened to me last Friday night is locked inside my head, and nothing shows on my face. I lick the stamps, stick them on, and balance the envelope on the lip of the box. Is this wise? I let the letter go; it falls with a papery slap. When did ‘wise’ ever come into it? Onwards, Plan G. I look up into the eye of a video camera. Outside, the air is heavier and gustier than it was, and swallows are diving low. Another video camera watches the supermarket carpark. Yet another is mounted on the bridge to meditate on passing traffic. I hurry back.
Evening ushers rain in slow motion. I am up in the attic. In the fading light the paper turned white to blue and now is nearly as grey as the ink. I watch the watercourses trickle down the windowpanes. I can almost hear the thirsty city make a frothing noise as its sponges up the rain. In Yakushima they boast about the rain. Uncle Pachinko says it rains thirty-five days per month. Here in Tokyo, when did it last rain? That summer storm, on the day of my stake-out. I was such a holy fool. Morino was a wake-up bomb. What if my father really has no interest in even meeting me? What if he is a Yakuza man too? Sometimes the watercourses follow the one before, other times they split off. Then my father owes it to me to tell me himself. His job – his way of life even – is not the point. In the street outside, the cars of ordinary husbands swish by on their way to ordinary homes. A car cuts its engine outside, and my sense of peace drains away. I peer through the triangular window: Buntaro’s tired old Honda. Here comes my saviour, leaping over the flooding drain with a newspaper held over his he
ad. His bald patch glistens in the rain.
I finish my noodles first so I broach the subject. ‘Buntaro, I need to talk about money.’ Buntaro fishes for tempura batter. ‘What money?’ Exactly. ‘Rent for next month. I dunno how to tell you this, but . . . I don’t have it. Not now the money from Ueno stopped. I know this is a hell of a lot to ask, but could you take it out of my deposit?’ Buntaro frowns – at me or the elusive tempura? I go on. ‘I am really ashamed, after everything you and Mrs Sasaki have done for me. But you should know now, so if, I dunno, if you wanted to give me my marching orders, I mean I would understand, really . . .’
‘Got you!’ Buntaro holds up the prawn between his chopsticks and delicately nibbles its head off. ‘The wife had a better idea, lad. She wants a holiday before she gets too pregnant for the airlines to let her on. You know, we got to thinking how long it’s been since we took a week off together. Guess how long? Never! Literally, never. Before I took over Shooting Star we were always too broke, and since then . . . well, a video shop can never sleep. When I work, she rests; when she works, I rest. Nine years have gone by like that. She phoned around a few hotels in Okinawa this morning – off-season, loads of cheap deals. So, our proposal is this: you look after the shop next week, and that can take care of the rent for October.’
‘All of October?’
‘The hours are piggish – ten a. m. to midnight, seven days. Added up, it comes to a pretty measly rate. But it would give you a breathing space to land another job.’
‘You would really leave me in charge of the shop?’
‘No Al Pacino look-alike has come around asking for you. Hiding here was wise, but you can come out now.’
‘No, I mean – would you trust me with your, uh, business?’
‘My wife does, so I do. And I got a glowing reference from your previous employer.’ Buntaro starts toothpicking. ‘Running the shop is a doddle – I can teach you everything in thirty minutes. And my mom will drop by every evening to pick up the cash and do the accounts. What do you say? Do I tell the wife to book our hotel in paradise?’
‘Of course. Sure. Thank you.’
‘No need to, lad. This is business. Let’s smoke a Marlboro on the step to seal a mutually beneficial package. But don’t tell the wife. I’m supposed to be quitting in time for Kodai’s grand opening.’ We go outside and get through most of a packet, listening to the frogs and the rain in the pond. The rain and smoke keep the mosquitoes away. ‘By the way,’ says Buntaro, ‘does the name Ai Imajo happen to mean anything to you?’
I scratch the back of my head and nod.
‘Friend or foe?’
‘Friend, I hope. Why?’
‘Apparently she appeared at Ueno lost property this morning to report a lost Eiji Miyake. My mother said you had left Tokyo unexpectedly for family reasons. The young lady made a “nice of him to let me know!” face, thanked my mother, and went away.’ I stay poker-faced. ‘Well’ – Buntaro gets to his feet – I’ll go and tell the wife our good news.’ I walk through with him to the entrance hall. Buntaro pretends to check for dust. ‘I must say, you keep this place neat as a palace. Neater than your luxury penthouse, anyway.’ He taps his shirt pocket. ‘Lad, I am a dolt! Clean forgot. This pictogram thing came for you today! I do beg your pardon. Pleasant dreams.’ When Buntaro has gone I take the pictogram into the living room and inspect it by the lamplight. Nagano, Mountain Paradise. Something tells me Buntaro’s memory lapse was no accident – this is from my mother, forwarded by Uncle Money. I sit down and balance it on my knee. It hardly weighs a thing, but it weighs so much. Skies grey with snow, mountainsides pink with cherry blossom, snow turquoise with sky, happy hikers, happy skiers. More intimate blame-shifting revelations. The creator of Goatwriter looks down at me from her shell-framed gloom. I cannot see her eyes but I can hear her voice. ‘I don’t think you’re being very fair. Go on. Open it now and spare us all the agony.’ Just like Mrs Sasaki, she is sympathetic and stern in equal measures. ‘Ah,’ she sighs, and the drowsy sea in the background sighs too, ‘the young.’
