Yuki chan in Brontë Country (14 page)

What had been distant sounds in other parts of the building have slowly grown closer. Knocking at doors … the hum of conversation … doors closing. Denny, at
least, is aware that there are now members of staff on this floor, advancing towards them. She gets to her feet and tries to pull Yuki up with her. But Mrs Talbot still has hold of her hands.

Are you sure you don’t want me to try and find her, she says.

Denny is picking up the photographs and stuffing them back into their envelope. Finally, she takes Yuki’s hands and draws them out of the old lady’s clasp.

The bush, she says to Mrs Talbot, and holds up the photograph. Do you remember where it is?

She has Yuki’s map now. Is opening it out on the bed.

The knocking on doors is getting closer. Yukiko stands by the bed, as if in a trance.

By establishing the location of two or three landmarks, Denny manages to pinpoint more or less where the bush might be. She takes a pen from a jar on the bedside table. Pops the top off and makes a cross on the map.

Then there’s a knock at the door which goes some way to bringing Yuki back to her senses. Instinctively, Mrs Talbot says, Come in. And a young woman in a pale blue uniform pops her head round the door and starts to tell Mrs Talbot what’s for dinner, before noticing Yuki and Denny.

Oh, sorry, she says, as if she’s interrupting. But then her attitude suddenly changes.

She pulls her head back out and calls down the corridor. Mrs Weaver – there’s someone in Eanie Talbot’s room.

Denny has just about tucked the last of Yukiko’s belongings back in her rucksack. But Mrs Talbot has reached out and got a hold of Yuki’s hand again.

And I see her in you, you know, she says.

Denny can tell how much this is freaking Yuki out – how it’s not really helping.

That little girl she saw, Mrs Talbot asks her. Do you know who that might have been?

Then Denny grabs hold of Yuki’s arm and drags her out through the door. The young carer is waiting in the corridor. Denny and Yuki step past her to find the large woman who blocked their way at the entrance heading towards them, with the stairwell beyond. She looks as if she wouldn’t have any problem at all in grabbing a person and bundling them to the ground. Looks as if she’d positively enjoy it.

So Yuki and Denny turn and head off in the other direction.

You damn well stop! the large woman calls down the corridor.

And when Yuki glances over her shoulder, she sees her come charging after them, just like a bull.

They hit the fire door and go tumbling through it, and suddenly all the heat and light is gone and they’re out into the cold, cold darkness. They fly down the steps, slipping and sliding, with Yuki struggling to keep a hold of her rucksack. Just about manage to get all the way down without falling and breaking a leg. When they reach the ground they stop and look up to see the
woman leaning over the railings, calling down to them.

Denny piles into the bushes after her lost shoe. And seeing that they still haven’t gone, the large woman begins to head down the fire escape. Denny looks and looks, until the woman’s almost on them. Then says, Fuck it. And she and Yukiko run off across the snow, laughing and shouting. Round the side of the building and out onto the road.

They’re still breathless and giddy five minutes later. The memory of the woman coming charging after them proves hard to shake. But pretty soon Denny limps to a halt, lifts her shoeless foot and tries to rub some heat back into it between her hands.

Oh, man, she says, staring down at it. My entire leg’s gonna drop off before I get home.

Yukiko offers to try and carry her but, as Denny points out, she can barely walk herself. So they carry on along the pavement, rather than over the hillside, which is now almost completely lost to view.

They limp from the light of one lamppost to another, until finally they’re back at the top of town. Denny points down the street she has to take, but before she goes checks that Yuki has her photos, map, etc. and insists that she makes a note of her mobile number. So Yuki pulls out her phone and taps Denny’s number in.

Promise you won’t go looking for the weird bush
without me, she says. We’ll go out and find it tomorrow.

Yuki promises.

Then Denny limps off home down one street and Yukiko limps down another, back towards the B & B.

Y
ukiko has always known that her mother leaving the car door open was significant. She sees the car now, with the driver’s door open, the keys in the ignition and the snow falling. Surely, someone contemplating taking their own life would slam it shut, or possibly even lock it. As a way of expressing just how firmly their mind had been made up. But since the door was left open Yukiko has often wondered if perhaps her mother pulled over and stepped out for a moment’s reflection. Just wanted to stand there in the snow. So that her final moments would have been a sort of euphoria, rather than some dreadful diminishment – some slow and awful snuffing-out.

