‘And no internet, nothing? Far out,’ Chiharu said. ‘But you’re worried about your sister. What are you going to do?’

‘That’s the problem. I don’t know!’

At least nothing changed with Chiharu. June’s life went on as before, as one of the group, sometimes drinking too much and roaming the streets. One morning she woke up beside a pachinko poster, an ugly thing she had ripped from a wall in a run-by the night before. It was hard to get rid of it without the neighbours seeing. The trash and recycling bags were made of clear plastic so she had to tear it up and dispose of it gradually, bit by bit, to conceal the evidence of her theft.

She’d almost forgotten about Koji when he showed up again. She came home one day to find him at the table, eating her peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. Looking up, he smiled and said, ‘Ojamashimasu.’ The visitor’s greeting: ‘I am getting in your way, I am here to disturb you.’

A few days later, however, it was he who was disturbed. Battling a cold, June took a night off work. She lay in bed listening to the old man’s shuffling movements. Having finished his dinner at the kitchen table, he went into the TV room and clapped his hands twice at the altar. June heard him channel-surfing the television before she fell asleep.

She woke to shouting. It was the small hours of the morning and someone was in the alley, calling her name.

‘June, June!’

A man’s voice.

She froze. Finally, someone had come to find her, someone from the centre.

‘June!’ he shouted again. ‘Are you home?’

It was in fact Canadian Terence. He sounded drunk, must have come from his set at the Hit Parade.

Everyone in the neighbourhood must be awake by now. This can’t be happening, she thought, and so she acted as if it wasn’t, just lay there in denial. Then she heard a window opening in the house and Koji shouting, ‘No, thank you!’ in English. His words rang in the night, Terence fell quiet and stumbled on, and June lay cringing in bed. She had never been so mortified in her life.

In the morning, when she passed Uncle Koji in the hall, he turned his old stare on her. Once again she was to blame, this time for her rowdy friends and an interruption to his sleep.

Whatever the purpose of his stay, he ended it promptly, leaving the house mid-morning with his bowling bag and jacket.

Summer came with an eggy smell, courtesy of the springs. Tourists descended, strolling in the old neighbourhoods.