uniko turned the key of her Golf and the roar of the engine echoed comfortingly through the parking lot. Nice to have a reliable car in a place like this, though last year she had spent more than two hundred thousand on repairs.

'See you then,' Masako said, waving quickly as she put her own car in gear and pulled out of the lot. Though she had more experience than the rest of them and they tended to rely on her, she struck Kuniko as a bit cold. Kuniko bowed slightly and watched her go. The two of them were very different, and she found herself feeling relieved when Masako was out of sight. In general, when she said goodbye to her friends at the factory, it was as if a heavy veil fell away, letting the real Kuniko show through.

Masako had stopped at the light just outside the parking lot. As Kuniko stared across the lot at the back of her scratched and dented Corolla, she wondered how she could put up with such an old car. The dilapidated state of the red paintwork suggested the car had already been driven well over a hundred thousand kilometres - and the bumper stickers promoting safe driving were really too tacky. She drove a second-hand car herself, but precisely because it was secondhand, she made sure it was nice-looKing. If not, then why not go get a loan and buy a new one? Masako wasn't bad-looking for her age and she had a certain style, ftut she should think a bit more about the impression she made.

Kuniko popped one of her husband's cassettes into the stereo and a shrill female voice filled the car with a cloying pop tune. Beginning to feel the heat, she ejected the tape. At the best of times, she wasn't really interested in music anyway. She had only put it in to mark her liberation from the night's work and to test the gadgets in her car. Adjusting the vents on the air-conditioner in her direction, she put down the top of the convertible, watching as it slowly withdrew like a snake shedding its skin. She loved this kind of moment when something ordinary could be made to seem dramatic and exciting. If only her whole life could be that way.

Still, she thought, going back to Masako, why do you suppose she always wears jeans and her son's old shirts? Come winter, she added a sweatshirt or some ratty sweater, over which - worse yet she'd throw on an old down jacket with patches of tape to keep the feathers from spewing out. That was really too much. It made her look like one of those scrawny trees at Christmas: her skinny shape, the slightly dark skin, the piercing eyes, the thin lips and narrow nose - no excess anywhere. If she would only use a little make-up and wear something expensive, more like Kuniko's own clothes, she'd look five years younger and quite attractive, it really was a shame. Kuniko's feelings toward the woman were complicated, part envy and part antipathy.

But the real point, she thought, is that I'm ugly. Ugly and fat. Peering into the rear-view mirror, she felt that wave of hopelessness which always swept over her. Her face was broad and jowly, but the eyes that peered back at her were tiny. Her nose was wide and sloping, but her mouth was small and pouty. Everything's mismatched, she thought, and it all looks hideous after a long night shift. She pulled a sheet of facial paper from her Prada make-up pouch and patted around the shiny areas!

She knew how things worked. A woman who wasn't attractive could not expect to get a high-paying job. Why else would she be working the night shift in a factory like this? But the stress of the job made her eat more. And the more she ate, the fatter she got. Suddenly feeling furious with everyone and everything, she jammed the car in gear, released the brake, and stomped on the gas. She checked the mirror as the Golf shot out of the parking lot, delighted at the little cloud of dust she left behind.

She turned on to the Shin-Oume Expressway and drove toward the city for a few minutes before turning right in the direction of Kunitachi. Beyond the pear orchards on the left, a tight cluster of old apartment blocks came into view. The place Kuniko called home.

She hated living there, truly hated it. But at the end of the day, given what she and Tetsuya, her live-in partner, earned, it was all they could afford. She wished suddenly that she were a different woman, living a different life, in a different place, with a different man. 'Different', of course, meant several rungs up the ladder. These rungs on the ladder were everything to Kuniko, and only occasionally did she wonder if there was something wrong with her incessant daydreams about this 'different' life.

She pulled the Golf into her designated space in the parking lot. The other cars were all sub-compacts, all domestic. Feeling particularly pleased with her own imported model, she closed the door with a loud slam. Serves them right if it wakes somebody. Still, if one of the neighbours started shouting, she knew she'd be forced to offer an apology. For the time being, she had to make do here as best she could. She rode up to the fifth floor in the graffiticovered elevator and then picked her way down the passage strewn with tricycles and Styrofoam boxes to her own apartment. As she unlocked the door and let herself into the darkened room, she could hear a harsh snore, like the sound of an animal sleeping in there; but she was so used to the sound, she barely noticed it. She pulled the morning paper from the mailbox and put it on the dining-room table they'd bought on credit. Other than the TV listings, she never read the paper. It seemed a waste and she'd often thought of cancelling the subscription, but she did need the classifieds. She extracted the 'Help Wanted, Female' pages from the reams of real estate ads and set them aside, intending to look through them carefully later on.

