by Louise Welsh
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t even be here. I’ve masses of work to do and I’ve got to start my packing.’
‘Is that what you were going to tell me?’
‘What?’
‘That you’re going away.’
‘For a week or so, to Lismore.’
She laughed.
‘For a moment I thought you were going to tell me you were emigrating.’
‘No, just a wee trip to fill in some background. It’s where Archie ended up.’
‘Where he drowned?’
‘Yes, I thought I’d take my notes up there, get a feel for the place.’
He meant get a feel for Archie, but it would sound stupid out loud.
The bags were packed. Lyn slung one on the back of the wheelchair. Frankie rolled his wheels to and fro then said, ‘Stick another couple on there.’
‘I don’t want to topple you.’
‘Nah, that’ll not happen again. I’ve got the hang of it now.’
Lyn made a face behind his back, but she did as he asked and the three of them made their way slowly out of the supermarket. The sky had clouded over in the time they’d spent shopping and it felt as if it might rain. The promise of the day had gone. Cars edged along on the main road, but the landscape beyond the shop held a concrete bleakness that made it easy to imagine the bombed-out world of Archie’s sci-fi novel. Lyn placed a hand gently on the back of Frankie’s chair, steadying the bags. She’d restrained her curls, but the wind blowing across the car park threatened to free them again. She pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and gave Murray a smile.
‘Are you sure about that coffee?’
‘I’ve got to get back.’
‘To your dead poet?’
‘He’s beckoning through the waves.’
And for a moment it was as if Murray could see Lunan against the dreary expanse, hair floating wild in the water, arms outstretched as he drifted with the current.
‘Excuse me, Lyn.’ Frankie’s voice was weighted with exquisite politeness. ‘I’m going to have to use the toilet.’
‘No problem.’ She was brisk, all business now. ‘The staff facilities have good access here. Can you hold on while I get someone to let us in?’
‘It’s not an emergency.’ Beyond the grey of the car park a Burger King sign glowed red. Frankie nodded towards it. ‘Why don’t we go over there and you can have your coffee.’
‘Ach, I don’t know, Frank …’
‘If you grab me an Evening News, I can sit on my own and let yous have a catch-up. I don’t mind.’
Lyn looked at Murray. He shrugged his shoulders, defeated. It was nigh-on forty years since Archie had drowned, his corpse was long since gone and the best Murray would do was revive his reputation. It could wait an hour or so.
‘Why not?’
Murray went into the Burger King with Frankie and the shopping bags, while Lyn went in search of a newsagent’s. He followed him awkwardly to the door of the disabled toilets. Frankie halted his chair.
‘Do you like to watch?’
‘No.’
‘So fuck off. I might not be able to piss standing up any more, but I’m still capable of wiping my own arse.’
‘One of the few pleasures left to you?’
‘Not even close, mate, not even close.’ He beckoned Murray towards him and when he got close whispered with breath that smelt of smoke and onions, ‘Tell your brother to take better care of her or I’ll be in like Flynn.’
Murray’s snort of amusement surprised them both.
‘I’ll pass the message on.’
‘Laugh all you want, pal. She’s too good for that poofy git. I’m what they call a catch these days.’
‘I guess times are tough.’
‘Not for me, they’re not. I’m getting decent money, I’ve got my own place and I’ve knocked the drugs. But do you know what my biggest advantage is?’
‘What?’
‘I’m a project. Lassies like a project. I’ll let her reform me, don’t you worry.’
He leered and rounded the chair into the cubicle.
Murray bought three coffees, garnishing his tray with a few sugar sachets and little tubs of whatever substituted for milk. He set it all at a table near the window then got out his mobile. There were no messages. He started to compose a text to Rachel but only got as far as Sorry before he spotted Lyn entering with Frankie’s paper. Murray shut the phone down without pressing Send. He couldn’t think what he would have said. After all, he could hardly describe himself as a catch.
