Our three-year-old son, standing wide-eyed next to his mother, stared at her with a look of puzzlement.
“I did try to refuse,” I said. “I explained about my illness.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” My wife looked up at the ceiling, gave out a long breath and shook her head in disbelief. “So now you’ve even told your Department Manager about your sodding illness. And as always, I suppose you went on and on and on about it. I suppose you were gesticulating all over the place, going on about your heart, your poor heart, exaggerating the whole thing!” She made her eyeballs bulge and distorted her lips in imitation of me.
“What do you mean, exaggerating? I always talk truthfully about it,” I retorted indignantly. “How could he understand if I didn’t explain?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Just stop telling people about it! Tell me, if you like. But for God’s sake, don’t tell other people! Why do you think the Section Chief dislikes you, then? It’s because you’re always going on about your bloody illness! He must be sick to death of hearing about it. The moment he asks you to do anything, it’s ‘oh, my heart, my heart’. And whenever you think it’s beating a bit funnily, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you have to make a great song and dance about it and rush out to the nearest hospital!”
“How do you know that?”
“Of course I know, it’s easy! You’re the laughing stock of the company, don’t you get it? It’s no wonder you never get promoted! This latest island duty is all because the Section Chief hates you so much he wants to get rid of you! Of course it is!”
“Don’t you care if I die, then?” I yelled angrily. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the Section Chief doesn’t like me. But does that mean you have to talk like that too? Heart disease is a killer, you know. Of course, the healthy will always make fun of the sick. But I don’t care. I’m looking after my health because it wouldn’t be funny if I died. Why do you think I keep going to the doctor’s? It’s for you and the boy, of course!”
“DON’T BLOODY PATRONIZE ME!”
“What do you mean?” I hit the dining table with my fist and stood up.
“If you’ve got a heart problem, why didn’t you tell me about it before we got married?” She stood up in turn and glared at me. “That’s it! You tricked me, didn’t you?!”
“What do you mean, tricked you?! I didn’t have the illness then! It’s come on since we’ve been married! What could I do about it?”
“So now you’re saying it’s my fault! And I suppose they’re all saying that at your work, too! Bloody hell!” She was shrieking now.
“Hold on, hold on. Hold on.” I quickly tried to return to the original discussion. “Let’s not have another row! We’re just going over the same old argument as always. I haven’t told you where I’m going yet.”
“What do I care where you’re going?!” She stopped short and peered at my face. “Of course, you are going on your own, aren’t you.”
I was flabbergasted. “How could you be so heartless? You want to pack me off to a remote island on my own, in my state, with no doctor?!”
She laughed coldly. “Well, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go.”
“I’ll be promoted to Section Chief when I get back. Aren’t you pleased for me?”
Now her hair virtually stood on end. “PLEASED? NO! I’m not pleased at all! Maybe if you said ‘Department Manager’, yes! After all this time, you’re the last to be promoted. Why the hell should I be pleased about that?!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! How could I jump straight to Department Manager without being Section Chief first?! And I won’t even get that if I don’t go to the island!”
“God, you’re so stupid!”
“What do you mean, stupid?” I kicked the chair over.
Our son is so accustomed to our rowing that he doesn’t cry any more. He started playing on his own.
“Anyway, we’re all going to the island together. Understand?” I said, breathing hard through my nose.
She looked at me aghast. “Do you want to turn our child into a barbarian?!” she said, performing her customary leap of logic.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“You don’t stop to think of your family, do you. He’s just started at private nursery school, hasn’t he?! Do you know how hard I worked to get him in there?!”
“That was just for your vanity!”
“All right. So you think it’s better for your son to have no friends, and to turn into an imbecile like some fisherman’s boy, on some God-forsaken shit-hole of an island in the middle of nowhere, do you?! Just when he’s started learning to read?” She burst into tears and ran over to hug the boy. “I’m sorry, poppet! It’s only because your father is such a rotten good-for-nothing!”
“What’s more important, then? His nursery school or my work?!” I bawled at her. “The only reason you don’t want to go is because you won’t be able to buy flashy clothes and go parading in front of everybody!”
“Oh, you hate that, don’t you,” she said, staring at me. “That’s why you’re going to drag me there with you. You just want to give me a hard time!” She stamped her foot on the floor. “No. I am not going with you! I’d go stark raving mad, stuck there on a lonely island with no one to talk to, with only an invalid like you for company! I’m definitely not going, all right? You can bugger off on your own. Go and have your bloody spasms. Serves you right. You can stew in your own juice for all I care!”
“Wha… wha… wha…” I wanted to shout back, but was suddenly unable to breathe. My eyes bulged as I gasped for air.
A sharp pain pierced my heart. I screwed up my face and crouched on the floor clutching my chest. My heart was clearly palpitating. I moaned helplessly and felt a cold sweat coming over me.
“Oh look, he’s having another one.” She stood over me with a twisted smile on her mouth. “Funny how it always happens when he’s losing an argument. What a very convenient heart problem.”
Still wheezing for breath, I stretched out my hand towards her. “M-my pills, w-would you get m-my pills.”
“Get them yourself,” she said, and started clearing away the dinner things.
I rolled sideways along the carpeted floor. “In my, in my j-jacket pocket. W-would you get them for me.”
Our son got up and looked down at me. “Daddy not well!”
“Oh, leave him. He only wants attention.” She stomped off loudly into the kitchen.
Terrified by the sharp pain and the fear of death, I crawled along the floor and managed to reach the coat pegs as wheezing sounds still issued from my throat.
“All right, all right. Well done.” Sighing, my wife came back out of the kitchen, took the bottle of pills from my jacket, and threw it down in front of my nose. “Good performance. I nearly believed you.”
“And so, you see, I need eight months’ medication,” I told Dr Kawashita the next day, having taken the morning off to go to his clinic.
“Well, yes.” Dr Kawashita pulled a wry face. “I could give them to you, but…”
“You’ve got to!” I pleaded. “They’ll be my only hope on a remote island without a doctor!”
“But you’ll take them all at once, won’t you.” He scratched his head vigorously. “The problem is that you make no effort to remove the cause, but just keep taking the medicine. That’s no good at all.”
“No, it’s not true. I am making an effort. I’ve stopped smoking and drinking coffee, as you advised. I avoid strenuous exercise and work of a highly urgent and responsible nature as far as possible,” I said with a bow of the head. “And of course, I’ve stopped having sexual relations with my wife.”
“What?” He lifted his face and stared at me. “Altogether?!”
“Yes, altogether. Well, that comes under strenuous exercise, doesn’t it?”