The winter of 1868 found my great-grandfather realigned to the Fifth Cavalry but living a quieter life than he had in recent years; incredibly, despite all he had achieved so far, he was still only twenty-two years old at the time. He had mended his marriage somewhat and Louisa and he were reconciled and living in comfort in a small house with their baby daughter, not far from the fort where the soldiers were stationed. He had brokered an unusual deal with the military command whereby he would be called upon for certain potentially dangerous scouting missions into Indian territory but he was not committed to serving as part of the regular infantry. He enjoyed his life this way and his burgeoning celebrity was not something the army could easily set aside. The name ‘Buffalo Bill’ was beginning to spread through the neighbouring states and his adventures and bravery were things with which they wanted to be aligned. The Indians in some parts of the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado were continuing to put up strong fights in order to retain their land; there was widespread feeling for the first time that some tribes might be successful, an outcome which would have been disastrous to Andrew Johnson’s administration. To combat this, the president had placed all his faith in one general – George Armstrong Custer – to drive them out into the newly established reservations. To this end he was given responsibility for bringing the armies in from the west, destroying whatever encampments they found along the way, and doing whatever had to be done to ensure success as they began that winter’s push.
George Custer was born in Ohio and had joined the army at a young age, finishing last in his class at West Point. Once graduated, however, he proved himself to be not only the bravest man in the army but also a brilliant tactician; what he had lacked in the classrooms of the military academy was more than made up for by his behaviour on the field of combat. Abraham Lincoln appointed him the army’s youngest general and he became legendary almost immediately, as much for his striking appearance – long golden locks, brightly coloured uniforms which he designed himself – as for his actions. He drew men to him, men who wanted to share in his deeds and reflect some of his glories on to themselves. Over the course of five years he served under three different presidents, Lincoln, Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, and considered himself superior in courage and leadership abilities to all but the first.
Although they had never met, President Johnson had taken a liking to Bill through the newspaper reports of his exploits. Ever since the great buffalo chase, during which my great-grandfather had earned his nickname, he had been involved in ever more exciting spectacles, usually designed to show off his skills as an entertainer, if not as a soldier. Eliza McCardle Johnson, the president’s wife, had seen Bill perform at Saltoun, where he captured eighty buffalo in one day while riding bareback on a horse he had never seen until that morning. The first lady had been impressed as much by his handsome, youthful looks as by his bravery and had flirted openly with him at a dinner afterwards, causing some distress among the other people seated at their table. Afterwards, the head of the largest buffalo had been mounted and sent to her in Washington and it was said that she kept it on the wall of her dressing room, scandalous in itself. Reporting back to her husband on Bill’s success, the president made it clear that he wanted to keep Buffalo Bill, as he was now regularly being called in the newspapers, as an ally and had granted him his desire to be aligned to the cavalry without actually being a part of it.
The relationship between the general and the showman was an ambivalent one from the start. Bill had long been an admirer of Custer’s; indeed when he had first left the Golden Rule Hotel in St Louis with David Yountam and Seth Reid, part of the allure had been to attach his fortunes to that of the great warrior whose name at the time was only beginning to be spoken of with reverence. They were of similar age, and their careers had been equally precocious, but where Custer had made his name in the army, Bill had made his for the most part in civilian life, caring less for a uniform and a rank than he did for adventure and challenge. The general’s name had become well known across the nation for his youth and successes had also proved something of a good public relations tool for the Andrew Johnson administration, which had succeeded to power upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. However, when they met they found that they were simply not suited to each other and found that while they rarely argued outright, there was a tension between them that neither seemed able to define or solve. Custer was known to distrust Bill, for he observed in him a lack of commitment to the union ideals – an observation which was correct – and felt that my great-grandfather was only interested in his own glory and growing fame. Of course, Bill had a similar feeling towards the general, believing that a display of precocity in such an organised field as the cavalry shouted itself out as something more than simple idealism.
However they were thrown together in Kansas in 1869 while the next move against the Cheyenne people was being planned and they had no choice but to make the most of it. They often went out on scouting expeditions together and were perfectly cordial to each other, even taking part in a mini-tournament together where Bill easily won the rounds devoted to the capture and killing of animals, but lost badly to the general when precision shooting was the goal. There was a sense at the fort that it was only a matter of time before the two men came to blows, but they were as aware of that as anyone, and knew that such an eventuality could only prove harmful to each, and so worked to maintain their steady, troubled relationship. It was during that winter however that one of their most fraught moments occurred, in front of no less a personage than the new president of the United States.
Ulysses S. Grant had begun his administration earlier that year, having easily beaten the one-term Johnson, and as a military man, he was friendly and admiring of Custer, but there were scarcely two people more different from each other. Grant had worked his way up through the ranks slowly, from private to commander-in-chief. He was also more cautious regarding plans to move the Indians off their land and into reservations, attempting to broker peaceful deals wherever possible, while Custer was more in favour of gathering huge ranks of cavalry men and simply chasing them away, killing as many as necessary.
Two weeks before Christmas that year, Bill and Louisa were at home one evening, Louisa making a new blanket for their daughter’s bed while Bill smoked and brooded by the fire. Their own relationship had settled down since they had returned to each other. Louisa was determined to hold on to her marriage no matter what; Bill was less eager but had little choice. They spoke little in the evenings, having little to talk about. A knock on the door was a relief to both but a surprise also, as they rarely received visitors.
‘Tom Barton,’ said Bill, looking up happily as one of the young camp runners, a boy of about sixteen, poked his head through the open doorway. What brings you out to us this evening? Looking for a drink and a smoke, I’ll bet.’
‘No sir,’ replied Tom nervously, looking towards Louisa who was narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously. As a rule she distrusted visitors, particularly those who had little other reason to be there than to deliver messages. She turned her lamp a little more in his direction to get a closer look at the lad; he was tall for his age, and handsome, but his long black hair looked as if it had not seen soap or water since the previous Christmas and she had a curious urge to drag him outside to the well and submerge him in it. ‘Evening, Mrs Cody,’ Tom added, nodding at her.
‘Good evening, Tom,’ replied Louisa, putting her work down and standing up, brushing down the front of her skirts slowly. ‘You’ll have a little dinner with us, won’t you? It must be hungry work riding along the prairies this late at night.’
‘I won’t if it’s all the same to you,’ he said. ‘I’ve had my dinner already. I’m just here to deliver a message to Mr Cody, ma’am.’
‘What have I told you time and time again?’ asked Bill with a sigh. ‘Haven’t I told you to call me Buffalo Bill? That’s what my friends call me, you know, and if you don’t want to call me by my name I’ll have no reason to think you’re a friend any more and I might have cause to shoot you then. What do you say, Tom? Are we friends?’
‘Sure we are, Mr Cody,’ said Tom, stuttering slightly in his nervousness. Although he was accustomed to being around army men who believed in their own magnificence and revelled in their myths, there was something about my great-grandfather that always worried him. ‘Buffalo Bill, I mean,’ he added quickly. Most people had started to call Bill by this name, particularly those who were younger than him, but he still had to insist on it from time to time.
‘Well that’s better,’ he said, smiling with satisfaction. ‘Now what’s this message you’re in such a hurry to hand over to me. Has the war against China been declared now?’
Tom stared at him and opened his eyes wide. ‘The war against China?’ he asked in amazement. ‘No, they haven’t announced anything of the—’
‘My husband is teasing you, Tom,’ said Louisa quietly, pouring a cup of tea for the boy and handing it to him, despite his earlier refusal. ‘Bill thinks it’s very funny to tease the young men around here, forgetting he was one of them himself once.’ She pronounced her husband’s name deliberately, omitting the ‘Buffalo’ as she always did. He did not correct her.
‘The message, Tom,’ said Bill gruffly, unwilling to continue a conversation whereby his wife might end up mocking him in front of a private. ‘What does it say? Who’s it from?’
‘From General Custer, sir,’ he answered quickly, flustered by the dialogue so far. ‘Says he wants to see you over at the fort tonight. Something important’s about to happen, I think. There’s officers running round like crazy men over there.’
‘Really?’ said Bill. ‘And what do you suppose it’s all about?’
Tom thought about it. ‘Well I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘All I know is that everything was calm and then a runner arrived from Parkworst and all hell broke loose. We must be about to begin another push.’
‘Surely not tonight,’ said Louisa with a sigh. ‘Why, that’s just madness. It could wait until the morning, couldn’t it? What’s one more day?’
‘It won’t be another push yet,’ said Bill in frustration. ‘They don’t just announce those things without any build up. No, it’s something else.’ He raised an eyebrow and sucked on his pipe thoughtfully. ‘Well,’ he said after a long pause. ‘You’ve delivered your message, Tom, and I thank you for it. You can get on back home to the fort now if you’re not staying for some food.’
Tom nodded but stood still for a moment. ‘Aren’t you coming with me, sir?’ he asked.
‘Where to?’ he asked innocently.
‘Well back to the fort. Like I said, General Custer wants to—’
‘How did you find my house, Tom?’ asked Bill, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. The boy looked confused.
‘How’s that?’
‘I asked how you found my house. You had a message to deliver, you got on your horse, you rode on over here. How did you know where to find me?’
