Copyright © 2020 Maddy Hamey-Thomas A woman with hair coloured a near-fluorescent, dignified holly-red is singing Simon and Garfunkel. So smooth she’s like milk with the silky fat left in. She winks at the hotel guests without closing an eye. People tap their cigarette ash into trays on the beat and swirl their ice cubes in Santori whiskey-tap water lagoons. Scarlett Johansson rests her chin on her sleeve-covered hand, cherubic skin on softest cashmere.
I emerge on the top floor of the high-rise, not far from this scene, and stop to take in the spectacle of city lights. It’s not quite right because Scarlett’s character sees this view, from multiple impossible angles, in the daytime. A couple wearing loafers and clad in linen and green silk pass behind me, distracting, gliding across polished chevrons and moving the jasmine-honey scent of the lobby air about. The lift doors close on an embarrassed vermilion afterthought of a carpet, and drop quickly away. The hostess stands adjacent behind her lectern, wearing a twitching, syncopated smile. Inky black and marble-shaped lamps hang from long, elegant stems. I walk the length of the hall, aware of my breathing. I could open my mouth and let the streetlights in. I wish for someone to press the switch for instant darkness, so I’ll feel I’m falling through the full-bleed window into the cold, wet winds of the island. The hostess waits patiently for me to finish ambling. But I can only think in terms of aesthetics and wonder, with panic or elation, where all other thoughts have gone and what this might mean.
A door whines open and two hands squeeze tight on my shoulders from behind. My heart leaps. An exasperated groan finds its way out in front of me, for Bo to see and be rankled by. She juts her biscuit-blonde profile next to my cheek.
‘Wow. Worth the trek, eh.’ ‘Mmhmm.’
I walk away to find seats, my gaze trailing behind me at the unblinking cityscape.
Inside the bar proper, there’s taught leather and chiaroscuro interior design. Shadows meet and cross each other to create plaited patterns. We drink sours with frothing egg white from crisp glass. I note the woman on stage in her snug black dress, she sings jazz, not a folk-lounge blend. She crinkles her nose when she smiles and her hair bounces when she sings the denouement: ‘love!’
Bo explains how she recently enjoyed a romance with her married Thai tour guide and she shows me five identical pictures of him stored on her phone. Now she explains her current boyfriend and how she never really wanted one anyway and was happy anyway, she guesses he’s okay, but here he is now anyway feeding her mille-feuille from his pop-up patisserie food truck on the weekends.
‘That sounds like a not un-fun way to spend your time?' I say, lifting the tone of my voice to ‘bright’.
‘Yeah, and of course the sex is… so hot.’
The double bass reverberates and the pianist is excitedly popping his head back and forth. Ailsa, the vocalist, bestows her warm gaze on each of the instrumentalists in turn. Some wasabi, from the 1,000 Yen bar snacks, billows up my nasal canals. I hide in the froth that’s left in my glass, rapidly sucking the citrus down from underneath. Bo is bent over her bowl of nuts and rice crackers, her shoulder blades expanding skyward as she launches words from her mouth.
‘I really don’t mind if it’s a short thing but honestly I think he’s really into me and he’s not a bad guy, I mean he’s younger than me but I think he quite likes that. He says he’s never been with anyone who has their life so together before.’
‘That’s amazing. I’m really happy for you.’
I start to feel the toxic elevation of being drunk.
‘Do you want another?’
She is on her travel app finding a wine bar she’s been recommended that’s ten metro stations away, three changes.
I can’t figure out where the camera would have been; I think they must have changed the position of the bar since filming. An arm clothed in black lowers down like a lever, presents more snacks, lifts and disappears; I look, and the waiter could not have gone far but they’ve vanished. Bo is frowning and I gently bounce each of my shoulders to the music. It’s all I can do to stop myself singing at full belt, the way that enrages me when anyone else behaves this way. Don’t. Be. A. Hypocrite. I think secretly, whilst attempting rhythms with my blunted fingernails to complement the entertainment. The room is suddenly packed, but the waiters continue to roll down their routes from preparation site to landing pad, easing round animated elbows and thrown-back heads. Is everyone on cocaine here? There’s no thoughtful silence to be filled. Can’t imagine anyone returning to their hotel room to fix up a cherry blossom paper lampshade or listen to an audiobook on soul-seeking. Nobody’s looking for anything. They receive paper napkins with their drinks: servile mono-functional squares, folded with precision, tickets to the moving hotel organism.
