breeks wished he’d given it a shot.
Rachel tugged the hem of her skirt down. Usually she wore trousers. She had, he realised, very good legs.
‘You look nice.’
Rachel flashed him the same bright smile that she gave to shop assistants, students, fellow lecturers, porters, her husband, anyone who crossed her path when her mind was elsewhere. He watched as she took a small mirror from her handbag. Her lipstick was hardly smudged, but she perched on the edge of his desk and reapplied it anyway. Murray was reminded of an early author photograph of Christie Graves, long legs, sharp angles and red lips. It was a good look.
The memory of the opening door, the light shifting across Rachel’s face, returned and spoiled the knowledge that she’d dressed up for him. He measured the trajectory between their clinch and the door with his thumb and forefinger.
‘You don’t think it was someone from the department?’
Rachel’s smile grew tight. She dropped the mirror back into her bag and zipped it shut.
‘It’s Friday evening. No one else would be in their office at this time. Most of them have something that passes for a life. Don’t worry, I imagine we made his night. No doubt he’s crouched in the gatehouse right now, reliving the memory.’
‘Of my white arse? I bloody hope not.’
‘Irresistible. Your white arse will have a starring role in that little bit of ciné film that plays behind his eyes when he goes home and rogers his tired, but pleasantly surprised, old wife for the first time in months.’
Rachel was on his side of the desk now. Her skirt was made of some kind of shiny, silver-grey fabric, stretched taut across her hips. Murray ran a finger down her leg, feeling the satin slide of the material. She placed a hand on his, stopping its progress, and he leaned back in his chair.
‘So what’s the occasion?’ He wanted to keep her there a while, or maybe be with her somewhere else. Somewhere with subdued lighting, candles, soft music. What a cliché. It was Friday night and most people had a life. ‘Fergus taking you somewhere nice?’
‘Fergus doesn’t take me places. We go together.’
Murray put his foot against the desk. If he were a cowboy, he’d have tipped his hat forward. She hadn’t dressed for him after all. He tried for playful and failed.
‘We could go together better.’
Rachel bent towards him. He felt her breath, warm and sweet, with a faint scent of peppermint. She’d started smoking again.
‘One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Fergus, he’s never boring.’
‘He bored me rigid at the last faculty meeting.’ Murray reached into his desk drawer and fished out the bottle of malt he’d bought weeks ago in the hope of tempting Rachel to stay longer than the time it took to straighten her clothes. ‘I think I need a drink. Do you want to join me?’ He hesitated. ‘Or we could go somewhere, if you’d prefer a glass of wine?’
Rachel glanced at the clock above the office door. Murray wondered if she’d been keeping an eye on it during their lovemaking.
‘I told you. I can’t stay long. We’re having people round for dinner. Fergus is making his famous shepherd’s pie.’
‘Proletarian heartiness the latest smart thing?’
‘I hope so. It’s certainly more economical than some of his other enthusiasms. Here,’ She reached into her bag and drew out a bottle of Blackwood’s. ‘I’ll have a splash of this. My alibi.’
Alibi. The word irritated him.
‘How long will it excuse you for?’
‘Long enough. Fergus was determined to have Shetland gin for aperitifs. They don’t sell it everywhere. Why?’ She had a pointed face, like a sly little fox. Sometimes, when she smiled, she looked a short leap away from a bite. ‘Are you scared he might hunt me down?’
Murray got up and washed his coffee cup. The light stretching across the room was snagged in his mind. Fergus was around twenty years older than Rachel, somewhere towards his sixties, but he’d run the 10K last year. Could he have covered the stretch of the corridor in the time it had taken Murray to get to the door? But why would Fergus run? He had the power to fell Murray without lifting a fist. He ignored Rachel’s question, taking the gin from her and pouring a little into the clean mug.
‘Sorry about the crockery, not very suave.’
‘Not being very suave is part of your charm.’
‘Then you won’t be surprised to hear I can’t offer you ice and lemon.’
‘A little water will be fine.’
It was part of what he’d liked about her, this posh gameness. In another era she would have made a great lady explorer. He could imagine her cajoling a team of native carriers through the jungle, taking one of them to her tent at night then ordering him to pick up and carry her bundles the next morning.
Murray went to the sink. Usually he drank the bottled stuff, convinced he could taste the liquorice taint of lead in the university tap water, but there was only a small dreg left in the plastic bottle of Strathmore in his rucksack. He let the cold run for a moment then added a dash to her cup.
‘Thanks.’
Rachel smiled, holding it against her chest while he poured himself a nip of the whisky. He was going to clink his cup against hers, but she took a sip of the gin, grimacing then coughing against its burn.
Murray laughed.
‘A hardy people, these Shetlanders.’ He tasted his own drink. ‘Doesn’t it bother you? Our visitor?’
‘You shielded me.’
He toasted her with his mug.
‘Instinctive chivalry.’
‘Of course it bothers me.’ She glanced at the clock again. ‘But what’s the point in torturing ourselves? A rumour will start or a rumour won’t start. We’ll worry about it if it does. The thing we have to make sure of is that it doesn’t happen again.’
‘You’re right. It was stupid, doing it here.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She saw the expression on his face and smiled. ‘We both know it can’t go on.’
He couldn’t trust his voice. He hadn’t known, didn’t know.
‘And you’re going to be on sabbatical for a year.’ She brightened, like a children’s nurse who had applied Dettol to a skint knee and was now about to use a sweet to distract attention from the sting. ‘You won’t have time for all this.’
He tried to keep his words light.
‘There’s only so much time you can spend on research. I’m sure I could have squeezed you in.’
She looked away. For a moment he thought she might relent,
