Waterline

by Ross Raisin

  The fruit machine is ringing and a spew of coins clatters into the collect tray. The lad has struck it lucky. You can see by his face how pleased he is, the money falling out from the machine for quite a long while. Good for you, pal. Mick gives him a grin as he comes past on his way to the bar with the coins cupped in his hands, a wee smile from Craig too, glancing down a moment from the television. It’s his own face, if anything, not his mother’s. They’ve similar features. It gets more noticeable the older he is. Even a few grey hairs showing already. That’ll be another thing he can hold against him.

  He stays looking at the boy for a moment before turning back to the wall. Rats. That was one thing that never changed. As a wean, his da would take him into the yard sometimes when a ship was due for its trials, and they’d stand together in a big crowd of boys and yardmen as the ship got fumigated, waiting for the moment when hundreds of rats started pouring down the mooring ropes, and then the popcorn-popping sound as everyone got batting them with their shovels.

  Desmond is walking over.

  He stands over the table, a great bear blocking out the television.

  ‘Mick. It’s good to see you.’

  ‘And yourself, Desmond. How’s it going?’

  ‘No bad, aye, no bad. Quiet, like, but what can ye do, eh?’ He claps a giant hand onto Craig’s shoulder. ‘Robbie still here as well, is he?’

  ‘He is. And the Highlanders. They’re off the morrow but, any luck.’

  ‘Aye, well, good of them to stay this long, I suppose. Alan been putting the mix in?’

  ‘No, he’s been fine, to be fair. Lynn’s been cooking for us all, so there’s no complaints really. Look, Des, I wanted to say thanks again for the other day. It –’

  ‘Aw, Mick, serious, it’s no a problem. Ye’re very welcome. And it’s no like I’m mobbed with custom, know?’ He looks round toward the bar. ‘I’m sure Pat coped with himself for a few hours.’ He chuckles, taking the hand off Craig’s shoulder, and looks down at the table. ‘Another drink, boys?’

  Craig shakes his head.

  ‘No, we’re alright, thanks,’ Mick says.

  ‘Okay, well, yous two take care. I’d best go see what state this bar’s in.’

  His massive arse is moving away to the bar. They look up to the television as the Rangers game comes on. There’s an early goal. He doesn’t recognize the scorer. Maybe he should try and persuade Craig to stay for another drink. Force something out of him, at least. How’s he getting on up in Yoker, for one thing; is the job working out? Apart from the bits and pieces that Robbie’s told him, he honestly wouldn’t know. Does he have a girlfriend even? The thought of asking him something like that. Excuse me, son, but I was wondering just if ye’re seeing anybody the now, and how does she get on with these thundery mood swings of yours? Probably he wouldn’t be like that with her though. See she would understand him; she would make time and listen to him.

  Desmond is talking to the new barmaid, showing her something at the till. After a moment they move along the bar and he pulls down a couple of whisky bottles from the gantry, unscrews the pourer off the fuller one and starts marrying them together, shaking out the last few drops from the empty. Then back onto the rack. He leaves her to get doing the rest of the bottles while he goes over by the till, carefully patting the comb-over, and observes her. The thought occurs to him then, minding the hand on Craig’s shoulder, that possibly Desmond knows more what’s going on with him than he does. If this is his hideout, where he comes to get away from the house, from him, he might well have talked a little to Des. Even if no how he’s feeling, then maybe at least some of the other stuff, like how’s his flat and his job, and is his boss a bastard and all that type of thing.

  ‘I’m off home, Da.’

  Craig stands up, pulling his jacket on.

  ‘Okay, son, I’ll come with ye.’

