by Ross Raisin
‘What happened?’
The eyes widen, far enough to expose the white outsider parts that are normally sheltered under the lids. ‘What happened? That bastard the manager, that’s what. He says to me, the magazines are supposed to stay in the reception, they’re no for taking out. Believe that? He’s no even asked me. He’s telt me I’ve got them but he’s no even asked me first, that’s how I’m beeling about it.’
He cloys up then and they don’t talk any more about it. They finish eating and Beans pays.
It is colder, blowier, the day, and after a walkabout they go into a train station, park themselves on some seats by a pasty shop. There is a scaffer hanging about the ticket machines and Beans is watching him, the bristles up, like a dog. The smell of pasties wafting; a rare moment of enjoyment. He thinks for a moment how the shame of leeching like this should be making him the more desperate to get doing something, but it’s not, it’s the opposite – he doesn’t think, doesn’t care; he is into the routine. They are walking again. Fine but. Fine. Keeping on the move. A stop at the offie on the way to the veranda, and it is okay once they are sat down because the wind is mainly kept off by the bush all afternoon. As soon as they get leaving though, the familiar feeling starts to kick in, the nerves already on edge.
Fortunately but Beans doesn’t go in the reception, he’s wiped his hands with them, he says, and there is nobody about as they go up the stair and into the corridor. Open the door and go inside the room.
‘Aw, Christ.’
It has been turned over. All the bedding is thrown on the floor and the drawers under the one small table are wrenched open. Their two bags have been taken. He sits down heavily on the bed, his breath constricting. Beans is away out the door. ‘Fucksake, man. Fucking hell.’ He puts his head down on the mattress. Stares out the window. A wean is kicking a ball against the car park wall. He lies listening to it beat repeatedly on the brick.
‘She says there’s nothing they can do, we should’ve locked the door. Bastards. Probably them that did it. Serious. It probably was. Ye okay, pal?’ A hand is on his shoulder. ‘Look, nay worries. No like we had much anyway eh? First thing we’ll do the morning, we’ll get out of this place. Okay?’ He is hauling one of the cots up against the door. ‘The better on our own, serious, nay cunts nebbing about.’
Chapter 27
The group have been there all morning. At any one time there are between four and eight of them: sometimes a pair will wander off toward the street, or a new arrival will come into the square and for a few minutes the silence is broken as the others get on their feet, talking, shouting. One of the women keeps herself slightly removed, on the end bench. If one of the men approaches where she is, starts saying something to her, she ignores him, and eventually he returns to the others. The air of the group is edgy, quiet, getting worse as the morning goes on. Nothing to drink. She feels cold and nervous, sober, aware of the staring line of people at the bus stop.
Shortly before midday, three men arrive, two of them each holding a heavy plastic bottle of cider. The mood changes straight away. There is laughter and movement, the first of the bottles getting opened and passed around. She stays where she is on the bench, and before long another woman comes and sits next to her, passing her the second bottle. This other woman is grinning, looking at her coat. ‘Jesus, Anna, alright for some.’
From the first swallow she is elsewhere. Her fear leaving; warmth spreading from deep inside her; the people at the bus stop disappearing. There is a burst of laughter from the group, one of the men saying something that she cannot hear, and the other woman resting her head now against the arm of her coat, closing her eyes. The woman’s hair is thin, and she can see there is a rash on part of her scalp, and on the very top of her head, a large dark blue scab.
A fight has broken out. It came out of nowhere – she didn’t see what started it – but two of the men are stalking stiffly around each other, and suddenly one of them crumples to the ground as he is struck by something from behind. In an instant the square is filled with shouting, the others in the group rushing in to join the scuffle. She lifts the woman’s head from her arm, lowers it gently to the bench slats and hurries away.
She breathes thinly as she moves down the street, past a line of parked buses and under a bridge, before slowing, her legs aching and frozen. At least her top half is warm. The coat is expensive and new, with a soft lining, and she pulls it tightly around her, making sure that the top is buttoned up to the neck. She needs to pee, but it is quite a way still to where she’s headed, so she takes a detour to a public toilet by the river. When she gets there though, she finds it has been boarded up. Fuckers. She is reminded of the stupid drunk dickheads fighting up at the square and she vows not to return there later in the day, whatever happens.