Tom looked utterly confused now and glanced across at Louisa, hoping she might save him from this conversation, but she was back at her weave now and appeared to be paying little attention to either of them, muttering quietly to herself instead at the crazy actions of the army and her own foolishness for having ever become involved in a life as troublesome as this one. ‘Well, I just found you,’ he replied eventually. ‘I mean everyone knows where you live. It’s not a secret.’
‘And General Custer,’ asked Bill. ‘Do you think that he knows where I live?’
‘Sure he does,’ said Tom. ‘I mean he must do since he—’ He broke off suddenly, realising where this conversation was going. Bill raised a finger and wagged it in the air, grinning mischievously.
‘If the general wants to see me,’ said Bill, ‘he can do what you did. He can get on his horse and ride on over here. I’m at no one’s beck and call in the middle of the night, not even a man like George Armstrong Custer. You go back and tell him that. You tell him what I said, you hear me?’
The blood seemed to drain from Tom’s face and he opened his mouth, trying to find the words to express how little he wanted to be entrusted with such a task. ‘You don’t mean that, sir,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to say that to the general?’
‘Sure I mean it,’ said Bill. ‘I’m not a man to waste my words or my time. You get on back over there and tell him that I’m about ready to turn in for the night and if there’s anything that won’t keep till the morning then he best get on over here himself and let me know what it is. End of story. What’s the matter with you, boy? What do you think he’ll do to you?’
‘Shoot me, sir.’
Bill laughed. ‘He won’t shoot you,’ he said. ‘You’re just the messenger. Go on now. Tell him what I said. But tell him he’s welcome here at any time, night or day, if he wants to come and do us the honour of paying us a visit,’ he added graciously.
Tom nodded sadly, still fearful of the response he would get from General Custer when he delivered this message. ‘If that’s what you want, Mr Cody,’ he said.
‘Buffalo Bill,’ said Bill patiently.
‘Should he come tonight?’ asked Tom, turning to leave now, hoping that Bill might change his mind before he had to return to the fort. Bill shrugged.
‘It’s like I said,’ he answered. ‘Anytime he wants. If it’s urgent.’
It must have been deemed urgent because an hour later Bill sighed when he heard the sound of a horse galloping towards his home and he knew immediately who was its rider. Custer wasted no time on ceremony and marched straight into the house, slamming the door behind him as he entered. ‘You always ignore the orders of a ranking general, Cody?’ he shouted, standing tall with his hands on his hips, the cold air outside making steam appear to rise from the general’s head so that he appeared like a man possessed of a devil.
‘Orders, General?’ asked Bill, not standing up but looking the general directly in the eyes nevertheless. ‘Tom Barton merely told me you’d like to see me, that’s all. He never mentioned anything about orders. If I’d known it was an official command from a United States general, why, I would have put on my best suit and ridden right over there to see you. Even though I’m not actually in the army and therefore not responsible to you,’ he added quietly.
‘Don’t play at word games with me, Cody. When I ask to see someone, I expect them to come running. Enlisted man or not.’
‘Expectations can be cruel things,’ admitted Bill. ‘I once thought I was going to be able to live a nice quiet life, running my own town, making a pot of money, and having women and whisky at my beck and call. Didn’t work out that way. Speaking of which, there’s whisky over there if you want a glass.’ He nodded in the direction of a side table, where he had laid a bottle and a fresh glass a few minutes earlier in anticipation of his visitor. Custer shook his head in frustration and poured himself a glass before offering it to Bill.
‘You’re a hard man to talk to, Bill Cody,’ he said. ‘And don’t ask me to call you by that ridiculous name either,’ he added, raising a hand in the air as Bill prepared to say his nickname. ‘You can save that for the newspaper reporters and the boys who think you’re some kind of American hero.’
‘You don’t think I’m a hero then, General? I who killed sixty-nine buffalo in one day. That’s not heroic?’
‘Heroism is for the battlefield, Cody,’ he replied. ‘Not the Big Top. I don’t doubt you’re a brave man. A fool of a man, I’ve thought sometimes, but there we are. Nicknames are for schoolboys, that’s all. What is it with you egotists and your need for these things? There’s that other fellow now, Hickok, you know him?’
‘I know of him,’ replied Bill. ‘We haven’t had the pleasure of each other’s company yet.’
‘I met him ten months ago over near the Ohio border,’ said Custer, spitting a piece of chewing tobacco towards the fireplace and missing, the sticky mess landing on the floor instead. He ignored it. ‘Damn fool of a man if you ask me. He got up on a stage and started to sing songs and dance with the girls and I don’t know what else. You call that a man?’
‘I don’t call anyone a man until I have the mark of him and like I said, we haven’t—’
‘Well that damn fool, he goes around calling himself “Wild Bill”. And more of an idiotic, mother’s sop of a man I’ve never met in my life. Wild indeed! There’s nothing wild about that man but his behaviour. Still,’ he added after a thoughtful pause. ‘I suppose you’ve got the manners of a buffalo.’
‘I’ll save you the trouble of saying that I smell like one too, on account of the fact that I know I do since I spend most of my time around them. But then rather a herd of buffalo, I think, than a cavalry of stinking, teenage soldiers.’
‘I speak my mind, Bill, you know that.’
‘You do, General. And I’m sure you haven’t made this distance at this hour to insult me or talk philosophy. You must need me for something. You may as well just get on with it so there’ll be some chance of a little sleep before whatever it is needs to begin.’
Custer nodded and drank back his whisky in one shot, reaching for the bottle again almost immediately. ‘President Grant is coming to visit us,’ he said. ‘Bringing some newspaper men along for the ride, it seems. They’re looking for interviews.’ He uttered the word as if it sullied his mouth.
Bill’s eyes opened wider and he sat up, more alert now than he had been all evening. The word ‘publicity’ was beginning to sound in his ears. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘What newspaper men?’
‘It’s all a lot of nonsense, of course, but Grant needs to gain a little more popularity. This first year hasn’t gone well for him, you know that much. Seems he wants to have a little piece of my glory reflected on to himself. Nationally speaking. Make the American people see him as a man of action and valour.’
‘Your glory?’ asked Bill. ‘If it’s only your glory he’s after then what are you doing here? I can’t help him with that.’
‘Our glory then,’ admitted Custer. ‘Damn it, Bill, what do you want me to say? We’ve got our reputations, you know that. For right or wrong, we’ve established names for ourselves and what’s wrong with putting those names to some good use? The president thinks he can seem like more of a popular figure if he’s seen to associate with us more.’
‘If he’s seen to command us more, you mean. He wants to take credit for our accomplishments.’ Custer said nothing, unwilling to appear disloyal towards his commander-in-chief. Bill waited long enough to make the general feel uncomfortable before speaking again. ‘Makes sense, I suppose. When’s he coming then?’
‘Day after tomorrow. Wants us both to greet him. Wants an enthusiastic welcome, I’m told, because the reporters will be there and they’re going to be watching every word. There’s been talk that the president and I don’t get along and they’re just hoping that something amiss happens.’
‘Like you blow his head off when your shooting goes astray?’
‘Bill,’ cautioned the general. ‘Remember who you’re talking to. There’s only so much I can listen to.’
Bill laughed. ‘Well everyone knows you don’t get along,’ he said. ‘That’s supposed to be the news, is it?’
‘Whether we do or whether we don’t is neither here nor there. I’m a military man, I’m a general, and he’s my commander-in-chief. I’ll do whatever he tells me to do, no questions asked. If he wanted me to blow my own head off, I’d do it. Or yours for that matter. And if he sent someone to tell me he wanted to see me in the middle of the night, I can damn sure tell you that I’d get on my horse and go see him and not tell him to come see me if he’s all that interested. That’s what respect is all about.’
Bill took the rebuke in good cheer but said nothing for a moment. ‘And I suppose,’ he said eventually, ‘they’re going to be watching you and me too.’
‘I suppose they will.’
‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me that I’ve got to be deferential towards you the entire time. Is that it? You want to make that clear right from the start?’
Custer sat back and shook his head. ‘Look, Bill,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to have done to you to earn your contempt but do I have to point out again that I’m a general in this army?’
‘But I’m not in this army,’ Bill pointed out. ‘I’m a freelance operative. Always have been. I don’t take orders. I take assignments. And you’re wrong anyway; I’m not contemptuous of you. Not at all. I admire you if you want to know the truth.’
‘Well you make sure not to show that.’
‘We’re different people,’ he said. ‘We’re looking at the world in different ways. You seek order, advancement, a career path. Tell me you don’t want to be sitting where Ulysses Grant is sitting now one day in the future. Can you tell me that?’
‘What’s wrong with ambition? You’re ambitious. You try to make your name known as often as possible. I would have thought this was a perfect opportunity for you. What the hell is that goddam nickname for if not for that? Mixing with the president and the army’s most celebrated general for an evening with a bunch of newspapermen hanging off your every word? I would have thought that was the kind of opportunity you would have killed for. And all I’m asking you to do is show a little understanding of the order of things. That’s all I’m asking. I don’t think it’s too much to look for either.’
Bill stood up and threw a log on the fire. He stared into the flames and thought about it. Custer was right about one thing; he was ambitious and he did like to see his name in print as often as possible. And this was a good opportunity for some national publicity. ‘All right then,’ he said, turning around and stretching his arms out to indicate that he had been bested for once. ‘I’ll do just as you ask. For one night only I will be the perfect subordinate and follow your every command, hanging off your utterances as if they’re a bunch of new commandments sent down from Moses himself. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?’
