by Louise Welsh
‘I’m a proper kind of guy.’
She was standing close to him now.
He wasn’t sure.
Then he was and they were kissing. He slid his hands down the back of her trousers, feeling the smooth roundness of her, slid his fingers up the ridge of her spine, managing for once to undo her bra in one fumbling movement, feeling her gasp. He backed into the room, towards the cartoon-covered bed, holding her close, their lips pressed together.
She pulled away. ‘No, not here.’ And led him through to the sitting room.
He realised he didn’t have a condom, wondered guiltily if she slept around, if she wanted another child, even. They were on the couch now, his hand roaming beneath her top, her fingers pushing under his jumper, below his T-shirt, skin touching skin.
‘I don’t have anything, protection.’
She pulled her top off.
‘It’s okay, I do.’
Her breasts were almost as he had imagined them, high and rounded; the nipples stiff and proud.
He lowered his head.
‘Wait.’ She slid from him. ‘I’ll only be a second.’
Murray watched as she left the room, taking in her smooth back, the faint hint of a tan-line, remnant of some earlier holiday. The door swung gently behind her and he was alone, wondering what the fuck he was doing.
He kicked off his shoes and hauled his jumper and T-shirt over his head in one swift movement, averting his eyes from Alan Garrett’s boxes of research and pushing the university code of ethics from his mind. Then she was back, stripped and clutching a packet of condoms. Murray thought he’d never seen a woman who looked so natural, so right, naked. He got rid of the rest of his clothes, pulled her towards him and onto the sofa.
The doorbell rang just as they finished. Murray flinched and Audrey laughed, ‘Perfect timing.’ She walked naked from the room. There was a second ring and he heard her shout, ‘Two secs, just finding my purse.’
He pulled his clothes back on, wondering if the urge to sneak away was social awkwardness or some deeper evolutionary instinct. The aroma of Chinese food wafted into the room, a sweet scent suffused with a hot tang; jasmine and chillies. He hadn’t eaten since that morning and was suddenly ravenous. Was this all he was, a creature ruled by appetites?
He found Audrey in the kitchen wrapped in a long cotton robe, taking the fast-food cartons from a carrier bag and setting them on the newly installed kitchen table. She looked like Lewis’s mum again. Could she consciously turn her sex appeal on and off, or was it another of nature’s tricks? He put his arms awkwardly around her and gave her a squeeze. Her body stiffened and he released her. Audrey screwed up the empty plastic bag the food had came in and flung it towards the piles of boxes.
‘I could get used to being a slob.’ She peeled back the paper lids from the cartons, stuck a spoon in each of them and handed Murray a plate. ‘Mrs Wong’s finest. Tuck in.’
The room was too dark for them to see their food properly. Murray noticed two unlit candles on the table. Perhaps the matches were lost too, packed away in the same box as the kettle and the corkscrew. They ate in silence for a moment, then she jumped to her feet and fetched the wine.
‘Sorry, I forgot.’
Murray felt her nervousness and knew he should say something to put her at ease. He poked at a piece of pork with the wooden chopsticks the restaurant provided.
‘This is great, good food.’
‘Thanks.’ She smiled as if he had said something amusing. ‘Are you going to go to the island?’
‘Lismore?’
‘Where else?’
‘Yes.’ He hesitated, looking at the unlit candles. ‘Sooner or later.’
‘And will you meet her?’
‘Who?’
‘Christie Graves, his old sweetheart.’
‘I’d like to, but she doesn’t seem too keen on meeting me.’
‘I’m surprised. She struck me as a man’s woman.’ He looked up at Audrey and she said, ‘Did I tell you that I met her?’
‘No.’ He wondered if she knew how important Christie was to Lunan’s story. ‘What was she like?’
‘Creepy. She came to Alan’s funeral.’
‘Here in Glasgow?’
‘I was hardly going to have him buried over there.’
‘No, I guess not. Sorry.’
Audrey sighed.
‘It should be me that’s sorry. I’m such a grinch sometimes.’ She forced a cheerless smile. ‘I didn’t like her.’