There is a pub on her way and she goes into it. On entering through the heavy swing doors she is immediately watched by the bar girl, and by the time she has gone down the narrow spiral staircase into a dingy basement corridor, there is a large man in chef trousers standing in front of the toilet entrance. He is slowly shaking his head. She turns, avoiding looking at his face, and goes back up the spiral staircase. She walks through the bar; the girl looking at her from behind the counter. Her limbs are heavy and she thinks for a moment that the swing door is not going to open. She desperately needs to pee. With a painful heave the door pushes open, and she turns her head back as she steps through it.
‘Fucking bitch.’
There is at least ten minutes left of the journey and she feels like she is about to piss herself. She comes to a side street leading toward a train station and goes down it, crouching behind one of the cars parked next to a high metal fence. Before she has finished, a man, and then a woman with a young teenage girl, come out of the train station exit and start walking along the pavement on the other side of the street. The woman and the girl are talking and do not see her, but the man crosses the street a short way ahead and must see the urine dribbling into the road, because he looks now through the car window at her and for an instant his mouth opens and he mutters something before hurrying away.
When she arrives at the house her mouth feels dry and her arms and legs are faintly shaking as she reaches for the buzzer. She waits in the doorway, until a moment later a man’s voice answers, and there is a click as the door unlocks and she lets herself in.
On the veranda, looking out. A yacht coming past, sails blustering in the wind. A woman’s face in a porthole. Away to the Med, says Beans. Champagne and Charlie. Only watch out for the Bay of Biscay or ye’ll be boaking it all up into the sea. Anyone’s guess how he thinks he knows these things. Maybe he does. The money is finished, he says then, but it’s nay worry. He’s got a plan. He is kneeling up and lifting the bush to get out. Okay? Okay?
There is a noise up on the pavement. A woman’s voice, and, quieter, a man’s. He tries to listen, no able to pick out the words, but they are getting closer. A gust of wind or something and suddenly he can hear them coming toward him and he scrapes deep into the bush, lying flat underneath it. He cannot let them see him; he pulls his jacket over his head. But they keep coming – they are onto the path now, and he can see the crabbit face, irritated at all these roots and thorns snarling about her ankles. They spot him then, laid out under the bush. She’s pure scunnered at the sight of it, but he has a wee smile on him, unsurprised, keeking down now at the cans by his feet.
It is colder when Beans returns, the river turned black and treacly. He has a dark blue ski-jacket-type overcoat under his arm, and a carrier that he starts pulling things out from: a loaf of bread, an open tin of beans, a stack of beers. He sits down next to him. ‘Here,’ he says, and lobs the coat over. ‘Put this over your jacket. Keep ye warmer.’
They make cold beans pieces out of the first few bread slices, and start on the cans. He has been drinking already, it seems. He isn’t out the game, but he’s talking loudly, laughing, and he makes them clink cans every couple of minutes – plus,
each time, an extra one for the swan. ‘Thanks,’ Mick says, after one of these toasts, ‘the coat and that.’
‘Aw, you’re welcome.’ Beans puts on a panloaf English accent. ‘You’re very welcome.’ He takes a long gulp. ‘This fella I know, I called in a favour. He’s alright, no a bad guy. He’s a cunt, ye know, but he’s alright.’ They are laughing. A warm enclosed feeling from the beer.
‘It because I’m from Glasgow, how ye’re helping me out?’
‘What!’ He sits bolt upright and gets standing stumbling to his feet. ‘Ye’re from Glasgow? Serious? I’d have gave ye the swerve if I’d known,’ and he collapses to the ground again, cackling to himself.
In a moment, Beans kneels up. He gets scrabbling feet first under the bush, thorns pulling at his coat and revealing his back, pale and mealy as a white pudding. His head appears over the top of the bush. ‘Come on, I’ll show ye.’
