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

works in silk especially, but also whatever antique pieces in china, lacquerwork and carving may seem to him likely to constitute both a sound investment and a prized addition to the collection of a connoisseur. De Rivers is aware that these matters are hardly Tom’s field, but suggests first that he has been offered sufficient reason to inform himself on such subjects and second that the sum entrusted to Tom should surely suffice for the retention of a native guide, the competence of whom Tom must be capable of assessing.

Tom puts down the letter, De Rivers’ clumsy scrawl crawling black in the lamplight. Were it not for this, for his allowing himself to be bought by a rich man, and worse than that for his being swayed by the offer of money into agreeing to work for which he has no qualification or taste, he might even now be writing up his reports, paying calls at the ministry, preparing his final lectures, buying only trinkets for friends and then returning to Falmouth happy in the knowledge that his proper work has been done and done well, that the lighthouses will stand beyond the natural term of anyone now living. He knows nothing about silk, or carving or—he looks at the letter again—lacquerwork. And he does not see why samurai heirlooms should cross oceans to take up residence in De Rivers’ mausoleum, alongside eviscerated hummingbirds and forms of statuary that are not quite the thing for public display. If indeed there are any samurai heirlooms, for as far as Tom can see, Japanese tastes are so utterly simple that the prizing of merely decorative objects seems improbable. Although he has not been in any samurai homes and seems most unlikely to do so; as he understands the situation, the samurai caste has been dispossessed by the modernising bureaucrats who are responsible for the presence of foreign engineers. Foreign engineers who now seek to take advantage of the fall of noble houses to buy cut-price family treasures. He thinks of Ally in the damp cottage, of what it would mean to her work if he were able to give her a more commodious house and employ a housekeeper to cook and clean for her, and of his mother who has risen early to wash and bake before going out to work in the shop all his life and still has little put by because she spent it all to send him to school. Ally’s and Mother’s welfare matter more, after all, than the movements of embroidered silk. And in any case, he has signed De Rivers’ agreement and must therefore carry out the commission to the best of his ability. It is too late, now, for these thoughts.

Painfully, he straightens his legs, and staggers as he stands up. The Senhouses find the Japanese bathroom in their house ‘indecent’ and instead have placed tin hip-baths in each room, but it is probably too late to ask the servants to bring hot water and in any case he does not see how a girl could carry sufficient water up the ladder stairs. He removes his tweed jacket, waistcoat, tie, collar and cuffs, shirt, underlinen and sponges himself down at the washstand with cold water and expensively imported coal tar soap. He can see his breath in the air. He puts on his pyjamas and, for the first time since setting foot on Japanese soil, climbs into bed. He thinks of Ally, also lying alone under cold sheets, although of course it is daytime in England. He thinks of the line of buttons on her nightdress, from the white cotton ruffle over the hollows in her collarbones down towards her belly, deep enough that he can push the fabric back over one but not both breasts, cup it in his hand and—He finds his hand cupped, his thumb moving over a nipple that is not there, the other hand reaching as if to gather up the skirts that swathe his wife’s legs on the other side of the world.

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Even in the consulting room, the windows are set so high in the walls that if Ally wanted to open one she would have to climb onto a chair. The room is narrower than it is tall, as if the walls are closing in from the sides. She can hear the prickle of rain on the glass but the clinic is—she calculates—at least a mile from the nearest tree so there is no sound of wind. She remembers Cornwall, and the view from the asylum to the north and south coasts, over fields and woods and villages to the edges of the sea. It is still there, she thinks. She will return, will walk again on the headlands above the waves, watching sea-birds dive and flicker among the rocks. She will see a pale sunlight over the water, as if shining through watered silk, and hear the lapping of the Fal at her feet as she looks across the river’s mouth to where the trees gather dark on the shore beyond Flushing. It is still there.

She is looking through yesterday’s notes. The patients’ troubles are much as one would expect: consumption; complications of pregnancy mostly associated with inadequate nutrition, overcrowding and overwork; parasites and fungal infections in the children. Coughs, croup and digestive disturbances. There are a few treatable conditions requiring medical rather than social attention, but for the most part these people need housing, sanitation, food and perhaps prophylactics far more than they need doctoring. I prescribe new pillows and blankets, Ally thinks. I prescribe new houses, with sound walls, proper drainage and tightly fitted windows. I prescribe creamy milk and new-laid eggs. I prescribe a long visit to Aunt Mary. She must cook again for Mamma tonight. She has not dared enquire what Mamma ate before Ally arrived, since it seems now rare indeed for Papa to dine at home. She has been cooking, not, she hopes, in an attempt to gain Mamma’s approbation,