Signs for Lost Children Sarah Moss (best way to read books .TXT) 📖

‘Does she? A learned young lady. Prefer them pretty, myself.’

‘I am a little—a little concerned.’

‘Concerned? Why? You fear that your patron will scorn your offerings in the belief that he could buy the same thing in any department store in Paris? Dear boy, the best Japanese things are quite extraordinary. Far beyond anything made in Europe. Surely you can see for yourself, the design as well as the execution, startling. Where did you get them?’

‘A place my guide told me, out in the hills. They make things for the Imperial Palace. I thought that meant something.’

The professor leans over to pat his hand. ‘I should say it does. Is this Nakayama? Well then. You could not have done better. And perhaps you feel able to mention the sum?’

Red-faced, gaze averted, Tom mentions it.

‘You did very well, dear boy, very well indeed. They are not street-sellers to be fleeced or haggled as if their work were fruit at the end of a hot day. I knew the old man, you know, when he first came to Europe. Met him in London. He’d been in Macclesfield at the silk mills. Tiny little chap but he knew what he was doing all right. Miss Davis is right, the hangings are not an old Japanese tradition, any more than the railway lines or the vaccination are old Japanese traditions. But if we limited ourselves to old traditions, you and I would still be painting ourselves blue and living in mud huts. They’ve been weaving and embroidering silks since we were crawling in the mud, just not hanging them on the walls. Prize beauty where you find it, dear boy, that’s my advice. If a thing’s well done it’s well done, wherever the chap’s father learnt to do it.’

He watches Tom for a moment. ‘Do you want to have them lift your boxes, let me have a look, put your mind at rest? I’ll tell you, if it’s Nakayama work you’ll sell it easy as whistling if your man doesn’t like the look of it.’

Tom shakes his head. ‘It’s his anyway. Bought with his money. It would be easier in some ways if the risk were mine.’

‘Well then, he can sell it. Do you want to show me?’

Outside, nothing is different: sea and sky, waves and wind.

‘I thank you but no. They are all wrapped and nailed into their crates. It’s not as if I can do anything about it now whatever you say.’

‘You have insurance?’

‘I do and Mr. De Rivers does. For more than I spent.’

‘Leave it all be, then. And don’t worry. Here, I’ll get you a drink.’

* * *

Later, he walks the deck. There is moonlight and a light wind and the surge of the ship under his feet, and the waves black and silver under the stars. He does not know why he is troubled. Of course everyone on a ship is by definition literally disturbed, but there is something more than the daily discomfort of the transitory state. He remembers the imaginary bruise on Miss Davis’ breast. He remembers Nakayama, the white buildings against the winter-forested hillside and the drift of clouds down the mountain valley and then the shock of the boiling dyes, pink and red and steaming hot, the man holding up the silk now dripping as if with blood. He walks a long time, as the ship and the sea turn under his feet towards the morning stars.

T

HE

P

ATH OF

O

DYSSEUS

She meets the postman at the gate and opens the letter there, standing on the path with the seagulls crying around her and the wind jostling the last faded petals off the camellias. Odd to have flowers that die in the spring. She can’t read the postmark—Kyoto still or Yokohama? She’s torn the chrysanthemum stamp in her haste.

He’s coming home.

The letter shakes in her hand, as if this were a shock, as if she hadn’t believed herself married and her husband yet walking the earth. She holds it in both hands. Five weeks ago. Five weeks ago he was leaving Kyoto. The holly trees arch in the wind like angry cats. He may be here, opening this gate, in two weeks. She must prepare the house. She must make sure his things are just as he left them, that the place is perfectly clean and tidy, all signs of the plasterers and painters gone. What if he dislikes the curtains, if he is angry that she did not take care of the old ones, allowed them to moulder in the damp? She must cook for him. He likes pies. Her pastry is not reliably good—maybe she could ask Molly to make some extra? He need not know, she need not tell him that it is the work of another woman’s hands. And her body, she thinks, her breathing accelerating, she is still thin, and her hair noticeably greyer than when he left; what if he does not like this, if he regrets—if he would prefer—And her commitment to Rose Tree House, which means that it will be hard for her to cook before he comes home each day. What if he objects, if he does not like her to be out so much? You must take a housekeeper, Aunt Mary would say. It is time to have a servant. She remembers Jenny and shivers: someone to watch, and judge. Someone to know the stains on her underwear and her fancy for ginger biscuits, to read her letters when she is not there and to see how long she does not mend her clothes. Someone watching for every failure. No. Why should she jeopardise her newfound peace so that Tom doesn’t have to eat her cooking? She has stood still for so long that a thrush hops across the grass by her skirt; she will miss the boat.

She sees it leave from the quay as she hurries down Dunstanville. She can see the trees around Rose Tree House and the