Having talked to Mrs Talbot she now wonders if it could have been a vision of the young girl that drew her out of the car and in among the snowflakes. She saw the girl, or thought she did, looking lost and desperate, pulled over, and when the girl went off, she simply went on after her. The curtain of snow closed behind her and she was lost herself.

By the time a passing motorist saw the car, pulled in and approached it, the snow had covered the seat and half the dashboard – had found its way into the folds
and gullies around the base of the handbrake. So straight away he must’ve known that there was a problem. Would have known it the moment he saw the open door.

B
y the time Yuki reaches the Grosvenor Hotel the sky is black and solid above the streetlamps. She heads straight upstairs, turns on the TV and climbs into bed. Thinks, Apart from being half-frozen – and my ass, where I got bitten on one side and jabbed with a needle on the other – I feel pretty good. I practically have an appetite.

She checks her texts and messages. Considers waiting a while, until she’s good and ready, then thinks, If I don’t call her now I’ll never do it. So she turns the volume down on the TV and brings Kumi’s number up on her phone.

Where the fuck are you? says Kumiko, without even a Hey or How you doing. I’ve been leaving messages for you all goddamned afternoon.

Yuki’s already decided just to go right ahead and tell her where she is and what she’s doing. Because, really, what can she do but scream and shout?

I’m still in Haworth, she says. In my big old bed, watching my tiny TV.

At the other end of the line there’s a colossal Kumiko Silence. A great yawning chasm of resentment, sucking the rug, the bedspread, everything into it.

You said you were coming back
today
, she says quietly. We made an
arrangement
.

Yuki thinks, Well, no.
You
made the arrangement, but then I went ahead and chose to do something else.

I got bitten, she says. This huge great dog jumped up and bit me in my ass, out on the moors. I had to go to the doctor’s …

Kumiko interrupts, but Yuki’s determined to finish.

… and have a shot in the other ass. So now I’m hobbling around like a goddamned penguin.

Kumiko’s stopped talking. Has reinstated her Almighty Silence.

Yuki lets this stand for a while. Shakes her head and rolls her eyes to herself. Eventually says, I’m sorry, Kumi. I just didn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted. I’ll get the train back in the morning.

Nothing.

Anyone else, she thinks – even a complete goddamned stranger – would’ve asked about the dog bite and offered a little sympathy. So she just sits on the bed and lets her sister seethe – can feel the bitterness burning down the line. Another minute, she thinks, and maybe she’ll start to calm down.

Anyway, she says, all upbeat now. I found out some stuff about Mum’s visit. I met this old woman who saw her when she was up here. A sort of psychic. They had these long talks about the visions Mum was having …

Then out of nowhere Kumiko comes storming back into view.

Yukiko, she says. Do you honestly believe that there’s something out there – something you’re going to find or someone’s going to tell you – that is going to fix things? That’s going to make everything all right?

Yuki does her best to remain calm. To push on through this. You’re not listening, she says. This woman actually sat and talked with Mum, three or four times – about Fukurai and all sorts of other stuff. I always thought Mum came up here because of the Brontës, but she didn’t. She came to see this woman. To talk to her about her visions … about what was going on in her head.

That’s because she was
mad
, says Kumiko. How long before you accept that?

Yukiko just about manages to stay on her feet and keep on going.

She told me, she says – louder now to try and block out whatever Kumiko’s saying. She told me how Mum had said she kept seeing this young girl everywhere.

It doesn’t matter, says Kumiko.

Yuki’s doing her very best not to lose her temper. Well, of
course
it fucking matters, she says. Her wandering off and leaving the car door open. She was probably just chasing after the girl …

She was
mad
, says Kumiko.

Stop
saying
that, Yuki says. Not when we could’ve
done
something. Got her better help …

It wouldn’t have made any difference, Kumiko says. She’d’ve still ended up killing herself.

That’s not true.

Yes it is.

You don’t know that. How can you say that?

And it’s as if, having contrived to bring Yuki to this very point, Kumiko now can’t help but take a moment – to consider the power she has and any last reservations – before bringing the whole world down on her.

Because she tried to kill herself the year before, she says.

Silence.