  It is dark, walking back. The streetlamps are on, and there aren’t as many people about as earlier, though there’s still a queue in the chip shop. They turn off the high street, through an alleyway, and past a group of bevvied-up young lads playing football in the dim light of a back court. It could have gone worse, he tells himself. They got through it without any explosions, at least. That’s something. Give it time, is the best thing. Let him be alone with himself for a while, no having to deal with people in his face the whole day. He’s a solitary kind of a person, anyway, so he’ll figure himself out if he’s left to it. They come past the bus stop at the end of the road and as they get near the house he can see the lights are off downstairs, so Robbie and Jenna must be away to bed.

  Even as he opens the front door, it doesn’t really hit him that she isn’t going to be there. There’s no thudding realization whacking him over the head or anything like that, it’s more a feeling like she’s out, like it’s bingo night or something. He goes into the kitchen and gets himself a glass of water while Craig goes up to the bathroom. The Highlanders have tidied away all the cans and the bottles into separate carriers, he notices. He drinks his water and waits until he can hear Craig coming down the stair. They pass in the corridor.

  ‘Night,’ Craig says, going into the living room.

  ‘Night, son. See you in the morning.’

  He hasn’t slept in the bed any of these last nights. All the bedding is now pulled onto the floor, against the wall, with Robbie’s old camping mat underneath for him to lie on. He’s been sleeping better there. No perfect, but it’s better. It still takes a few hours each night, trying to block out the sound of Fred fucking Flintstone through the wall, until he gets drifting off. And when he does, he sleeps in short, deep spurts, waking often, and usually from the most pure vivid dreams. She is there in most of these, even if it’s just for a walk-on: crossing the road as he’s waiting in a car stopped at the lights, or sat near to him at the bus stop eating a sausage roll. More often though, the dreams are about her, or the two of them together. He had one, she was in the kitchen getting tea ready, some keech on the mini TV in the background, and she’s chatting away to herself as he comes in and gets himself a beer out the fridge. Then when she sees him she starts straight away apologizing, saying she’s no had time to fix out a proper tea and so it’s ham and eggs and he’s genuine bemused, laughing, because what’s wrong with ham and eggs – that’s a great bloody tea.

  It is colder the night and he’s got the windows closed. Still the odd noise from outside: a front door shutting; a car speeding toward the river. He pulls the covers in close over him, and starts to feel quite snug there on the floor, and maybe it’s the beer he drank but it isn’t long before he has started gradually, comfortably, to drop off.

  He is in the bed and she’s lying next to him, facing away, snoring. He can’t sleep, it’s that loud. The noise increases steadily to a peak, and stops with a jolt; a moment of peace and silence as she lies there breathing heavily, and then it begins again. He props himself up on his elbow and looks over at her. The flesh of her neck bunched against her chin. He gives her a shunt with his elbow and lies quickly down again. Silence. A few moments’ respite, and then it gets up again. He gives another nudge and she grunts to a stop. He closes his eyes and pretends he’s asleep. She mumbles some nonsense a few seconds and goes quiet. After a while he feels himself starting to fall to sleep, the eyes slowly closing, but then she’s at it again. He gives a real shunt this time, and turns quick over onto his other side. There is a chuckle. ‘I know what ye’re up to. Pack it in, eh.’ He kids on he’s asleep, but he can’t keep it up and soon he’s chuckling too.

