Kazuo Ishiguro Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone hovering close behind me, and assuming he was wishing access to that part of the shelf, had moved aside. But then when the person continued to loiter around me, I finally turned.
    I recognised the colonel immediately, for his physical features had hardly changed. However, through adult eyes, he appeared to me meeker and shabbier than the figure from my boyhood. He was standing there in a mackintosh, regarding me shyly, and only when I exclaimed: ‘Ah, Colonel!’ did he smile and hold out his hand.
    ‘How are you, my boy? I was sure it was you. My goodness!
    How are you, my boy?’
    Although tears had appeared in his eyes, his manner remained awkward, as though he were afraid I might be annoyed at this reminder of the past. I did my best to convey delight at seeing him again, and as a downpour commenced outside, we stood there exchanging conversation in the cramped bookshop.
    I discovered that he was still living in Worcestershire, that he had come to London to attend a funeral and had decided ‘to make a few days of it’. When I asked where he was staying, he answered vaguely, leading me to suspect he had taken modest lodgings. Before parting, I invited him to dine with me the following evening, a suggestion he took up with enthusiasm, though he seemed taken aback when I mentioned the Dorchester.
    But I continued to insist - ‘It’s the least I can do after all your past kindness.’ I had pleaded - until finally he gave in.
    Looking back now, my choice of the Dorchester strikes me as the height of inconsideration. I had, after all, already surmised that the colonel was short of funds; I should have seen too how wounding it would be for him not to pay at least his half of the bill. But in those days such things never occurred to me; I was much too concerned, I suspect, about impressing the old man with the full extent of my transformation since he had last seen me.
    In this latter aim, I was probably rather successful. For as it happened, I had just around that point been taken to the Dorchester on two occasions, so that on the evening I met Colonel Chamberlain there, the sommelier greeted me with a ‘nice to see you again, sir’. Then, after he had witnessed me exchanging witticisms with the maitre d’ as we started on our soup, the colonel broke into sudden laughter.
    ‘And to think,’ he said, ‘this is the same little squirt I had snivelling at my side on that boat!’
    He gave a few more laughs, then broke off abruptly, perhaps fearing he should never have alluded to the subject. But I smiled calmly and said: 1 must have been a trial to you on that trip, Colonel.’
    The old man’s face clouded for a moment. Then he said solemnly: ‘Considering the circumstances, I thought you were extremely brave, my boy. Extremely brave.’
    At this stage, I recall, there was a slightly awkward silence, which was broken when we both commented on the fine flavour of our soup. At the next table, a large lady with much jewellery was laughing gaily, and the colonel glanced rather indiscreetly towards her. Then he appeared to come to a decision.
    ‘You know, it’s funny,’ he said. ‘I was thinking about it, before I came out tonight. That time you and I first met. I wonder if you remember, my boy. I don’t suppose you do. After all, you had so much else on your mind then.’
    ‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I have the most vivid memory of the occasion.’
    This was no lie. Even now, if I were for a moment to close my eyes, I could with ease transport myself back to that bright morning in Shanghai and the office of Mr Harold Anderson, my father’s superior in the great trading company of Morganbrook and Byatt. I was sitting in a chair that smelt of polished leather and oak, the sort of chair normally found behind some impressive desk, but which, on this occasion, had been pulled out into the centre of the room. I could sense it was a chair reserved for only the most important of personages, but on this