With My Little Eye (16 page)

‘Whoops! That was a close shave.’

‘You must drive more slowly.’

‘I’ll try.’

The streetlights seemed unusually glaring and the wheel of the car unusually recalcitrant, despite the power steering.

‘I’ll drop you off at your house,’ I said.

‘No, no, thank you. No need. On such a beautiful evening I can walk. Not far.’

‘Oh, I can’t let you do that. You might get… way-way-
way-laid
.’ I shook my head in exasperation as though that would somehow dislodge from my brain the word that I was
stammering
over.

‘In any case I wish to pick up that article by Professor Matsumoto on Nagahide Choshu. You remember? You want me to translate it tomorrow.’ She would rarely write out a translation for me, but instead, having gone through the text the previous evening, she would deliver it impromptu –
frowning
from time to time as she hesitated over something difficult and then looking up at me, relieved or even delighted, when she was able to produce its exact English equivalent. ‘I must look over before I come to you. Professor Matsumoto is not so easy a writer. Good, interesting, but not easy.’

When we reached the house, I told her that, if she would like to wait in the car, I’d go and fetch the book. But she at once opened her door and began to get out. As she did so, I again noticed how, unlike most Japanese women of that period, she had remarkably long and well-shaped legs. ‘I will come with you. I do not wish to make trouble.’

My attraction to her was like a sudden thirst, demanding at once to be slaked. I had a crazy desire to put my arms around her as she preceded me into the house and then to pull her round and hold her to me. I opened the door to the sitting room and switched on the light. Bruin, who had been asleep on an armchair, jumped off it, tail wagging, to greet us. I was acutely aware of a strong canine smell. He jumped up at Miss Morita, making her recoil with a little squeal. I felt a
momentary
shame that, always so tidy and clean when Joy was working for us, the room was now such a mess. The long, low lacquered table, between two sofas piled with newspapers and books, even had on it a mug with dregs of coffee in it and a plate encrusted with granules of dried scrambled egg.

I gave a mock Japanese bow and indicated, by mistake, the armchair so recently vacated by Bruin. She squinted at it,
covered
as it was with hairs, and then crossed to another one. ‘I’ll fetch you the article. It’s not here, I think.’ I turned over a pile of newspapers and periodicals on the sofa, causing some of them to glide to the floor. ‘No. Not here. No.’

Miss Morita had jumped up and begun to pick up what I had dislodged. As she straightened she cried out in horror, ‘No,
no
!’ As though he had caught an infection of his master’s lust, Bruin had embraced one of those long, shapely legs between his two short front ones and, tongue a crimson streamer, was
jerking
up and down. She thrust him away and gave an
embarrassed
giggle. ‘He is a bad Puppy-chan to do such thing to a lady.’

‘I’m tempted also to be bad.’

She ignored that, perhaps distracted by again having to thrust away the dog.

‘If you don’t mind my leaving you to Bruin’s advances, I’ll pop upstairs for that article.’

‘No, no, I will go. I do not wish to make you trouble.’

‘No trouble. None at all.’ But the stairs winding up to my tower study seemed surprisingly troublesome as I negotiated them first up and then, even more difficult, down.

I handed the journal to her. She had already jumped to her feet on my re-entry.

‘Now – how about a drink?’

She shook her head, with that giggle that previously had always caused me a vague exasperation but that now struck me as, yes, attractive, even sexy. ‘No, no – no drink. We have had too much drink already.’

‘Oh, come one! I’m going to have one.’

Even more decisively she again shook her head. ‘Maybe coffee.’

‘Oh, all right. If you insist. But I’m going to have another G and T.’

‘G and T?’

‘Gin and tonic.’

‘Please. No. Not good idea.’

But I was already pouring the gin into a tumbler.

‘Too much!’ she cried out in alarm. Then she moved towards
the door: ‘I will make coffee. I will make two coffee. One for me, one for you.’

