twenty
When Murray had oiled and waxed all five of the motorbikes, he began on the chrome, starting as usual with the Harley, applying the polish with a duster wound round two fingers on the larger areas and a cotton bud in the awkward places. After an hour’s work it looked perfect, from a distance, but if he squatted down close and looked properly, he could still see a sticky line of leftover polish where the chrome dash met the paint on the petrol tank. He threaded the edge of a duster in between the two halves of the tank and up under the dash, pulling it back and forward, feeling it slip easier over the drying surface. Then he rolled up the cloths and brushes and shoved them into the wine carrier. It looked even better now, but he knew the polish was there, sitting in the crevices, not just on the tank but between the taillight and the rear mudguard, around the badge and under every nut, where it would congeal, darken to yellow and dry to a crust. He turned to the rack of metal shelves for a set of sockets, softly whistling.
Outside was perfectly black now. Since the long row of buildings shielded the yards from any streetlamp glow, the only light would come from windows in the backs of the upstairs flats. So if Keiko was still in her kitchen, if everyone was still there, if lunch had turned into drinks and then supper and they were all still sitting there, full and hot, there would be a shaft of light across the yard. Even if the curtains were shut, there would be spikes of brightness falling somewhere.
Murray clicked off all the lights then returned to the window and stared out beyond the reflection of his own face, waiting for his eyes to adjust. After a moment the dark square resolved itself into shapes, but there was no gleam of light, just two shades of black and the soft line between them showing where the roof of the slaughterhouse stopped and the sky began.
Murray turned back into the room. He knelt down beside the Harley again in the darkness and opened the case of sockets. They lay in rows like knuckles, like jewels against velvet. He closed his eyes and ran a hand over them, finding the size he needed, frowning at how this one, most often used, had a different rougher feel from the others; he would need to replace it. For now though, it would do.
It was after eleven when he padlocked the door behind him and walked round the corner. Outside the shop, he paused under Keiko’s window. The curtains were closed, but one side sash was lifted an inch or two at the bottom. There was no sound of voices. Murray held his breath and listened, then smiled at the unmistakable soft groan and whirr of her printer.
Keiko wasn’t really working. The sherry and wine from lunchtime had long since gone, leaving an ache in her temples as dull as the weight in her stomach, but she felt too restless to switch off the computer and call the day over.
She jumped at the knock on the door, hesitated, then went out into the hallway. Murray’s workshop light had gone out hours ago. It couldn’t be Fancy; it was long past Viola’s bedtime. She crept along the passage, paused again, listening, on the spot where she had so briefly put her arms against Malcolm’s body and felt him move in response. If she had some glass in the door or even a peephole, she would be able to tell at once if it was him and creep away again. Then she realised that if it was him, if he had just climbed the stairs from the street, she would surely be able to hear him breathing. She listened again and heard nothing.
“Hello?” she said.
“Keiko?” said Murray’s voice. “I just wanted to check on you.”
She opened the door wide, relief turning her smile of welcome into a laugh. “Come in, come in, come in,” she said.
“Three times?”
“Mrs. Watson always says that and it makes me feel welcome,” Keiko said, going to the living room. “Sit down, sit down, sit down,” she said. “On the sofa, the sofa, the sofa.”
“Are you drunk?” said Murray leaning away slightly.
“No,” she said, thinking about it. “No.” She was sure she wasn’t, it just somehow seemed that tonight there was no need to pick her way so carefully towards him and no need for him to hint and hide. They could just talk to one another. Right now, they could just let go. “I’m just very pleased to see you. Why shouldn’t I show it?”
Murray’s eyebrows rose, his forehead nothing but ripples all the way to the peak of his hair as she moved towards him. She closed her eyes, thinking that they would eventually cross if she kept them open. She must look even sillier though, standing with her eyes shut and face turned up, waiting, but just as she began to wonder how to get out of it, Murray kissed her. His arms and chest were hard and she could still feel the cold coming off his clothes, but his lips were soft, dry as paper. She breathed in and opened her eyes.
“You smell of beeswax,” she heard herself saying and wondered if she was as sober as she thought, after all.
“You taste like fat,” said Murray. “How was lunch anyway? It still stinks in here, by the way.” He flung himself down at one end of the sofa and stretched an arm along its back in invitation. Keiko groaned and sank down beside him, fitting herself under his arm, the muscles under his shoulder even harder than the thin padding on the back of the old couch.
“I’m never going to eat again,” she said. Murray patted her stomach. “The reason it still smells is that while we ate one, another was cooking. Hours and hours. And I can’t get the grease to come off the washing-up bowl. Also, Fancy made a dessert with cream and chocolate and sherry, and Craig made a pink drink with cream and sugar.”
Murray was rubbing small circles on her stomach as if polishing her. “So you forgive me?” he said. “For not coming?”
“Of course,” she told him. “But I’m glad you’re here now.”
“I’m glad you’re here too,” said Murray, not looking at her, still rubbing. “You’re about the only thing that makes it okay.” He stopped speaking and took his hand away. “Except I’m not really glad you’re here. I’m not glad either of us is here. It’s been killing me all day thinking of you up here with… It kills me thinking of you here at all. I wish I could just run away and take you with me.”
“Why?” said Keiko, blinking at bit at the rush of words. She had wanted to make him talk more, but this was as if she’d turned a tap and watched a dam bursting.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to tell you,” Murray said. “And anyway, while you’re here it’s better you don’t know. But this is not the place for you. Or me.”
“What? Painchton? Scotland? Europe?” She bit her lip to stop herself saying the world, the galaxy, the universe, like when she was a child.
“The shop,” he said. “For starters.”
“I know you’re not happy there.”
“Understatement of the century,” said Murray. He put his head into his hands. “I’ve got to get away again.”
“What’s stopping you?” she said.
He ignored the question and kept talking. “You should definitely get away.”
“Yes, but away from what?” Murray didn’t answer. “Or who, even?” She thought for a moment, staring at the rings on the coffee table, shutting one eye and then the other, making them jump side to side. Then she shook herself. “And what is stopping you?” It came out more terse than she had intended, so she went on: “You’ve been kind, helping your mother, but she wouldn’t want to hold you back.” She shook her head again against the memory of Mrs. Poole’s stony blank face, so different from her own mother’s sharp looks and constant plucking.