Come to Harm (18 page)

She walked through to the hallway and stopped where she had stood to tie her shoes, trying to bring the words to mind. She had said to Mrs. Campbell not to worry, that Murray had machines in his …
workhouse, workshop, backshop, outshop
? The English slid around inside her head, slick enough to be out of her conscious control, but still strange enough that she could never be sure exactly which word she had spoken. Surely, though, she had only said that Murray had a gym in his workshop. Would that be enough? Would even hearing someone mention the place where Byers worked flood Mrs. Campbell with shame?

twenty-two

Whatever memories might still
prick at Janette Campbell, surely no thoughts of
her
troubled William Byers. Did he have an inner life at all?

Young Yvonne at Janette's salon liked to use the question as a mental workout. “Imagine him cooking!” she'd say. “Where do you think he does his shopping? Who cuts his hair? I wonder what he dreams about. Somebody had a little baby once and it was
him
!”

That's what Mr. McKendrick was thinking as he strode towards the Green on Monday afternoon.
He's somebody's son. He may not be anyone's husband or father or friend, but he must have been somebody's son once and there must be some way to get through to him
. Mr. McKendrick's step faltered for a second, as a different thought struck him: in the eyes of the world he himself, James McKendrick, was just the same—nobody's husband or father, just like Byers. But he didn't even to have to shrug to cast the notion away. He was entirely different, a man whose life had been spent growing into itself, whose stature was a comfort as well as an example to everyone around him, whose place in the world was secure. His wealth was solid and considerable and plain to see, his clothes were ever more correct and expensive, his every car was bigger and came quicker than the one before. Mr. Byers, though, Mr. Byers was a man of the same age who, if he hadn't been a mechanic, would not have had the wherewithal to keep even his ancient Volvo going. He wore tee-shirts and baseball caps, and Mr. McKendrick hated to see a baseball cap on grey hair. He wore the kind of canvas shoes you used to see hanging in bunches from shop doorways—an acceptance of failure, shoes like that, an admission for all to see that his life had unravelled like re-used string. So there was no doubt that Mr. McKendrick would get his way, but he would proceed with tact. He would be kind.

And he would keep in touch with Byers once the man was gone. He saw himself at a Traders' meeting in the future, announcing Byers's death in a sombre voice, talking about their “friend and colleague,” pretending not to see the surprise on the faces around him, watching everyone being impressed with the kind of man he was, the span of his influence, the depth of his dignity.

Unless Byers outlived him. The easy leap of Jimmy McKendrick's imagination was not always a friend to him, and unbidden thoughts like that one came more and more frequently now.
What have you started, Duncan Poole?
he thought.
Weren't we all going to live forever? Well, God rest you, you bugger
(which was as close as he would ever get to a prayer),
you've opened the door and let the draft in now.

Mr. McKendrick shook his head like a dog shedding water and, sticking his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, he turned and walked across the Green.

“Willie!” he exclaimed as he neared the filling station and Mr. Byers wandered into view.

“Mr. Chairman,” Byers said. Mr. McKendrick let out a sigh. They both knew (and knew they knew) that there was only one possible motive for the visit, but to have his friendly overture sneered at this way, to have the decision of how to broach the subject wrested out of his grip so neatly before he had even started … Mr. McKendrick's moment of fellow-feeling, his generosity in acknowledging even to himself the echoes of Willie's life in his own, were snuffed out and left nothing behind them but annoyance and the desire to deal with the matter swiftly and get away from the source of the annoyance as soon as he could.

“Willie, my solicitor wrote to you and you haven't answered the letter,” he began.

“And that's my answer,” said Mr. Byers, pulling a bristling bunch of keys out of his overall pocket and picking over it. “If you don't understand, I'm sure ‘your solicitor' could explain it.” He found the key he was looking for and fitted it into the boot-lock of his car. Mr. McKendrick concentrated on breathing slowly but didn't trouble to keep the sneer from forming on his face. He was not about to let a man of sixty-odd who drove a car without power locking stand here in the middle of his town … (He half-shied away from this thought, lifting one hand as if to scratch his nose; then he steeled himself and leaned his hand on the car roof instead.) … stand here in his town,
his town
, and make a fool of him. Mr. Byers finally got the boot open and lifted out a couple of petrol cans, which he set down at the side of the car.

