Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

He straightened his spine.

‘I walked through an abandoned village I don’t remember seeing on the map.’

‘It used to house the lime-workers.’

For a mad moment he thought of lime trees and imagined an orchard of them tended by cottagers who collected their fruit. Maybe his bewilderment showed because Christie continued, ‘You were by the limekilns when I saw you. They employed about fifty men at one time, back in the eighteenth century. It was the extraction of lime that caused the sinkholes. You have to watch out for them, they’re unpredictable and not all of them have been mapped.’

A stanza from The Ballad of Reading Gaol came into his head.

And all the while the burning lime

Eats flesh and bone away,

It eats the brittle bone by night,

And the soft flesh by day

He wiped a hand over his face, feeling the roughness of his bristles and said, ‘Lime’s what they used to use to dispose of dead bodies, wasn’t it?’

Her laugh was like a sudden bark.

‘You’ve a morbid turn of mind. It was an essential element in building-mortar. A lot of those fine townhouses and tenements in Edinburgh and Glasgow wouldn’t be standing if it weren’t for lime made on this little island. What are you doing here?’

The question was abrupt and commanding.

Murray looked at her.

‘I came to see you.’

Christie Graves smiled, and for the first time he caught a glimpse of the beauty she’d been.

‘You sent me a letter, didn’t you?’

He nodded. None of it mattered any more, but he asked, ‘How did you know it was me?’

‘It didn’t really take a master detective. I looked you up when you first sent your request — your photograph’s on the university website. I thought you were familiar when I saw you in the shop yesterday, but I couldn’t place you. The beard makes quite a difference. But in any case, I would have realised when you said that you’d come here to see me. I’m not exactly inundated with visitors.’

She stopped the car and kept the engine running. Murray started to undo his seatbelt, but she said, ‘We’re not there yet, I just wanted to show you where I live.’

The heart of Christie’s house was a two-roomed cottage of the style Murray now knew was typical of the old island, but it had been extended to form a long bungalow with a picture window at its western end, where it would be pleasant to sit with a drink in your hand, on clear evenings, and watch the sun set. The road away from the cottage was still composed of rough stone, but it was wider and more even than the track they had just travelled, and the sleek black Saab parked outside Christie’s fenced garden would have had little trouble driving down it.

‘Very nice.’

‘Are you afraid of the dark?’

It was sudden and unexpected, like all of Christie’s questions so far, and it set off a strange remembrance in Murray. He used to have a recurring dream, of waking to see his mother standing at the door to his and Jack’s bedroom, her silhouette shadowy and indistinct, but recognisably her. It was always marvellous at first, this vision of her and the waves of love that wrapped him warm beneath the blankets, but then gradually he would begin to feel her steady jealousy, because he and Jack were alive and cosy in their beds while she lay cold and dead in her grave. The conviction that she had come to take them with her would sweep over him. Sometimes when he woke the bed was wet. For years he had slept with the bedside light on. Jack hadn’t seemed to mind. Perhaps he had his own nightmares.

‘No, I don’t mind the dark.’

‘I’ll be home tonight. Why don’t you walk over after dinner and you can tell me what it’s all about?’

Murray felt like the marrow had been sucked from his bones.

‘It was about Archie Lunan.’

‘I know.’

It was what he had come for, but too late.

‘I’ve reassessed my project. It’ll focus on Archie’s work rather than his life.’

They had reached the crossroads now. Christie stopped the car and pulled the handbrake on, but kept the engine running. The wipers continued to sweep the rain from the windscreen. She turned awkwardly towards Murray. Now he could see that some of the lines on her face were from pain, and the tiredness it had brought, but her voice belied any suffering. It was mild and unsurprised, the kind of tone he used when trying to guide a slow student into realising an obvious point.

‘Why do you men always give in so easily?’ Christie switched off the engine. The wipers stalled mid-swipe and the rain began to melt into sheets, warping the view of grey sky and green scrub. ‘You went to the trouble of contacting me and then came over here to hunt me down, even though I said I wouldn’t speak to you. Now that I’m willing, you’ve changed your mind. What happened?’

Murray shrugged.

‘I decided it was pointless.’

Christie snorted.

‘Everything is, but we have to find some way of passing the time.’ She sighed. ‘How much do you know about MS?’

He had been ready to open the door and leave. But now that Christie had mentioned her illness, he couldn’t muster the strength to be callous.

‘It’s a slow wasting disease that works on the nerves.’

‘That’s pretty much it. Except that it works on the sheaths that protect the nerves, and it’s not always so slow. If you’re lucky, you can get away with years of remission where nothing much happens. If you’re not, you can find yourself deteriorating rapidly to the point where you need a wheelchair. Or worse.’

Murray didn’t want to know what worse consisted of. He gripped the door handle and said, ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. I hope yours stays in remission.’

‘It isn’t in remission.’ Murray looked at Christie and she gave a small nod. ‘So if you decide you don’t want to talk to me, make sure you’re certain. I don’t have time to grant second chances.’

He opened the car door and got out.

‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘I’ll leave a light on. Tonight or not at all.’

Murray shut the door. He pulled his hood up and began the walk down towards the bothy. Halfway along the road he looked back, making sure Christie had managed to turn the car without getting bogged down in the mud again. She was gone. All that remained was the rain, beating down on the crossroads.

MURRAY PUSHED OPEN the door to the bothy. The last leg of his journey had worn him out, and his teeth had begun to chatter in a way he’d thought only happened in cartoons. He peeled his jacket from him, registering that something was wrong.

The Calor gas heater glowed warmly from the centre of the room, though he had been careful to turn it off before he left. Murray picked up the heavy torch Pete had gifted him and tiptoed towards the cottage’s second room just as the door started to creak open.

The intruder took a quick step backwards into the shadows. He raised his left hand to protect his face and his right came forward, knocking the torch away. It tumbled from Murray’s grip and skidded across the floor.

‘Good God, Murray.’ Professor Fergus Baine looked like he had dressed for his very first country house shoot. His Barbour jacket gleamed newly and his tweed cap was set at a rakish angle. He dusted some invisible spot from his lapel, staring at Murray as if unsure of what he was seeing. ‘Are you okay?’

Murray pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. He was too tired to do anything except rest his elbows on the table and set his head in his hands.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was in the neighbourhood and thought I’d drop by.’

‘There isn’t a neighbourhood.’