Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Because it was like your bad trip?’

‘You don’t even need me to tell you, do you, son?’

‘I’ve never taken drugs myself.’ It was true, except for the occasional joint, soggy with other tokers’ saliva, passed around at parties when he was an undergraduate. ‘But I’ve read about plenty in novels. You had no idea what was happening, or what they gave you?’

‘No idea at all.’ Her voice softened with the awfulness of the memory. ‘I thought I was going mad. On top of the fear and the visions, I had an urge to vomit and yet I wasn’t sick until it was all over.’

‘Did the others notice you were having a bad time?’

‘They must have, because hands — I’m not sure whose they were — took hold of me. I think I struggled. I have a memory of shouting and of hitting out and of something, someone, pinning me down, but then I was drifting, I’m not sure for how long, in a kind of trance, not awake, not asleep. I prayed I wasn’t dead, because if I had been I’d have stayed in that state for all eternity.’ She stopped speaking and the only sound in the room was the wind tearing down the empty road outside and the hiss of the gas fire. ‘That was the wrong thought to have, because then all of eternity seemed to open up in my head and it was terrifying.’

There was a bang at the window and Murray flinched.

‘It’s okay.’ Mrs Dunn gave him a reassuring smile. ‘That pane’s loose. I’ll need to get it seen to.’

Murray asked, ‘Why do you think they drugged you?’

Mrs Dunn opened her hands, revealing her empty palms.

‘Maybe they thought I would like it. After all, it had no bad effects on them. I suppose they were used to it. Or maybe they wanted to humiliate me.’

The anger was sharp in Murray’s voice.

‘It was themselves they humiliated.’

‘Maybe.’ Mrs Dunn gave a sad smile. ‘There was one particular thing, though, that’s given me the shivers ever since, whenever I think on it.’

She took a sip of her whisky and Murray said, ‘Just one thing?’

‘No, the whole day has the quality of a nightmare, when I remember it. That long walk in the blazing sunshine, the man falling at my feet laughing, Bobby’s scar and worst of all the colours loosening themselves from the books and floating in front of my eyes, no matter if I shut them or not.’

He wanted to ask her to scroll back and tell him the worst part of the memory, but his interruption had distracted her and she was moving on again.

‘I’m not sure if I slept, but I came to sometime hours later. I was in total darkness. I sat up and hit my head on the roof of the recess and for a second I thought I’d been mistaken for dead and buried alive. I would have screamed, except that the feeling of dread was still with me, not so intense, but strong enough to make me freeze.’

‘You were petrified.’

‘Yes.’ She gave him a grateful smile. ‘That’s the word for it, petrified. But I realised that I could hear voices beyond the darkness of what I thought was my coffin and stuck my hand out. It hit wood on one side, but then I found the curtain and drew it back.

‘It was still bright outside, but that didn’t mean much — it was summer and this far north it can still be daylight nigh-on midnight. Christie and your Archie were sat at the table with the other two. God only knows what I looked like, but they behaved as if it were nothing unusual to see a madwoman appear from nowhere. Maybe it wasn’t.

‘There was a bottle of spirits on the table. Fergus offered me a drink. It was almost as strange as the trip, the way they looked at me as if nothing had happened. The night was still warm, but Christie had this muckle big coat wrapped around her.’ Mrs Dunn shook her head. ‘It looked like something you might pick up at Paddy’s Market, but she couldn’t have been more elegant if she’d been dressed from head to toe in couture. I knew then I’d been foolish ever to imagine the two of us talking about hemlines over tea and cake. Christie was one of those women who make their own style. She glanced me up and down without a flicker of emotion, and then she turned to Fergus and said, “Leave her alone. Can’t you tell she’s pregnant?”’

Murray wondered why the landlady hadn’t mentioned it before and asked, ‘How advanced was your pregnancy?’

‘So early I didn’t know.’

‘So how could she?’

Mrs Dunn shrugged as if it was nothing remarkable.

‘Some women can tell these things. But of course it gave me a shock when she said it. The one with the scar laughed and said something like, “When did that ever make a difference to him?” But by then I had come to my senses. I just wanted to be away and home.’

‘What did Archie do?’

‘Nothing. Just sat there as if it had hee-haw to do with him, which I suppose it did, except for that fact that it was his house and his guests.’

‘And no one went with you?’

‘Fergus got to his feet, but Christie told him to sit down. She said something about him having done enough damage and me knowing the way back myself. Then Bobby got up, and for one dreadful moment I thought he was going to offer to escort me, but she said “And that goes double for you.”’ They obeyed her like she was the leader of their gang. I should have been grateful, but for some reason it made me dislike her more. I’d gone all that way, full of hope, and those men had abused me.’

It had been in his mind ever since she mentioned the rough hands and the bed recess.

‘Do you think they. .’ Murray paused, searching for the right word and failing, ‘. . when you were in your trance?’

‘I do remember fighting and shoving, but no. I would have known if anything more had happened. There are ways of knowing.’ Mrs Dunn put a full-stop at the end of the sentence, as if to make clear that certain things were not to be discussed outside women’s realms. Her voice regained its briskness. ‘So that’s it. Not much to do with Archie Lunan perhaps, except that was the life he was living and the people he was mixing with, when he was here.’

‘And he drowned soon after?’

‘A month later. His uncle had left a wee boat, not much more than a rowing boat with a sail stuck on it. Okay for fishing, but not big enough to risk on open water, even if the weather was fine.’

Murray remembered the scant newspaper accounts he had photocopied in the library.

‘And it was wild, the night he went out.’

Mrs Dunn nodded.

‘A bit like tonight. They reckon he sailed round towards the south-eastern point of the island. There’s a reason they put a lighthouse there. A wrecker’s paradise, John used to call it.’ As if on cue, the rain battered against the window, shaking the loose pane in its frame. ‘Archie won’t be having a very good night out there.’

Murray caught his breath.

Mrs Dunn met his eyes and said, ‘It was my eldest boy that named the cat. I never thought of him as having the same name as poor Lunan before.’

‘Why “poor Lunan”?’

‘Because he died so young.’ She gazed towards the windows and the sound of the storm. ‘And because he was with those people. Even in the state I was in, I could see he was out of his depth.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Bobby had seemed unhinged to me. And Fergus? Well, Fergus had the kind of recklessness boys usually grow out of, if it doesn’t kill them. But Archie. .’ She paused, looking up at the ceiling as if searching for the right words. ‘Archie was handsome in a way the other two weren’t. He seemed separate from them too. Looking back on it, I’m not sure he knew what was going on. He only had eyes for Christie. I remember he reached across the table and took her hand. She let him, but I don’t think she looked at him once.’