Number9Dream Read online

  ‘Mummy,’ she says. ‘She forever wanders off without my permission.’

  I tut. ‘I can relate to that.’ What do I do? Suga skipped the ‘lost child’ chapter, and now he is collecting the trolley from Ueno annexe. Mrs Sasaki is on her lunch-hour. Somewhere a mummy is running around in hysterics, imagining train wheels and organ-harvesting child kidnappers. I flap. ‘Why don’t you sit on the counter,’ I tell the girl. She clambers up. Right. What do I do? ‘Aren’t you going to ask me my name?’ asks the girl.

  ‘Of course I am. What’s your name?’

  ‘Yuki Chiyo. Aren’t you going to call Mummy on the big speaker?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  I go into the side office. Mrs Sasaki mentioned the PA system on my first day, but Suga never showed me how to use it. Turn this key, flick this switch. I hope. A green light flashes under ‘Speak’. I clear my throat and lean into the microphone. The sound of me clearing my throat fills Ueno. When Yuki Chiyo hears her name she hugs herself.

  I’m broiling with embarrassment. Yuki Chiyo studies me.

  ‘So, Yuki. How old are you?’

  ‘Ten. But Mummy tells me not to speak to strangers.’

  ‘You already spoke to me.’

  ‘Only because I needed you to call Mummy.’

  ‘You ungrateful tadpole.’

  I hear Aoyama marching this way before I see him. His shoes, his keys. ‘You! Miyake!’

  Obviously I am in deep shit. ‘Good afternoon—’

  ‘Do not “Good afternoon” me! Since when have you had the authority to make a general override announcement?’

  My throat is dry. ‘I didn’t realize that—’

  ‘Suppose a train were hurtling into Ueno with a snapped brake cable!’ His eyes froth. ‘Suppose I were making an evacuation announcement!’ Veins bulge. ‘Suppose we receive a bomb warning!’ Is he going to fire me? ‘And you, you, blanket out my warning with a request for a lost girl’s mother to proceed to the lost property office on the second floor!’ He pauses to restock air. ‘You, you, pollute the order with your teenage chaos!’

  ‘Tra-la-la!’ A leopardskinned woman pads up to the counter.

  ‘Mummy!’ Yuki Chiyo waves.

  ‘Dearest, you know it upsets Mummy when you go off like this! Have you been making trouble for this handsome young stripling?’ She nudges Aoyama aside and deposits her designer bags on the counter. A perky vixen smile. ‘I am so frightfully sorry, young man. What can I say? Yuki plays this little game whenever we go shopping, don’t you, dearest? My husband says it’s just a stage she’s going through. Do I have to sign anywhere?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  Aoyama smoulders.

  ‘Let me give you a little something for your trouble.’

  ‘Really, madam, no need.’

  ‘You are a darling.’ She turns to Aoyama. ‘Jolly good! A porter!’

  I kill my snicker a fraction too late. Aoyama radiates nuclear fury. ‘No, madam, I am the assistant station-master.’

  ‘Oh. Well, you look like a porter in that get-up. Come on, Yuki.’

  Yuki turns to me as her mother leads her away. ‘Sorry I got you bollocked.’

  Aoyama is too furious to bollock me further. ‘You, Miyake, you, Iam not going to forget this! I am going to file a report about this outrage to the disciplinary committee this very afternoon!’ Off he storms. I wonder if I still have a job. Suga steps out from the back office. ‘Quite a talent you have there for annoying people, Miyake.’

  ‘You were there all along?’

  ‘You seemed in control of the situation.’

  I want to kill Suga so I say nothing.

  I am on the ferry! So many times Anju and I have watched it; now I am actually on it! The deck slopes side to side, and the wind is strong enough to lean back into. Yakushima, the enormous country I live in, is slowly but surely growing smaller. Mr Ikeda is scanning the shoreline with his army binoculars. Seabirds follow the boat, just hanging there. The second-graders are arguing about what will happen when the ferry sinks and we have to fight for the lifeboats. Others are watching the TV, or being chucked out of places you’re not allowed. One kid is vomming in the toilets. The engine booms. I smell engine fumes. I watch the hull slice through the spray-chopped waves. If I hadn’t already decided on being a soccer star I would become a sailor. I look for the shrine of the thunder god, but it is already hidden in the morning haze. I wish Anju were here. I wonder what she’ll do today. I try to remember the last day we weren’t together. I go back as far as I can, but no such day ever was. Yakushima is now the size of a barn. I watch new islands rise ahead and fall behind. I can fit Yakushima inside the ‘O’ of my thumb and first finger. A tooth is wobbling loose. Mr Ikeda is on the deck too. ‘Sakurajima,’ he shouts at me above the wind and the engine, pointing ahead. I watch the volcano grow and take up a third of the sky. The torn crater belches graceful solid clouds of smoke over another third. ‘You can taste the ash,’ shouts Mr Ikeda, ‘on your tongue! And over there, that’s Kagoshima!’ Already? The voyage is supposed to take three hours. I consult my Zax Omega watch and find that nearly three hours have passed. Here comes Kagoshima. Huge! You could fit the whole of Anbo, our village, between two jetties in the harbour. Enormous buildings, vast cranes, huge freighters marked with place names I mostly haven’t heard of. I guess when I was here last my memory was switched off. Or maybe it was night? This is the where the world starts. Wait until I tell Anju. She’ll be amazed. Amazed.

