“We used to swim here when we were wee,” said Murray, pointing out a set of wooden steps, half hidden by ferns.
“Brrr,” said Keiko, hugging herself. The waterfall kept the dark pool endlessly rolling and bulging, the surface of the water looking leathery in the gloom. It smelled of wet earth and old leaves.
“Yeah, you’re not kidding,” said Murray. “I wouldn’t do it now. Not even to piss off Sandra Dessing, and you can guess what she thought of wee boys splashing around in the scuddy.”
“Mrs. Dessing aside,” said Keiko, “this must have been a lovely place to grow up. I’m not surprised you’re so fond of it.”
“Now, where did you get that idea?” said Murray, folding his arms and staring at her with one eyebrow peaked up under his hair and his smile more crooked than ever. “Me? ‘Fond’ of Painchton?”
“I mean, not just you,” said Keiko, hoping the low light would hide her face changing colour. “Everyone. It’s a very settled kind of place, isn’t it? Everyone is so kind to everyone.”
Murray said nothing but turned and looked down into the pool again.
Keiko watched his profile for a while and then joined him, gazing down. Briefly, she remembered the river and the rabbits’ eyes and turned round, leaning against the rail and looking back into the woods the way they had come.
“Anyway,” Murray said, turning round too and bumping his shoulder against hers, smiling again. “You picked Painchton out from all the places in the world you could have gone. I don’t want to put you off it.”
“I didn’t pick it exactly,” said Keiko. “I was looking for sponsorship. I was invited. Painchton picked me.”
“Painchton picked you,” Murray repeated. It was dark under the trees and the look on his face was hard to see clearly. She could tell he wasn’t smiling. “Did you ever ask why? Did you wonder?”
She hesitated. “My mother did!” she said in the end.
“Look,” said Murray. “Ignore me. You’ll probably be fine. I’m just not Painchton’s biggest fan. I don’t… I don’t really belong here.”
“Are you going to leave?” said Keiko. “Like the others?”
“What others?” Murray said.
“Like that man said-the tosser-I can’t remember his name. I thought he meant me. Was it you?”
“I’m here-at the moment-because of Dad dying,” Murray said, and his voice was colder and darker than all of the deep black water and the steep banks of wet earth. “I can’t just walk away.”
“I’m sorry,” said Keiko.
“Nothing for you to be sorry for,” said Murray, and just like that he sounded normal again. “Someone like you, doing what you do… you could hardly help asking questions. That’s why it’s good to have you here.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Keiko said.
“You solve puzzles, don’t you? You get to the bottom of things. You work stuff out.”
“I can’t work this out,” said Keiko. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I can’t tell you,” Murray said. “Not in a million years. But it’s still good to have you around.”
And since it seemed to be that kind of conversation that they were having here in the dark of the woods, for some reason, Keiko found herself saying:
“It’s good to have you around too, Murray.”
He gave a laugh like a snapping twig. “You have no idea,” he said. “Stick with me.”
eleven
At half-past three she was outside the flat, watching for Viola. Should she take the little girl’s hand when they crossed the road? Would that be too intrusive, maybe? Too patronising?
But when they reached the crossing place, Viola slipped her hand into Keiko’s as if out of habit and kept hold of it when they reached the other side. Keiko kept her fingers very still, as if trying not to scare away a small creature who was taking crumbs from her.
“Martha Anderson in my class thought you were called Cake-hole,” said Viola in a scornful voice, then she looked up to check that Keiko was laughing. “Why don’t you wear a kimono?”
“I’ve got a kimono with me,” said Keiko. “For a special occasion. Like a kilt.”
“Kilts are scratchy,” said Viola. “I had to wear one at Miss Munro’s. I’m glad I’m going to proper dancing now, and not Miss Munro’s stupid baby dancing. I’m glad you can take me.” She squeezed Keiko’s hand. Keiko relaxed her fingers. “I can do the money on the bus if you get stuck, you know. It’s two pounds sixty-five for you and a pound for me. And I’ve got my own pound in my purse.”
“Thank you,” said Keiko. She squeezed Viola’s hand back. “Let’s get it ready before the bus comes. That’s what I do.”
At the bus stop were two young women Keiko had never seen before, who didn’t speak to her although they both turned slightly as she joined them so that they could shoot glances at her shoes and clothes out of the sides of their eyes. Viola looked them up and down once and then turned away and began to practice tap steps, counting under her breath, her bag slapping against her back as she bounced from foot to foot. Under the spiked glances, Keiko checked through her own bag as though for something she thought she might have forgotten, then looked up at the sound of an engine slowing. A white van had drawn up and Malcolm Poole was leaning across the seats as the window slid down.
“Where you off to?” he asked. Viola stopped dancing and came and put her hand back into Keiko’s.
“We’re going into the city on the bus,” said Keiko. “I’m going to the university and Viola is going to Tollcross to her dancing school.”
“I’m going right past,” said Malcolm and, shifting the van out of gear and unbuckling his seatbelt, he hauled himself across and opened the passenger door. Keiko looked down at Viola and hesitated. She glanced with silent appeal at the two young women, but they studied the ground, smirking. Then she looked back at Malcolm.
“Thank you so much, but…” She was groping for the turn of phrase she needed, knew it was one she had learned, but it was gone. “You’re very kind,” she said. “We’re most grateful.” Then, her mind still blank, she stepped forward and hoisted Viola up before climbing in behind her, hearing a cackle of laughter from the bus stop as they pulled away.
“Can I sit beside the window?” asked Viola, already squeezing past and settling down at the extreme edge of the seat. Keiko busied herself with the seatbelts, Viola’s first, pulling it in as tight as it would go and buckling it across the little girl’s chest, so that she was pinned back with her legs poking straight out, her feet wagging gently. Keiko’s own seatbelt buckle was doubled up just under the outside edge of Malcolm’s nearest thigh. She held the strap over her body with one hand and braced her feet against the floor.
“Here,” said Malcolm, in his quiet honking voice. He bent his whole body towards her and she stiffened until she realised that he was reaching his arm around his leg and rummaging underneath himself. He held out the buckle to her and she fastened herself in with her head down.
“What kind of dancing school is it, Viola?” Malcolm asked.
“Everything except disco,” said Viola. “Are there dead animals in the back?”
“No,” he said. “I’m on my way to get some, though.”
“Yuk,” said Viola, “We’re getting the bus home, Keiko, eh no?” Keiko laughed and gently pinched one of Viola’s skinny knees.
Malcolm, she noticed, was slumped slightly to stop his head from brushing the roof. He really was very tall, a fact that should be plain but somehow got hidden in the overwhelming girth of him. And his girth combined with the slumping meant that his stomach jutted out around the steering wheel and he had to breathe in sharply when he needed to turn it so it seemed as though it was the sudden jerked breaths that were steering the van and not his hands at all.