When Yuki was younger, she imagined, with a distant dread, that she would marry a hard-working, suit-wearing salary man. The kind that liked baseball. But not too much, not fanatically. A kind man, with a kind face who appreciated the simple things. Sandwiches from the station kiosk, cotton multi-pack underwear, a decent shoe brush. The type of man that wouldn’t stray or develop a drinking problem. A man that could even out Yuki’s secret appetite for life, who would reign her in with measured words when she felt too much, or wanted too much. The type of man that did not set her on fire, so she might remain free.
When Yuki was in high school, she had dated a boy like this. His name was Taichi Sakamoto. They had found themselves in a shy relationship, one that was not driven by any kind of strong feelings—at least not on Yuki’s part. Taichi had a feminine face with expressive, angry eyes that felt at odds with his mild countenance. His frame was skinny, his body lithe, and Yuki liked how his skin would darken in the summer to a coppery brown. Yuki had never felt anything in the way of desire towards him, but one day after class he had asked her out to the local park, and she had said yes. The following day at school, there were whispers that they had gone on a date.
When Taichi had been younger, he and Yuki had shared similar interests at school—music, art, history. Taichi was a talented painter, but his parents’ emphasis on academia meant that he only ever saw those subjects as secondary pursuits. They were reserved for the long summer holidays, or a rare, stolen evening when his homework was complete. Taichi’s father owned a very successful sake distillery in Tokamachi that was to be his inheritance after his father retired. The Sakamotos were a big name in Niigata, and it was Taichi’s duty to one day take over the business and eventually expand it. Yuki’s mother had been pleased when Yuki started visiting his house. It was one of those houses that everyone would walk by and wonder at, appeasing their jealousy by telling themselves that rich people were morally polluted. The house had ornate steel gates, a winding entrance and an immense garden. Yuki was drawn to the grandeur of the place. The sweeping dark-tiled rooftops, the kaleidoscopic pond full of koi fish. It was a traditional Japanese home with tatami mats and sleek wooden flooring. In the garden were lush camellias set against a dry rock garden, with bamboo water features, large pruned bonsai trees and grey sandpits raked into waves like the ripples across a lake. Yuki was far more in love with the house than the boy that lived between its walls—Taichi seemed so inadequate in comparison. Too much like a shadow, his body full of apologies. He spoke in mumbles and entered rooms as if he were always intruding. When he held Yuki’s hand, his grip was loose and his eyes met the floor more often than her own.
She knew that Taichi’s fragility was more noticeable when he was with her. She knew she held a kind of power over him. She was the reason he took the long route home through the falling snow, just so he could walk in awkward silence beside her. She liked how he would buy her presents like teddy bears and boxes of donuts and pyjama sets. She didn’t like the things so much as the affirmation that she had a hold over him. Within the parameters of this love, Yuki felt safe. She could never be heartbroken by a boy like Taichi. Her indifference towards him would never grow into anything unmanageable, it would never eat her up.
When Yuki eventually broke up with him, in their last year of high school, Taichi cried. In the park where they had their first date, he kept on asking, Why? Yuki said it was because their futures weren’t compatible: she wanted to be a serious musician; he wanted to make a success of his father’s business. She told him he deserved a good, committed girlfriend who would one day become a good, committed wife. She had said that she wanted more. Even though the real, more pressing reason for wanting to break up with Taichi was the sheer boredom she felt in his presence. Yuki found him dull and a little repulsive and that was the simple truth of it.
At school the next day, Taichi told the entire year he had been the one to break up with her. She was unmotivated and lazy. A dreamer.
Yuki didn’t say anything. She didn’t really care.
*
Alex and Yuki decide to marry soon after the baby’s twenty-week scan so Yuki can stay in the country. The prospect of the wedding casts a long shadow across Yuki’s childhood home. Alex—the foreigner —is the source of many sleepless nights. Yuki’s mother blames herself. Yuki’s father retreats. They watch their daughter standing on the edge of a precipice that no one can call her down from.
They do not ask if they can come to their daughter’s wedding. It hurts, but Yuki soothes herself with the knowledge that her parents are not the kind of people to leave the farm, not even for the funerals of friends in neighbouring cities. She tells herself that they have to tend to their land. That the flights are expensive. That they need to stick to the routine that keeps them in familiar comfort.
Only at night, when she is alone in her sleeplessness, unable to lie comfortably because of the bump, does the truth straddle her, unavoidable and weighted.
Yuki sends them the photographs of the baby scans, of herself smiling and pregnant, and in exchange her mother sends food parcels. Cardboard boxes full of osembe, soba noodles, tea and dried cuttlefish. When the first parcel arrives, Yuki tears open the box, homesick for her mother’s food. She rips into the plastic, a wave of nausea slamming into her as the scent of the sweet, fleshy cuttlefish hits her nostrils. She gags as she buries the rest of the fish in the bin, bracing herself against the table edge. The waves of revulsion crashing, carrying her further away from home.
They marry at Chelsea Old Town Hall. There is a small reception at a pub on King’s Road. Only Alex’s friends are there, because Yuki has none. They talk quickly and use words Yuki doesn’t understand. Five drinks in, Jeremy, the deputy head of strings, picks Yuki up by the waist and exclaims,
Ha, you weigh nothing! You’re like a fairy! A little pregnant geisha fairy!
Later on, Carol from the school faculty spills red wine all over her beige blouse and Yuki spends the rest of her wedding reception helping to remove the stain with white wine and salt in the women’s bathroom.
Kathleen, Yuki’s new Irish mother-in-law is also there. They had met a few times before the wedding, shared afternoon pots of tea, finger biscuits and silences in the small living room of Alex’s apartment. Kathleen was kind and rotund and a terrible cook. She wore Velcro shoes that snagged on her nude-coloured tights. She believed in the existence of angels. She was emphatic about the Archers, always making sure to be back home in time for the seven o’clock recordings. Yuki liked her, and yet always felt a sense of relief when, after popping round for her weekly cup of tea, Kathleen would stand, pale calves straining with varicose veins, and announce in her weak Belfast accent that she better be going . A relief that Yuki also sensed in Alex. The way he sighed after shutting the door on his mother.
At the wedding, Kathleen cups Yuki’s face and tells Alex that he doesn’t deserve someone so beautiful. Later, she intercepts him at the pub bar, her meaty hands, the colour of white sausage, grasping his wrist. She questions her son about why he isn’t wearing his father’s cufflinks—a wedding gift she had given him, along with a set of Irish silverware that had belonged to her mother before her. Alex brushes her off, saying he forgot to put them on, that he is sorry. It is the first lie Yuki watches her husband execute seamlessly. She knows that he has buried the cuff links deep in a drawer in their bedroom.
Cheap is how he had described them.
Cheap and clunky. Like my dad.
Alex invites a few of his friends back to the flat. He is so drunk that Yuki has to prise the glass out of his hands after everyone leaves. He is like a little boy that night. Not an ugly drunk. A feeble one. She makes him drink lots of water and puts him to bed. Then she tidies a little.