Custer smiled. ‘You shouldn’t make everything between us into a battle, you know,’ he said. ‘You never know. It might be fun.’
Bill frowned. ‘Don’t let your men hear you saying that,’ he muttered.
The Regis-Roc Circus travelled the length and breadth of England from its inception in 1851 until its eventual closure just before the outbreak of the First World War. During that time many of the most famous circus entertainers of the time – David Rickton, the celebrated trapeze artist; Elijah and Eliza Hunter, the Siamese twins; Richmond Tappil, after Houdini the most famous escape artist of the era – performed their acts under its Big Top tarpaulin, and as a child Ellen Rose managed to see and be enthralled by all of them.
Her childhood was an unusual one as her father and mother, Russell and Bess, led such curious lives. She came to appreciate her father the most when he was suspended one hundred feet above the ground, balancing on a high wire or flying through the air with the ankles of one of his colleagues gripped between his fists; on the ground they had little to say to each other. Bess was her prime educator. When she was not peeling potatoes or cooking soups for the acts, she took to the task of educating her daughter with the kind of determination which had never been shown to her in her own childhood. She was determined that the girl would grow up with more possibilities in her future than she had ever been afforded. Bess had one simple ambition: that Ellen would never have to cook for or clean up after anyone but herself.
Ellen, however, was not a captive student, finding her lessons dull and pointless. Even as a very young girl, she knew there was only one thing she wanted to do with her life and that was to follow her father up the ladder and join him as part of his trapeze company.
‘By the time you’re old enough to go up there, I’ll be too old to catch you,’ he told her, shaking his head as if he wished that things were different but there was nothing he could do about it.
‘You could train me now,’ she suggested. ‘I’m seven years old.’
‘That’s too young to be flying trapezes,’ he insisted. ‘I’m not going to be held responsible for you falling and breaking your neck.’ In truth he was torn between his own love of the act and his terror that his daughter would seek to copy him.
‘Jane Shallot flew the trapezes with you in Edinburgh at Christmas,’ Ellen pointed out, her precocious memory having stored up the dates and times of many of the performances and the guest artistes that her father had worked with in different cities. ‘And she was only twelve.’
‘Jane Shallot had been working in the circus for years,’ Russell Rose replied. ‘She knew the trade. Nothing was going to happen to her. She was a legend before she hit double figures.’
‘I was born in the circus,’ insisted Ellen. ‘I’ve been watching you up there since before I can remember. I don’t even know what you did before joining the circus.’
‘Nothing,’ said Russell sadly. ‘If you want to know the truth of it. I did nothing. But at least that nothing was something in itself. You don’t want to be born, grow up, live and die in the circus, do you? There’s so much more out there. Isn’t your mother educating you to better yourself?’
Ellen thought about it and her brow furrowed deeply as it always did when she was deep in concentration. Russell couldn’t help but smile and felt an urge to reach out and trace the lines in her forehead, smooth them out, make her happy again. She opened her mouth but thought about what she wanted to say before uttering a word. When she did, her statement was clear and concise and she uttered each syllable with determination. ‘I want to do what I want to do,’ she said. ‘And I don’t think anyone should be able to stop me.’
Russell shook his head sadly. ‘Well I’m not training you and I can tell you for sure that neither Jimmy nor Elizabeth will either.’ These were his colleagues who would do whatever Russell told them when it came to his daughter. Ellen was dissatisfied with this answer and stormed off to their wagon, refusing to speak to her father for two full days. In the meantime, he recounted the conversation to his wife, Bess, who agreed with him and insisted that Ellen be allowed nowhere near a trapeze or a high wire.
‘She’s so angry though,’ said Russell, feeling like making a conciliatory gesture. ‘Isn’t there some way of cheering her up?’
‘She’ll see sense. Just let her be.’
‘I don’t like fights, Bess. You know that. I’m always afraid that something will happen to me whenever I have a fight with you or Ellen and then I’ll be dead and there’ll be no way of taking back the things that were said. I don’t like to leave a quarrel.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ his wife replied. ‘I told you she’ll snap out of it. She’s a child. Children sulk. And what’s she going to do, after all? Run away and join a circus?’
Russell smiled and shook his head. He had the impression that Bess had been waiting seven long years to use that line.
I left Japan within three days of receiving Isaac’s letter. Although we had spoken infrequently since I had left England almost two years before, the realisation that he was about to die shook me as nothing before ever had. I liked knowing he was still there and that I could most likely count on him if I needed him. I had no choice but to return to him. However, there were things to be taken care of before I could go home. I quit my job with the newspaper, an act which upset me as I had grown to love my work there. My boss, a middle-aged man named Ryu Mori who had shown no emotion towards me whatsoever in my time there, seemed close to tears when I told him that I had to go and his reaction brought me close to embarrassing myself as well. He hugged me as I prepared to leave, an act that amazed me from one so generally self-contained. I cleared my desk and packed a portfolio of my work; even in distress I was aware that I would need to find employment back in Britain and although the prospect of work on a newspaper there did not fill me with excitement, it was important to be prepared for any eventuality.
I tried to contact Hitomi but she refused to take my calls. I was sure that she was upset about my departure and didn’t want to aggravate the situation by meeting again. She had made it clear that she didn’t want to come to England with me but I didn’t know whether I had impressed upon her the fact that I had no choice but to go. For someone who believed so much in family, I was surprised that she could not see this.
My flight was scheduled for a Thursday morning and on the Wednesday afternoon I went to the school where we had first met to say my goodbyes. Walking up the small side stairs which led to her office, I had a sense of déjà vu, recalling those early days in Kyoto when I had known nothing of the place, the people or the language; the feeling of isolation returned to me and I wondered whether the time I had spent in Japan had been profitable or not. For some reason, I could remember very little of it other than the time I had spent with Hitomi. To me, she was Japan. She was what had kept me there more than anything else. I needed to tell her that.
I heard a sound from her office, the sound of a desk drawer being firmly closed, and paused to take a deep breath. It was important that I decide exactly what I wanted to say to her and yet an opening phrase would not come to my mind. Instead I took a step forward, assuming that when we laid eyes on each other, anything that needed to be said, would naturally appear. However, just as I was about to open the door to her office, its occupant emerged, almost bumping into me, and to my surprise it was not Hitomi at all, but her brother Tajima.
‘Tak,’ I said, taken aback by his presence for I had never seen him in this building before and was unprepared for a conversation with him. ‘What are you doing here?’ He stared at me for a moment, his thin lips narrowing even more so that they almost disappeared inside his mouth entirely, baring his teeth like a woken watchdog. He was carrying a sealed box, the kind one puts files or books in, and during the silence between us he placed it on a nearby desk, stepping away from it quickly as if it was an unexploded bomb.
‘Hello William,’ he said in an even tone, his perfect English enunciating every syllable as ever. ‘I thought you had gone back to England.’
Tm going tomorrow,’ I answered, straining to see behind him whether his sister was in the office or not.
‘She’s not in there, if that’s what you’re hoping for,’ he said, noticing the direction of my eyes. ‘If it’s Hitomi you want to see.’
‘Of course it’s Hitomi I want to see,’ I said aggressively. ‘What else would I be doing here? Signing up for a language course? What are you doing here anyway?’ I repeated.
He shrugged. ‘My sister had some work she needed to do from home,’ he replied after a pause during which I felt he was trying to think of an answer that would seem plausible. ‘She’s not feeling too well today.’
‘She’s sick?’
‘She’s not sick, she just needs a few days off work. Mental health days, I like to call them.’ I frowned and wondered whether he was suggesting that Hitomi had lost her mind. ‘When you have a cold or have broken your leg or something like that, you take time off work, right?’ he explained. I nodded. ‘You’re physically sick then, you see. But some days you get up and you just know you can’t go in that day. You need some time off. There’s nothing physically wrong with you, but up here …’ He indicated what I had always thought was the empty space between his ears. ‘Up here you just know you need a little time to yourself. I call that a mental health day. Everyone needs one from time to time.’
‘Mental health day,’ I repeated, nodding slowly and wondering whether he was just trying to fob me off. ‘Right. Well I did want to speak with her, Tak, so …’ He sighed and tapped the side of my arm.
‘Look, William,’ he said, ‘I have a little time to spare. Why don’t we get a drink together? Say goodbye in style?’
I glanced at my watch; it was ten past three. I had the rest of the day free. I had hoped to be spending it with his sister rather than him but at the same time, I felt I could hardly refuse. He might let me know how she was feeling, what she was planning to do. I agreed and after putting the box in his car we strolled to a side-street and a bar which was not as busy as some of the other afternoon bars and ordered a couple of Western-style beers for a change. My taste buds had become accustomed to the Japanese variety, however, and I pulled a face at first when I sipped it.
‘I was sorry to hear about your father,’ said Tak after the preliminaries were out of the way. ‘He will be all right, I hope?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, to be honest with you,’ I said. ‘He didn’t say much in his letter. Just that he hadn’t long left and wanted to make his peace with me before he died. He’s not a young man, you see. He was already quite old when I was born.’
‘You haven’t phoned him to find out what the matter is?’
I felt slightly bashful now. ‘I didn’t want to,’ I explained. ‘Whatever is wrong with him … well I didn’t want to hear it over the phone. I want to see him. To tell him that I’ll be there no matter what. I guess the fact that I’m flying halfway across the world will prove that in some way. We haven’t always been that close, you see.’
