She was the only Japanese he had ever met. He had never known anything much about the Japanese apart from the war. Most of what he had come to know he had learnt from Jonny, from what he had said and from his photographs. When Jonny first came back from his travels there were so many photographs. It had been amazing to think that his brother had been making a living as a photographer. There were masses of prints, and then rolls and rolls of film that he had developed, and he had laid them out on the dining-room table. It was like the National Geographic spread there, so many places he’d been. All they’d seen at home till then were the war pictures that had made it to the papers; but Jonny had put those away somewhere, there weren’t any of soldiers or fighting. There were others of Vietnam that made it look quite a nice place. Jonny said that Saigon was a much nicer place than you’d think. Old houses with balconies, wrinkled old ladies on the balconies smiling down, pretty girls – pretty as, prettier than, Kumiko. Of course there were the pictures of Kumiko. Jonny didn’t say who she was at first. She was just this one Japanese girl smiling, in the city, on the beach, under the trees. He worked it out easily enough. Richard went in now and then when Jonny was sorting them. Jonny let him look at the prints and the contact prints and the slides, gave him a glass that he held unfamiliarly in his hand as he looked at the slides on the light box.

Who’s the girl?

That’s Kumiko.

She looks nice.

She is nice.

She had this big smile and she wore bright colours, appearing again and again here and there in the sunshine.

Maybe she’ll come here in the summer. Then you and Mum can meet her.