Come to Harm

by Catriona McPherson

  “Your father was the gardener, then?” she said. “You’re not? Even though you know the names?”

  In the kitchen, Mrs. Poole had wiped a clear patch in the misted window and was watching the three of them, stuffing a cloth into a wineglass and screwing it round.

  “Malcolm’s a butcher,” said Murray, turning back at last. “That just about sums it up as far as Malcolm goes. Not much of a one for lettuce, really.”

  Malcolm said nothing. His little cigar stuck out of his face like a teaspoon in a bowl of pudding.

  What am I doing here, Keiko asked herself, when none of them really wants me? Murray is not himself when he’s with them. I cannot eat enough to please Malcolm. And as for her …

  “I’m a terrible guest,” said Keiko, looking up at the kitchen window. “I should be helping your mother.” She turned from both of them and walked away.

  Mrs. Poole, grinding away at the glass, flinched and looked down as Keiko entered the kitchen. Then cradling the glass carefully in her hands, she turned away to let the broken pieces fall into the pedal bin, throwing the cloth and its danger of tiny shards in after it.

  fourteen

  Tuesday, 29 October

  Dr. Bryant pursed his mouth in time with his breathing as he read, making his pale moustache bristle. Keiko looked away to his over-stuffed bookshelves, every volume well-worn and topped with a coxcomb of markers. At exactly head-height opposite the chair where she sat, where every visitor to the office must sit, was his own PhD thesis, Undergraduate networks and their effect on employment choices, and two editions of the book it eventually became: In with the in-crowd: student networks and the workplace. He cleared his throat and she turned in time to see him suck the ends of his moustache back down with a wetted bottom lip.

  “Food,” he said. “You’re quite settled on that then? It’s going to be rather a straitjacket down the line.”

  “I think passions run high around it,” said Keiko. If he knew she was thinking of Pamela Shand and her dairy crusade he would swallow his moustache. “Investment. Engagement. And since I’m keen to have the subjects return several times, I need to interest them.”

  “The perennial problem,” he said, lying back in his chair. “The undergraduates do get sick of spending lunchtime in the lab and—as I’m sure you’ll appreciate—the staff projects come first.” Keiko inclined her head. “Of course, there was a time the typical Japanese student would have funding to pay subjects as part of their award, and nothing says it like cash as far as the first years go. They would let you drill into their skulls for the price of a pint. Still, I’m sure you’ll sort something out.” He bared his teeth at her.

  “Yes, indeed, I’m most hopeful,” Keiko replied.

  _____

  “I hate him,” she said to Fancy, kneeling in front of the washing machine to haul out wet clothes. “His moustache looks like biscuits.”

  “How?” Fancy asked. “Round and crumbly? Choc chips in it?”

  But Keiko wouldn’t smile. She peered inside the machine to check it was empty and slammed the door.

  “Does he keep it in a packet in his desk drawer?” Fancy persisted.

  “Bampot!” Keiko said. “No, just the colour. And his trousers are too loose and his shirts are too fitted.”

  “Oh yuk, yeah, I hate that,” said Fancy. “So it looks like they’re falling down?”

  “And you can see the shape of his stomach between his hip-bones—” Fancy had paled. “Sorry, sorry!”

  “No, it’s okay, just that that’s one of my worst bits, that pelvic girdle,” Fancy said. “Pelvic! Girdle!” She shuddered. “Anyway, bampot? Where are you learning these words? Is it Murray?”

  “Oh no,” said Keiko. “Murray is even stricter than you. He’s got big plans for me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. It’s starting tomorrow night, but that’s all I know.”

  “So who taught you bampot then?”

  “Wee boys on the bus. But what am I going to do if I can’t get any subjects?” she said, shoving the basket along the floor to the dryer. “My pilot’s ready to run, but my whole idea needs me to have the same people over and over, and it won’t work any other way.”

  “How come?” said Fancy.

  “Oh, knowledge units as artifacts in the construction of blah, blah, blah,” said Keiko, then seeing that Fancy was really listening, she tried again. “I test their judgements on a set of questions. I report the results of the test back to them—who believed what, how many people rejected what kind of thing—and then I run the test again to see if hearing the results of the first one changes what they think. Does that make sense?”

