An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful - Softcover

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J. David Simons is a Scottish author, media journalist and literary editor. His first novel, The Credit Draper, was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize, and his subsequent novels include The Liberation of Celia Kahn (2011), The Land Agent (2014), A Woman of Integrity (2017), The Responsibility of Love (2021), as well as An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful. He has been awarded several bursaries from Creative Scotland and the Society of Authors and in 2012 was the recipient of a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship.

Simons is also a former lawyer, charity administrator, cotton farmer and university lecturer. His nomadic lifestyle has allowed him to spend considerable time in Israel, Australia, Japan and the United States, and he currently lives in Javea, Spain.

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Hakone, Japan. 2003

‘Your favourite season is the one you are born into,’ Edward’s mother, a bitter child of winter, used to tell him. Edward, an October baby, recalled this statement as the autumn forest flashed by the window of the taxi in its sweep up the hillside. This yellow-brown parade of lacquer trees, poplars and elms marking his journey back in time, trunk by rapid trunk. He used to love this time of year. Now the autumn of his birth day just reminded him of his impending death. The withering, the desiccation, the falling, the decay.

‘How long now?’ Enid asked.

He leaned forward, tapped the half-opened partition with his cane. ‘Nan-pun kakarimasu ka?’

‘Go-fun gurai,’ the driver grunted, holding up a spread of his white-gloved digits.

‘About five minutes,’ he told her as he settled back into the leather. His mind still felt fuzzy at the edges, jetlagged, labouring for clarity in a haze of warped time, half here and half somewhere else. Yet he couldn’t really complain. The flight from London had taken only fourteen hours. A modern miracle compared to his first journey on the inaugural Polar Route. Almost two days flying back then. All the passengers rushing to one side to catch a glimpse of the North Pole, the pilot ordering them back for fear of a tilt.

‘It must feel strange,’ she said. ‘Coming back.’

‘I don’t know. It’s a different country now.’ He looked at her. Her ringless fingers fiddling with the clasp on her handbag, her head fixed forward, lips tight, her complexion paler than usual. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, his voice still scratching dry from the many airborne hours aloft.

‘It’s my job.’

‘Still, I know you don’t like travelling.’ He almost patted her hand as he said this, to stop her fidgeting if nothing else. Then as the vehicle began to slow, he felt ripples of panic spread across his abdomen, down his thighs. He gripped the top of his cane.

‘The hotel manager’s name is Takahashi,’ she said. ‘He has been very helpful with the arrangements. Please try to remember his name. You forget how heartening it is for people to be remembered. Especially by you.’

The taxi swung off the road, eased up the driveway, stopped in the forecourt. His door was immediately hauled open and cool air swooped into the compartment along with a gloved hand. He shooed away the assistance of the liveried doorman, struggled out of the car. Then steadying himself on his cane, he straightened his back, aware of each aching joint grinding into position until he was fully able to take in the view. A feeling of both joy and gratitude swept through him. The hotel was just as he remembered it. A magical, medieval Japanese castle. Those tiers of grey-tiled roofs cascading out of the hillside. The rust-red balconies. The lanterns.

‘Sir Edward, Sir Edward.’ An elegant gentleman in dark jacket and pinstriped trousers approached, bowed deep before him. ‘How nice it is to welcome you back after such a long absence.’ The hotel manager snapped upright, held out his hand.

‘Ah, Takahashi-san,’ Edward said. ‘It is good to be back.’