Free Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro Page A

told me Emily was in a meeting. I insisted, in a tone that balanced geniality with resolution, that she bring Emily out of her meeting, “if indeed she is in one at all.” The next moment, Emily was on the line.
    “What is it, Raymond? What’s happened?”
    “Nothing’s happened. I’m just calling to find out how you are.”
    “Ray, you sound odd. What is it?”
    “What do you mean, I sound odd? I just called to establish when to expect you back. I know you regard me as a layabout, but I still appreciate a timetable of sorts.”
    “Raymond, there’s no need to get cross like that. Now let me see. It’s going to be another hour … Maybe an hour and a half. I’m awfully sorry, but there’s a real crisis on here …”
    “One hour to ninety minutes. That’s fine. That’s all I need to know. Okay, I’ll see you soon. You can get back to your business now.”
    She might have been about to say something else, but I hung up and strode back into the kitchen, determined not to let my decisive mood evaporate. In fact, I was beginning to feel distinctly exhilarated, and I couldn’t understand at all how I’d allowed myself to get into such a state of despondency earlier on. I went through the cupboards and lined up, in a neat row beside the hob, all the herbs and spices I needed. Then I measured them out into the water, gave a quick stir, and went off to find the boot.
    The understairs cupboard was hiding a whole heap of sorry-looking footwear. After a few moments of rummaging, I discovered what was certainly one of the boots Charlie had prescribed—a particularly exhausted specimen with ancient mud encrusted along the rim of its heel. Holding it with fingertips, I took it back to the kitchen and placed it carefully in the water with the sole facing up to the ceiling. Then I lit a medium flame under the pan, sat down at the table and waited for the water to heat. When the phone rang again, I felt reluctant to abandon the saucepan, but then I heard Charlie on the machine going on and on. So I eventually turned the flame down low and went to answer him.
    “What were you saying?” I asked. “It sounded particularly self-pitying, but I was busy so I missed it.”
    “I’m at the hotel. It’s only a three-star. Can you believe the cheek! A big company like them! And it’s a poxy little room too!”
    “But you’re only there for a couple of nights …”
    “Listen, Ray, there’s something I wasn’t entirely honest about earlier. It’s not fair on you. After all, you’re doing me a favour, you’re doing your best for me, trying to heal things with Emily, and here I am, being less than frank with you.”
    “If you’re talking about the recipe for the dog smell, it’s too late. I’ve got it all going. I suppose I might be able to add an extra herb or something …”
    “If I wasn’t straight with you before, that’s because I wasn’t being straight with myself. But now I’ve come away, I’ve been able to think more clearly. Ray, I told you there wasn’t anyone else, but that’s not strictly true. There’s this girl. Yes, she
is
a girl, early thirties at most. She’s very concerned about education in the developing world, and fairer global trade. It wasn’t really a sexual attraction thing, that was just a kind of byproduct. It was her untarnished idealism. It reminded me of how we all were once. You remember that, Ray?”
    “I’m sorry, Charlie, but I don’t remember you ever being especially idealistic. In fact, you were always utterly selfish and hedonistic …”
    “Okay, maybe we were all decadent slobs back then, the lot of us. But there’s always been this other person, somewhere inside of me, wanting to come out. That’s what drew me to her …”
    “Charlie, when was this? When did this happen?”
    “When did what happen?”
    “This affair.”
    “There was no affair! I didn’t have sex with her, nothing. I didn’t even have lunch with her. I just … I just made sure I kept