Pithecanthropus’s long fall was broken by a semi-mesh of wires and cables. Far above, a pinhole let in a ray of light, to which the early man’s nocturnal vision adjusted. He grunted. ‘Yes,’ replied Goatwriter, wobbling, ‘m-my fall was providentially parried by a potpourri of porous packing. Mrs Comb, Mrs Comb – can you hear me?’ The housekeeper clucked. ‘It’ll take more than that to knock my stuffing out, sir! An old bird I may be but I still have the use of my wings. But what is this cobwebby stuff everywhere? I can barely move!’
A wall of light opened up and a female voice blazed forth: ‘Welcome!’ A woman’s face appeared. ‘Welcome!’ She wore a Technicolor crown and a shoulder-padded power suit. Her blond hair sunshone, her lips glistened, but she seemed two-dimensional because she was. The wall was a screen, lighting up a chamber strewn with electrical cables. The floor was soft with skin flakes and eyelashes. ‘Welcome, o Goatwriter! I am Queen Erichnid. This is my website.’
‘I am unfamiliar,’ Goatwriter began, ‘with your m-majesty’s genealogy.’
‘My genealogy is the media! My empire is the future!’
‘Right grand, doubtless,’ said Mrs Comb, ‘but we were looking for a stolen fountain pen and we have reason to suspect it might have ended up here.’
‘Indeed.’ Queen Erichnid deigned to look at Mrs Comb. ‘I had it stolen.’
‘Grand behaviour for a queen!’ cooed Mrs Comb. ‘Sneaking and snooping and off with decent folks’ possessions! We call your like thieves where I come from!’
‘Queen Erichnid never stole it herself, ya scraggy cutlet!’ rang a rodent retort. ‘I lifted ya poxy pen from under ya noncing noses, while her majesty digitalized da birdstorm!’
Pithecanthropus grunted in amazement. ‘ScatRat!’ gasped Goatwriter as he appeared on-screen with Queen Erichnid. He leered and harpstringed his whiskers. ‘Ya can refer 2 me as “Da Artist Formerly Known as ScatRat”.’ Mrs Comb huffed and clucked. ‘But how did you get here?’
‘Being marginalized was boring! I been trucking along in ya ing rustbucket ever since ya caveman wrecked my scatpad. Dis morning, her divine majesty’ – a twenty-four-carat smile from the queen – ‘made me an offer no honest rat could refuse – I lure ya 2 her website, and she digitalizes me into da world’s #1 computer rat!’ Queen Erichnid tousled ScatRat’s ear and his tail quivered in ecstasy.
‘But why,’ – Goatwriter chewed his beard – ‘would you voluntarily renounce your solid state for the virtual?’
‘Why? Why! Da Internet is my rat-run, Goatee! I lightspeed down da cables I used 2 -up my teeth chewing! Lemme cut 2 da quick. Queen Erichnid has granted ya dis audience to make ya da same offer, Goatee.’ Queen Erichnid close-upped until her kaleidoscope eyes filled the screen. ‘Indeed, o Goatwriter. I am offering to download you to the side of the screen where the future awaits! Link up with the cyberagents, the e-bookshops! The paper book is dying!’ Her hair crackled static as her voice scaled operatic heights of passion. ‘Compose your stories in a virtual paradise! I will act as your cyberagent, and—’
‘Aye,’ pecked Mrs Comb, ‘the nub!’
‘Silence, hen! Goatwriter, digitalization will perfect you! Iron out that troublesome speech d-d-defect! Sentences at the speed of light instead of the speed of amputee m-m-marathon day!’
Goatwriter glared proudly. ‘My stammer distinguishes my true friends from the false, fawners, feigners and flatterers! I refuse!’
Queen Erichnid filed her nails. ‘How very positive of you. Then I’ll digitalize you anyway, ram-raid your virtual brain, synthesize every story you could ever make, and dump the leftover bytes along with your tedious companions Mr Id and Madame Ego.’ Queen Erichnid clasped her bosom. ‘O, the advances! The royalties! ScatRat! Bring the digitalizer on-line!’ The evil queen’s image receded to allow room for the awesome half-cannon/half-generator machine that ScatRat was lugging on-screen. ‘Prepare 4 downloading, Goatee!’
; Goatwriter struggled to move, but the web of cables held him fast. ‘Where is the creative fulfilment in passing off another’s stories as your own?’
Queen Erichnid looked puzzled. ‘“Fulfilment”! Writing is not about “fulfilment!” Writing is about adoration! Glamour! Awards! When I was a mere human I was deluded by “fulfilment”. I learned the language of writers, o yes – I said “coda” and “conceit” instead of “ending” and “idea”; I said “tour de force” instead of “the good bit”; “cult classic!” instead of “this tosh’ll never sell!” Did it bring me fulfilment? No! It brought me obscurity and overdrafts! But by capturing your brain, Goatwriter, the literary cosmos will be my cocktail bar! O ScatRat! Get ready to fire!’
‘On ya word, Queen!’
Goatwriter lowered his horns. ‘You forget one thing, Your Majesty!’
‘Is that pose supposed to threaten me, o farmyard animal?’
‘The riddle clause of the Evil Queen Law!’ Goatwriter quoted. ‘“Any disagreements arising between evil queen and captive shall be settled by a riddle posed to the latter party by the former. Unless this riddle clause is properly executed it is illegal to store the captive in a retrieval system, transmit said captive in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, without prior permission of captive and captive’s publishers.” Clear as a whistling thistle.’