“Gosh,” said Keiko. And then: “Ah! Is it for me? Is that supposed to be Mount Fuji rising out of the…” Her voice faded at the frown that met her words.
“Mount Fuji?” said Margaret. “It’s just a wee drop of mashed potato.”
The sausage was curled round the edge of the plate and swimming slightly, and the potato corralled by it did-she was not imagining things-rise up in vertiginous slopes and crags almost to her eye level. She turned to the vegetables, as you might turn from a sickroom to look at a garden.
“Roast Parmesan parsnips,” said Margaret, “creamed greens, baby sweetcorn in tempura batter-you’ll like them, eh?-and stuffed mushrooms.”
“Do you get your vegetables from Mrs. Watson?” said Keiko, thinking to kill two birds with one stone.
“We go to the same wholesaler, dear,” said Margaret. “What are the mushrooms stuffed with?” she called through to the kitchen.
“Mozzarella,” came the reply. The moment for questions about Mrs. Watson’s niece Dina had passed. And anyway, Keiko could not imagine how to get from vegetables to a missing niece. Certainly not in English. She turned back to the first bird: did Mrs. Ballantyne know why her husband was on edge?
“It’s very good of you to take the time to sit with me,” she said, digging her fork into the summit of the potato. “I know how busy you are.”
“If only,” said Mrs. Ballantyne.
“I mean the Traders as a whole,” Keiko said, trying again. “Or the committee anyway. With the initiative. Including me, Mr. McKendrick tells me.” She smiled.
“Oh, me too,” said Margaret. “You’re the centerpiece and no mistake, but Iain’s the one that’s neck deep in all of that.” Mrs. Ballantyne smiled as she spoke. “I just make the sandwiches. Try a bit of sausage.”
“I will,” said Keiko. “It looks lovely.”
“Aye, he’s a fair sausage hand, that boy.”
“Malcolm Poole,” Keiko said, and it was not really a question.
“A fine butcher for a young one, so he is,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “And he understands what people come to a pub for-when they’re hungry, I mean.”
“And what’s that?”
“A good plate of hot dinner,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “A right good feed, hot and rich and easy going down. Doesn’t even matter what it is as long as it’s piping hot, well seasoned, and there’s plenty of it. A lining on your stomach, if you’ll pardon the expression, but that’s what my old mother used to say. She was a pub landlady too, you know, with the veins to prove it. You’d not have half the mess on the night buses if these youngsters kept to it. But there’s no telling them: eatin’s cheatin’, they say.”
Keiko sipped at her glass of spring water and hoped the subject would change.
“But what was I… Oh yes,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “Yes, Iain’s the committee man.” Keiko ventured on a mushroom. “And it’s getting to him, it’s true. He’s that crabbit these days, you wouldn’t know him.”
“Crabbit?” said Keiko.
“Tripping over his own chin,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “Not to me, I have to say. He’s always been a good husband. Flowers every Friday, tea in bed on a Sunday morning, and he’s all that just as usual-more so, if anything. But he’s nipping at folk like a wee ferret, and that’s not like him. He’s got some kind of stooshie going with the Dessings across the way, for one thing.” Keiko pricked up her ears. “There’s two pubs in Painchton; there’s always been two pubs in Painchton. They serve Belhaven beer, we serve McEwan’s. We both do lunches and suppers, but we make sure and not clash our quiz nights. But I don’t know, since this new initiative got going, all of a sudden this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. The four of us, I mean.”
“Times are tough?” said Keiko.
“Not really,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “No worse than ever. The smoking ban hit the bar years back, but it actually helped the suppers. We’re okay. And if it was business Iain was worried about, he’d not be spending money like it grew on trees, would he? No. And is he? Yes.”
Keiko summed up, “So you know your husband’s anxious and you don’t know why.”
“That I do not,” Mrs. Ballantyne said. “I don’t even know where he is tonight. He went out with the dog, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him. Are you not a lover of spinach then?”
It took Keiko a moment to change gears, but she smiled quickly enough. “I like spinach very much,” she said. “It’s one of my favourite things.”
“Aye? No wonder you’re the wee scrap you are then,” said Mrs. Ballantyne. “I’m only asking since you’ve not touched it.” She nodded at the dish of vegetables, at the mound of pale, pale green glistening there.
“That’s spinach?” Keiko said.
“And a wee tate of cream just to help it on its way.”
Stressed to his oxters, up to high doh, and crabbit as a ferret, Keiko thought to herself later. Three out of four and one to go, but she was getting nowhere with the girls’ names.
Wednesday, 13 November
She excused herself from her weights session the next evening and went to the Bridge Hotel. She had eaten nothing all day except two rice crackers and a tangerine, in preparation.
“Hallo, hallo,” said Mr. Dessing as Keiko entered the bar. He was a large man, even to the eyes of someone who saw Malcolm Poole every day. An egg-shaped head with a fringe of hair around it like a ribbon. A spherical body, its equator marked by the meeting place of his shirt and trousers, which stayed up apparently by magic since they made no dent in his middle.
“I’ve come for a little bite to eat, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “I’m so busy now, I can hardly cook for myself at the end of the day.”
“If God had meant people to live off home-cooking…” said Mr. Dessing. “And you’re nice and early.” Indeed, the place was deserted except for a couple Keiko didn’t know sitting on the love seat under the window. “Once the rugby training finishes you’ll not be able to move in here. Or breathe. Aftershave, you know.”
“I went to the Covenanters’ last night,” said Keiko, hoping to get things moving.
“But you’ve seen the light!” said Mr. Dessing. “I don’t mean it, of course. Margaret Ballantyne should have been a farmer’s wife and not a publican’s, if you ask me, but they’re good people.”
“It’s lovely the way you all get along,” Keiko said, wondering if she could really pull off such a sickening act of innocence. She had hopped up onto a bar stool and clasped her hands together on the polished surface.
He grunted absentmindedly while he searched through a muddled drawer of handsets and phone chargers. “Tell that to Sandra,” he said when he had found what he was looking for. “And Iain.”
“Professional rivalry,” said Keiko, half to herself. Was that all it was?
“Aye, these things can turn nasty,” Mr. Dessing said. “I’ve seen it before and I’m seeing it again. And if you ask me-” He broke off and rubbed his hand over his mouth, scrubbing the words away. “But you’re not. Now what can I tempt you with?”
“Something very light,” said Keiko.
Mr. Dessing gave a huge gulp of laughter that shook the shirt fabric over his middle. “I’ll bet,” he said. “After your ‘good plate of hot dinner’ yesterday.” Keiko giggled. “See what I mean? A farmer’s wife! Now over here at the Bridge, we do things differently. Presentation is key.”
“I agree, Mr. Dessing,” said Keiko. “We think so in Japan. Eat with the eye then with the lips.”
“Pree-cisely. I’ll bet you had a round plate over by.” Keiko nodded and Mr. Dessing shook his head. “Round plates! Everything jammed on and spilling over. I don’t know.”
And when her supper came, the plate was no shape Keiko knew a name for: a kind of bulbous S or melted rectangle. She gazed at it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dessing,” she said, her voice rising in a question. “But I ordered tapas? From the light bite selection?”