The Last Samurai

Steps approached the front door, which opened. The door to the room opened while I was still laughing, and the woman in pink came in.

What’s going on? she asked.

This is my son, he said.

No I’m not, I said.

What do you mean? he said.

Have you seen Seven Samurai?

No.

I have, said the woman.

It was a test, I said. I couldn’t tell my real father because it was true.

I don’t begin to understand, said the woman, and the man said

In some parts of the world you’d be flogged for this.

I said it was not necessary to leave England to find people who did stupid things.

Who are you? he said angrily. What’s your name?

David, I said without thinking.

I don’t understand, he said angrily. Did you want money? You made it up to get money?

Of course I want money, I said, though there were other things I wanted more. How am I supposed to buy a mule without money?

But why in God’s name—

I did not know what to say. Because you were a linguist, I said. I heard the story about the case endings and I thought you’d understand. Of course you don’t understand. I’ve got to go.

But it’s got to be true, he said. How could you know about the case endings? She must have told you. It must be true. Where is she?

I’ve got to go, I said.

He said: No, don’t go.

I said: Do you still play chess?

He said: She told you about the chess?

I said: What?

The woman said: Hugh—

He said: What does it take to get a cup of tea in this house?

She said: I was just going, but she looked at me as she went.

He said: What did she tell you about the chess?

I said: Do you mean you let him win?

He said: Didn’t she tell you?

I said: She said you didn’t let him win.

He said: Of course I didn’t let him win, and he stumped up and down the rug.

He said: He won 10 games out of 10. He stopped saying What am I going to do; he sat smiling at the board. He said I do what you do better than you can yourself, and you can’t do what I do at all. I thought Where would you be if it weren’t for me, you stupid bastard?

I said You talk a good game.

He said Meaning?

I said Is it a game because I say it’s a game? And I said that if I treated it as a game because I thought it was a game and he treated it as a game not because he thought it was a game but because I said it was —

And he said Yes

— which of us was doing the thing he thought he did

And he said Yes

and that was the last thing I said to him

Before the exam, I said.

Yes, he said.

What was the last thing he said to you? I asked.

None of your business.

What did my mother say? I said.

I can’t remember. Some daft thing.

What? I said hoping it would be something Sibylla couldn’t possibly have said.

I can’t remember. Something sympathetic.

I wanted to ask whether the woman had looked bored, but I thought he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

He said: Tell me where she is. I’ve got to see her again

I said: I’ve got to go

He said: You’ve got to tell me

I opened the door and went down the front hall. I could hear him behind me. I broke into a run and slipped on a silky rug that slid on the polished wood and got my balance and caught at the first Chubb lock and I could hear him behind me coming fast. I snapped open the first lock and I opened the second Chubb lock and the third Chubb lock with both hands and I got the door open just as his hand gripped my shoulder.

I twisted away and pulled myself free. I crossed the walk in three strides and vaulted over the gate and when I looked back he was just standing at the door. He looked at me across the birdbath and the rosebushes and then he turned.

The door shut. It was just a boring house on a boring street of houses with their closed white doors.

I stumbled down the street. He had not killed to learn those moodless verbs and uninflected nouns, but he had brought a slave into existence for their sake.

I walked back to Notting Hill Gate and I took the Circle Line.

2

A good samurai will parry the blow

I decided not to apply to Oxford to read classics at the age of 11.

Sibylla asked what had happened to my skateboard. I thought of the long line of closed doors, the house for sale, the long grass. I knew I couldn’t go back. I said it had got stolen. I said it didn’t matter. I kept thinking of the boy who wasn’t my brother.

I thought of the prisoners of fate who couldn’t hope for better luck.

I thought: Why would I even WANT a father. At least I was free to come and go. Sometimes I’d pass a council bus with a message on the back: SOUTHWARK: WHERE TRUANCY IS TAKEN SERIOUSLY, and I’d walk north across Tower Bridge to the City, where truancy was not taken seriously. What kind of father would put up with that? I should quit while I was ahead.

I had stopped sleeping on the floor. I had stopped eating grasshoppers au gratin with a sauce of sautéed woodlice. Sibylla kept asking if something was wrong. I said nothing was wrong. The thing that was wrong was that nothing was ever going to change.