Come to Harm

twenty-four

Tuesday, 12 November

The piano didn’t quite stop playing as she walked into the bar of the Covenanters’ Arms, but Margaret Ballantyne rushed towards her, came right out from behind the bar, and had her away to the empty dining room before any of the drinkers had gathered themselves to call a greeting.

“Different if you were meeting someone,” she said. “Different if Fancy or Murray”-she winked at Keiko-“was coming, but you can’t just sit there in the public bar on your lonesome.”

“Can I sit alone in here?” asked Keiko looking around.

“Away, I’m not going to leave you,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. She drew out two chairs opposite Keiko, sat in one and put her feet up on the other, kicking her shoes off. “The bar can manage without me for half an hour,” she said. “Pulling pints is great for your arms, but it’s murder on your ankles. Anyway, I’m pleased to get the chance to do my bit.”

“Your bit?”

“Feeding you up,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “Getting a good dinner down you. Mind and tell Jimmy McKendrick too. He had plenty to say to Iain and me about us dodging the schedule, but what could we do about it? We’re always busy in here and he was adamant that it was home-cooking he wanted for you. He said as bold as brass: ‘I’m not wanting her stuffed full of all the additives and chemicals. They’re just poison.’”

“He’d drop dead if he saw my freezer,” said Keiko, thinking of the honey-dipped Southern-style boneless breaded buffalo bites (deep fry, shallow fry, microwave, or oven).

“I told him,” said Mrs. Ballantyne, not listening to her. “I said: the Covenanters’ is home-cooking, Jim. Local suppliers and all made from scratch in the kitchen. But there’s no telling him. So, what are you in the mood for?”

“Whatever you recommend,” said Keiko, choking back the impulse to suggest that they phone Mr. McKendrick and ask him.

What Margaret Ballantyne recommended was sausage and mash and onion gravy.

“Oh my goodness,” said Keiko when she saw it.

“And seasonal vegetables,” Margaret said, putting a dish of them down beside the plate.

“Gosh,” said Keiko. And then: “Ah! Is it for me? Is that supposed to be Mount Fuji rising out of the…” Her voice faded at the frown that met her words.

“Mount Fuji?” said Margaret. “It’s just a wee drop of mashed potato.”

The sausage was curled round the edge of the plate and swimming slightly, and the potato corralled by it did-she was not imagining things-rise up in vertiginous slopes and crags almost to her eye level. She turned to the vegetables, as you might turn from a sickroom to look at a garden.

“Roast Parmesan parsnips,” said Margaret, “creamed greens, baby sweetcorn in tempura batter-you’ll like them, eh?-and stuffed mushrooms.”

“Do you get your vegetables from Mrs. Watson?” said Keiko, thinking to kill two birds with one stone.

“We go to the same wholesaler, dear,” said Margaret. “What are the mushrooms stuffed with?” she called through to the kitchen.

“Mozzarella,” came the reply. The moment for questions about Mrs. Watson’s niece Dina had passed. And anyway, Keiko could not imagine how to get from vegetables to a missing niece. Certainly not in English. She turned back to the first bird: did Mrs. Ballantyne know why her husband was on edge?

“It’s very good of you to take the time to sit with me,” she said, digging her fork into the summit of the potato. “I know how busy you are.”

“If only,” said Mrs. Ballantyne.

“I mean the Traders as a whole,” Keiko said, trying again. “Or the committee anyway. With the initiative. Including me, Mr. McKendrick tells me.” She smiled.

“Oh, me too,” said Margaret. “You’re the centerpiece and no mistake, but Iain’s the one that’s neck deep in all of that.” Mrs. Ballantyne smiled as she spoke. “I just make the sandwiches. Try a bit of sausage.”

“I will,” said Keiko. “It looks lovely.”

“Aye, he’s a fair sausage hand, that boy.”

“Malcolm Poole,” Keiko said, and it was not really a question.

