Chapter Four
I was not in the best frame of mind when I sat down to dinner. Obviously Park Song-yong wasn’t in Sinjang-ri. Probably, I thought angrily, I’d find another postcard waiting for me in Seoul apartment, informing me that he’d just left Tokyo and would I meet him for dinner in Shanghai.
My thoughts turned to Kim Joo-young. I had seen her just before I left for Sinjang-ri and under her assumed air of flippancy I could see that she was badly worried. I’m afraid I didn’t feel as sympathetic towards her as I should have: any woman who agreed to marry Park Song-yong should have her head examined.
It was at least some comfort to savour Hae-jin’s beautifully cooked spicy pork bulgogi, it was almost worth travelling all that way just to taste it. Song-yong, I told myself for the thousandth time, was a dead loss and when I next saw him I’d probably give him a damned good hiding. Even this line of thought proved unsatisfactory – I wasn’t entirely sure that Song-yong, a taekwondo player of some ability in his youth, might not end up thrashing me …
I decided to send Joo-young a text: almost certainly she’d be worried herself sick by now. I started to tap out a short message on my iPhone, only to sense someone watching me. I looked up to find Kwon Oh-young standing by my table.
‘Did your friend get off all right, Mr Moon?’ inquired Kwon.
‘My friend?’ I said, momentarily bewildered. ‘Oh, you mean Jo. I wouldn’t exactly describe him as a friend of mine. Yes, he left just before lunch. I’m off tomorrow myself, by the way’. ‘I’m sorry to hear that’, said Kwon. ‘We were just getting to know you’.
‘I’m sorry about it myself’, I said, not altogether disingenuously. ‘I was just thinking how much I have enjoyed your daughter’s – er – cooking’.
He smiled proudly, ‘Very kind of you to say so. Would you like some tea to follow?’
‘Actually I’d like a coffee’.
‘No problem, I’ll get Hae-jin to do it’, said Kwon. He called Hae-jin, who was fixing her make- up in the mirror behind the bar. ‘Leave the war paint for a minute and fetch Mr Moon a cup of coffee’.
Hae-jin turned round, and looked more stunning than ever with her wide eyes and doll-like complexion. I struggled to keep my eyes off her as she poured a coffee from the large pot warming on the side and brought it over to me.
‘There you go Han-sang’, making a point of using my familiar name proprietorially. I smiled to myself. ‘What you up to there with your phone?’ she asked looking over my shoulder. I drank in her sweet perfume, then sensed her stiffen as she read my text.
‘Miss Kim Joo-young, Seoul National Theatre’, she read out aloud, then broke off. ‘A friend of yours?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Yes’, I replied looking into her eyes, ‘she is engaged to a good friend’. Hae-jin’s face relaxed, and I made sure to brush my hand across hers reassuringly as I reached for my coffee.
‘Kim Joo-young at the Seoul National Theatre’ she repeated slowly. ‘O-o-oh! Is that the Kim Joo-young, Mr Moon?’
‘The very same’, I nodded.
Hae-jin looked at me with something like awe; I had clearly gone up in her estimation. ‘Oh- my-god!’ she said, almost with reverence. ‘D’you remember, Dad? We saw her in that movie when we went to Gwangju last month’.
‘Oh, aye’, said Kwon, who obviously was no film fan and didn’t remember at all.
‘She was amazing’, went on Hae-jin dreamily. ‘Ever so glamorous’. She looked at me almost accusingly. ‘You never mentioned you had such famous friends, Han-sang!’
‘Well, I never thought of her as famous, she’s just engaged to a friend of mine’. I almost added, ‘God help her!’ but refrained just in time.
‘Now, let Mr Moon drink his coffee in peace and mind your own business’, admonished Kwon sternly. He turned despairingly to me.
‘It’s ok Hae-jin’, I said, letting my hand rest momentarily on her thigh beneath the table. ‘How could I mind someone with your talents asking?’
‘Yes, she’s an excellent cook’, said Kwon.
‘The best’, I agreed, ‘and I’m sure cooking’s not her only one’.
Hae-jin shot me a knowing look, ‘well a girl does her best to please. That right, Mr Moon?’
‘Too true’, I smiled.
When Hae-jin had gone Kwon said: ‘Well, I’m sorry your pal didn’t turn up’. ‘Can’t be helped’, I shrugged.
‘Still, there’s one thing’, said Kwon, ‘you’ve had a bit of excitement, what with one thing and another’.
‘Indeed I have’. Wondering what Kwon would say if he was aware of the ‘other’. Then I remembered the garage ticket in my wallet. ‘Oh, by the way – there was a garage ticket mixed up with those things of Arsenio’s’.
‘Garage ticket?’
‘Yes. But it obviously couldn’t have been his, it was from a Seoul garage. I assumed that it was either yours or that it had been left behind by whoever had the room before him’.
I felt in the inside pocket of my jacket.
It was then that I discovered my wallet was missing...