The room was warm and humid. She turned on the airconditioner and opened the refrigerator. She could never get to sleep, as hungry as she was, but there was nothing to eat. She'd bought potato salad and rice balls at the supermarket last night, but they were nowhere to be seen. No doubt Tetsuya had eaten them without giving it a second thought. Angry now, Kuniko yanked at the tab on a can of beer. Opening a bag of snack cakes, she turned on the television, changed the channel to a morning talk show, and sat back to listen to the celebrity gossip while she waited for the beer to take effect.

'Turn it down!' Tetsuya yelled almost instantly from the bedroom.

'Why?' Kuniko answered. 'It's time for you to get up anyway.'

'I've still got ten minutes!' he yelled again, and Kuniko felt something hit her arm. Looking down, she saw a disposable lighter that Tetsuya must have thrown. The skin on her arm was turning red. She picked up the lighter and went to stand over the bed where Tetsuya was sprawled.

'Shithead. Do you know how tired I am?'

'What?' he said, a look of foreboding on his face. 'I'm the one who's tired.'

'So you think that gives you the right to throw this shit at me?' She flicked the lighter and held it near his face.

'Cut it out!' he wailed, knocking her hand away. The lighter shot across the room, rolling along the tatami, as Kuniko gave a stinging slap to Tetsuya's hand.

'Listen, you asshole! I've about had it.... You look at me when I'm talking to you!'

'Fuck off,' he said. 'It's too early.'

'Shut up, you. And I suppose you ate my salad, too.'

'Keep it down, okay?' said Tetsuya, scowling. He was a size smaller than Kuniko and much more delicate. The year before last, when he'd finally found a regular job at a hospital, he had been forced to cut his shoulder-length hair, but it made him look even seedier. Kuniko hadn't liked it at all. The Tetsuya who had wandered the streets of Shibuya hadn't been any brighter, but at least he'd been cute. She'd worked in a video-game arcade in those days, also in Shibuya. She'd been much thinner then and able to attract a man like Tetsuya easily enough, though the credit line she'd run up decking herself out in clothes and accessories meant that she was still scrambling today.

'You ate it,' she said. 'Admit it and apologise.' Without warning, she jumped on top of him, using her weight to hold him down.

'I told you to stop it!' he shrieked.

'Admit it and I'll let you go.'

'Okay, I ate it. I'm sorry. But there wasn't anything else when I got home.'

'So why didn't you get something yourself?'

'I know, I know,' he pleaded. He twisted his head away as Kuniko slipped her hand between his legs, but he was still soft.

'So, not even a morning hard-on now?' she taunted.

'Get off me! Get off You're heavy - do you know how much you weigh?'

'How dare you!' Kuniko shrieked, wrapping her thighs around his thin neck. Tetsuya tried to cry out, to apologise, but no sound emerged. She grunted and at last rolled off him. Their sex life of late had been nothing but disappointments. Though he was younger than she was, he was all but useless. As she stalked back to the other room, she could see him slowly sitting up.

'Now I'm going to be late,' he moaned. She ignored him and lit a cigarette as he emerged from the bedroom in a T-shirt and gaudy boxers, rubbing his throat. He took a cigarette from her pack of menthols on the kitchen table.

'Those are mine,' she said. 'Leave them alone.'

'I only want one,' he muttered.

'Fine, that'll be twenty yen,' she said, sticking out her hand. Tetsuya let out a sigh, knowing from her tone that she wasn't joking. Keeping one eye on him, Kuniko went back to watching TV. Fifteen minutes later, he left for work without a word, and Kuniko lay down on the bed, fitting her larger form into the narrow depression he had left.

