Come to Harm

twenty-nine

Saturday, 23 November

It was two days before she could face Fancy. But at last she steeled herself and walked around the corner. Fancy was trotting back and forward with a delivery of dry-cleaning when Keiko came hurrying in out of the rain.

“I’ll need to tape these up,” she said, “keep them out the puddles.” She heaped the clothes up on the counter in a slithering bale and folded the bottom halves up to the shoulders, leaning down on them to push out the air. She looked over her shoulder at Keiko. “You okay?”

“Not really,” Keiko said. “Mrs. McMaster did my questionnaire.”

“God, yeah, she told me,” Fancy said, straightening up. “I nearly got put on the naughty step.”

“I’m not talking about the gossip,” Keiko said. “That’s not the problem.”

Fancy pulled a long strip of tape from the dispenser with a screeching sound. “Oh?” she said.

“She told me Tash was Murray’s girlfriend,” said Keiko. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t-”

“By omission,” Keiko said.

“Jesus,” said Fancy. “It’s like being back with the nuns.” Instead of taping the bags, Fancy wound the strip round and round one of her hands until her fingertips turned purple, concentrating hard on it, saying nothing. Then she looked up. “When I came back,” she said, “Pet was in bits. I thought she’d never stop crying. She used to sit with Viola, both of them bawling their eyes out.” She gave Keiko a bleak kind of grin. “Brilliant ego boost.”

Keiko said nothing, didn’t even smile.

“So I suppose I was angry,” Fancy said. As she spoke, she unwound the tape from her fingers and screwed it into a ball. “With Tash, I mean. For hurting Pet. And I just didn’t want to think about her. Or talk about her.”

Keiko weighed her words for a moment. “Understandable,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” said Fancy. She threw the tape ball at the wastepaper basket. It missed.

“Doubting you. I thought you knew something about them.”

“Who?” said Fancy, frowning.

“The missing girls,” Keiko said. “Tash and Nadine Taylor and Nicole Sneddon.”

“Not this again!” said Fancy. “They’re not ‘missing.’”

“But I’ve searched and searched online for Nicole and Dina,” Keiko said. “Why can’t I find them?”

Fancy rolled her eyes and opened her laptop. “What did you look under?” she said. “Cos the best place to find Dina Taylor is in St. Abbs, where she lives. Or under photography, which is her hobby.” She typed in silence. “And there she is. North Berwick High School, summer photography show. This summer, Keeks.”

“High school?” said Keiko. “But Mrs. McMaster said she hung around Murray. How old is she?”

“She didn’t hang around him that way,” said Fancy. “She just liked the bikes. Likes black leather anyway.”

“And what about Nicole Sneddon?”

“Horses,” said Fancy, typing again. “She’s a showjumper. Did you know that? If you don’t add in something extra all you get is LinkedIn and family history. Nikki’s a showjumper and anyway, she was here about two weeks before you arrived, visiting Jimmy and Craig.”

“Well, what about Tash then?” said Keiko. “Can you find her? What were her interests before she got fat and unhappy and broke up with Murray and went away?”

Fancy pressed her lips very close together. As they stood in silence, the shop door opened, letting in a surge of damp air and the sound of cars swishing slowly past in the fog. From Fancy’s face Keiko knew without turning that it was one of them, she just didn’t know which until she looked over her shoulder.

Malcolm was just inside the doorway, wrestling with the neck fastening of his waterproof cape, trying to remove it before stepping from the doormat onto the carpet. The black rubber squeaked against the glass as he struggled, then he gave up and, planting one foot out away from the door to give himself room to manoeuvre, he reached one hand over the opposite shoulder as far as it would go and flung the cape across his back with a grunt, then scrabbled to catch it and pluck it away from him. Underneath, his white overall showed a faint whiter ghost where his apron had been. He had on the white rubber boots he wore in the shop too and as he turned and stretched up to hook his cape over the door hinge, Keiko could see that the boots had been cut down in the back to fit around his ankles. His socks had disappeared, wrinkled down during the slow walk around the corner, and there was a cold, pink vee of wet skin briefly visible before the hems of his sodden trousers came down again.

“I’ve come for my posters, Fancy,” he said in his soft boom.

“They’re ready,” said Fancy. She took a roll of paper from under the counter, plucked the middle sheet free, and spread it on the counter. Malcolm paced over towards them and then stood reading carefully, his eyes pinched up in concentration.

“Good,” he said at last. “You see what I’ve done?”

Fancy and Keiko bent to look. They were price lists for Christmas packs of meat, written in red with a suggestion of snow covering the bigger letters, and decorated at the corners with robins and spruce trees.

“Christmas preparations begin very early,” Keiko said. “Pamela has already been discussing it with me.”

