“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Murray said.
“Who am I not fine with?”
“Well, there’s me,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her to her feet. “I didn’t tell you in case you tried to get out of it, but I reckoned tonight would be the perfect time to get started on you.” Keiko opened her eyes wide. “At the gym.” He looked appraisingly at her and she felt her neck lengthening, her chin lifting. “I know you never came round like I said, but have you got any workout clothes?”
It was only a few yards round the corner to the workshop, but still Keiko let go a breath of relief when they arrived without being seen. She felt fluorescent in the unaccustomed pale clothes and her feet, darting in and out of view, drawing her eyes down towards the tennis shoes, were as white and bulky as puffballs. She had imagined the people in the flats above the shops leaving their armchairs and padding to their windows to see her, drawn from the television by something even brighter.
“New trainers, eh?” said Murray with a small smile as he stooped over the padlock at the workshop door. “What brought that on?”
“I’m going to be very fit and healthy despite the steak and kidney pudding and the apple pie and the cheese scones,” Keiko said, stepping neatly around the question.
“You don’t have to, you know,” said Murray, clicking switches off and on until the right selection of spotlights left the motorbikes draped in darkness and picked out the exercise machines. “Just say you’re not hungry.”
“But they’re all so kind,” said Keiko. “Mr. McLuskie brought me a pie the size of a tyre when he came today.” Murray said nothing. “And a big bowl full of extra… whatever it was that was in the pie.”
What Mr. McLuskie had told her was in the pie was squashed flies.
“A fly pie, hen,” he’d said. “Also known as a flies’ graveyard. Fine old traditional names are dying out. Like blood oranges. Ruby red oranges they call them now, and these would be Abernethy slices, I suppose, but the Japanese are not a squeamish people, I know, so fly pie it is. And I’ve put a wee bowl of extra filling in your fridge for you to make toasties. I know you’ve a toastie-maker in that kitchen of yours because I gave it myself.”
“Thank you,” said Keiko, meaning it to encompass everything.
“Och,” said Mr. McLuskie, flicking his hand that way that had seemed so rude to her at first, but which she was getting used to. “I promised Etta I’d do my bit, keeping you from fading away, wee thing that you are, so far from home and you must wonder what the he-eck you’re doing here, eh?” He sat down heavily, one hand on each knee, dropping backwards into the seat with a sigh. As he did so a gust of warm sweetness rushed towards Keiko’s nostrils and, as she bent over him to explain the questionnaire, was she only imagining that she could taste it, like a cloud of icing sugar hanging in the air around him?
“No smoke without fire,” he said, stifling a yawn.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. McLuskie?”
“Och no, I wouldn’t want to put you to it,” he said. “But if the kettle’s going on anyway, I’ll keep you company. Tea, mind, not coffee. Nice change to be asked too. Etta’s up to high doh this weather and I can raffle.”
“I’m sorry?” said Keiko.
“My wife is not herself these days,” said Mr. McLuskie. “Anybody’s guess why not. So it’ll be a wee treat to have somebody make me tea.”
“And a slice of pie?” said Keiko, holding it up to him as though she had made it and was tempting him.
“I shouldn’t really,” he said. “I brought it for you.”
“But I like that,” said Keiko. “I mean, the way you appreciate your own… Mrs. Imperiolo took me out for fish and chips, and Malcolm is doing something with suet and kidney for me.”
“Fish, eh?” said Mr. McLuskie. “Well, at least she never had you at that so-called Indian or the so-called chink-uh, Chinese, I beg your pardon.”
“I don’t understand you, Mr. McLuskie,” Keiko said. He had followed her through to the kitchen and was watching her setting out cups and plates, the questionnaire forgotten in the other room.
“See, me? I’m a traditionalist,” he said.
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Keiko. “You will be an important part of my study. I cannot tell you why, but I assure you.”
“I make plain and pan, morning rolls, bridge rolls, cottage, farls and batch. Mince pies, steak pies, sausage rolls, bridies. All with Malcolm’s special mixture. Honest food from right here.”
“And you make the pastry to go around?” said Keiko.
“Aye, from the finest flour, butter, lard, and salt, with these two hands,” he said. “And then there’s fruit scones, drop scones, tattie scones, soda scones; never mind the teacakes. And speaking of cakes! Vanilla slices, cream horns, French fancies, coconut rocks, your fly pie there, fruit slab, Chelsea buns, yum-yums… you name it. Of course I could fling together a hundred kinds of muffins, wee bits of dried blueberry and choc chips that might as well be rabbit pellets for all the taste of them. Of course I could be shovelling out croissants and cookies and rocky road-a child of five could. But I am a Scottish Master Baker, see? And there’s nothing can go inside a panini that can’t go in a good morning roll.”
Keiko formed her lips to attempt a reply but could not think of anything. Mr. McLuskie sailed on.
“But the thing is, Imperiolo’s café and chippy and Indian and chink-Chinese-you’ll forgive me, hen-have got folk from all over the country, down south, France even, raving on about how marvellous it is, all over that Internet, and then there’s McLuskie’s Bakery and… not a sausage! Nothing! My customers just aren’t the type to…”
“To post online reviews,” said Keiko.
“Exactly! It doesn’t mean I’m not as good a baker as Kenny is a whatever he calls himself these days. He hasn’t shaken a basket of chips for twenty years. I’m still up at four every morning with my yeast. He just sits in his office at his computer.”
“He’s probably writing reviews,” said Keiko. Mr. McLuskie crashed his cup down into its saucer. “I didn’t mean that,” she blurted. “I was only joking.”
“Ho ho!” said Mr. McLuskie. “You’ve hit the nail on the head, hen.”
“I was joking.”
“Oh no, you’ve cracked it.”
“Please!”
“I am going to make you a cake,” said Mr. McLuskie, standing up. “Royal icing and sugar roses, because you are a wee sweetheart. You’ve made my day.” And he left, the questionnaire forgotten.
“Keiko?” said Murray. “You’re miles away.”
Keiko blinked and smiled at him. “Sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about Mr. McLuskie.”
“I bet nobody’s gone off in a dwam about him for a while,” Murray said laughing.
“I told him something about someone and I shouldn’t have.”
“Who?” said Murray, staring hard at her.
“Kenny Imperiolo.”
Murray considered this for a moment and then shook his head. “You’re better off staying away from both of them,” he said. “Best thing.”
“I can never tell whether you’re serious or joking,” said Keiko staring at him.
“I’m never joking,” Murray said. “Remember? I only laugh so I don’t scream. Right then.” He walked towards the gym machines, but Keiko put out a hand to stop him.
“I’d like to learn another bike first, please,” she said.
“Gold Flash,” he said, once again doing the trick with the tarpaulin that made him look like a children’s conjuror and made Keiko want to giggle. “BSA Golden Flash. 1950 to 1961. So called because of the colour. Although they did do them in black and chrome too-pretty rare. I’ve had a set of black front forks and mudguards for years, probably never get a hold of the rest.”