Naming the Bones

by Louise Welsh

  Audrey smiled.

  ‘I promised you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, thanks, you’re fine.’

  ‘A glass of wine?’

  He didn’t want it, but smiled and said yes, so she wouldn’t have to feel she was drinking alone. Audrey slipped into the darkness of the flat beyond and returned with a large glass of red.

  ‘Can you see okay over there?’

  ‘Aye,’ he lied. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘The people who sold us the apartment took all the light bulbs with them. They must be rolling in it, the amount I paid. How could they be bothered to be so mean?’

  ‘The rich are different from the rest of us.’

  ‘Yes, they’re bastards.’ She handed him the glass. ‘I won’t interrupt you again.’

  ‘I’m making you an exile in your own home.’

  ‘It isn’t home yet.’ Audrey grinned. ‘But it will be.’

  She closed the door gently. Murray turned back to her husband’s papers and started skimming through a collection of newspaper cuttings.

  A promising artist walked out of his studio on the eve of a forthcoming show and was found a fortnight later, hanging from a tree on a nearby country estate. A poet put his affairs in order, travelled to London where he rented a room in a hotel, hung up the Do not disturb sign and threw himself through an unopened window onto the street, twelve storeys below. A couple, both performance artists, committed suicide within a week of each other. She went first with a belt-and-braces routine: pills, alcohol, a warm bath and slashed wrists. He dived off the Humber Bridge, ignoring a member of the public’s attempts to talk him down. Some performance that must have been.

  He wished Garrett had included more of what the artists had produced when they were alive. The cuttings seemed to define each of them by their suicides – as if the only thing they had ever created was their own death, their final audience an unfortunate chambermaid or shocked dog-walker.

  He glanced at a transcript of an interview Garrett had conducted with an associate of one of the suicides.

  He was always cheerful, in a depressed sort of way if you know what I mean, cynical, down on everything, but funny with it. I wouldn’t have said he was more depressed than anyone else. Everyone’s depressed, right? I know I am. Especially since I found him. I can’t quite get it out of my head. The smell. I can’t remember him talking about suicide. I wish he had. They say the people who talk about it never do it, right?

  Murray was willing to bet that was wrong.

  He lifted his glass and took a drink. This was getting him nowhere. He put the papers back in the now-empty box and opened the next one. More charts and tables, death graphs and suicide logs. He’d forgotten how scientific social scientists were. There were things that couldn’t be measured, of course. Maybe that was part of what had propelled Alan Garrett’s car against a tree.

  Murray was halfway through the box when he uncovered a bundle of cardboard folders, each labelled with a name. He flipped through them, not recognising anyone until— ‘Bingo.’

  He slid out a powder-blue file marked A. LUNAN. Murray slugged back some more wine, then flipped open the flap and pulled out a few pages of foolscap.

  A photocopy of the cover of Moontide, a copy of a familiar newspaper cutting noting Archie’s disappearance, a brief obituary from a poetry fanzine and a short handwritten list:

  Absent father

  Mother may have been agoraphobic

  Dropped out of university education

  Prone to mood swings

  Highly creative

  Intense relationship with girlfriend?

  Uprooting in adulthood that mirrors uprooting as a

  child – catalyst?

  Interested in the beyond

  He wondered how much Garrett knew of Archie’s early life.

  He was willing to bet that the list had been a summary of long hours of interviews conducted with people Murray was yet to meet – yet to know the existence of. Perhaps he should be glad he wouldn’t have to credit a dead man as co-author, but the loss of the sociologist’s research sat heavy on him.

  Interested in the beyond.

  Archie’s poetry was balanced between the anarchic joy of sex, heavy drinking and a pantheistic rapture. He wondered if Alan Garrett had been referring to the poet’s desire to push the limits of the senses, or if there were something else, a religious twist to the poet’s life he was unaware of. Maybe he’d been thinking of Archie’s science-fiction habit. Was outer space sometimes described as the beyond?

  It was after nine by the time Murray finished going through the rest of the boxes and when he straightened up his legs felt stiff. He re-sealed the tops of the cardboard cartons, and pushed them together the way he’d found them. The hallway was unlit save for a sliver of light leaking from beneath a closed door at the far end. Murray knocked gently.

  ‘Come in.’

  The room was more finished than the one he had just left. A rug woven in warm colours lay on the polished floorboards and the far wall was lined with bookcases, already loaded with books. A reading lamp cast a single pool of brightness, spotlighting Audrey, who was sitting on the floor resting her back against an elegant modern chrome and black-leather chaise in the centre of the darkened room. On the floor beside her sat a box of papers, a full binbag and a half-empty glass of wine.

  ‘It would have made more sense to sort these before we moved, but I’m afraid it all got out of hand.’ She laughed. ‘A bit galling to know I paid a removal firm a fortune to move a lot of crap.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not the first time,’ Murray said, and because he didn’t know what else to say added, ‘Nice room.’

  ‘The biggest in the house and it’s all mine.’ She raised herself up onto the couch. ‘That’s not as selfish as it sounds. It’s going to be my consulting room.’ He must have looked mystified because she added, ‘I’m a psychologist. It’s the main reason for this move actually, so I can have space to meet with clients and still be around when Lewis gets home from school.’ She sipped her drink. ‘How did you get on? Find anything useful?’

