“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.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” said Keiko. Then, seeing that he was about to give up, she gathered her courage and went on. “But I know that people-nice wee girlies-have gone away from here, suddenly.”
“Exactly,” said Craig. “My cousin Nicole used to live over the shop.” He pointed upwards. “But not anymore. And she never really said why she was leaving except for this one time when I was joshing her about her deadbolt and chain, she mentioned ‘that creep across the road.’”
Keiko felt her scalp prickle. “Your cousin went away?”she said.
“Forget it,” said Craig. “I shouldn’t be saying this at all. We’ve all been pals since we were wee.”
“But your cousin,” said Keiko. “Is she all right now?”
“Look,” Craig said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Blindly, Keiko grabbed for one of the little mesh discs hanging from the display rack and picked up the bottle with the biggest, reddest warning. She carried them back towards the register and then stopped dead in her tracks.
Mrs. Poole was standing at the counter with a white plastic clothes drier in her arms, her face as stony as Keiko had ever seen it, her eyes flat and dead even as she met Keiko’s gaze.
“I never heard you come in, Mrs. Poole,” said Craig.
“I get that sick of my own shop bell dinging all day,” said the woman, “I’m a dab hand at getting by them.” She held the rack out to Keiko. “This is for you,” she said. “You might as well take it with you.”
“You told me you had one at home,” said Keiko.
“I remembered wrong,” said Mrs. Poole. “Here, take it.”
Keiko took the rack and scuttled out, forgetting to pay for her trap and solvent. There were three of them now. Tash, Dina, and Nicole. Three girls gone, up and left. She closed her front door behind her and pushed the button to double-lock it. But as soon as she did, her heart started to pound. Instead of feeling safe from intruders behind her locked door, she felt… trapped.
Perhaps she should go to the department every second day instead of once a week. Perhaps being in this little town was beginning to affect her reasoning. And perhaps she should try the first-year students after all.
But Fancy had said all those people were willing to help her. Settled, dependable people right here. She could rattle through her study at double-speed. If she could just forget Tash and Dina. And now Nicole. If she could just forget them, stop seeing trouble where there was none, and do what she had to do.
Dumplings over flowers, said her mother’s voice. Forget all this imagining and take what you need.
Sometimes, all three Pooles left when the shop closed and the building was still, the stone walls and floors not even creaking around her. Other times just Malcolm and Murray set off, and then Keiko knew that Mrs. Poole was down there. She felt through the silence for some trace of another person under the same roof, but the only clue of Mrs. Poole’s presence would come hours later, when the shop door opened and shut below the bay window and quiet heels moved away up the street.
Once before, two sets of steps had left. Leaning sideways from her chair, Keiko had seen Mr. McKendrick step neatly behind Mrs. Poole and guide her towards the inside of the pavement with one gentle arm. Today for some reason, through the quiet, Keiko thought he might be there again. Intuition, she wrote on her scribble pad. Would you trust intuition, she typed, for personal matters only / for financial decisions / for questions of health? Then she held a finger down on the arrow key until she had deleted it.
Downstairs, Jimmy McKendrick blew steam across the surface of his coffee and cocked his head up to one side. “Is she always this rowdy?”
Mrs. Poole smiled vaguely at him. She was sitting at the desk in the back office, both hands cradling a cup and saucer on the bare surface of the desk. “Aye, but she’s up there,” she said. “She studies at the table in the big room, keeps a good eye on things.”
“And I hear she’s quite taken with Fancy Clarke, despite our warnings,” Mr. McKendrick went on. “You wouldn’t think they’d have much in common. But then they’re young, the pair of them. And Murray too, eh? And Malcolm,” he added.
“And Craig when he’s here,” said Mrs. Poole. Mr. McKendrick looked sharply at her. “She’s thick as thieves with Craig.”
“A nice crowd of young ones,” said Mr. McKendrick in his jovial voice. “Where would we be without them?”
Mrs. Poole lowered her eyes and kept them down. Mr. McKendrick, looking at his watch, gave an ostentatious start and swigged the rest of his coffee. “Are you coming along then?”
“I’ve got paperwork,” said Mrs. Poole, glancing towards the filing cabinet, neatly locked.
Mr. Poole seemed to rouse himself at that and look around the office for the first time at the bare desk and shut drawers. “Gracie, Gracie, you didn’t need to be sitting here like a tea-party at the manse. You should have just cracked on with it all, I’d have been just as happy sitting quiet and watching you. More than happy.” He leaned towards Mrs. Poole, considering saying more, but he caught the slight droop of her shoulders and sat back. “Or I could help, even. Duncan always took care of the books, didn’t he?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said. “We did it together. I know what I’m doing.” Then she rubbed her hands and spoke, suddenly rather brightly. “But it’ll all be there in the morning. I think I’ll come to the meeting and put in my tuppenceworth.”
Mr. McKendrick groaned. “Take a ticket and get in the queue.” And the awkward moment was gone.
An hour later in the function room of the Covenanters’, Mr. McKendrick was in shirtsleeves with his tie loosened, wishing he’d never stopped smoking.
“Hanging baskets and benches,” said Rosa Imperiolo, snorting. “We’ll fair stand out in a crowd with that.”
“A bandstand, a bandstand,” said Mr. McLuskie. He had been saying just that for several minutes now.
“And where would we get a band, Andrew?” asked Mrs. McMaster. “How much does it cost to hire them and how many people actually want to listen to them?”
“A brass band in a bandstand is an English thing,” said Mrs. Sangster, as though that should settle the matter.
“Good point, Anne,” said Craig McKendrick, “Uncle J, how much would it cost to build ourselves a wee crag and have a bagpiper on top of it?”
“You’d be able to see up his kilt,” Fancy said.
Mr. McKendrick frowned.
“There’s a bandstand in St. Andrews, and that’s Scotland right enough,” said Mr. McLuskie.
“Hey,” said Fancy. “Wouldn’t a bandstand be the perfect place for kids to go and take drugs when it’s raining?”
“Order, order,” said Miss Anderson, but she stopped at a look from Mr. McKendrick.
“Yes, order,” he said. “We’ve agreed on a roasting pit, a clay oven, and banqueting tables. That’s the main thing.”
“How come?” said Fancy. “Why is that the main thing?”
“Miss Clarke,” said Etta McLuskie, “with all due respect, you are a newcomer to Painchton and you’d do better to listen and learn than question every last word.”
“Yeah, Fancy,” said Craig. “You can’t learn by asking good questions, you know.”
“Let’s call it a night,” said Mr. McKendrick. “The only other outstanding business is a name for our launch event.”
“Why don’t we just call it the Jimmy McKendrick Experience,” said Mrs. Watson, downing the last of her martini. “Bring in the drug-shelter crowd.”