Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

The professor laughed and a taint of decay scented the dead air of the darkened room. Murray cleared his throat then asked, ‘So how did he take his expulsion?’

‘I told you: stoically.’ The old man shook his head. ‘No, not stoically, casually. Shook my hand and wished me well. I was keen for Lunan to repeat the year, and he said he’d think about it. But I got the impression he was humouring me. It was infuriating. I remember I smelt beer on his breath and thought that if I were his father I’d knock some sense into him.’ James gave a second chuckle, though this time it sounded hollow. ‘That was the way we thought in those days. But we’d been brought up by men who’d gone to war, and gone to war ourselves.’ James sighed. ‘Lunan was like a man squandering an inheritance. He had the brains to do well, but he wasted them, the same way he wasted his talent and ultimately his life. He let that slip from him as casually as he idled away his university career.’ Professor James looked up at Murray; his too-big head grinning like a Halloween mask. ‘I’m glad you’re doing this book. Those of us who were left behind could have served his work better. Debts owed to the dead seem to grow heavier with time.’

Murray nodded, though he could think of no debt the old man might owe the dead poet.

The professor’s voice took on a lilting cadence and he recited,

‘My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –

It gives a lovely light!’

‘Archie despised poems that rhymed, but that describes him perfectly: a fragile light that burned brightly, but all too briefly.’

‘So you weren’t surprised to hear of his death?’

‘Surprised?’ James’s voice dropped an octave as if some of the shock still lingered on in his memory. ‘Of course I was surprised. I still remember discovering that he’d drowned.’

The old man’s head hung forward his mouth slightly open, a gleam of saliva wet behind the oxblood lips. The room sank into a long silence. Murray found himself watching the professor’s chest. It rested thin and unmoving behind the stains on his woollen pullover. When James eventually spoke his words were slow and measured, as if the old man had conjured up the past and was relaying events as they unfolded before him.

‘Valerie and I were going to watch our son Alexander play rugby. It must have been before he got his driving licence, because we were giving him a lift to the grounds. My daughter Helen was heading out on a date and Valerie was determined not to leave before her beau picked her up. She didn’t want them left in the house on their own, you see, worried about impropriety.’ James paused. Murray got the impression he was hesitating over a revelation, but then the professor continued. ‘The young man in question phoned to say he’d be delayed. So we were not a happy home that Sunday morning. There was Helen stewing because her mother didn’t trust her, Sandy desperate to get to the game, and Val finding tasks to delay our departure. Are you married?’

The question was unexpected and Murray stuttered slightly.

‘No, not yet.’

‘I recommend it, if you’re lucky like I was and manage to find the right woman, but it’s not all sunshine and roses. After a while you get an instinct for when to disappear and that morning was one of them. I made myself a coffee, lifted the Sunday Times from the kitchen table and sat in the car where I could read it in peace.’ There was a pause as James cleared his throat. ‘It was a tiny notice, just a few lines: “Man missing, believed drowned.” I’m not sure why it caught my eye. I’ve never been sailing unless you count rowing Val round Dunsappie Loch when we were courting, and I’m not particularly familiar with the part of the world where Lunan ended up, but for some reason I read it. I saw his name — “Archie Lunan, aged 25” — and knew then and there that he was dead.’

‘What made you so sure?’

Professor James hesitated.

‘I don’t know. I never considered Archie suicidal. Quite the opposite. I still think of him as someone with a keen appreciation of life. His nature poems are full of wonder at the world. Maybe it was just that he wasn’t the type for heroics. And the last time I’d seen him he’d been. .’ James paused again, as if searching for a word that would convey Archie’s state of being without slandering him. ‘He’d been over-elated.’

‘Under the influence of drugs?’

‘I’m not sure I would have been able to tell back then. But I don’t think so. It was more like the kind of rapture you see on the faces of the recently converted. Do you remember the Hare Krishna?’

‘Hare, hare, rama, rama?’

‘They were all over Edinburgh in those days. Helen was frightened of them when she was little. Too noisy, I suppose, with all their chanting and bells, but I liked them. They added a bit of colour to what was still a drab city. That’s what Archie reminded me of the last time I saw him, a freshly recruited Hare Krishna. One that hadn’t yet experienced living through a Scottish winter with a shaved head, wearing not much more than an orange bed sheet. Convention demanded I delivered my speech while Archie hung his head, but it was as if he couldn’t sit still. I remember he picked up a photograph of Helen and Sandy when they were toddlers and asked what they were called. I was so surprised, I told him. He nodded his head, as if to say “not too bad”, and then enquired how we’d managed to choose these particular names out of all the ones available in the world.’

‘Did you tell him to mind his own business?’

‘No, it was a poet’s question. Suddenly we weren’t tutor and student, but two wordsmiths. Maybe I already realised he was master over me in that realm. I told him they were family names. Archie laughed and said that would never be an option for him, but he didn’t sound bitter, just happy, as if he was anticipating a future in which he might father children and give them names that would help shape their future in turn.’ James’s voice faltered and he asked, ‘Do you mind if we take a break?’

He wanted to coax the old man on, but Murray closed his notebook.

‘Of course. Would you like me to come back some other time?’

‘Hadn’t you better get it all down before I pop off?’

He looked into the rheumy eyes and lied.

‘I’m sure you’ll be here for a while yet.’

James snorted.

‘I’m eighty-seven. My father died at eighty-six and my grandfather at eighty-two. I switch on the light in the front room at seven-thirty every morning and evening, it’s gloomy enough for it to show even in the so-called summer. If my opposite neighbour looks out and all’s in darkness, she has instructions to approach with caution.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s have a coffee. My taste buds are shot so, please, make it strong.’

Murray filled the kettle in a kitchen piled with dirty crockery. He noted the microwave, the discarded cardboard sleeves from consumed ready meals and recognised a scene from his own life.

James shouted from the other room, ‘Ignore that mess. Irene will be in tomorrow with her mop and brushes to put everything to rights.’

Murray brought the kettle back into the lounge, set it on the dining table and plugged it in, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring along a packet of biscuits.

‘Maybe I should get Irene’s number.’

‘It’s a closely guarded secret. It’d be less trouble for you to get married. Not that that would necessarily solve your domestic problems these days, from what I’ve seen.’

The kettle reached its peak. Murray poured hot water over the instant brown stuff he’d already spooned into their mugs.