by Louise Welsh
Meikle ran a hand over his thinning hair. Murray reached forward and turned off the tape recorder. Their cups were empty, the elephant reduced to crumbs. He asked, ‘Would you like another coffee?’
‘Make it a Diet Coke.’ The older man gave him a tired smile. ‘There’s only so much coffee you can drink.’
Meikle was on his mobile phone when Murray returned. He looked away, as if to guard his privacy, but his telephone voice was as loud as his cursing voice.
‘Aye, about half an hour or so. No, don’t worry. I can fix myself something when I get in. Yes, okay, love. You too.’ He cut the connection and looked at Murray. ‘I’ll need to be heading off soon.’
‘You’ve already been generous with your time. You said you and Archie talked a lot of poetry.’
‘I was bumming myself up a bit there. He talked and I listened. I was more into the politics. I tried to turn Archie onto it.’ Meikle snorted. ‘That was the way we talked then, you didn’t get someone interested in something, you “turned them onto it”.’
‘Quite a sexual turn of phrase.’
‘Aye, it was all sex then, except it wasn’t. Maybe down in London, but not up here sadly. Archie maintained that poetry had nothing to do with politics. We used to argue about that. They were happy times – you could even say the best of times – but when you ask me what we did, it’s all of a same. Keith Richards isn’t the only one that can’t remember the seventies. I mean, how well do you remember your student days?’
‘Pretty well.’
Meikle laughed.
‘That figures. No offence, but look at you. You were probably bent over your books half the time and in lectures the other half.’
‘More or less.’
‘Aye, well, we weren’t. What I remember is the odd rumpus, the occasional one-night stand, a lot of parties, a lot of laughs, a good time. For me, Archie was just a part of all that. What they call a wasted youth.’
‘Except it wasn’t.’
Meikle gave him a sad smile.
‘No, I don’t think it was. It was what came later that was the waste.’
Chapter Four
HE’D MISSED THE main thrust of the rush hour, but most of the seats on the Edinburgh to Glasgow Express were taken. Murray squeezed himself into a spare place at a table for four, smiling his apology at the businessman opposite as he felt the softness of one of the man’s smart shoes beneath his own scuffed trainer. The man winced but nodded his acceptance without raising his eyes from the spreadsheets in front of him. Murray glanced down the carriage at the tired eyes and limp collars, the half-read novels and glowing laptops. This was what people called the real world, he supposed, a mortgage, kids and a commute that added a day to every working week. It wouldn’t be so bad. He would make it reading time and fuck the spreadsheets.
A recorded message trailed through the scheduled stops as the train slid out of the station. Murray leaned back in his seat, keeping his knees bent to avoid contact with his opposite neighbour.
Meikle had looked tired by the time they’d finished. Murray had offered to get the bookfinder a taxi, but he’d produced his bus pass from his wallet with an ironic flourish.
‘No need. I’ve got this, a licence to ride.’
‘Brilliant.’
The older man’s surliness had returned.
‘Aye, great compensation for fuck-all of a pension. Take my advice, if you’ve got any money spend it now while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. Don’t get conned into saving it for bankers to piss up the wall, the way we were. Old age is no fun when you’re skint.’
Murray almost told him that old age had let him in on its dubious charms early and it was no fun full-stop, but there was no point. Instead he smiled to show he agreed and cut the sympathy from his voice because the older man would dislike it.
‘Better than the alternative.’
Meikle gave Murray a tough look, and then granted him a grin.
‘Mibbe so, mibbe no. I guess we’ll all find out eventually.’
He’d headed towards his bus stop, wherever it was, raising his hand in a wordless goodbye as he turned away.
Murray felt infected with Meikle’s weariness. He could see the glowing squares of house windows as they passed Broomhouse. It made him think of when he and Jack were boys. The kitchen window steaming with condensation as their dad cooked the dinner, Jack watching Vision On or Blue Peter while Murray did his homework at the table in the corner of the living room. Eventually there had been the secondhand paraffin heater in their shared bedroom so Murray could study in heady fumes and privacy.