  “Cool,” said Fancy. “You’re totally messing with their heads.”

  Keiko stopped stuffing clothes into the dryer. “Do not tumble dry,” she read from a label. She scrabbled about inside the drum, pulled out another bundle and shook it. “I could get around having different people every time if I profiled every time before and after the test, but it’s still not going to show the long-term changes and it would make the sessions twice as long, so I would need to pay them more and I don’t have any money to pay them anyway.” She found another label and read it. “Do not wring. Do not tumble. Well, how am I supposed to dry it then?” she shouted.

  “That’s nothing,” said Fancy. “I had this black and white stripey dress once, that said wash dark colours separately. Do they have to know what it’s about?”

  “Sorry?” said Keiko.

  “The people who do your experiments. Do they need to know what it’s all about? Because if not …”

  “No, they mustn’t know what it’s about. That’s why researchers always use first-year students, before they learn anything.” Keiko finished loading the dryer and stood up with her wet bundle of leftovers at arm’s length.

  “Well, what’s the problem then?” said Fancy. Keiko shook her head and waited. “You’re looking for a bunch of people who don’t know anything?” said Fancy. “God’s sake, Keeks, open your eyes! Look out the window. You’re smack in the middle of Know-Nothing Central.”

  “Painchton people?” said Keiko. Her heart had leapt, but it just as quickly sank again. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  Because they are secretive, she thought. They hide things and don’t answer questions. But she couldn’t say that to Fancy, whose face clouded more than anyone’s when questions were asked and would never admit it.

  “It’s about food,” she said, at last. “And the people here don’t seem … normal about food.”

  “Normal? How?”

  “Well, Malcolm and his crackling and Mrs. Sangster with her ham. Mrs. McLuskie said she’d give me a jar of goose fat.”

  “You noony!” said Fancy. “Course they’re normal. They’re just not Japanese.”

  Keiko considered being offended but the relief at the possibility of having subjects won in the end. She threw her armload of laundry up in the air and caught it again. “Do you really think they would do it?” she said. “I suppose some of them would, wouldn’t they. I know you would.”

  “I don’t want to,” said Fancy.

  “The experiments aren’t physical,” Keiko said.

  “I know,” said Fancy. “But I don’t want to be one of your guinea pigs because I want to know what it’s all about. That Dr. Biscuit-tash is no bloody use and you’ll need someone to talk to.” She dipped her head slightly. “I’ll concentrate dead hard.”

  Keiko threw down her bundle onto the table and seized Fancy’s arms in her damp hands, making her yelp at the cold. “You really want to help? You can proofread my stimuli, check my English. You can look over my experimental design.”

  “I wouldn’t understand that,” Fancy protested, but Keiko puffed in scorn.

  “You understood it alre
ady. In two minutes,” she said. “You, with your eagle eyes to find the logical flaws on laundry-care labels. It’ll be a skoosh for you.”

  “Okay,” said Fancy. “But a skoosh? First thing, if I’m in charge of your English, is you have to stop listening to little boys on buses, right?” Fancy walked over to the window and peered down. “And there’s posts down there to put up a drying rope. Just ask Mrs. Poole for the key.”

  _____

  So when Keiko heard the shop awning being rolled up at the end of the afternoon, she trotted downstairs and popped her head out of the street door to see Murray in shirtsleeves unhooking the pole from the winding mechanism.

  “Hi,” she called. Murray turned suddenly and Keiko ducked away as the brass hook on the pole swung towards her.

  “Christ, sorry!” Murray said leaning the pole against the window and reaching out to her. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t kill me yet,” said Keiko. “I haven’t even asked my cheeky favour.”

  “Well, whatever it is, the answer’s yes,” Murray said.

  Mrs. Poole came outside. “Murray? What are you doing leaving that up against the glass? Oh. Hello.” She stopped with the pole in her hands and nodded towards Keiko. Murray let his hand drop from her shoulder.

  “I have two favours to ask you, Mrs. Poole,” said Keiko. Malcolm appeared in the doorway. “From all of you, one of them.”

  “Come away in, then,” Mrs. Poole said, but she stayed where she was, with the pole held in both hands in front of her chest so that Murray and Keiko had to squeeze past her in the doorway.

