I met Margaret one weekend in Setagaya Park, where we ate ice-cream while sitting on a park bench and watching children play. ‘Have you noticed,’ she remarked, ‘that until a certain age, children don’t play with each other but among each other. I must admit, I don’t see the point of them.’
‘That’s a strange thing for a teacher to say.’
‘True!’ Margaret laughed. ‘Well, until they’re teenagers. Anyway, what’s plan B?’
I had to admit that I didn’t have one.
‘You could write to Ursula.’
I didn’t like that idea.
‘Okay, so you can either try to get a job in England from here or try to secure accommodation there and then look for a job once you get there. Or you can try both and see which happens first.’
I admired Margaret for her pragmatism, her ability to distil a situation down to its essential, component parts and to act accordingly; and I told her as much.
Margaret’s response to praise was to ignore it. ‘What you need is a course of action. I get all the expat English language newspapers and magazines with job offers from back home, so I’ll bring some to you next weekend.’
By the following Sunday, however, there had been a development, one that was to change everything for me and make Margaret’s offer of assistance redundant. I had been at my desk one evening, having just finished filing the photocopies of European car brochures, when my desk telephone rang. It rang so rarely that I was surprised; I looked at it thinking it might stop ringing, as though the caller would realise that they had dialled a wrong number. Eventually, I picked it up and pressed the receiver to my ear.
‘Moshi moshi.’
‘Hello. Is this Miss Atashi?’ The English voice with an American twang – or was it the other way around? – was familiar but I couldn’t quite place it.
‘Yes, this is Miss Atashi speaking.’
‘Hello! It’s Adam Johnson here. How are you? Do you remember me?’
‘Mr Johnson! Of course! How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Say, we were very disappointed that you didn’t join us at the restaurant when we were over. Sorry, that wasn’t meant to sound… you know – it’s just that we missed you there. I guess we’d have all drunk a lot less saké if you had been there! You did a great job, by the way.’ Mr Johnson paused as though unsure how to continue, and I realised that I was gripping the receiver with one hand and the telephone cord with the other as if to never let him go. ‘Oh, I hope I’m not bothering you in any way. Is this a good time for you to talk? I’m not keeping you from going home at all?’
I looked around the office. Mr Saito and Fubuki were either in a meeting or had gone home for the day, and there was no one within earshot; not that it mattered, I supposed, if I was overheard speaking English. ‘Yes. No, not at all. Please go on, Mr Johnson.’
‘Well,’ Mr Johnson cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me for being so direct. I was extremely impressed by your language skills. I mean, I have been doing business in Japan for a long time and, well, I have never met anyone who was as comfortable and as capable in both languages – er, Japanese and English – as you are.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Well, it’s the truth,’ proceeded Mr Johnson. ‘Now, we’ve had an opening come up in our bank in London, in our Japan team, and I wondered if, er, you know, you might know of anyone, you know, someone you might have studied with, for example, or a good friend, anyway, someone who would welcome a full-time employment contract in the UK –’
‘Mr Johnson.’
‘– someone who would be prepared to relocate – for excellent compensation, of course –’
‘Mr Johnson.’
‘Yes?’ Mr Johnson belatedly allowed me to interrupt him.
‘I know such a person.’
‘You do? Excellent! I’m back in Tokyo in three weeks’ time when I would like to interview – that person. If I let you know where I’m staying, perhaps you could book a meeting room at the hotel for me?’
‘Of course, Mr Johnson.’
‘Call me Adam, please, and, er, while I have you on the phone, could I ask one more favour of you? Would you happen to have Miss Mori’s telephone number?’
‘Miss Mori? Fubuki Mori?’ I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
‘Yes, that’s right, Fubuki. Would you happen to have her number? I must have left her business card at the restaurant.’
I was astounded. So Fubuki had been pulled into the dinner in my place – or was it that it had never been intended that I go? Had she been there as company for Mrs Boonstra or as eye candy for the men? Fubuki spoke no English, but maybe Mr Johnson spoke some Japanese. My mind reeled with possibilities. Well, I would let him have her number, willingly, so she could have her nights in Tokyo with her American while I, if things panned out as I started hoping they might, could face a lifetime in London with, theoretically, my choice of Englishman.
Long after Mr Johnson and I had said our goodbyes, I sat there, at my desk in a dark and empty office, holding the telephone handset in one hand and the telephone cord in the other, thinking that this telephone cord was connected to telephone wires that, just as I had one day dreamed, had come to form my lifeline, my release from servility and orthodoxy, my path to self-realisation.
I said nothing to my parents and to my friends until I had met Mr Johnson, when he had, to my surprise, conducted a proper, formal interview, and I had received a written job offer and, with the assistance of my new employer, my work visa.
The following months passed in a blur of administration and goodbyes. I resigned, as protocol dictated, first to Mr Saito, then to Mr Omochi and, last, to Mr Hanada. Mr Mizuka hovered at my elbow on my last day as I said good-bye to my colleagues; I pictured him behind me, dustpan and brush in hand, as though to sweep up after me and obliterate all trace of my passage through Yumimoto. What had I contributed to this mammoth organisation over three years, besides stacks of photocopies? Disappointingly little. The office goodbyes were perfunctory and the good wishes for my future expressed not so much insincerely as indifferently with, to my surprise, the exception of Fubuki who, I think, belatedly realised she would be losing a friend, a same-sex ally, and regretted having cooled towards me since my backfiring demonstration of initiative. Her hugs, in the privacy of the ladies’ loos, were tighter than they needed to have been.
Taka received my news in exchange for his: he had just got engaged to a young woman he’d met in his company’s secretarial pool. Michi and Keiko were delighted for me, and they promised to visit me in London. Margaret, understated as always, simply patted me on the shoulder.
My parents’ reactions to my news pleased me the most. Weekly telephone calls would be no substitute for the presence of an only child, but they put a brave face on it and did everything they could to be supportive of my going and to dispel any sentiment of guilt I might have had about leaving them. On the evening that I broke my news, my father opened some of his best sake, my mother played her English 45 rpm hit singles and I blinked back my tears.