Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Sadly not.’

‘Don’t try and ingratiate yourself with misogyny. Times have moved on, and for the better too. Look at your head of department and his wife, top-class academics the pair of them, though Rachel is the better scholar, of course.’ The old man looked at him slyly. ‘How do you find Fergus Baine as head of department?’

Murray wondered if news of his affair with Rachel had spread as far as here, the self-contained bed-sit in the heart of what used to be a family home. He took a sip of coffee. He’d put in too much of the instant powder and it tasted bitter on his tongue.

‘Very efficient.’

‘Yes, efficiency has a habit of propelling men to the top.’

Tiredness was slackening the professor’s face. If Lunan had been a bright, short-lived flame, James was wax, his features melting with time. Murray turned the tape recorder back on.

‘Tell me about Christie Graves. Did you see much of her?’

James sighed, as if disappointed to be abandoning the subject of Murray’s head of department.

‘Not at first, but pretty soon Christie became part of the package. She was Archie’s shadow, or maybe he was hers, who knows? She was very beautiful in a way that was fashionable back then: big eyes, pale skin and that red hair, very pre-Raphaelite. She’s always credited as being part of the group and, in a way, I suppose she was. She was certainly there a lot that year, but she never contributed anything, just sat there quietly with a Giaconda-like smile on her face. It irritated the hell out of me.’

‘She must have surprised you later.’

‘Oh, yes, Christie was a big surprise. Of course, in a way, Lunan’s death was the making of her. Maybe that’s a resurrection of sorts, though it didn’t seem so at the time.’ James took a sip of his coffee. The ancient goblin features drooped with the weight of memories. ‘There was no funeral. Lunan’s body was lost but somebody organised a wake in Mather’s, and someone else was mawkish enough to give a reading of “Preparation for a Wake”. Needless to say, Archie didn’t rise up like some thirsty messiah, ready to join in the drinking. Those that did attend got horribly drunk, myself included. Christie stayed away. I can’t say I blamed her. I only saw her once after Lunan drowned, quite soon afterwards in fact, walking down the Bridges. She’d cut her hair. I remember being terribly touched by that. She’d had such beautiful hair, been quite aware of it too. But it was gone, hacked off. I crossed the street to offer my condolences. She saw me, met my eyes and nodded, but she didn’t stop. I didn’t hear anything of her until a few years later when her book came out.’

‘What did you make of it?’

‘What could you make of it? It was good. A funny word to apply to a book like that, but it was. Terrible and good.’

‘Did you think any of it was based on fact?’

‘What does it matter? Would it make it a better book?’

‘Not necessarily better, but it’s an interesting question, from my perspective.’

James leaned back in his chair and raised his wilting features to the ceiling, showing the full stretch of his tortoise neck.

‘Authenticity. . was it authentic? It existed, I held it in my hands and it impressed me. I think it had something better than authenticity. It had integrity, and that’s all the truth that we can ever hope for.’

James accompanied Murray to the front door despite his protestations that he could find the way himself. They shook hands on the doorstep and James asked, ‘Are you going to interview her? Christie?’

‘Apparently not. My requests have been turned down.’

‘A pity. Now that would have been a coup.’

He was halfway down the path when James called him back.

‘It’s up to you what kind of book you want this to be, but I think you have to find a way of seeing her.’

The older man was a head shorter. Murray looked down into eyes sparked with youth. He remembered James’s description of Lunan as an over-elated religious convert and thought it could also be applied to this elderly face brimming with conviction.

‘Easier said than done. She’s threatened to prosecute me if I try.’

Professor James snorted.

‘And you’re going to let that stop you?’

He shrugged and the professor shook his head in mock despair.

‘Let me tell you something. My father was an engineer at Barr & Strouds, a stalwart of the union, free with his opinions on everything bar sex. He only gave me one piece of advice in that area. A woman you don’t have to chase is a woman not worth having.’

Murray softened his voice with the respect due to dead fathers.

‘I’m sure he was a clever man, but that particular counsel is as out of date as mass industrialisation. Anyway, I want to interview her about a troubled episode in her past, not marry her.’

‘What if she’s simply playing hard to get?’

‘Why should she?’

‘I don’t know. Habit? She set herself against talk of Archie for sound reasons, but time has passed and times have changed. Maybe she needs to be reminded of that.’ James put his hand on Murray’s arm. ‘You’re a bright lad. I’m sure you’ll manage if you set your mind to it.’

MURRAY SHOVED THE carrier bag of books into his rucksack, hefted it onto his shoulder and stepped out of the second-hand bookshop into Edinburgh’s West Port. He hadn’t found any reference to Lunan in the poetry journals the book dealer had phoned him about, but the bubbled capitals and monochrome type of the adverts for now defunct magazines and readings long past had provided a quick spark of connectivity to the poet’s era. Time travel through typeface. The thought made him smile.

He waited at the traffic lights then crossed the road, his mind turning towards lunch; maybe a bowl of soup somewhere in the Grassmarket where he could jot down a couple of points that had occurred to him while browsing the bookshelves. He remembered a quiet café where the service was slow and customers could linger. Perhaps he’d allow himself to continue perusing the journals he’d bought, before returning to the library. He might yet justify the leaden purchase by finding some passing reference to Lunan or his associates. The day was taking shape.

He was trying to remember where the nearest ATM was when he saw his brother’s girlfriend turning the corner. Lyn was wearing her work clothes: flat shoes, loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt topped by a long-sleeved blouse. Murray recalled her joking that she would wear a burka to work if she could get away with it.

‘Except the filthy buggers would imagine I was wearing head-to-toe Ann Summers underneath.’

Jack had asked if Ann Summers stocked head-to-toe outfits and she’d given him a wink.

‘You’d be amazed.’

Lyn was too intent on talking to the scruffy man in an electric wheelchair who was rolling along beside her to have seen Murray yet. The bookshop was three streets since, the nearest turning a block ahead, but he was almost level with a pub. Murray stepped up his pace and slipped smartly through its door.

His first impression was of darkness and music cut through with the scent of stale beer and something else, a sharp tang that was close to sweat. The couches that lined the room were empty and only a couple of the bar stools were taken. But either the pub’s clientele favoured late lunches, or the management were simply optimistic business would pick up, because they had laid on entertainment.

On a stage in the far corner a tall woman in a G-string lazily circled a silver pole. The dancer’s face remained blank, but Murray’s entrance seemed to be the cue for her to up-tempo. She gripped the pole with both hands and launched herself into a spin that lifted both feet from the air and twirled her into a kaleidoscope of