  According to Fujifilm, four o’clock slipped by fifteen minutes ago. The best I can hope for now is a couple of hours of sleep, so I can be dead at work instead of buried. Yesterday was the last day of Suga, so I’ll be on my own all afternoon. I can still see the body falling. Cockroach is quiet. Has he escaped? Is he plotting revenge? Is he asleep, dreaming of nubile cockroach thighs and stewing garbage? They say that for every single cockroach you see, there are ninety relatives out of sight. Under the floor, in cavities, behind cupboards. Under futons. ‘Poor Mum,’ she is hoping I’ll think. ‘Okay, she dumped us at our uncle’s when we were three, but let bygones be bygones. I’ll phone her this very morning.’ No way! Forget it! I imagine I can hear Tokyo stir. My neck itches. I scratch. My back itches. I scratch. My crotch itches. I scratch. Once Tokyo itself wakes, all hope of sleep is doomed. The fan stirs the heat. How dare she write me a letter like that. I was tired when I went to bed. What happened?

  ‘My final Friday,’ says Suga. ‘Deep joy. Tomorrow, freedom. Imho, you should go back to college, Miyake. It beats earning a living for a living.’ I am not really listening – this is the morning after I discover that when I was three years old my mother decided to throw me off a ninth-floor balcony – but when he says that word again I give in. ‘Why do you keep using that word?’

  Suga acts puzzled. ‘What word?’

  ‘“Imho”.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Suga says, not sounding at all sorry, ‘I forgot.’

  ‘Forgot what?’

  ‘Most of my friends are e-friends. Other hackers. We use our own language, right. “Imho” stands for the English “in my humble opinion”. Like, “I think that . . .” Cool word, or what?’

  The telephone rings. Suga looks – I answer.

  ‘Pleased with ourselves, Miyake?’ A voice I know, simmering with malice.

  ‘Mr Aoyama?’

  ‘You work for them, don’t you?’

  ‘For Ueno station, you mean, sir?’

  ‘Drop the act! I mean what I mean! I know you work for the consultants!’

  ‘Which consultants, sir?’

  ‘I told you to drop it! I see right through you! You were in my office to snoop. To filch. To assess. I know your little game. Then there was your provocation the day before yesterday. That was to get me out of my office, while my files were copied. It all adds up now. Oh yes. Deny it! I dare you to deny it!’

  ‘I swear, Mr Aoyama, there has been some mistake here . . .’

  ‘A mistake?’ A
oyama shouts. ‘How right you are! The biggest mistake of your treacherous life! I have served Ueno since before you were born! I have friends at the transport ministry! I went to an influential university!’ I can’t believe his voice can get any louder, but it does. ‘If your masters believe I can be “restructured” to an end-of-the-line deep freeze in Akita with two platforms and a company dormitory made of paper, they are greviously mistaken! My lackey years are long behind me!’ He breaks, pants, and launches his final assault. ‘Ueno has standards! Ueno has systems! Your scumbag parasite know-nothing poking masters want war, I will give them war and you, you, you, will get blasted by crossfire!’

  He hangs up.

  Suga looks at me. ‘What was that about?’