‘Christie?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s hard to say, exactly. She did all the right stuff, arrived in good time, said lovely things about Alan. She even brought me some photographs of him in his last days there, beautiful photos, much better than I ever took. But I didn’t like her. None of it seemed sincere. I felt she was playing the part of a concerned acquaintance. She spoke well, her tone of voice was just as it should be, her face arranged in a sad expression. But I kept on feeling that if I turned my head suddenly, I might catch her smirking. That’s a horrid thing to say, isn’t it? But it’s true. She gave me the creeps.’ Audrey paused and they sat in silence for a moment, their food forgotten. ‘She asked me if I would like to visit the island, invited me to stay with her.’
‘Did you go?’
‘Yes, but not to her. My mother came with me and we stayed in a little B&B. I’m afraid I neglected to get in touch with Miss Graves, but of course inevitably we bumped into her one day at the shop. She was charm itself. My mother thought she was delightful, but she made my flesh crawl.’ Audrey sighed. ‘Perhaps that’s inevitable too. You see, Alan was coming back from her house when he crashed.’
‘But you don’t think it was anything to do with her?’
‘No, of course not.’ She closed her eyes for a second, as if trying to hold onto herself then said, ‘At first I did wonder whether they’d been drinking. Alan would never normally drink and drive, but he was sociable, keen to put people at their ease, especially when he was interviewing them, and you know what it’s like on small islands, normal rules don’t necessarily apply.’
Murray kept his voice soft, wary of provoking her.
‘But he wasn’t over the limit?’
‘No, apparently not. There were no traces of alcohol, or drugs for that matter, in his bloodstream. It was just one of those things, a bloody unfortunate accident. I guess blaming Christie is easier than blaming Alan, or blaming myself.’
‘I know accidents provoke guilt, but it couldn’t be your fault, you weren’t even there.’
‘Ah, but there’s the rub. Alan wanted Lewis and me to go with him, to make the trip into a short break, but I refused. I had work to do and I didn’t want our holidays to start revolving around his research. Around suicides.’
‘You don’t know that anything would have turned out differently.’
‘He was always extra careful when Lewis was in the car, he would never have put his son, or me, at risk.’ Her voice held a fractured edge. She paused again, and softened her tone. ‘It would have been the perfect place for a holiday. The island is beautiful, really, really lovely, and everyone was nice to us.’ She gave him her sad smile. ‘But I won’t be going again.’
It was midnight when she saw him to the door. He hesitated in the close, unsure of whether it would be crass to thank her, but she beat him to it.
‘Thanks for all your help.’ Her voice was a peep above a whisper. ‘Lights to see by and blinds to hide behind.’
He kept his own voice low, careful of disturbing her new neighbours.
‘I was going to thank you.’
Audrey raised her eyebrows, ‘For what?’ They both laughed. She held a finger to her lips, ‘Shhhsh.’
‘For a lovely evening.’ He hesitated. ‘Can I give you a ring sometime?’
She leaned on the door, half in, half out. Her smile was gentle.
‘I think we’ve covered everything, don’t you?’
&n
bsp; ‘I wasn’t thinking about work.’
‘No,’ she smiled again. ‘I know, neither was I.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Please, don’t take it personally. Remember I’m a psychologist. In my professional opinion, I’m not ready for anything serious yet. Sex is easier than all the other stuff. I don’t feel disloyal having sex with another man – not that I make a habit of it – but dating …’ She let the sentence tail away.
‘I guess I should feel used.’
‘Do you?’
‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything heavy, just dinner sometime, a drink if that would be easier, no strings attached.’
Audrey plucked at the door chain. It clinked as it hit the wooden jamb.
‘Perhaps.’
Murray reached into his pocket for pen and paper to write down his number, but she stopped him.
‘I’ve got your number already. I called you, remember?’
She stifled a yawn with her hand. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day. Lewis gets me up at the crack of dawn.’
‘I’ll let you go then.’
They exchanged a chaste kiss and he jogged down the stairs. He heard the door shut softly behind him before he reached the next landing.
