Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

Mrs Dunn’s voice took on a thoughtful, far-away tone.

‘I turned into Little Red Riding Hood. I made a cake, packed it up and went through the forest until I met the wolves. That’s something the story got wrong, wolves don’t travel solo, they hunt in packs.’ She caught his eye and smiled as if laughing at her own fancy. ‘Archie’s croft wasn’t one of the better ones, and his uncle had been gone a while before he claimed it. Have you ever been in one of these old cottages?’

‘I’m camping in Pete Preston’s bothy.’

‘Of course you are. So you know well enough what they’re like — barely more than a small barn, no insulation beyond what’s offered by the stone walls. But back then people improvised with straw and wood, whatever they could lay their hands on, I suppose.’

‘Pete’s place is small. It’s hard to think of a family living there.’

‘Open-plan is nothing new. Everything happened in the one room. By the time I arrived that way of life was more or less gone and there were only a couple of blackhouses left. Like I said, they were basic, but they could be warm and cosy too. When I reached the croft where Christie was staying, I realised they could also be squalid.’

Archie the cat came back into the room, licking his lips as if he had just eaten something particularly choice. He pushed his front paws out in a long stretch that emphasised the length of his spine, then leapt onto Murray’s lap.

Mrs Dunn shook her head.

‘You’re not allergic, are you?’

He stroked a hand across the creature’s fur. Archie unsheathed his claws, hooked them through the fabric of Murray’s jeans and into his flesh. The cat purred and Murray tried to keep the pain from his face.

‘I don’t think so.’ He wasn’t sure.

‘I can’t remember anyone being allergic when we were young.’

He ran his hand over the animal’s fur again, fascinated by the way each hair sprang perfectly back into position, the tom’s tortoiseshell markings breaking up then reassembling themselves, an ordered universe.

‘We’ve grown softer.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. But sometimes when you think back it’s hard to remember how things were, how you were. It’s like looking at someone else. The girl who walked down to that blackhouse was nothing like the old lady sitting in front of you today, and yet they both are — were — me.’

Murray nodded. The man he had felt himself to be had changed since he started his quest for Archie.

Mrs Dunn went on, ‘I’m not sure what I expected. Someone a bit like myself, I suppose. A young woman missing the city, but enough in love with her man to shift to an island that didn’t even have a café, let alone a cinema or a dance hall.’

The cat had fallen asleep. Murray traced a finger down a black stripe dappled between its ears.

‘You were looking for a friend.’

‘I think I might have been.’ The landlady took a sip of her drink, and when she spoke again her voice was stronger. ‘I wasn’t certain where the croft was, and back then I didn’t drive. But like I said, in those days I could trek with the best of them, five miles was just a warm-up. Anyway, I had nothing better to do. John had gone to the rigs, to try and get a bit of money to help get us started. He’d wanted me to go to my mother’s in Glasgow while he was away, but that would have been like going back to being a daughter. I was determined to stay in our wee cottage.’

‘But you were lonely?’

‘Very. Still, I made my mind up to stick it out and make the best of things. Deciding to visit Christie was part of that.’

‘How did you know she would be there?’

‘I didn’t. Nowadays people don’t go anywhere without phoning first, but there were fewer phones around and time wasn’t so precious. You called round, and if the person was out, you went away. I simply stuck my cake in my bag and set off.’

‘So was she in?’

‘No.’ Mrs Dunn paused and took another sip of her drink. ‘I stopped a short way off from the cottage to tidy myself up. It was a warm day and I regretted not bringing a flask of water with me, but I’d brought what I considered the essentials: a hairbrush, powder and lipstick.’ She shook her head, but there was no mirth in her expression. ‘What was I thinking? I knew they were hippies, they were hardly going to be impressed by good grooming. Anyway, I was all straightened up and as ready to get acquainted as I ever would be when a man shot out of the cottage like a bullet from a shotgun.’ She shook her head again at her young self’s folly. ‘If he was the bullet, I was the rabbit. I froze and my eyes must have been wide as flying saucers. He tripped over a tussock of grass and landed almost at my feet. If we’d been in a romantic novel, it would have been the start of a great love affair. I certainly behaved like one of those stupid girls in the stories. I gave a silly scream and dropped my bag. The man on the ground started to laugh, and I did too, though whether it was because I thought it was funny or because I’d got a shock, I’m not sure. He got to his feet, graciously returned my bag and asked if I’d like to come in for a cup of tea.’

Murray leaned forward and the cat stiffened in protest, flexing its claws against his leg.

Mrs Dunn went on. ‘I think I knew then that the best thing to do would be to go straight home, but I’d spent three long weeks with only elderly visitors for company. I was desperate to meet young folk — young, city folk. Plus I could give myself a genuine excuse. I’d had a long walk without any refreshment and was beginning to feel a little light-headed.’

Murray could see it, the hot day, the girl in her summer frock, the young man looking up at her from his seat on the grass. He asked, ‘Was he Archie?’

‘I assumed he was, though his accent was posher, a bit more English than I’d expected. I told him I’d dropped round to pay my respects to Christie and was she in? He laughed — he had a nice laugh — and said no, but she would be back soon. I thought, oh well, what’s the harm, and went on in, merry as a wee mouse spotting a rind of cheddar in a trap.’ Mrs Dunn stopped. Her eyes rested on the tape recorder and she might have been checking to see that its spools were still rolling, or reminding herself why she was telling her story. ‘I’d never seen a house like it. It wasn’t just the mess. My mother was a hard worker, but there were six of us living in a single end. It was clean, most of the time, but it was no home beautiful. No, it was the strangeness of it all that overwhelmed me.

‘The table looked as if no one had washed a dish for days. There was some chemistry equipment in amongst the crockery, a Pyrex flask suspended on a metal stand above a Bunsen burner, with an orange tube dangling from it. The funny thing was it didn’t look out of place, even though it was obviously a room where people ate and slept. I could see the bed recess, the bedclothes half-slung on the floor. A woman’s dress was hanging all bunched up from a nail on the wall beside it. I remember that distinctly, because I knew it would leave a mark on the fabric. I wanted to go and straighten it, but there was a man’s shirt draped on top with its arms tied tight around the dress’s waist so it looked like a couple in a clinch. The place stank — a sweet smell, rotting vegetables, unwashed bedclothes and sweat. I could see flies circling in that horrible way that they have, as if they own the place and we’re some bit of territory where they might land if they get the notion.

‘There were books everywhere, or so it seemed. Piled on the table, the chairs, the floor. When I say piled, I don’t mean in neat columns. It was as if there’d been an explosion of books. They were tumbled all over the place, some of them lying open as if they’d been flung away halfway through the reading of them.