  ‘I think I might have, yes.’

  He handed her the page he’d found.

  Audrey drained the last of the wine from her glass.

  ‘Typical Alan, always making lists. Anything you didn’t know before?’

  ‘I don’t know anything much about Archie’s childhood, except that he moved around a bit. But it’s the last entry that’s intriguing. Archie was working on a science-fiction novel. I wondered if it might refer to that.’

  Audrey lowered her eyes to the paper again. A small crease appeared between her eyebrows.

  ‘You mean “to go where no man has gone before”?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I suppose it could do. But that’s not what “the beyond”

  suggests to me.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘The afterlife.’ She made a moue of distaste and handed the list back to Murray. ‘You can keep that.’

  The chaos of the move resumed in the kitchen. A pine table was pushed up against one wall and stacked with brimming boxes. Four chairs balanced precariously on top, their rush seats tilting against the jumble beneath, their feet pointing at the ceiling. The arrangement looked like a neglected fortification on the edge of ruin. The room was lit by small lamps better suited to bedside tables. The piled furniture threw up crazy shadows against their dim glow.

  Audrey lifted a strappy sandal from the top of one of the boxes.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve worn these since before Alan died. God only knows where its partner is.’ She let it drop. ‘When I said put the kettle on, I meant boil a pot. The kettle has yet to resurface.’

  Murray laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve had my tea ration for the day.’

  ‘In that case let’s open another bottle of wine.’ Audrey reached into a cupboard and pulled out a fresh bottle of red. ‘Screw-top. The corkscr
ew’s also missing in action.’ She twisted the cap free and fired it into a corner. ‘I guess I should have supervised the removal men better. Everything’s all over the place.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Murray raised his glass to his lips, wondering how much she’d had to drink. ‘Can I help?’

  She looked squarely at him, as if trying to assess whether his offer was genuine or made for politeness’ sake, and he added, ‘I’m not doing anything else and there are still a few things I’d like to ask you about your husband’s research, if I may.’

  ‘Okay.’ Her smile was suddenly wary. ‘But I’m not sure there’s much more I can tell you.’

  Murray set the chairs on the floor and piled the boxes neatly in a line against the far wall while Audrey started to unpack, then together they heaved the table into the centre of the kitchen and set the chairs around it. He straightened the last one and asked, ‘What next?’

  She was rooting around in a plastic laundry bag and didn’t bother to look up.

  ‘I thought you wanted to ask me some questions?’

  ‘Okay.’ He leaned against one of the kitchen units, waiting to see what she was looking for. ‘A lot of your husband’s research seems to have been direct interviews with people who knew the deceased artists.’

  ‘Yes, that was Alan’s preferred method.’ Audrey pulled out an electric drill and went back to rummaging in the bag. ‘He’d completed a historical section, looking into artists of the past – people whose contemporaries and doctors were long gone, but had perhaps left written impressions of the subject’s state of mind. Now he was working on modern-day artists. It gave him a lot more scope. His final intention was to do a comparison, see if society’s attitudes, artists’ attitudes in particular, had altered.’ She pulled out a paper bag, ‘Aha, gotcha’, and poured a selection of drill bits onto the table. ‘I shouldn’t do that. I’ll end up scratching the surface.’ She turned and lifted a large carrier bag from behind the door. ‘Ask me another.’

  ‘Do you know if he interviewed associates of Archie Lunan prior to his trip to Lismore?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was impatient. ‘Like I said, I didn’t want to know the details of who Alan was interviewing. I can give you an outline of Alan’s methodology, beyond that I’m not much good to you.’

  ‘Okay.’ Murray injected a false brightness into his voice. ‘I’ll settle for a summary.’

  Audrey shot him a glance.

  ‘The obvious way to begin would be by dividing the subjects into categories.’

  ‘What kind of categories?’

  ‘The classic ones, I imagine.’ His face must have looked blank because she started to explain. ‘Sociological theory classifies suicide into three main categories, altruistic, egoistic and anomic. The first two are pretty self-explanatory. Killing yourself for the greater good of others. Captain Oates is the classic Western example, “I’m going out now and I may be some time.” But it’s not unknown in tribal societies for old people to pop off rather than hold back the rest of the clan. I sometimes think our pensioners could learn something from them instead of living on to a hundred bemoaning the state of the NHS while sucking up most of its resources.’ She saw Murray’s expression and laughed. ‘I’m only joking. How are you at heights?’

  ‘Okay, I think.’

  ‘Good, I’m terrible at them.’ She pulled a roller blind from the bag. ‘How would you feel about putting this up for me?’

  He looked up at the top of the window, ten feet or so above their heads.

  ‘Do you have a tall enough ladder?’

  ‘Sure do.’ Her eyes shone with the fun of a good dare. ‘I’ll even hold it for you.’

  The ladder turned out to be a little short for the task, so Murray stood on the topmost rung, his feet covering a paper sticker that read, ‘Warning! Do not stand on this step.’ He waited until he’d drilled the holes for the rawl plugs before asking, ‘What defines the other types?’