Chapter Twelve
MURRAY WALKED SWIFTLY along the empty corridor, his trainers silent against the wooden floor. He’d chosen a quiet time of day, too early for tea breaks or sandwich runs, a mid period when those with classes would be safely ensconced in offices and lecture theatres. The place was studiously silent, no hint remaining of the clatter of students who had milled here fifteen minutes ago and would assault the stillness again soon enough. But behind some of the closed doors his colleagues bowed their heads over books and computers and at any time a sudden thought might send one of them out to the library in search of a remembered text or into the shadows of the quadrangles for a leg-stretch and a smoke.
Murray fished his keys from his pocket and selected the one to his room as he walked, ready to nip in swiftly, safe from fumbles. It felt strange, creeping like a thief towards his own office.
He passed Fergus Baine’s door, closed and blessedly silent, then Lyle Joff’s, Vic Costello’s, Phyllida McWilliams’, each shut and graveyard-still. Rab Purvis’s door was ajar, a signal that he was in residence and not averse to being interrupted. Murray increased his pace and slipped by, catching a glimpse of Rab’s arm resting against his desk, his hand tapping out a smoker’s unconscious rhythm as he worked.
Rachel’s office lay at the end of the hallway. He looked towards it, willing the door to open and Rachel to step out, half-dazed from reading, brushing the hair from her eyes, forgetting not to smile. The door stood firm, Rachel behind it or elsewhere, beyond him.
There were new posters on the noticeboard by his office, calls for papers, announcements of forthcoming lectures, a Keats/Shelley essay competition he’d once entered when he was a student. He glanced at the dead poets’ death masks, side by side above conditions of entry, then turned the key in the lock and went in, closing the door gently behind him.
Everything was as he had left it. The dried stain of coffee still slopped over the essay he should have handed back a week ago, the two mugs drained of whisky and gin set side by side, his chair pushed a little away from his desk.
He ran the mugs under the tap and placed them on the edge of the tiny sink to dry, then glanced at his watch. Eleven-thirty. If he was quick, he might escape before classes changed.
He started to gather the books he’d come for. An anthology of Scottish poetry that didn’t feature Lunan, but might be a useful reminder of chronology; a biography of a dead contemporary that mentioned the poet; a seventies literary review citing him as the next big thing.
Murray’s copy of Moontide was propped face-out on a high shelf. He reached up and tipped it from its perch, the book slipping through his fingers and landing with a slap on the ground. Lunan looked up at him from the front cover. His had once seemed an old face to Murray. Now he could see the youth screened behind the braggadocio of long hair and beard. He picked the book up and slipped it gently into the front pocket of his rucksack.
Christie’s books came next. The later ones were of no great concern, but he packed them anyway. As far as he was concerned she’d got stuck in the same weave, horror stories laced with Celtic folklore that sometimes started well, but always descended into a chaos of fantasy and false connections. Critics sneered, but her fans still bought them and so did Murray. He read each one quickly, greedy for a glimpse of Lunan, barely bothering to follow permutations of plots he considered all repetition.
Christie had found her subject in her first novel, Sacrifice: a group of young, overreaching outsiders whose lack of respect towards nature invoked their own fall. Murray had written an article on Christie’s later novels for one of the more ‘out there’ literary websites, Scooby Doo and the Fall: Paradise Fucked Up. He’d been pleased with the title at the time. Now he hoped that Christie hadn’t come across it.
Sacrifice was the final book in his pile. He’d marked a quote on the opening page that he hoped to use in his biography, if he could get permission. He opened the novel and read,
The cottage was six miles from the village, set back from the road along a rutted path. We had no visitors in those early days and when we left the shelter of our tiny cottage it was usually to go down to the loch side. Over the summer the path became overgrown so no one would have known we were there, except of course that they already did. We were the topic of conversation around hearthsides and dinner tables, in byres and country lanes. The islanders discussed us as they left church, hearts shrunken with the conviction of the saved. They mulled over our vices as they filled their vans and tractors with petrol at the one pump station, expanded on them in the mothers’ union and the ceilidh house. When we went down into the village to buy what we couldn’t make, every detail of what we wore, what we said, what we bought, was stored by those lucky enough to encounter us. Later we gave them something to talk about.
