With My Little Eye (14 page)

At the far end of the garden I could see a wicker chair. Who had put it there? And when? I walked slowly towards it, brushed its seat with a hand and sat down on it. As I shifted to make myself more comfortable, it creaked ominously, as though about to disintegrate beneath me. Angrily I began to think of Laura. How unreasonable she had been, robbing me, with no warning, of both herself and Mark; and how cruel her
contemptuous
dismissal of the work that might bring me the
university
post that I so much craved. Her wealth enabled her, on the most fugitive of whims, to do precisely what she wanted at any moment that she wanted. Within twenty-four hours it was
nothing to her to drive at once to a travel agent to buy two first-class tickets, to hand over to the husband that she was deserting an envelope stuffed with cash, and to undertake to continue to pay the rent for a house far too large and luxurious for him to live in by himself. She was spoiled, utterly spoiled. But spoiled people all too rarely spoiled others, as she spoiled not merely me but so many relatives, friends and fleeting acquaintances.

Then, as though an unseen hand had in a moment swivelled a searchlight from her on to me, it was I myself who became the target of the scorching flame of my hatred and contempt. For God’s sake, she had been ill, and the ill were all too often not themselves. She had been in the throes of a mental
disturbance
, possibly caused by her totally unreasonable hatred of Japan, by her loss of that rich London life of friends, museums, concert-halls and theatres to be visited, or perhaps – yes, I had to face it – by an inability to continue to put up with my obsessive absorption in a subject that had absolutely no interest for her.

Now, leaning forward in the chair, I put my head in my hands and began to think, in no less desperate self-reproach, of Mark. My attitude towards him had all too often been that of a breeder to an exceptionally beautiful dog, horse or cat. There was pride, there was protectiveness towards a possession so valuable. But only intermittently present was the love that would have made me effortlessly and spontaneously sacrifice my own well-being to his. Distracted from my work by his squalling, I had more than once yelled at Laura, ‘Can’t you stop him making that bloody noise?’ When he soiled his nappy in the car, I’d hold my nose in distaste, ‘Oh, Christ! He’s done it again.’ If, taken up with some task for him, Laura left me
waiting
by the front door before we set off for some social
engagement
, I’d fume, ‘Oh, come on! Joy’s there. Let Joy see to whatever it is that he needs.’

Suddenly I was aroused from all this self-recrimination by a persistent whimpering sound. For a brief moment I thought, amazed:
But that’s Mark!
Had the intensity of my sense of loss and guilt somehow, by some supernatural agency, brought him back to the house? I got to my feet and listened. The
whimpering
ceased and then started up again on an even more
querulous and desperate note. I realised that it was coming from the corner where the wall separating the garden from the road joined a lower wall separating the house from Mrs Kawasaki’s. Cautiously I approached. I heard a rustle from the high grass and, silent now, moving with extreme caution, a bedraggled creature slinked towards me almost on its belly. It halted and looked up at me from under a matted fringe of white hair. It let out a little, gasping whimper.

Other foreigners had told us how they had repeatedly come on kittens or puppies thrown over the walls of their gardens. The Japanese shrank from either themselves exterminating or paying for a vet to exterminate such unwanted creatures. But they thought nothing of dumping them on foreigners who, such was their sentimentality, at best might well take them in and care for them and at worst would deal promptly and
efficiently
with the whole murderous business of having them put down.

I stooped and clicked my fingers. With another whimper the puppy slinked nearer. I extended my hand to pat him. He halted, snarling and snapping at my fingers, without actually making contact with them. I said, in a cajoling voice, ‘Come on! Come! Don’t be frightened.’

Eventually I was able to pick him up and carry him into the kitchen. A mongrel, with legs far too short for his sturdy little frame and a comma-like dab of white over an eye, he was clearly thirsty and hungry – first drinking almost all the water from the bowl that I set down for him and then gobbling the wrinkled, half-eaten breast of chicken that, after another
unpalatable
dinner, I had thrown into the dustbin.

Satisfied, he began to explore the kitchen, whisking here and there until, with no prior warning, he all at once lifted a leg. ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘
No
!’ But I was too late. The saffron jet began to flow, a widening stream, towards me from the stove at which he had aimed it. Oh, God! But curiously, although so fastidious about Mark’s unexpected ‘jobs’, I was not in the least angered, but merely amused by this one. I picked up a cloth and went down on my haunches. ‘You’re very naughty, you know.’ My tone was conversational. He approached, once again on his stomach, and then raised himself, frenziedly wagging his rat’s tail.

Joy entered the sitting room, brush in one hand and dustpan in the other. ‘There’s one of those poos on the stairs,’ she announced angrily, as though it were not the puppy but I who had committed the misdemeanour.

I looked up from the book that I was reading. ‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry. Don’t you worry. I’ll clear it up later.’

‘He’s going to stink this house out. I keep finding them. If I’m not careful, I step in them. Hasn’t he been house-trained?’

‘It seems not. I’ll have to start teaching him.’

‘He’s hardly a puppy now. That’ll make it quite a task.’