They go at an angle from the path, through the weeds and the undergrowth, until Beans stops beside some wire netting. An orange sign on it he can’t read in the dark. Some kind of a tunnel underneath the road. Beans peels the wiring back and squeezes himself in behind, the wire springing back to its original position. ‘Come on.’ He steps forward. An old trainer shoe by his feet.
He gets in behind the wiring and it is dark. A smell of stagnant water. Beans is dragging a piece of matting along the ground. ‘Here, lie down.’ Bits of rock poking at him, their two backs pressed together, shuffling; warm but, where they are touching. The echoing sound of traffic above their heads and the matting no big enough for both their bodies, part of his leg and his arm sticking out and pressing into stones, rubble. The drink but, it is keeping him outside of it, no fully aware, helping him fall to sleep.
Light. The head pounding. His throat dry, chappit, and his legs and his body senseless, except for a jabbing in the small of his back where Beans’s elbow is sticking into him. He tries to go back to sleep, but it is too cold and he can’t, so he sits up and looks about him. On one side, through the wire, weeds and trees; a glimpse of the dark straining river. There are bits of wood and breezeblocks in the gloom of the tunnel. Dark water pooled into a stank, a Sprite bottle floating on top. On the other side, more wiring, and past it, a construction site – a great hole in the ground, scaffolding, a mini JCB. Beans is sat up now too. Silent. They stay the both of them like that, sitting, for quite a while, and he wonders if maybe Beans is hungover, that’s how he’s no talking. But he keeps quiet and to himself into the morning, as they go and sit out on the veranda, cold, shivering, until eventually Beans gets up just, no a word, and leaves.
There is a key ring in one of the coat pockets. London, it says on it. A pair of palace guardsmen with their daftie hats on. He turns it about in his fingers. No key. Course not. Why would there be? There must have been once but. Or at least somebody’s bought it that had one. A car owner. House owner. Seems unlikely Beans knows a person like that. More likely the coat’s been lifted. Nay fucking chance he’s taking it off though. He is shaking with the cold now. A bit of a wind and a spray coming off the river. An agity feeling is building, uncertain if Beans is going to bring any drink back this time. He can’t bring himself to think about how it will be if he doesn’t. A whole day and a night to get through in the cold, time not moving on, clotting around him. He finds a few loose pieces of chinex in the other pocket, puts one in his mouth and chews away.
It is dark when Beans returns. Another half-loaf with him. No beers but. Mick doesn’t say anything, and they get eating the bread. He’s still in the same mood, Beans, keeping cloyed up, and Mick starts feeling an irritation build inside him that he is behaving like this. He doesn’t say anything though. He lets it stay there, choking any words he might get saying, watching Beans chuck the empty loaf packet out onto the water. Sleep is impossible the night. The temperature feels like it’s dipped even further. The only warmth, Beans’s back sweating against his. He wants to get up and walk away somewhere, just walk, but he can’t, he can’t move.
Afternoon. The dull anxiety waiting for if there’s beer or if there’s no beer. There is. A big plastic bottle of superlager. Beans in a good mood too. They get stuck in and numbness starts to flood through him. A distant laugh, which he realizes is Beans. How is he getting it? He’d said the money was gone. He can’t be bothered maundering on it but – so what, just drink, just fucking drink it down. He starts laughing. He’s like a wee bird. That’s what he is. A wee chick, a wee sparrow chick staying put in the nest all day while Beans goes back and forth, getting him food and drink, coming back onto the veranda and regurgitating it up for him. Every day. How many? How many days? Fuck knows, and he is laughing again. He turns round and Beans is laughing too, anybody’s guess what at. Strange how the time goes. There it is, stretching out in front of you – only the river, boats, the sound of traffic, and the thought mob raring to stick the boot on.