He nodded and said nothing for a short time, as if he was trying to take this piece of information in and understand it better. I stared into the white foam popping quietly at the top of my beer and ran my finger along the edge, putting it to my mouth every so often to lick it clean. Eventually he spoke again. ‘Why is that, William?’ he asked me. ‘Why are you not close? You told us that you grew up with just him as a parent.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I did.’
‘I would think that would bring a parent and child closer together, not further apart. He was rough with you, growing up? He beat you?’
‘No, no,’ I said quickly, shaking my head to dissuade him of any such notion. ‘No, nothing like that. That’s not the kind of man he is. No it’s just …’ I thought about it; I wasn’t sure myself. ‘It’s not that we have anything against each other exactly,’ I explained, as much to myself as to him. ‘There’s no specific incident that I hold against him. It’s just that we don’t seem able to communicate at all. He shows no interest in me or who I am or what I want. He doesn’t see me as a person in my own right, but as some kind of extension of some ludicrous family history.’
Tak snorted. ‘And what else are we than that?’ he asked. ‘You don’t believe in ancestry?’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘I guess it’s important, but that’s the only level we seem to communicate on. From as far back as I can remember, Isaac has told me stories about his grandfather. Adventure stories. Histories. I’m sure some of them are true, some are probably exaggerated as they’re handed down. The point is that these stories, this ancestry, is the only thing in which he seems interested. There are no other levels between us. He hasn’t any interest in who I want to be in the future, just who we all were in the past.’
‘And that’s why you left?’
‘I left because I grew up. I needed to get away. But yes, in some way I felt that if there was distance between us, if we communicated for a year or two by letter or by phone, then we would have no other choice but to talk about things that had nothing to do with this great Buffalo Bill legend. He’d ask about me. He’d want to know something about my life. I thought that would happen.’
‘And did it, William? Did it happen like that?’
I shook my head. ‘It didn’t quite work out the way I planned,’ I said quietly. Tak looked around and with a quick flick of his fingers ordered a couple more beers. I placed my hand across the top of my mine and frowned. ‘I should be getting on,’ I said. ‘I need to see Hitomi before I go.’
‘Let me ask you something,’ he interrupted, ignoring what I had said and paying for the drinks as they arrived; I accepted mine with a sigh but determined that it would be my last. ‘This great communication you were hoping would happen between you. Did you speak regularly on the phone since you came to Japan?’
I opened my mouth to defend myself but found there were no words to excuse my actions. ‘Not often,’ I admitted.
‘And letters,’ he continued. ‘You told him about your life here in letters? You wrote about Kyoto, your job with the newspaper, Hitomi. Perhaps you made fun of the evening you spent with my family and our strange customs?’
‘Tak, don’t be ridiculous,’ I said quickly, injured. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘But you wrote to him, yes? You found a new opportunity to tell him about your life here and that made things better?’
I struggled for an answer. ‘It wasn’t that easy,’ I said, wishing I had never accepted his offer of a drink. ‘You know how much pressure one comes under here. I was working, I was busy, I had Hitomi. I didn’t have time for many letters. I mean I wanted to, but …’ My words trailed off. There were no excuses. I had left home, convincing myself that my relationship with Isaac would improve if we could communicate without his storytelling pastimes getting in the way, but once gone I’d left him far behind me. Tak could see that I had realised this myself and looked a little smug as he continued with his drink, leaning over to stare at a group of office girls who had just walked in. He gave a little whistle and winked at me.
‘Hubba hubba,’ he said in a strange tone, as if he had picked up the phrase from an American TV show and had determined to use it. I was in no mood to play along.
‘Look, Tak,’ I said. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I have to see Hitomi tonight. She won’t take my calls. Where is she? Why won’t she see me?’
‘She doesn’t want to go to England,’ Tak said, and his tone shifted immediately back from the confidant of a moment ago to the protective brother, distant with his sister’s suitors. ‘She says she’ll die if she goes to England.’
‘Again with the dying,’ I said with a groan. ‘What’s with that? That’s just stupid.’
‘She’s a superstitious girl,’ he explained. ‘She must have read something when she was a child that said she would die if she went there. I don’t know. She’s always said it.’
‘Well it’s just stupid,’ I repeated angrily. ‘She could die anywhere. Any of us could. Why won’t she speak to me? I … I demand an answer!’ I added, aware how archaic and ridiculous the phrase sounded, but short of standing up and beating it out of him – something which was unlikely to take place – it was all I could think of to do.
‘Hitomi feels …’ He licked his lips and thought about it as if he wanted to be sure that he phrased this correctly. I held my breath and waited for him to continue. ‘She feels that now is a time when you should be with your father. She believes she would only be in the way.’
‘But I love her, Tak,’ I said simply, unsure how he would take such a declaration but he seemed almost moved by it for he reached across and patted my wrist twice, his gesture of support I assumed.
‘I think she loves you too, William,’ he said. ‘But sometimes people need to separate to solve other things in their lives. You need to see your father. You need to be there for him when he dies. And Hitomi needs her own space too. There are things she needs to do.’
‘Such as what?’ I asked, convinced that I knew her and her needs just as well as he did.
‘Such as her own things,’ he said. ‘You are both young,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You’re flying to London tomorrow morning. Well you’ll be there by tomorrow night, am I right?’ I nodded. ‘It’s not like you need to be parted for ever. Just trust in the right thing happening.’ I sighed. This was not the response I had hoped for. ‘Your priority,’ he continued, ‘must be to your family. First and foremost. As Hitomi’s is to hers. Believe in that, William. Trust in it. Let her go for now, and go back to London.’
I sat back and could feel the tears coming into my eyes. The future looked suddenly bleak. I had lost the girl I loved and the next few months appeared to hold nothing but loneliness, sickness and perhaps death. And London. How little I wanted to return there. There was only one thing to do in the time left to me. I signalled the waitress for more drinks. ‘And keep them coming,’ I told her.
When I arrived at Heathrow Airport, I could barely keep my eyes open with tiredness and even though I had just returned to London for the first time in two years, I briefly considered unravelling my sleeping bag in the corner of the terminal and trying for a few hours’ sleep, until I realised that I would probably be still unrolling it when a security guard would come along and move me on. Instead I decided to take a shower in the airport facilities as I wanted to be alert and ready for when I met my father again. Isaac was seventy-four years old by now and had never been a particularly avid driver; indeed, he had sold his car some years earlier so I was planning on making my own way to Clapham. Also, I wanted to surprise him, and was beginning to grow quite excited at the prospect of seeing him again.
Incredibly, almost immediately I began to feel the same sense of cultural isolation in the airport as I had when I had first arrived at Narita. Suddenly I was no longer a stranger in a foreign land, but a native, just like everyone else. I saw other young people wandering around with backpacks, suntanned legs and faces returning from abroad, pale, fully dressed bodies clutching each other nervously as they began their own trips away and I wanted to approach them and tell them about myself. I’ve been to Japan for two years, I wanted to shout. I had a job, a real job, a good job too. I fell in love in Japan, you know. And I’m only back because my father’s ill, I could be anywhere I wanted otherwise. I felt an amazing urge to share my adventures with someone, to tell them my stories, and started to laugh as I thought that’s just what Isaac would do too. Tell a story about it. Turn it into fiction.
The shower was cool and fresh and I washed the dirt and dust of the journey off my body, turning my face up to the spray and brushing the hair back out of my eyes as I tried to readjust to this new situation. Even the shower water felt different to me, the soap the airport provided was cheap and barely raised a lather, but nevertheless I stayed there for about twenty minutes before drying off and changing my clothes. I’d worn a pair of knee-length shorts and a T-shirt for the long journey, but changed into a pair of combats now and a fresh shirt. Too late, I considered shaving my face clean for I had been sporting the same level of stubble for about a year and wondered what I would look like without it but decided against it. Having washed and dressed, the last thing I wanted was to start all over. I brushed my hair and as it had grown a little long, tied it back behind my head before looking at myself in the mirror. This was the new me, I thought. Or rather the old me. The British me. Konnichiwa, William-San, I said loudly, insistently, eager to hear the phrase again and a young man a few feet away turned to look at me, wondering whether I was addressing him. I frowned and, with a quick nod, gathered my things and left.
There’s a strange sense of the familiar, even in a place one hasn’t been to in a long time, and making my way down the escalators beside the Costa Coffee and across the terminal for the walk to the tube station, I felt a strange mixture of emotions, torn between a desperate sense of horror that I was here again and a delight in being among things which I had not thought about in so long. It was only as I stared at the ticket machine, trying to remember how much I should pay for the journey, that I realised what I really wanted was to be able to share this experience with someone and wished for the hundredth time that Hitomi was there with me. I wanted to hold her hand at the wall chart for the underground system that stands beside the machine and show her the different-coloured lines and what they meant, where their destinations were. We’ll be taking the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square, I would have told her. Then the Northern Line down to Clapham. The tube doesn’t go to the junction but we can get a cab from Clapham Common. She had been my guide for so long, I wanted the opportunity to be hers. To show her that I could be in charge too.
