A spectral figure bringing death and damnation to all it touched.
He sometimes felt a wee bit like that.
A spectral figure.
Who would it tap next upon the shoulder?
14
For those whom God to ruin has designed,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
JOHN DRYDEN,
She sat in her late husband’s study, raised the glass to her lips, and took a deep shuddering draught of whisky.
The fiery liquid coursed through her veins and Margaret Bouch threw back her head to quicken the descent.
Her family were downstairs in the kitchen where, but a year ago, poor old Archibald Gourlay had conceived an unexpected meeting with his Maker. They thought her to be ensconced in memories of sad regret and wilting graveside flowers but she hummed a tune under her breath, one dainty foot tapping in time.
One morning, early, long ago, when she could not sleep, one morning, early, an April morning when the advent of spring disquieted the blood, she had risen, the hour must have been six or so, the first streaks of dawn lacing their light into a grey sky, and made her way down to the docks.
Sir Thomas was left behind, he had become recently reliant on sleeping draughts and lay like one dead which was a merciful release as she slipped out of the bed, donned her clothes and ran away to sea.
The world was still, a slight mist weaving its way in and out of the spars of the sailing ships, and for a moment she felt as though she were the only person alive, awake, as if the universe were hers to do with what she liked.
As if she owned her life.
And then the profound silence was broken by a raucous voice as if to mock that self-delusion.
A tarry-breeks, an old sailor whose finest dream would be of a rich widow with a farm, stumbled his way up the jetty towards his ship. His hat was askew, his feet bare, boots lost to a whore from the previous night, but he hopped and skipped like a free spirit and lifted his voice in song.
‘Whit shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Whit shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Whit shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?’
She had watched the man skip onwards until the mists claimed him, and then finally returned to Bernard Street to be later told by her allotted spouse that he had decided to relocate the family to a house in Moffat on the borders. The children were still young enough to enjoy the delights of the countryside, Thomas Bouch had decided. No mention made of what she might prefer. No. The deed was done. His new secretary, Alan Telfer, would take care of all the details.
She protested. What did she know of the country? She loved the city.
Thomas, not yet a Sir by a long shot, frowned slightly, then turned and walked back into his study to think his great thoughts.
The secretary smiled.
What she loved was of no concern.
But, not any more.
She carried the tune now. Under her breath for the moment, though not for long.
She took another hefty gulp of whisky and sang quietly to herself.
‘Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
Earl-aye in the morning.’
Margaret was sitting in his armchair, leather, claret and cream insignia of the North British Railway which had now distanced itself from its former blue-eyed boy and his very efficient secretary who had most efficiently blown his brains apart in this very room while the portrait of Sir Thomas and one other present had looked down upon the act.
Two high stools, now bereft of the backsides of both men, huddled forlornly at the desk where some drawings lay, dusty, curling at the edges, abandoned.
She lifted her glass to the portrait of Sir Thomas, above her on the opposite wall. His eyes were not looking at her but then they never quite had, always found something more interesting a few feet to her side.
Where his secret was kept.
The glass was now empty and her mood swung to melancholy, transported back to a moment full of longing and shame, offer and rejection. One week past.