  He turns over toward her, but she’s gone – he sees her suddenly over by the wardrobe, getting dressed. ‘Come on, you, get a move on. They’ll be closing soon.’ He gets up and changes and they go down the staircase, but when they get to the bottom they are on the lower deck of a bus, taking a seat at the back over the engine, because she is cold. She keeps chuffing her hands together to warm them up. They are about to get off, and the driver calls to them to come over. When they get t
o the glass side of the cab he looks in and it is the barmaid from the Empress. She’s got all these photos stuck up around the cab. This one of her weans, two wee girls, playing in a paddling pool. She looks annoyed about something. ‘Go on, get off, then,’ she says, so they do and they step out into the car park of the Co. He fetches a trolley and they go inside, where it’s very busy, and hard to move around. He jostles the trolley up an aisle, with the wife in beside him reeling off a list of things they are needing: carrots, tatties, bog roll, flowers. She sends him off to the freezers for a chicken, but when he’s got it he can’t find her again, the place is too hoaching with shoppers. He tries going down the central aisle to look both sides and he is up and down twice before he sees her – she’s at the checkout, sat in a booth. When he gets on the approach he can see that she’s wearing a blue shirt and a Co badge with her name on it. He gets unloading the trolley and she passes each of the items over the scanner, her head down. He notices then that she is greeting. ‘What is it, hen?’ he says, but she doesn’t answer, she keeps scanning the shopping. ‘It’s okay,’ and he tries to take her hand as she scans the bog roll. ‘We can go now,’ he says. He can’t see her face but he knows she’s smiling, and she stands up to leave the booth, but the door is locked and it won’t open. She shakes it, and he gets helping her but it won’t budge and he can hear her sobbing again. ‘Climb over it, hen. Come on, try, will ye? We can go now, look, I’ve got all the shopping – I got the tatties, see?’

  He’s said these last words out loud, he realizes, sitting up from the mat with a plaster-peeling sound. He stays a moment with his arms folded on top of his knees, getting his bearings, looking out the window to get a fix on what is real. The brainbox in a muddle still. He stares out as, slowly, it clears. There’s something of a moon the night. You can see it above the dark blocks of the multis. Five or six black shapes with only a few windows lit, and the yellow spines of the stairwell lights – one of them flickering, up near the top.

  Chapter 5

  Craig is the first to leave. His bag is packed up and ready by the door when the rest of them have finished their breakfast.

  ‘What time will you start work tomorrow?’ Lynn asks him as they gather in the lobby, watching him put on his jacket.

  ‘I’m in early. I’ll talk with my boss and see what’s what.’

  He gives her a stiff hug, and the rest of them line up along the corridor to see him off.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger, now,’ Alan says to him. The kind of thing you say to people who are strangers.

  ‘Okay,’ Craig replies, and it is actually rare comic – the look on his face – it’s that obvious he’d rather top himself. Mick looks over at Robbie, wondering if he’s thought the same. Robbie’s looking pretty serious but. He’s next up, and he gives his brother a tight squeeze. There’s a look between them that’s hard to read. Understanding, maybe. Disagreement.

  When it gets his turn it is in the end quite easy. With all the rest of them stood watching there’s no question of a wee private chat, so they stick to the formalities just. A brief hold. A pat on the back.

  ‘Come over for your tea sometime soon, eh?’

  ‘Okay, I will.’

  And he’s away. Off to wait at the bus stop and get moving across town.

  The Highlanders are next. A drawn-out carry-on of hugs and promises shortly after Cash in the Attic. Poor Lynn hardly able to bring herself to get leaving, she’s that torn up about it.

  They decide the three of them to go for a walk in the afternoon. The sun’s come out again after the cloudy spell of the last couple of days, and they go up the park for a bit of a wander. It’s enjoyable. Being able to relax and have a bit of patter finally, and no be wary the whole time of treading on eggshells. It’s a shame there’s only this day left. Robbie and Jenna’s flight goes early in the morning. They’ve got their taxi to the airport booked already, and Jenna has tidied up their stuff from the living room. For now, walking through the middle of the park, past a fringe of small planted flowers, Jenna is asking him what his plans are for the next couple of days, after they’ve gone. He’ll give a call into work, he says, see when they need him. Get the house cleaned up. Finish off the parmesan. He grins, but the pair of them have got their concerned faces on. Obvious enough what they’re thinking: how will he get on, on his own? Will he manage? Will he hit the drink?

  ‘How was it last night, with Craig?’ Robbie asks.

  ‘Yeh, it was fine.’

  ‘Really? The two of you get to talk?’

  ‘Aye, well, kind of. Mean, it isnae easy. But there was no bust-up at least. How, has he said anything to you?’