Neither train was particularly full and I stepped out of Clapham Common Station at eight o’clock in the evening. It was late summer and the sun was going down. A small team of cricketers passed me by, laughing loudly, heading for the pub, I assumed. Across on the common I could see a group of teenagers – boys and girls – finishing up their football game and gathering their things where they had used them to make goalposts. I wondered: should this be nostalgic? Is this the London I grew up in? and wasn’t sure. I couldn’t place my emotion, didn’t know what it was expected to be, and so for want of anything better to do checked my watch and calculated the time it was in Kyoto and what my friends there would be doing now, before hailing a cab and giving him the address I had not uttered in a long time.
‘Been away, have you?’ he asked as we drove along, noticing my several bags and their airport tags. I didn’t much want to get into conversation so looked out the window as I answered, hoping he would spot my lack of interest in the rear-view mirror and leave me alone.
‘Japan,’ I said. I’ve been living there for the last year and a half.’
‘Japan, eh?’ he said with a whistle.
The house hadn’t actually changed an iota and yet somehow, it seemed smaller to my eyes, as if time had shrunk it. The paintwork was noticeably chipped, but then it always had been. The curtains on the inside seemed grimy and colourless, and yet we had always owned those curtains. They probably hadn’t been washed in years. The small front garden was relatively neat but would need attention in a week or so; Isaac had often enjoyed working in the garden but had rarely done more than keep it tidy. I used to wonder what it would look like if he wasn’t around to do it as I had no interest in gardening at all.
I have always kept a key ring in my pocket and throughout my time in Japan, along with the keys of my own apartment and those of the newspaper office in which I worked, I had always kept the front- and back-door keys of our Clapham house. I have no idea what use I thought I would have for them on the streets of Kyoto but I kept them nonetheless and liked to see they were there. I reached into my pocket for them as I stood at the door and was struck by how empty that key ring was now with just these two left on it. I didn’t like the fact that it was so light and that this house was the only place I had private access to any more. It made me feel like a child again. I frowned and brought the smaller key to the lock before changing my mind. Having not informed Isaac of my arrival, it would probably be too much of a surprise if I just opened the door and marched in. As yet, I still did not know what was wrong with him and didn’t want to shock him into sudden death. Instead, I pressed the doorbell and stepped back, waiting for more than a minute before realising that I had not heard it ring. I reached forward and pressed it again, harder this time, and could hear it sound within the house and then this was it, the point of no return. I stood tall, shook my shoulders slightly and coughed to clear my throat. My stomach churned and the bright light in the frosted glass of the door began to shade slowly as the figure of my father came towards it. He reached up and opened the door and peered outside; it was growing darker now, autumn was not far away.
When Isaac first told me the story about Buffalo Bill, General Custer and President Ulysses S. Grant, I was a little dubious. It was one of the later stories he told – I don’t think I heard it until I was about thirteen and beginning to grow weary of his tales anyway – and the convergence of three such famous men seemed a little too coincidental for my liking.
‘It’s in the records,’ Isaac insisted. ‘It’s a matter of historical fact. Look it up in any of the history books and you’ll read about it there. The coincidence isn’t that they should all be together at that point; the fact is that they were together because they were powerful and that in turn led to their legends. There’s nothing unusual about it. Nothing coincidental.’ I wasn’t sure but it was a story I liked anyway for although it was fairly uneventful, it was one that displayed a lot of the characteristics of my great-grandfather which would define his later life.
The election of General Grant to the presidency had been something of a sham. His predecessor, Andrew Johnson (who had replaced the assassinated Lincoln) had been unfairly impeached in 1867 and he was later acquitted in the senate on charges of treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanours, but impeachment had resulted in a reorganisation of the voting procedures in the southern states along anti-racist lines, splitting the Republican Party and securing the election of Grant over the New York governor Horatio Seymour due to the massive amount of vote boycotting which took place. Once the election had been secured there was widespread dismay at the manner in which the election had come about and despite the fact that he had secured a majority of votes, Grant became an unpopular figure almost immediately. Seymour continued to protest his loss and it was proving difficult for the new president to claim an effective mandate. To counter this, he sought throughout that first term to improve his standing among the American people and brought newspapermen with him wherever he travelled, the first president to be so observed and followed by the national media.
The respect afforded to General Custer and the growing popularity of Buffalo Bill presented President Grant with a perfect opportunity for a media story and he arranged to dine at the fort in order to be seen as the leader of his own invented trinity. Custer was the more nervous in advance of the meeting, fearing that something would go wrong and he would incur the wrath of the president, but my great-grandfather enjoyed the proceedings, looking forward to the glittering state occasion.
When the president and his entourage arrived on a late autumn evening in 1870 he slowed down his horse a mile from the fort so that the newspapermen who were riding at some distance behind could precede him. There were eight of them in total and they went on to the fort, announcing the imminent arrival of the party, and waited to make notes about the exchange of greetings between the most important men. General Custer and his wife Libbie were at the head of the party, the general wearing an outlandish military costume of his own design. (It was one of Custer’s idiosyncrasies that he was, in his spare time, a clothing designer, like General Patton seventy years later, and only ever wore uniforms which he had made himself.) Bill and Louisa remained a few steps behind and were less anxious than the general for they had nothing to lose and could not be held at fault if anything untoward happened.
The president arrived with an entourage of fourteen and, like Custer, he was dressed in his military uniform, albeit one of a less garish design than that of his most famous general. The greetings were effusive and the newsmen took note of how warm the greeting was between each man. Custer then introduced his own wife to the president and she curtsied graciously, at which point Bill and Louisa stepped forward to be introduced. My great-grandfather had never met Ulysses S. Grant before, had never met any president for that matter, and for once felt slightly humbled as he was introduced. Grant greeted him affectionately and brought both men over towards the press pack who threw questions at them immediately.
‘Mr President,’ shouted one. ‘Are you here to advise General Custer on plans for moving the Cheyenne from their territory?’
‘I’m here for my dinner!’ roared Grant. ‘That’s all. We’ll be leaving politics off the menu.’ No one believed that for a moment.
‘General Custer!’ cried another. ‘When will the push begin?’ Custer barely looked at his inquisitor; unlike the other two men he was no fan of newspapers and declined to answer any questions. This was a time when such people were under no pressure to speak if they did not want to.
‘Mr Cody,’ came another shout. ‘What are your plans for—’
‘That’s Buffalo Bill, son!’ said the president with a laugh. ‘Don’t you fellows have any respect? Why, this is only the bravest man south of the Mason–Dixon line. He earned that title, boys! Have the decency to use it!’
Bill smiled to himself at the endorsement and raised his hands in the air. ‘I’m here to eat a meal with the president that good old General Custer invited us to.’ He looked across at the general who eyed him suspiciously.
‘Will there be buffalo on the menu tonight?’ asked one wag.
‘Yes,’ said Custer curtly.
‘General Custer has spent the last few days roaming the prairies looking for just the right buffalo to feed a president with,’ laughed Bill, grabbing the attention of all now. ‘He needed one with a hide big enough to fit the seal of this president and it took him a while to find one.’ There was a silence from all quarters as everyone waited to see how Grant would react to such a jibe, but to everyone’s relief he laughed heartily and threw his arm around Bill.
‘I’ll warrant that if you had General Custer here and Buffalo Bill out on the prairies shooting for buffalo, you’d have a good afternoon’s hunting,’ he said. ‘What do you say, men? You on for a little one-on-one?’ Bill and Custer looked at each other and said nothing. This would not have been a good idea as neither man might have recovered from defeat and, if such a match took place, one of them would be forced to. Luckily it was not to be as Grant had other things on his mind. ‘Maybe someday we’ll do that,’ he said, to the relief of them both. ‘But not anytime soon. We’ve got a lot more pressing business than horseplay for now. That’s all for now, fellas. We’ll see you inside.’
The party moved inside for the meal and throughout it my great-grandfather and the president courted each of the members of the news pack. Custer sat aloof, unable to join in, for he was a distant fellow at the best of times and could no more create his own publicity than Bill could walk away from his. He envied my great-grandfather his showman abilities. The president and Bill got on very well that night and became firm friends, something which the newspapers reported in detail afterwards. It was a bad night for General Custer, who never forgave Bill for upstaging him and would have loved the opportunity for the one-on-one hunting combat that never happened had he not been so fearful of the consequences of defeat.
From that night, their wary friendship became a deep-seated hostility and one which, at their next meeting, would flare up into their most destructive encounter.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’ I couldn’t help but smile. Instinctively, I put a hand to my face, wondering whether I had really changed that much over the previous two years.
‘Isaac,’ I said, grinning at him. ‘It’s me. William.’
‘William!’ he gasped, walking forward into the twilight now and I steadied myself for what differences I might see in him. I didn’t know what the nature of his illness was and what physical effects it might have had on him but felt prepared for the worst. However, that was unnecessary as he didn’t look much different than the last time I’d seen him. A few more grey hairs perhaps but as always he seemed in fairly good physical condition for a man of his age. ‘I didn’t recognise you. I wasn’t expecting you, you see. If I’d known, I would have … I would have …’ He struggled to complete his sentence but was clearly unsure of what he would have done had he known, so I reached forward and we hugged awkwardly instead. ‘Well come inside,’ he said, looking out at the driveway to see whether I had much luggage but there were just the two small bags and my rucksack. I’d travelled light when I’d left England in the first place and had only brought home with me those things I felt I couldn’t leave behind. ‘Do you want a hand with those?’ he asked, stepping outdoors but I waved him back inside.
