“No,” said Malcolm again. “I said meat. It can be beef.”
“What-what is that?” The cold was rising farther through her body, washing the thought towards her head.
He struck one of the pot edges with a dull clank, the sound driving out more of Keiko’s fading steamy stupor, forcing the knowledge up as far as her throat. “That’s beef in there right enough. But this one is a speciality of mine.” He plunged the ladle deep down into the other pot, dug it in under something, and started to lift it with both hands.
Keiko was at the end of the yard before she heard the splash of it dropping back into the pan. She tried the gate to the yard next door and was into the back of Mrs. Watson’s shop, out through the front, up her own stairs, and crouched at the kitchen windowsill just in time to see Malcolm plod into the back lane. He stood for a minute or two with his hands on his thighs craning one way and then the other, wheezing, before he turned around and ambled back through the slaughterhouse door again.
thirty-one
Keiko rubbed at her eyes with bunched fists like a baby, trying to scrub out that picture of Malcolm heaving the weight up from the pot with both hands, barely aware through her sobs of a rhythmic cellophane crackle as she moved and a soft bumping against her chest from outside as well as in. Slowly though, as the stink and steam fell away and she came back to the cool kitchen floor and the quiet sweet air, it dawned on her that she still had the bag of meat she’d bought from Mrs. Poole clutched in her hand. She threw it away with a shriek and it skittered across the floor until it hit a table leg where it rested, letting out quiet rustles as the wet weight inside settled onto the lino with a serious of tiny relaxing shifts.
A curious thing was happening inside her. While her body sank unstoppably down towards that sickness that had been waiting for her just below the surface all this time, her mind rose up out of itself and began calmly to sort through the jumble. It made her dizzy, this pulling apart of body and mind, but it was refreshing too, like looking up from small print to glance out of a window at a distant view.
Malcolm had said it didn’t matter what you made it with as long as you took the time to skim off the scum. People here didn’t worry about horsemeat scandals, but they were losing the old ways. People like Pamela Shand were moving in, and Murray, who should have been one of their own, couldn’t be trusted, had to be kept at home and in the shop where his mother could watch him. And he wouldn’t tell Keiko what was wrong because she would never believe him.
She stood up on shuddering legs and stumbled to the front door to double lock it. Murray was trying to get to the bottom of things, solve the puzzle, and meantime he worked hard every day-and made her work hard too-to stay skinny and safe, while Malcolm fed her suet and Mrs. Ballantyne fed her sausage and it didn’t matter what kind; it was the good big portions that mattered. And Mr. Dessing fed her haggis balls and puff pastry and it didn’t matter what was under the pastry, it was the presentation that mattered. And it made no difference what was in Mr. McLuskie’s bridies as well, since the pepper masked the taste of it. And Rosa Imperiolo knew that it was the batter that counted, no matter what you dipped in it to fry. And all of their wives and husbands on the committee, making the plans, were twisted up in knots with the knowing and waiting and couldn’t hide it. Couldn’t pretend they had no secrets eating away like rot inside them as she sat at their tables and they stuffed her, endlessly stuffed her, tamping the food into her gullet like grain into a goose for foie gras.
And Mr. Poole knew. And what he knew had killed him. And his body wasn’t up there in the cemetery, in its grave, waiting for visitors. Because-oh God-bodies, once they were taken apart, were just bones and meat.
And this flat, this flat that no one wanted her to ask about, this flat had never been empty, never been used just for meetings. Who could say how many people had lived here, hardly believing their luck-all the gifts, the friendly faces, the feasting? And now they had an ambitious international project. Something more exotic than Tash for them all.
Tash. Murray kept her safe, but she left him and then she got fat and vanished. But Dina hung around him and got skinny and got away. And Nicole got away too, from the creep across the road. But Tash Turnbull got fat and was gone now, a foster child whom no one would search for.
How many children had Mrs. McMaster fostered until they were big boys and girls of sixteen? How many of them had disappeared? Was Fancy the only one who had really run away? And why did she come back? How could she bring her baby back, if she kn-
Keiko stopped pacing so abruptly that she swayed and had to take a steadying step. She was in the living room facing the fireplace, and she smiled at her grey face in the mirror. No. Fancy could not stand the thought that there was anything beneath her own skin, could not bear talk of a pierced navel, could not sit through an anatomy lecture even with her eyes shut. Fancy was no part of this.
She took the sharpest knife from the rack in the kitchen and put it up her coat sleeve, holding it in place with the tips of two fingers, then she crept downstairs, leaving the door to her flat ajar in case they heard it shutting, steeled herself to get out of the street door and away. Away, away, away. She was passing on the far side of the Green before she let out her breath.
Fancy’s front shop was empty, but the door to the back was open and she sang out as Keiko approached the counter, “Come through!”
“It’s only me,” said Keiko.
Fancy was kneeling at the foot of a tailor’s dummy pinning the hem of a red cloak. “Hiya,” she said, sitting back on her heels and smiling. “What do you think of this? Toxic, eh? It’s for Etta McLuskie to wear to help hand out presents at Christmas. I don’t know who she’s meant to be. Santa’s sister? Santa’s granny? Lady Provost of Lapland? There’s about a million elf costumes but oh no-What’s up?” she said suddenly. “What have I done now?”
Keiko talked for half an hour to get everything out, her eyes wide and fixed on the floor. Then she raised her gaze to Fancy’s face, which was wooden and unreadable.
“Do you feel sick?” Keiko asked.
“Just a bit, yes,” Fancy said, through clenched teeth. “Can’t think why. Keiko, do you think I would have brought Viola back here if this wasn’t a good place?”
Keiko knew her words were going to hurt, so she said them very quietly. “I see how much you need to think that, and I’m sorry to take it away from you, but you’re not-after everything you’ve been through, you can’t be-a good judge of this place, these people.”
Fancy’s jaw firmed again as she clenched her teeth back together. “Okay, I can’t deny that. I’m just a dumb bint that don’t know nothin’. I wondered when you’d realise you were too good for m-”
But Keiko sprang out of her chair and took hold of Fancy by the elbows, the knife clattering out of her sleeve and falling to the floor, making her jump. “No!” she said. “You are the best, kindest… and the best mother and the best friend…” Both of them were fighting tears, their noses turning red.
Fancy pushed Keiko back and addressed her again. “Listen to me,” she said. “It’s just not possible, Keeks. It couldn’t happen that so many people could all be bad all at once. Even if it started from one person, like from Malcolm, how could he persuade all those people to do something so disgusting and crazy?”
“Little by little,” said Keiko. “Like he did with me. He’s easy to talk to and easy to listen to. It is as though he puts a spell on you until you find there’s no disgust and it doesn’t seem crazy anymore. It’s easy and comfortable, and that’s why he’s so dangerous.”