  ‘Of suicide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Audrey seemed a long way below.

  ‘Well, egoistic is pretty obvious, I guess: an individual feels dislocated from society and decides to take their own life. In a way it’s the opposite of altruistic suicide. Most of your artistic suicides get placed in this category, the romantic agony and all that.’ The ladder wobbled a little and she asked, ‘Are you okay up there?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Of course, there’s an extra investment for artists – the chance that if he or she manages a memorable death, they’ll stake a place in posterity.’

  ‘Does falling off a high ladder count?’

  ‘Not unless you’ve been drinking absinthe and snorting coke cut with your father’s ashes. Anyway, it’s nonsense. I’d never heard of half the suicides Alan studied.’

  Murray finished inserting the rawl plugs and started to screw in the brackets that would hold the blind in place. He risked a look down.

  ‘And the final category?’

  ‘Anomic suicide. The result of a big change in someone’s life: divorce, death of a loved one, financial collapse. It all becomes too much, and so they end it.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘No, rarely simple. That’s why Alan and his colleagues could theorise endlessly about it.’

  One of the screws was refusing to go into its plug. Murray turned the screwdriver round and used its handle to batter it in place, hoping Audrey wouldn’t realise what he was doing.

  ‘You said you didn’t know much about your husband’s research, but that’s a pretty impressive summary.’

  ‘I was more involved in the early days. It’s the old story, Alan was one of my PhD supervisors. Looking back, I can see it was as his research developed that I started to get a bit squeamish. Maybe it’s something to do with having Lewis. Motherhood alters your perspective on some things. I started to find it hard to listen to a catalogue of young lives snuffed out. Too threatening, I suppose, when I had a young life to take care of.’

  ‘Is that the psychologist talking now?’

  He pulled the next screw from his pocket and started to twist it home; it went in smooth as butter.

  ‘I wasn’t very psychologically aware at the time, I’m afraid. I could get quite vicious about it.’

  He was on the final bracket now.

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t know me.’ She snorted. ‘We had a massive row one Sunday morning. It’s the climax of the British week, isn’t it, Sunday morning? A cooked breakfast, the Archers omnibus, Sunday papers – peace perfect peace, or boredom bloody boredom, depending on how you look at it.’

  Except for a guarantee of no teaching, Murray’s own Sundays didn’t particularly differ from the rest of his week, but he said, ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, that particular Sunday, the Observer carried a front-page story about a young British artist who had committed suicide at the age of forty-one. Walked off into the woods and didn’t come back. His body was found a few weeks later. It would be wrong to say the news made Alan happy, he wasn’t a complete ghoul, but he was energised by it, abandoned his breakfast and went off into his study to start downloading the artist’s work. Not quite whistling, but purposeful. For some reason it incensed me. His cheery, workmanlike mood, while somewhere some mother, wife, or girlfriend was breaking her heart.’ She laughed, half-embarrassed. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’

  ‘Perhaps because I didn’t know Alan.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Her face was turned away from Murray, the red-blonde crown of her head glossy against the streetlamp’s glow. ‘It’s not like it caused a rift between us or anything, but looking back, I think after that row he told me less about his research and I didn’t ask.’

  She passed the blind up to Murray and he slid it into place, feeling a spurt of achievement. Perhaps he’d feel like this every day if he’d learned a trade instead of going to university.

  ‘How does it look?’


  ‘Perfect, thanks. Safe from peeping Toms.’

  She held onto the ladder as he descended. He turned, ready to step from it, and glimpsed the hollow between her breasts. He imagined each one snug in its lace cup. Sometimes he wished he could smother his sex drive. It was like a second pulse, forcing his blood, fiercer than his heart.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you had your dinner? Your “tea”, as Alan would have said?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘I was going to order Chinese. Would you like to join me?’

  If she hadn’t mentioned her dead husband he might have declined, but somehow his presence made it safe. She phoned in their order while he climbed the ladder again and replaced the absent light bulb in the hallway.

  The door to Lewis’s room was ajar. Murray clicked on the hall light to check it was working and then pushed the boy’s bedroom door wide. Audrey must have started her unpacking here. It was messy, but it was a young boy’s normal untidiness rather than the disorder caused by moving.

  Posters of fluffy animals and pumped-up superheroes hung on the wall; a small bookcase stacked with books sat next to a comfortable armchair perfect for an adult and child to squash in together and share a story. Lewis’s quilt cover was printed with a picture of a wide-eyed cartoon character Murray didn’t recognise. On the bedside table, next to the nightlight, was a framed photograph of a man in climbing gear hanging onto a rock face somewhere high above the world. A grin split the man’s face, emphasising the deep creases radiating from the corners of his eyes. Alan Garrett looked more alive than anyone Murray could remember seeing.

  ‘Do you have children?’

  He hadn’t heard her come off the phone and her voice startled him.

  ‘No, not yet.’ He turned towards her. The light bulb he’d used was too high a wattage, it stung his eyes and seemed to bleach the colour from her skin. ‘I’d have to find a wife first. ’ ‘Very proper of you.’