Keiko remembered Malcolm’s story and wondered if Mr. Byers was in there now and could see her crossing the Green. She could have sworn that someone somewhere was watching her. She looked up the street and down it, into the shops, up at the flats above, and inside her a little weight settled back into its place. She shouldn’t have let Fancy shout her down. The very fact that Fancy was so upset meant something.
Upstairs as she stood at the kitchen window waiting for the kettle to boil, she almost caught it. It was there somewhere, not spoken, not seen, not even as solid as a scent, not so much as a memory; something as faint as the turn of a season and just as real. She saw movement in the yard-Mrs. Poole and her buckets, no doubt-and stepped back out of view.
Work, she told herself, going to her desk and sitting. Good mindless busy work, starting by clearing her desk.
It made her smile to see Mrs. Watson’s questionnaire there on the top of the pile, her name printed out in full-Mabel Nadine Taylor Watson-below the sentence ensuring anonymity. Then her smile wavered as she remembered again Mrs. Watson’s stricken face when she saw the letter in Keiko’s hand that first day. She shook the thought away.
The next paper down was Mr. McKendrick’s, without his name but signed just as clearly by the strokes of that fine blue fountain-pen ink. She fanned through the rest of them, down to Mrs. Campbell’s sheet, the last one. She glanced at the sample sentence There’s no smoke without fire. Mrs. Campbell had made her mark right up at one end, a definite yes, a thick confident line made of three strokes on top of each other. She touched the paper, feeling the dents where the pen had been pressed into the page, and remembered Mrs. Campbell’s sudden chill as soon as she mentioned Murray, remembered Malcolm’s explanation for it. Did that make any sense, really? And why should Malcolm remember it in so much detail? And now that she thought about it, had Keiko even said Mr. Byers’s name?
She walked through to the hallway and stopped where she had stood to tie her shoes, trying to bring the words to mind. She had said to Mrs. Campbell not to worry, that Murray had machines in his… workhouse, workshop, backshop, outshop? The English slid around inside her head, slick enough to be out of her conscious control, but still strange enough that she could never be sure exactly which word she had spoken. Surely, though, she had only said that Murray had a gym in his workshop. Would that be enough? Would even hearing someone mention the place where Byers worked flood Mrs. Campbell with shame?
twenty-two
Whatever memories might still prick at Janette Campbell, surely no thoughts of her troubled William Byers. Did he have an inner life at all?
Young Yvonne at Janette’s salon liked to use the question as a mental workout. “Imagine him cooking!” she’d say. “Where do you think he does his shopping? Who cuts his hair? I wonder what he dreams about. Somebody had a little baby once and it was him!”
That’s what Mr. McKendrick was thinking as he strode towards the Green on Monday afternoon. He’s somebody’s son. He may not be anyone’s husband or father or friend, but he must have been somebody’s son once and there must be some way to get through to him. Mr. McKendrick’s step faltered for a second, as a different thought struck him: in the eyes of the world he himself, James McKendrick, was just the same-nobody’s husband or father, just like Byers. But he didn’t even to have to shrug to cast the notion away. He was entirely different, a man whose life had been spent growing into itself, whose stature was a comfort as well as an example to everyone around him, whose place in the world was secure. His wealth was solid and considerable and plain to see, his clothes were ever more correct and expensive, his every car was bigger and came quicker than the one before. Mr. Byers, though, Mr. Byers was a man of the same age who, if he hadn’t been a mechanic, would not have had the wherewithal to keep even his ancient Volvo going. He wore tee-shirts and baseball caps, and Mr. McKendrick hated to see a baseball cap on grey hair. He wore the kind of canvas shoes you used to see hanging in bunches from shop doorways-an acceptance of failure, shoes like that, an admission for all to see that his life had unravelled like re-used string. So there was no doubt that Mr. McKendrick would get his way, but he would proceed with tact. He would be kind.
And he would keep in touch with Byers once the man was gone. He saw himself at a Traders’ meeting in the future, announcing Byers’s death in a sombre voice, talking about their “friend and colleague,” pretending not to see the surprise on the faces around him, watching everyone being impressed with the kind of man he was, the span of his influence, the depth of his dignity.
Unless Byers outlived him. The easy leap of Jimmy McKendrick’s imagination was not always a friend to him, and unbidden thoughts like that one came more and more frequently now. What have you started, Duncan Poole? he thought. Weren’t we all going to live forever? Well, God rest you, you bugger (which was as close as he would ever get to a prayer), you’ve opened the door and let the draft in now.
Mr. McKendrick shook his head like a dog shedding water and, sticking his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, he turned and walked across the Green.
“Willie!” he exclaimed as he neared the filling station and Mr. Byers wandered into view.
“Mr. Chairman,” Byers said. Mr. McKendrick let out a sigh. They both knew (and knew they knew) that there was only one possible motive for the visit, but to have his friendly overture sneered at this way, to have the decision of how to broach the subject wrested out of his grip so neatly before he had even started… Mr. McKendrick’s moment of fellow-feeling, his generosity in acknowledging even to himself the echoes of Willie’s life in his own, were snuffed out and left nothing behind them but annoyance and the desire to deal with the matter swiftly and get away from the source of the annoyance as soon as he could.
“Willie, my solicitor wrote to you and you haven’t answered the letter,” he began.
“And that’s my answer,” said Mr. Byers, pulling a bristling bunch of keys out of his overall pocket and picking over it. “If you don’t understand, I’m sure ‘your solicitor’ could explain it.” He found the key he was looking for and fitted it into the boot-lock of his car. Mr. McKendrick concentrated on breathing slowly but didn’t trouble to keep the sneer from forming on his face. He was not about to let a man of sixty-odd who drove a car without power locking stand here in the middle of his town… (He half-shied away from this thought, lifting one hand as if to scratch his nose; then he steeled himself and leaned his hand on the car roof instead.)… stand here in his town, his town, and make a fool of him. Mr. Byers finally got the boot open and lifted out a couple of petrol cans, which he set down at the side of the car.
“We need to get this sorted,” said Mr. McKendrick. Byers didn’t answer but removed the petrol-tank cap and put it down on the roof of the car less than an inch from Mr. McKendrick’s crisp white shirt cuff. Mr. McKendrick pressed his fingers against the dusty paint, fighting the urge to move his hand away.
“Willie,” he said, calmly, then stopped as he finally digested what was happening. Mr. Byers was pouring petrol carefully from the first of the cans, standing here in the forecourt of a bloody filling station, a business that the good Mr. and Mrs. Swain had built up by the sweat of their honest brows, pouring petrol not even through a proper funnel but through an old coke bottle with the bottom cut off. Mr. McKendrick raised his arms in disbelief and looked around for witnesses, then slapped his hands down against his thighs and let his shoulders sag.