Come to Harm

by Catriona McPherson

  “I think most people did,” said Murray, nodding.

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “Not so far as I know.”

  She sat up and hooked her arms over the bar, slouching. “Is that the puzzle you talked about?” she asked him.

  “Not exactly,” Murray said. She started to speak again, but he talked over her. “Like I said, you wouldn’t understand. And even if you did, you wouldn’t believe me. And even if you bel— Keiko, have you ever heard the expression ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’?”

  She blinked. That was more or less what she had decided. For almost a week she had refused to think of them. She had not said their names even to herself and had not used the phrase that scared her even when it was only inside her own head. But all the words came back to her now, as clear as ever. Dina, Tash, Nicole. The missing girls.

  “I’ve heard that forewarned is forearmed too,” she said to Murray.

  “You don’t need to be either. I won’t let anything happen to you. And to get back to your question—yes, I’ve always been ‘the way I am.’ I’ve never been ‘like Malcolm.’”

  He watched over her through one complete set of exercises, moving her between machines, hardly looking at her, speaking a word or two at first and then less and then nothing, moving her feet and hands instead, pressing her into place.

  And as she went through the movements in the lengthening silences, the clack of voices from the long day gradually left. She came back from the nest of words and paper around her head, back down into her body, the sound of her breaths, and the feel of her hot hair.

  She blew upwards at a stray wisp, and Murray’s hand came into view. He swept the strand off her face with his fingertips and tucked it behind her ear. Then with one finger he continued to trace around her jaw, wiping the trails of sweat gathered under her chin. She stopped moving.

  “You’re finished,” he said. “Well done.” He straddled her legs facing away from her and unbuckled her ankle straps. Keiko lay still, letting her blood stop pumping, looking up at the dark web of metal rafters above the lights and the odd shapes suspended there.

  “What are those?” she said.

  “What?” said Murray. She pointed, wincing a little as she stretched her arm. “Man, I forgot they were still up there,” he said. “Nobody much ever comes in here but me.”

  Keiko screwed up her eyes, trying not to let the low-hanging lights dazzle her, and peered harder at the pale, delicate, structures, perfectly still, throwing a tracery of shadows onto the ceiling.

  “But what are they?” she said. “Airplanes? Toys?”

  “Birds,” said Murray. “Models.”

  “Why put them up in the roof space?” Keiko said. “You can hardly see them.”

  “I used to be quite into them for a bit,” said Murray. “I shoved them up there because they were taking up too much space. Couldn’t store them any other way. They’re kind of fragile.” He held out his hands to her. “Come on, keep moving or you’ll feel rough.”

  Keiko took his hands and sat up slowly, feeling the blood surge into her head, then swung her feet to the floor. He handed her sweat suit top to her, and she took it and held it under her chin, hoping that the pale colour would take some of the flood of heat out of her face.

  “Put it on,” said Murray. “Don’t get cold.”

  “What now?” she asked.

  “I’m going to start my workout,” said Murray.

  “What will I do?”

  “You need to get home, straight into a warm bath.” He turned away from her and starting to swing his arms around.

  Keiko stood up quickly and pulled her top on. “Of course,” she said. “I’ve been taking up all your time.”

  “I enjoyed it,” he said. “But you mustn’t get cold. You have to go.”

  _____

  She lay in the bath for a long time, gazing up through the steam at the patterns in the rough-textured paint on the ceiling, the getting-familiar faces and animals. The silence was heavier than ever after the flat being full of voices all day, and the smell of the new paint and new grout on the tiles was strong enough in the steamy air to drug her. She felt herself begin to drift.

  So many things he had almost told her, so many things she didn’t quite know. He had said she wouldn’t believe him. Why do you think you’re here? he had asked her. Who are these people? her mother had said. How long will this one last? said Mr. Glendinning. Tash piled on the pounds, said Mrs. McLuskie. Dina couldn’t manage a grape, said Mrs. Watson. I’ve never been like Malcolm, Murray said. Stick with me.

