Jon Grimwood - End of the World Blues

Appearances were wrong. Akasaka was a favourite haunt for senior staff from Japan’s civil service, which explained the prices in some of the kaiseki ryori restaurants.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Kate O’Mally.

And Kit knew hell really had frozen over. The Kate O’Mally he remembered would never have bothered with small talk.

“Very,” said Kit. “I knew the wife of the man who owns most of it, once…”

Kate went back to her whisky. The bar in which they both sat was panelled in dark oak, had low leather sofas and coffee tables made from fat slabs of industrial glass.

As with most Tokyo hotels, the waitstaff were female and dressed with such discretion they were almost transparent with good taste. A heavy pall of cigar smoke hung cloud-like around them, from three cigars that had been whisked away the moment their stubs hit the ashtray in front of Kate.

“Sherry and vanilla,” said Kate, sniffing her glass.

It smelled like whisky to Kit.

So now they sat, not quite opposite each other. Their bowl of rice crackers was empty and the suits in the corner had abandoned their conversation for a club in one of the alleys beyond the main road.

Every so often, Kate would lean forward and then change her mind about whatever she’d been about to say. Having slipped another Cuban cigar from a leather holder, Kate sliced it with a silver cutter and lit it using a gold Ronson. She stubbed the cigar out within three puffs and it vanished a second later.

“Just say it,” he said. “This place closes in half an hour. After that, I’m going home.”

“And where would that be?” said Kate. “I’ve seen the ruins, and your bloody pub sign. You used my daughter’s face.” She shook her head angrily. “You think she’d like that?”

Kit’s smile was cold. “You think I’d care?”

Kate turned away.

Outside the picture window a Kawasaki cruiser had stopped at the lights far below, its modified pipes echoing off the concrete canyon around it, loud enough to shake windows twenty-eight floors above. A steady stream of Kawasakis, Harleys, and chopped Hondas had been rolling past the hotel. No Neck’s idea of keeping his eye on a friend.

“I’m not a fool,” said Kate. “I always knew it was you.”

“Yeah…” Kit nodded. “So you said.” Pushing back his chair, he watched the Kawasaki jump the lights as a police cruiser pulled up behind. What had been a noise violation became something more serious.

“I’m off,” he said. “You can settle the bill.”

Kate tossed down a 50,000-yen note without bothering to check the denomination. “I’m coming too,” she said. They took the lift in silence. Kit in his new clothes, Kate with her drunk’s face, hair curled so tight it fit like a helmet. She wore too many gold rings and a Rolex better suited to a deep-sea diver. For all her wealth she seemed as ill at ease in her clothes as Kit felt in his skin.

“Finished staring?”

“Yeah,” said Kit. “I guess age nails us all in the end.” He looked Kate in the face, rather than watching her in the mirrored wall of the lift. “I used to be afraid of you,” he said. “Everyone was.”

“Not Mary.”

“Oh yes,” said Kit. “Especially Mary. Ask her.”

“I can’t fucking ask…” Whatever time had failed to do, his words completed. The jaw always held so rigid began to tremble and Kate’s eyes, usually flint-like, spilled with tears. As the lift reached the lobby Kate retreated to the safety of an inside corner.

Leaning past the lift girl, Kit punched the Floor 28 button for himself. “Forgot something,” he told a waitress, when he walked back into the bar. Kate was still staring fiercely ahead when Kit returned, while the lift attendant did her best to act as if everything was normal.

One can learn a lot about someone in the time it takes a lift to descend two dozen floors, a lot about how their life came apart. It didn’t even take that many words.

“You’ve quarrelled?”

“Mary’s dead.”

“Oh shit,” said Kit, half a dozen floors passing as he reached for his next question. “She got sick?”

“No,” said Kate. “Although that would be bad enough.”

“A car accident?”

“Killed herself,” Kate said. “Wrote a note, changed her clothes, bought a ticket, and stepped off the side of the Ostend ferry. She left this…” The woman dug into her jacket to retrieve an envelope just as the lift reached the ground.

“Police,” said Kate, nodding to a slit in the envelope’s flap. “Not me…I wasn’t going to come,” she added. “Even if I did I wasn’t going to find you. But Pat insisted.”

Patrick Robbe-Duras, Kit could remember him. A small man with a Dublin accent that had survived twenty-five years of life in London and the home counties. Mary had adored her father.

“Mr. Duras made you?”

“Said it was what she wanted. Only I don’t think Mary had any fucking idea what she…”

“We should move,” Kit said, stepping forward to stop the lift doors from closing again. “Come on.” He led Kate out of the Otis and nodded his thanks to the lift girl, who bowed, smiled, and hit a button to shut their problems out of her life. Drunks got special dispensation in Tokyo, which was just as well; there were usually enough of them.

“Ramen,” said Kit. “A bit like spaghetti. Eat the shrimp and noodles, then drink the soup. It’ll help soak up the alcohol.”

“I know what ramen are,” Kate said. “Mary took me to Waga-mama.”

They were in a tiny café under an arch in Asakusa, delivered there in a reluctant taxi. If the driver noticed the ancient Speedmaster trailing him, he probably put it down to some bozozoku having fun at his expense. The café was the only place Kit knew for sure would be open at 3 am on a weekday. Well, there were strip joints in Kabukicho, the kaiseki ryori of Akasaka, and enough hostess bars in Shinjuku to keep an army of suits happy, but Kit was looking for something more discreet.

“Is this all anyone does in Tokyo?”

Kit looked puzzled.

“Eat and drink,” said Kate. “Stay out all night partying?”

He considered mentioning the lack of living space, the fact love hotels existed because so many couples still lived with their parents, the way worlds overlapped, the conflict between public and private pleasures and the part communal drinking played in establishing hierarchies, then decided not to bother. Kate was just being difficult for the sake of it.

“Drink the pink stuff,” he said.

Surprisingly, Kate did as she was told, tipping back a glass of sugar water mixed with amino acids. It was reputed to cure drunkenness, improve mental function, and extend life. Kate looked like she needed all three.

“Okay,” said Kit, “now give me Mary’s letter.”

Kate hesitated, as he knew she would.

Bringing a bowl to his lips, Kit slurped down his broth. “I understand,” he said. “You hate me. You don’t want to be here. You’re only here because of Pat…Now show me the letter.”

Kate dug into her pocket.

Somehow, given Kate’s reappearance in his life, Kit had expected to see his own name. Instead Mary had addressed her letter to everyone and no one at the same time. To whom it may concern. Taking the envelope, Kit extracted a key and a single sheet of cheap paper. I’m sorry, I know it’s selfish, but life has become impossible. Misery laid out on the page in words written a thousand times before.

Kate’s reason for being in Tokyo came in the final paragraph. And, having read it, Kit could understand why Kate had been reluctant to make the trip. Given how she felt about him it must have hurt just getting on the plane.