The Crane Wife(39)
Author: Patrick Ness

‘I mean, I shouldn’t even be here,’ Mehmet said. ‘I’m missing a party for this.’

Hank gestured with the corkscrew at the bodies pressed into the surprisingly narrow kitchen. ‘This is also what many people would call a party.’

‘George said he wanted me to come in particular tonight, since I was there when he met her first.’ Mehmet gave him a shifty look. ‘I think there’s going to be some big announcement.’

‘Oh?’ Hank said, feeling slightly interested as he poured himself the mediocre Pinot Grigio. He didn’t much care. George was a nice enough guy, but so far in his acquaintance George’s actual friends – as opposed to the alarming number of art buyers and hangers-on currently besieging Bromley – seemed limited to women and this slightly drunk g*y person. George wasn’t exactly a man’s man, and though Hank wasn’t so much of a Texan that he wore a cowboy hat, he was a Texan. On the other hand, Clare still liked George, and if there was gossip to be had, Hank was more than happy to be the one to deliver it to her. It would make her smile and, fool that he was, Hank’s heart would thump quite off rhythm when that happened.

‘They’ve moved in together,’ Hank said, re-corking the wine and shooing the same man out of the way of the fridge again. ‘Something like that.’

‘Can’t you feel it, though?’ Mehmet said. ‘It feels like something’s coming.’

‘I’m guessing for you it’s a hangover.’

‘Please. I’m not even straight-girl drunk.’

‘I genuinely haven’t the slightest idea what that means.’

‘Something’s on the horizon. Something about where this–’ Mehmet mimicked Hank’s corkscrew gesture to include the party and all the events leading up to it ‘–is headed. Something big. Something wonderful and, I don’t know, terrible.’ He leaned back on the counter. ‘I’m just saying.’

‘You’re just saying.’ Hank picked up the drinks and made to head back into the sitting room.

‘Hey, wait,’ Mehmet said.

‘Yes?’

‘Did Amanda tell you to talk to me because I’m Turkish?’

Hank looked thoughtful. ‘She more implied it.’

‘There you are,’ Amanda said, entering George’s bedroom. Kumiko was using her fingers to eat what looked like a rice dish out of a large bowl. Amanda held up JP. ‘Mind if I put him down for a little snooze?’

Kumiko nodded at the avalanche of coats on the bed. ‘He will be warm, at least.’

‘8.43,’ JP said, reading the red digital clock on the side of the bed.

‘Can you say it in French?’ Amanda asked him.

‘Papa says time isn’t French. Papa says time is only ever English.’

‘Either way, sparky, it’s way past your bedtime.’ She tucked him under a long trenchcoat, and he pulled several more down on top of himself until only his nose and the top of his head were poking out. ‘Don’t suffocate.’

‘I won’t.’

She turned to Kumiko. ‘He’ll be out in a minute, you watch.’

‘He is a lovely boy,’ Kumiko said.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

Kumiko gestured to the bowl. ‘I am taking a quiet moment. Hiding from the party so that I can face it again afresh.’

‘They’re all dying to meet you. All those strangers with money.’

‘It is not, perhaps, a mutual feeling.’

They smiled together and Kumiko said nothing more, just ate another fingerful. This was actually the first time Amanda had laid eyes on her since the gift of the tile, and she felt herself almost bursting with everything she wanted to say, everything she’d been holding for all this time. It was like when she used to return home from school, filled with so much new knowledge to share with her mother and father that it felt like she was going to pop open and bleed it out onto the dinner table along with her guts and blood and brains. She wondered, not for the first time, if that was something that happened to only children, if brothers and sisters knocked that kind of enthusiasm right out of you. She stroked JP’s already sleeping head and wondered if he’d come home in a year’s time, at death’s door with the need to tell her about dinosaurs or triangles.

But where to even begin with Kumiko? Had she really moved in, for example? And who the hell were all those people downstairs and were they going to be a permanent part of everyone’s life? And where did the images in the tile Kumiko gave her come from and why did they make her feel so helplessly, painfully, agonisingly hopeful? Why did she cry when she thought about it? Why had she stopped crying about everything else?

And where had Kumiko been? Where had she been? Where had she been? Where had she been? And how could Amanda miss someone this much who she’d only seen once before?

When she opened her mouth, though, all that came out, even before a simple thank-you for the tile, was ‘What’s that you’re eating?’

‘A kind of sweet rice pudding,’ Kumiko said, but held up a finger to check the knowing nod Amanda was giving her. ‘Not the kind you think. This is something from my childhood.’

‘A recipe from your mother?’

She shook her head. ‘My mother. Not much of a cook. Would you like some?’

‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Amanda said, though she couldn’t quite take her eyes off the bowl. ‘Have you moved in with my father?’

There was a pause in the rice-pudding eating. ‘Only a little. Is that all right?’

‘Of course it’s all right,’ Amanda said. ‘I mean, it’s quite quick, but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘But nothing. Just, you’ve really bowled him over. Our George.’

‘I hope that is exactly what I have not done,’ Kumiko said, taking another stab of rice. ‘George is like a rock in the ocean to me.’

‘And you’re the waves?’

In answer, Kumiko merely smiled again. Then she frowned. ‘Your friend.’

‘My friend.’

‘The one you brought this evening.’

Amanda made a worried face. ‘Well, she’s not exactly my friend–’

‘Really?’

‘I know her from work. She seems to be having some sort of breakdown, so I felt sorry for her and invited her. I hope that’s okay.’

‘A breakdown.’