  “Two favours,” said Keiko again. “The first is that you would all consent to act as subjects in my experiments.” She waited. “Just answering questions for ten minutes.”

  Murray looked at his feet. Malcolm, who had moved back behind the counter, sprayed cleaning liquid onto its marble surface and, ripping a swathe from a roll of paper towel, began to wipe it in slow careful strokes.

  “Psychological experiments?” asked Mrs. Poole.

  “Well, yes, but nothing personal, you understand, the same questions for everyone.” Malcolm sprayed the scales and wiped them, the numbers jumbling on the display as the weight of his hand crossed back and forth.

  “What is it you’re wanting to find out, then?” asked Mrs. Poole. Murray shifted.

  “I’m testing your response to various scenarios,” said Keiko, her happy mood dissolving.

  “Like those inkblots,” said Malcolm.

  “Nothing so intrusive,” Keiko said. “Nothing so revealing.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Malcolm, looking at his mother.

  “No,” said Mrs. Poole. “I’m sorry, dear, but I don’t think it would be a very good idea.”

  “And besides,” said Keiko. “It’s anonymous. All the responses are logged with just a number. Complete anonymity guaranteed. No one would ever know—me included—what you’d written.”

  She had never thought of Mrs. Poole as wearing cosmetics, but now she saw the lipstick and rouge jump out as the colour behind them drained away from the woman’s face.

  “Mum?” said Malcolm.

  Mrs. Poole attempted a smile. “You’re a city person, Keiko,” she said. “And it’s different in a big city, but in a wee place like this, there’s no such thing as anonymity.”

  “Mum, you’ve got totally the wrong end of the stick here,” Malcolm said. “It’s nothing to do with … anything. It’s made-up things.”

  “It’s very easy,” said Mrs. Poole, “when you live so close, to … encroach.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of encroaching,” said Keiko, rising up a little. “Malcolm is right, Mrs. Poole. I have no interest in anything personal.”

  “Malcolm was telling me you’d been asking Murray who lived in the flat before you,” said Mrs. Poole.

  Keiko did not take her eyes away from the woman, but she got the impression that both boys had become very still.

  “What’s the other favour?” Malcolm asked.

  Keiko smiled her relief. “Ah yes, I wanted to ask if I may hang my washing in the yard on a rope. Is there a key to the back door?”

  Malcolm crumpled up his handful of blue paper towel and turned away, scraping it over his hands. Murray glanced at his mother.

  “Something wrong with the tumbler?” asked Mrs. Poole.

  “Oh no, no. Most generous and very handy. But for a few things, delicate things that can’t be put in it?”

  “But would you want your delicate things hanging out in the yard?” asked Mrs. Poole, flicking a look at Murray.

  “Delicate fabric, I mean,” said Keiko, blushing. “Rayon dresses, and woollen, not …”

  “They should have thought to give you a rack,” Malcolm said.

  “Of course, these houses all had dollies,” said Mrs. Poole in a louder voice. “In the kitchens. And I could never see the sense in it. Always taking things down and putting them up again if you were cooking. Malcolm’s right, a handy wee rack over the bath is the easiest thing. I have a spare one, dear. I’ll pop it up to you.” And with this series of informative little remarks and jabs of kindness, she drove Keiko out of the shop and closed the door.

  It wasn’t until she was standing outside that she remembered the smell in the kitchen. She should have asked for the plumbing work to be done. That would have got Mrs. Poole down from her high horse. But she did not go back in.

  _____

  The phone was ringing when she got back upstairs.

  “Right,” said Fancy over the line. “Pet wants to know whether it’s one by one up at your place or if she can just take questionnaires to the Guild with her and dish them out and if so when. And Kenny said to her to say to me to say to you that he’ll do the golf club and the bowling club, and I’ll give Vi a note to ask if the teachers will do it, which is another nine, so that’s nearly a hundred before you’ve put up a single poster. Ta-da!”

  “Are you sure no one minds?” said Keiko. “Mrs. McMaster and Mr. Imperiolo?”

  “They’re gagging for it,” said Fancy. “You have to make your own fun in Painchton, Keiko. Nothing ever happens here.”

  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 h
er. 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.”