Summertime of the Dead (13 page)

‘Music,' said the Lump.

‘Forget about the music, you dummy, and stop wandering off!'

The Lump looked a little disappointed, but she
soon became amazed by something else. And then we passed a FamilyMart.

‘Hot,' said the Lump.

It was hot as well.

‘Ice cream,' said the Lump.

‘You've just had ice cream!'

‘Ice cream again,' said the Lump.

She was starting to get on my nerves. I gave her some money and she ran into the FamilyMart. That's the thing with Tokyo – there're snack shops everywhere. There's a Lawson, a 7-Eleven or a FamilyMart on every corner. And every time we neared one, the Lump got hungry. No wonder she was fat.

She came out eating the ice cream and we headed further into the Kabukicho. Further into the bars, clubs and massage parlours owned by the yakuza. We passed the boy clubs and the love hotels, and crossing the road we stood outside the Hotel Siena and watched the goings-on. I couldn't see Riko or any of her crew anywhere, but the night was still young. But when I looked at the Lump she seemed kind of tired. ‘You OK?'

‘Hungry,' said the Lump.

I just shook my head. ‘OK, wait here.'

I went to a Lawson and roamed the air-conditioned aisles grabbing biscuits and crisps. I bought myself a Coke and got the Lump a can of hot coffee. We'd only be out another hour or so, but I didn't want her falling asleep.

When I went back she was sitting on the steps at the side of the hotel. She looked relieved when she saw me. As though she thought I might have gone off and left her.

‘Here.' I gave her the coffee and the snacks.

‘Coffee!' said the Lump.

You should have seen the look she was giving me. You'd think I'd just kicked her in the leg.

‘You don't like coffee? Here!' I swapped her the coffee for the Coke. She took it but she started mumbling. She'd turned into a real grouch all of a sudden.

‘What are you saying?'

‘Nothing,' said the Lump. But she was still scowling.

‘I'm just going to take a look around. OK?'

The Lump looked up at me while munching on a mouthful of crisps. And she didn't look happy.

‘I'll only be gone five minutes. And listen, while I'm gone, you keep a lookout for a one-eyed girl.'

The Lump looked puzzled. ‘One-eyed?'

‘A girl with one eye, you dummy!'

The Lump gave me a dirty look. Then I realized that's how she communicated. She never used words so much. She used facial expressions. The Lump has more facial expressions than the Noh theatre has masks. And this one was saying, ‘Don't talk to me like that or I'm going home!'

‘Look, I'll only be gone five minutes, OK?'

She didn't say anything. Not even with her face.

I looked back at her once I was across the street. She was stuffing her face and staring at the passers-by. She looked happy enough, and so I wandered around looking for Riko.

I looked in the bars and the coffee shops and I scanned the streets until my eyes hurt. But the area was packed and more people were pouring into it all the time. How I was going to find her among this crowd I didn't know. I couldn't even see anyone who looked like yakuza. The only person I did see was my green-eyed English teacher, Viviana, who was out with her bald boyfriend. But she wasn't English, she was Mexican.

‘Hi, Miss Santiesteban.'

She gave me a big smile. ‘Hi, Yukio!'

I looked back at her as I walked up to the station. She was really nice. What she saw in him I don't know.

I came back down a different street, but I saw no one and so I went back for the Lump. She was still where I left her, but she was leaning against a post and she was fast asleep. I gave her a shove and she woke up. ‘Some lookout you are.'

‘Tired,' said the Lump.

‘That's because you sleepwalk. Come on, let's go.'

The Lump got her energy back on the way to the station and so she was in no rush to get home. She kept stopping and looking at things. ‘Will you hurry up?' But she wouldn't hurry up. She was taking her sweet time and she was doing it on purpose. And when we passed a club I caught her dancing to the music. ‘Stop that,' I said. She did stop, but she started again when I walked on. I could see her reflection in a window.

