Come to Harm

nineteen

Sunday, 10 November

She was sitting at the window with her legs tucked under, watching for Fancy but checking every few minutes that Malcolm’s van (or even the slightly smaller bulk of Malcolm himself) wasn’t approaching from the other end of the street.

They came together as it turned out, laughing at the door when Keiko opened it to them. Fancy hefted two plastic bags and waved them, and Malcolm looked at the box he was carrying with a sheepish, down-turning smile.

“Where’s Vi?” asked Keiko as they negotiated passing bags and boxes, taking off coats and shoes, Malcolm turning slowly as the two girls darted around him.

“She’s at Pet’s,” said Fancy, with the smallest flick of a glance towards Malcolm’s back. Keiko nodded and followed him to the kitchen.

“That drain still bothering you?” he said.

Keiko blushed. It was not her fault, but still she blushed.

Malcolm wiped down the countertop nearest the cooker and began lifting things from his box: two cellophane bags, one lolling and dark with blood, one a pale block. Beside these he set out a bag of flour, a small dark bottle with an orange label, and an onion.

“And that’s it,” he said. “That’s all that’s in it. It’s that simple. The best ingredients carefully chosen and combined.”

“You don’t agree with Mr. McLuskie, then?” Keiko said. “He told me about bridies and about how the meat doesn’t matter as long as the pastry’s right and you use enough pepper.”

“What a bloody cheek,” said Fancy. “Doesn’t he get his meat from you?”

Malcolm nodded, looking unperturbed. “He didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “He means it doesn’t matter what kind of meat it is-mutton, beef, pork, you name it-he didn’t mean the quality. Besides, he’s a baker: of course he’s going to care most about the pastry. Each to his own.”

“You’re nicer than me, Malcolm,” Fancy said.

“Suet,” said Malcolm, tearing at the pale bag and lifting it, letting a white loaf of fat fall with a thud onto the plate. He moved a hand towards the dark bag but stopped before he picked it up, plunged one arm into the box, and shook out a clean apron. He pushed his head through the neck strap and poked the strings around his sides.

“Let me,” said Keiko. She picked up the end of one apron string and held it while she walked around Malcolm for the other. Each string had an extra ten or twelve inches neatly stitched on to the end.

Malcolm made a single huge movement, brushing Keiko off him. She took a step backwards, but he was smiling down at her.

“Don’t crowd me,” he said. He tipped out a thick slice of beef and a cluster of dark kidney then wiped his bloody hands down his clean apron. Keiko squeaked.

“You use up paper, I use up aprons,” Malcolm said, looking away and missing Keiko’s quick smile, then he took out a flat wad of kitchen paper and unravelled it carefully to reveal a knife, ten inches long and four inches high, the blade glittering and the handle gleaming almost as much through use and care. “Which reminds me,” he added, “how did the pilot pan out?”

“Are you going to do it, Malcolm?” asked Fancy. “Because if you are, we can’t talk about it.”

Malcolm shook his head. He had his eyes fixed on their faces as his hands worked away at the beef, the blade in his right thunking over and over again down into the meat and his left scraping the cubes away from it and flicking fatty scraps aside.

“Be careful,” Keiko said.

“Good idea,” said Malcolm, solemnly. “I’ll do that.” Keiko and Fancy laughed and he turned back to his work, nicking at the kidneys with the point of his knife now, stripping nameless strings away from them.

Fancy turned back to Keiko. “I’ve had a couple more ideas.”

“Too late,” said Keiko. “The new questionnaires are printed.”

Malcolm was mixing the flour and suet, stirring his knife round in the bowl, adding water drop by patient drop.

“Listen,” he said, and they both leaned forward. He added another drop and from the bowl came a sticky sound as though a small creature was chewing on something wet.

“Nearly there,” he said and smacked his lips. Another drop and the sound changed again, slower and more muffled, then he put down the water jug and knife, lifted the tangle of dough out of the bowl in both hands, and began to work it around on the board, the blood between his fingers streaking and spreading through the ball as he kneaded.

