Keiko scrutinised the machine; it was certainly beautiful, with its red painted parts gleaming like pools of silk, but it was just another motorbike to her and, glad as she was that it had got her inside and got Murray talking today, she was even gladder she wouldn’t have to try to remember the names and quirks of any more.
“So,” he said, looking up at her from where he was crouched. “I’ll see you tonight then.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry I interrupted your…” She looked around to see what it was she might have interrupted. “But now that I’m here, can I say something to you?”
“Okay.”
“About what’s wrong?”
He was silent, waiting.
“You said one time-more than once, actually-that you couldn’t tell me anything because I wouldn’t understand and maybe I wouldn’t even believe you.”
He nodded.
“But you also said you thought I could help. Well, I want you to know that I’m working on it. And I’m getting somewhere-maybe not to the bottom of it-but somewhere.”
“How?” said Murray, staring up at her.
“The way I do,” Keiko said. “By looking at the wiring, remember?”
His eyes shone as he nodded.
“Also, there’s something I need to ask and you’re the only one I can trust,” she said.
“You trust me?” he said. “You’ve no idea how much it means to hear you say that.”
“It’s about Dina and Nicole and Tash,” she said.
Murray blinked twice. “Who?”
“Mrs. Watson’s niece and Craig’s cousin and Mrs. McMaster’s foster child.”
“Who?” said Murray again.
“Do you know their full names? I want to speak to them but unless I can find out their names, I have no hope of tracking them down. Is Dina a Watson? Is Nicole a McKendrick? And what about Tash?”
He was shaking his head very slowly now and his eyes were wide and strained. “Don’t,” he said. “They got away safe and sound, Keiko. Don’t do anything that would drag them back here. They got away.”
Now it was her turn to stare at him. “Are you serious?” she said.
“Always,” he replied.
“But… if the danger was real-is real-shouldn’t we try to speak to them? Double-check they’re okay?”
He thought about it for a while and then shook his head. “No can do,” he said. “I don’t know their second names. You know how it is; everyone’s so friendly here-first names all the way.”
“Who would know?” said Keiko.
“It’s not a good idea to ask too many questions,” said Murray. “Trust me.”
She heard Murray lock the door behind her after she left and stood staring at it-was he really that scared?-until something moving caught the corner of her eye. Mr. Byers was standing on the forecourt, smiling broadly around his chewing gum.
“Better than the telly any day,” he said and sauntered back through his open workshop door and into the shadows. Keiko watched him go and kept watching the spot where he had disappeared, straining her eyes to see if he had turned to face her.
“Mr. Byers,” she called. She followed him into the darkness. “Mr. Byers? I just realised I haven’t managed to rope you in to my questionnaire yet and you’d be a very interesting addition because you haven’t been here that long. Mr. Byers?” Right at the back a light was on and she thought she could hear the sound of a tap running. “Mr. Byers?” She pushed the half-open door and saw him standing with his back to her, urinating into a filthy toilet.
“What do you want now?” he said over one shoulder, but Keiko was gone, racing back through the workshop towards the street, with the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears and a negative print of his straddled figure in the block of light etched on her eyes.
Monday, 18 November
“Okay then,” said Fancy, looking straight up at Keiko’s living room ceiling and breathing hard. “I worked all bleedin’ weekend and finally got two scenarios each for conformity, conscientiousness, compliance, optimism, orthodoxy-but I still think that’s a kind of toothpaste-lawfulness, discretion, compartmentalisation, and suggestibility. And I made sure and got theft, murder, rape, blackmail, incest, domestic violence, fraud, corruption-what’s the difference?-and ehh… bigamy, yeah. And you haven’t even added red meat to your shitty spinach, you lazy article.” She sighed heavily. “I thought this would be a laugh when you asked me, you know.”
“It does do your head in, doesn’t it?” said Keiko. “You are an angel. Flop your arms over one way and your legs the other.”
“Yeah, I’m the guardian angel of your English,” Fancy said. “You can’t say it does your head in.” She moved her arms and legs to opposite sides. “Man, this feels good. Those are killer crunches.”
“I know. And I only made you do ten and now we’re having this lovely rest. Murray says fifty.”
“Well, just say no. What would he do?”
“He said he would put me over his knee and spank me.”
“Way-hey! Just say no, then!” said Fancy.
Keiko jabbed her bottom with a toe, making her wobble. Then she put her feet flat on the floor and laced her hands behind her head. “Scissors,” she said.
“No,” groaned Fancy, “not scissors. I’ll never get up again if we do bloody scissors. I’ll take my questions back and then you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m going to show the questionnaire to Dr. Bryant tomorrow,” said Keiko, and something inside her fluttered at the thought of it; the questions about murder, rape, and incest-everything she could think of that the problem in Painchton could possibly be-seemed to pulse on the page as though they’d been printed out in some special fluorescent ink. More than half of her expected Bryant to throw the paper down, call the servitor, and have her removed from the building, removed to the airport, stripped of her funding, stripped of her first degree, her high school diploma…
“And if Biscuit-man says okay, you should get cracking,” Fancy was telling her. “The very next day. Everybody’s in a good mood on half-closing.” She rolled over onto all fours, stood awkwardly, and stepped up onto the coffee table to look at herself in the mirror. “Still fat. I told you it wouldn’t work.” She pulled down the waistband of her leggings and pinched a roll of skin between two fingers trying to make it waggle.
Keiko rose to her feet with a thrill at how fluid the movement was now after all those evenings with Murray. She stretched and walked over. “Fat!” she said. Fancy’s navel, currently at eye level, lay flat on the surface of her stomach, its neat banana-slice pattern not shaded by the slightest overhang of flesh. “There’s not even enough there to pierce,” she said, then immediately put up her arms to steady Fancy as she sank down and put her head between her knees. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.
Fancy lifted her head again and glared. “Body piercing! That’s my worst thing. It’s like the world’s gone totally mad.” Her face was patched with unnatural colours, her lips grey and the skin around her nose yellowish, but a blue flush still blooming high on her cheeks and round her eyes from being upside down.
Keiko clapped her hands. “No scissors,” she said. “To make up for me being so thoughtless.”
She started for the kitchen to begin cooking but Fancy, stopping in the bathroom doorway, beckoned her back. Perfumed steam was spilling out, casting Fancy into soft focus and beading her bright hair. Keiko put her head round the door and blinked through the vapour. Viola was lying almost completely submerged in a heavily scented, deep-tinted bath, just an island of face sticking up. Her eyes were shut and her hair, tame and lank under the water, was swished out in a waving fan behind her head, moving in the slight eddy made by her twirling hands. As they watched, one lock of hair slicked against her neck and she stopped the figure-of-eight dance of her hands, put her feet flat on the bottom of the bath so that her small knees rose steaming into the air, raised one hand to scoop the hair free again, then resumed her pose. She waited until the water had stilled and then began again to trace her hands through and back, through and back, just enough to make the surface plane of the water slide and keep her hair moving.