Then I saw someone heading down a side street. It wasn't Riko or any of her crew. It was that Korean creep who used to live by us, and I absolutely hated him! ‘Follow me!' I said. The Lump looked excited. She knew something was happening and she ran
to keep up. I followed the Korean down a dark backstreet but I never got too close, which was good because he stopped to talk to someone. Me and the Lump jumped in a doorway and stood back. Then the Lump peeked around the corner. She must have thought we were playing a game. But it was no game as far as I was concerned.

You see, I hated that Korean creep as much as I hated the Tanakas, and I'll tell you why. No more than a month after my dad died, Mum bought me a puppy. She knew that I was missing Dad and she thought that a dog would be company. Tito was his name and he was a little bundle of joy. One evening we took him over to Yoyogi Park so he could run around. We threw him sticks and chased him, and he chased us. I remember trying to seem happier than I was so as to cheer Mum up. And I think she was doing the same for me. But when it got dark we decided to head home. But then I had to pee and so I ran to one of the toilets in the park.

But when I came out I got the shock of my life! A man had Mum up against a tree. He was kissing her and groping her and she was trying to get away!

‘Leave my mum alone!' I shouted, and kicked him in the leg.

When he turned I saw it was the Korean who lived in our street. He kept hold of my mother by her coat and pushed me to the ground. Then he went back to abusing her.

‘Help!' I shouted. But there was no one around. I got up and tried to pull him away. And Tito bit at his ankles. Suddenly the Korean turned and kicked him hard. Tito started screaming in pain.

‘What's going on there?' asked a jogger, coming to a stop.

The Korean told the guy to get lost. And then he started saying the most terrible things to my mother. It was as though hatred was drooling from his drunken mouth.

He spat in her face and staggered away. Mum grabbed me and Tito and held us tight, and then we rushed back to the house. When we got through the door she broke down. But she wouldn't call the police and she told me not to tell anyone about what had happened. But she was terrified, and it wasn't just that night. For weeks after she was scared to go out of the house. She made sure that Yoshe was with her and she never went out after dark. I wished Dad was still alive. He was never a violent man, but he had honour. And I'm sure he would have killed that
Korean for what he'd done. But Dad was dead, and the Korean must have known that.

The Lump looked out again. ‘Clear,' she said.

We followed him down a quiet backstreet on the outskirts of the Kabukicho. He stopped outside a massage parlour and me and the Lump jumped into another doorway. A girl walked past and he said something to her. I could tell by her face that it was something sleazy. And then, sucking up, he spat in the street like a pig.

I heard a thumping sound and a guy pulled up on a chopper. I could tell by his tattooed arms that he was yakuza. I stood back in the shadows and watched. The Korean went in the massage parlour and coming out he handed the biker a white envelope. The biker put it in his jacket pocket and rode away without a word.

‘Motorbike,' said the Lump.

I was only a little kid when that Korean assaulted my mother. But I wasn't a little kid now. And I was determined to defend my family's honour. I was going to kill that Korean the first chance I got! In fact, if I'd had the sword with me then I'd –

‘Do no harm!' said the Lump.

I kind of froze. Then I looked down to see the
Lump glaring up at me. It was like she knew what I was thinking! The Lump had turned into a little fat mind reader! She was freaking me out!

‘Look, here's a hundred yen. Go and get yourself something to eat!'

The Lump took the money and headed to a 7-Eleven. But she turned and scowled at me. Then she smiled at the money and ran into the shop. I swear, that Lump was getting stranger by the second!

We were cruising on the motorway in the early-morning mist. The monk who was driving the van had got us up so early and I felt really tired. That's the thing with monks – they get up early, and they think everyone else should get up early as well. I'd tried to start a conversation with him when we started out, but he wasn't much of a talker. In fact, you'd think he'd took a vow of silence, the way he hung on to his words. He was worse than the Lump.

When I looked behind me she was staring excitedly into a comic. I couldn't believe how excited she looked. I'd told her she could have all my old manga and she'd carried every one of them to her room; there must have been a hundred. She
never even read the words, she just speed-scanned the pictures. Her head twitched from side to side and her eyes flickered over the images. And as they did her facial expressions changed. She went from being happy to sad and from angry to scared. It was like watching a computerized emoticon flick through its whole range of expressions. Then her face froze into a ‘what the hell's going on here?' look, and then she glared at me like it was my fault.