That’s not true, says Yuki, trying to fend it off.

Dad told me, Kumiko says.

And then it’s done.

Yuki says, That’s not
true
, again, but is already falling – the door slammed shut on her.

She screams, hits the phone – twice, three times – trying to end the call. Then hurls it across the room.

It strikes the wall and comes apart. And Yukiko folds in two, as if someone’s punched her. Feels herself being filled right up, with something poisonous. And there’s no letting it out. It’s already in her, raging away.

She tries to scream it out of her, but whatever it is restores itself with every breath. She’s against the bed. Climbs up onto it, tries to lie down and bury her head in the sheets but her body won’t allow it. So she gets up and blunders, wounded, round the room.

She keeps moving, moving, but in her mind she is deep down in the reservoir, with everything inchoate and pressing in on her. Her mother, sister, father, all roiling,
tumbling. And not enough air – nothing like enough air at all.

She finally comes to rest standing over her phone, on the floor in pieces. Briefly wonders if the B & B Lady heard her scream and is now on her way up. She bends down – carefully, so as not to spill herself. Picks up the pieces. She tries to reassemble them, in a kind of trance: the phone’s outer casing, the battery, the battery cover. And as she does so, so her conversation with Kumiko is reassembled, and the deep black pit opens up again.

She thinks, I’ve gotta get out of this room. Is beginning to worry about her own well-being. Wonders if she should maybe try and get back to London tonight after all. Get to London, take a train straight out to Heathrow, and just sit and wait for the next available flight.

She finds her coat and keys. Then heads out onto the streets.

This pain, she thinks as she walks along, it’s just as real as when that dog sank its teeth into me. I can feel it in my chest, in my head, all the way out to my fingers. It just goes on and on.

She pictures Kumiko and her father confiding in each other – over the phone, in the kitchen. And her mother. The number of hours I’ve spent trying to find her, to redeem her. Half my goddamned life.

She limps along, without knowing where she is or where she’s going. Until at last she arrives at a T-junction and finds she’s reached the edge of town. Beyond the road there’s nothing but fields, off into oblivion. She stands
there, staring out at it. The cold, black night, with the snow packed hard beneath it. Then she finally turns and walks back into town.

By the time she arrives at the narrow lane that runs alongside the graveyard it feels like some of the adrenaline is receding, leaving a solid block of anger. She walks up to the gate and the big, blank wall of the parsonage. The sisters who lived here now seem utterly unknown to her, unimaginable. In fact, the whole town is suddenly odd and unfamiliar, as if the world is one great lie. She looks around and feels the cold moving in on her. Pulls out her phone. And within five minutes Denny is heading up the lane towards her, her curly blonde hair catching the streetlight – about the same place Yuki first encountered her.

She walks right up to Yukiko, a little flustered and out of breath. Asks if she’s all right.

Yukiko stares steadily back at her. Shrugs. Then shakes her head.

So they walk back down the lane. Past the darkened shops. Past the pubs with their light spilling out from windows and doorways. All the way down the hill, to the shop where Yuki bought her Coke and snacks yesterday evening, and where she now buys a pack of beers. Then on, through the snow, back up to the B & B.

In her room, Yuki splits the beers and offers one to Denny, but she tells her that she doesn’t really drink. So Yuki opens one up and the two of them sit, side by side, against the pillows with Yuki sipping steadily at her beer.
She’s vaguely aware how Denny keeps on looking over at her but doesn’t mind or feel the need to explain what’s going on with her. She finishes the first beer, burps, drops the empty can on the bedside table and reaches out for another one.

At last, Denny says, Have you been thinking about what Eanie Talbot was saying, about your mum?

Yuki shakes her head. Not really, she thinks, and she pictures the old woman in her tiny room … she and Denny running along the corridor … down the fire escape.

She suddenly sits up. Your shoe, she says. And she can see it, soaked and cold among the bushes. That poor, lost shoe. She climbs off the bed and looks around the room till she finds her headtorch. Brings it up to her forehead, with the straps dangling down on either side.

We should go get it, she says.

But Denny really doesn’t want to be going back out and getting all cold and wet again. She frowns, shakes her head. And for the first time she sees Yuki look at her, disappointed, which Denny finds pretty hard to take.