Murray closed the book and slid it beside the rest. The whole operation had taken less than fifteen minutes. If he left now, he might get clear of the building without meeting anyone. He shouldered the weight of his bag and slipped out into the corridor, locking the door on his office.
Murray was at the top of the spiral stairwell when he heard Fergus Baine’s laugh echoing up from the floor below. Loud with a false note of heartiness, the kind of chuckle an inquisitor might give before the final turn of the screw.
‘Shit.’ Murray hesitated, caught in a stab of shame. He could still make a getaway back to his office or up onto the floor above, but now Fergus was upon him the whole foolishness of hiding became clear. He had to face the professor sometime. He started down the stairs, forcing his feet into a brisk rhythm. If he was lucky Fergus would be in a hurry and they could pass each other with a sober nod of recognition.
‘His later work is technically far superior, of course.’ Fergus conceded a point to whoever he was talking to. ‘But it lacks the fire in the belly of his early stuff.’
‘It’s not often I hear you extolling passion over technical expertise.’
Fergus laughed again and Murray stopped dead, caught by the last voice, the only voice he wanted to hear.
Rachel was wearing a white silk blouse that buttoned and tied at the neck. There was something provocative about its double-fastening, as if it had been designed to be unpicked. Her grey linen trousers were snug at the hips, flaring down to open-toed sandals. Her toenails were painted pink. All her focus was on her husband. She touched his arm as they turned the corner. It was a simple gesture and Murray wondered if it was his foreknowledge that made it seem a move beyond collegiate.
‘Murray.’ Fergus’s voice lost none of its heartiness, none of its hint of the inquisition. ‘I’ve been hoping to catch up with you.’
Rachel met Murray’s eyes. He felt himself colour.
‘Fergus, Rachel.’
He forced a smile.
Doors were opening in the corridors above and below, noise building as students began to crowd out from classes. Rachel frowned. ‘I’ve got a third-year tutorial group due in sixty seconds.’
For a split moment he despised her. ‘Sure, see you later.’
Fergus squeezed her arm, a mirror of the way she’d held him. ‘See you at home.’ The professor watched Rachel until she reached the landing and when he turned away it was as if he still held her in his eyes, her slim figure disappearing into the black corridor of his pupils. ‘On your way out?’ Fergus smiled as if there had been no five a.m. phone call. No drunken demand to talk to his wife.
Murray had a ridiculous urge to mention he’d bedded Audrey Garrett. Instead he said, ‘I just dropped by to collect some books.’
‘Of course, you’re abandoning us.’
‘Temporarily, I’m sure you’ll cope.’
Fergus gave a slow smile.
‘Yes, I’m sure we’ll manage.’ The staircase was crowded, Murray and Fergus a dam in the ascending and descending streams of students. ‘Shall we get out of here?’
The professor turned and started to walk down towards the exit without waiting for Murray’s reply.
It had rained in the short time he’d been indoors and the air outside was fresh, the flagstones drenched black. The wind tumbled the kinetic sculpture in the courtyard as they crossed the quadrangles together, Fergus setting the pace. It was going to rain again soon. Murray glanced, as he often did, at the wrought-iron bench dedicated to a twenty-one-year-old student he’d never known. It was too delicate to sit on, but it drew the eye.
Fergus asked, ‘Book going well?’
‘Yes, fine.’
The professor’s suit was almost the same cold stone shade as Rachel’s linen trousers. Murray wondered if they had bought them together, on their honeymoon in Italy, the Mediterranean sparkling blue on the horizon behind them. He imagined Fergus in a white hat, Rachel in a summer dress, and felt jealousy hot in his stomach.
They cut down an outside staircase, into a smell of damp and ancient mortar roused by the shower, and entered a broad tunnel. Fergus’s footsteps sounded hollow against the cobbles. A porter pushed a trolley laden with boxes through a large archway and they stepped aside to let him pass. Fergus nodded, a country squire passing a tenant on the road. The porter returned the greeting, but the professor had already turned his attention back to Murray.