The woman sitting next to him was reading a gossip magazine, flicking through photographs of celebrities shopping on sunlit streets, large black shades and pained expressions. He glanced at her, half-expecting a cut-price version of the girls in the pictures, but she was in her forties, neat rather than fashionable, her clothes carefully chosen. Did she wish herself young and in LA? God knows he did, though the idea had never occurred before. Maybe he could go there, become a movie star. That would show them. It would indeed.
The woman gave him a sharp glare and pointedly turned the page. He looked away. They were out of the city now and there was nothing but darkness in the beyond. He could see his own face reflected in the window; the shine of his glasses against the pits and bumps on the lunar landscape of his skin. Maybe he should shelve the idea of a movie career.
Murray unzipped his rucksack and slid out the manila folder containing the letter from Christie’s agent.
Dear Dr Watson
I have passed on your letter to Ms Graves, who has asked me to let you know that she will give your request for an interview serious consideration. To help her in her decision, she invites you to forward through me a copy of your CV, a list of previous publications and a synopsis of your proposed biography of Archibald Lunan.
Regards
Foster James
Niles, James and Worthing
He wondered why he had lied to George Meikle about Christie having already granted him an interview. He’d sent the requested documents six weeks ago. They would confirm his credentials, the scholarly nature of his interest. Would that be enough?
Murray’s phone chimed with news of a new text. He drew it from his pocket and watched the tiny electronic envelope twirl and open, half-anticipating a self-justifying missive from his brother.
Where are you?
There were people standing further down the carriage. To get up would mean losing his seat, so he dialled where he sat. He expected her voicemail, but Rachel picked up on the third ring. He said, ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘I wondered if you’d get my message. I’d like to see you.’
‘I’d like to see you too.’
‘Good.’ Her voice was all business. ‘Where are you?’
‘I don’t like to say.’
‘I don’t have much time, Murray, Fergus has got his big deal of a dinner party later.’
‘I’m on the train.’
‘Heading where?’
‘Home.’
‘Can we meet at your office?’
He hated meeting her there, disliked the risk, the clash of associations.
‘Okay, when?’
‘When can you make it?’
Murray glanced at the display above the carriage door.
They were approaching Croy.
‘I’ll jump in a cab at Queen Street and be with you in thirty minutes.’
‘Good.’
She cut the connection without saying goodbye. Outside, the train window started to speck with rain.
Chapter Five
MURRAY’S TINY OFFICE was almost, but not quite, dark. Enough light shone in from the streetlamp beyond the trees for him to see Rachel Houghton’s features soften. A blast of hail shot against the window and Rachel’s pupils widened, edging nearer, but still too self-aware to be there yet. Murray matched his rhythm to the shadows cutting across the room, blessing whatever procurer of office furniture had manag
ed to issue him with a desk of exactly the right height. He clasped Rachel’s naked rump, her arms tightened around him and he lifted her from the desk. She gasped and raised her lips to his. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, smooth and hard, sweat-slick. Rachel groaned. Her body stiffened, pelvis pressed down into his. Murray felt the soft leather of her shoes, the spike of their stilettos as they spurred him on.
‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t or …’
Her ankles gripped him tighter. Murray felt a draught touch his exposed rear and a thin slice of light cut into the room, illuminating Rachel’s face, her eyes slitting against the sudden brightness, looking beyond him to the opening door. Murray felt her hands pushing him away. He followed her gaze, unsure of what was happening, and saw the intruder standing in the doorway, face shadowed in the gloom of the room. Murray heard him release a soft shuddering sigh akin to the groan that had escaped his own lips only a moment before.
