Chapter Four

"That was Billie, with the title track off her latest album: 'Invisible Giant Insects That Live Under My Bed And Watch Me While I Sleep'."

It was full dark by the time Ami sent a message off. She turned down the radio until it was just the sound of wipers squeaking across the windscreen.

Mego stood, tasting iron fillings in the air. Finding a narrow lane under the neon signs.

After a ten-minute wait, the red VW Beetle slowly crept toward the kerb, while rain danced on the pavement.

"The Queen in yellow," Ami said, opening the passenger door. "Good movie?

"Good movie? Aren't you the least bit freaked out by this?"

"I've been doing all I can not to freak out. Let's start off simple. "

"Yeah, yeah, I get that,” Mego said, sliding the belt across. ”I mean, it didn’t make sense, but it was good.”

“Didn’t make sense?”

“I don’t want to spoil it.”

“As long as you had fun,” Ami said, peeling away from the kerb. 

From the inside, hail sounded like churning gravel. The two sat in silence as the car threaded through dark, mirrored streets.

There was a good reason Ami avoided this city at night; the novelty of being a wide-eyed tourist had worn off a long time ago.

All that remained were a bunch of old buildings and the impossible gridlock. Not even a love of the music quarter could tempt Ami back; the hellish parking was nowhere near worth it.

Navigating a few more roads, Ami peered out as a cascade of liquid light dazzled in a garish kaleidoscope of burnt neon, with the eternal spectre of rolling news.

Flashing bulbs danced in colourful strips, reflecting and sliding across the car's contours.

'The only thing worth fighting for' by Lera Lynn played on a late-night drive-time show, while Mego silently mouthed the lyrics.

A mood had settled, thick with portent. It felt like a suffocating cloud had snatched the words, leaving them unable to process anything real.

Mego never mentioned the garden party; it would have only made things worse. There was no point in offloading more concern on what was already a trying day. Her mother had been through enough as it was.

Ami had lost her real name a long time ago. Her passage to America came with a suitcase full of money and a fake passport. The catch was that she could never return to Hokkaido or see her family. It was the one rule she had to live by; the one that kept her outside of prison.

A high street slid by with iron shutters covered in graffiti.

 Across the road, in a closed laundrette, Mego caught sight of someone staring back with wide, maniacal eyes. The man smiled with the same intensity as the Tuxedo guy and quickly bowed in deference.

Ami didn’t see anything; she was too busy glancing at an advertising board for beds with the tag line: 'Go tuck yourself.'

Speeding out of Tokyo, they finally hit a stretch of motorway Mego could tell they were close to home by the number of city signs blacked out in spray paint. For some reason, they were not taking the usual exit.

"Where are we going?" Mego asked.

"It's still your birthday, so we're celebrating."

"What if I don't feel like it?"

"I never said there were options."

***

After half an hour, Ami swung the car into the entrance of a retail park. One of the signs was for 'Haribe', with its cartoon lobster circled in red.

"Seafood?" Mego said. "You know I'm a conscientious objector."

"You wanna stage a hunger strike? There are better places to do it."

Ami slid her car into a bay and pulled the handbrake with a loud crank. She gave her daughter a reassuring pat on the knee before the pair exited and stretched.

Mego looked up into the pitch dark, speckled with dull stars no longer twinkling. She paused, feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated.

“I can taste purple.” She said.

“Don’t eat the purple,” Ami replied, slipping a ticket on the windscreen. She took Fee’s arm, and they headed for the restaurant.

On the way, they both noticed an old sports car from the Eighties.

"Check it out, a DeLorean," Ami said. "The Anime pillow of cars. You know why you bought it; we know why you bought it. "

"Back to the future."

"Yep, the car went the way of the mullet. Both of which died a death, because they were embarrassing. Not even the power of nostalgia can bring them back." She let out a derisive laugh. "Nostalgia, what a load of crap."

'Haribe's Seafood and Grill' was a brightly lit diner with white walls adorned with moody monochromatic photographs of deep-sea fishing. The main centrepiece was a glass tank filled with crawling, black lobsters.

A row of banquettes lined the right-hand side with blue-check tablecloths and neatly stowed menus. Waiting staff scurried around in turquoise uniforms, wiping down tables.

After settling on a booth near the entrance, Ami checked her phone.

"You're getting the usual, " she said. "Fish and Chips and Rocky Road for dessert."

"I'm not five, mum."

"Thank God,” Ami said.

Another drawn-out silence hung in the air, suffused with unspoken tension. Between reading the menu ever so slowly and checking phones, the chasm slowly widened until it became nothing more than impenetrable gloom.

After a spell, Mego exhaled deeply and looked down.

“I nearly died today.”

Ami blinked. Once.

“Well…obviously.”

“Seriously?”

“What do you want me to say? You could have taken those bullies apart; instead, you let them wail on you.”

Mego looked away. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Funny, your fan club didn’t get the memo.”

“What’s a memo?”

“Doesn’t matter. Getting yourself beaten up won't bring the boys back, so enough.”

“Yes, Mum.” Mego said, looking at the table. "Thanks again, anyway."

"Eh, it was either that or watch Friends."

"Yeah...we all have priorities."

“Damn straight," Ami said, chuckling.

"I still haven't seen that show."

"You're not missing much. It has a weird hang-up about fat people."

"Well, it was a different time,”.

"It was the nineties, not ancient Rome. What do I always say?"