Frankie sat on the other side of the room, resolute about ‘giving them space’, though Murray noted he’d chosen a seat with a clear view of their table. Lyn sipped her coffee.
‘We’d best not take too long. So what have you been up to?’
‘Nothing. The usual, just work.’
‘Just work. You should take a tip from Frankie’s book, get out more.’
‘I’ve been out all day.’
‘Visiting strip clubs, browsing round supermarkets. It’s some life you literary doctors lead.’
‘It’s all go.’
Murray drank some of his coffee. It had been a mistake coming here. The sooner he finished it, the sooner he could leave.
‘Will you come and see us before you head off?’
It was as if Lyn had read his mind.
‘Sure, if there’s time.’
She nodded. They both knew that there wouldn’t be. Murray felt Frankie’s eyes on them. Was it pathetic to feel jealous of a paraplegic? A recently homeless paraplegic, if he was under Lyn’s care.
Lyn regarded him over the rim of her paper cup.
‘Jack’s exhibition has had good reviews.’
‘Great.’
His brother’s treachery soured the pleasure Murray would normally have felt in his success.
Lyn held his gaze in hers.
‘Is that all you’re going to say?’
He shrugged, sullen as a recalcitrant first-year presented with a low mark they knew they deserved.
‘I met one of the other artists. Cressida something.
How’s she getting on?’
Lyn raised her cup to her mouth.
‘Cressida Reeves? She’s more Jack’s friend than mine.
They were at art college together.’
‘So were you.’
‘Yes, but they were in the same intake. I didn’t appear on the scene until Jack’s third year. I’d not seen her for years before this show.’ She looked at Murray. ‘Did you see her work?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe you should.’ Her voice was dry. ‘Cressida puts a lot of herself into it.’
‘Preferable to exploiting someone else’s weaknesses.’
Lyn sighed. She took another sip of coffee and kept the paper cup cradled in her hands as if trying to thaw them, though the fast-food joint was warm after the chill of outside.
‘Jack should have told you what his exhibition was about, but you can’t think badly of him for creating it.’
‘He didn’t create anything, just pointed a camera and took a shot.’ Murray folded his hand into the shape of a gun and pulled the trigger. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Lyn’s face flushed red. She put her cup down and glanced over at Frankie. ‘I’d best get going.’
He wanted to apologise, but instead asked, ‘You’re supporting disabled people now?’
There was a shine to her eyes, but her voice was steady.
‘No, same job, same chronic pay. Frank’s an existing client who happens to have become disabled.’
What was wrong with him that he couldn’t feel pity for a homeless man in a wheelchair?
‘Sleeping on the streets has got to be tough in his condition.’ ‘He’s not on the streets any more. That’s why I’m here, supporting his transition from hostel to independent living.’
‘So a lucky accident?’
She gave him a look, but didn’t rise to the bait.
>
‘It wasn’t so much an accident as … I’m not sure what you’d call it. A cry for help? A drug-inspired psychotic episode? One day Frankie finds himself walking near the M8, no idea how he got there, just comes to, aware of the lights of the cars going by. It’s dark, but it’s winter and it’s only around five in the afternoon, so it’s busy, everyone coming home from work. He sees a motorway bridge, climbs up, and throws himself over the top.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yes, shit.’
‘Did he cause a pile-up?’
‘No. Jack says that Frankie’s the luckiest suicide artist in the business. He hit the roof of a lorry, bounced off the edge and onto the central reservation. It should have killed him, but instead he ended up in a chair. The funny thing is, we’d tried to rehouse Frank before, but it was a disaster. It was too much for him, the responsibility. But ever since he got out of hospital he seems better. I mean, he’s still got problems – some days we do this he’s three sheets to the wind – but he’s trying to help himself. He’s cooking – he was a chef when he was in the army – and he’s trying to look after the flat. He’s not missed an appointment with me. Yeah, he’s still a pain sometimes. But it’s like Frank’s decided to live. Almost as if suicide’s been the making of him.’
