The New Samurai Page 9

He winced. Twins. For a moment his imagination went into overdrive.

  But then the check-in stewardess called the sisters forward. They tore reluctant eyes from Sam and pushed their luggage onto the weighing belt.

  Gretchen kept casting impatient glances back towards Sam, who stood with his eyes fixed firmly to the space above her left shoulder.

  Gerda spoke in a whisper but it was obvious from the way the stewardess was glancing up at Sam, her expression amused, that they were talking about him. He flushed slightly. He had a presentiment that this journey could be uncomfortable in more ways than one… and that he was in danger of breaking his promise to himself.

  Stay out of trouble: that was going to be his mantra, he decided. That plus his ‘no women’ rule.

  He was relieved when the sisters disappeared to join the security queue. He intended to stay far, far away from them.

  Sam stepped forward to heave his heavy, military-style, canvas duffel bag onto the weighing belt. The check-in stewardess was still suppressing a smile as he handed her his passport and flight documents.

  “Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seat?” she asked, already knowing that she planned to seat him by the short-haired brunette – who had slipped her two, crisp £20 notes to do just that.

  “Er, this is probably a bit of an unusual… request,” said Sam, the words tumbling out so quickly they made almost no sense, “but would you see if you can get me a seat next to a man rather than a woman?”

  His eyes flicked nervously to the security queue.

  The stewardess followed the direction of his glance and she immediately got the wrong end of the stick.

  “I’ll see what I can do, sir,” she said, sympathetically. “Yes, I think I’ve got just the seat for you, Mr Patterson.” She handed him his ticket with a smile. “Enjoy your flight.”

  The plane was full and Sam made his way carefully to his seat, stepping over luggage, and edging his way past passengers who were pushing coats and bags into the overhead lockers.

  His was one of a pair of seats towards the tail of the plane. He was a bit disappointed that he’d got the window: it would have been easier to stretch out his six foot one frame in an aisle, but at least the check-in stewardess had kept her word and seated him next to a man. He breathed easier knowing he’d escaped the gorgeous twins – and that he was keeping his deal with Julie.

  As he glanced at the man with whom he would be seated for the next 13 hours, warning bells started to ring. Loudly.

  The man looked up as Sam removed his book and iPod from his carry-on bag; he didn’t even try to hide the look of interest and pleasure as he ran his eyes up and down Sam’s body.

  Sam felt himself heating up at the scrutiny. He could pretty much guess what was coming next.

  “Excuse me,” he said, his voice slightly strained, “could I just get past you to my seat?”

  “Of course! Do squeeze past me!” said the man, in a jaunty tone. “I’m Jerry. We may as well be friendly as we’ll be tucked up all night together.”

  He laughed. Sam wanted to jam his head in the overhead locker. Just what he needed: a screaming queen from Canvey Island with slip-on shoes.

  Jerry held up a foil packet.

  “Would you like my nuts?” he asked, salaciously.

  Sam groaned. This was going to be a long flight.

  “So,” said Jerry, as he launched into yet another autobiographical story with himself as the star attraction, “the lifeguard at the swimming pool asked me if I’d help him complete a survey. I said, ‘I’ll complete anything you like, gorgeous. How about a full body massage?’ And then he asked me how often I came and I said, ‘As often as I can’.”

  Jerry had a laugh like Sid James, only two octaves higher. It had been drilling through Sam’s skull for the last four hours.

  “And then he asked me,” continued Jerry, “if I’d ever been sexually harassed at the swimming pool. Well! I said, ‘Unfortunately not, but you can start now if you like’.”

  Sam was sitting slumped in his seat, his face vacant. He’d learned far more about cottaging, dogging, Hampstead Heath, the White Swan on the Mile End Road and saunas than he’d ever wanted, wished or dreamed of knowing. There just didn’t seem any way to shut Jerry up: disdain, disgust, reading, pretending to sleep, earphones – nothing worked.

  “And when I saw him in the morning light,” chattered Jerry, charmed to have a new audience, “I just looked at him and I said – I’m sorry, but no! I mean! He was a red-head. I hadn’t noticed in the club, but please! I do have standards. Now your hair, that’s a lovely colour. Do you use products?”

