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 corkscrew’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.’