‘He fancies you rotten.’
‘They all fancy me. I’m the only woman they get to speak to who isn’t a barmaid.’
‘So the feeling’s not mutual?’
‘God, Murray, Jack’s right about you. You’re not of this world.’ Lyn glanced at Frankie again. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘I guess you do, the world’s waiting.’
Lyn’s face flushed. She pushed a curl from her eyes and leaned across the table, so close he felt her words on his face.
‘It’s my fucking job, Murray, and it’s just as important as your book or Jack’s bloody art.’
‘I know that.’
She looked like she wanted to slap him, but she stretched over and kissed him instead. ‘No, you don’t.’ She squeezed his arm and was gone.
He watched them through the window as they made their way towards the taxi rank. Frankie said something and Lyn laughed, shaking her head as if amused against her will.
Murray poured more sugar into his cold coffee and stirred. Lyn was right, of course, her job was vital, he of all people should know that. But still, he couldn’t reconcile the thought that fetching Frankie’s messages was as important as uncovering Archie Lunan’s life. There were a million drunks in the city; Archie had been one himself. But he had also been a poet, and there were precious few of those in the world.
He took out his Moleskine notebook and looked again at the list of names he’d copied from Archie’s jotter:
Danny
Denny
Bobby Boy
Ruby!
I thought I saw you walking by the shore
Ramie
Moon
Jessa *
Tamsker
Saffron
Ray – will you be my sunshine?
Perhaps Lunan had whiled away the hours composing names for the protagonists of his sci-fi novel, but the jaunty phrases suggested something else. Murray read the list again, and wondered what it could be.
Chapter Ten
THERE WAS A voicemail message on Murray’s mobile. He checked Missed Calls and saw an unfamiliar Glasgow number. How had he got to the point where an unfamiliar number was a relief? The voice was female and infused with the same assured tones that dominated the university’s corridors and lecture halls.
‘Hello, I’m phoning with regard to your advert in the TLS. My late husband Alan Garrett did some research into Archie Lunan’s death.’ The woman stalled as if expecting someone to pick up, then continued less confidently, ‘Anyway, give me a call if you’re interested.’ A number and email address followed, succeeded by a click on the line as the widowed Mrs Garrett hung up.
Rachel had suggested the advert to him on one of their early dates. She’d driven them swiftly along the unlit road, the dark nothingness of the reservoir below them, the lights of the city trembling in the beyond. Rachel had guided the car surely round the tricky bends and Murray had tried not to dwell on how well she knew the road. She’d slowed as they got closer to their destination, uncertain at the last moment of their turning, and a stag had started into the full beam of their headlights. Murray caught a glimpse of bright eyes blackly shining, a candelabra of horn, before the creature darted back into the night. He remembered a news report about a driver colliding with a stag, the beast’s antlers piercing first the windscreen, then the man’s chest, the injured animal tossing its head frantically trying to escape, the ruin of bodies found hours later.
He asked, ‘Are you okay?’
Rachel laughed, ‘Yes, that was a close one’, and pressed down on the accelerator. The turn-off appeared soon after on their left and she bumped the car gently into the pitch-darkness of the car park. ‘Here we are.’
He pushed his chair back. Rachel killed the engine and clambered quickly from the driver’s seat into his lap. They were kissing, her hands moving thrillingly down to his fly, his fingers unfastening her blouse, tracing the line between the lace of her bra and her not-yet-familiar-breasts, when Murray saw the shadowy form of another car resting mutely in the darkness. He stayed his hand.
‘There’s someone else here.’
‘Mmmm.’ Rachel had set him free and was rubbing herself against him. She wasn’t wearing any knickers and the thought that she’d driven him there naked beneath her skirt gave him a quick frisson of excitement. But the knowledge of the other car bothered him.
‘Do you think they can see us?’
