Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

The red car pulled out.

Murray gripped the wheel tight, trying to banish the trembling that threatened to overtake him and followed on, concentrating on keeping a decent distance from the vehicle in front.

He remembered the sullen ferryman’s stare, and Mrs Dunn’s joke that he would imprison Murray if he neglected to pay for his board. An island could easily become a jail. He had no doubt that the islanders already knew of his presence and would hear of his foolish near-crash. He wondered if Archie had ever felt claustrophobic, bounded by the sea and the stares of the locals. Perhaps that was why he had taken to sailing, mastering the ability to leave whenever he wished.

Christie’s car had disappeared in the twists and turns ahead. He pushed down on the accelerator, dropping gear on the curves, anxious about the unseen hazards that might lurk beyond each bend, sure he had lost her. The road straightened out and just at the last moment he caught a flash of red, dropped gear again, pressed the brake pedal gently, and saw Christie’s car turn off the tarmac road into a rough track.

Murray continued on along the main road, still thinking of Christie’s red car travelling the twists of the less-finished trail, like poison passing through a vein.

Murray knew that laptops could damage your fertility, but he balanced his on a pillow anyway and set it on his lap as he half-sat, half-lay on the satin counterpane. It was cold in the room. Murray considered stripping the spare bed of its blanket and draping it around himself, but couldn’t muster the energy.

He took out his mobile and summoned Rachel’s number. He imagined her in a hotel room somewhere in Italy with Fergus, then made himself stop. The whisky was in a carrier bag in the wardrobe. Murray retrieved it, searched the room for a glass and when he didn’t find one, took the briefest of nips straight from the bottle. His reflection mimicked his moves in the girlish dressing-table mirror. Murray hadn’t bothered to shave that morning and the combination of five o’clock shadow and spirits made him look like one of Lyn’s unfortunates.

‘Slainte Mhath.’

Murray raised the bottle to his reflection and touched it to his lips.

He felt like another, but stoppered the bottle and put it back in the wardrobe. He didn’t want to end up like Alan Garrett, his brains smeared against the windscreen of his car.

* * *

There was a phone box by the pier. Murray parked and stationed himself inside, noting the absence of piss and graffiti. There was no phone book either, but he knew the number by heart.

Rab picked up straight away, his voice still the stern side of five p.m.

‘Purvis.’

Murray managed to inject some cheeky-chappie cheer into his words.

‘Shouldn’t that be pervert?’

‘Murray?’

Rab sounded relieved and Murray regretted hating him. He forced himself to smile, hoping to tinge his words with a brightness he didn’t feel.

‘The very same.’

‘I heard you’d gone north.’

Murray wondered who had told him.

‘You heard right.’

‘So what’s up? You missing home, or is there something I can do for you?’

Murray could picture his old friend sitting at the desk in his office, the unframed poster announcing a long-ago reading by Edwin Muir tacked to the wall behind him, the small carriage clock that had belonged to his mother marking time on the bookcase by his side. He heard the hurt sharpen Rab’s voice and softened his own tone in response.

‘Both. Listen, I’m sorry about the other night.’

Purvis’s lungs croaked across the land and water separating the two men.

‘I never thought I’d be falling out about a woman at my age.’ He sighed again. ‘Go on then, tell me what you want.’

‘How do you know I’m not just calling to say hello?’

‘Because you’re not.’

The truth of the statement hung in the silence between them, then Murray said, ‘You’ve been in the department a long time, Rab.’

‘I remember back to when the term postmodernism was a speck in the eye of the little yellow god and dinosaurs roamed the corridors.’

It was Murray’s cue to quip that they were still lumbering around English literature, but he ignored it.

‘Did you know Fergus in the old days, before he went to England?’

Rab’s voice hardened again.

‘Is this something to do with Rachel?’

‘No, with Archie. Apparently he and Fergus were friends.’

‘And Fergus never said?’

‘No mention, even when he was blocking my proposal.’

‘Maybe he didn’t consider it relevant.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Would you? Fergus isn’t usually shy about mentioning writers he’s associated with, especially if it makes him look like he’s got superior knowledge of someone else’s research. If anything, it might have strengthened his objections.’

‘I take your point, but so what?’

‘When I interviewed Professor James he intimated there may have been a reason other than his career that Fergus went to England.’ A warning flashed on the payphone’s display, letting him know his money was almost done. Murray fired more coins into the slot. ‘I think there’s something out of kilter. Fergus likes everyone to know how much he knows, but this time he was desperate to put me off the scent.’

Murray could hear a tapping on the other end of the line and pictured Rab’s free hand drumming against his desk for want of a cigarette.

‘Has it occurred to you that Fergus’s reasons for blocking your proposal might have been genuine?’

‘He didn’t have any reasons, not credible ones anyway.’

Rab coughed and Murray held the phone away from his head. He could see the sea through the thick glass of the telephone box. The waves foaming and peaking, crashing into the deep then resurfacing, shoals of white horses thundering on. He put the headpiece to his ear and Rab asked, ‘How far have you got with the book?’

‘Not very, but then I’ve barely started.’

‘That’s not true, Murray. You’ve been thinking about it for years. You know as well as I do that you need concrete facts to get anywhere. Without them, all you’re doing is speculating. Have you ever considered the possibility Archie Lunan simply wrote a few nice poems, and then slid into the water without much of a splash, never to surface? End of story.’

The payphone flashed its warning again and Murray pushed his last few coins into the slot.

‘I’m going to be cut off soon.’

‘You’d better get to the point then.’

‘James wouldn’t tell me why he and Fergus fell out, but whatever it was still rankled. He intimated that he told Fergus to get out of town or he’d blow the lid on some scandal.’

‘You make him sound like Dangerous Dan McGrew, pistols at dawn.’

‘He was serious, Rab.’

‘Listen, Murray, James is an old man. He might have good reasons for wanting to keep what’s past in the past.’

‘No, he wanted me to find out. He just didn’t want to be the one to tell me.’ Murray slowed his words. ‘If you could ask around, speak to some people you knew in the old days, something might come up.’

‘James always was a contrary sod.’ The tapping ceased. ‘It’s a big ask, Murray. I’m already on Fergus’s shit list.’

‘Who isn’t?’

‘True enough, but I’m more expendable than most. Only a few years till I hit a decent pension. It’d save the department a lot of money to ditch me now.’

‘Did you know Fergus back then, Rab?’

‘You’re not going to let this drop, are you?’

He could see the ferry in the distance. The waves had grown rougher, but the boat looked solid, pressing on against the onslaught.