  She sat up with a jerk, making the water suck and slosh against the enamel sides of the bath, making it even harder to hear anything through the empty silence all around.

  eighteen

  Tuesday, 5 November

  She woke at the first chirp of her alarm clock as usual, tried to reach out to stop the noise, and couldn’t. It bleeped on at her—ten, twenty times—until she managed to swing her arm out of bed and clump it down on the snooze button. She stretched out her legs and both calf muscles snapped into cramps, skewers of pain shooting down to her feet and drawing her toes up like bird claws.

  “He’s killed me,” she said, and even her jaw ached as she whispered.

  After ten minutes, she rolled onto her side, pushed herself upright with both hands and stood up in five slow cranking movements. Ignoring the tightness across the base of her spine and the stabbing pains deep in her buttocks, she lumbered a stilted, Frankenstein walk towards the bathroom, her breasts crooked in her elbows to stop them moving.

  “You’re mad,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “Steak and kidney pudding wouldn’t have done this to you.”

  Once the shop was open but well before she expected her first subjects, she went downstairs, two steps to each stair all the way, alternating which of her trembling calves she trusted with her weight. Murray was waiting behind the counter, laughing.

  “I heard you coming,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Greatly deceived in your character,” said Keiko. “You are not a kind person.”

  Mrs. Poole emerged from the cold store, carrying a tray balanced on each hand. Murray stepped out of her way. “Son,” she said, and held one tray out towards him. He took it in his fingertips, looked at it briefly, and put it down beside the rest of the bacon behind the glass, slotting it deftly into its space. Mrs. Poole hefted the other tray, piled high with chops, into both hands and jostled it into place with a rattle, then slapped the chops back into a neat heap and tucked in a few trailing edges.

  “Can I help you with anything, dear?” she said.

  “Ah no, thank you so much,” said Keiko. “I just came to speak to Murray.” She smiled towards Murray, who said nothing. Mrs. Poole went along the corridor out of sight.

  “The thing now,” Murray said, “is not to give in. Don’t give up. If you do a short workout tonight, you’ll be ten times better tomorrow. If you do nothing tonight, you’ll be like this for days.”

  “Hmm,” said Keiko. “A great deal of information, suddenly. There was no talk yesterday evening of this pain or what to do about it.”

  “Trust me,” said Murray. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Keiko said. “You strap me to tables and hurt me. Why wouldn’t I?” She heard the sound of Malcolm’s breathing coming towards them and turned to greet him. Malcolm, like his mother, was carrying two gleaming trays, his piled with sausages. He didn’t ask Murray to help but laid one tray down while he put the other into the window and turned back, puffing. There was a single space left in the display, right at the front of the case next to the glass, and Malcolm had to lean out over the counter to drop the tray into it. He seemed to roll slightly on his belly as he stretched, and Keiko, seeing Murray look down and raise his eyebrow, thought Malcolm’s feet must
have lifted off the floor. A pale high cleavage had formed at the open neck of his shirt as he squashed himself against the marble. Keiko looked away towards his hands, but the pile of thick sausages and Malcolm’s greasy fingers clutching at either side of it seemed just as much something to avert her eyes from and so she looked back at Murray, who was studying the ceiling and moving his lower jaw from side to side with his lips slightly parted.

  “What time tonight?” she asked him.

  “About the same. Sevenish,” said Murray.

  Malcolm, the tray fitted in as well as he could get it, backed himself upright again and wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  “Murray tells me you don’t fancy steak and kidney after all,” he said. “You should just have told me yourself.” He swept his coils of fringe off his face and, although they fell back again, Keiko was startled to see a peak of hair just like Murray’s, briefly revealed by that Murray-like gesture. “Although,” he went on, “it seems a shame, when you haven’t even tried it. Seems a shame to come all this way round the world and not try the things you find there.”

