The Pure Land (4 page)

On a bookcase in the corner was a globe of the world. He rotated it on its axis, found Japan. ‘There’s a fortune to be made, a whole world opening up.’

Robertson shook his head. ‘Sometimes you worry me, Tom. Looking for signs and wonders.’

‘You don’t think we’re guided sometimes, led the way we’re meant to go?’

‘Maybe,’ said Robertson. ‘But we can just as easily be misguided, misled.’

‘And for fear of that we’d do nothing? Christ, Andrew, sometimes
you
worry
me
! I mean, do you want to be still sitting here, polishing that chair with your arse when you’re thirty? Or forty?’

‘There are worse jobs.’ Robertson’s tone was clipped, his top lip tight.

‘I just think sometimes you have to take a chance, grab your life by the scruff, say to hell with it!’ Glover spun the globe, blurred continents and oceans. Robertson gave him a thin, wan smile, across a great distance.

It was raining, a thin drizzle, a smirr. Like the haar it rendered everything grey. It wet the cobblestones, gave the streets a dull sheen. It deadened sounds, the rumble of cartwheels, the clop of hooves, a voice raised, the cry of a gull. Glover was walking home at the end of his day’s work, bareheaded, his jacket collar up, his mind empty, or so full it was numb.

The summer, such as it was, was passing. Any day now his father, or some old wifie in the kirk, or one of the senior clerks at work, would grimly pronounce that the nights were fair drawing in, and take a miserable satisfaction in it.

He walked by the docks and the shoreporter’s warehouse, stopped for a moment to watch the stevedores unload cargo in the rain, heaving crates, stacking them on the quay. A gaffer, a thickset terrier of a man with steam rising from his shoulders, shouted up at him, said he should get his arse down there, get his jacket off and do some real work instead of fucking gawping. One or two of the other workmen laughed, hard and humourless.

Glover said nothing, turned away. He cut up the narrow lanes and wynds, the backstreets where the pubs and grog-shops were just opening, where the whores like the one he’d met would be out after dark, working a night shift in the unlit doorways and vennels.

He kept his head down, walked on to Old Aberdeen, past the university to Bridge of Don. The bells of St Machar’s struck the hour, six o’clock, and for no good reason he was overcome by melancholy. He looked back towards the city. He had just walked the length of what was, for him, the known world. The rain fell
harder. In the cold kirkyard an open grave awaited him; a granite tombstone was carved with his name.

He decided, once and for all; no more uncertainty, the matter was settled. He would go; he would sail to the East, make his way in the world. And the act of deciding, the fact of it, freed him. He was stepping into his life.

His father nodded, said simply, ‘Aye.’ Then he filled his pipe, added, ‘What’s for you will not go by you.’

His mother took in a quick sharp breath. Her eyes widened in momentary panic, then settled to the bleakness of acceptance. What would be would be.

Martha looked at him with a calm, resigned sadness, her eyes deep dark pools he wouldn’t forget.

Robertson’s look flickered between a kind of envy and a sly, relieved gladness, his thin mouth twitching in a nervy smile. He told him he was a mad bugger and wished him good luck, said he would need it.

George peered at him over his spectacles, shook his hand firmly in his own bony claw, said he was sure he’d go far, be a credit to the firm. Then he looked out the window, said the nights would soon be drawing in.

Annie was waiting for him at their trysting-place, Brig o’ Balgownie, where they’d met that evening, when they’d seen the heron and walked by the river, arm in arm to a quiet place he knew. Was it really only a few weeks ago? A couple of months? That was no time, no time at all. And yet. He couldn’t believe he felt so discomfited, so raw.

She already knew, she said, her father had told her, and she’d wondered when he would be man enough to tell her himself.

He’d only just decided, he said, that very day, and hadn’t wanted to trouble her until he was sure.

That was most considerate of him, she said. It was good to know he was so sensitive of other people’s feelings.

At that she turned away, stood with her back to him, and he saw her shoulders shake with the sobs she’d held in.

‘Aw Christ,’ he said. ‘Annie.’

And he went to her, held her to him, kissed her neck, her hair, her mouth, and she kissed him back with a fierce need that made him want to die into her soft warmth. They walked to the quiet place, the long grass above the dunes, and lay down there, breathing hard, and he lifted her skirts and she undid his buttons, he pushed, clumsy, and with a shock, a sudden give, was in her, she gasped and he thrust till he felt it coursing through him and he pulled out and spurted, spent.

