“You’re full of surprises, Mick, you know that?”
“You thought I was going to say something about bloody foreigners.”
She didn’t want to admit it, but, yes, she’d thought he might have displayed some sort of distasteful if amusing xenophobia.
“Maybe you’re prejudiced,” he said.
“Aren’t we all?”
The waitress returned, knelt again and set two black lacquer trays in front of them on the table. Mick looked at his not with surprise but with enormous curiosity. He handled his chopsticks deftly and began to negotiate the slivers of raw fish. As he put them in his mouth his expression showed thoughtful concern as though the food was a cause of deep contemplation.
“In the shop windows in Japan,” Judy said, “all the mannikins have western faces. They’re not allowed to be the yellow peril with slitty little eyes. Don’t you think that’s strange, a whole culture that has to misrepresent itself in its own shop windows?”
“Most English people don’t look much like English mannikins, either,” he said.
“No, but at least they’re of the same ethnic group.”
He nodded to accept her point.
“And in Japan even quite mild sex films are censored and they electronically blur the genitalia of the actors, while at the same time there are phallic festivals where twelve-foot-long papier mache penises are paraded through the streets.”
He looked impressed and amused and he ate another crescent of bruised-looking tuna.
“And in Japan there are love hotels where rooms are rented by the hour and couples go in and have sex on a bed that’s in the shape of a space ship or a Mercedes convertible.
“And if I was properly Japanese, when you mentioned the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki I’d have apologized to you. I would know that the very mention of the bombing would put you in a position where you ought to feel remorse, and that would be very painful for you, so I would have to apologize for making you feel so bad.”
“Just as well you’re only half-Japanese.”
“That’s right. I don’t have to apologize for anything.”
“So what’s the best thing about Japan?” he asked.
“Mount Fuji,” she said without hesitation. “In early spring when it still has snow on its summit and when all the surrounding hillsides are full of azaleas in bloom.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “How much time have you spent there?”
She smiled as though she was about to prove a very important point.
“I’ve never been there,” she said, and when Mick looked profoundly puzzled, she added, “I’ve only heard about it, read things, seen movies, just the way you have. Japan’s no more real to me than to any foreigner. It’s like you and London. You had a pretty shrewd idea of what London was like, long before you got here. You created your own version of London. It was just as real as the actual London. Japan’s the same for me.”
Mick thought she was wrong, but he felt too weary to argue. For her part she wished she’d never spoken. She should have known he was not going to understand, and it didn’t matter. She wondered if he was offended, if he thought she was being too clever for him.
“How’s the sashimi?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” he said, and then becoming confidential he added, “But do you know, it’s stone cold.”
She was about to explain patiently that it was meant to be cold, when she realized that she was the naive one, the one being sent up. He was laughing at her and at his own joke.
“You must think we’re a pretty unsophisticated lot up in Sheffield,” he said.
“I don’t know what people are like in Sheffield,” she replied.
“You haven’t created your own version?”
“Not yet.”
“Then don’t bother.”
She hated this antagonism, though given his reaction to the radio phone-in she was hardly surprised. It was not what she’d had in mind at all. She had brought him here for a good reason, but it had nothing to do with arguing about Anglo-Japanese culture.
She said, “I’ve got something I want you to see.”
She opened her bag and pulled out a folded page of newspaper. She unfolded it and handed it to Mick. It was from some weekend supplement and across the bottom of the page was a column called ‘Kerry Slater’s Restaurant Round-Up’. The name was immediately familiar from Cabby’s list. The face was familiar too from Mick’s reconnaissance. Mick looked at her in some surprise. She had done well to remember a name from the list, though that was not necessarily a good thing as far as he was concerned. How much more would she remember or work out for herself? And what might she do with the knowledge?
“When I first saw your list I thought I recognized the name,” she said. “But it took me a while to remember where I’d seen it before. Am I right? He is the one you want to have a reunion with, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Mick agreed.
“Did you know he wrote for the papers?”
Mick had watched Slater’s house, had seen him sitting at a desk in his study, punching words on to a computer keyboard, and he had followed him to some expensive restaurants, but he hadn’t quite worked out what he did for a living. Mick shook his head, and Judy smiled, pleased with herself.
“You really don’t want to get involved with this, you know,” Mick warned.
“No? Why not? I like reunions. I like parties.”
“Not this sort.”
“I want to be involved,” she insisted. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
“You want to be involved even though you don’t know what it entails?”
“That’s right. Strange, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was, and it was strangely appealing. It was much sexier than her offer of sex had been. Even so, he said, “No, it’s a really bad idea.”
But she said, “I know where he’ll be tonight. I know which restaurant he’ll be reviewing. I rang the paper, wormed it out of them. I know he’ll be eating alone. At the Morel restaurant, eight o’clock. I thought maybe you could use that knowledge.”
“Could I?” he said. “How exactly?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what methods you use.”
“No, you don’t.”
“But I want to know. And I want to be there.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Maybe. But I want to watch. What do you do to these men? Do you beat them? Torture them? Have them crawl and beg for mercy? Or do you kill them? Are you a full-blown hit man?”
“Hey,” he said. “I’m still eating my lunch.”
“Don’t dismiss me,” she said. “I’m not some silly little girl.”
“No, you’re a bookshop assistant who suddenly wants to be a gangster’s moll.”
“Are you a gangster, then?”
“This is stupid,” he said. “This is bullshit.”
He started to rise from the table, got hooked up on the edge of the sitting cavity, suddenly felt embarrassed and exposed to be shoeless. His socks looked frayed and worn out. His attempt to storm out in high dudgeon was looking pretty inept and comical. He dropped a couple of bank notes on the table and said, “Look, Judy, stay out of my work. Stay out of my life. Stay out of my bed. Stay out of my radio. All right?”
She bowed her head in an unfamiliar, almost oriental gesture of submission. And when Mick turned round he saw that the other diners and the waitresses had their heads down too, as though to spare themselves the shame of having to look at him. Mick pulled his shoes on and left the restaurant. The moment he’d walked ten feet along the street he regretted the whole business and felt terrible about Judy, but there was no going back, no point in apologizing. He told himself it didn’t matter. Judy was just a distraction. She was no part of his plans. First things had to come first. Tonight, for instance, was the night he was going to deal with Kerry Slater.