‘Fuck!’ Murray’s curse acted like a sniper’s near-miss. The figure darted swiftly away. Murray extricated himself and stumbled into the hallway, almost catching the door before it closed. He shouted something as he ran, some bark of protest, his unfastened shirt flapping open, the air of the darkened corridor cold against his chest. But whoever it was had vanished, lost in the murky hallways that made up the old buildings. The only comfort Murray had was that he’d remembered to hold onto his trousers instead of letting them ambush him by the ankles and send him sprawling, like the comedy lover he so obviously was.
‘I’ve no idea who it was. Probably a porter doing his rounds.’ Rachel stepped behind the desk and began to pull on her abandoned tights. ‘More frightened of us than we were of him.’
A few years ago they would have had the surety of a cigarette to smooth the post-coital awkwardness. But these days smoking in university buildings was grounds for dismissal. Fortunately, fucking didn’t set off the sprinkler system. Murray fumbled his belt buckle into place and sank into the chair usually designated for visiting students. He lifted a first-year essay that only seconds ago had rustled beneath Rachel’s bottom and tried to smooth out the creases in its paper.
… he succeeded against the odds. Though his lifestyle was deemed unacceptable by mainstream society his …
The page bounced stubbornly back. Murray replaced it on the desk, weighting the bent corner with a mug. A little cold coffee slopped onto the neatly printed words.
‘Fuck.’ He blotted the stain with the front page of the Guardian. ‘Was he wearing a porter’s uniform?’ Murray peeled the newspaper back. A dark shadow of newsprint remained, stamped across the dutifully prepared argument. ‘Shit.’
‘I told you, I didn’t get a good look at him. It was dark and I was … slightly distracted.’
Murray wondered if he should have carried on chasing the intruder. He had been breathing in the distinctive reek of recalcitrant students, frustrated scholars and books since he was a seventeen-year-old undergraduate. The corridors’ twists and turns were mapped on his mind. He knew all the cubbyholes and suicide steps. The lecture halls racked with seating, the illogical staircases that tricked the uninitiated but led eventually to the out-of-bounds attics from where a man could lose himself and emerge on the opposite side of the old campus. The chances of catching whoever it was were radically slimmer than the odds of looking like an out-of-breath idiot. But the part of him that imagined grabbing the peeping Tom’s collar and administering his boot to the seat of their breeks wished he’d given it a shot.
Rachel tugged the hem of her skirt down. Usually she wore trousers. She had, he realised, very good legs.
‘You look nice.’
Rachel flashed him the same bright smile that she gave to shop assistants, students, fellow lecturers, porters, her husband, anyone who crossed her path when her mind was elsewhere. He watched as she took a small mirror from her handbag. Her lipstick was hardly smudged, but she perched on the edge of his desk and reapplied it anyway. Murray was reminded of an early author photograph of Christie Graves, long legs, sharp angles and red lips. It was a good look.
The memory of the opening door, the light shifting across Rachel’s face, returned and spoiled the knowledge that she’d dressed up for him. He measured the trajectory between their clinch and the door with his thumb and forefinger.
‘You don’t think it was someone from the department?’
Rachel’s smile grew tight. She dropped the mirror back into her bag and zipped it shut.
‘It’s Friday evening. No one else would be in their office at this time. Most of them have something that passes for a life. Don’t worry, I imagine we made his night. No doubt he’s crouched in the gatehouse right now, reliving the memory.’
‘Of my white arse? I bloody hope not.’
‘Irresistible. Your white arse will have a starring role in that little bit of ciné film that plays behind his eyes when he goes home and rogers his tired, but pleasantly surprised, old wife for the first time in months.’
Rachel was on his side of the desk now. Her skirt was made of some kind of shiny, silver-grey fabric, stretched taut across her hips. Murray ran a finger down her leg, feeling the satin slide of the material. She placed a hand on his, stopping its progress, and he leaned back in his chair.
‘So what’s the occasion?’ He wanted to keep her there a while, or maybe be with her somewhere else. Somewhere with subdued lighting, candles, soft music. What a cliché. It was Friday night and most people had a life. ‘Fergus taking you somewhere nice?’
‘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 lik
ed 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.’