Number9Dream (48 page)

‘Who?’

‘She said it was a personal call.’ Sachiko leans through to the kitchen wall phone, presses a button and hands me the receiver.

‘Hello?’

The caller does not respond.

Fear makes my voice sharp. ‘I don’t owe you anything now!’

‘Is two a. m. good morning or good night, Eiji? I’m not very sure.’ A middle-aged woman, not Mama-san. She is as nervous as I am, I think.

‘Look, would you just tell me who you are?’

‘Me, Eiji, your mother.’

I lean against the counter.

Tomomi is studying me through the crack in the hatch. I close it.

‘This is, uh, a surprise.’

‘Did you get my letters? My brother said he forwarded them on to you. He said you’re living in Tokyo now.’

‘Yeah.’

Yeah, I got your letters. But therapy that closes wounds in you just opens wounds in me.

‘So . . .’ we both begin.

‘You first,’ she says.

‘No, you first.’

She takes a deep breath. ‘A man has asked me to marry him.’

What do I care? ‘Oh.’ Tomomi inches open the doors. I bang them shut savagely. Hope I broke the bitch’s nose. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Yes. The hotelier in Nagano I told you about in my last letter.’

A hotelier, huh? Nice catch. Especially with your history.

Why are you telling me this now?

You never bothered telling us about your life before.

You never cared what we thought. Not remotely.

You want me to be happy for you? To say ‘Sure, Mum, great news!’?

I very nearly put us both out of our misery and hang up.

‘Where are you calling from?’ I end up saying.

‘I’m back at the clinic in Miyazaki. The . . . drink, you know. I was poorly for a very long time. That’s why . . . But now, he – the hotelier, his name is Ota by the way – he says after we marry my problems are his problems too, and so . . . I want to get better. So I came back here.’

‘I see. Good. Good luck.’

‘Mrs Ota.’ Ordinary, married, respectable. RESET. A new patron, a new set of bank cards, a new wardrobe. Nice. But answer my question: Why are you telling me this now?

I see.

Mr Ota doesn’t know about us. You never told him. You want to make sure I’ll agree keep your nasty little secrets to myself. Am I right?

‘He’d love to meet you, Eiji.’

How nice of Mr Ota. Why would I want to meet this owner of fat hotels?

Twenty years is a little late to start playing the dutiful mother, Mother.

Fact is, you only ever make me unhappy. You are making me unhappy now.

So fine. Get over your drink problem, get married, live happily ever after and leave me alone. You neurotic, grasping, betraying witch.

The hatch opens – a pen with a white flag waves – Sachiko’s untouchable Doraemon mug appears on the shelf, emitting coffee particles. The hatch closes.

‘Eiji?’

The DJ cuts ‘I Heard It on the Grapevine’ short.

Why I say what I say now, I could never explain, not even to myself.

‘Mum, how about I, uh . . . come and see you in Miyazaki tomorrow?’

When I finish explaining, Sachiko nods. ‘Not the sort of humanitarian mission I could stand in the way of, is it? But my last order as your superior officer in the great army of Nero is this: phone my flatmate before you leave Tokyo.’

‘Did she, uh, say anything?’

‘I can tell her mood by her piano-playing. While you were calling her last week Ai played Chopin and nice stuff. Yesterday evening, I had to get ready for work to those blocky-cocky Erik Satie pieces he wrote to evict his neighbours.’

‘I, uh, sort of messed up, Sachiko.’

‘Ai is no Miss Twenty-four Hour Sunshine. Life is short, Miyake. Call her.’

‘I dunno . . .’

‘No. “Dunno” is not acceptable. Say: “I hear and obey, Miss Sera.”’

‘I really—’

‘Shut up and say it or you’ll never make pizza in this town again.’

‘I hear and obey, Miss Sera.’

‘Tomomi tells me you had a heavy session, man . . .’ Doi appears in the cage with a mini food blender. ‘Know what I do to subdue all those spike-vibes, man?’

I turn away. ‘Doi, this is my last night. Have mercy.’

‘No tricks, man! Just a magic anti-stress cocktail . . .’ Would he put me through this if he knew I had come within one card and a burst artery of having my organs removed this afternoon? Probably, yes. ‘First, strawberries!’ Doi empties a punnetful into the blender. He pulls a black velvet hood over the blender and liquidizes them. He removes hood and lid. ‘Then, tomatoes!’ He drops three overripe tomatoes in. ‘Red food massages away stress waves. Green aggravates. That’s why rabbits and veggies are so uptight . . . What next? Raspberry juice . . . raw tuna . . . azuki beans . . . all the major food groups.’ Doi replaces the lid, the hood, and blends. ‘And last of all, the crowning glory—’ With a flourish he produces a pink budgerigar from a handkerchief. It flaps, blinks and tweets. ‘In you go, little guy!’ He gently lowers it into the bright red liquid mush, and replaces the lid and hood. I know it is a stupid trick, so I refuse to look shocked. He lowers the blender behind the ledge between the cage and my rat-run – where he switches blenders, perhaps? – and then shakes the blender jug, cocktail-barman-style, to the Hawaiian slide guitar music on the radio.