‘I’ve carried them halfway across the world,’ I told him with a smile. ‘Don’t worry. I think I can manage them up the stairs.’ I brought them in but dropped them in the hallway for the time being. The air was a little musky and I wanted to open a window – I suspected he never bothered with such niceties – but felt it would be a little rude to suddenly reappear and insist on having things my way.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ he asked, looking me up and down as if I was a car he was considering buying. ‘You’ve grown taller, haven’t you?’
‘I wanted to surprise you,’ I said. ‘And I think I’ve probably hit my full height, you know. I am twenty-two years old.’
‘You’re taller than me!’
‘A little.’ I stood at just over six feet in height; Isaac stood a little under. The physical difference between us, however – the body’s strength in youth against its fragility in age – exaggerated our relative sizes. I had always felt big in Japan as the Japanese are generally physically smaller. Standing with a group in a bar one always felt larger and more muscular, and therefore somehow more masculine than others; I hadn’t expected to feel that way back home in London and hadn’t until I was standing alongside my father again. ‘You’re looking well,’ I offered, feeling we had plenty of time to get into that one and not wishing to bring it up just yet.
‘You’ll have a cup of tea,’ he said, ushering me into the living room where the remains of his dinner was on a table in front of his armchair; he’d been watching a soap opera. I recognised the actor on screen, a dark-haired boy in his mid-teens who’d started in that show a few months before I’d left London, when I’d been a regular watcher. Seeing him there brought back a flood of my own memories from that time, evenings when I’d sat in front of the TV for hours on end, following these dramas as if my whole life depended on them. The sound of the London accents jarred me for a moment; they were more pronounced than I had heard so far but as different from the Japanese tongue as anything I could imagine. I stared at the screen and realised fully that I was back home and that nothing had changed. My stomach churned again.
‘You know what?’ said Isaac, coming back into the room and switching off the television, the dark-haired boy’s face collapsing into a small dot at the centre of the screen which took a moment to disappear. (It was an old set.) ‘This calls for a drink. I should really have a fatted calf ready, shouldn’t I?’
I smiled. ‘Don’t go to too much trouble,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty tired anyway. Maybe just one drink. A nightcap. I’m still on Japanese time and need to catch up.’
‘How long are you here for? Are you on your own?’ he asked quickly, rooting for as much information as he could get in as short a time as possible.
‘For good, I guess,’ I said. ‘For the foreseeable future anyway. And yes, I’m alone.’
‘For good,’ he echoed and his face was beaming. ‘Now this’ll be just like old times. This is marvellous.’
‘I got your letter,’ I said quickly, unsure whether the moment was appropriate yet but he vanished again almost immediately before returning with a bottle of whisky and two glasses. I shook my head.
‘I’d prefer a cold beer if you’ve got one,’ I said. ‘I’m really thirsty. Or just a Coke maybe.’
‘I think I have,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’ He went back to the kitchen and I looked around the room, noting the memories of my childhood in every corner and on every wall. Everything was pretty much as I had left it. Over the fireplace was the painting of Buffalo Bill Cody which had been hung there before I was even born. The books were all the same and, I presumed, had been untouched since my departure. The carpet was old, the curtains could have done with a wash, but for the most part he kept the room quite tidy. On a whim, I turned around and glanced up at the wall and was not surprised to see the Smith & Wesson gun perched on its usual hook. I smiled and shook my head.
‘One cold beer,’ said Isaac, handing me a bottle. ‘Sit down, sit down. There’s so much to catch up on. If only I’d known you were coming,’ he said yet again.
‘I got your letter,’ I repeated. ‘That’s why I came.’
‘That was good of you,’ he said quickly. ‘So how was Japan?’
I opened my mouth to speak but it was hard to find words to describe it. If this was to be a getting-reacquainted conversation, I hardly felt like I could describe the country and its people to him in a few empty sentences. A part of me didn’t want to either as I was afraid that once I had spoken of it, he might never ask again. ‘That’s a long story,’ I said. ‘I’ll fill you in another time. It’s good to be home,’ I added, wanting to say something emotional, something that might express my feelings in some way. I was afraid of the conversation about his illness and wanted to let him know that I wasn’t just there on a mission of mercy.
‘It’s good to have you here, son,’ he said. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t keep more in contact.’
‘Oh, you were busy, I understand that. I didn’t exactly write much myself. But you’ve got it out of your system now and that’s a good thing.’
I felt a twinge of irritation suddenly; that old feeling that he didn’t have a clue who I was resurfaced. ‘Got what out of my system?’ I asked quietly.
‘The travelling. All of that. Japan. I mean I know that I couldn’t live there for ever, I don’t know about you. I wouldn’t be able to deal with the food for one thing. I like to know what I’m eating. I’ve got respect for my stomach.’
I had a sudden urge to jump up, run out of the house and head straight back to Heathrow. ‘Well I liked it there,’ I muttered. ‘We’ll see about the future.’
‘You know I saw those friends of yours in town a few weeks ago? What were their names again? Adam and Justin, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s right,’ I said, looking up hopefully. ‘Where did you see them?’
He shrugged as if he couldn’t quite remember. ‘Coming out of a pub probably. Where else. They said hello. Asked when you were coming back. I said I didn’t know.’
‘They’re here then? They’re in London?’
‘I often see them around,’ he said, reaching down for his glass. I smiled. This gave me a glimmer of hope. Things couldn’t be all that bad if they were here. I hadn’t heard much from Adam since he had left Japan for the Australian Gold Coast. We’d exchanged some e-mails but they’d slipped away. The last I’d heard he was on his way to South America, but that had been almost a year before. I’d sent a few cards to Justin, and he’d written once or twice, but again it was difficult to stay in touch when our lives had diverged so much. Still, I knew it would be good to see them again and debated whether I was alert enough to go drinking with them that very night before I decided it would be rude to disappear so soon after my reappearance, even though I really wanted to.
‘So …’ I said, already struggling for words, searching for that missing conversation I’d been denied all these years. ‘What are you … what do you do now? How are you filling your days?’
‘A-ha!’ he cried, his face breaking into a wide grin. ‘That’s news for another evening too. I’m very busy at the moment, I don’t mind telling you. I may need your help with a little project I have on the go.’
‘Sure,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders, imagining that he might want to redecorate the house perhaps. ‘Whatever I can do.’
‘There’s lots you can do, William. Lots you can do. This will be just like the old days, father and son working alongside each other.’ I was unsure which old days he was referring to; some mythical ones between us, or an idyllic one he had dreamed of perhaps, but didn’t bother to question him. I yawned suddenly, the exhaustion of the previous thirty-six hours finally hitting home and felt an overwhelming urge for bed. ‘Look at you,’ said Isaac laughing. ‘You’re exhausted. I haven’t seen you this tired since you were a little boy. Why don’t you go on up to bed and get some sleep. You’ve barely touched your beer. We can talk tomorrow.’
‘Well if you don’t mind …’ I said. ‘I could do with a rest.’
‘To bed then,’ he said, and it was like we had gone back in time about fifteen years. ‘I’ll clean up here, don’t worry. Your bed’s all made up.’
I had stood up and was walking towards the door when that phrase pulled me back. I turned around and looked at him in surprise. ‘My bed’s all made up?’ I asked. ‘How come? You didn’t know I was coming?’
He looked at me and for a moment I thought I could see his face redden slightly before he reached back down to the table to clear away the bottles. ‘Sometimes I make it up,’ he explained. ‘Just to keep the room fresh. You never know who’s going to drop by, do you? Visitors, I mean.’ I thought about it. I supposed not but nevertheless, it struck me as a little odd. ‘Go to bed, William,’ he insisted. ‘I mean it now.’
I nodded. I went to bed.
The note was brief and to the point and left me completely amazed.
‘William –,’ it began, ‘forgot to mention last night – I’ll be away for the next couple of days. Business trip. Sorry about this but you’ll have to sort yourself out until I come back. See you Tuesday.’ He hadn’t bothered to sign it. I had slept very late, not waking until well after midday, the jet-lag having caught up with me at last. I still felt quite groggy as I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs for some breakfast but Isaac’s note woke me up completely. How could he have just vanished within twenty-four hours of my reappearance? It didn’t make any sense. And as for that line about a business trip? In twenty-two years, I’d never known him to have to go on any such thing. I shook my head and went back to bed for an hour, dozing now, wondering what was going on in my father’s life these days that I was not privy to and whether I should have returned home sooner than this.
Once I’d grown used to the idea, I quite enjoyed the thought of having the house to myself for a couple of days. Although I’d lived alone in Kyoto, I’d almost never had any time to myself. When I wasn’t working, I was with Hitomi or some of the friends I’d made through the newspaper or through her. I’d led a busy life. It was rare that I had the chance to just hang out on my own, watch television, read a book, and it felt nice. I wanted to know more about Isaac, of course, especially about his illness, but it could wait a couple of days. It had waited this long already.
I phoned Adam and arranged to meet him and Justin in our local that evening and spent a long time getting ready. I was excited about seeing them again; two years was a long time to be away from my best friends and I wondered whether they would have changed much. They were the closest I had to brothers. I decided to arrive a little late in order to make an entrance; presumably they had seen a lot of each other since Adam’s return a year earlier, so I would be the guest of honour on the evening.