On an uncontrollable impulse, I went up behind her, put my arms around her, and held her close to me. Briefly she struggled, with a whimpering sound that, unnervingly, reminded me of Mark when he was angry or afraid. Then she swivelled round and returned my embrace, gripping my shoulders with a
passion
and strength that astonished me. I kissed her and she accepted that. But when, with my tongue, I tried to force open her mouth, she made a barrier of her lips. From behind that barrier emerged an odd ‘Mm-mm-mm’.

I toppled her on to the sofa and put a hand over one of her breasts. She squirmed, kicking out with those legs that were for me her major attraction, but allowed the hand to remain where it was. Her head was now resting against the back of the sofa; her eyes were firmly shut. She might have been about to endure some unpleasant procedure in a dentist’s chair, without an anaesthetic.

Again I pushed my tongue through the barrier of those unwelcoming lips. Again that strange ‘Mm-mm-mm’ emerged. My other hand tweaked at her skirt and then went under it. Simultaneously she opened her eyes wide in terror and
floundered
out of any contact with me.

‘Oh, come on!’

For a while she stared ahead, expressionless, but frowning as though she were working out some difficult sum. Then, having reached a decision, she went down on her knees in front of me and with delicate slowness began to undo the buttons of my fly. I put my hand on the back of her neck as I felt her fingers at the base of my penis and her lips closing over it.

‘Ah!’ The sound erupted from me. But a little later, in
bewilderment
and consternation, I muttered, ‘Sorry. This just isn’t working. I don’t know why.’ Louder I repeated, ‘This just isn’t working. It must be all that drink.’

Abruptly she abandoned my flaccid cock and once again put her head back on the sofa, eyes tightly closed. She raised her hands slowly to cover her face. There was a little gasp-like sob, then another. I tried to put a comforting arm around her but she at once shifted sideways, hands still over face.

‘I’m sorry. This has never happened before.’ That was not
strictly accurate. To be truthful, I should have said, ‘This has rarely happened before.’

She got to her feet. Except for damp cheeks, there was
absolutely
no indication of the previous outburst of emotion.

‘I will go now.’ She stooped and patted Bruin, who, head cocked, was looking up at her, no doubt in the hope of a walk even at this late hour. ‘Goodbye, Puppy-chan.’ She sniffed, pulled a handkerchief out of a sleeve of her dress, and put it to her nose. She turned to me and made that little movement, half bow and half curtsey, that has long since become one of the chief things that I associate with her. ‘See you again,’ she said. Then she exclaimed, ‘I am forgetting! The article!’ She hurried over to the low table between the two sofas and picked it up from where I had left it. ‘When I get home, I will read. Don’t worry. I will prepare it for tomorrow. No problem.’

I hurried after her to the front door. ‘Let me drive you home.’

She shook her head violently. ‘No! You are tired. You are also’ – she gave her little giggle behind the copy of the article now raised to cover her mouth – ‘maybe drunk, I think. You must be more careful. Not good.’

I watched her as she walked, head erect and high heels
clicking
decisively, to the gate in the high wall. She pulled it towards her and then walked out into the night.

I drank half a tumbler of neat gin, in a rapid sequence of gulps, and stumbled up to the bedroom, fell on to the bed, and almost at once was asleep. Two or three hours later I awoke. The light was on, Bruin was snoring beside me, there was a hammering in my head, and my mouth felt as though it were full of
cinders
. I staggered up and over to the window, its curtains left undrawn, and stared out into the empty street. I fumbled for the packet of Camels and the cigarette lighter in the usual drawer, lit one and drew heavily on it. My stomach lurched and, after another deep inhalation, I stubbed the cigarette out in the saucer of a half-empty cup of coffee that had remained on the dressing table for days. Clutching the banister, I went down the stairs and out into the garden. Bruin must have been behind me, but I became aware of him only when he settled himself, with a grunt, at my feet by the wicker chair.

I was in a turmoil of guilt and dread. What an idiot I had been! I needed Miss Morita for my work. That was why I had constantly defended her presence when Laura had attacked it: ‘Don’t you understand? I need her, I
need
her. Without her I can’t manage.’ But at the same time, after what had occurred, I could not face her, even if she came to the decision that she could face me. The night was cool but certainly not cold. Nonetheless I began to shiver uncontrollably. Bruin had by then wandered off. I could hear a rustle of undergrowth and then a snuffling sound. All at once I realised that a light in an upstairs bedroom of Mrs Kawasaki’s house and another in the downstairs sitting room were still on. No doubt, anxious about his mother, Dr Kawasaki also could not sleep.