“We need to get this sorted,” said Mr. McKendrick. Byers didn't answer but removed the petrol-tank cap and put it down on the roof of the car less than an inch from Mr. McKendrick's crisp white shirt cuff. Mr. McKendrick pressed his fingers against the dusty paint, fighting the urge to move his hand away.

“Willie,” he said, calmly, then stopped as he finally digested what was happening. Mr. Byers was pouring petrol carefully from the first of the cans, standing here in the forecourt of a bloody filling station, a business that the good Mr. and Mrs. Swain had built up by the sweat of their honest brows, pouring petrol not even through a proper funnel but through an old coke bottle with the bottom cut off. Mr. McKendrick raised his arms in disbelief and looked around for witnesses, then slapped his hands down against his thighs and let his shoulders sag.

“Willie,” he began again. “I have already offered you a handsome price for this”—he jerked his head, just catching a glimpse of pink out of the corner of his eye— “and I'm willing to offer more, to top it up out of my own personal funds. And”—he held up a hand as Mr. Byers looked about to speak—“
and
I'm willing to gift you alternative workshop space, should you feel, in your wisdom, that you require it.”

“Where would this be, then?” said Mr. Byers.

“Far end of the caravan site. The old lock-ups.”

Mr. Byers snorted. “Down the back of the camp-site toilets, you mean? In beside the septic tanks and bins?”

Where you belong,
thought Mr. McKendrick,
where you belong.
He leaned in close to the man's face before he continued. “What are you getting out of it, Willie?” he said. “I don't understand. It's not even a business anymore.”

“Aye, you'd know all there is to know about doing business, James,” said Mr. Byers. “But minding your own's a good start.”

“It
is
my own,” said Mr. McKendrick. “I'm the chairman of the committee in the association working to regenerate this town, that I have lived in my whole life, and you've been here ten minutes—”

“Five years.”

“—and just because you get some kick out of being awkward, you think—”

“So it's the regeneration of the town, is it?” said Byers, cutting in on the rising swell of Mr. McKendrick's tirade. “That's what's in your heart, eh, Jimmy? That's what this is all about? All the meetings and the quiet wee visits and the chequebook waving in my face?”

“What else?” said Mr. McKendrick. He never blushed. His cheeks were ruddy from the golf course—and from the clubhouse afterwards too—but they were no barometer of his feelings. Still his eyes slid to one side and then the other before he could stop them. “What have you— I mean, what are you on about?”

“What have I heard?” said Byers. “Ah now, Mr. Chairman, that would be telling.”

“You're bluffing,” said Mr. McKendrick. “You've heard nothing because there
is
nothing, and even if there was, who would be telling you?” Then, suddenly pushed beyond his patience at last, he shouted. “Christ, Willie, you ken fine we'll never get grant money with this dump sitting in the middle like a boil on the bum.”

_____

He edited slightly for Mrs. Poole.

“So I said to him, ‘Willie,' I said, ‘I'm not going to play games with you. Name your price for this eyesore and let's get on with it.' ”

“And how high would you go?” asked Mrs. Poole.

“Well, I'm not a rich man, Grace,” said Mr. McKendrick. Mrs. Poole's mouth twitched into a quick pucker and when it released again he saw a little curl left at one side where one muscle refused to come under control. He shifted in his seat, two instincts fighting. He hated to be laughed at or even taken lightly, but how he loved to see Grace with a smirk on her lips.

Grace's lips occupied Jimmy McKendrick's thoughts more than he cared to admit to himself. She always wore lipstick of a good clear pink (he disliked to see a woman of their age without a bit of lipstick almost as much as he loathed the overdone lips of girls, either too bright and sticky or too thickly coated, pale as wax). Gracie was just right; her lips coloured without being masked and above and below was the perfect downy skin of a handsome woman growing older with ease, fluffy enough to be soft but without either of Mr. McKendrick's two aversions: bristles, or what was worse, the naked, shining skin of a woman who is dealing with her bristles somehow, whom he always felt scared to look at too closely in case he caught her pathetically halfway between appointments. Mr. McKendrick, being a bachelor, had never grown out of looking at women, or rather,
seeing
them when he looked, unlike a married man who withdraws into memories of his wife's young face and looks at what is before him but sees none of it, so that coming upon his wife unexpectedly in the street can be unsettling in a way he'd rather not explain. And visiting her in hospital has him walking up and down the ward looking for the face he holds in his heart and passing by the reality over and over again until a nurse takes pity and steers him and his flowers to the bedside.