  “She didn’t come halfway round the world for your steak pie, Malcolm,” said Murray, rolling his eyes at Keiko.

  “Pudding,” said Keiko and Malcolm at the same time, and they both smiled.

  “You know, you’re right?” Keiko said. “You are right. I would scoff at someone who came to Tokyo and only wanted McDonald’s. I’d love to try it.”

  “If you’re going to eat stodge, you won’t be able work out after,” said Murray.

  “Even if I have it at lunchtime?” said Keiko. “Surely it’ll all be worn off ?”

  “You’ve obviously never had steak and kidney pudding,” said Murray, half under his breath. He gestured at Malcolm. “And you can see for yourself, it doesn’t ‘wear off.’”

  Keiko blinked, but Malcolm either hadn’t heard or didn’t mind. “Well, what’s the first day there’s no workout?” she asked.

  “Sunday,” Murray said, not meeting her eye.

  “Sunday,” said Malcolm, with a wide smile. “Traditional.”

  “And I’ll ask Fancy and to come and join us.” She glanced at her watch, wincing as she twisted her wrist—time to get to work.

  The ache in her legs eased over the course of the morning as she trotted back and forth to the front door, but the less-used muscles sat bunched and stiff, ready to catch her out. A spasm at the side of her jaw when she reached across to fill the kettle, and when she started to squat to tie her shoelace before going out at lunchtime, the stab came back as fierce as ever to her buttock. She tried bending from the waist instead, but her stomach muscles sang as she crunched them. When she tried to stand straight and bring her foot up to her hands, a ripping sensation spread through her thigh, brought her foot down hard to the floor, and kept her crouched there for a moment until the shaking stopped. In the end she put first one foot then the other up against the radiator and hunched over them with her other leg half-bent beneath her. This gave her a feeling like twisted candy wrappers crinkling in the back of her neck, but no real pain.

  As she straightened, slowly, carefully, both hands in the small of her back, she saw Janette Campbell, the hairdresser, who had just finished the last of the morning’s questionnaires, staring at her from the living room doorway. Keiko smiled and gave the radiator an absent-minded polish with the palm of her hand.

  “I did a new workout last night, Mrs. Campbell, and I feel as if I’ve been pressed under a road-roller.”

  “You want to be careful,” Mrs. Campbell said. “Even at your age. Although, you could always get Fancy to fix you. D’you know, she did my scalp three days ago, and I can still feel the benefit.”

  “Did you enjoy it?” said Keiko.

  Mrs. Campbell pursed her mouth slightly and leaned closer. “It was hardly decent, it felt so good,” she whispered. “She’s got a talent.”

  “And was she …” Keiko stopped. She wanted to ask if Fancy had been sickened. “Does she talk to you, or is it quiet?”

  “She chatted away quite the thing before and after,” said Mrs. Campbell. So maybe Fancy was getting better? Or perhaps there simply wasn’t anything upsetting under a scalp? “But very professional during the actual treatment,” Mrs. Campbell went on, with a kind of defiant emphasis on the last word. Keiko felt sure, although she couldn’t see how, that it was Sandra Dessing who was being defied.

  “I hope it’s a great success. I hope nothing or nobody spoils it for her,” Keiko said, her heart hammering as she dipped this first toe into unknown waters.

  Mrs. Campbell nodded twice with mouth pursed and eyebrows raised. “I think we both know who we’re talking about, don’t we?” she said. “So we needn’t say any more.”

  Keiko nodded back at her, pursing her own mouth just as tightly.

  “So,” said Mrs. Campbell in a leave-taking voice, “you be careful with these aerobics.”

  “Of course,” Keiko said. “But it was weight machines, actually.”

  “Oh no!” said Mrs. Campbell. “No, I’m serious, Keiko. You shouldn’t go near anything like that without supervision.” She darted glances all around Keiko’s body as if, now that she knew, she expected to notice broken bones poking against her skin.