He had done this before, in this same place, with a lassie from the docks, with another from Fittie; it had been quick and brisk and driven by drink; houghmagandie, a ride, a bit of a laugh. But this was Annie, somebody he knew and cared for. This was different.

They lay a long time, clinging to each other, shaken by what had happened. It had been her first time; he knew that. He stroked her hair, tried to speak but had no words. Above them the sky was starting to darken. A peewit cried clear and shrill in the emptiness.

‘Ach, lass,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I let you,’ she said. ‘I wanted to. You’re going. We might never.’

It was as if she were saying the words to herself, matter-of-fact, making sense, ticking off her reasons on a list. But when she sat up, straightened her clothes, she started to cry again, and he felt useless. He fumbled in his pocket for a hanky, handed it to her as he’d handed it to Martha; the same gesture but charged with so much more intensity. Annie took it from him, dabbed at her eyes. Then she reached down under her dress, wiped herself between the legs. He felt he shouldn’t be watching this, but couldn’t turn away.

She looked him in the eye, held out the hanky to him, smeared with his seed, her blood.

‘Will you be wanting this back,’ she said, ‘or should I keep it to mind me of you?’

She dropped the hanky between them on the sand, turned and made her way through the coarse grass. He caught up with her and they walked in silence to the end of her street where the gas lamps had just been lit. She said she’d walk the rest of the way by herself.

The preparations were made. He would sail to Southampton, then out via Cape Town to Calcutta and Hong Kong, spend time in Shanghai, cross from there to Nagasaki. The very names were a charm, an incantation, filled him with excitement and awe. Southampton, Cape Town, Calcutta. Jardine’s would pay for his passage, by steamship and schooner and clipper. The journey would take months, was further than most folk would travel in a lifetime. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki.

In the kirk, on the Sunday before his departure, the minister offered up a special prayer for his safety, asked the Almighty to keep him from harm on his long and hazardous journey, bade the congregation stand and sing,
Will your anchor hold in the storms
of life?
His father cleared his throat, launched into the hymn. His mother blew her nose, dabbed at her eyes. Martha sang out, her voice clear with only the slightest tremor on the high notes.

He glanced round, confirmed what he’d thought: Annie wasn’t there. The pew beside her father was empty. Old George fixed his gaze ahead, grumbled out chorus and verse.

Outside, they fell into step, along the path through the churchyard. Glover took a deep breath, affected calm, and asked after Annie. George said she was fine, she’d just caught a chill somewhere, would be right as rain in a few days.

He stopped and looked Glover in the eye. ‘I know you two have been walking out together. And to be honest, I would rather you’d seen fit to tell me and ask my permission.’

Glover said nothing, couldn’t keep out the memory; Annie lying back in the dunes, himself moving on top of her, inside her. ‘Be that as it may,’ George was continuing, ‘there’s no harm done, and maybe this posting of yours is the best thing that could happen. I don’t think you’re of a mind to get married and settle down.’

‘Not just yet, sir, no.’

‘And she’s ower young. So this will be an end of it before it even begins.’

Annie bucking under him, gasping.

‘Aye.’

‘Of course,’ said George, ‘when you come back from the East in a year or two, the story may be different.’

Annie crying out. His seed spilled in the sand.

‘Aye, sir. I’ll mind that.’

A peewit’s call. The grey North. That empty grave waiting for him.

He went one last time to Brig o’ Balgownie, stood watching the river flow by. He turned to go and there was Annie, just looking at him.

‘I thought you’d be here,’ she said. ‘No, I knew you’d be here. I kenned it. Don’t ask me how, I just did.’

‘And here was me,’ he said, ‘just coming by on the off chance.’

‘Chance?’ she said, as if holding up the word to the light, examining it. ‘Is that all there is? Is that all it was?’

‘I wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘Before I go.’

‘Well, here I am.’

‘I wanted to say goodbye.’

‘It sounds awful final.’

‘I have to do this, Annie. I can’t not go.’

He put his hand to her face, stroked her cheek. He kissed her forehead, her sweet mouth, the kiss not fierce like before, but gentle and sad.

‘I have to.’

‘Then go,’ she said.

They kissed once more, then she pushed him away and he walked on across the bridge. He looked back and she was still standing there, watching him. He waved but she didn’t wave back. Further on he looked again and she was gone.

