AGEING ALBION

On July 8, Toyoko and I left Japan, after a round of farewell parties and dinners offered by friends and business relations, some of whom didn't believe that I was actually quitting banking in order to do — what? They suspected that I had a better job lined up but couldn't reveal that at the time.

What we did, in fact, was move to England, where we installed ourselves in a lovely house in Gerrards Cross, a small town in Buckinghamshire, not far from London. My plan was to finally start a career as a writer, a long-held dream. I felt that living quietly in leafy surroundings would surely provide the inspiration to put pen to paper and surprise the world with my stories. Although neither my fourteen years with the Nationale Handelsbank nor my ten years with Continental Bank had left me with any pension rights, I had enough savings to last us two or three years, provided we lived frugally. Fortunately, the house was not expensive, I bought a cheap second-hand car, and the overheads were manageable.

One of the first things I did after settling down with Toyoko in Gerrards Cross was to enroll in the Japanese Department of S.O.A.S., the School for Oriental & African Studies on Russell Square, London. I was determined to belatedly seek some academic underpinnings for my uneven Japanese, which I had, so to speak, acquired in the trenches.

The admissions office wasn't sure where to slot me in, given my relative fluency in conversation and extensive background in Japanese culture contrasting with my still wobbly knowledge of kanji characters. They placed me with the third-year undergraduates where I soon felt the odd man out. I experienced first-hand what it means to be out of step with the mainstream, alternating uncomfortably between knowing too much and too little. The collective stares in my direction from the pack of young students, connived in by the teaching staff, left little room for maneuvering and within six months I stopped attending the lectures.

I continued studying on my own, in between attempts at fiction writing. Meanwhile, Toyoko and I used every opportunity to see old Japanese friends or meet new ones.