‘I don’t know. I haven’t told my parents yet.’ She and Satoshi might move to Yufuin, she said. She wouldn’t have her job at the Tropicana for much longer anyway.

‘You think they’ll fire you?’

‘Didn’t you hear? The bar’s for sale. The owner’s moving away.’

That night, June hurried home and knelt to count her savings. It wasn’t enough, she thought bitterly. It would never be enough. She felt desperate, too, at the thought of Chiharu leaving. Once she’d had the baby, she would have other concerns, and June would be on her own again. The thought was too much to bear. Tears pricked at her eyes and she wiped them with her sleeve.

To make things worse, Uncle Koji came back the same night. Oblivious to her despair, he went about making himself at home in a buoyant mood. Perhaps it was the continuing warm weather or the fact that her Japanese was better and they could understand each other, but the next morning over coffee he told her there was something he wished to do, the two of them together before the season got too late. He was going to gather clams and he wanted her help.

Surprised, she agreed. The next day was her day off. She thought maybe he’d mellowed; they’d reached an understanding. He hadn’t given her away so far, and she figured she could trust him.

The next morning at the beach, they combed the sand at the shoreline for telltale dimpling or bubbles. Like scientists extracting core samples, they used a cylindrical metal pump to suck up tubes of sand, then fossicked through it to find the clams, each the size of a small coin. June had a distant memory of doing this as a child, but didn’t remember it being such hard work, all the bending and squatting. Uncle Koji insisted they keep at it. How could he need so many clams? He was pulling up sand like his life depended on it.

After an unreasonably long day, they collected their dripping bags and hailed a taxi. The driver gave them a dirty look when he saw their dripping bags, but Koji berated him. ‘Don’t worry! Do you think we won’t be careful?’ And promptly knocked a clod of sand over the seat as he got in.

June sat slumped against the door until they pulled up at an apartment building. ‘Whose place is this?’ she asked.