“Can’t come soon enough for me,” said Malcolm. “I’m dying to see how these go. The Family Deluxe is actually the budget option, but I don’t say that. The selling point is that the turkey comes all ready to go in the oven, and the ham’s ready cooked. Now, I’ll let you in on a secret.” He rested the heels of his hands on the counter and relaxed slightly, treading his feet. “The Family Deluxe is going to be just as delicious as the Butcher’s Finest. You know why?” Keiko shook her head. “Because,” he went on, “nobody can cook a ham like me. So the cheap hams that I did are going to taste better than the expensive hams that Mrs. So-and-So tries to do herself. People are scared of the salt, see? They soak out all the flavour and then they’re too scared of the sugar to do a proper glaze. And as for the turkeys. A turkey’s a turkey’s a turkey-it’s what goes in it and on it that makes the difference. Fat, basically. You need fat to cook a good turkey and Mrs. So-and-So won’t have the bottle. She’s terrified of fat. She’d rather pay more for lean bacon and high-meat sausage and have a dry one. So that’s what she’s getting. But the Family Deluxe is stuffed front and back with fatty pork, and I put extra fat under the skin and cover the breast with good fat belly strips. It’s going to be gorgeous. That’s the one to go for. The fat one.” He beamed at them, breathing rather hard after such a lot of speaking.

“Well,” said Keiko. “That’s…” She looked at Fancy for help, but she was just staring, slack-jawed. Malcolm lowered his head.

“I’ll walk back round with you, if you’re going,” said Keiko. “I must settle down to some work soon or today will be lost.”

Despite her umbrella, raindrops-or maybe fog drops, she thought-were clinging to her eyelashes before they had reached the corner. She hugged the roll of posters closer and took an extra little step to keep up with Malcolm, surprised, since he had always seemed to move so slowly, to find that she had to hurry to walk beside him, her feet taking two steps to every one of his. They stopped at the kerb and as Keiko lifted her umbrella to check the traffic through the sheeting rain, Malcolm peered out from under his hood. They caught each other’s eyes and smiled.

Keiko was suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of homesickness like a heavy blanket thrown over her. When she was small, rain like this was funny, never bothersome; it was something to raise her face to and dance in, and she could never understand why grown-up people hunched their shoulders and scowled, why they tried so hard to be angry with the rain. And she knew it was an effort because if the rain got the better of them-if her mother’s umbrella blew out of her hand, or a passing truck soaked her father from head to toe-they would give up the pretence and whoop just like she did. Laugh or cry, it’s the same life, Keko-chan, her mother said.

And then, all of a sudden, as though he had read her thoughts, Malcolm said, “Oh, stuff it!” He stepped into the brimming gutter and splashed a few paces up the road and then down again, kicking up gouts of water with his feet like the man in the old musical. Keiko was about to close her umbrella and join him when she remembered she was holding his posters, so she stayed put but cheered. Then the little stream of traffic came to an end and they crossed the road, Malcolm raising one arm protectively behind her like the wing of a gigantic bird, the ear of some monstrous, dripping elephant.

Murray was perched on a stool behind the counter reading a magazine. She stepped boldly behind the counter, squeezed his hand, and pecked him on one cheek. He wiped his face where her damp hair had grazed against it, so she made a show of smoothing the frizzy tendrils back and holding them against her head with both hands before kissing his other cheek. He smiled and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Why are you so chirpy?” he said. “How can you stand this weather?”

Keiko wondered whether to try to explain about rain, but in the end just kissed his head and said nothing.

“Where’s Mum?” asked Malcolm, when he got back from putting away his cape. Rainwater still rolled down his face in fat drops and he cranked a piece of paper towel out of the dispenser and wiped his head roughly.

“Gone to see Byers,” said Murray.

Malcolm nodded, one upward jerk of his chin, making him look very like his mother, and then made his way towards the cold store.

“What’s happening?” asked Keiko. “Is Mr. Byers going to sell his workshop to the Traders?”

“God knows,” said Murray.

“Is that the secret?” Keiko asked, dropping her voice until she was only murmuring. “Is it something to do with the committee?”

“How many times-” Murray began.

“Oh!” said Keiko, interrupting him. “Dina and Nicole are both fine.”

Murray let go of her and propelled her away from him, but just as she began to ask what was wrong the shop bell rang and the door swept wide open to admit Mr. McKendrick, who would not appreciate-what did Fancy call them?-public displays of affection.

He backed in, closing an enormous umbrella, which he shot deftly into the stand before righting his tweed jacket and turning to face them.

“What a day, what a day,” he said comfortably. “Now don’t you be booking yourself a seat on the plane home, mind.” He twinkled at Keiko and then craned towards the passage to the office with an expectant look. “Is your mother busy, Murray? Will I just go through?”

“She’s not here at the mo,” Murray said.

“I’ll catch her at home,” said Mr. McKendrick. “Just as good.”