“You never warned me you were printing them already,” said Fancy, grimacing as she watched Malcolm working.

“Already?” Keiko cried. “It starts tomorrow. I’ve almost finished the stimuli for the first full run of the actual study-the questionnaire after next.”

“The food ones?” said Fancy. “Get lost, you have not.”

“Kale juice to lower blood pressure,” Keiko said, “chocolate worse than cheese for cholesterol, toxins concentrated in the skin of apples but solved by peeling them, and fecal contamination in ready-to-use organic salad leaves.”

“And you’ll check back later to see if some idiot thinks there’s shit in kale?” Fancy said.

“Uh, to see if the message stays attached to the context so… yes, roughly.”

“What do you think, Malcolm?” said Fancy.

Malcolm shrugged, the movement making the cloth of his shirt creak. He had rolled the pastry out and now he took a bowl from the box and started to press the sheet of dough into it, working with deep concentration, his hair falling heavily over his face. Then he lifted the chopping board and Keiko was astonished to see the pile of meat and sliced onion disappear comfortably into the bowl that had seemed so small under his hands, hardly room for him to move his fingers around. He carried the filled bowl to the sink and held it under the cold tap.

“No!” said Fancy. “What are you doing?”

“Making gravy,” he said, grinning.

“You can’t pour water into pastry, Malcolm,” insisted Fancy. “Even I know that.”

“But suet pastry,” said Keiko, “it is like dumpling dough, isn’t it?”

“Hmm,” said Fancy, “I’ve never really believed in dumplings. How can you boil flour?”

“How can you not believe in dumplings?” asked Keiko, laughing and trying to catch Malcolm’s eye.

He waited until their attention was back on him and then walked carefully back and set the brimming bowl down again. He laid a blanket of dough over the top and tucked it in fussily, nipping at the edges with dampened fingers. When it was tamped down to his satisfaction, he took a piece of folded foil out of the box and fitted it over the top, then tied it tightly to the rim of the bowl with a length of string and fashioned a handle, his thick fingers working quickly over the knots.

“Now,” he said, dangling the trussed bowl from one fingertip, “you steam it gently for five hours and it’s ready.” His smile widened as Keiko and Fancy’s faces fell.

“Malcolm, this was meant to be lunch,” Fancy began, but he held his free hand up towards her and inclined his head patiently with his eyes closed.

“This one goes home with me tonight,” he said. “And this one”- he lifted an identical pudding basin out of the box-“which I prepared earlier and cooked for four hours this morning, goes back in for an hour and will be ready at one o’clock sharp.” He began to tidy away his things, lodging his scissors safely in the middle of the ball of string and stacking the used plates.

“So that was all for show?” Fancy said.

“Keiko wanted to watch,” Malcolm said.

“Right, my turn,” said Fancy. “And if you think that was impressive…”

Craig arrived as she was sorting through a heap of packets tipped out on the table. He rapped on the door, shouted hello, and strolled along the corridor towards them, his shoes making the same metallic clunk as his uncle’s on Keiko’s thin strip of carpet.

“Where’s Murray?” he asked as he entered the kitchen. Fancy rolled her eyes and Malcolm turned away towards the sink and started to run hot water.

“Would you like a drink?” said Keiko.

“Wait two minutes,” said Fancy. “Watch this, Malc. Sherry, cream, choc chip cookies.” She poured a pool of sherry onto a plate, took a biscuit daintily by its edge, dipped it briefly and laid it down. When there was a soaked biscuit on each of four plates, she plopped dollops of cream down on top of them. Then more biscuits, soaked and pressed down on top of the cream, and she carried on until there were four squat towers of biscuits, spreading slightly at the base as the sherry softened the bottom one. She spread the rest of the cream on top and shook a packet of chocolate buttons over them. Most of the buttons stuck, a few landed on the plates, and one rolled away under the fridge.

