'Just these vegetables need cooking now,' he said to her. 'The rest just needs

watching.' Then he looked up and regarded me strangely for some seconds. 'I

expect you want to look around the house,' he said eventually. He put down the

chopsticks he had been holding. 'It's a long time since you've seen it.'

 

As we left the kitchen I glanced back towards Kikuko, but her back was turned.

 

'She's a good girl,' my father said quietly.

 

6

 

I followed my father from room to room. I had forgotten how large the house was.

A panel would slide open and another room would appear. But the rooms were all

startlingly empty. In one of the rooms the lights did not come on, and we stared

at the stark walls and tatami in the pale light that came from the windows.

 

'This house is too large for a man to live in alone,' my father said. 'I don't

have much use for most of these rooms now.'

 

But eventually my father opened the door to a room packed full of books and

papers. There were flowers in vases and pictures on the walls. Then I noticed

something on a low table in the corner of the room. I came nearer and saw it was

a plastic model of a battleship, the kind constructed by children. It had been

placed on some newspaper; scattered around it were assorted pieces of grey