Nocturnes_ Five Stories of Music and Nightfall - Kazuo Ishiguro [27]
“Raymond, I’m back. So let’s just sit down, shall we?”
She was easing me up onto my feet, and I had to resist the urge to shake her off.
“You know, it’s odd,” I said. “No more than a few minutes ago, you were about to go into a meeting.”
“I was, yes. But after your phone call, I realised the priority was to come back.”
“What do you mean, priority? Emily, please, you don’t have to keep holding my arm like that, I’m not about to topple over. What do you mean, a priority to come back?”
“Your phone call. I recognised it for what it was. A cry for help.”
“It was nothing of the sort. I was just trying to …” I trailed off, because I noticed Emily was looking around the room with an expression of wonder.
“Oh, Raymond,” she muttered, almost to herself.
“I suppose I was being a little clumsy earlier on. I would have tidied up, except you came back early.”
I reached down to the fallen standard lamp, but Emily restrained me.
“It doesn’t matter, Ray. It really doesn’t matter at all. We can sort it all out together later. You just sit down now and relax.”
“Look, Emily, I realise it’s your own home and all that. But why did you creep in so quietly?”
“I didn’t creep in, darling. I called when I came in, but you didn’t seem to be here. So I just popped into the loo and when I came out, well, there you were after all. But why go over it? None of it matters. I’m here now, and we can have a relaxing evening together. Please do sit down, Raymond. I’ll make some tea.”
She was already going towards the kitchen as she said this. I was fiddling with the shade of the standard lamp and so it took me a moment to remember what was in there—by which time it was too late. I listened for her reaction, but there was only silence. Eventually I put down the lampshade and made my way to the kitchen doorway.
The saucepan was still bubbling away nicely, the steam rising around the upheld sole of the boot. The smell, which I’d barely registered until this point, was much more obvious in the kitchen itself. It was pungent, sure enough, and vaguely curryish. More than anything else, it conjured up those times you yank your foot out of a boot after a long sweaty hike.
Emily was standing a few paces back from the cooker, craning her neck to get as good a view of the pot as possible from a safe distance. She seemed absorbed by the sight of it, and when I gave a small laugh to announce my presence, she didn’t shift her gaze, let alone turn around.
I squeezed past her and sat down at the kitchen table. Eventually, she turned to me with a kindly smile. “It was a terribly sweet thought, Raymond.”
Then, as though against her will, her gaze was pulled back to the cooker.
I could see in front of me the tipped-up sugar bowl—and the diary—and a huge feeling of weariness came over me. Everything felt suddenly overwhelming, and I decided the only way forward was to stop all the games and come clean. Taking a deep breath, I said:
“Look, Emily. Things might look a little odd here. But it was all because of this diary of yours. This one here.” I opened it to the damaged page and showed her. “It was really very wrong of me, and I’m truly sorry. But I happened to open it, and then, well, I happened to scrunch up the page. Like this …”I mimicked a less venomous version of my earlier action, then looked at her.
To my astonishment, she gave the diary no more than a cursory glance before turning back to the pot, saying: “Oh, that’s just a jotter. Nothing private. Don’t you worry about it, Ray.” Then she moved a step closer to the