Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Yes,’ he said. Unsure of whether he did.

‘It was wretchedly old-fashioned, anyway. The Malawians were probably appalled when it arrived. I imagine they’re hooked up to solar-powered broadband by now, surfing porn like the rest of the world.’ She pulled at the hem of her top, straightening creases that bounced back into place. ‘Did that sound racist? It wasn’t meant to.’

‘No, of course not, you just meant we shouldn’t lumber charities with our junk.’ He realised what he’d said and coloured. ‘I didn’t mean. .’

But Audrey laughed and some of the tension lifted.

‘No, I know you didn’t.’ She was still smiling. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got plenty to occupy me. Shout when you’re finished.’

* * *

There were half a dozen cartons; less than he’d expected. There was always less than he expected, but when Murray started to work through their contents he realised they contained no teaching notes or delayed fragments of admin, no abandoned research proposals or half-written lectures. Everything related to the doctor’s suicide studies. The idea that Audrey Garrett had taken time to isolate the right boxes when she had a child, a job and a house full of unpacking touched him. But perhaps it was simply a way of speeding his departure.

She had left the door to the living room ajar and Murray could hear the sound of a shower starting up somewhere beyond the hall. He got up and closed the door, pushing away an uninvited image of bathroom mirrors steaming with condensation and Audrey stepping naked beneath the spray.

He took off his jacket, laid it on the couch, then crouched on the bare floorboards and opened the first box. The topmost folders held tables of statistical analysis that made no sense to him. He set them to one side, pulled out bundles of the Bulletin of Suicidology and flicked through a couple of issues. It was like every professional journal or hobbyist magazine he had ever come across: of no interest to anyone outside the group, but manna to the initiated. The abundance of adverts for books, courses and conferences suggested suicide was a booming industry. What would suicidology conferences be like? Rambunctious affairs where the bars roared with laughter, with Russian roulette in the halls and one less for breakfast every morning?

He could understand Audrey’s squeamishness. But if Archie had topped himself it might make sense for Murray to read up on theories surrounding suicide. Topped himself . It was too flippant. He couldn’t remember using the phrase before. Maybe he was reacting to the soberness of the pages in front of him, like a mourner at a funeral suddenly felled by giggles.

Murray extracted a bundle of loose papers and began sorting through them, careful to maintain the order they’d been packed in. A printed list from some website snagged his attention.

Put on his best suit and shot himself.

Gassed herself after bad reviews of her recent exhibition.

Overdosed on sleeping pills in Baghdad.

Threw himself on a ceremonial sword, then lingered for another 24 hours.

Committed suicide in a psychotic fit, but not before killing his family.

Jumped out of a window in Rome.

Overdosed on barbiturates, and left notes about how it felt for as long as she could. Shot himself, then cut his throat.

Hanged himself in the doorway of his father’s bedroom.

The scant details seemed arbitrary; a method, a location, a reason. Could there ever be a good reason? He imagined how Archie’s entry would read.

A poor sailor, he sailed out into the eye of a storm in an ill-equipped boat.

Extreme pain would be a reasonable motive. But then he supposed it would be euthanasia, not suicide. There was a difference. The thought made him stop and stare into nothingness for a moment. Pain that you knew would only get worse. It was just cause.

The room was growing darker; outside the sky was streaked with pink. It had been raining on and off all day, but it was a lovely evening, the turn into night, peace after the storm. Murray got up and clicked on the light switch, but the room stayed in shadows. The light-fitting was empty, the room bereft of lamps.

‘Fuck.’

He dragged the box over to the window and continued sorting through it by the urinous glow of the streetlamp.

Alan Garrett had been a biographer of death, every step of the lives he researched travelling towards their final moments, the cocked gun, the knotted rope, the ready pills and waiting cliff. But that was what biography was, a paper facsimile of life hurtling towards death. Murray’s book could only end in the freezing waters around Lismore with Archie sucked breathless beneath the waves.

Had it occurred to him that Archie’s death might have been deliberate? Garrett’s hypothesis wasn’t a surprise. But he hadn’t considered it so boldly before. It might be good for the book if it were, he supposed. Misery and suicide were more dramatic than self-indulgence and stupidity. Perhaps Murray’s could be one of the few academic works that slipped into the mainstream. He caught a quick vision of himself explaining his methodology on Newsnight Review , looking like an arse, tongue-tied and over-impressed, trying to avert his gaze from Kirsty Wark’s buttoned-down cleavage.

Could Archie have been certain the boat would sink? However great the odds, the fierceness of the storm multiplied by his poor sea legs and simple craft, there was surely a chance that he might escape and sail beyond the squall into clear waters. Was it suicide to consign yourself to the fates? Murray wasn’t sure. But there must be a wonderful freedom in not caring.

Murray looked down into the street below and wondered who would miss him if he were to smash his well-educated brains against the pavement. The news would probably work as an aphrodisiac on Rachel. Rab Purvis would organise a piss-up and Jack’s grief would no doubt be tempered by the prospect of whole new exhibition: My Only Brother’s Suicide — film, photographs and mixed media.

He was getting maudlin. Maybe it was the relentless parade of young suicides or perhaps it was that he was on box three and had still found no mention of Archie. He supposed it was possible that all of Garrett’s notes on the poet had perished with him.

Archie might be evasive, but he was getting a feel for Garrett. He’d been an organised scholar, thorough and not afraid of the legwork involved in primary research. Murray backed up his own research on a memory stick he guarded as carefully as his wallet. He wondered if he should ask Audrey if she had found anything similar in her husband’s effects. Perhaps he could work the conversation round to it by mentioning his own experience of sorting through the detritus the dead left behind.

No, that would be crass and insensitive. He rejected the thought just as there was a knock on the sitting room door and Audrey stuck her head into the room. Her hair was damp and she smelt of something zesty. She’d changed into a scruffy V-neck and a pair of loose cotton trousers. He couldn’t imagine Rachel ever dressing like that, but perhaps she sometimes did in the privacy of her home; she and Fergus sharing a bottle of wine and watching a DVD, their bare feet occasionally touching, eyes shining with the prospect of bed.

Audrey smiled.

‘I promised you a cup of tea.’

‘No, thanks, you’re fine.’

‘A glass of wine?’

He didn’t want it, but smiled and said yes, so she wouldn’t have to feel she was drinking alone. Audrey slipped into the darkness of the flat beyond and returned with a large glass of red.

‘Can you see okay over there?’

‘Aye,’ he lied. ‘It’s fine.’

‘The people who sold us the apartment took all the light bulbs with them. They must be rolling in it, the amount I paid. How could they be bothered to be so mean?’