Come to Harm

by Catriona McPherson

  “Who can blame her?” said Fancy. “ ‘A bit funny’ is the only way to be. Why, though?”

  Malcolm rubbed his chin for a moment before he went on. “As far as I know, she took quite a fancy to him when he first came. It wasn’t long after her divorce. And one Halloween everybody was out on the Green and Willie Byers was still at work—everybody could see him—and Janette Campbell decided she’d go and drag him out to join the party. She’d had a bit to drink, by this time.” Malcolm laughed and shook his head.

  _____

  Janette Campbell had had exactly four glasses of the gluey white wine that was laid out on a trestle table under the streetlamp. Four glasses on top of the large gin it had taken to get her out of her house for the first time since Mr. Campbell had left her. She wasn’t drunk. And Mr. Byers, who was new in town, was sitting in his office with the desk lamp on, sideways to the bonfire, never so much as glancing up at it.

  “He’s a strange character, right enough,” said Mr. McKendrick. “I mean, there’s others haven’t come tonight and that’s fair enough, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea …”

  “But that’s just thumbing your nose, isn’t it,” said Mr. Poole. “Sitting there like that.”

  “Maybe he’s shy,” said Janette Campbell. “Maybe he just needs a bit of encouragement.” From someone who knows what it feels like to be alone, was what she meant. She set off across the dark green towards the desk light.

  “Fiver says he won’t come, Janette,” shouted Kenny Imperiolo after her. She ignored him. She hadn’t drunk enough to have to concentrate on walking, but she shouldn’t risk trying to look over her shoulder with everyone watching. Outside the shop she arranged a smile on her face and knocked. Byers raised his head from his papers and squinted out into the dark. She waved. Away across the Green everyone could see her hand silhouetted against the brightness. And then the light clicked off and Janette stood facing the suddenly black glass and the reflection of her own startled face in it. She heard a cackle of laughter, swiftly smothered, from behind her, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Old misery guts,” someone shouted.

  “Come away and leave him to stew, Janette,” called a woman’s voice. Mrs. Campbell walked as quick as she could without breaking into a run, round the corner and towards home. She stumbled once and had to put out a hand to steady herself and, although she was out of view, still the shock and the shame of nearly falling started the tears for real and she blundered on faster, sobbing, until she heard a low voice calling her name. She thought perhaps it was him, come out the back way, but when she turned gulping, streaked with mascara, it was Mrs. Poole she saw hurrying towards her with her arms outstretched.

  “Don’t go!” Mrs. Poole called. “Oh, come on back and see the bonfire. Come on.” She put her head on one side and beckoned.

  “You go back if you want to, Grace,” said Mrs. Campbell, shaky and louder than she meant to. “You go back to all your friends and your two lovely children and your husband and James McKendrick hanging around just in case. And I hope it chokes you.”

  _____

  “I don’t know what she said to Mum or what Mum said to her,” Malcolm finished, “but she’s never been in our shop since and Mum gets her hair done at Curly World now.”

  Craig laughed unkindly, long hooting laughs, and looked at Fancy to share it, but Fancy winced and shook her head.

  “Poor Mrs. Campbell,” said Keiko. “It’s no wonder then. If it were me I would still be blushing.”

  “Hey,” said Craig, “I know what! What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?” Everyone groaned. “Oh, come on. I’ll start.”

  “Not now,” said Fancy. “Not in the cold light of day on one sherry.”

  Keiko was jolted out of her musing.“Of course,” she said. “Who would like another drink?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Craig again. “I’ll start it. What’s the most embarrassed you’ve ever been?”