The room slips back into stillness, silence. Then Yuki takes the bottle of Jameson and pours a large belt of it into a glass. She heads over to the window, brings in the Coke, half-frozen, and tops the glass up with it.

She takes a couple of sips as she stands there, as if at some weird outdoor bar. Then leans right out – peers down at the pavements, then up at the roofs across the street. Denny slips off the bed, goes over and joins her.
Then the two of them lean on the sill, with the night air cold against their faces.

Yuki asks if it snows a lot up here.

More than it used to, Denny says. When I was a kid it never seemed to snow at all.

Yuki sometimes imagines a tribe of people who’ve never seen snow – never even heard of it. Then one day, for some reason, it starts to fall on their little village. Just imagine. They’d think it was the end of the world.

She reaches out and takes a pinch of crisp, white snow between her fingers and drops it into what’s left of her drink. Lifts the glass so that the streetlight shines right through it and she can see the snow slowly melting in the whiskey and Coke. She thinks of the reservoir – imagines the snowflakes landing on it now. Onto the cold, dark water. Settling onto the surface, then gone.

She still can’t understand why her mother would take a photograph of the water without it meaning something to her. The wind-bent tree … the open window … the flat, still water – they must all have some significance.

They continue to stare out of the window. Then Yuki suddenly brightens and raises a finger, as if she’s just had a great idea.

She pours more Coke into her glass, drops another pinch of snow in after it and closes the window. Tops her drink up with whiskey, wanders round the room till she finds her notebook. Then takes it up onto the bed and flicks through it till she comes to a blank page. Denny climbs up beside her. Yuki has a pen in her hand and
is writing out a dozen or so columns of Japanese letters. She’s shaking her head, saying she can’t believe she didn’t think of this sooner. Then, when she’s practically filled the page, she draws one last symbol at the top, which is a little larger than the others.

Kokkuri-san
, Yuki says. We used to play it when we were girls.

She assures Denny that there’s nothing to be scared of. She just has to remember that
Kokkuri-san
is the spirit of an old fox and must be treated respectfully. Also, not to stop in the middle of a session. Otherwise,
Kokkuri-san
won’t be able to get back home and will be forced to haunt you. And nobody, except a crazy person, would want that.

Denny’s not sure. Says that she doesn’t really like this sort of thing. But Yuki glowers at her again and sees her flinch this time. This is what it must be like to have a kid sister, she thinks. You get to boss them around all day long.

She pulls a handful of change out of her pocket and picks out a pound coin. Then slips off the bed to fetch her precious envelope. She takes her headtorch from the top of the set of drawers, turns the main light out, flicks her torch on and climbs back up onto the bed.

She’s still adjusting the torch as she settles. She smoothes the notebook flat, arranges the photographs around it and places the pound coin on the symbol at the top of the page.

All Denny has to do, she tells her, is put her fingers
on the coin.
Kokkuri-san
will take care of everything else. And when Denny again tries to explain how she finds this kind of thing disturbing Yuki looks up, says that this is
important
, and the light from the torch hits Denny right in the eyes, blinding her.

She checks over the board she’s made. Oh man, she thinks, when she and her friends used to do this round at Hikari’s garage they would get each other in such a state. One of the girls had so many nightmares Yuki became convinced that she’d suffered some lasting psychological damage and would wind up in an institution of some sort.

She takes Denny’s hands and places the tips of her forefingers on the coin’s edge. Then rests her own fingers on the other side.

She whispers to Denny, OK, so we say,
Kokkuri-san
…
Kokkuri-san
… then wait until he joins us. Once he’s here we can ask him whatever we like.

Denny doesn’t answer, so Yuki looks up, blinding her again. And Denny says, OK,
OK
.

Yuki swings the light back down onto the notebook. And, slowly, something like silence establishes itself. In time, the rest of the room beyond that small pool of light is lost to the darkness and it’s as if Yuki and Denny are drifting out in space.

Yukiko says,
Kokkuri-san
, and the second time Denny joins her, in a whisper. Yuki says some more words in Japanese. Then she and Denny both focus their attention on the coin.

At last Yuki says, Are you here?

The coin remains where it is. Then Denny feels a tiny twitch beneath her fingers. And slowly, very slowly, the coin slides across the paper and settles on a symbol.