The Pure Land by Alan Spence Page B

silk. They stopped what they were doing, bowed deeply to Mackenzie, less so to Glover.
    ‘Mister Shibata and Mister Nakajimo,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Mister Glover. Guraba-san.’
    Glover nodded to the young men. ‘Guraba-san?’ he said to Mackenzie. ‘That’s what the lad said to me last night, the one that delivered my luggage.’
    ‘It’s your name in Japanese,’ said Mackenzie. ‘They find it hard to get round some of our consonants. You’ll get used to it.’
    ‘Guraba-san,’ said the two young men, simultaneously.
    It was warm in the warehouse, close in the confined space, the air thick with the scents of spices and tea. Glover fanned his face with his hand, said ‘ Atsuka! ’
    He was proud of himself for remembering the word, but the two young men couldn’t help themselves, they laughed out loud. One of them said something to Mackenzie and laughed again.
    ‘They are very impressed that you’re learning the language already,’ said Mackenzie, that look of wry amusement again in the eyes, at the corners of the mouth. ‘But they point out that in polite society they use the word atsui . The word you used is generally to be heard spoken by young ladies of a certain class, and they are intrigued as to where you may have heard it.’
    ‘Aye, well,’ said Glover, uncomfortable.
    ‘If I may paraphrase,’ Mackenzie went on, broadening his accent a little, ‘you’ve been in Nagasaki five minutes and you’re picking up the speak o tinkers and hoors!’
    Now Glover felt overheated. Atsuka or atsui , it didn’t matter, it was stuffy in the room.
    ‘Never mind,’ said Mackenzie. ‘As long as that’s all you pick up from them!’ He indicated the two Japanese, maintaining composure, stifling the laughter. ‘They’ll be telling that story for a month.’
    Back through in the office, Mackenzie showed Glover to a desk in the corner of the room. This was where he would be working. Mackenzie had to go out for the rest of the morning, told Glover to start sorting through the pile of papers on his desk. Glover looked at the top sheet, recognised the familiar layout, the delineation of the words and figures on the page. Bills of lading. Mackenzie left him to it and he settled to work, first taking out the three small objects from his jacket pocket – the bamboo token, the silver dollar, the paper butterfly – and placing them together on the desk, a little shrine to good fortune.

4
SILK AND TEA
    Nagasaki, 1859–60
    A land flowing with milk and honey. Or at least, he’d said, silk and tea. He’d spun the globe on its axis, stopped the world with his finger on Japan. Here be dragons, and a fortune to be made. He wanted it all.
    He threw himself into the work, hurled himself at it full-tilt. He wanted to learn everything Mackenzie had to teach, was hellbent on finding out more.
    Within months he had made himself indispensable. He took charge of documentation and paperwork, the dull, repetitive, essential grind, gradually delegated most of it to Shibata and Nakajimo. That freed him to get out, away from the desk, watch Mackenzie in action as he haggled, argued, bargained with merchants, fought for the best deal. They tramped the muddy lanes and backstreets of the city, visited storerooms and warehouses, back-shops and flimsy godowns, checked merchandise, sifted samples.
    ‘You have to watch,’ said Mackenzie, delving into a crate of tea, rubbing the leaves between fingers and thumb, sniffing. ‘Some of the bastards are up to every trick under the sun. They’ll sell you the best quality leaf then substitute half of it with floor-sweepings as soon as your back’s turned. Or you’ll buy the finest raw silk and they’ll adulterate it with sand.’
    Glover watched and learned. Soon he was signing documents in his own right on behalf of Jardine’s. Mackenzie, from referring to him in letters to head office as his able young assistant , started calling him, only half jocular, the chief. His reputation in the