Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

She turned down the corners of her mouth in a yes-and-no expression.

‘The island looks pretty much the way it always did. But in other ways, yes, a lot has gone. We didn’t get television on the island until 1979. Before then there was a ceilidh somewhere just about every night of the week.’

The landlady’s cheeks were lightly rouged, her lipstick carefully applied. Murray’s bristles itched. He wondered at the effort of making up when there was no one to see you. He sat straighter in his chair and asked, ‘So you didn’t miss the Barralands Ballroom?’

Mrs Dunn laughed, brightening at the slight flirt in his voice.

‘The village hall wasn’t blessed with a sprung dance floor. But back then a ceilidh wasn’t necessarily a dance. More often it was talking and singing, sometimes a wee dram, but not always. Just good company.’

‘And were you made to feel at home?’

‘People tried. I think they were glad of new blood. But, of course, it was hard at first. I didn’t have any Gaelic and there were still some old ones that spoke it. They switched to English out of politeness when I was there, but I knew they’d rather be talking in their own tongue.’ Mrs Dunn looked at her wedding photograph again, almost as if she were turning towards her dead husband for support. ‘There weren’t so many people my age on the island and so a lot of the talk was about the past. Brothers and sisters who had emigrated, old ones who had died.’

Murray could imagine the smoke-laden rooms, the young woman passing round refreshments as the elderly company droned on, correcting each other on the minutiae of events of no importance to anyone outside their circle.

‘You wouldn’t know who they were talking about.’

‘I didn’t have a clue half the time, and it took me a while to realise how ancient some of the old ones they spoke of were.’

The nape of his neck tingled.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Their ancestors were real to them, and they kept their memories alive with words and music. Times were changing, they knew that, but most of them still didn’t feel the need to write their stories and songs down. Maybe they thought the power would go out of them if they were put onto a page.’

The cat rolled over, letting his other side get the benefit of the fire. Murray asked, ‘And now?’

‘Now we have television.’ She nodded towards the set in the corner. ‘I’m as bad as anyone. When it’s dark and cold outside, I turn up the fire and switch on the box. The only chance we have of preserving the past now is by recording it. Kirsty and the archaeologists have helped me realise that. I’m not a gossip, Dr Watson.’ The academic title was like savour in her mouth. ‘I’ve kept my counsel for forty years, but you’re a scholar. If you think anything I remember will help your book, then I’ll tell you what I can, though it isn’t much.’

Mrs Dunn eyed his tape recorder with approval. Murray leaned forward and pressed Record .

‘I know you didn’t come to the island until much later, but I wondered if anyone ever mentioned what Archie Lunan was like as a boy, before he left the island.’

‘My husband was ages with Lunan, but he didn’t remember much of him as a youngster, except that he was clever and the other boys teased him for it.’

‘So he was bullied?’

‘I suppose he was, but John said Archie gave as good as he got. In fact, that’s about as much as John would ever say about him, “He was a bonnie fighter when he was a boy.”’

‘Strange, on an island where the past meant so much.’

Mrs Dunn nodded.

‘Maybe, but my John didn’t like gossip, and as for the other islanders. .’ She paused as if grasping for the right phrase. ‘I think there was a bit of shame attached to Archie’s mother — or maybe not his mother so much as the way she was treated. You see, in a place like this we all have to support each other, whether we get on or not, even more so in those days. But from what I could gather, Archie’s mother hadn’t really wanted anything much to do with anyone. She’d left as a lass and came back with Archie when he was about three. No one knew who his father was, and she didn’t enlighten them, though she styled herself Mrs Lunan. She lived with her father, and when he died she stayed on in the croft for a while. But she was strange and growing stranger. She must have known it, because when Archie was ten or so she left to live with relatives in Glasgow, taking the boy with her. I got the impression that some islanders thought more should have been done for the two of them. They were slow to talk of Archie and his mother in a way they weren’t about others who had gone. The croft went to an old uncle of hers. It was a while after he died that Archie came back.’

‘Did you meet him?’

‘Archie Lunan?’

Murray nodded and Mrs Dunn looked away from him, towards the fireplace where all three bars glowed amber.

‘Not straight away. It’s easy to stay hidden, even in a small place like this, if you’ve a mind to.’

‘And Archie had a mind to?’

‘He must have. I heard reports, of course — they’d gone to the shop and bought provisions, he and Christie had been seen walking along the beach, the odd one with the scar had been spotted driving the old van they shared down to the pier — but I never saw them myself. So I decided to visit.’

Mrs Dunn got up and went to the sideboard. ‘I don’t normally take a drink, it’s not wise if you live on your own, but it can be a help sometimes.’

‘Medicinal.’

‘That’s the word. Will you join me?’

‘It would be my pleasure.’

She took out a bottle of malt and two glasses. The cat got to its feet and stalked from the room, tail held high, as if in disapproval at the early-evening drinking. Mrs Dunn followed it through to the kitchen and returned with a small blue water jug. She poured a measure of whisky into her own glass and a larger one into Murray’s, then topped her drink up with a little water. She pushed the jug towards him and he did the same. He thought she looked tired. He wondered about the children in the photographs that decorated this room as they had the hallway. Did they visit often? And what would they think if they could see him drinking whisky with their mother in the late afternoon, asking questions that made her go pale beneath her carefully applied make-up?

‘Are you sure you want to talk about this right now? We could do it tomorrow if you prefer.’

‘Some things are better spoken of after dark. I learnt that watching the old people at their ceilidhs. Daylight chases some memories away and the night can bring them on.’ Mrs Dunn cleared her throat and began her story. ‘I was probably fairly naïve when I married John, but I’d worked in an office and came from Glasgow, so I thought of myself as “with it” — “streetwise”, as Kirsty would say. I imagine there’s a point early in most marriages when you wonder if you’ve done the right thing. I think I’d reached that when I went looking for Christie.’

‘You wanted to meet Christie rather than Archie?’

‘I was desperate for the company of a woman my age, someone to talk to about music and the latest fashions. Even if there was no one to see me wearing them, I was still interested. I wasn’t bothered about Archie Lunan. I was wondering if I’d done the right thing settling in the middle of nowhere, but I loved my husband.’

Murray raised his glass of malt and took the smallest of sips. The iodine scent of it stung his eyes and burnt against his chapped lips, but it was smooth and warm on the way down. He set the glass on the table, though he wanted to knock the lot back and then pour himself another. He asked, ‘So what did you do?’