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

That’s where I’m going right now.”
    “Right, I’ve got you.”
    “There’s never been another woman in any of this. I wouldn’t look at anyone else, at least not in any serious way. That’s the truth. It’s the bloody truth and there’s nothing else to it!”
    He’d started to shout, though possibly this was because of all the noise around him in the departure lounge. Now he went quiet, and I listened hard to work out if he was crying again, but all I heard were airport noises. Suddenly he said:
    “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, all right, there’s no other woman. But is there another
man?
Go on, admit it, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Go on, say it!”
    “Actually, no. It’s never occurred to me you might be gay. Even that time after finals when you got really drunk and pretended to …”
    “Shut up, you fool! I meant another man, as in Lover of Emily! Lover of Emily, does this figure bloody exist? That’s what I’m getting at. And the answer, in my judgement, is no, no, no. After all these years, I can read her pretty well. But the trouble is, precisely because I know her so well, I can tell something else too. I can tell she’s started to think about it. That’s right, Ray, she’s looking at other guys. Guys like David bloody Corey!”
    “Who’s that?”
    “David bloody Corey is a smarmy git of a barrister who’s doing well for himself. I know exactly how well, because she tells me how well, in excruciating detail.”
    “You think … they’re seeing each other?”
    “No, I just told you! There’s nothing, not yet! Anyway, David bloody Corey wouldn’t give her the time of day. He’s married to a glamourpuss who works for Condé Nast.”
    “Then you’re okay …”
    “I’m not okay, because there’s also Michael Addison. And Roger Van Den Berg who’s a rising star at Merrill Lynch who gets to go to the World Economic Forum every year …”
    “Look, Charlie, please listen. I’ve got this problem here. Small by most standards, I admit. But a problem all the same. Please just listen.”
    At last I got to tell him what had happened. I recounted everything as honestly as I could, though maybe I went easy on the bit about my thinking Emily had left a confidential message for me.
    “I know it was really stupid,” I said, as I came to the end. “But she’d left it sitting there, right there on the kitchen table.”
    “Yes.” Charlie was now sounding much calmer. “Yes. You’ve rather let yourself in for it there.”
    Then he laughed. Encouraged by this, I laughed too.
    “I suppose I’m over-reacting,” I said. “After all, it’s not like her personal diary or anything. It’s just a memo book …” I trailed off because Charlie had continued to laugh, and there was something a touch hysterical in his laughter. Then he stopped and said flatly:
    “If she finds out, she’ll want to saw your balls off.”
    There was a short pause while I listened to airport noises. Then he went on:
    “About six years ago, I opened that book myself, or that year’s equivalent. Just casually, when I was sitting in the kitchen, and she was doing some cooking. You know, just flicked it open absent-mindedly while I was saying something. She noticed immediately and told me she wasn’t happy about it. In fact, that’s when she told me she would saw my balls off. She was wielding this rolling pin at the time, so I pointed out she couldn’t very well do what she was threatening with a rolling pin. That’s when she said the rolling pin was for afterwards. For what she’d do to them once she’d cut them off.”
    A flight announcement went off in the background.
    “So what do you suggest I do?” I asked.
    “What
can
you do? Just keep smoothing the pages down. Maybe she won’t notice.”
    “I’ve been trying that and it just doesn’t work. There’s no way she won’t notice …”
    “Look, Ray, I’ve got a lot on my mind. What I’m trying to tell you is