  ‘No. Not much, anyway.’ They slow up a moment as a young boy chases across the path after a football. ‘See I was just wondering last night if he might talk to you about compensation and that.’

  ‘No, he didnae. He has to you, then?’

  ‘Not directly. I know it’s on his mind though. He brought it up the other day, how more cases are being brought, and there’s been some big victories and that. There was one last month, apparently, don’t know if you saw, a hundred and fifty grand, he says.’

  ‘It’s no a victory, Robbie.’

  ‘I know, Christ. That’s not how Craig sees it either, you know. He’s angry, Da. He’s just angry. He needs to blame somebody. And they’re as good as anybody, aren’t they – the employers, the insurance companies – he’s right about that, isn’t he?’

  They come past a battered play area with a swing and a mangled see-saw. The seat on the swing is come unfixed from the chain on one side, and juts down like a broken bone.

  ‘Da?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rob. I don’t know what I think.’ He looks ahead up the path. ‘You agree with him, then? You think we should put in a claim?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s your decision, Da.’ He glances across at Jenna. ‘We’re obviously not going to be around through it all, so it’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Of course it bloody is. She was your maw too. You’ve as much right as Craig or anybody else.’

  Robbie goes quiet as they walk on. He notices, further on, Jenna take his hand as the path widens and they come toward the far side of the park.

  ‘Now’s no the time to be thinking about it, anyway,’ Mick says after a while. ‘Come on.’ And they leave the park with the sun still going brightly over the tenements, starting back to the house.

  They get a carry-out from the curry shop for their tea, a bit of cargo from the offie. Robbie insists paying for it. Says he’s hardly put his hand in his pocket the whole while he’s been here. Fine. It’s no like you can argue with him anyway. They watch a film after they’ve eaten – a good one, Australian, as it happens, even though it’s just what’s on the television. It’s about this guy who’s a notorious hardcase, robs drug dealers and cuts their toes off kind of thing, but who doesn’t let a long stretch in the clink stop him from keeping up with his psychie tendencies: stabbing, torturing, and then writing a book and becoming a celebrity – true story, apparently. Robbie and Jenna tell him the guy’s well known over there as a writer and a lunatic. When the film’s finished, they stay up and finish the beers. Chatting. No about anything much, just chatting. It’s good; he enjoys their company. It is the back of midnight by the time they’re done, so when their taxi comes at six the next morning to pick them up, the pair of them are a wee bit groggy-looking as he comes down the stair to say goodbye.

  He gets a good long hug off them both.

  ‘Like I said, Da, I’ll come over again soon. That’s a promise.’

  ‘Ye don’t have to promise me, Rob. I know the score. It’s okay.’

  After the taxi has left he comes back inside and carries upstairs the pile of bedding that Jenna has left neatly folded by the settee. When it’s all put away he comes back down and makes himself a cup of tea.

  He gets a window open in the living room. Let the place breathe a bit, lessen the aroma of farting sons. Poor Jenna, serious.
She for one must be looking forward to being in her own bed again, that’s a banker. Getting back to the baby. It’s been a long time away for them, new parents that they are, and he’s genuine grateful they stayed this long. Robbie might well say that he’ll be over again soon but it’s a daft promise to make, which is how he wasn’t entertaining it, no even for a moment. Maybe if they leave it a while, then next time Damien might be old enough they can bring him too. Get him introduced. It’s one of the things he’s had a struggle with, Robbie, that his maw never met the baby. He knows that, because Jenna told him. Robbie didn’t want to say anything about it himself because he thinks it’s too close the knuckle and he doesn’t want to make things any the harder for his father. Which is daft, obviously. It’s something he wouldn’t’ve minded talking to him about. But that’s Robbie: always this sense – whether it’s the Highlanders, or it’s Craig, or it’s the compensation – that he’s trying to protect him. Keep things from getting any the worse. That he doesn’t completely trust him to cope with things on his own, without him, without Cathy.