Kazuo Ishiguro by When We Were Orphans (txt) Page A

once with Uncle Philip.
    Uncle Philip was not a real uncle. He had stayed with my parents as a ‘house guest’ upon his arrival in Shanghai sometime before my birth, in the days when he was still in the employ of Morganbrook and Byatt. Then, while I was still very young, he had resigned from the company owing to what my mother always described as ‘a profound disagreement with his employers over how China should mature’. By the time I was old enough to be aware of him, he was running a philanthropic organisation called The Sacred Tree dedicated to improving conditions in the Chinese areas of the city. He had always been a family friend, but as I have said, became a particularly frequent visitor during the years of my mother’s anti-opium campaigns.
    I can remember often going with my mother to Philip’s office. This was located within the grounds of one of the churches in the city centre - my guess now is that it was the Union Church in Soochow Road. Our carriage would drive right into the grounds and stop beside a large lawn shaded by fruit trees. Here, despite the noises from the city around us, the atmosphere was tranquil, and my mother, stepping out of the carriage, would pause, raise her head and remark: “The air. It’s so much purer here.’ Her mood would lighten visibly, and sometimes - if we were a little early - my mother and I would while away some minutes playing games on the grass. If we played tag, chasing one another all around the fruit trees, my mother would often laugh and squeal as excitedly as I did. I remember once, in the middle of one such game, she stopped suddenly on seeing a clergyman emerge from the church. We had then stood quietly on the edge of the lawn and exchanged greetings with him as he had passed. But no sooner had he gone out of our sight than my mother had turned, and stooping right down to me, given a conspiratorial giggle. It is even possible this kind of thing occurred more than once. In any case, I remember being fascinated by the notion of my mother participating in something for which, just like me, she could be ‘told off. And it was perhaps this dimension to these moments of careless play around the churchyard that made them seem always a little special for me.
    My memory of Uncle Philip’s office is that it was very ramshackle.
    There were everywhere boxes of all sizes, heaps of papers, even loose drawers, still with their contents, stacked precariously one on another. I would have expected my mother to disapprove of such untidiness, but she only ever talked of Uncle Philip’s office being ‘cosy’ or ‘busy’.
    He never failed to make a fuss of me on these visits, shaking my hand heartily, sitting me down then engaging me in conversation for several minutes while my mother looked on smiling. Often he would give me a gift, something he would pretend he had had ready and waiting - though I soon came to realise he was presenting me with whatever caught his eye at the time. ‘Guess what I’ve got for you, Puffin!’ he would declare, while his gaze travelled the room in search of something suitable. In this way I acquired an extensive collection of office items, which I kept in an old chest in my playroom: an ashtray, an ivory pen stand, a lead weight. There was one occasion when, after announcing he had a present for me, his eye failed to alight on anything at all. There followed an awkward pause, before he sprang up and began wandering about his office, muttering: ‘And where did I put it? What on earth have I done with it?’ - until finally, perhaps in desperation, he went over to the wall, pulled down a map of the Yangtze region, tearing a corner as he did so, rolled it up and presented it to me.
    That time I confided in him, Uncle Philip and I were sitting together in his office, waiting for my mother to come back from somewhere. He had persuaded me to take his own chair behind his desk, while he himself roamed aimlessly around the place. He was making his