  He reached over to stroke Sam’s head. Sam automatically ducked out of the way, throwing an angry look at Jerry.

  “Ooh! We are touchy, Samantha!” laughed Jerry. He patted Sam’s knee. “Never mind, we’ve got plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  Sam wondered if the plane had a parachute on board. Then he decided he’d jump anyway, even if it didn’t.

  “So now you know all about me,” said Jerry, “about all my little peccadilloes, I’m just dying to hear about you. What’s a nice boy like you doing on a plane like this?”

  “Actually, I could really do with getting some sleep now,” said Sam, stiffly.

  “Don’t be such a party-pooper!” laughed Jerry. “It’s not even midnight. We’ve got hours before bedtime, so to speak. Tell Uncle Jerry what you’re running away from.”

  Sam looked at him cautiously. “What makes you think I’m running away from anything?”

  “Ah,” said Jerry, wisely, “because you’ve got that look: the look that says you’ve burned your boats. I should know: I’ve burned boats in more countries than you’ve had hot dates.”

  Thank God, thought Sam. At least Jerry didn’t think he was gay – hopefully that meant he wouldn’t make a pass at him either. Sam wondered what the stewardess would do if he tried to open the exit hatch mid-flight.

  “My job ended,” said Sam, shortly, “and I thought, well why not? I still don’t know if it was the right choice. I guess I’ll find out.”

  “And you’re not leaving any grieving little minx behind you, crying her eyes out as she keeps your side of the bed warm, hope overcoming experience?” said Jerry, who seemed genetically unable to use one word when 37 would do.

  “Nope. Definitely not,” said Sam.

  “Ah, I see,” said Jerry. “You’re leaving Blighty because of a woman.”

  Sam shook his head. “No. I was seeing someone but we broke up ages ago – on Valentine’s Day, as it happens.” The memory wasn’t a happy one. “I’m leaving because I didn’t have a job. That’s all.”

  “And what is it that you do?” said Jerry, raising one eyebrow coyly. “No, wait: let me guess – that’ll be much more fun! Male stripper – no, too shy. Pity. Escort to professional women? Hmm, I can see you making a success of that – we all love that shy boy routine. I could give you a contact number… no? A writer, exposing himself to the thrill of foreign travel?”

  Sam couldn’t help laughing. “Not unless you count the blog my sister is insisting I write to keep track of me while I’m away.”

  “Oh, you’re such a tease, Sam,” said Jerry, smirking. “Then I’m guessing... you’re a teacher!”

  Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Does it show?”

  Jerry looked pleased with himself.

  “You’ve got that nurturing look about you. I can see you teaching. I wish you’d been my teacher at school – I’d have loved learning a few things from you.”

  Sam’s face was flushed and Jerry cackled happily.

  “I bet all the little boys and girls had a crush on sir!”

  He laughed again at the haunted expression on Sam’s face.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Jerry, happily. “Teasing you is far too easy: it’s like kicking Bambi.”

  Sam squirmed in his seat.

  “My advice, dear boy,” said Jerry, patting his arm kindly, “is to ju
st be yourself. Let your guard down a bit: let yourself fall in love. In fact, let love kick the living daylights out of you and then get up out of the gutter and do it all over again. That’s what life is: a series of experiences. After all, who wants to go to their grave having only ever been careful? You should listen to your Uncle Jerry.”

  Sam shook his head. “No offence, Jerry, but I’m going to Tokyo to work and maybe to do a bit of travelling. That’s all.”

  “Tsk tsk,” said Jerry, wagging his finger at Sam. “That all sounds extremely dull and life is short.” Then he reached into his wallet and handed Sam his business card. “Oh well, it’s your life. But if you change your mind and fancy a little excitement, just get on the old denwa and give Uncle Jerry a call.”

  Sam glanced down at the business card. One side was printed in Japanese characters, the other in English. It had an address in Ikebukuro and read,

  ‘Jerry Smith, Funeral Director’.