“A fine butcher for a young one, so he is,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “And he understands what people come to a pub for-when they’re hungry, I mean.”

“And what’s that?”

“A good plate of hot dinner,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “A right good feed, hot and rich and easy going down. Doesn’t even matter what it is as long as it’s piping hot, well seasoned, and there’s plenty of it. A lining on your stomach, if you’ll pardon the expression, but that’s what my old mother used to say. She was a pub landlady too, you know, with the veins to prove it. You’d not have half the mess on the night buses if these youngsters kept to it. But there’s no telling them: eatin’s cheatin’, they say.”

Keiko sipped at her glass of spring water and hoped the subject would change.

“But what was I… Oh yes,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “Yes, Iain’s the committee man.” Keiko ventured on a mushroom. “And it’s getting to him, it’s true. He’s that crabbit these days, you wouldn’t know him.”

“Crabbit?” said Keiko.

“Tripping over his own chin,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “Not to me, I have to say. He’s always been a good husband. Flowers every Friday, tea in bed on a Sunday morning, and he’s all that just as usual-more so, if anything. But he’s nipping at folk like a wee ferret, and that’s not like him. He’s got some kind of stooshie going with the Dessings across the way, for one thing.” Keiko pricked up her ears. “There’s two pubs in Painchton; there’s always been two pubs in Painchton. They serve Belhaven beer, we serve McEwan’s. We both do lunches and suppers, but we make sure and not clash our quiz nights. But I don’t know, since this new initiative got going, all of a sudden this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. The four of us, I mean.”

“Times are tough?” said Keiko.

“Not really,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “No worse than ever. The smoking ban hit the bar years back, but it actually helped the suppers. We’re okay. And if it was business Iain was worried about, he’d not be spending money like it grew on trees, would he? No. And is he? Yes.”

Keiko summed up, “So you know your husband’s anxious and you don’t know why.”

“That I do not,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “I don’t even know where he is tonight. He went out with the dog, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him. Are you not a lover of spinach then?”

It took Keiko a moment to change gears, but she smiled quickly enough. “I like spinach very much,” she said. “It’s one of my favourite things.”

“Aye? No wonder you’re the wee scrap you are then,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “I’m only asking since you’ve not touched it.” She nodded at the dish of vegetables, at the mound of pale, pale green glistening there.

“That’s spinach?” Keiko said.

“And a wee tate of cream just to help it on its way.”

Stressed to his oxters, up to high doh, and crabbit as a ferret, Keiko thought to herself later. Three out of four and one to go, but she was getting nowhere with the girls’ names.

Wednesday, 13 November

She excused herself from her weights session the next evening and went to the Bridge Hotel. She had eaten nothing all day except two rice crackers and a tangerine, in preparation.

“Hallo, hallo,” said Mr. Dessing as Keiko entered the bar. He was a large man, even to the eyes of someone who saw Malcolm Poole every day. An egg-shaped head with a fringe of hair around it like a ribbon. A spherical body, its equator marked by the meeting place of his shirt and trousers, which stayed up apparently by magic since they made no dent in his middle.

“I’ve come for a little bite to eat, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “I’m so busy now, I can hardly cook for myself at the end of the day.”

“If God had meant people to live off home-cooking…” said Mr. Dessing. “And you’re nice and early.” Indeed, the place was deserted except for a couple Keiko didn’t know sitting on the love seat under the window. “Once the rugby training finishes you’ll not be able to move in here. Or breathe. Aftershave, you know.”

“I went to the Covenanters’ last night,” said Keiko, hoping to get things moving.

“But you’ve seen the light!” said Mr. Dessing. “I don’t mean it, of course. Margaret Ballantyne should have been a farmer’s wife and not a publican’s, if you ask me, but they’re good people.”

“It’s lovely the way you all get along,” Keiko said, wondering if she could really pull off such a sickening act of innocence. She had hopped up onto a bar stool and clasped her hands together on the polished surface.

