Come to Harm (12 page)

fifteen

Wednesday, 30
October

It was a dark
afternoon, the clouds looking as though only the chimney pots and old aerials were stopping them from settling down on top of the roofs like a shroud. Keiko stood looking out of the kitchen window at the dim outlines of the yard, her breath fogging the view even more, and her chest started to rise and fall again just from thinking about Mrs. Poole and the scene in the shop the previous day.
Encroaching
! Malcolm hadn't minded. She tried to remember if Murray had said anything or if his mother had silenced him completely.

And why shouldn't she wonder about her flat? Why shouldn't she think it was strange that such a comfortable place lay empty? Where was the harm?
A three-inch tongue can kill a six-foot man, Keko-chan,
said her mother's voice in her head. But how could a woman be so very concerned about her own privacy and then tell tales of her sons in front of a stranger? “Malcolm was telling me you asked Murray,” said Keiko under her breath in a sly, mincing voice, nothing like Mrs. Poole's.

She picked up the bundle of slips she had printed out and put them on the shelf in the hall to remind her to take them to Fancy.

And anyway, she told herself, it couldn't be the thought of being talked about that was worrying Mrs. Poole, because even the assurances of anonymity did nothing to help. If anything, the idea of it being anonymous was what had—

Yes! It was when Keiko talked about writing anonymously that Mrs. Poole had gone grey behind her make-up and had started babbling about city-dwellers and washing lines.
No such thing as anonymity in a small town
, she'd said. But no one else in this small town was worried. They were delighted to be part of the fun, and Keiko looked forward to them all trooping upstairs to help her. She hoped Mrs. Poole saw every single one.

Then, thinking about the visitors she was expecting, Keiko sniffed the air, grabbed her wallet, and trotted across the road to the ironmonger.

It was just as old-fashioned as the butchers, and had probably been there just as long. But where Pooles' Butcher had white tiles and shining steel, McKendrick's Ironmonger had old wood and brass. The shelves and counters glowed, polished by hands and time, and the cupboard handles and label-holders on the shelf edges gleamed in the soft light from dusty bulbs.

She did not know where to begin to look for what she needed. Every shelf and stand was packed. Boxes of nails and screws and hooks, bottles of solvent and cleaner and oil, rolls of wire, binfuls of brooms, and stacks of charcoal in paper sacks with sewn ends. And hanging from the ceiling, mobiles and wind chimes and hammocks and even a small canoe, so high Keiko could not see how it could ever be brought down if someone should want to buy it. While she was gazing upwards, a voice startled her.

“Taking up kayaking, are you?”

“Craig!” she said. “Here again.”

“It's Wednesday,” Craig said. “Traders meeting and Uncle Jimmy needs my vote.”

“I was planning to replace my genkan—uh, the doormat,” Keiko said, but remembering the letter
for you
and loath to disturb it again, she hurried on, “but really what I want is a sink trap and some kind of unclogging solution.”

“Ew,” said Craig.

“Yes,” said Keiko, blushing.

“End aisle,” said Craig, coming out from behind the counter and leading the way. “Listen,” he went on, when they were standing in front of an array of plungers and rods and bottles of terrifying acid with warnings in red. “Are you okay over there? Apart from the crappy old pipes? Okay with the neighbours?”

“I'm fine,” said Keiko. “Why?”

“Oh, just, I know you've been round at Murray's and been to the house and …”

“They are very kind,” said Keiko.

“Listen, you don't need to do the nice wee girlie bit with me,” Craig said. “If you're not okay, just tell me.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” said Keiko. Then, seeing that he was about to give up, she gathered her courage and went on. “But I know that people—nice wee girlies—have gone away from here, suddenly.”

“Exactly,” said Craig. “My cousin Nicole used to live over the shop.” He pointed upwards. “But not anymore. And she never really said why she was leaving except for this one time when I was joshing her about her deadbolt and chain, she mentioned ‘that creep across the road.'”

Keiko felt her scalp prickle. “Your cousin went away?”she said.

“Forget it,” said Craig. “I shouldn't be saying this at all. We've all been pals since we were wee.”

“But your cousin,” said Keiko. “Is she all right now?”