  Chapter 5 – April

  Even though Sam had lived most of his life in and around Britain’s capital, Tokyo was a disorienting experience.

  Unable to read the scrawl of Japanese script, and without the visual cues that told you whether you were looking at a shop or a restaurant or a bank, everything was alien, unfamiliar, unrecognisable – it was a confusing and bizarre new world for Sam.

  On the plus side, as well as being disorienting, it was exciting and the people were very friendly. Every time he stopped to look at a street map, someone would rush over to offer to help him. Even when their English was limited to ‘Hello’, their desire to be of service was enthusiastic; even though sometimes, after receiving help, Sam was no nearer to understanding where he was or how to get to where he wanted to be. Not that he cared; it was liberating to drift around this extraordinary city, an observer who knew no-one and understood less.

  One of the other men staying in the hostel where he was lodging had given him a good tip.

  “If you get lost, ask a girl to help you rather than a man or an older woman. Or better still a group of girls.”

  Sam looked sceptical.

  “No, seriously: it’s not about trying to pick someone up – although I wouldn’t rule that out if they’re hot – but girls are more likely to have learned some English and they won’t worry so much about losing face if they don’t understand what you’re saying. A guy or an older person would rather pretend not to hear you than admit that.”

  And when Sam tried it out, it worked. Sort of. When he first had to ask for help, he tentatively approached a group of young women who were drinking coffee in one of the numerous kissaten – so much more fashionable to drink coffee than the ubiquitous and native O-cha green tea.

  “Sumimasen,” he said politely, hesitantly. “Do you speak English?”

  The woman who had been doing most of the talking at a high-pitched, break-neck speed opened her eyes wide, and then descended into fits of giggles which her friends copied, casting coy glances up at him, their hands over their mouths.

  After a minute of this, and just as Sam was feeling so frustrated that he considered simply walking away, one of the girls was able to take a breath and say,

  “Yes. Small English.”

  Then they all wanted their photo taken with him, which seemed really bizarre to Sam, but he smiled and posed for pictures and finally left them, still giggling and waving – with only a faint idea of how to get back to the hostel.

  Several of the language school teachers lived in the same concrete block which was central and cheap. It also saved the hassle of trying to find an affordable apartment in one of the most expensive places on earth. ‘Affordable’ was something of a misnomer anyway: even the most bijou of apartments, so small that you could watch TV in the lounge whilst sitting on your toilet, was, in all probability, beyond the salary of a language teacher.

  The first person Sam got to know in the hostel was a New Yorker called Paul, the one who’d given him the invaluable advice about how to ask for help. He’d been there just a few weeks longer than Sam and was living in the room next door. He was short, Italian-American, and had already found a pizzeria a few streets away.

  “Man, this is one crazy place!” he told Sam on his first evening. “It’s like New York on speed: you’ll either love it or hate it. Me, I love it!”

  Paul had insisted on taking Sam to meet some of the other language teachers, despite Sam’s incipient jet lag.

  “Best way to get over it, buddy: have a few beers and a few laughs.”

  And Paul had been right. The teachers were a friendly bunch, mostly young, unattached and from all over the world. Helen was the exception to the rule: she was in her fifties, married and taking a gap year from her teaching job in Swansea and, it seemed, from her marriage. She was friendly but quiet, and watched her younger colleagues with tolerant amusement.

  Tara was tall and blonde with spiky hair, built like an Amazon or a Viking, and played Australian Rules football in her home town of Melbourne. She turned heads wherever she went, Japanese men and women staring with open astonishment.

  “I’ve kind of got used to it,” she said, smiling at Sam. “You will, too.”

  Sam smiled back, then reminded himself of his self-imposed no-women rule.

  The fourth teacher who accompanied Sam that first evening was Yoshi – a happy-go-lucky university graduate from Hokkaido, the northernmost island in the Japanese archipelago. He wanted to improve his English and job prospects by spending as much time with native speakers as possible. But between Tara’s Aussie vowels, Paul’s New York twang and Helen’s Welsh lilt, he was finding it harder than he’d anticipated. Sam’s softer, more neutral accent was a relief to him.