  “Malcolm, would you like a glass of wine?” asked Keiko. Malcolm turned to face her just as she began to rise, and the brief lifting of his bulk at one end of the sofa caused the springs under Keiko to drop away at the very moment she transferred her weight to her feet and she fell towards him. She put her hands out to stop herself then pulled back, scared of hurting him, and ended up rolling in his lap, helpless as an upturned beetle, while his arms flailed. Then, as she tried once more to gain purchase, one knee connected with some soft part of him around his middle and he gasped, making a sound like the first punch into a bowl of risen dough. Keiko caught her breath and stopped wriggling, letting Malcolm clamp one hand around each of her upper arms and lift her up and back, onto her feet. They looked into each other’s faces for less than a second, then Keiko shot out of the room. She heard Craig trying to speak.

  “So Malcolm, what’s the most emba—” he managed to get out before he collapsed into silent, wheezing laughter.

  Keiko was staggering around the kitchen, doubled up, trying to catch a breath, holding her lenses in with the sides of her fingers, when Fancy scurried in, hand clamped over her mouth, and slammed the door behind her. They gave way as quietly as they could—there was no use trying to fight it completely.

  “Is he laughing?” asked Keiko finally, in a ragged whisper. Fancy shook her head and wiped her eyes. Keiko cleared her throat. “He smells like rosemary,” she said, and they both straightened up with deep sighs.

  “We have to go back in,” Fancy said.

  Keiko raked her hair back into place. “I’ll take the glasses, you bring the wine.” She picked up two glasses in each hand and marched towards the living room. Malcolm was halfway along the corridor towards her.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked. He shook his head. Behind him she could see Craig still sprawled in his chair with his slim legs stretched out in front of him.

  “Funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he called to them.

  Keiko stepped out of his eye-line and fleetingly tried to hug Malcolm, stretching her arms across his front, the wine glasses clinking. For just a second she laid the side of her face against his chest and breathed in the scent of rosemary again. Malcolm raised his hands, perhaps to hug her back, but she stepped away and was into the living room before he could stop her.

  twenty

  When Murray had oiled and waxed all five of the motorbikes, he began on the chrome, starting as usual with the Harley, applying the polish with a duster wound round two fingers on the larger areas and a cotton bud in the awkward places. After an hour’s work it looked perfect, from a distance, but if he squatted down close and looked properly, he could still see a sticky line of leftover polish where the chrome dash met the paint on the petrol tank. He threaded the edge of a duster in between the two halves of the tank and up under the dash, pulling it back and forward, feeling it slip easier over the drying surface. Then he rolled up the cloths and brushes and shoved them into the wine carrier. It looked even better now, but he knew the polish was there, sitting in the crevices, not just on the tank but between the taillight and the rear mudguard, around the badge and under every nut, where it would congeal, darken to yellow and dry to a crust. He turned to the rack of metal shelves for a set of sockets, softly whistling.

  Outside was perfectly black now. Since the long row of buildings shielded the yards from any streetlamp glow, the only light would come from windows in the backs of the upstairs flats. So if Keiko was still in her kitchen, if everyone was still there, if lunch had turned into drinks and then supper and they were all still sitting there, full and hot, there would be a shaft of light across the yard. Even if the curtains were shut, there would be spikes of brightness falling somewhere.

  Murray clicked off all the lights then returned to the window and stared out beyond the reflection of his own face, waiting for his eyes to adjust. After a moment the dark square resolved itself into shapes, but the
re was no gleam of light, just two shades of black and the soft line between them showing where the roof of the slaughterhouse stopped and the sky began.

  Murray turned back into the room. He knelt down beside the Harley again in the darkness and opened the case of sockets. They lay in rows like knuckles, like jewels against velvet. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over them, finding the size he needed, frowning at how this one, most often used, had a different rougher feel from the others; he would need to replace it. For now though, it would do.

  It was after eleven when he padlocked the door behind him and walked round the corner. Outside the shop, he paused under Keiko’s window. The curtains were closed, but one side sash was lifted an inch or two at the bottom. There was no sound of voices. Murray held his breath and listened, then smiled at the unmistakable soft groan and whirr of her printer.

  _____

  Keiko wasn’t really working. The sherry and wine from lunchtime had long since gone, leaving an ache in her temples as dull as the weight in her stomach, but she felt too restless to switch off the computer and call the day over.