***

It was nearly two o'clock when she woke up. Turning on the television, she had a cigarette and watched the talk shows as she waited for her body to come to life. The afternoon shows were almost indistinguishable from the morning ones she'd watched before going to bed, but she didn't care. She was hungry, so she went out to buy something without even washing her face. Near the entrance to the apartment complex was a convenience store that happened to sell her factory's boxed lunches. She picked up a 'Lunch of Champions' and checked the label: 'Miyoshi Foods, Higashi Yamato Factory, shipped at 7.00 a.m.' No doubt about it, it had come off their line. She'd had one of the easiest jobs, putting in the scrambled egg, and still Nakayama had yelled at her to cut down on the portion. He really was an asshole. She'd like to scramble him one of these days. But last night's shift had been an unusually easy one. As long as she stuck close to Yoshie and Masako, she could have her pick of the cushy jobs. She chuckled softly.

Back in her apartment, she watched TV while she ate her lunch and drank some oolong tea. As she bit into a piece of pork soaked in brown sauce, she remembered how Yayoi had kicked over the pot. The woman had been a mess this morning, she thought, so absent-minded that she was no help at all. In fact, she was a real drag on the team. So what if her husband was beating her up; if it were Kuniko, she'd just hit him back. Polishing off the pork cutlet, she poured some soy sauce over a pack of frozen dumplings and slathered them with mustard. As she was digging into them, she found herself thinking about Yayoi again. If she were that pretty, she wouldn't be caught dead working the night shift in a factory; she'd get a job at a bar or a pub, or even someplace slightly disreputable - it wouldn't matter as long as the pay was good. The only problem was that she wasn't pretty like Yayoi, and she had no confidence in her own looks or style.

A special feature on high-school girls came on, and Kuniko found herself setting aside her chopsticks and focusing on the programme. A girl with long, straight, dyed-brown hair was talking. Her face had been disguised with digital blurring and her voice was distorted, but Kuniko could tell that she was pretty and stylish.

'Men are wallets, just wallets,' she was saying. 'Me? What did I get out of them? A suit, a ¥450,000 suit.'

'Shit!' Kuniko shouted at the TV. 'Stupid little creep.' A suit costing that much must be Chanel or Armani. I want a Chanel suit, but if a little slut like that can get one for nothing, what's the point? 'Damn, damn, damn,' she kept muttering.

The only good that had come out of working at the factory was meeting Masako, she thought, chewing on a lump of cold rice. She'd heard that Masako used to have a job at a good company, but she'd been forced out when they'd been restructured. She sensed that she wasn't the kind of woman who would go on slaving on the night shift at the factory forever. She might be promoted to a regular employee, or even to management. And when she was, good things were bound to happen to anyone who stuck close to her. The one hitch in the plan was that Masako didn't seem to trust her.

When she had eaten every last scrap in the lunch container and practically licked it clean, she tossed it in the garbage can next to the sink. Then she studied the Help Wanted section she'd saved from the newspaper. On her current salary at the factory, she could never hope to pay back the mountain of debt she'd run up; in fact, it was all she could do to manage the interest. But the pay for daytime work was even worse than what she was getting now. She'd have to work eight hours to make what she made now in five and a half, so there was no point in giving up the night shift. But then she had to sleep all day. It was a vicious circle. The bottom line was that Kuniko didn't want to admit she was bone idle. But at the same time, she was unable to bring herself to acknowledge how huge her debts had become. The interest alone was now so crushing that she had no idea whether she was even paying off the principal any more, no idea what the principal was.

In the evening, she put on her make-up and her imitation Chanel suit and went out. She needed to find herself some sort of part-time job that she could do before going to the factory at eleven thirty. A housewife who lived next door was just pulling up to the racks as Kuniko went to get her bike. She was dressed in a cheap summer suit of the sort they sold at the supermarket, and carrying shopping bags. She looked tired. They must work hard at those company jobs, Kuniko told herself, bowing slightly at her, and the woman smiled back, sniffing the air as she passed. She can probably smell my perfume, Kuniko thought, it's 'Coco' today though I doubt she has any idea about expensive scents. They were forbidden to wear perfume at the factory, but she'd be taking a bath before setting out for work.

She straddled the bike and set off clumsily down the busy, narrow street. The pub was near the next station, Higashi Yamato. There was probably no parking lot, so she'd have to go by bike, which was a drawback. What would she do on rainy days? Still, it was better than walking all the way to the station. If things went well and she got the job, she would think about moving.