I scanned the pub when I arrived, looking for them. The surroundings were exactly as I had left them. The same wallpaper on the walls, the same ratty carpet. Even the music had hardly changed; I entered to the sound of Chesney Hawkes, which was blaring from a jukebox. I’d heard that song every day for about three months the previous year because Hitomi had loved it and played it relentlessly. At first, it was hard to spot my friends as the bar was quite busy but eventually I saw them seated at a side table near the fireplace, chatting to each other happily. I was immediately dismayed to see they had brought dates with them; I knew from Justin’s brief letters that they had both been involved in relationships for quite a while now but nevertheless it hadn’t occurred to me that they would bring them along that night, as it was my first time to see them again and I thought it would just be for us. It made me want to leave instantly. They hadn’t seen me yet and I slipped into the gents quickly to take a look at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t sure why exactly, but I wanted to look my best when I met them all. Our childhood days had ended, I thought. Perhaps this was the beginning of our adult relationships.
‘Evening all,’ I said quietly as I finally approached the table and all four of them looked up at me, Adam and Justin’s faces breaking into a wide grin almost immediately. They stood up and we all burst out laughing in our excitement and bear-hugged each other, saying little for the moment, just taking in the fact that we were together again happily. They made their separate introductions to me, Adam introduced Kate who he had fallen in with while travelling and they had become a couple somewhere between Athens and Morocco apparently, now she lived with him just down the road; Justin introduced Mark, who I had met briefly before leaving London a couple of years earlier anyway but who I had barely got to know before leaving for Japan. I shook hands with these two strangers, not quite knowing what to say to them, and there was an awkward silence for a moment before Kate announced that it was her round and disappeared for a few moments before returning with a tray-load of lagers.
‘It’s good to see you both,’ I said, looking from Adam to Justin with a cheesy grin on my face. ‘I can’t believe it’s been so long. Too long. I’m sorry I’m such a crap writer.’
‘I thought you were a journalist,’ said Kate quickly, looking confused.
‘I mean I’m not much of a letter writer,’ I explained. We exchanged pleasantries in the group for a little while before naturally pairing off into two groups, my two friends and I involved in one conversation, Kate and Mark involved in another. As I glanced across at them I wished that Hitomi was there to join them. I didn’t exactly feel like a gooseberry, considering I had just returned to the city, but nevertheless I couldn’t help but notice that I was the only one of us who would be going home alone that night. The three of us had grown up together but I felt it would be a very adult thing for us to be sitting in a pub talking, while our partners chatted to each other as well. Maybe someday, I reasoned.
‘After the Gold Coast, I went to Thailand,’ Adam told me as we caught up. ‘Did the whole student-traveller thing there. Then on to India, where an elephant nearly killed me. I didn’t stay there long though and moved up to Turkey and Greece, then over to North Africa before coming home. Kate and I met along the way.’
‘Cool,’ I said, the only response that sprung to mind.
‘What was Japan like?’ asked Justin, another regular question but unlike when Isaac had asked me, I tried to give some semblance of an answer.
‘The thing about it is that from the moment I got there, I felt like an outsider,’ I explained. ‘And that never changed. Even when you grow a little more proficient in the language and you can read the street signs and so on, you never stop thinking that you’re different there, probably because physically you’re different and you’re trying to communicate in a foreign tongue. Everything was like a different world. But once you grow used to it, you learn to love it. I loved it anyway.’
‘Will you go back?’ Mark asked me, rejoining the conversation, and I shrugged.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘My father’s sick. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Isaac’s sick?’ asked Adam, looking at me in surprise. ‘I didn’t know that. What’s wrong with him?’
I felt a bit embarrassed since I wasn’t quite sure how to answer him. ‘I’m not too sure, to be honest with you,’ I explained. ‘He wrote to me and told me … well he said that he wasn’t well and I should come over to see him before it was too late.’ I shrugged. ‘So here I am,’ I added.
‘Jesus, sorry, William,’ said Adam. ‘I didn’t know. I see him around a bit and he looks fine. I guess he’s pretty old though.’
‘Yeah, he said he saw you and Justin a couple of weeks back,’ I muttered.
‘Well we run into each other all the time around town. And Justin sees him in the bank almost every day, don’t you?’
I turned to look at Justin who interrupted quickly. ‘Not every day,’ he said, looking down at the table. I stared at him in surprise.
‘In the bank?’ I asked. ‘What’s he doing in there every day?’ Justin said nothing and I looked around, sure there was something going on here that I wasn’t being told. ‘Justin?’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, looking at Adam as if he wanted to tell him off for divulging a confidence. ‘He’s in sometimes, I guess. I’m not sure what for.’
‘Well what could he be in there for?’ I demanded. ‘He’s not exactly got millions in his account, has he?’
‘William, I don’t know,’ said Justin in a firm tone of voice, placing his hand decisively on the table to indicate that he wanted to move on. ‘Tell us more about your trip, okay?’
I stared at him and scratched my head. The whole thing appeared to be growing more and more bizarre. First the letter, then Isaac’s mysterious disappearance, and now these frequent trips to the bank. I wished it was Tuesday already as I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I considered continuing this conversation but it was obvious that they didn’t know much about it and if I pushed things, an awkwardness would only develop.
‘So, William,’ said Mark after the silence had grown unbearable. ‘You didn’t get married or anything over there, did you?’
I laughed and shook my head. ‘Not quite,’ I said.
‘What happened to what’s-her-name?’ asked Adam. ‘You were involved in something, weren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘Hitomi Naoyuki,’ I said in a quiet voice and for some reason my eyes went to Kate’s as I said her name. ‘Yeah, we were involved. About eighteen months altogether.’
‘What happened?’ asked Kate. ‘Is she following you back here?’
I thought about it; it wasn’t something I’d considered. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She’s got some phobia about England. Thinks she’ll die if she comes here.’ They all stared at me blankly and I shrugged as if to say don’t ask me. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, hoping to explain things a little better, ‘She’s got her family in Kyoto. And her job.’
‘Maybe it was for the best you came here then,’ said Kate in an offhand tone as another tray of drinks arrived. That hit a nerve and I shot her an irritated look.
‘Why?’ I asked. Why do you say that?’
She looked at me as if the speed of my response had surprised her. Well,’ she said. ‘I just mean that if you broke up because you had to come back and see your sick father, the relationship must have been ending anyway.’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head furiously. ‘That’s not it. That’s not it at all. We were nowhere near to breaking up. Everything was going fine. She just didn’t want to come with me, that’s all.’
‘Okay, take it easy,’ she said. ‘I was only saying. I mean do you plan on going back to Japan? Is she waiting for you?’
I didn’t know whether she was or wasn’t but felt unwilling to let Kate know that. ‘I have to play it by ear,’ I said eventually. ‘See what’s happening with Isaac and if all is well, then yes of course I want to go back.’ Although those were the words I uttered, I felt a sudden anger towards Hitomi which had not been present before. Kate was right; it had been a pretty stupid reason for us to break up and after eighteen months it was cruel of Hitomi to let me leave the country without so much as an explanation or a kiss goodbye. I clenched my fists and felt the enormity of what had happened for the first time.
‘We’re going on holiday ourselves soon,’ said Justin after a moment. ‘America. Taking a month off and travelling around some of the southern states.’
I smiled. Not another one who was going to be bringing home tales of Kansas and Missouri to haunt me with. I excused myself and went to the other side of the bar, out of sight of my friends, and asked for some change. Checking my watch I calculated quickly that it would be early morning in Kyoto and that Hitomi would be getting dressed for work. Shielding myself from the noise of the bar and the music, I fed a couple of pounds into the phone and dialled her number, waiting for the connection to be made. I let it ring until it eventually cut off but no one had answered it. What surprised me was that Hitomi’s answering machine, on which I had left countless messages in the past, did not pick up as it normally did after the fourth ring. I assumed she must have unplugged it for some reason but even this surprised me, as she was paranoid about missing messages and had never even so much as switched it off in all the time I had known her. Wondering whether I had dialled the wrong number in error, I tried again but with the same result. I stood by the phone for a moment, confused by her, by Isaac, by London; for the first time in years I felt as if I was not in control of my life and that there were things going on which I just couldn’t see. I began to feel a little paranoid myself and had to shake myself out of it, blaming it on continuing jetlag which might take a couple of days to pass.
I paid for one more round and rejoined my friends, glancing at my watch as I sat down, hoping the evening would end soon so I could go home and be alone with my thoughts. In the meantime I put up a pretence of good humour.
When Isaac eventually returned home, he surprised me almost as much as I had him. It was four days later and I had slept fitfully during that time, anxious for him, confused by the secrets which seemed to be hovering around my head. A few nights after that evening in the pub, Justin and Mark, Adam and Kate and I went out again; having got the awkward initial meeting out of the way we were more free to enjoy ourselves and drank a lot before heading to a club for some late drinks and to dance. I had tried to phone Hitomi several times since that earlier evening but with no success and she lingered on my mind, my mood shifting between longing, confusion, a desperate sense of loss and outright anger. When I stepped inside the nightclub that evening, a single friend with two couples, I resolved to put her out of my mind and moved like a tiger from girl to girl before clicking with someone whose name I never even caught. I brought her home with me that night and we had sex, nothing more, before falling asleep on separate sides of my bed, barely aware of who the other was, neither one of us particularly caring. I was making her a cup of tea the following morning, attempting dismally to make conversation, when Isaac walked in and stared at us both with a mixture of amusement and irritation.