  She jumped at the knock on the door, hesitated, then went out into the hallway. Murray’s workshop light had gone out hours ago. It couldn’t be Fancy; it was long past Viola’s bedtime. She crept along the passage, paused again, listening, on the spot where she had so briefly put her arms against Malcolm’s body and felt him move in response. If she had some glass in the door or even a peephole, she would be able to tell at once if it was him and creep away again. Then she realised that if it was him, if he had just climbed the stairs from the street, she would surely be able to hear him breathing. She listened again and heard nothing.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Keiko?” said Murray’s voice. “I just wanted to check on you.”

  She opened the door wide, relief turning her smile of welcome into a laugh. “Come in, come in, come in,” she said.

  “Three times?”

  “Mrs. Watson always says that and it makes me feel welcome,” Keiko said, going to the living room. “Sit down, sit down, sit down,” she said. “On the sofa, the sofa, the sofa.”

  “Are you drunk?” said Murray leaning away slightly.

  “No,” she said, thinking about it. “No.” She was sure she wasn’t, it just somehow seemed that tonight there was no need to pick her way so carefully towards him and no need for him to hint and hide. They could just talk to one another. Right now, they could just let go. “I’m just very pleased to see you. Why shouldn’t I show it?”

  Murray’s eyebrows rose, his forehead nothing but ripples all the way to the peak of his hair as she moved towards him. She closed her eyes, thinking that they would eventually cross if she kept them open. She must look even sillier though, standing with her eyes shut and face turned up, waiting, but just as she began to wonder how to get out of it, Murray kissed her. His arms and chest were hard and she could still feel the cold coming off his clothes, but his lips were soft, dry as paper. She breathed in and opened her eyes.

  “You smell of beeswax,” she heard herself saying and wondered if she was as sober as she thought, after all.

  “You taste like fat,” said Murray. “How was lunch anyway? It still stinks in here, by the way.” He flung himself down at one end of the sofa and stretched an arm along its back in invitation. Keiko groaned and sank down beside him, fitting herself under his arm, the muscles under his shoulder even harder than the thin padding on the back of the old couch.

  “I’m never going to eat again,” she said. Murray patted her stomach. “The reason it still smells is that while we ate one, another was cooking. Hours and hours. And I can’t get the grease to come off the washing-up bowl. Also, Fancy made a dessert with cream and chocolate and sherry, and Craig made a pink drink with cream and sugar.”

  Murray was rubbing small circles on her stomach as if polishing her. “So you forgive me?” he said. “For not coming?”

  “Of course,” she told him. “But I’m glad you’re here now.”

  “I’m glad you’re here too,” said Murray, not looking at her, still rubbing. “You’re about the only thing that makes it okay.” He stopped speaking and took his hand away. “Except I’m not really glad you’re here. I’m not glad either of us is here. It’s been killing me all day thinking of you up here with … It kills me thinking of you here at all. I wish I could just run away and take you with me.”

  “Why?” said Keiko, blinking at bit at the rush of words. She had wanted to make him talk more, but this was as if she’d turned a tap and watched a dam bursting.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to tell you,” Murray said. “And anyway, while you’re here it’s better you don’t know. But this is not the place for you. Or me.”

  “What? Painchton? Scotland? Europe?” She bit her lip to stop herself saying the world, the galaxy, the universe, like when she was a child.

  “The shop,” he said. “For starters.”

  “I know you’re not happy there.”

  “Understatement of the century,” said Murray. He put his head into his hands. “I’ve got to get away again.”

  “What’s stopping you?” she said.

  He ignored the question and kept talking. “You should definitely get away.”

  “Yes, but away from what?” Murray didn’t answer. “Or who, even?” She thought for a moment, staring at the rings on the coffee table, shutting one eye and then the other, making them jump side to side. Then she shook herself. “And what is stopping you?” It came out more terse than she had intended, so she went on: “You’ve been kind, helping your mother, but she wouldn’t want to hold you back.” She shook her head again against the memory of Mrs. Poole’s stony blank face, so different from her own mother’s sharp looks and constant plucking.