“Look,” Craig said, “I didn't mean to frighten you.”

Blindly, Keiko grabbed for one of the little mesh discs hanging from the display rack and picked up the bottle with the biggest, reddest warning. She carried them back towards the register and then stopped dead in her tracks.

Mrs. Poole was standing at the counter with a white plastic clothes drier in her arms, her face as stony as Keiko had ever seen it, her eyes flat and dead even as she met Keiko's gaze.

“I never heard you come in, Mrs. Poole,” said Craig.

“I get that sick of my own shop bell dinging all day,” said the woman, “I'm a dab hand at getting by them.” She held the rack out to Keiko. “This is for you,” she said. “You might as well take it with you.”

“You told me you had one at home,” said Keiko.

“I remembered wrong,” said Mrs. Poole. “Here, take it.”

Keiko took the rack and scuttled out, forgetting to pay for her trap and solvent. There were three of them now. Tash, Dina, and Nicole. Three girls gone, up and left. She closed her front door behind her and pushed the button to double-lock it. But as soon as she did, her heart started to pound. Instead of feeling safe from intruders behind her locked door, she felt … trapped.

Perhaps she should go to the department every second day instead of once a week. Perhaps being in this little town was beginning to affect her reasoning. And perhaps she should try the first-year students after all.

But Fancy had said all those people were willing to help her. Settled, dependable people right here. She could rattle through her study at double-speed. If she could just forget Tash and Dina. And now Nicole. If she could just forget them, stop seeing trouble where there was none, and do what she had to do.

Dumplings over flowers,
said her mother's voice.
Forget all this imagining and take what you need.

_____

Sometimes, all three Pooles left when the shop closed and the building was still, the stone walls and floors not even creaking around her. Other times just Malcolm and Murray set off, and then Keiko knew that Mrs. Poole was down there. She felt through the silence for some trace of another person under the same roof, but the only clue of Mrs. Poole's presence would come hours later, when the shop door opened and shut below the bay window and quiet heels moved away up the street.

Once before,
two
sets of steps had left. Leaning sideways from her chair, Keiko had seen Mr. McKendrick step neatly behind Mrs. Poole and guide her towards the inside of the pavement with one gentle arm. Today for some reason, through the quiet, Keiko thought he might be there again.
Intuition,
she wrote on her scribble pad.
Would you trust intuition,
she typed,
for personal matters only / for financial decisions / for questions of health?
Then she held a finger down on the arrow key until she had deleted it.

_____

Downstairs, Jimmy McKendrick blew steam across the surface of his coffee and cocked his head up to one side. “Is she always this rowdy?”

Mrs. Poole smiled vaguely at him. She was sitting at the desk in the back office, both hands cradling a cup and saucer on the bare surface of the desk. “Aye, but she's up there,” she said. “She studies at the table in the big room, keeps a good eye on things.”

“And I hear she's quite taken with Fancy Clarke, despite our warnings,” Mr. McKendrick went on. “You wouldn't think they'd have much in common. But then they're young, the pair of them. And Murray too, eh? And Malcolm,” he added.

“And Craig when he's here,” said Mrs. Poole. Mr. McKendrick looked sharply at her. “She's thick as thieves with Craig.”

“A nice crowd of young ones,” said Mr. McKendrick in his jovial voice. “Where would we be without them?”

Mrs. Poole lowered her eyes and kept them down. Mr. McKendrick, looking at his watch, gave an ostentatious start and swigged the rest of his coffee. “Are you coming along then?”

“I've got paperwork,” said Mrs. Poole, glancing towards the filing cabinet, neatly locked.

Mr. Poole seemed to rouse himself at that and look around the office for the first time at the bare desk and shut drawers. “Gracie, Gracie, you didn't need to be sitting here like a tea-party at the manse. You should have just cracked on with it all, I'd have been just as happy sitting quiet and watching you. More than happy.” He leaned towards Mrs. Poole, considering saying more, but he caught the slight droop of her shoulders and sat back. “Or I could help, even. Duncan always took care of the books, didn't he?”