“Jim?” said Mrs. Poole. “You were miles away.”

“Not so far as all that,” said Mr. McKendrick. “But anyway, as I was saying, I'm far from rich, Grace, but I've been careful. I've been more than careful, I've been prudent, and besides that I've been lucky. So between you and me …” He glanced at Mrs. Poole, to reassure himself of what he knew already: Grace was no gossip. She nodded seriously, but still with a bit of a twinkle. “Between you and me I'm willing to match the bid. Double it. I'll sell one of the holiday cottages if I have to.” Mrs. Poole looked startled. “I'm like you, Gracie, and like Duncan, God rest his soul.”

Mr. McKendrick blinked. Unexpectedly, he had landed in just the spot he had been trying to reach for weeks, and so he plunged ahead with it. “Business is business, and taking care of business is the only thing that'll ever get you anywhere. I have no time for anybody who doesn't understand that. They're all swank and credit cards, anyway. You know what I'm saying? I support—no, I applaud—I applaud your decision to take rent for the flat, and anybody who says otherwise is just jealous of your good sense.” Mr. McKendrick kept talking, couldn't stop now he had started, like a pram on a hill, but he could see Mrs. Poole's face lose the twinkle and the little puckered muscle and turn blank again. Mr. McKendrick, back out in the cold he knew not why, thought about reaching out and taking hold of her, forcing her to talk to him, shaking her if he had to. He came near enough to doing it to make his blood pump faster at the thought, but when he moved it was only to rise from his seat, tuck it back squarely under the table, and say goodbye.

“Jim,” said Mrs. Poole before he could leave. Mr. McKendrick stopped like a dog on a choke chain and came back to her side. “What you were saying about renting the flat and good sense and all that?” She paused; he waited. “The thing is I'm having second thoughts about it. About her.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling, and Mr. McKendrick followed her gaze. “I'm not sure it's such a good idea. I'm not sure I can go through with it after all.”

“What's happened, Gracie?” said Mr. McKendrick. “What's wrong?”

“I shouldn't have agreed. It's too soon after Duncan.”

“But it's what Duncan would have wanted,” Mr. McKendrick said. “He loved Painchton just like we do.”

“And she's … not what I was expecting,” Mrs. Poole continued. “I'm just not … I'd be happier if … Besides she's a right noticing wee sort too. Watches, sees everything. She says nothing, but it's all going in, you know.”

“All what?” said Mr. McKendrick.

“And young Craig's been speaking to her too,” said Mrs. Poole.

“Craig?” said Mr. McKendrick. “Speaking about what?”

But the words, too painful to forget, were too harsh to repeat, and she just shook her head.

“She can't have found out anything that she shouldn't from Craig. He doesn't know.”

“I'm just not sure I can carry on,” said Mrs. Poole. “And I wish you'd listen when I try to tell you.”

Mr. McKendrick patted her shoulder softly and left, thinking hard. He let himself out onto the street and righted himself, plucking each shirt cuff firmly out from inside his jacket sleeves, twanging each cuff-link gently then grasping the points of his waistcoat and giving a sharp downward tug. He took great comfort in the feeling this produced, of layers of well-tailored and properly fitted clothes snapping into place on his frame. He stood for a moment or two until to stand any longer would look aimless and then, almost without conscious thought, he turned about on himself, went in the house door, and climbed the stairs.

_____

She was working, the computer whirring and a desk lamp lighting up piles of papers, the rest of the flat beginning to sink into darkness.

“I think you just keep that thing on in case somebody comes to the door,” he said as he settled himself into an armchair. “I bet if I go through into the bedroom, I'll find magazines and chocolates and the radio playing, eh?” Keiko laughed back at him. “Now you know I'm only joking, hen, don't you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Keiko. “And anyway, I'm used to it. If my mother went out when I was supposed to be doing my schoolwork, she always put her hand on the television when she came back to see if it was warm. But it never was, because I was always working. I'm
always
working.”