The Spare Room Read Free

was in for a shock, but, because I had no way of imagining how it all might be in Australia, I couldn’t tell what kind of a shock. I couldn’t tell anything. It was going to be a leap in the dark. I was anxious about going by myself, but I knew other students were going into the same program at the university there and I would be living with a nice Australian family. So I’d have a home. I wouldn’t be lonely. I would enjoy myself. That’s what the program officer at the college told me. She also told me what things to take with me. She gave me a list that had all kinds of Japanese medicines and teas and little Japanese presents for my homestay family and new friends. As the time drew closer she also gave me details of the family I’d be living with. I read the information over carefully. There were a lot of rules too — about behaviour and responsibility and attendance at classes and sharing chores in the home. I wondered if I was really up to this or if I was kidding myself. Perhaps I should have felt flattered that my father thought I should go at all, that I could handle it. He didn’t talk about it though. My mother helped me take care of arrangements like getting a passport and a visa and the necessary travel bags. And a million other things. After a while I couldn’t wait to get going. I’d had enough of those dull classes and without you there they were so much duller. One day I skipped classes altogether and went to sit with you in the sun. I brought Kirin beers, your favourite kind. And after I drank the third one I had to lie down right there for a while. I must have gone to sleep, because when I opened my eyes there were some people looking at me very disapprovingly. But I knew you wouldn’t mind, so it didn’t matter to me. In a way, after that, I felt you were going with me after all.

3
    Time seemed to drag all of a sudden and I was keen to get going, keen for the change, for new experiences. I was still scared, no doubt about that, but I had a feeling it was going to be a kind of test for me. All the time I’d been going on about independence and living my own life and that kind of thing, and here was a chance to escape, just for a while, the tight confines of my life in Tokyo.
    When the day finally dawned I was already dog-tired. I hadn’t been able to sleep. My mind was still mad with trying to imagine what it might be like there. Trying and trying, like a computer someone’s forgotten to shut down, and there it is whirring away. I felt as if I had a little light blinking inside my head. What will Hobart be like? What will the classes be like? What will my homestay family be like? My mother was agitated and anxious. She fussed around me as I gulped down some oolong tea and double-checked that I had everything. She made me promise I’d eat well and eat some of the Japanese things she’d packed because she was sure that my digestive system was more suited to Japanese food than western food. Finally I was all set and, although by then I would rather have been going back to bed to get a bit of sleep, I stood on the threshold of our apartment and looked around the living room. The tatami floor, the kotatsu , the big thermos full of tea set down next to it. Just for a moment I wondered what it would be like when I saw it next, saw my mother next. What would I be like then?
    My mother bowed, as it was after all an important occasion, and she started to sniff a bit and I knew that once I’d gone she’d probably cry. Her only child was off into the big wide world. My father was already at the office. I was to call in and see him to say goodbye. In Australia it would probably seem strange that no one was going to the airport with me, but you know what Narita Airport’s like. It’s a two-hour drive out of Tokyo if you’re lucky, and through lots of toll gates. No one goes to see people off. There was no hugging from my mother.