“You’re crying,” said Neku, when he returned.
Kit put his helmet back on.
Seven Chimneys had changed in the time he’d been away. The yellow brick had lost its rawness and ivy had fanned out around the upper windows. The rose bushes had thickened and the flower bed outside the study been weeded and cut back so many times its earth had changed colour.
Even the huge brass lion of a door knocker had lost its brashness and been cleaned and polished into something that felt greasy beneath Kit’s fingers as he lifted its heavy ring and brought it down with a bang.
He had to knock another three times before he got an answer.
“Who is it?”
“Me,” he said, before realising how ridiculous that sounded. “It’s Kit,” he said. “I need you to look at something…” On the far side of the door bolts were drawn back, and when the door opened it was still held by a heavy chain.
“Who’s she?” demanded Kate.
Neku sighed. “Told you,” she said.
While Kit looked through the attics for a trunk or box that might take the little brass key, Neku and Kate made lunch, which mostly involved slicing tomatoes and sticking fat chunks of cheese between even fatter slabs of bread.
“Make a dressing,” Kate ordered. When Neku looked blank, Kate pulled wine vinegar, olive oil, and black pepper from a cupboard and dumped them in front of the girl.
“Mix them,” she said. “Then grate in some pepper.”
“What proportions?”
“How would I know?” Kate asked, dumping an empty mustard jar in front of Neku. “My husband used to make it.” She nodded at the jar. “He used that.”
Having poured oil and vinegar into the jar, Neku added black pepper and screwed the jar shut before shaking it hard. Then she drizzled the dressing over the top of the sliced tomatoes, because she couldn’t see what else she was meant to do with it.
“It’s pretty here,” she said.
Kate grunted.
Horses ran in a field beyond the kitchen windows and bees clustered around a vast spread of lavender that overflowed a stone trough next to a bench on the lawn immediately outside. The room itself was huge, with stone slabs for a floor and work surfaces cut from railway sleepers. The kitchen was too big for one person, almost too big for one family. It looked as if it belonged in a hotel.
“You and Kit,” Kate asked. “What’s that about?”
So Neku told Kate how she’d met Kit by accident while she’d been stealing a pen, notebook, and ink from a shrine shop in Tokyo because she had a story she needed to write.
“What’s the story about?”
“A marriage.”
“Whose marriage?”
“Mine,” said Neku, “to the son of a lizard prince.”
Kate raised her eyebrows. So Neku told Kate how she met Kit a second time on the streets of Roppongi, when he gave her a coffee one morning, because it was raining.
“Because it was raining?”
“That’s what he said.”
“And when was this?”
“Last Christmas,” said Neku. “He brought me coffee every day after that, and often daifuku cake. Stuffed with sweet bean curd,” she added, when Kate looked puzzled. “I came to rely on it. The days Kit forgot I went hungry.”
“You couldn’t just beg?”
“Maybe that would have been better,” Neku admitted. “Less trouble for everybody, but it seemed wrong.” She told Kate how she’d actually had a coin locker stuffed with millions of dollars she was unable to use. And how taking coffee from Kit had somehow felt different. “Anyway,” she said. “I saved his life from an assassin. So that was repayment.”
“Seems to be catching.”
“What is?” asked Neku.
“Wanting Kit dead.”
Neku shrugged. “He was fucking the wife of a gang boss and bikers used his bar to deal drugs, plus lots of uyoku felt Yoshi Tanaka should be married to someone Japanese. Then there’s chippu he owed to the local police and unpaid bills from a Brazilian transvestite who mends his motorbike. It could have been anyone.”
Kate laughed. “You tell a good story,” she said. “Almost as good as Patrick. All the same, I’d like the real story next time.”
After lunch, Kate carried her own plate to the sink and ran it under cold water, leaving it to dry on a wire rack. It was the action of someone grown used to living alone, life reduced to simple habits. Neku did the same for her own plate, Kit’s plate, and the plate on which she’d put the tomatoes, washing each before placing it next to the plates already there.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water… Neku found it hard to remember which actions carried weight and which got lost as static and dust in the slipstream from other people’s lives.
“I’m going for a stroll,” said Kate. “You can keep looking,” she added, speaking to Kit. “But there’s no trunk here and no tuck box. Mary didn’t go to that kind of school.” And, with this, Kate headed for the kitchen door.
Neku made to follow her.
“Neku,” Kit said.
“What,” said Neku, “I’m not allowed to take a walk too?”
CHAPTER 39 — Thursday, 28 June
Cars locked up the M25, London’s orbital. They crawled towards turn offs, negotiated endless road works, and slid gratefully away, like single fish leaving a shoal as they finally headed home to leafy and not-so-leafy suburbs. About ten minutes short of his own turn off, Kit spotted a BMW up ahead and thought no more about it, filtering through the gap between the BMW and a white van.
As he did so, an arm reached through the driver’s window and fixed a blue light to the roof. Sirens blipped and the BMW would have remained trapped in molasses-slow traffic if Kit hadn’t obediently pulled over.
“Licence…”
Kit had already removed his helmet and dark glasses, so he smiled and nodded politely. “I’m sorry. Is there…”
“Licence,” said the man.
“Of course,” said Kit. Without hesitation, he unzipped a side pocket and flipped open his wallet, offering the man a small square of plastic. The only instantly recognisable words were Kit Nouveau, everything else was in Japanese.
“What’s this?”
“My licence.”
The policeman turned over the square of plastic. It was obvious from the irritation on his face that he found the vehicle categories outlined in kanji on the back equally incomprehensible. At least the front had a photograph of Kit, a reference number, and something that looked like an end date.
“Where’s your international permit?”
“I don’t need one,” said Kit, careful to keep a smile on his face. “This is good in the UK for a year.”
“Great,” said the man. “I’ve got myself a lawyer.”
“Not at all.” Kit shook his head. “But I checked with the British embassy in Tokyo before I left.” As a lie it was next to impossible to refute, and besides, Japanese driving licences were legal in the UK, everyone knew that.
“What about her?”
Before Kit had time to answer, Neku produced a red and gold passport and handed it over. As an afterthought, she remembered to execute a small bow. A smile was fixed firmly on her face.
“How long’s she been here?” demanded the policeman.
“Almost a week,” said Kit.
“And when she’s due to leave?”
“Soon,” he said, pretending not to notice Neku’s frown.
“Wait here,” the man ordered. A few minutes later he was back. Without a word, he returned Neku’s passport and the Japanese licence taken from Kit, then nodded at the bike. “You can go.”
Car after car had been crawling past even more slowly than traffic conditions demanded, as drivers braked slightly to stare in vague interest at whatever was happening. When the policeman raised his head to stare back, a handful of faces immediately looked away.