‘Hello,’ he said, extending a hand to her in a pointless gesture; both she and I knew we would most likely never see each other again once she walked out the front door. She wanted only to leave and I made no attempt to keep her there; in my head I was feeling less than the man I knew I was. In eighteen months I had never been unfaithful to Hitomi, had never wanted to be, and now that had changed. It was meaningless and had nothing to do with her, I knew that much, but nevertheless I felt guilty. The girl left, I took a shower and came back downstairs to confront my father.
‘You might have phoned,’ I said as we had a cup of tea together. ‘I was worried. You just disappeared off. I didn’t know where you’d gone.’
‘Well at least it was only for a few days and not a couple of years,’ he said irritably. ‘Don’t speak down to me, William, do you hear me?’
‘I’m not speaking down to you,’ I protested, feeling a little chastised. ‘It’s just that I arrived here and you immediately ran off without a word.’
‘Did you not get my note?’
‘Yes, I got your note, but it was hardly an explanation, was it?’
‘I had business to take care of,’ he said and for the first time it occurred to me that he was wearing a suit and tie and his hair had been recently cut. For a dying man in his mid-seventies, he looked remarkably sprightly.
‘What business?’ I asked in frustration. ‘What are you up to anyway? Isaac, we need to talk,’ I added in a more plaintive voice. ‘You hardly said anything in your note, only to tell me that—’
‘I told you I would be away for a couple of days,’ he said, his voice raised slightly. ‘What more do you—’
‘Not that note,’ I interrupted. ‘The one you sent me in Japan. The one that brought me home in the first place.’
He frowned and looked as if he was trying to rack his brain to recall it. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, and I thought he looked a little shamefaced as he said it. ‘That’s right. I did write to you there, didn’t I?’
‘That’s why I came home,’ I continued, speaking quietly now and as I came towards my next sentence I had an urge to reach out and place my hand across his on the table. ‘You said you were sick,’ I explained. ‘That you didn’t have long to live. Tell me about it. What’s happened? What’s wrong with you?’
He licked his lips and seemed about to speak but changed his mind and stood up instead, bringing his cup across to the sink and rinsing it out, his back turned to me as he finally spoke. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘Don’t worry about you?’ I asked, amazed by his nonchalance. ‘How can I not worry about you? You’re dying. You’re my father,’ I added. ‘I want to help you. What does your doctor say?’
He turned now and looked at me, his eyes squinting as he took me in. ‘How old are you now, William? Twenty-two?’ I nodded. ‘Do you know that when your great-grandfather was twenty-two he was married, had built a town, burnt it to the ground, killed who knows how many thousands of buffaloes, hobnobbed with generals and presidents, brought a Russian—’
‘Isaac,’ I said firmly, interrupting him. ‘I know all that. What’s your point?’
‘My point is, William,’ he said, stating my name firmly, his tone implying for once that he would rather I didn’t use his given name. ‘My point, since you ask for it, is that he was not bumming around the world, doing nothing with his life.’
‘Who wasn’t?’ I asked, confused.
‘Your great-grandfather,’ he said. Who do you think?’
I looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘Now getting back to your illness—’
‘William, I’ve come up with a plan,’ he said, returning to the table and sitting down with a gleam in his eyes. ‘You want to make something of your life, don’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘I guess,’ I said non-committally. ‘But I’m doing all right. I’ve got a career of sorts started.’
‘Doing what?’ he asked, as if he had never been informed of it.
‘Well, the writing of course,’ I said. ‘Journalism. Things are going pretty well for me in Japan. I’ve made a lot of—’
‘Oh that’s not worth anything,’ he said dismissively and my eyes opened a little wider in surprise, irritated by how my life and what I did with it meant so little to him. He must have sensed that feeling because he immediately sought to disabuse me of it. ‘It’s because I care about you so much, William, that I’ve come up with this plan,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of something you can do. Something we can do together. Just hear me out, that’s all I ask.’ I sat back in my chair and folded my arms to indicate that I was prepared to listen. A sick feeling in my stomach began to form; I knew instinctively that I was not going to like what I was about to hear. ‘I’m starting a new business,’ he began.
‘A business,’ I said in a flat tone. ‘What do you mean? What kind of a business? You’re seventy-four, for God’s sake.’
‘So what if I am? That doesn’t mean I’m ready for the scrap-heap yet, you know. What do you think this country is most in need of at the moment? What do you think the people want that they just don’t have?’ I thought about it. A couple of vaguely political answers sprang to my mind but, knowing that none of them could possibly be anywhere close to where he was going on this, I held my tongue and waited for him to tell me. He held his hands in the air, the palms facing me, and pulled them away from each other slowly, as if to indicate a curtain opening at the theatre. ‘Entertainment,’ he announced with a flourish. ‘That’s what they’re missing, William. That’s what they want. Entertainment. Something to snap them out of the humdrum. Entertainment,’ he repeated for the third time.
‘Right,’ I said, trying to take this in. ‘Okay then. So your plan is …?’
‘To give it to them. What do you think is the greatest form of entertainment the world has ever produced? Think about it now. It’s an easy one.’
I gave a low whistle and decided to humour him for the moment. The greatest form of entertainment I could think of. ‘Something that can be performed in public, you mean,’ I asked innocently.
‘William.’
‘Okay, give me a minute.’ I thought about it. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted after a moment. ‘Movies? Books? Roller-coaster rides?’
‘Roller-coaster rides are very good things, William,’ he said in a dry voice. ‘Very good things indeed. But surprisingly, that’s not what I’m thinking of. Try again.’
‘I give up,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I’ll never get it. Just tell me.’
He leaned back in his seat and a glow seemed to emit from him as he did his curtain trick again. Staring me right in the eyes he said, ‘The wild west shows,’ before sitting back and looking at me triumphantly.
I blinked. ‘The wild west shows,’ I repeated. ‘What are you talking about exactly?’
He barked out a quick laugh. ‘What do you mean what am I talking about? How many times have I told you about them? What’s your great-grandfather most famous for, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Shooting buffaloes,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said irritably. ‘He’s famous for his wild west shows. You know about them, they travelled all over the world, bringing the wonders of the west to places that had never heard of them. Cowboys, Indians, shooting matches, daredevil horse riding. Look at all the people he knew there, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, why it was the greatest thing that ever hit the world! People talked about it for years.’
I could feel my face begin to pale slightly. ‘What exactly are you getting at?’ I asked him slowly.
‘I’m setting up my own wild west show,’ he said, banging his fist on the table with excitement. ‘I’ve been working on it for months now. I’m trying to get the financing in place to hire performers, organise lorries and tour dates. Of course, I’m too old to get bank loans but that’s where you come in.’
‘Me.’
‘Yes, you. You’re young, you’re enthusiastic. You know almost as much about these things as I do. With your energy and my knowledge it’ll be the greatest hit of the century. Think about it. We’ll be millionaires!’ I could barely believe what I was hearing and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Isaac was getting carried away now, though, and didn’t seem to be noticing my reaction. ‘The greatest of them all,’ he continued, ‘was the Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Remember that? That was your great-grandfather’s most famous show. Every form of western life was in there. Every warrior from around the world. Did you know they performed before Queen Victoria at her jubilee? He was the most famous man in the world then. That’s what we’ll do, William, you and me. Only ours will be so incredible it will put the Congress of Rough Riders into the shade. What do you think? It’s a great idea, isn’t it?’
I stared at him and tried to count to ten in my head before responding. I reached six. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you at all, is there?’ I said quietly. ‘Except for your obvious mental problems,’ I added.
‘What?’ asked Isaac, confused by my question.
‘I said,’ I repeated between gritted teeth, my tone becoming louder as my sentence progressed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, is there? You’re not dying at all?’
‘Dying?’ he said, laughing nervously. ‘Well whoever said I was dying?’
‘You did,’ I pointed out. ‘You wrote me a letter. I was three thousand miles away, living my life, and you wrote to me and told me you were dying. You said you wanted to see me before it was too late. I came home to be with you when it happened.’
‘Well,’ he said, a crack appearing in his voice. ‘I mean … I’m not a young man, William. I’m sure I don’t have that long left. But I never meant to give you the impression that I—’
‘You lied to me,’ I said. ‘You led me to believe that you were about to die and I packed up my things and left my home and the woman I love and came here, all so you could tell me some ludicrous story about the fucking wild west shows!’ I was shouting now and had even raised myself off the seat a little. I hovered above it in anger, gripping the armrests in order to keep my hands away from his throat.
‘That’s not it,’ he muttered, panicking now. ‘Sit down, William. That’s not what I … we can … this can be a great success. If you’d just think about it for a moment.
I didn’t wait for the end of the sentence. I left the room quietly, not even slamming the door behind me, and went straight to my room. Sitting on the edge of the bed I wrapped my arms around myself, automatically rocking back and forth; the room appeared to be spinning on me. For the life of me, I could not believe what I had just heard. Looking up, I noticed something that I had not realised since my return. All the posters and memorabilia which I had taken down when I was in my teens had returned to my room. So accustomed to them was I from my childhood and youth that I had barely registered their return since I myself had come home. I stared at them and began to laugh hysterically. ‘It’s an obsession,’ I said aloud. ‘It’s a fucking obsession!’