Rachel leaned back and turned on the interior light. Her breasts shone whitely beneath their lace.
‘Let’s make sure.’
He reached up and quickly clicked it off.
‘You spoilsport, Murray.’
‘I don’t want an audience.’
‘Shame.’
She snapped open the front fastening of her bra and let her breasts fall softly against his face. They’d kissed and resumed their play, but the awareness of the car lurking in the opposite bay remained with him, and their coupling was clumsy and hurried.
They’d driven back down from the country park in silence, Rachel taking the turns more slowly this time, only gathering speed when she reached the straight road that bordered the reservoir.
She’d been hitting seventy-five when the headlights of another car shone in from behind, illuminating the dashboard. Murray turned and saw Rachel’s face caught in shine and shadows like a black and white photograph, her jaw set somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He realised she would have seen the car’s approach in the rear-view mirror and wondered if it, rather than the straightness of the road, had prompted her increase in speed.
The car was a Saab. It started to overtake and Rachel hit the accelerator, staying level with it, racing. Up ahead the road curved into a bend. Murray’s right foot pressed on an imaginary brake, the Saab zoomed on and Rachel dropped speed, letting it pull in front. Up ahead the car’s brake lights shone red. Rachel tailed it down to the cross, where the Saab made it through the traffic lights. For a second Murray thought Rachel was going to put on a spurt and follow it through, but at the last minute she hit the brakes. Murray jarred forward. The seatbelt’s inertia reel held him tight.
‘Sorry.’ Rachel looked at him. ‘Bit of a bumpy ride.’
Murray tried to reconstruct the shadow of the parked car in his mind, but it had only been a shape in the dark. There was nothing except his intuition, or perhaps it was paranoia, to suggest it had been the Saab Rachel had raced.
‘You had me worried for a moment.’
‘You’re always worried, Murray, it’s your default setting.’
‘That’s not fair.’
She put a reassuring hand on his knee.
‘Your being old school is part of what I like about you.’ Rachel glan
ced away from the road, letting her eyes meet his for a moment. ‘How are you getting on with the elusive Archie?’
‘Elusive is the word.’ Murray’s voice grew warmer. She’d never said that she liked him before. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the National Library. They have a few boxes of bits and pieces they’re going to let me have a root aboot in. What I’m really missing is first-hand accounts, contact with people who knew Lunan. It’s amazing how many of that generation are no longer with us.’
‘That generation.’ She laughed. ‘He wasn’t much older than Fergus, you know. Maybe you should interview him.’
‘I doubt they moved in the same circles.’
‘You’d be surprised at the circles Fergus has moved in.’
Her archness matched the grudge in his voice.
They drove on in silence, the city taking form for Murray as they began to get closer to the university. He looked again at the clean lines of her profile and wondered why she betrayed Fergus with him, him with Fergus.
They waited at the pedestrian lights on the Great Western Road. He could see the fish fryer in the lit window of the Philadelphia shovelling fresh chips into a vat of hot fat. Maybe he should offer to buy Rachel a fish supper, drive the scent of their sex from the car with deep-fried cod and vinegar. The lights shifted to green and she swung the car round a dawdling pedestrian.
‘You should seek them out.’
‘Who?’
‘Old associates of Archie’s.’
‘I intend to.’
‘It could be fun, like being a detective. Maybe you’ll go undercover.’
He put a hand on her knee.
‘I’d rather go between the sheets.’
‘I prefer you in your natural habitat.’
She changed gear, knocking him away.
‘The library?’
‘Now there’s a thought, between the stacks.’
She hit the emergency flashers and drew into the side of the road, double-parking so he could get out and catch the underground the rest of the way home.
He’d placed the same small classified ad in the Herald, Scotsman, TLS and Scots Magazine the following day.
Doctor Murray Watson of the University of Glasgow’s Department of English Literature seeks memories of the poet Archie Lunan from anyone who may have known him.