‘Doi!’ Sachiko comes into the cage with her clipboard.

Doi jumps and puts down what he is holding guiltily.

‘I hate to inconvenience you with this annoying “work” business, but . . .’

‘Still on my break, chieftainess! Three more minutes! I’m showing Miyake my peace potion . . .’ He picks up the blender jug, still in its black hood, and liquidizes the contents for thirty seconds. Sachiko, defeated, sits down. Doi removes the hood, the lid, and drinks the soupy liquid straight back. ‘Deeelicious.’

‘Wow . . .’ Sachiko stands up, putting blender B – I knew it – on the ledge, minus velvet hood. ‘Did you make this imitation budgie? It’s so realistic. What’s it made of?’ She is genuinely impressed.

‘Ladyboss! You gave my trick away!’

‘Then don’t leave your props lying around the kitchen!’

‘Don’t call my Tutu a prop! Budgies have feelings too, diggit?’

‘Tutu doesn’t look very animated for a live budgie.’ Sachiko extracts the bird from the red gunge. Its head comes off in a shower of white powder.

‘Doi,’ I say, ‘please tell me this is a part of the trick.’

‘Doi’s eyes bulge in pure panic. ‘Oh, man . . .’

After the ambulance takes Doi to hospital for a stomach pump and rabies injections, I offer to do the scooter deliveries. Sachiko says she should because she knows the area better. Tomomi mans the phones alone. I prepare and box up three El Gringo – thick base, gorgonzola, spicy salami, tomato and basil crust – by the time Onizuka gets back. Tomomi tells him what happened to Doi – for a moment I think Onizuka may abandon his principles and smile, but the danger passes and he reverts to his miserable self. Business slackens a little. By 07.30 I have already memorized the breakfast news round-up. Trade talks, summits, visiting dignitaries. This is how to control entire populations – don’t suppress news, but make it so dumb and dull that nobody has any interest in it. The weather on Friday, 6th October will start cloudy, with a 60 per cent chance of rain by mid-afternoon, and a 90 per cent chance of rain by evening. I scour down the counters, hoping that no more orders come in during the next thirty minutes. I need to work out the cheapest way to get to Miyazaki. I peer into the inferno – six pizzas inching onwards, glowing karma-like. The radio plays a song called ‘I Feel the Earth Move under My Feet’. Radios and cats both go about their business whether anyone is there or not. Unlike guitars, which sort of stop being guitars when you close their cases. Sachiko lays an envelope on the counter of my rat-run. ‘I fiddled petty cash, but this is what Nero owes you.’

‘Sorry to leave you in the lurch.’

‘Well, the Nippon index will plummet once the news breaks, but somehow we’ll pull through. I may even don the chef’s apron myself, if head office can’t send anyone. It has been known. Call me, when you come back to Tokyo – I can’t promise to keep your job open in this branch, but I can get you in anywhere there’s a vacancy.’

‘I appreciate it.’

‘Any idea how long you’ll be away?’

‘Depends on . . . lots of things. If I can help my mother get well.’ I fold the envelope into my starved wallet.

‘Phone Ai. I don’t want to be the one to tell her that you’ve skipped town.’

‘I, uh, don’t think I’m friend of the month at the moment.’

‘Ai has no friends of the month, you idiot.
Phone
her.’

Tomomi slouches in the hatch. ‘If you can spare the energy to prepare one final pizza before your happy families reunion, the Osugi Bosugi man has ordered his weekly kamikaze.’ She slaps the order slip on the ledge and disappears. I frown at Sachiko, feeling as if my feet are sliding away. ‘Osugi and Bosugi? PanOpticon?’

‘A regular order since time began. “Kamikaze” is a pizza not on the wallchart – we should get around to putting it up, only nobody else in Tokyo could stomach it. Mozzarella crust, banana, quail eggs, scallops, octopus ink.’

‘Unchopped chillis.’

‘One of the other chefs mentioned it?’

This is a mystery to me. ‘I guess . . .’

‘It is an unforgettable creation. Speaking of which, I have to go and write Doi’s accident report.’ So she doesn’t see my face when I look at the order slip. Tomomi’s handwriting is an clear as malice.
Tsukiyama, Osugi
&
Bosugi, PanOpticon
.

First I laugh in disbelief.

Then I think: another trap.

Then I think: no trap. Apart from the fact that nobody knows I know my father’s name, since Tsuru died nobody wants to trap me. Mama-san let me go once already. This is no trap, but a card trick that Tokyo has performed. How is it done? Look at it stage by stage. I know ‘Kamikaze’ because . . . here it is. I remember. Weeks ago, that night when Cat came back from the dead, a man misdialled, called my capsule thinking I was a pizza restaurant, and ordered this same pizza. Only he never misdialled. That man was my father.

The rest is simple. My father is not Akiko Kato’s client – he is her colleague.

Akiko Kato is why I watched PanOpticon from Jupiter Café.