Annie didn’t come to see him off at the quay, and neither did her father, or Robertson, or anyone else from the office. It was during the week, a working day, and nobody could take the time. His mother couldn’t bear the parting, had said her goodbyes and stayed at home. His father and Martha had come with him, stood awkward and tonguetied till the last moment, when his father shook his hand, gripped it tight, and Martha threw her arms round him, hugged him as she’d done when they were children.

Then he was on deck, the gangplank hauled aboard, hawsers untied, sails set, the ship moving out of the harbour. His father raised his cap to him, a salute. Martha waved a white hanky. And he watched as quickly, so quickly, they receded, were far away, too small in the distance to discern. And the harbour itself, the seafront, the whole town, his entire world, dwindled and faded. He looked back at the wake, saw two dark shapes breaking the surface, dolphins rippling out of the water, and he felt his own heart soar, felt a huge expansiveness, an infinite sense of possibility, as the sleek creatures leapt the waves, followed the ship, out to the open sea.

H
e concentrated on his feet, negotiated his way down the shaky gangplank. The ground steadied itself beneath him. He took one tentative step, another. He breathed deep, took in the scents and smells. There were fragrances he didn’t know, heady and sweet, a spicy wood smoke, something fermented, something bitter and dark, acrid, and in behind it all the stink of fish that reminded him of home, made him laugh. He felt lightheaded. The air was warm, the colours bright. The hillside opposite was a swathe of deep red, as if it had been painted crimson. Everything felt dreamlike, unreal.

All around, cargo and baggage were being unloaded, exotic boxes, bales of silk, a bright-coloured bird in a cage. The labourers were stocky and compact, naked except for loincloths, moved swiftly and efficiently. He found his own luggage, a battered old trunk, and that too made him laugh. It sat there, familiar, solidly itself, but incongruous, transposed to this far strange place.

He caught a flicker of movement out the corner of his eye, something tiny and white. He focused, saw it clear, a butterfly hovering and dipping in the air. But the wings didn’t flutter – it was made of paper, and what kept it dancing there was the updraught from a paper fan. And the fan was being wielded by a young girl with a deftness and lightness of movement the like
of which he had never seen. He stared at her, enchanted. She looked up and the shock of seeing him, looming there, made her stop, hold the fan to her face and peer at him over it. The butterfly fell.

He bent and picked it up, held it between finger and thumb, amazed at the simple intricacy of it, the paper almost translucent.

A voice boomed out behind him, loud and male, the accent Scottish.

‘Mister Glover?’

He turned, saw a middle-aged man striding towards him.

‘Aye.’

‘I thought you looked the only one likely to be an Aberdonian!’

The man held out his hand, but Glover, still holding the butterfly, was suddenly awkward. He turned again, meaning to give the butterfly back to the girl, but she was gone, faded into the crowd. He took the butterfly in his left hand, held out his right.

‘Ken Mackenzie from Jardine Mathieson.’

The handshake was firm, the grip Masonic, pressing with the thumb.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Glover.

The set of the man’s features was hard, dour, a certain tightlipped northern grimness to the line of the mouth, the face weathered. The eyes were sharp, missed nothing, but were not without a dry humour. He registered Glover’s discomfiture over the handshake, let his gaze drop to the butterfly. Glover closed his hand round it, put it away in his jacket pocket.

‘Aye,’ said Mackenzie, laconic.

A sternfaced official came over, backed by two armed guards. He gestured towards Glover, spoke at him rapidly in Japanese, the voice gruff but with a kind of singsong tonality to it.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Glover, ‘I don’t …’

‘He could speak to you in Dutch,’ said Mackenzie. ‘But I doubt you’d find that any easier!’

Then Mackenzie spoke to the man in Japanese, his manner brisk, assured. They seemed to argue, haggle. Glover looked on as if from far away, the ebb and flow of their voices, the background noise, all washing over him. He understood none of it, but one word recurred again and again.
Dejima
. Eventu ally they reached some kind of agreement. The man bowed stiffly to Mackenzie, gave a little grunt. Mackenzie bowed in return, but less deeply. The man bowed to Glover, the merest inclination of the head. Glover nodded in response, said ‘Fine.’

‘Welcome to Nagasaki!’ said Mackenzie, as the guards stood back to let them pass.

Glover moved to pick up his trunk, but Mackenzie said he would have it brought to Dejima.

‘Where’s that?’

‘I’m afraid that’s where you’ll have to stay in the meantime,’ said Mackenzie. ‘But don’t worry. As prisons go, it’s not too bad.’

‘Prison?’

‘Only in a manner of speaking. And it shouldn’t be for long.’