  Why me? Why is it always me? ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘How can I say this tactfully?’ Mr Ikeda paces to and fro during our half-time peptalk. ‘Boys. You are utterly, utterly crap. Shambolic. Subhuman. In fact, submammalian. A disgrace. A sickening waste of shipping fuel. A non-team of myopic crippled sloths. We have a miracle to thank that the enemy are not nine goals up, and the name of this miracle is Mitsui.’ Mitsui chews gum, enjoying the taste of despotic favour. He is a gifted and aggressive goalkeeper – it is lucky he lacks the imagination to expand into playground bullying. Mitsui’s father is Yakushima’s most notorious alcoholic, so our goalkeeper has been calculating the flight paths of projectiles from an early age. Ikeda goes on. ‘In a more civillized century, I could have insisted that the rest of you commit seppuku. You will, however, shave your heads in shame if we lose. Defenders. Despite Mr Mitsui’s valiant work, how many times have the enemy hit the crossbar? Nakamori?’

  ‘Three times, sir.’

  ‘And the post?’

  I suck my warm orange, readjust my shin pads, watch the enemy team having their pep talk – their coach is laughing. The stale smell of boys and soccer kits. The afternoon has clouded over. The volcano puffs. ‘Miyake? The post?’

  ‘Uh, twice, sir,’ I guess.

  ‘Uh, twice, sir. Uh, yes. Uh, Nakayama, midfield means “middle of the pitch”, not “middle of the penalty area”. Attack means we attack the enemy goal. How many times has their goalkeeper had to touch the ball? Nakamura?’

  ‘Not very often, sir.’

  Ikeda massages his temples. ‘Not once, actually, sir! Not once! He has made three – separate – dates with three – separate – cheerleaders! Listen to me! I am videoing the match! Boys. It is my birthday tomorrow. If you do not give me a goalless draw you will remember my displeasure until your deaths. In the second half the wind is on our side. Your orders are to dig in and hold out. One more thing. Do not give away a penalty. I got the enemy coach drunk last night, and he boasted that their penalty-taker has never missed. Ever. And remember, if you feel your poor little limbs flagging, my videocam is watching and will extract retribution on a man-by-man basis.’

  The referee blows his whistle for the second half. We lose possession of the ball three seconds later. Briefly I remember my deal with the god. Fat lot of use he turned out to be. I do my best to look good for Ikeda’s videocam – running around, shouting ‘Pass’, groaning, and generally avoiding the ball as cleverly as I can. ‘Possess and push!’ screams Ikeda. Our 4-3-3 formation buckles into 10-0-0, and our penalty area becomes a pinball zone of kicks, screams and curses. I fake a spectacular injury but nobody is watching. Time after time Mitsui pulls off a brilliant save, a daring pounce, a midair punch. ‘Positions!’ screams Ikeda. If only I could be as good as Mitsui. I would make the national sports papers tomorrow. Time after time the enemy launches an attack, but the mass of defenders reinforces our luck. The breeze rises to a wind. I make a daring aerial challenge – and win – but the ball hits the top of my head – squashing it – and carries on deeper into our half. I have to do a throw-in at one point, but the referee blows his whistle for a foul throw – I don’t know why, but Ikeda will make me pay anyway. Nakatani and Nakamura, our star strikers, are both given a yellow card for punching each other. I turn around and the ball bounces off my face. A corner. ‘Cretins!’ screams Ikeda. Elbow fights with a mutant boy twice my height with a killer’s eyes. A tooth that is coming loose suddenly becomes very loose. Mitsui pulls off a diving save. An enemy supporter throws a rice-ball at Nakata, our winger, who drop-kicks the offender. Nakayama takes a flying kick, boots the ball up the field – the wind picks it up – and we all banzai-charge after it. ‘Positions!’ screams Ikeda. My tooth is hanging on by a strand of gum. The enemy appears to be falling back. We surge. I hear military bands. A wall of enemy strikers is surging this way – they have the ball – a trap? A trap! ‘Sphincters!’ screams Ikeda. I have no breath left but I run back, hoping to salvage an iota of mercy from the post-goal trial. Mitsui is sprinting out to narrow the angle, roaring like a Zero bomber. The enemy striker toe-pokes the ball under his nemesis a moment before impact – I hear the bones crunch – unable to brake in time I springboard over the bodies – my boot clips a scalp – momentum rockets me forward, and without thinking I dive, skimming over the empty goalmouth of grit, and hand-grapple the ball to a halt just this side of the goal line.

  Rushing silence.

  The referee’s whistle drills through my head. Red card for Mitsui, yellow one for me, a stretcher and a drive to hospital for the striker, a verbal sewer from Ikeda, a penalty to the enemy, and yet another problem for our team. We have no goalkeeper. Ikeda arrives in a whirlwind of abuse and snarls down from his chariot of ire. ‘You looked pretty useful with your hands just then, Miyake. You go in goal.’ My team-mates adopt the proposal at bushfire speed. Sacrificial lambs cannot answer back. I traipse to the goalmouth. The skin is sandpapered off my knees and thighs. The enemy wall in the penalty area. Fathoms yawn either side of me. The enemy kicker gloats, curling his rat’s-tail lock of hair around his little finger. Moments drum. The drumming slows. The whistle blows. The world sets. Here he comes. God of Thunder. Remember me? We had a deal.

