Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Fergus doesn’t take me places. We go together.’

Murray put his foot against the desk. If he were a cowboy, he’d have tipped his hat forward. She hadn’t dressed for him after all. He tried for playful and failed.

‘We could go together better.’

Rachel bent towards him. He felt her breath, warm and sweet, with a faint scent of peppermint. She’d started smoking again.

‘One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Fergus, he’s never boring.’

‘He bored me rigid at the last faculty meeting.’ Murray reached into his desk drawer and fished out the bottle of malt he’d bought weeks ago in the hope of tempting Rachel to stay longer than the time it took to straighten her clothes. ‘I think I need a drink. Do you want to join me?’ He hesitated. ‘Or we could go somewhere, if you’d prefer a glass of wine?’

Rachel glanced at the clock above the office door. Murray wondered if she’d been keeping an eye on it during their lovemaking.

‘I told you. I can’t stay long. We’re having people round for dinner. Fergus is making his famous shepherd’s pie.’

‘Proletarian heartiness the latest smart thing?’

‘I hope so. It’s certainly more economical than some of his other enthusiasms. Here,’ She reached into her bag and drew out a bottle of Blackwood’s. ‘I’ll have a splash of this. My alibi.’

Alibi . The word irritated him.

‘How long will it excuse you for?’

‘Long enough. Fergus was determined to have Shetland gin for aperitifs. They don’t sell it everywhere. Why?’ She had a pointed face, like a sly little fox. Sometimes, when she smiled, she looked a short leap away from a bite. ‘Are you scared he might hunt me down?’

Murray got up and washed his coffee cup. The light stretching across the room was snagged in his mind. Fergus was around twenty years older than Rachel, somewhere towards his sixties, but he’d run the 10K last year. Could he have covered the stretch of the corridor in the time it had taken Murray to get to the door? But why would Fergus run? He had the power to fell Murray without lifting a fist. He ignored Rachel’s question, taking the gin from her and pouring a little into the clean mug.

‘Sorry about the crockery, not very suave.’

‘Not being very suave is part of your charm.’

‘Then you won’t be surprised to hear I can’t offer you ice and lemon.’

‘A little water will be fine.’

It was part of what he’d liked about her, this posh gameness. In another era she would have made a great lady explorer. He could imagine her cajoling a team of native carriers through the jungle, taking one of them to her tent at night then ordering him to pick up and carry her bundles the next morning.

Murray went to the sink. Usually he drank the bottled stuff, convinced he could taste the liquorice taint of lead in the university tap water, but there was only a small dreg left in the plastic bottle of Strathmore in his rucksack. He let the cold run for a moment then added a dash to her cup.

‘Thanks.’

Rachel smiled, holding it against her chest while he poured himself a nip of the whisky. He was going to clink his cup against hers, but she took a sip of the gin, grimacing then coughing against its burn.

Murray laughed.

‘A hardy people, these Shetlanders.’ He tasted his own drink. ‘Doesn’t it bother you? Our visitor?’

‘You shielded me.’

He toasted her with his mug.

‘Instinctive chivalry.’

‘Of course it bothers me.’ She glanced at the clock again. ‘But what’s the point in torturing ourselves? A rumour will start or a rumour won’t start. We’ll worry about it if it does. The thing we have to make sure of is that it doesn’t happen again.’

‘You’re right. It was stupid, doing it here.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She saw the expression on his face and smiled. ‘We both know it can’t go on.’

He couldn’t trust his voice. He hadn’t known, didn’t know.

‘And you’re going to be on sabbatical for a year.’ She brightened, like a children’s nurse who had applied Dettol to a skint knee and was now about to use a sweet to distract attention from the sting. ‘You won’t have time for all this.’

He tried to keep his words light.

‘There’s only so much time you can spend on research. I’m sure I could have squeezed you in.’

She looked away. For a moment he thought she might relent, but then she turned her bright eyes on him.

‘We agreed it would only ever be a bit of fun. Anyway, term’s almost over, Fergus and I are going to Umbria for two months, and you’re starting your sabbatical. It makes sense.’

‘If we hadn’t been interrupted?’

‘What does it matter?’ She leant forward and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘We had fun. We like each other. Let’s keep it that way.’

His voice was steady. He’d read about well-integrated autistics, they had to think about every gesture, smile, make eye contact . He formed his mouth into a grin.

‘You’re right. It was fun while it lasted.’

Rachel touched his arm.

Don’t flinch, don’t argue, don’t push her away.

‘It’ll be a great book. You’re always saying how underrated Lunan is. This is your big chance to put him on the map.’

‘I hope so.’

‘I know so. Fergus does too.’

The pair of them discussing him. Where? Over dinner? In bed? Did he ever feature in the little bit of ciné film she ran behind her eyes while Fergus fucked her?

He said, ‘Rachel, Fergus can’t stand me.’

She took her coat from the hook on the back of his office door.

‘Don’t be so paranoid, Murray. You know Fergus. If he didn’t think you were a valuable member of the department, you wouldn’t be enjoying a year’s sabbatical, you’d be looking for a new post.’

Murray stood at his office window. It was still wild outside. The wind caught at Rachel’s hair, blowing it across her face. She struggled for a moment with the car door, then she was in, headlamps on, reversed out and away, her only backward glance at the road behind though the rear-view mirror. It was the last time. He wondered if it was the peeping Tom or his own invitation to go for a drink that had pushed Rachel away. Maybe she had always intended to it end like this. Murray stood at the window, watching the trees fingering the sky the same way they would if he weren’t there. On his way out he stopped by the gatehouse and handed the almost-full bottle of malt to the porter, who received it with grateful, bland surprise.

THE REASONS MURRAY WATSON usually avoided Fowlers were clustered around their customary corner table, looking like a eugenicist’s nightmare. The pub wasn’t busy, but it was warming up with the overspill of office workers and students from more popular establishments so he was halfway to the bar before he spotted Vic Costello, Lyle Joff and Phyllida McWilliams and remembered that this was where they congregated late on Friday afternoons, playing at being the Algonquin club and staving off the wretchedness of the weekend.

Maybe the need to suffer that misery so often brings in its wake would have led him into their company anyway, or maybe he would have settled for a lone pint and a nod in their direction, but then he felt a hand on his elbow and turned to see Rab Purvis’s face, shiny with sweat and bonhomie.

‘I’ll get this, Moira.’ It was typical of Rab to be on first-name terms with the manageress; typical too of him to add Murray’s drink to the round and a tip on top of the price. Mrs Noon nodded her thanks and Rab gave Murray’s elbow a squeeze that told him his friend was at least three pints to the good. ‘Come away into the body of the kirk.’