“Put it on,” said Murray. “Don’t get cold.”
“What now?” she asked.
“I’m going to start my workout,” said Murray.
“What will I do?”
“You need to get home, straight into a warm bath.” He turned away from her and starting to swing his arms around.
Keiko stood up quickly and pulled her top on. “Of course,” she said. “I’ve been taking up all your time.”
“I enjoyed it,” he said. “But you mustn’t get cold. You have to go.”
She lay in the bath for a long time, gazing up through the steam at the patterns in the rough-textured paint on the ceiling, the getting-familiar faces and animals. The silence was heavier than ever after the flat being full of voices all day, and the smell of the new paint and new grout on the tiles was strong enough in the steamy air to drug her. She felt herself begin to drift.
So many things he had almost told her, so many things she didn’t quite know. He had said she wouldn’t believe him. Why do you think you’re here? he had asked her. Who are these people? her mother had said. How long will this one last? said Mr. Glendinning. Tash piled on the pounds, said Mrs. McLuskie. Dina couldn’t manage a grape, said Mrs. Watson. I’ve never been like Malcolm, Murray said. Stick with me.
She sat up with a jerk, making the water suck and slosh against the enamel sides of the bath, making it even harder to hear anything through the empty silence all around.
eighteen
Tuesday, 5 November
She woke at the first chirp of her alarm clock as usual, tried to reach out to stop the noise, and couldn’t. It bleeped on at her-ten, twenty times-until she managed to swing her arm out of bed and clump it down on the snooze button. She stretched out her legs and both calf muscles snapped into cramps, skewers of pain shooting down to her feet and drawing her toes up like bird claws.
“He’s killed me,” she said, and even her jaw ached as she whispered.
After ten minutes, she rolled onto her side, pushed herself upright with both hands and stood up in five slow cranking movements. Ignoring the tightness across the base of her spine and the stabbing pains deep in her buttocks, she lumbered a stilted, Frankenstein walk towards the bathroom, her breasts crooked in her elbows to stop them moving.
“You’re mad,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “Steak and kidney pudding wouldn’t have done this to you.”
Once the shop was open but well before she expected her first subjects, she went downstairs, two steps to each stair all the way, alternating which of her trembling calves she trusted with her weight. Murray was waiting behind the counter, laughing.
“I heard you coming,” he said. “How are you?”
“Greatly deceived in your character,” said Keiko. “You are not a kind person.”
Mrs. Poole emerged from the cold store, carrying a tray balanced on each hand. Murray stepped out of her way. “Son,” she said, and held one tray out towards him. He took it in his fingertips, looked at it briefly, and put it down beside the rest of the bacon behind the glass, slotting it deftly into its space. Mrs. Poole hefted the other tray, piled high with chops, into both hands and jostled it into place with a rattle, then slapped the chops back into a neat heap and tucked in a few trailing edges.
“Can I help you with anything, dear?” she said.
“Ah no, thank you so much,” said Keiko. “I just came to speak to Murray.” She smiled towards Murray, who said nothing. Mrs. Poole went along the corridor out of sight.
“The thing now,” Murray said, “is not to give in. Don’t give up. If you do a short workout tonight, you’ll be ten times better tomorrow. If you do nothing tonight, you’ll be like this for days.”
“Hmm,” said Keiko. “A great deal of information, suddenly. There was no talk yesterday evening of this pain or what to do about it.”
“Trust me,” said Murray. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Keiko said. “You strap me to tables and hurt me. Why wouldn’t I?” She heard the sound of Malcolm’s breathing coming towards them and turned to greet him. Malcolm, like his mother, was carrying two gleaming trays, his piled with sausages. He didn’t ask Murray to help but laid one tray down while he put the other into the window and turned back, puffing. There was a single space left in the display, right at the front of the case next to the glass, and Malcolm had to lean out over the counter to drop the tray into it. He seemed to roll slightly on his belly as he stretched, and Keiko, seeing Murray look down and raise his eyebrow, thought Malcolm’s feet must have lifted off the floor. A pale high cleavage had formed at the open neck of his shirt as he squashed himself against the marble. Keiko looked away towards his hands, but the pile of thick sausages and Malcolm’s greasy fingers clutching at either side of it seemed just as much something to avert her eyes from and so she looked back at Murray, who was studying the ceiling and moving his lower jaw from side to side with his lips slightly parted.
“What time tonight?” she asked him.
“About the same. Sevenish,” said Murray.
Malcolm, the tray fitted in as well as he could get it, backed himself upright again and wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Murray tells me you don’t fancy steak and kidney after all,” he said. “You should just have told me yourself.” He swept his coils of fringe off his face and, although they fell back again, Keiko was startled to see a peak of hair just like Murray’s, briefly revealed by that Murray-like gesture. “Although,” he went on, “it seems a shame, when you haven’t even tried it. Seems a shame to come all this way round the world and not try the things you find there.”
“She didn’t come halfway round the world for your steak pie, Malcolm,” said Murray, rolling his eyes at Keiko.
“Pudding,” said Keiko and Malcolm at the same time, and they both smiled.
“You know, you’re right?” Keiko said. “You are right. I would scoff at someone who came to Tokyo and only wanted McDonald’s. I’d love to try it.”
“If you’re going to eat stodge, you won’t be able work out after,” said Murray.
“Even if I have it at lunchtime?” said Keiko. “Surely it’ll all be worn off?”
“You’ve obviously never had steak and kidney pudding,” said Murray, half under his breath. He gestured at Malcolm. “And you can see for yourself, it doesn’t ‘wear off.’”
Keiko blinked, but Malcolm either hadn’t heard or didn’t mind. “Well, what’s the first day there’s no workout?” she asked.
“Sunday,” Murray said, not meeting her eye.
“Sunday,” said Malcolm, with a wide smile. “Traditional.”
“And I’ll ask Fancy and to come and join us.” She glanced at her watch, wincing as she twisted her wrist-time to get to work.
The ache in her legs eased over the course of the morning as she trotted back and forth to the front door, but the less-used muscles sat bunched and stiff, ready to catch her out. A spasm at the side of her jaw when she reached across to fill the kettle, and when she started to squat to tie her shoelace before going out at lunchtime, the stab came back as fierce as ever to her buttock. She tried bending from the waist instead, but her stomach muscles sang as she crunched them. When she tried to stand straight and bring her foot up to her hands, a ripping sensation spread through her thigh, brought her foot down hard to the floor, and kept her crouched there for a moment until the shaking stopped. In the end she put first one foot then the other up against the radiator and hunched over them with her other leg half-bent beneath her. This gave her a feeling like twisted candy wrappers crinkling in the back of her neck, but no real pain.