We are walking past a precinct selling mostly electronic goods before we find the outdoor elevator. This takes us up the length of a block of office flats, except on one floor, there in the corner, is the tiny boutique wine bar with foliage in tiny glass jars and tiny delicate, willowy staff. The bartender, Mayu, has a smooth, round, attractive white face that seems to angle at the edges as a saucer does.
Mayu likes to drink from shot glasses under the bar, each one full of gin or water – she doesn’t know which – during her shift. She likes to play little tricks like this on herself: setting alarms on her phone too, some for important events and others a red herring. Usually, she meets her boyfriend’s social circle at the venue opposite after work. It’s popular with Americans, who they sometimes befriend under amber lights. It’s easy, because they are just so happy to be there.
Bo’s and my voices don’t fit inside the walls of this elegant space, so many of the customers can’t help but listen to the strange sounds of Bo’s boastful fear. She crosses and uncrosses her legs with the impatience of someone who seeks resolution. I almost want to take her to bed to distract her from rerunning old conversations and gestures in her mind. Would that set her free or once more entrap her? The wine sits in its own sediment, laughing. It is tart when it hits the tongue and later transforms to something richly savoury-sweet. My hand is cooled by new-born droplets on the glass. If she didn’t comment on my habit of wearing a wardrobe of duplicated A-line skirts that droop at the waist, perhaps I could see how that shade of salmon compliments her faded freckles.
I text her the next day – her profile picture is alert and grasping in miniature – and all seems easy and grateful. I rush up the steps of the metro station and speed walk through a strangely suburban, central Tokyo district. The crushing velocity of the Ginza Line still shakes the air. Down a cul-de-sac of an alley it’s strange to see a triangular billboard with my name on it, accompanied by a smiley face hastily drawn in chalk. My name’s new friend. His face unmoving, courteous in his decision not to overwhelm, my host Kazuma gestures ‘hello’. With a warm, inquisitive voice he guides me into his small kitchen, decorated by a matriarch with tiny tokens of beribboned and lavender affection. A sake-drunk tanuki presides over our shoes. Nobody else is here; we are quite alone. He is patient and he talks me through a short history of Japanese flower design, neatly arranged on a diagram according to different imperial eras. His forefinger keeps getting stuck on the lamination, leaving an ephemeral smudge. Soon, my own fingers are touching rough sunflower stalks and leggy lengths of iris. I’m given plenty of time to think about the composition, although Kazumo’s indulgence allows me to frequently impale a central stalk on the jagged support stand till it refuses to submit to further torture. I leave it in its original spot. Kazuma nods, leans in to tweak the clump into something quite chic indeed and takes a celebratory picture for his blog.
A clean, foursquare house like this, perhaps a hundred years old, functions perfectly from tea-steamed dawn to the rolling out of delighted futon tongues. It lets bicycles lean against its femurs so long as they rest gently. It can no longer contain the colourful drama of domesticity – its joints are weakening – and as such it accepts its role in supporting calm and methodical business, supporting the design studio. If I lean my head out of the windows, I do so as I would a train. The other homes are too close to observe face on without feeling rude, so I lean sideways and look down the street and feel an unsettling headrush, whilst my feet stay firm and cool, cushioned bones pressing into the woven matt carpet which presses back. I pad around and instinctively smile, there’s nothing here.
Kazumo gives me two presents. One is a bowl of sickly sweet, sticky cold noodles in lemon sauce. Imagine an undiluted cordial, gelatinated. Add noodles, which squirm off my chopsticks, resisting my flimsy grip and retreating to their acidic-aquatic habitat. Sugar exfoliates the inside of my mouth. He’s so pleased that I enjoy them, and I do, in a way. The other gift is something wrapped in newspaper, that stays for many months unopened inside a sock and an unused jumper at the bottom of my rucksack. It is a vase that fits in the hollow of a cupped palm. It can hold only two daffodils, which I try not to mash as I insert the stems.