“Ta-dah! And the really neat part is…” Fancy poured sherry into four glasses, filling each one perfectly to the brim and ending with the bottle upside down and empty. Keiko clapped and Malcolm followed her, clumping his hands together three times then letting them drop to his sides again.

“Nothing like good home packet opening,” said Craig. “Isn’t Murray coming? Where is he?”

Murray was in the workshop. He sat on his heels by the Harley, at his side a blue four-bottle wine carrier holding chrome polish, wax, and leather food, the last compartment stuffed with a soft roll of chamois leathers and yellow dusters around a dry paintbrush that he used for the awkward corners. Beside the Vincent was a red wine carrier; there was a green one by the Squariel, and two yellow ones lay between the two BSAs, the finished Golden Flash and the poor deformed Bantam, which sat cocked onto their rests at just the same angle, their front wheels turned in to face each other, looking like two dancers frozen in the middle of their minuet.

Murray’s small window looked out at the lane and the yard wall, taking in just a corner of the Pooles’ slaughterhouse, and he knew that even if he moved right up and put his face against the glass, he couldn’t see into Keiko’s kitchen. Instead he had to content himself with looking out at the sliver of view they shared and straining his ear to catch some sound of the four of them, perhaps sitting there in the steamy warmth with the window thrown open, laughing and drinking.

In fact, Malcolm was in the kitchen alone. Keiko and Fancy were setting the big table in the bay window. Craig picked up a completed questionnaire and started leafing through before Keiko could stop him.

“Okay, okay,” he said when he saw her face turn pale. “But what a temptation. Who all did it?”

Keiko ignored him.

“If you want a gossip,” said Fancy, “how about why Janette Campbell would be so pissed off that Murray’s showing Keiko how to lift weights.”

Keiko stared at her. That had been a confidence shared between friends: two confidences, in fact. Fancy must know that.

“Search me,” said Craig, throwing himself into an armchair and turning to face the doorway as they all heard the sound of Malcolm coming out of the kitchen. “You got any clue?”

Malcolm surveyed the narrow armchairs before moving towards the sofa and settling himself. Fancy took the other chair and Keiko perched up at the far end of the sofa from Malcolm, both heels hard on the carpet, bracing herself against the gradient that threatened to throw her down against him.

“Mrs. Campbell?” said Malcolm. “I can’t think. Unless… Did you mention Byers’s place? This is going back years, mind, but she can be bit funny about Willie Byers.”

“Who can blame her?” said Fancy. “ ‘A bit funny’ is the only way to be. Why, though?”

Malcolm rubbed his chin for a moment before he went on. “As far as I know, she took quite a fancy to him when he first came. It wasn’t long after her divorce. And one Halloween everybody was out on the Green and Willie Byers was still at work-everybody could see him-and Janette Campbell decided she’d go and drag him out to join the party. She’d had a bit to drink, by this time.” Malcolm laughed and shook his head.

Janette Campbell had had exactly four glasses of the gluey white wine that was laid out on a trestle table under the streetlamp. Four glasses on top of the large gin it had taken to get her out of her house for the first time since Mr. Campbell had left her. She wasn’t drunk. And Mr. Byers, who was new in town, was sitting in his office with the desk lamp on, sideways to the bonfire, never so much as glancing up at it.

“He’s a strange character, right enough,” said Mr. McKendrick. “I mean, there’s others haven’t come tonight and that’s fair enough, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea…”

“But that’s just thumbing your nose, isn’t it,” said Mr. Poole. “Sitting there like that.”

“Maybe he’s shy,” said Janette Campbell. “Maybe he just needs a bit of encouragement.” From someone who knows what it feels like to be alone, was what she meant. She set off across the dark green towards the desk light.

