I settle down on a cushion and immediately realise how uncomfortable these can be if you are used to chairs. Cushions are alright for lounging on and one or two other things you have probably read about, but they are no good if you have to ‘sit up properly’ as my mother used to say. Sid is even more clumsy than I am and knocks half the little dishes off the table with his knee.
‘I wonder where they got this table from,’ he says. ‘It’s low, isn’t it?’
‘It didn’t used to be,’ I inform him. ‘They’ve sawn the legs off the one that used to stand at the end of the corridor.’
Before he can comment on that we have another round of saki and food begins to appear. This takes the form of a procession of sugar bowls each containing what looks like someone else’s leftovers. It would take you about five hundred bowls to get through the equivalent of a plateful of English grub. What is being dished up does not exactly offer a blooming great incentive to get the gnashers flashing either.
‘Squid?’ say our little friends temptingly, ‘raw fish?’ All this might be bearable if we could get any of it into our mouths. But with chopsticks! I am only able to raise food to my north and south if I stick something through it, and with rice this is a bit difficult. The sight of Sid and me starving to death, as we squat in agony trying to shovel minute quantities of uneatable grub into our cakeholes, would bring tears to the eyes of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Society.
Eventually Ishy takes pity on us and a spoon is discreetly placed within reach. With the aid of this we can get a bit of a shift on and eventually, to my enormous relief, I see that no more bowls are appearing.
‘And now tea.’
I am very partial to a cuppa, and I know that the nips are hot on their cha, so I am quite looking forward to a nice spot of rosy. But, not a sausage! When the stuff comes it is green! Not only that but there are bleeding great leaves lying about in the bottom of the tiny cup. They have not even used a strainer! I can imagine what dad would say if he got stuck with this lot. Diabolical! As for the milk and sugar – not a sign of it. All in all a big disappointment and it is a good job that I am on my best behaviour so I can’t point it out to anyone. Sid, of course, says how nice it is and sticks out his mit for a second cup. Stupid berk!
The said may taste disgusting but it must have some kind of kick because after the seventh shot I can feel myself becoming much more relaxed. Sid must be experiencing the same sensation.
‘Park your arse, sweetheart,’ he says to one of the twittering dollies and yanks her down onto the cushions. I avert my eyes to the ceiling at such unseemly behaviour but the bird does not seem to mind, so I look around to see if I can get a grip on my nippon. Good! There she is. I raise a hand and she comes shuffling towards me immediately. So refreshing, isn’t it? Do that with an English bird and she would pretend she had not seen you and go on powdering her nose for another five minutes.
‘Your desire?’ she says obediently.
‘Come and sit with me,’ I say patting the cushions next to me. ‘Tell me, what is your name?’
‘Spring Fragrance. Tell me,’ she leans forward confidentially, ‘would you like to see exquisitely filthy photographs? Would these stimulate you to amorous action?’
I can hardly believe my ears. ‘Your English is very good,’ I say, while I consider the appropriate reply.
‘Thank you. I learn from Jesuit priest. Very remarkable man.’
‘He must have been,’ I observe. ‘Now, what kind of filthy pictures?’
‘Just ordinary filthy pictures. Group sexual activity with people of all races and creeds wearing ankle length socks and doing deliciously dirty things to each others I think you find them stimulating.’
‘Yes, well,’ I clear my throat and look to see if Sidney is watching. He appears to be finding out how to unfasten a kimono. ‘It might be interesting to have a little look mightn’t it?’
Spring Fragrance smiles her ‘anything you say is fine by me’ smile, and withdraws a well thumbed sheaf of photographs from her sleeve. They are held together by a silken chord and I am surprised that it has not snapped under the strain. Usually I find dirty photographs less stimulating than the drawings for a ‘How to improve your golf strip – well, after about the first twenty or thirty I do – usually – but these are quite artistic and inventive and must have been produced by a very skilful pornbroker. I take another look round for Sidney and see that he and his new friend are retiring towards a pile of cushions at the other end of the room. Ishy has taken a discreet leave of the proceedings and apart from the Lea-Noggett quartet, there are only two girls left. They are hovering about us attentively.
‘Er, what are they hanging about for?’ I ask Spring Fragrance.
‘Should you wish to engage me in sexual congress they will be at hand to attend upon your whims and proffer Kleenex tissues.’ Ask this girl a question and you get a straight answer, don’t you?
I take another quick butchers at the dirty photos and I have to confess that the idea of ‘sexual congress’, as she calls it, is a good deal more attractive than a slap round the chops with a wet kipper. The only trouble is, that I don’t fancy her second sitting at the ringside with a sponge in her mit. I am not averse to a little group nonsense but I like everybody mucking in, if you know what I mean. Get one or two jokers sitting about watching and it makes the whole thing unclean.
‘Would you rather that we copulated in private?’ She understands, doesn’t she? So unlike an English girl. They never have the sensitivity to cotton on to things like that. If it was not for the fact that I do not fancy being five foot two inches tall and having buck teeth, I would be a Japanese man tomorrow.
‘Yes please,’ I murmur, and as Spring Fragrance waves a dismissive hand at her friends I kiss her gently on the lips.
‘Please,’ she says, ‘do not exert yourself.’ You might think that she is taking the micky but this is not the case. ‘Japanese woman regards it as her role in life to make every moment heaven on earth for her man,’ she informs me. ‘Now, please, I will overtake all manner of erotic kissing and tactile stimulation. Should you require particular pleasure, please speak – provided mouth piece not impeded by my unworthy flesh, of course. In later case strike me sharply lest I be lost in ecstatic trance induced by my proximity to your God-like person.’
She is a lovely talker, isn’t she? I can only nod gratefully and sink back onto the cushions. Oh boy. It was never like this down at the youth club I can tell you. Spring Fragrance goes over me like someone testing an air-bed for leaks. Fantastic!
I am wondering how much more I can stand before I start melting when suddenly the door flies open and the lights are switched on. Framed in the doorway are the ugly sisters and they look uglier than usual.
‘Ah s-o-o!!’ thunders Apple Blossom. ‘Stinking old Uncle keeps us away from nooky-carnival. I no like.’
‘I no like either,’ snarls Pearl Diver. ‘Timmy and Sid belong to us. You girls go now before trouble hits you typhoon-style.’
‘Must respectfully ask you to push off,’ hisses Spring Fragrance discreetly, dropping a cushion onto my lap as she rises to her feet. ‘It is forbidden to interrupt Geisha in the conduct of her business.’
‘Watch it, S.F.,’ I hiss, ‘those two are killers. Don’t tangle with them.’
But Spring Fragrance will not be warned.
‘I give you two ticks of the hour of the dog to get out of here,’ she says, ‘and then I declare war.’
Pearl Diver obviously thinks this is pretty funny.
‘You invite conflagration with member of Japanese Violley Blall plool?’ she hoots. ‘Ho, ho!’
Keen students of my character will not be surprised to learn that I am getting worried. I hate to leave poor little