He grunted absentmindedly while he searched through a muddled drawer of handsets and phone chargers. “Tell that to Sandra,” he said when he had found what he was looking for. “And Iain.”

“Professional rivalry,” said Keiko, half to herself. Was that all it was?

“Aye, these things can turn nasty,” Mr. Dessing said. “I’ve seen it before and I’m seeing it again. And if you ask me-” He broke off and rubbed his hand over his mouth, scrubbing the words away. “But you’re not. Now what can I tempt you with?”

“Something very light,” said Keiko.

Mr. Dessing gave a huge gulp of laughter that shook the shirt fabric over his middle. “I’ll bet,” he said. “After your ‘good plate of hot dinner’ yesterday.” Keiko giggled. “See what I mean? A farmer’s wife! Now over here at the Bridge, we do things differently. Presentation is key.”

“I agree, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “We think so in Japan. Eat with the eye then with the lips.”

“Pree-cisely. I’ll bet you had a round plate over by.” Keiko nodded and Mr. Dessing shook his head. “Round plates! Everything jammed on and spilling over. I don’t know.”

And when her supper came, the plate was no shape Keiko knew a name for: a kind of bulbous S or melted rectangle. She gazed at it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dessing,” she said, her voice rising in a question. “But I ordered tapas? From the light bite selection?”

“Mixed meat tapas,” Mr. Dessing confirmed. “Light bite, aye. I’ll just talk you through. Mini kilties-that’s wee sausages with bacon kilts on; deep fried haggis balls-self-explanatory to an old hand like you, but we have a laugh with the tourists about them; steak and kidney puffs-the steak ones are the square and the kidney ones are the wee love-hearts there; then you’ve got your spare ribs; your belly lollies-pork belly, most like; and the specialty of the house, lamb and mince koftas-my own invention. Malcolm makes them up for me, mind.”

“Lamb and mint?”

“Lamb and mince. Wee bit of minced beef and pork mixture with the lamb to help them stick together. He’s always got plenty of his special mixture to spare. All served on a bed of-would you like some mint sauce, though?”

Keiko assured him that she had everything she could want and more. “About what you were saying,” she began when she had eaten three of the so-called tapas. “What if I did ask you?”

“Ask me what, lovey?” Mr. Dessing was engrossed in the handset for his music system, the instruction booklet open on the bar in front of him. He pushed a button, cocked his head, listened to silence, then tutted and turned a page with a licked finger.

“About things turning nasty.” Keiko bent her head as he raised his, to avoid his eye.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “But if you did ask me…”

She had, Keiko thought, waiting.

“If somebody did ask me, I’d say there’s no way a few new signs and picnic tables have put this wasp up Sandra’s ar-uh, this bee in her bonnet. Or Jimmy McKendrick’s either. Kenny. Any of them.”

Keiko tried very hard not to look too interested. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “I’m sorry there’s anything wrong, of course. But I’m glad it’s not the Traders initiative that’s worrying everyone. I’d feel responsible.”

“You?” said Mr. Dessing.

“Well, I’m part of it, aren’t I? Their pet project. Mrs. Ballantyne called me the centrepiece. The international section of the… what’s the word, like menu, but for financial things?”

“Search me. Portfolio? And anyway, you’ve been no trouble to anyone. We’re glad to have you, and it’s a pleasure to show you a bit of hospitality. I’ve been feeling it, I can tell you; seeing you traipsing round to everybody’s houses for your tea and here we are at the end of the road, dead handy.”

“Mr. McKendrick didn’t want me frequenting bars,” Keiko said.

“He did not,” said Mr. Dessing. “He said the Japanese weren’t good with strong drink. He said it would ruin your liver.”

“Mr. McKendrick was worried about my liver?” said Keiko, blinking.

“As if you’d be getting plastered just because you’d come in for a supper!” said Mr. Dessing. “Anyway, never mind J McK. Never mind any of them and whatever’s got them all birling.”

“He was worried about my liver?” said Keiko again, unable quite to understand why that was so troubling.