Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

expertise will be going the other way, but perhaps if there is need, if something goes wrong with the lights . . . Although it has been his job to make sure that nothing goes wrong with the lights. At the moment when his circle on the planet turns away from the sun, a white flash begins on the tip of the fading headland. He counts the beats.

‘Tom Cavendish! I heard you were finished in Kyoto. Saying a fond farewell, are you? You’ll be back, don’t worry. I remember doing the same thing myself, younger than you, thinking I was going back to a job in the City and I’d never get further than France for the rest of my days, but of course I wanted to and so I did and here I am, dear boy, here I am.’

The light flashes again. Yes, one of his. One of Penvenick’s.

‘Professor Baxter! What a pleasure to have you on board. But whatever calls you west? Were you not determined to live and die here?’

The professor shrugs. His beard is perhaps even more luxuriant than at New Year. ‘Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. My father died—don’t be sorry, dear boy, he was almost ninety, a blessed release, not least I dare say for my sister with whom he had lived for some years—and since my daughter is to be married this summer my wife is adamant, adamant, that I should return while the estate is settled. Worried my sister will get my share, I don’t doubt, but she says Helena longs to have me walk her down the aisle. I’d rather expect her to write and tell me herself if that were the case, wouldn’t you? Foolishness, anyway, it’s the man at the altar you want to worry about, not the one at the door.’

‘A wife and daughter? I had no idea.’

There are rumours—more than rumours—about Professor Baxter and a Japanese lady who is said to have two half-European children. Bad enough, Tom thinks, without a wife at home, for such children are rejected by the Japanese and never taken home when European men reach the end of their Far Eastern residence. To bring another being into the world condemned to such a half-life from the moment of birth!

‘No more you did. Jane and I do best with the Pacific between us, have done for years. A perfectly civilized arrangement, no questions asked—by either side, I might add, Jane has her freedom too—and no hard feelings.’

Yes, marriages do end, break and founder. And if one were going to run away and begin again, one would of course return to Japan, to a wooden house beside a canal where the mountains meet the city in the east of Kyoto. And it would be sensible for a European with a certain expertise then to seek a position at the university, to teach, for example, engineering. And to make every effort to learn Japanese, to speak and sit and eat the Japanese way. To return to a mountain village when there is a holiday, to take the train to visit a friend in Tokyo. If one were to begin again.

‘May I ask, how old is your daughter?’

The professor comes to stand beside him at the rail. ‘Ask away, dear boy. She must be—let me see—oh, twenty-three, I think. Or four. It’s been a long time. Are you going to ask to see a photograph?’

Tom shakes his head. ‘Only if you wish to show me one.’

Why would he want to see a photograph of a woman he has never met? The professor fumbles his pocket and pulls out a wallet, from which he extracts a small square of card.

‘Here. Pretty enough, I dare say.’

The picture is so small and faded that it’s hard to perceive much more than a small white woman in a large dark dress. Her hair is darker than Ally’s and the dress fussier than anything Ally would wear. He passes it back.

‘A charming young lady. You approve of the match?’

Professor Baxter pushes the photograph back into the wallet and stands on tiptoe to stuff the wallet back into his pocket.

‘Never met the chap, of course. My wife likes him and I can’t say that promises well.’

Baxter’s face is blurring in the fading light. ‘If you’re going to change for dinner, Cavendish, you’d better look sharp. The cook’s French, did you know? So we can postpone the dumplings and suet pudding a few more weeks yet. Do you want me to get you onto the Captain’s table, exert a little pull? There’re a couple of very fine young ladies dining there.’

Tom shakes his head. ‘Don’t waste your pull on my account, Professor. Fine young ladies were never my line. And they—or their mammas—would doubtless prefer you to bring someone more eligible.’

‘I am disappointed. But just as you like, dear boy. There will be plenty of time to talk between here and Singapore.’

The professor cocks his head, almost, Tom thinks, crooks his elbow as if to escort him away, waiting for Tom to do as he is told and go below to put on a dinner jacket. Tom looks ahead and stays where he is. He wants to see Japan slip over the horizon much more than he wants to sit at a table in a hot room with eleven strangers. There is no rule that says a man must dine, is there? Heaven knows there will be time enough to contend with fine young ladies and their mammas. The crests of the waves are beginning to shine white against the grey sea, and their sound comforts him; Kyoto, after all, is perhaps too far inland for a maritime man. He remembers pausing on the bridges, as everyone pauses on the bridges, to look up river towards the mountains and see the weather coming down the valley. He remembers the cormorants on the fishing boats, and the herons wading, the morning and evening parades of umbrellas and parasols over the parapets.

‘Have a pleasant evening,