Malcolm emerged from the cold store, swinging a chunk of dark meat from a hook in one hand. What does he do in there, in the cold? Keiko asked herself. What could take him all of the time he spends in there with the door shut on him?

“By, that’s a good-looking rib,” said Mr. McKendrick.

Malcolm swung the meat up and rested it against the back of his wrist twisting it this way and that to show it off like a waiter with a bottle of vintage wine.

“I’ve never seen a better colour on a piece of beef when your father himself was alive,” Mr. McKendrick continued, admiring.

Malcolm looked up. “Mum,” he said.

Keiko looked towards the door, where Mrs. Poole was standing, pushing her dripping hair back from her face, her white overall transparent with wet, showing the colours of her clothes underneath.

“Gracie, for God’s sake,” said Mr. McKendrick. “Where have you been? Where’s your coat?” He shook out a large handkerchief and seemed about to dry Mrs. Poole’s face with it but settled for passing it to her and shifting from foot to foot, pointing to where she needed it.

“Just round the corner,” said Mrs. Poole. “I had my brolly, but I’ve left it behind.” She tried a laugh, which came out oddly. Mr. McKendrick frowned at her then turned to look at the water coursing down the window pane and guddling away along the pavement. He caught Keiko’s eye briefly. How could anyone step out into that and forget her umbrella?

“Round the corner where?” he asked.

“Post box.”

“I never saw you.”

“I came back along the lanes.” Mrs. Poole gave a shiver, tiny but too much for Mr. McKendrick; with one movement he had swept off his jacket and settled it around her shoulders. She stiffened for a second, then drooped again.

“And now,” Mr. McKendrick cried, “it’s soup kitchen time.” Being in his cardigan sleeves seemed to have released even more energy in him. “I say soup, Keiko, but ask Malcolm what he made last year. Eh? For the Christmas dinners for the homeless? Eh, Malcolm?”

“Venison casserole,” said Malcolm, with a small smile at Keiko.

Mr. McKendrick reached up and clapped one hand against his shoulder. “Venison casserole for the homeless,” he said, triumphant.

“It’s meat from deer, isn’t it?” said Keiko.

“Aye, Bambi’s mum,” said Murray softly behind her. “Kids love it.”

Mr. McKendrick chortled. “Not at Christmas, Murray. Stewed Rudolph. Very seasonal.” He laughed richly and rubbed his hands again. “So what’s it to be this year, son? Ostrich steaks? Spit-roasted partridge?”

“Not this year, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Poole. “Malcolm’s not going to be doing it this year.”

Mr. McKendrick sobered himself with a gruff cough. “No? No, no, I quite understand. You’ll want them round you this year on Christmas morning, Grace. I quite see that. But you’ll do the cooking on Christmas Eve?” He addressed the question to Malcolm, but Malcolm continued to look at his mother and she answered.

“No, I’m afraid not, Jim.”

Mr. McKendrick was still smiling gently, although a worried look was beginning to form. “But I can count on you to donate the meat?” he said.

“I’m afraid not,” said Mrs. Poole, very quietly. She threw one look in Keiko’s direction and then walked with her head down towards the back shop.

Mr. McKendrick looked after her and spoke with every last wisp of a chuckle gone from his voice. “Can we borrow your big pans?”

Mrs. Poole wheeled round and rolled her eyes as if searching the ceiling for some attacking bird. Her voice was ragged. “Of course you can borrow-For God’s sake, Jimmy. What do you think I am?”

“Well, that’s something,” said Mr. McKendrick into the silence she left behind. He mustered himself. “That’s grand. We couldn’t do it without the big pots. We couldn’t do it without you.” He retrieved his umbrella from the stand and nodded goodbye to the three of them, managing a medium-sized smile but not quite meeting their eyes.

“What’s going on?” said Malcolm, staring after his mother.

Murray’s eyes were narrowed and he spoke slowly, thinking it through. “Mum lied to Jimmy there,” he said. “She was seeing Byers, not at the post box.”

“Maybe she did both,” said Malcolm.

“Yeah, but she kept the Byers bit quiet, didn’t she? And if she thinks there’s no cash to spare, that must mean they’ve struck a bargain about my workshop.” He caught hold of Keiko, pulled her close and kissed her on both cheeks, her wet hair forgotten. She tried to smile at him, but she was thinking about him saying this was a bad place for him and that he had to get away.

“Great,” Malcolm said. “Mum’s rooked herself, the town plans are up the spout, and the homeless can forget their dinner on Christmas Day. Congratulations, Murray.” Before Murray could answer, he lumbered away.

“Do you want the workshop?” Keiko said.

“I need it for just a wee while longer,” said Murray. “Wait and see.”

“Your mother seems very upset,” said Keiko.

“She’s defied Jimmy and the Traders,” Murray said. “She’s probably terrified. Who wouldn’t be?”