‘Leave it. I’ll see to it.’

She made for the door and turned, ‘You won’t use any of my washing-up cloths, will you?’

‘Of course not! Don’t be silly.’

I’ll leave some rags for you – out on the kitchen table.’

The ‘rags’ were strips from a pair of my pyjamas. The
pyjamas
were certainly ragged but I had not thrown them away, merely left them in the laundry basket for her to wash.

Later, as she served me my solitary lunch, she said, ‘Well, I suppose he’s a nice companion for you – the mistress and the little one being gone. But I was never a dog person, more a cat one. In any case’ – she shrugged a shoulder – ‘he’s an awfully ugly little chap. Isn’t he?’

From then on she never did anything for Bruin – as I had come to call him. She totally ignored him. For me, however, he was an inseparable and spoiled companion, who snored at the end of my bed, padded after me out into the garden,
whimpered
if I did not let him follow me into the lavatory, and jumped into the car as soon as I opened the door. Amazingly my efforts at house-training were successful in a matter of days.

Although I was still paying her what Laura and I had paid her, Joy arrived later and later and left earlier and earlier. ‘I had something to do before coming over,’ she would give as her perfunctory excuse for the lateness. For the earliness of her departure, she would merely say, offhand, that she had had something or someone (never named) to ‘see to’.

When, at the end of the week, I handed her wages to her in an envelope, she shocked me by immediately opening it, taking
out the notes and beginning – ostentatiously it seemed to me – to count them.

‘All present and correct I hope.’ My tone was sarcastic.

She put the envelope, the notes now restored to it, into the pocket of her flowered apron. ‘Thank you.’ She patted the pocket, as though to assure herself that the notes were still there. ‘Now I have something to say that you may find hurtful and inconvenient. Or not, as the case may be,’ she added with a grim smile.

‘And what might that be?’ But already I had guessed.

‘I’d like to give my notice.’

‘Oh, dear!’

‘The truth is that I like to look after a family. Not just one person, as now. Somehow with one person I lose heart. It doesn’t put me on my mettle.’

I restrained myself from saying that, since Laura’s departure, she had been so far off her mettle that the food and her
cleaning
had both been appalling. Instead I asked, ‘Have you got another job in mind?’

‘Well, actually, yes. With the German consul and his wife. You know them, I expect.’

‘I’ve never met them.’

‘They’re a very
good
pair. Informal, friendly. But the real advantage for me is the children – five of them, all young. That’s very much my cup of tea.’

‘Well, I can’t compete there.’

‘Would it be all right then if we made this my last week?’

‘That does seem rather short notice, Joy.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry. They want me as soon as possible, you see. The Japanese woman they have is heavily pregnant. And she’s not up to much at the best of times.’

‘Well, you must go when it’s best for you.’

I felt magnanimous; and, although I had always disliked Joy, I also felt, to my surprise, jealous. One never likes to be brushed aside for someone else, however unappealing the brusher.

‘I’m afraid I’ve still not been able to find the time to do the oven.’ She laughed. ‘I hope there are not too many cockroaches in it. I’ll try to get it done before my departure.’

Miss Morita squealed in delight when she saw my new
acquisition. Hands on knees, she stooped and gazed down at him. Wagging his tail and head cocked, he returned the gaze. ‘You are beautiful,’ she told him – a conclusion with which, despite my love for him, I could not agree. She turned to me, ‘What is his name?’

‘Bruin.’

‘Bruin? That’s strange name. Why do you give him such name?’

‘Well, it’s not really just Bruin, it’s Sir Bruin. Sir Bruin was a bear in a medieval epic
Reynard
the
Fox
. Do you know about
Reynard
the
Fox
?’

She shook her head. ‘This is very strange. I cannot
understand
. Forgive me.’

‘Well, don’t you think he looks like a bear?’

‘
Him
?’

‘I think he does. A baby bear. It’s something about those eyes – and the snout.’ She was still uncomprehending. ‘Oh, well, it was only an idea I had.’

‘I will call him maybe Puppy-chan. That means, as you say in English, Master Puppy.’ Again she stooped. ‘Good morning, Puppy-chan. How are you this morning?’

Bruin growled for a second and then wagged his tail.

Usually when Miss Morita arrived each morning in my study I used to experience a vague exasperation. She was remarkably efficient in looking out sources for me and, although her
translations
were rarely elegant, they were always accurate and quick. But somehow both her appearance and her manner either depressed me or got on my nerves. This morning, however, after a solitary night and a solitary breakfast – Joy had still not arrived on what was to be her last but one day – I was delighted to have her with me. Seeming to sense this delight, she was far more skittish and flirtatious than usual. At one moment, when I mistook one Japanese word for another, she chided me, ‘Oh, you silly boy!’ At another she suddenly remarked gleefully,
staring
down at my legs, ‘Oh, you are wearing different socks! Look!’ She pointed. ‘One light brown, other dark brown.’ At that she lowered her head, covered her mouth with a hand and began to giggle uncontrollably.