He strode off through the crowds and Glover followed.

The area next to the dock was a marketplace, lined with makeshift stalls fashioned from straw matting and bamboo poles. Live fish flopped in wooden tubs. Creatures he’d never seen writhed, twitched tentacles. Tiny turtles seemed to float in mid-air, but each was suspended from a thread and spun there, legs paddling. An artist drew sketches with a brush, another stall sold carvings and lacquer-work, and in the open spaces jugglers and acrobats performed. One old man, face a bland mask, balanced a plate, on its rim, on the edge of a swordblade. The butterfly girl must have strayed from here to the dock. Glover thought he might see her again, looked around, but she was nowhere. Mackenzie threw a look back at him, made sure he was keeping up. Along the waterfront they were the focus of astonished curiosity.

‘Barbarians are still something of a novelty,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Especially tall blond barbarians like yourself.’

A gang of workmen stopped what they were doing and stared, stonefaced. Glover nodded to them, but they didn’t respond, kept staring. Young women, passing, whispered to each other and giggled behind their hands. Glover smiled at them, bowed politely, made them laugh even more. A gaggle of children walked alongside, shouting, making round-eye signs with their fingers in front of their own eyes. Glover stopped abruptly, turned, mock-ferocious, and roared. They shrieked and ran, tumbling over each other to get away and hide. Glover laughed and they tentatively re-emerged, started following him again.

Once more he played the game, turned and roared, and again they scattered. This time they were bolder about regrouping, skipping along in his wake.

A third time he turned, but this time they looked truly, genuinely, terrified, before he had even made a sound. They hid behind barrels or bales of cloth. Some of them threw themselves to the ground, pressed their foreheads in the dust. He was confused. Then he noticed some of the adults were behaving in the same way, stepping back and bowing deeply, getting down on their knees, grovelling in obeisance and real fear. He didn’t understand, then realised one or two of the adults were looking beyond him, at something else.

He looked over his shoulder, saw a dark figure moving towards him, out of the sun. He shielded his eyes, to see more clearly. The man was short but powerfully built, walked with a slow, exaggerated swagger, an arrogance in his bearing. He wore a grey robe, a sash tied round his waist, and tucked into the sash were two swords, one long, one short. His hair was caught up in a topknot. The look on his face was truly ferocious, and the ferocity was directed at Glover. It wasn’t just the unfamiliar set of the features. The look was pure hatred.

The man kept walking, straight towards him, barked out something that sounded like a command, the voice rough and guttural.
Glover stood his ground. Then he felt a strong hand grab the collar of his coat, drag him back out of the way.

‘There’s a good lad,’ said Mackenzie, now gripping the back of his neck. ‘Just do as I do, if you please.’

He bowed to the man, respectfully, bending from the waist, pushed Glover’s head forward till he did the same.

The man seemed reluctantly appeased, glared at Glover long and hard, grunted something and moved on.

Mackenzie breathed out, relieved. ‘Not worth losing the head, son. And I do mean literally.’ He made a cut-throat motion. ‘That bruiser goes by the name of Takashi. He’s what they call
ronin
, a disaffected samurai. They’re the warrior class. They’re used to being obeyed, and they don’t like us being here.’ He started walking again. ‘Three things to remember and you’ll get on just fine.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Don’t cross the samurai. Keep out of the politics. And mind where ye dip yer wick!’

Further along he stopped by a stone bridge that led to a small island in the harbour. Two Japanese guards, armed with barbed pikes, barred the way across.

‘Right,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Here we are.’

‘Where?’ asked Glover, looking at the guards.

‘Dejima,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Your home for the next few days.’ He indicated the row of two-storey buildings, behind a sea wall. ‘The whole thing’s man-made, you know. Ingenious buggers, the Japs. They built it so they could contain the Dutch, keep an eye on them.’

Glover was still staring, suddenly exhausted, numbed. He was here, the dead end of his journey.

Mackenzie must have seen it in his face. ‘Don’t look so crestfallen, man. I stayed here myself when I first arrived. It’s fine. And the guards are there for your protection as much as anything else.’

‘Protection from what?’

‘Oh, cut-throats, brigands, ronin like our friend Takashi.’

He addressed the guards, again spoke his brisk Japanese. The guards bowed, perfunctory, and let them cross over, go through an iron gate onto the island. There was one main street, dusty and rutted, running the whole length, a hundred yards. Along one side were the two-storey buildings visible from shore, European-style, built of wood, with green-shuttered windows, the paintwork weathered and fading. Along the other side were warehouses, a store. Mackenzie showed Glover to his lodgings, a sparse second-floor room. One small window looked out over the bridge they’d just crossed, back to the mainland.

