“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 pap
er.
“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.
“Have your what?” she snapped, brushing the shoulders of her coat as though he spread flour from his fingers like a human dredger.
“My loyalty, Henrietta,” he said. “More than you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Etta said. She had a high colour and always wore green basecoat, so she was safe from untoward flushing, but she could not help her eyes growing round. How could he know anything? What made him think for a moment there was anything to know?
“Don’t look so worried,” he said, for he was fond of his wife, proud of her, and liked life easy. “Like I just told you, you can count on me.”
“My God,” said Craig quietly to Fancy. “It’s supposed to be us young ones that fall out and have a go at each other in the pub. Look at Etta and Mr. Staypuff. If looks could kill!”
“Craig,” said Fancy, catching another glimpse of Mrs. Poole, who hadn’t moved although the room was emptying from around her like water draining from a bathtub and leaving her stranded. “Do you ever think there must be more going on round here than what your uncle tells you? The state everyone’s in.”
“Everyone who?” said Craig. “What do you mean?”
“Oh. Well, nobody,” said Fancy, turning away from Mrs. Poole again. “Yeah, you’re right. Nothing.”
sixteen
The security light clicked on most nights, flooding the back of the house and the patio with a white glare that banished sleep as instantly as snapped fingers. Roaming cats set it off, tree branches in high winds, even a hedgehog one time. They had learned to ignore it and so the delivery went unwitnessed. The letter didn’t make itself known until the next morning. Then there it was, propped against the kitchen window, held in place with one of the large polished pebbles from the water feature, facing in, the front of it—for you—pressed against the glass, ink bleeding a little from the dew. And inside: There’s a name for people like you. There’s a word for it. I will tell them all.
As soon as the house was empty for the day, it was taken upstairs, up the Ramsey ladder, to the attic, into the eaves. It was filed between the pages of a weekly magazine, fifteen years old, one of hundreds, yellowing. It was put towards the back of the issue too, with the dress patterns and recipes, the black-and-white pages, where no one flipping through to see the articles and photographs would ever go looking.
Monday, 4 November
The first knock came half an hour early. Keiko was ready though, a pile of questionnaire papers and a mug of biros set out in the living room, the whole bottle of chemicals tipped down the kitchen sink and a vanilla candle lit, the door to her bedroom and bathroom safely closed.
She stepped back when she saw Malcolm Poole standing there but managed, moving sideways, to turn it into a gesture of welcome.
“I’m not coming in,” he said, his voice booming around the high empty landing. The creep across the road, Craig’s cousin had called him. “I just wanted to warn you to close your back windows. Mum said your bathroom window was open.”
“Yes,” said Keiko. “I open it every day. I didn’t realise. Please make my apologies to your mother.” Could a creep be female? She could ask Fancy.
“No,” said Malcolm. “Just this morning, I mean. I’m doing kidneys.”
“Oh yes?”
“Cleaning them. And they smell a bit.”
Keiko took a little sniff, feeling her lip curl and Malcolm, looking up briefly, noticed and smiled.
“I haven’t started yet,” he said. “They’re lovely, once you’ve soaked and blanched them. But they do smell at first, so I do a whole load of them together and freeze them down. I’ll go up to McLuskie’s after this and tell the girls to take their aprons in off the line.” He seemed to be waiting for a response, looking from side to side at the edges of the doormat.
“You’re very thoughtful,” said Keiko. “So … you’ll be busy in the little house in the yard this morning.”
He looked at her properly then, closely into her face for the first time, then shook his head, and made a massive movement of relaxation, leaning against the doorframe and throwing one leg in front of the other. He almost filled the doorway, an iceberg in his white overall and white boots, leaving just a sliver of space that she would have to jump through if she decided, for some reason, that she needed to get past him.
“No,” he said. “I do everything in the back of the shop. We don’t really use the slaughterhouse anymore. Hey!” he said, suddenly loud, the sound echoing. Keiko could feel her heart banging. “Hey! I’ll bet you’ve never had a steak and kidney pudding.”
“You’re right,” said Keiko.
“I’m going to make you a steak and kidney pudding. I only make pies for the shop, of course. They keep better. A pudding has to be made and cooked in a oner, unless you’re very careful, but there’s nothing like it. I’ll use ox kidneys. Beef suet. You know, suet is kidney fat. Makes sense, eh? All these old recipes.”
“You’re very kind,” said Keiko again.
“You’ve no idea,” said Malcolm. “Wait until you taste it. I’ll need to come up here to boil it, though. Easiest all round and let’s face it, the smell of it cooking is half the pleasure. You name the day and I’ll be here.”
Keiko’s thoughts raced. Then she said, “Come and cook it for lunchtime while I’m running my dry run. And all the people will smell the lovely smell and come downstairs and buy a pudding to take home!”
“A pie,” said Malcolm, slowly. “Puddings don’t keep to sell in the shop.” There was a pause. “So you’re starting your work this morning?” he said. “I saw the sign downstairs.”
Keiko made a gesture of mock panic, but her eyes were dancing. “You could come in and be the first person,” she said. “Your mother s
eemed a little … but it’s really nothing to be concerned over.”
“I’m already the first person,” said Malcolm, smiling down at his feet again. “Alien spaceships and killer tomatoes. Been there, seen it.”
Keiko laughed in surprise. “I forgot!” she said. “Yes, of course. But Fancy’s taken away my aliens. She said they were too distracting. She’s very firm.”
Malcolm uncrossed his legs and, bending one knee slightly, pushed himself up off the doorframe and stood straight. “Right. You go and push back the frontiers of knowledge, and I’ll go and blanch my kidneys.” He turned and moved away.
_____
Mrs. Watson, it turned out, was the first person. She knocked on the door at quarter to ten, and then put her head round and called along the passageway.
“Shout at me, Keiko my darling, and tell me to get out and come back when you’re ready, but you’ll have to shout at me, for I’m that excited I can’t wait.”
“Mrs. Watson,” said Keiko coming along to the door. “You’re going to be so disappointed. It’s so very dull.” Mrs. Watson’s head disappeared and when Keiko opened the door, she was standing half-turned away on the mat. “But how can I shout at you, when I am so excited myself ?” She took Mrs. Watson’s arm, walked her to the living room, and settled her down at the table.
“Now,” she said in a high voice. “Please read the instruction page and then ask me if anything is unclear.”
“Och, away,” said Mrs. Watson. “You tell me about it yourself. You’ll know it all back to front.”
“No, I can’t,” said Keiko in her normal voice. “Everyone has to have exactly the same introduction so that I don’t give more information to some and not others by accident and confound my methodology.”
“‘Confound your methodology’,” echoed Mrs. Watson. “Your mother must be so proud.” She nodded conspiratorially and turned her eyes to the page while Keiko sat in an armchair and pretended to read. When Mrs. Watson looked up, she leapt to her feet.
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