“Fiver says he won’t come, Janette,” shouted Kenny Imperiolo after her. She ignored him. She hadn’t drunk enough to have to concentrate on walking, but she shouldn’t risk trying to look over her shoulder with everyone watching. Outside the shop she arranged a smile on her face and knocked. Byers raised his head from his papers and squinted out into the dark. She waved. Away across the Green everyone could see her hand silhouetted against the brightness. And then the light clicked off and Janette stood facing the suddenly black glass and the reflection of her own startled face in it. She heard a cackle of laughter, swiftly smothered, from behind her, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Old misery guts,” someone shouted.

“Come away and leave him to stew, Janette,” called a woman’s voice. Mrs. Campbell walked as quick as she could without breaking into a run, round the corner and towards home. She stumbled once and had to put out a hand to steady herself and, although she was out of view, still the shock and the shame of nearly falling started the tears for real and she blundered on faster, sobbing, until she heard a low voice calling her name. She thought perhaps it was him, come out the back way, but when she turned gulping, streaked with mascara, it was Mrs. Poole she saw hurrying towards her with her arms outstretched.

“Don’t go!” Mrs. Poole called. “Oh, come on back and see the bonfire. Come on.” She put her head on one side and beckoned.

“You go back if you want to, Grace,” said Mrs. Campbell, shaky and louder than she meant to. “You go back to all your friends and your two lovely children and your husband and James McKendrick hanging around just in case. And I hope it chokes you.”

“I don’t know what she said to Mum or what Mum said to her,” Malcolm finished, “but she’s never been in our shop since and Mum gets her hair done at Curly World now.”

Craig laughed unkindly, long hooting laughs, and looked at Fancy to share it, but Fancy winced and shook her head.

“Poor Mrs. Campbell,” said Keiko. “It’s no wonder then. If it were me I would still be blushing.”

“Hey,” said Craig, “I know what! What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?” Everyone groaned. “Oh, come on. I’ll start.”

“Not now,” said Fancy. “Not in the cold light of day on one sherry.”

Keiko was jolted out of her musing.“Of course,” she said. “Who would like another drink?”

“Oh, come on,” said Craig again. “I’ll start it. What’s the most embarrassed you’ve ever been?”

“Malcolm, would you like a glass of wine?” asked Keiko. Malcolm turned to face her just as she began to rise, and the brief lifting of his bulk at one end of the sofa caused the springs under Keiko to drop away at the very moment she transferred her weight to her feet and she fell towards him. She put her hands out to stop herself then pulled back, scared of hurting him, and ended up rolling in his lap, helpless as an upturned beetle, while his arms flailed. Then, as she tried once more to gain purchase, one knee connected with some soft part of him around his middle and he gasped, making a sound like the first punch into a bowl of risen dough. Keiko caught her breath and stopped wriggling, letting Malcolm clamp one hand around each of her upper arms and lift her up and back, onto her feet. They looked into each other’s faces for less than a second, then Keiko shot out of the room. She heard Craig trying to speak.

“So Malcolm, what’s the most emba-” he managed to get out before he collapsed into silent, wheezing laughter.

Keiko was staggering around the kitchen, doubled up, trying to catch a breath, holding her lenses in with the sides of her fingers, when Fancy scurried in, hand clamped over her mouth, and slammed the door behind her. They gave way as quietly as they could-there was no use trying to fight it completely.

“Is he laughing?” asked Keiko finally, in a ragged whisper. Fancy shook her head and wiped her eyes. Keiko cleared her throat. “He smells like rosemary,” she said, and they both straightened up with deep sighs.

“We have to go back in,” Fancy said.

Keiko raked her hair back into place. “I’ll take the glasses, you bring the wine.” She picked up two glasses in each hand and marched towards the living room. Malcolm was halfway along the corridor towards her.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked. He shook his head. Behind him she could see Craig still sprawled in his chair with his slim legs stretched out in front of him.

“Funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he called to them.

Keiko stepped out of his eye-line and fleetingly tried to hug Malcolm, stretching her arms across his front, the wine glasses clinking. For just a second she laid the side of her face against his chest and breathed in the scent of rosemary again. Malcolm raised his hands, perhaps to hug her back, but she stepped away and was into the living room before he could stop her.