  He questioned Sam relentlessly about his life in London, his work, his family and the inevitable question,

  “Are you married man Sam-san?” said Yoshi.

  Sam shook his head.

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “You like Shinjuku, maybe?”

  Sam had no clue what that meant, but the looks on their faces and the way Paul choked on his beer gave him a clue.

  Whilst the others were still laughing, it was Helen who took pity on him.

  “Shinjuku is a part of Tokyo that’s known for its nightlife – and especially for its gay bars,” she explained.

  “Oh,” said Sam. He gave a half-smile, remembering some of the uncalled-for things Jerry had told him.

  “Nobody here cares,” said Helen, patting his arm. “The Japanese have a surprisingly tolerant attitude to homosexuality – providing you don’t flaunt it.”

  Sam blinked. “No, I mean, I don’t… I’m not…”

  Tara raised her eyebrows. She seemed to be suppressing a laugh at his discomfort but was kind enough to change the subject.

  “So what did you make of Frau Brandt?” she said.

  Sam had been met at the airport by a driver sent from the language school who, ironically, spoke little English. Then he’d been escorted to see the school’s formidable director, a woman with iron-grey hair and a no-nonsense attitude. Sam had liked her straight away.

  “We’re delighted to have you here, Mr Patterson,” she said in heavily accented English. “You’ll find we are a good employer and look after our teachers. We have reserved a room for you at a local hostel where several of our teachers reside, although if you choose to live elsewhere, that is entirely at your discretion. We have opened a bank account for you and this is your alien registration card – please do not lose it. Here is a copy of your schedule: you will have three days to acclimatise and then you will start your teaching commitments.”

  She went on to explain that Sam would work three days a week in a state high school – pupils from 14 to 18, two afternoons and evenings a week at the language school, plus alternate weekends, where he would be teaching adults.

  “We have one other rule which I must explain to you, Mr Patterson, one which is rigorously enforced: we don’t allow liaisons between teachers
and students. In fact, we prefer our teachers not to socialise with students at all, even the adults. I’m sure you can understand our reasons for this.”

  Sam nodded, “Of course.”

  The same rules applied in the UK and it was pretty much what he’d expected anyway.

  “And finally,” continued Frau Brandt, examining him over the top of her steel-rimmed spectacles, “we do expect our teachers to attend Japanese language classes. These are provided for you free-of-charge but are required. Other language schools,” she frowned, “do not consider it necessary, but we feel that it will broaden your experience as well as your knowledge. Being a student makes us all better teachers.”

  Sam’s schedule showed that he was expected to attend Japanese language classes for two hours every day, on top of his own teaching commitments. It looked like he was going to be busy. But first he had three days off to explore the city.

  Sam’s Blog

  Freeway overpass – Blossoms in graffiti on

  Fog-wrapped June mornings.

  Hi everyone!

  Ok, so this haiku is about June – I couldn’t find one for April, but I’ll keep looking. Maybe I’ll have to start writing my own.

  I’m staying in a hostel in Shibuya which is a bit like being in Soho, so pretty handy for bars and shops. The room is small and they don’t have beds, only futons, but it’s clean and cheap. Probably just as well it’s a roll-away futon, because there wouldn’t be room for a bed and a desk in here. But I don’t really need much else. There’s a swimming pool in the basement, which isn’t a bad size. And I’m quite near a park so I can go for a run when I have free time – doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that often: home from home! The only other people I see jogging are other gaijin (foreigners). It seems like staring at foreigners is a national pastime.

  Keith – I found the perfect place for you! It’s called a Neko bar and it’s one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been (and since I’ve been in this city, that’s really saying something). It was on my second day here and I saw a sign saying ‘Biru’ (beer) so I thought I’d chance it. All the waitresses were dressed in cat suits: literally, including the ears, tails and whiskers. (Yeah, Keith, I know!) But even stranger is that the place was full of cats – real cats! Creepy pedigree ones with no fur or really long fur and squashed faces, and the customers were encouraged to pet them. When the cats got fed up of being stroked, they escaped up a sort of tunnel to another room and you could watch them on CCTV instead.