When I was four, our next-door neighbour was Emily. Her real name was Gladys but my brother decided that the name Emily suited her better. Everybody seemed to agree and soon the only person calling her Gladys was her husband. Emily was in her sixties and had terrible rheumatism in her fingers, but she was the best cook I have ever known.
My brother and I would often spend the day with Emily; while she cooked in her kitchen, we would clean her front yard, a space of perhaps three or four square metres. She never asked us to clean it, we just did. We took a lot of time and tried to do as good a job as we could. We used a brush, several buckets of hot water, and about half a bottle of washing-up liquid. Emily would probably have preferred it if we had not used quite so much water and washing-up liquid, but she never said anything. If we were happy, she was happy.
While we cleaned her yard, Emily would make us pasties and buns. The pasties we ate for lunch or carried home to eat for supper in the evening. The buns were for teatime in the middle of the afternoon. Coming in from the sunshine and smell of washing-up liquid into the cool darkness of the kitchen, we would first wash our hands in the big white enamel sink. Then a hush would fall over us as we watched Emily take her buns out of the oven. The silence was only broken by the tick-tock of the grandfather clock and the sound of birdsong from outside. Once Emily had got everything ready, we would sit at table. The smell of the hot buns filled the room. Emily would pour us each a glass of lemonade. Ah! Those were the days!
Now I am almost thirty years older, and Emily is no longer with us. Yet about six months I had a strange experience: walking out of Nishidai station in Tokyo one morning I was suddenly transported back in time to 1968. By the smell of a bun. Standing there on the pavement, I felt as if I was back in Emily's kitchen, if only for a few seconds. I looked up and there in front of me was the name of a well-known chainstore selling donuts and muffins. I went in and bought a plain muffin. It was an Emily bun!