“Never walk in front of a bus or behind a horse.”

“I meant the other thing.”

"No preacher worth their salt lives in a mansion?"

"No dear, I’m talking about nostalgia," Ami said.

"Listing a bunch of old stuff is not nostalgia. It’s just a list."

"Exactly."

"Some people take comfort in it. Well, they did…before the world went to hell."

“There's that."

"This is why aliens stay away. They know we're the Meth lab of the galaxy."

"So there is some intelligent life."

Mego turned over a foam cup and tapped it on the table.

“Humanity was not meant for the stars; we outgrew our programming; became its virus.”

“Careful with that edge, dear,” Ami said, watching her daughter cut out the base.

"It’s like, we’re ants under a bridge,” Mego continued. “We only see the surrounding grass and will know of nothing else. What is this wall for? Why is it there? These things are beyond our understanding, “ She peered through the hollowed-out cup. “A Frog in a well.”

"There are plans to move to Mars," Ami said. "Maybe we'll do better."

"That's like moving house after crapping on the carpet. The reality is this….” She gestured all around. “This is all we have, all we’ll ever be, just meat that exists.”

Ami shook her head

“What if I sang you a birthday song?” She said.

“Depends on how resistant that window is to my body running at high speed,” Mego said, and they both chuckled. “Seventeen and I’m already overwhelmed.”

“Welcome to life, you’ll get used to it,” Ami said. “Or not, it could go any way.”

“For a long time, I’ve had this feeling of disconnect.” Mego said, looking out toward a lone bicycle. “The feeling that everything around me has been projected onto a movie screen. I see things, but I can never relate to them; so I’m forced to exist in the moment.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“You’re one of the good ones.” Mego said. “It’s hard to explain; it’s like we’re trapped as a species. Rich or poor, saint or sinner, we’re all stuck in a well. A place that tells us: ‘You will learn what we tell you to learn, until you are ready to advance. ’’You’re the bee in the tumbler, enjoy it, because this is all you get. The answers you seek will never come; every mystery goes unsolved, and the sum of your entire being is bound by its limitations. It feels like we are birds flying over a garden at night. We can see the houses, but the curtains are closed.” She slurped up another mouthful of milkshake.

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Forget reproducing,” Mego said. “Ride this 'Tilt-a-Whirl' to extinction. In time, we won't even be a memory, just a cave painting about creatures who pissed in the river.”

“Tilt-a-Whirl."

“Loved that ride.”

"So, humanity's end? That's the answer?"

The girl shrugged.

"We had a good run." Mego said, "Newborns arrive every day, to what? There's nothing here but dust and debt." She played with the straw. "We are a future the older generations left with nothing."

A beat.

"Yeah, you should get the Rocky Road," Ami said.

"Sweet."

"Look, have fun while you can. That's all I ask."

"When I find the time."

"That time is now, Fee. Go hiking, go abroad, make mistakes, have adventures. You'll regret missing out."

"You don't know my life," Mego said quietly.

Ami sat back in her seat, arms folded.

"I know you walk home from school, because taking the bus makes you feel alone, even in a crowd. I know you are angry at the world and disappointed in authority figures. I know you wish you could scream away your pain, but you think no one will care. I know, because you are me."

"You've just described every teenager."

"Exactly, we all go through it," Ami said.

"Even you?"

"Once. Maybe I'm still one at heart."

"Oh God," Mego said. "You're not one of those 'my daughter's my best friend' kind of Mums?"

"Oh, hell no," Ami said, biting the end of a breadstick. "You do not want me as a best friend."

After fifteen minutes of further small talk, their meals arrived.

Despite her reservations, Mego ordered a large cod and sweet potato fries, while Ami chose a crab Risotto with garlic bread for starters. They ate in near-silence with an occasional comment about the food.

Ami wanted  her daughter to to be comfortable enough to open up, but thanks to the incident in London, her daughter was more withdrawn than usual.

And so, she told stories about how she met her husband.

Ami recalled laughing when he told her his name. For some reason, 'Pickford Green' reminded her of an 'abandoned railway station'; now she could not think of anything else.

Pickford did not take mockery well and was aloof primarily for the first month until she caught him jamming on the guitar one day. Music was the first thing to bring them together.

Soon, they would discuss bands and go for drinks after every training session. Ami wistfully told how he made all her aggression evaporate, and how the defences guarding her from the world melted away in his presence.

Mego mentioned that Rick made her feel the same way. Ami told her about not rushing into things because they could, which she recognised as being 'The Talk' without actually mentioning 'The Talk', because when it came to advice on growing pains, her mother had all the sensitivity of a rampaging honey badger.

By the time they got around to dessert, the mother and daughter were laughing, and soon the atmosphere mellowed.

When the cake arrived, it finally felt like a birthday dinner.

Leaving the restaurant, a cold breeze picked up. Mego rubbed her arms as she looked at the star-lit eternal.

"It's like the stars know this world is rotten and they're backing away in disgust."

"That's not how stars work, dear," Ami said, checking her phone.

"It's a point of view."

"Yeah, well any more of that Emo crap and you're taking the bus."

Mego smiled and suddenly collapsed, trembling like a newborn fawn testing the stability of its legs.

Rushing to her side, Ami could not stem the years of pent-up anguish pouring forth in desperate sobs, which had unearthed roots sunk deep in misery and sorrow.

Desperately alone, Mego made no sound but for the howl of a girl feeling her world crumble away.