  “If Willie Byers sells his place to the Traders, I’m sunk,” Murray said.

  “Three things,” said Keiko, thinking that this was how her mother would say it. “I don’t think Mr. Byers is going to sell. From what Mrs. Aitken said to her son’s wife—”

  “Who?” said Murray.

  “Mrs. Aitken. She doesn’t live here any more and she’s married again. You’ll know her as Mrs. Mackie.” Murray stared at her and shook his head. “Her daughter-in-law works in the Spar?”

  “Oh, right. Gordon Mackie’s mum, yeah,” said Murray, then blinked. “You really are getting pulled right in, aren’t you. You need to be careful, Keiko. Watch them. Please.”

  “The Mackies?” Keiko said, then she shook her head. “Don’t distract me. I’m trying to help you. Mrs. Aitken told Gordon’s wife that Mr. Byers wouldn’t sell if he were offered a million pounds. Even if he closes the business, he’ll hold on to the site. Just to be difficult.”

  “How does she know so much about it?” said Murray.

  “Her new husband worked in the city council planning department before he retired, and he remembers Mr. Byers from another situation, which was never resolved. I think you’ll be all right.”

  Murray shook his head. “Willie might have seen off a few planners, but he’s no match for Jimmy McKendrick,” he said. “What are the other two things?”

  “What?” said Keiko, thinking about the planning department. She should have used it in one of the filler questions; people seemed to have very strong views about planning. “Oh, yes! Number two. You’re in business, right? Perhaps you’re eligible for grants or sponsorship, like Fancy.” Murray shook his head again and stared at the carpet. “Maybe the Traders’ Association could help …”

  Murray sat back and stared straight up at the ceiling. “You really haven’t got a clue, have you?” he said.

  “And the third idea is the best of all,” she said. “One too hot, one too cold, and one juuuust right!” Murray frowned at her. “You need premises,” she said. “You need an unused building, for a reasonable price?” She
waited, then leapt to her feet and dragged him by both wrists out of the room and along the corridor to the kitchen, steering him through the darkness towards the window.

  “What?” he said.

  “Oh, you can’t be serious!” she cried out. “It’s really true we can’t see what’s right underneath our noses every day.” She pointed out at the yard. “That building must be almost the same size as the motorcycle half of your workshop, and Malcolm says it’s not used any more.” She nudged him. “You would have to join a public gym, but something tells me the owners would offer a good deal for you.” He said nothing and she turned towards him, squinting up into his face in the dark.

  “Murray?” she said. And then she whispered it. “Murray?” She stepped back to the doorway and switched on the overhead light. For a split second the brightness dazzled her, the room whirled, and she couldn’t make sense of what she saw: the snarl of a dog, the gleam of blades, eyes flashing half-hidden in leaves. She blinked.

  But there was nothing there. Nothing but the knives in the rack on the wall, the herbs in their pots on the sill, and Murray’s face, all reflected in the window.

  “It’s not used any more, is it?” she asked.

  Murray turned round so slowly that he looked like an automaton. “I’ll go and let you sleep it off,” he said, brushing past her. “I shouldn’t have come, only I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  twenty-one

  The last walkies before bed were getting later and later; the poor old thing would need a puppy mat again if it got much worse. Shame a dog couldn’t be trained to a box of litter the same as a cat, really. Still, it was pleasant enough on a clear night, out under the stars, when the rest of the town was asleep and there was always the chance, the later it got and later still, that one of these nights whoever it was would be surprised in the act, caught red-handed. A quick glance into the crook of the rowan tree at the top of the drive on leaving and again on their return. Almost always there was nothing, but then one night there it would be again: a flash of white against the dark bark of the tree, the envelope for you and inside: try as hard as you like to cover your tracks. there’s no way back from what you did. i will tell them all.