  “I have supervision,” said Keiko and decided to repay Mrs. Campbell with a gift of new gossip. “Murray was showing me what to do. He’s got a gym set up over in the building, at the back.” She waved her hand as best she could towards it.

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Campbell, the single syllable dropping cold into the air between them, unmarked by any swoop of interest. “I see.”

  Keiko ran over her words again in her mind, wondering if she had made some mistake, if she had caused some offence with her bad English, like when she had said I don’t care instead of I don’t mind to a visitor in high school and made the teacher angry. She couldn’t think of anything and smiled uncertainly at Mrs. Campbell.

  The woman’s face had turned blank. Like Mrs. Poole’s face. Like Craig’s face when he’d been overheard. Like Malcolm’s face in the van that day and Mrs. Watson’s face through the window. Keiko had never seen so many blank looks in her life before. The inscrutable Scots, she thought to herself. Why did nobody warn me?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “I’ve obviously said something—”

  “Away,” said Mrs. Campbell, but she still was not smiling. “I’d better be going, anyway. I only had twenty minutes between ladies.”

  What am I doing? Keiko longed to shout after her. What is it that I keep doing? If I should stay away from all the friendly people, and I offend all the others without even trying, soon there won’t be anyone left for me to talk to.

  And suddenly not having to talk to anyone seemed like a treat she could afford. There were forty completed papers now and, even with the confounding effects of Mr. McKendrick, that was surely enough. So she perched at her word processor and typed. The pilot study is now complete, thanks to the most generous help of those who participated. The timing of the next exercise will be announced in due course. She centred the text, clicked it to bold, set the font size to sixteen, and clicked the print icon. When the warm sheet had curled out of the printer, she signed her name at the bottom, took it downstairs, removed the old sign, and pressed the new one firmly to the blobs of Blu-Tack on the door. Only then did she see that she had written her name in a neat block of kanji characters and not the string of English letters they would be expecting.

  Tough, she thought. Hard cheese.

  _____

  But cancelling the afternoon’s slots meant she didn’t get the chance to trickle away any more of her bad mood on casual meetings before Murray arrived in the evening. She was still irritable when she saw him jogging towards her, his breath pluming. Not only was it a colder evening than the one before,
but it seemed darker, as though the season had lurched forward in just a day.

  “How cold does it get here?” she asked.

  “Not much worse than this,” said Murray, lifting his head and looking around himself. “It gets wetter, and the wind makes it seem colder than it is, but the dark’s the thing that bothers people if they’re the sort to get bothered.”

  She waited for him to undo the padlock, peering up past the yellow blear of the street lamps at what seemed to her like already perfected blackness.

  “How dark does it get?” she asked.

  Murray laughed. “It doesn’t get darker,” he said, shaking his head in small movements but keeping his eyes on her face. “It just gets darker earlier and earlier and stays dark later and later. In December it gets dark at four and isn’t light again until eight.”

  “No worse than Tokyo.”

  “And people moan like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “But we have lights,” said Keiko, frowning. “What’s their problem?”

  “Exactly,” said Murray, and he held the door open for her to pass into the workshop. Just like that her crossness was gone. Two peremptory questions about her precious host country, one gratuitous mention of Tokyo (They don’t care, Keko-chan), some out-and-out criticism of the locals … and Murray didn’t mind any of it.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said.

  “Depends what,” said Murray.

  “What do you think of Janette Campbell?”

  Murray blinked, but he thought about it before he answered, took it seriously. “Don’t know her all that well,” he said in the end. “Don’t have any plans to know her any better.”

  Keiko nodded. “That’s an admirable attitude,” she said. “I should be more like that. Not let people nibble at me.”

  “Yeah,” said Murray. “The world would be a better place if everyone was a bit more like you and me.” Keiko laughed. “Painchton would anyway.” He stretched and turned, smiling, towards the machines and the mirrors. “So …”

  “I can’t remember much,” she warned him, smiling back.