As dawn began to break and the garden was full of the
chirping
of birds, I got up from the chair. Not merely my hands and feet but also, oddly, my face were feeling cold and numb. Hugging myself, I stared into the pond. Far down in its murky depths I glimpsed a flash of gold. So I had been wrong when I had thought that all the carp had died! Once more I staggered into the house, leaving the French windows wide open for any opportunistic burglar, dragged myself up the stairs and fell once more across the bed.

At half-past seven, having been unable even to think of
breakfast
, I was up in my study. I picked up an American
coffee-table
book, lavishly illustrated, about
ukiyo-e
. Laura had seen it in a Kobe bookshop and, with her usual generosity, had at once bought it for me. I turned the pages slowly, looking at the prints. My hand trembled as I did so. I took little in.

Life in Japan began early. Only a few minutes after eight I heard a key turning in the front door and Bruin then yapping excitedly. ‘Puppy-chan! Good morning Puppy-chan!’ Now she was coming up the stairs. My head and heart both seemed to throb in time to that measured tread.

She came into the room. ‘Good morning. It is not so hot today.’ It was always ‘It is not so hot today’ or ‘Today it is even more hot.’ She was, as usual, wearing her white cotton gloves. Slowly and delicately she drew off one and then the other. She reached for the envelope containing the copy of the article, from the chair on which she had set it down with her handbag.
She pulled out the stapled sheets. ‘This style is very difficult. But I think that I have it correct.’ She sat down on the upright chair on the opposite side of my desk. ‘Do I start?’

Mutely I nodded. Then, ‘Please.’

I am on one of my regular visits to the warfarin clinic. Laura wanted me to have my regular check-ups privately but Dr Szymanovski told me that, no, it would be just as efficient and far quicker to have them on the NHS. Usually the punctuality at the clinic is astonishing. The time indicated in my ‘Anticoagulant Therapy Record’ is always precise – 9.05 or 10.44 or 11.22 – and there is rarely a delay. In charge there is an attractive black woman, slim, swift and coolly decisive, who remembers the name of anyone who has been coming for any time. ‘You’re so efficient, you ought to run this whole hospital,’ I once told her. She looked surprised, perhaps even displeased. Did she think that I was being ironic?

Today, for once, the clinic is running late. One of the two doctors in charge of the surgery, with his thick glasses and halo of white, disordered hair is new to me. He might, I suspect, be a locum. I’m sitting outside his door, which curiously, unlike his predecessor, he leaves open to reception, and so I can see and hear everything. He has none of the jolly briskness of the other doctors that I have encountered. The sad truth is that he is too considerate and kind to be efficient at his job. I can hear patients carrying on rambling conversations with him, relating the whole history of their strokes and heart-attacks or
complaining
of what they are convinced are side effects of warfarin. Just now an elderly woman is telling him of ‘this awful itching, well, er,
behind
– it’s driving me crazy’ and asking if ‘this
medicine
’ is to blame. Head tilted sideways and towards her – might he be deaf? – he makes no effort to interrupt her.

It entertains me to listen to things of this kind, however bizarre and time-consuming, but the elderly, ascetic-looking man seated next to me, an elegant Malacca cane between his knees and his long hands resting, one over the other, on its silver handle, is fuming. ‘Oh, get on, get on!’ he mutters, as the woman now leans forward to confide, ‘Of course it might have nothing to do with the warfarin. It might be caused by the
Normacol that Dr Burt – my GP – has advised me to take. Do you think that might be it?’

My elderly neighbour now turns to me. In what in my youth would have been called an ‘Oxford’ accent, he says, ‘I always regard this place as an anteroom to hell.’

I merely smile and nod. I think about that. An anteroom to hell? I look around at all the elderly and ancient people, many in wheelchairs, with zimmers or with sticks, waiting their turn. No, not an anteroom to hell, at least I hope not. But certainly an anteroom to death.