‘What?' I said.

But she never answered. She just turned the page and breathed out a dramatic little sigh.

Then Mount Fuji came into view. I was always impressed when I saw it, but it looked especially good today. Its base looked bronze while its snow-capped peak was bathed red by the rising sun. I turned to the Lump. ‘Here's Fuji,' I said. But she never even looked up. She was lost in a cartoon world.

The van rolled off the freeway and curved around a bend. We followed a side road lined with orange groves, and then we bumped down a dirt road that ran alongside a river. We headed through some pine trees, and coming out in a clearing we pulled up in front of a wide field of wheat. And there was Fuji, as
big as I'd ever seen it. From where I sat it looked like the wheat ran all the way to its base, but I knew the mountain was miles away.

The side door slid back and the Lump jumped out. She was excited about being in the countryside, but that was no surprise. She got excited if you took her to the supermarket. I got out and stretched and breathed in the air, which was cool and smelled of the country. I had a look around. There was a large wooden temple with an unfinished roof, and there was a wide stone courtyard in front of it. To the side of the temple there were shocking-pink plum trees and towering above them was a three-storey pagoda. It had four black roofs that were wider than its base, and rising from its peak was a coiled bronze spire called a
sorin
. I like pagodas. They're nice to look at and you always get a good view from the top.

‘I'm glad you could come, Yukio.'

I turned to see Natsuko with her arm around the Lump. I almost didn't recognize her. She was wearing a T-shirt and overalls with paint on them. And she had a scarf around her head. She looked just like a normal woman.

‘I'm glad too,' I said. But I felt a bit embarrassed,
seeing her that way, and so I went around to the back of the van.

Me and the monk unloaded the wood and the paint and the rest of the supplies, while the Lump looked on. ‘You're supposed to be helping, you know.' Then I saw the shinais. ‘How did they get here?'

‘Me,' said the Lump.

‘What did you bring them for?'

She picked up a box and headed to the temple. ‘Practice,' she said.

I took two and followed her. ‘Practice? We're here to work.'

‘Birds!' said the Lump.

Shaded under a Japanese maple, and surrounded by bonsai trees, was a lilied pond with cranes in it. They crept through the water on their long legs, inching towards the large green dragonflies that hovered above the reeds.

‘Fish!' said the Lump.

Huge koi carp came to the surface with their mouths open, as though they were expecting us to feed them.

‘Beautiful fish!' said the Lump.

I just rolled my eyes and walked away. The Lump
ran to catch up and we passed a huge bronze bell, housed under its own roof. We crossed the leafy courtyard, and taking off our shoes we followed Natsuko up the temple steps. As soon as we entered we saw a statue of Buddha in the form of a woman. She was holding a flower in one hand and a golden staff in the other, and she was so tall her head reached up to the ceiling.

‘The statue's been here since the temple was built,' said Natsuko. ‘It was damaged by the fire, but the craftsmen have done a good job repairing her.'

I put down the boxes and turned to see the Lump praying at the altar. She bowed to the Buddha and came over to us. ‘Beautiful,' she said.

‘Yes, she is beautiful,' said Natsuko, and smiling she put her arm around the Lump again. I didn't like that. I found myself feeling a little jealous.

‘What would you like me to do?' I asked.

‘Well, the floor needs brushing and mopping,' said Natsuko. ‘And the courtyard needs sweeping. Nothing exciting, I'm afraid.'

‘I'll get started,' I said.

I went to take a brush but the Lump beat me to it. She started brushing like mad. She was just showing off. Then somewhere an electric saw started up.
Banging and hammering followed. Natsuko rubbed the side of her head, as though the noise hurt her, and I could see that she still wasn't well. When she noticed me looking she tried to smile.

‘It's just a headache,' she said. ‘Now, I have to get on with the painting. I'll see you two at lunch.'

Me and the Lump bowed to Natsuko as she walked away. Then I turned to her. ‘You're such a little show-off.' I said. But the Lump ignored me, and looking smug she started to brush the floor. And so I went to find another brush.