“No, I'm fine,” she said. “We did it together. I know what I'm doing.” Then she rubbed her hands and spoke, suddenly rather brightly. “But it'll all be there in the morning. I think I'll come to the meeting and put in my tuppenceworth.”

Mr. McKendrick groaned. “Take a ticket and get in the queue.” And the awkward moment was gone.

_____

An hour later in the function room of the Covenanters', Mr. McKendrick was in shirtsleeves with his tie loosened, wishing he'd never stopped smoking.

“Hanging baskets and benches,” said Rosa Imperiolo, snorting. “We'll fair stand out in a crowd with that.”

“A bandstand, a bandstand,” said Mr. McLuskie. He had been saying just that for several minutes now.

“And where would we get a band, Andrew?” asked Mrs. McMaster. “How much does it cost to hire them and how many people actually want to listen to them?”

“A brass band in a bandstand is an
English
thing,” said Mrs. Sangster, as though that should settle the matter.

“Good point, Anne,” said Craig McKendrick, “Uncle J, how much would it cost to build ourselves a wee crag and have a bagpiper on top of it?”

“You'd be able to see up his kilt,” Fancy said.

Mr. McKendrick frowned.

“There's a bandstand in St. Andrews, and that's Scotland right enough,” said Mr. McLuskie.

“Hey,” said Fancy. “Wouldn't a bandstand be the perfect place for kids to go and take drugs when it's raining?”

“Order, order,” said Miss Anderson, but she stopped at a look from Mr. McKendrick.

“Yes, order,” he said. “We've agreed on a roasting pit, a clay oven, and banqueting tables. That's the main thing.”

“How come?” said Fancy. “Why is that the main thing?”

“Miss Clarke,” said Etta McLuskie, “with all due respect, you are a newcomer to Painchton and you'd do better to listen and learn than question every last word.”

“Yeah, Fancy,” said Craig. “You can't learn by asking good questions, you know.”

“Let's call it a night,” said Mr. McKendrick. “The only other outstanding business is a name for our launch event.”

“Why don't we just call it the Jimmy McKendrick Experience,” said Mrs. Watson, downing the last of her martini. “Bring in the drug-shelter crowd.”

“I was against holding these meetings in a bar, Mr. Chairman,” said Miss Anderson, under the laughter. “But you know best.”

While people were struggling into their coats, Fancy stood on her chair and addressed them, waving little slips of paper.

“The first dry run of Keiko's profiling questionnaire starts Monday at ten,” she shouted. “Upstairs at the Pooles'. Come to me for the details.” She hopped down again and—stepping out of the way of Miss Anderson, who had come to inspect the chair and was wiping its velour seat with a tissue and muttering—caught Mrs. Poole's eye for a moment. She was looking at Fancy without expression and although her jaw was clenched tight making little pouches at the sides of her mouth, the quick movement of her chest showed that she must be breathing hard though her nose. Suddenly she winced and stretched her mouth wide open for a second to release the pressure, giving Fancy the swift and unpleasant impression that she was screaming. Fancy looked away and immediately broke into a smile at the sight of Mabel Watson, who was clapping her hands together and bouncing up and down.

“I can't wait, Fancy,” she said. “I love doing them, even if it's just for a catalogue, but this!” She sighed, clasped her hands to her heart in a gesture of bliss that was only half-joking.

“I would have thought I could count on you for a bit of loyalty,” Andrew McLuskie muttered as he helped Etta on with her coat. She turned to him in surprise.

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why'?” he said. “You're my wife.”

Etta McLuskie stopped buttoning her coat and stood looking at him. This was a thought she rarely allowed to form while he stood in front of her. She was delighted to be Mrs. McLuskie, of course, wife of a prominent businessman, provost of the burgh, but when Andrew himself was right there …

“And,” he went on, “because you certainly have mine. No matter what you're up to and even when you go ranting on at Fancy for no reason.”

Although he had stepped back from her, Etta could still smell him—that warm sweet smell that hung around his clothes and his hair—and she thought she could see a faint powder dusting his hairline and caught in his brows. He would never open a second branch and start a chain, she knew that now, would never stop getting up at four in the morning and spending the day in the bake room, would always smell of flour and yeast and sugar and never see the need to wash it off himself.