Naming the Bones (4 page)

‘Do what you have to.’

Murray hit
Record
and beyond the window of the small machine cogs began to roll, scrolling their voices onto the miniature tape.

‘So what was he like?’

George’s face froze in a frown, like an Edwardian gentleman waiting on the flash of a camera.

‘When I knew him he was a great guy.’

Murray rewound the tape and pressed Play. George’s voice repeated against the backdrop of café noise,
When I knew him he was a great guy.

‘Jesus, I hope you’re not going to do that every time I say something.’

The young mother gave George another look. This time he held her gaze until she glanced away. He muttered, ‘You’d think no one ever had a fucking bairn before.’

Murray bit the head off one of the elephants and pressed
Record
again.

‘So what made him a great guy?’

Meikle answered with a question of his own.

‘What do you know about Archie?’

‘The work. Basic stuff, where he was born, his death of course, and a few things in-between. I’ve been interested in him since I was sixteen, but I’m only starting serious research into his life now.’

‘Have you talked to Christie?’

‘I’ve corresponded with her. She’s promised to meet me.’

‘And do you think she will?’

‘I hope so.’

George nodded his head.

‘Fair enough.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure what it is you want to know.’

‘Whatever you want to tell me. First impressions. You said he was a great guy, what was so great about him? Did he consider himself a poet when you knew him?’

George raised the mug slowly to his mouth, as if it wasn’t the drink he wanted so much as the thinking time. He cradled the cup in his hands for a moment, then set it down, running a finger thoughtfully along the rim, rubbing away a thin brown stain of coffee.

‘When I first met Archie he didn’t know what he was. I mean I think he knew that he wanted to be a poet when he was in his pram. He was always straight about that, but he still wasn’t sure about who he was. He was a west-coaster like yourself, but he was living here in Edinburgh and he’d spent his early years on one of the islands, so his accent would scoot about north, east and west.’

‘Everywhere except the south.’

Meikle laughed.

‘That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. You don’t find many Scotsmen aspiring to come from the south, not the ones who stay, anyway. But what I meant was his voice reflected the way he was, unsettled, always trying out new personas. ’

‘So would you say his personality was split?’

‘Jekyll and Hyde? That would be convenient for your book, wouldn’t it? No, nothing as dramatic as that, not when I knew him anyway.’ He paused and took another sip of coffee, more thinking time. ‘But you could say that Archie had two sides to him, the Glaswegian who wasn’t going to take any shit and the mystical islander. Neither of them was a perfect fit.’

Murray scribbled in his notebook.

2 personas, hard v mystical, but not J & H

‘I’m not sure what else to say. We were just two young blokes who liked a drink and a craic.’

‘At a risk of sounding like Julie Andrews, start at the very beginning. How did you and Archie meet?’

Meikle shook his head. His expression was still stern, but Murray thought he could detect the hint of a smile behind the straight-set lips.

‘That was typical Archie. I had a room up in Newington at the time, not so far from where we are now, student digs, a bed, a Baby Belling, an excuse of a sink and a shared lavvy in the stair. I was coming home along Nicholson Street one night. It was late, but not quite pub chucking-out time. That road’s not so different now than it was then, unlike the rest of Edinburgh, that’s turned into a bloody theme park.’ Meikle took another sip of coffee and gave Murray a half-apologetic glance, as if he hated these tangents as much as his listener. ‘Aye, well, as I was saying, it was typical Archie, but I wasn’t to know that then.’

George grinned, getting into his stride, and Murray realised that this was a story he had told before. He wrote in his notebook,
Well-established anecdote.

‘I turned off into Rankeillor Street. It was a rare night, cold but clear, with a full moon. I could see the outline of Salisbury Crags beyond the end of the street. I remember that distinctly because it was a Friday night and I’d been thinking about taking a climb up there in the morning. Maybe it was the full moon, they say that does funny things to you, but suddenly I felt like I had the energy for the climb right then. I was half-wondering if I should go ahead or if it was the drink that was doing my thinking for me and whether I might end up falling face-first off some cliff or catching my death from hypothermia. Maybe I was aware of the group of lads at the other end of the street, but I wasn’t really paying any attention, I was imagining what it would be like at the top of the hill in the dark with only the moon and the sheep for company. I’d more or less decided to go for it when I heard shouting. It was Archie, though I didn’t know that at the time. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but what I could see was that the other three lads were laying into him. I’ve never been much of a fighter, but it was three-to-one, and even from that distance and in the dark I could tell that Archie had a body more suited to wielding a pen than a pair of boxing gloves. So one minute I’m in quiet contemplation, the next I’m running towards the four of them, yelling my head off. They had your man on the ground by this time and they were beginning to put the boot in. I don’t know why my appearance on the scene should have made any difference. It still wouldn’t have been even odds, not with Archie on the ground the way he was. Maybe they’d finished with him, or maybe they didn’t have the stomach for more, because the lads kind of jogged off, not running, but moving at a faster-than-walking pace. They shouted some abuse, but I wasn’t going to let that bother me. Truth be told, once I stopped running and yelling, I started to get the shakes. Still, I think I was pretty pleased with myself, a bit smug, you know? Archie was still on the pavement. I leaned down to give him a hand up and that’s when it happened. He landed me a good one square in the face.’ George laughed and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. ‘Before I knew it, the two of us were scrapping in the street. Then came the blue light. I guess someone in the tenements must have called the police when the first fight was kicking off. They charged the pair of us with drunk and disorderly and shoved us in separate cells for the night. My one and only arrest.’

Meikle laughed and shook his head again.

‘It doesn’t sound like a very promising basis for a friendship.’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it? But someone in the station must have slipped up because we were booked out at the same time the next morning. I wanted nothing to do with him, of course. I mean one minute there I am thinking about moonlit climbs and the next I’m in a cell in St Leonard’s police station.’

‘So how did you and Archie end up pals?’

‘Oh, Archie was a charmer. He made a gracious apology and before I knew it we were in a café swapping our life stories over bacon rolls and coffee. Then it was pub opening time. We went on from there.’

‘So thumping people one minute and charming them the next, but not a Jekyll and Hyde character?’

‘You’re keen on that one, aren’t you?’ Meikle’s belligerence had vanished in the story. ‘He was full of life and sometimes his energy spilled over into something else.’

Murray glanced at the recorder still spooling their words onto tape and wondered how far he should push the older man.

‘He sounds like a violent alcoholic.’

Meikle winced, but his voice remained low and calm.

‘The alcoholic bit I don’t know about. He liked a drink, true enough, but he was young, it could have gone either way. Personally I think a lot of that’s to do with whether you’ve got an addictive personality or not. I do, my father did too, but I don’t make assumptions about other folk, especially the dead. The violence part? Aye, well, he got into fights, like a lot of young lads, but I don’t think Archie was violent per se. I used to, but I’ve had a bit of time to consider. I reckon that when he drank all his insecurities were given a free rein. Archie would hit you, right enough, but then he’d drop his guard and let you give him a proper doing. I got a fair few blows in that night before the police pulled me off him. That was part of the reason I went for a drink with him the next day. I couldn’t believe the mess I’d made of his face.’

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 second-hand 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.