Twenty minutes later she was standing in front of the pub. 'Bel Fiore', the sign read. She'd thought that her chances for getting the job were poor, but seeing how remote and seedy the place was, she changed her mind. She could feel her spirits rising, her heart racing for the first time in a long while.

'Hostess. 18-3 0 yrs old. ¥3600/hr. Uniform rental. 5.00 p.m.-1.00 a.m. nightly. No drinking necessary.'

Recalling the details of the advertisement, Kuniko thought she might even quit the factory if she got the job. It took her a whole night of hard work making boxed lunches to earn what she'd earn in two hours here. Though she had just made a resolution to stick close to Masako no matter what, she could already feel herself moving in another direction.

A group of young men in flashy suits stood by the door with a girl in a miniskirt who seemed to be advertising the place. 'I phoned earlier about the job,' Kuniko said to one of the men.

'You want to go around back,' he said, staring at her with a surprised look.

'Thanks,' she said. As she walked away, she could sense that they were watching her and she thought she heard someone laugh. When she reached the spot where the man had pointed, she turned into an alley where she found a metal door with a small sign for 'Bel Fiore'. 'Excuse me,' she said as she pushed it open and peered in. 'I phoned earlier.' A middle-aged man dressed in black was just hanging up the phone. Rubbing the deep wrinkles on his forehead, he studied Kuniko for a moment.

'Ah, yes. Come in,' he said eventually. His look was a bit unnerving but his voice was low and gentle. 'Have a seat,' he said, waving toward a sofa set in front of the desk. Trying to look confident, Kuniko sat down, keeping her back straight. The man held out a name card that identified him as the manager. He bowed slightly, but as he raised his head it was clear that he'd quickly sized her up. She was miserably uncomfortable now, but she plunged ahead.

'I'd like to apply for the hostess job you advertised.'

'I see. Then maybe we should have a little chat,' the man said pleasantly, sitting down in a chair opposite the couch. 'So tell me, how old are you?'

'Twenty-nine.'

'I see,' he said again. 'And do you have some proof of your age?'

'Oh, I didn't bring any with me today.' Almost as soon as the words were out, the man's tone changed.

'Okay. You ever done this kind of work before?' he asked bluntly.

'No, never.' She wasn't sure what she would do if he said they weren't hiring housewives, but the man had no more questions.

'The fact is,' he said, getting up from the chair, 'the minute the ad came out we had six girls, all about nineteen, show up. We like them fresh like that; seems to be what the customers want.'

'I see,' said Kuniko. But it's not just age, she thought, her spirits falling like an elevator. If she were pretty and stylish, her age probably wouldn't matter. Age wasn't really the problem at all, she thought, her insecurities now in the ascendant.

'Sorry you had to go to all this trouble,' said the manager, 'but I'm afraid at the present time... '

'I understand,' Kuniko blurted out, nodding hastily.

'If you don't mind my asking, what d'you do now?'

'I work part-time in the neighbourhood.'

'That's probably best anyway,' he said. 'This is hard work. The customers are spending ten or twenty thousand an hour, so they don't like to go home empty-handed. You're a big girl; you get my drift. They want "relief". That's not the kind of work you're looking for, is it?' The man gave a coarse laugh. 'Sorry you came all this way,' he said, slipping a thin envelope into her hand. 'This is for cab fare.' Probably a thousand yen, she guessed. 'But just for the record,' he added, '- you're really over thirty, aren't you?'

'No, I'm not.'

'Whatever you say,' he sniffed, no longer bothering to hide his scorn.

Feeling thoroughly depressed, Kuniko went out the back door of the pub, as she couldn't face the touts at the front again. A side street took her back to the restaurant where she'd left her bicycle, and since she was hungry and in a foul mood, she decided to go inside and use the money for a meal.

'Rice bowl with beef,' she ordered, then glanced around and found herself staring into a large mirror. There, staring back at her, was her own blank, homely face, perched on her own thick neck. She turned quickly away, recognising that the mirror probably reflected her true age, thirty-three. She had lied about her age to her friends at the factory, too.

Sighing, she opened the envelope. Two thousand. Not bad! Well, who cares anyway? She lit a cigarette and tucked it in the corner of her mouth. There was still some time before she had to head to the factory.