Mackenzie said he would take his leave, said Glover would be needing to rest. He would call for him in the morning, take him to the workplace, show him the ropes.

‘I’ll be ready,’ said Glover.

‘There’s a club across the way,’ said Mackenzie. ‘A glorified barroom selling warm Dutch beer. They serve food too, of a sort. We’ll arrange an advance on your wages tomorrow. In the meantime just sign for what you have.’

‘Thanks.’

Mackenzie stopped in the doorway. ‘Oh, and there’s usually some entertainment provided by
ladies
from the town. So, look out for yourself, keep your wits about you, and mind what I told you before.’

‘I will, sir. Right. Aye.’

He listened to Mackenzie’s footsteps, clumping down the wooden stairs. And he felt it again, closing in on him. He was alone, in this drab cramped room that smelled of mildew and tobacco and damp. He took it all in: the single bed against one wall; above it, hung squint, a framed painting of a merchant ship; a small table and a kitchen chair; resting on the table an earthenware basin, a ewer full of water.

He pushed open the shutters and looked out the window, saw Mackenzie cross the bridge, nod to the guards, dis appear into
the crowds without looking back. Now Glover was overcome with weariness, kicked off his boots and lay down on the bed. The bed creaked, the mattress was hard, stuffed with straw. He would rest for a few minutes. 

He was woken, dragged up out of sleep, by a sudden banging. He got to his feet with a kind of confused urgency. The room came into focus, unfamiliar, a place in a dream. Then he remembered. The journey. Where he was. The ends of the earth.

The banging came again, a knocking at the door, and for no good reason he braced himself, ready for confrontation. But it was only a young Japanese man, a porter delivering his luggage.

The man bowed. ‘
Guraba-san
?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Glover, ‘I don’t understand. But that’s my luggage, if that’s what you’re asking.’ He nodded and smiled, pointed at his old trunk.

‘
Hai
,’ said the man, bowing, and he dragged the box into the room, bowed again.

Glover mimed patting his trouser pockets, pulling them inside out to show they were empty. He shrugged his shoulders, turned down the corners of his mouth in a clown-mask, a grimace of regret. The young man laughed, waved his hand, bowed one last time and was gone, light and barefoot down the stairs.

Glover lay down again. Just a few minutes more. He plunged into a deep heavy sleep, and when he half-woke the room had grown dark. He hung in a kind of limbo, trying to surface, treading water, then with a huge effort willed himself awake, sat up. His dreams had been vivid but incoherent, were already starting to fade. Fragments came back to him, a sense of himself in a huge empty house, wandering from room to room, something small and white flitting ahead of him, just out of reach, and behind every door a vague nameless threat.

He poured cold water into the basin, splashed his face. He would wash properly in the morning, shave, put on clean clothes. For the moment he just wanted to wake himself sufficiently, wipe the bleariness from his eyes. He would stretch his legs, go outside, see what his prison had to offer.

The night air was mild, the scents and smells that heady mix of familiar and strange, the sea tang a constant, just the same. Across the way was the building Mackenzie had mentioned, faint light shining from the windows, the dull muffled rise and swell of male voices from the bar. He pushed open the door, went inside. The accommodation was simple and basic, a counter of dark wood along the back wall, a few tables scattered about the room, an old upright piano in the corner. There was a momentary lull in the conversations as he entered. A few men turned to look in his direction, but there was no acknowledgement, no word of greeting. The conversations picked up again. At the counter he ordered a beer from the surly barman he guessed was Dutch. The man took a bottle from the shelf behind him, put it down on the bar, put beside it a halfpint glass he’d wiped on his apron.

‘Chit?’ said the man.

‘Sorry?’ said Glover.

‘You work for Jardine’s?’

‘That’s right, aye.’

The man pushed a piece of paper towards him, handed him a pen, an inkwell.

‘You sign.’

‘Fine,’ said Glover, and he signed his name in full, with a flourish.
Thomas Blake Glover
. He sat by the wall, raised his glass to two men at the next table.

‘Your health, gentlemen!’

‘A new arrival!’ said the man nearest, darkhaired and thin-faced, the accent unmistakeably English.

‘Another Englishman?’ said the other, a sallow, balding man
with a wisp of moustache. His inflection was European, most likely French.