Jupiter Café is why I met Ai Imajo.

Ai is why I met Sachiko Sera.

Sachiko Sera is why I am standing in Nero’s, preparing a pizza for my father.

No more misdirections, jumped conclusions, lies. To my father, I was a sixty-second amusement. Then I was a zero. Now I am an embarrassment. I feel so, so . . . stupid. I dress his pizza. It looks as disgusting as it sounds. I feed it into the inferno, watch the black gunge glow orange. Why ‘stupid’? How about ‘angry’? Since I wrote to Akiko Kato my father has known how to contact me. Morino, Tsuru, everything . . . if only he had just told me to go away two months ago. I would have been disappointed, sure, but I would have obeyed. This time, I decide what happens. I don’t know what I will do when I confront him, but now that Tokyo has unearthed the man, I am going to see him. I open the hatch. No sign of Tomomi. Sachiko gnaws a Biro. ‘If I say that a wild budgie flew into the blender of its own accord, d’you think head office will believe me?’

‘Only if they want to.’

‘Lot of use you are.’

‘But I could deliver this Kamikaze for you.’

Sachiko checks her watch. ‘Your shift ends in two minutes.’

‘PanOpticon is on my way to Shinjuku.’

‘You are a biped blessing sent from heaven, Miyake.’

The door to PanOpticon revolves in perpetual motion. Palm trees sit in bronze urns. Gaudy, people-eating orchids watch me pass. Nine identical leather armchairs wait for occupiers. A one-legged man crutches across the polished floor. Rubber squeaks, metal clinks. Behind the desk is the chubby security guard who threw me out when I tried to see Akiko Kato two months ago. A smear of shaving foam is under one ear. He yawns as I approach. ‘Yeah, son?’

‘I have a pizza for Mr Tsukiyama in Osugi and Bosugi.’

‘Do you?’

I hold my box up.

‘“Never fear-O, it’s a Nero.” No explosives in there now, are there? You international terrorists always smuggle weapons into buildings using pizza boxes.’ He thinks this is very amusing indeed.

‘Put it through a scanner, if you want.’

He waves a baton thing at the elevators. ‘East elevator, ninth floor.’

The Osugi and Bosugi reception appears deserted. A console, piled with files, plants dying of sun starvation, a monitor on screensaver mode – a computer face drifts from anger to surprise to jealousy to joy to grief and back to anger. A single corridor runs to a pane of morning. A photocopier intones. Where do I go? A human head rises up from a swamp of sleep. ‘Yes?’

‘Morning. Pizza for Mr Tsukiyama.’

She drags herself to a higher plane of consciousness, clips a headphone over her ear, and presses a button on her console. She lights a cigarette while waiting. ‘Mr Tsukiyama, Momoe here. Pizza boy with breakfast. Shall I send him along or are you still projecting positions with your client?’ She suctions in her cheeks while my father replies. ‘Received and understood, Mr Tsukiyama.’ She jerks a thumb up the corridor and removes her headphone. ‘All the way, turn right at the end. Mr Tsukiyama is dead ahead. And knock first!’

The carpet is worn, the air-con is old, the walls need repainting. A door ahead opens and – bang on cue – Akiko Kato appears carrying a wire basket of shuttlecocks. Her silver sea-urchin earrings dangle. She catches me sneaking a glance at her as I catch her sneaking a glance at me. I keep walking, reminding myself that I am doing nothing illegal. I reach the end of the corridor, and nearly collide with a woman adjusting her shoe. She is my age, with sexier legs than Zizzi Hikaru. I smell perfume and wine. She regains her balance and walks the way I came. Ahead is a single door, ajar –
Daisuke Tsukiyama, Partner
. Inside, a man – my father, I guess – is on the telephone. I eavesdrop. ‘Darling, I
know
! You’re overreacting – you – just – darling –
listen to me
! Are you listening? Thank you. I
had
to spend the night here because if I give this one to the underlings they’ll fuck it up and then I’ll have to spend even more nights here sorting out the mess and my client will be fucked off too and take his account somewhere swankier, so my bonus gets slashed and then how am I supposed to pay for the fucking pony in the first fucking place? Stop – stop it, darling – yeah, I know her friends all have ponies, but all her friends’ daddies are judges with more money than fucking Switzerland . . . You think I
like
doing this overtime-slave shit? You think I
like
– what?
What
? Oh, oh, oh,
this
is what we’re really talking about it, is it? Paranoia strikes back! Ever occurred to you,
darling
 . . .
What
? You didn’t! No. Tell me you didn’t. You did. Well, this is your morning bombshell. A private investigator. You stupid little woman. Of
course
, private investigators feed you bullshit! Why? Because they want repeat business! I am too outraged’ – a filing cabinet bangs – ‘to continue this conversation. I have a company to run. And if you have cash to throw away on those games, why all the hurry to sell off the shares the old man left? Yeah, you have a nice day too.
Darling
.’ He hangs up. ‘And throw yourself off the balcony,
darling
.’