  Suga empties the contents of his locker into his shoulder bag. I hear police sirens. This is when? Only yesterday. The long corridor that passes the lost property office links two sides of Ueno, so it is always quite busy – but we hear a special commotion approach and lean out over the counter to see. A TV crew stream past – a presenter, an NHK cameraman bristling with lenses, a sound-pole carrier and a young man heaving a trolley thing. They are not the usual local station film-the-fuzzy-duck crew. Their sense of mission clears a way through the oncoming commuters. ‘Looks worthy of further investigation,’ says Suga. ‘Hold the fort, Miyake. I can sniff scandal.’ He bolts off and the telephone rings – ‘Lost property? I’m calling about a friend’s wig.’ I groan. We have hundreds of wigs.

  Luckily it is a glam-rock wig with sequinned spangles, so I can identify it in the five minutes it takes Suga to return. ‘Aoyama’s flipped!’ Suga is feverish with gossip. ‘Deep-fried his circuitry! On my last day, too!’

  ‘Aoyama?’ I remember the telephone call.

  ‘A report was published today. The top Tokyo JR people decided to kick him sideways. All the big Tokyo stations are being shaken up by the new governor, and Aoyama is a symbol of the old school of untouchables. The consultant – this guy who spent ten years teaching at Harvard Business School – gave him the news in front of a gang of junior managers. It was like a ‘how to demote somebody’ seminar.’

  ‘Grim.’

  ‘Not as grim as what happens next. Aoyama gets out a crossbow, right—’

  ‘A crossbow?’

  ‘A crossbow, and aims it at the consultant’s chest, right. He must have seen the news coming. He tells all but one of the juniors to leave if they don’t want to witness a bolt puncturing a human heart. Deep madness. Aoyama then throws a reel of mountaineering rope to the remaining junior, and orders him to tie the consultant to the chair. Then he tells the junior to leave. Before Security can get there, Aoyama locks the door from the inside.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  �
��Nobody knows yet. The police were called, so the TV people came too. The director was up there, trying to fight the journos away, but we’re going to be on the evening news whatever happens! Deep thrill. I guess the SWAT teams will be here soon, and negotiators in bulletproof jackets. Nothing this exciting ever happens in Ueno. National news!’

  I dive left and I know the ball is veering right. The ground whacks the breath from my body, my skeleton crunches, and the enemy roars. I spit out my tooth. It lies there, no longer a part of me. White, a speck of blood. Why bother getting up? Ever. I have lost the match, my friends, my soccer, my fame, my hopes of meeting my father – everything except Anju. I should never have left Yakushima. The islanders will remember my shame for all time. How can I go back now? I lie in the goalmouth dirt – if I begin to sob here, how can I—

  ‘Get up, Miyake!’ Nakamori, the team captain.

  I look up. The rat’s-tail kid is holding his head in his hands. The enemy are stalking away. The referee is pointing to the twelve-yard box. I look in our goal. Empty. Where is the ball? I realize what has happened. The ball went wide. The thunder god musses my hair. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I place the ball for the goal kick. Can my supernatural protector save my luck for another twenty-five minutes? Please. ‘Nice save,’ sneers an enemy supporter. ‘Positions!’ screams Ikeda. ‘Go, go, go!’ I look for a friendly face on our team, but nobody will make eye contact in case I kick the ball to them. What do I do? The wind increases. ‘Look,’ I vow to the thunder god, ‘let me be as great a goalkeeper as Matsui, just for this game, and my future is yours. I know you saved me just now. Don’t turn your back on me now. Please. Please.’ I run back a few paces, turn, take three deep breaths, sprint at the ball and . . . it is a perfect, clean, powerful, rocket-fuelled, divine kick. The thunder god intercepts the ball at house height and volleys it over the pitch. The ball soars over the enemy strikers. Their defenders are still jogging back into their half, unaware that the goal kick has been taken. Some spectators gawp. Some players look around, wondering where the ball has gone. The enemy goalkeeper is having his photo taken with a girl, and the ball falls to earth before he realizes his services are needed. He dashes out in panic. The ball bounces over the goalkeeper, and the south wind nods it back down into the net.