Chapter 28
Beans’s voice up the path, coming back, talking to himself. The heart starts going, in anticipation, or panic, or habit just, fuck knows. He turns round and looks through the bush, and Beans is there with another man. Panic tightens through him. They are crawling under the bush. ‘See here’s the guy I’m telling ye about.’ The man is nodding at him, sitting himself down on the veranda. He is younger, the hair closely cut, his sweater and his jeans pretty clean-looking. A bottle of superlager is being passed between Beans and the guy, who takes a long pull, gulping twice. Then they pass it to him. The two of them talking. ‘They’re taking all the old spots, is the problem.’ He is English. ‘Come over for the building jobs and all that but then they get here and they’ve already filled all the fucking jobs, so they’re out on their arse but they can’t afford the fucking fare home.’ Beans laughs with him, passing the drink. Then the guy sees the swan and he’s off down the banking. A big stick suddenly in his hand and he is laughing, poking it at the nest. The swan is hissing and it’s looking like she’s going to up and stiffen him any minute, until Beans gets in there first. He jumps on the guy’s back and the pair of them start tummelling about in the wet scrub by the nest. Beans on top now, pounding him. Seconds later the guy gets scrabbling up onto the banking and he’s away under the bush. ‘Fuck are you doing? It’s a joke, Jesus, it’s a fucking joke.’
He opens his eyes. Daylight. He is outside, and he is freezing. Beans is sat staring out, eating. Mick sits up and he gets handed a sandwich out of a carrier.
He looks at it a moment. ‘There’s a bite mark in this.’
Beans turns, frowning. ‘Aye, so what?’
‘Just, mean, there’s more teeth marks in it than you’ve got teeth,’ he grins, and Beans creases over, knotting himself.
Later, and Beans is stood above him, giving him these wee kicks in the thigh. ‘Come on. We need to go the messages. I told ye.’
Onto the road, the pavements. Odd. Like he’s there but he’s in fact no there. They are looking at him, but from somewhere else, another consciousness, another world. Like being bevvied. Operating in your own space and everybody else fogging up around the edges of it. No that he’s drunk but. The soreness all over his body is sure enough sign of that. ‘This is the best time. Ye have to wait the last minute, when the fella’s there with his gun, stickering all the stuff up.’ True enough, there he is. Fridges. Shopping trolleys. ‘Discreet, right. We need to be discreet.’ But Mick is started laughing. Discreet! No likely. They look like a pair of cartoon characters, stalking behind tailing the guy as he is going about putting on the stickers. Into the baking aisle. The comforting smell of it. A wean stood staring while his maw chooses between the brown breads. He doesn’t know what to make of the pair of them, his mouth in a wee study, slightly open, then he’s darting off with his mammy, holding the hand. Beans has a stick of bread, and a piled handful of tinned salmon – Reduced to clear.
Outside, in the car park at the back of the building, there is a gap through to where the warehouse bit is. The shutters are closed but up against them th
ere is a stack of red plastic crates. ‘Here.’ Beans passes him a couple. They are shallow but long and wide, and they have to hold them with arms stretched out, leaving quickly away down the road, taking up half the pavement between them.
‘Bread crates,’ he says. ‘Good mattresses. Plenty of give, see, and they keep ye off the ground.’ He’s right too. They work well, slotted together with the matting laid out on top, and he is much more comfortable the night, no forgetting as well the bottle of superlager they got from the offie on the way back. He is able to sleep, even though he wakes up often. Each time he does, the tunnel boufing with a rank smell. The sour stankwater – but then there is a hiss of air from behind him, tickling the backs of his legs. The salmon.
Rain. They keep to the tunnel but it is filling up with water, so thank Christ for the bread crates. They stay sat or lying on top of them all night and all day as the blashie weather continues; his body aching, disintegrating, but always auld Beans there, trusty as ever with the bottle. The sun appearing. Beautiful spring sunshine. Daffodils. Bloody daffodils, where they come from? We have received a number of complaints. Sat throwing chuckies into the river, aiming at a can caught up in the yellow foam. Beans is a fair aim. A man of surprises, ye are. Aw, fuck off, pal, I used to play cricket for Scotland, ye know. The pair of them falling about pishing themselves. They are just stood there looking. A few residents have made complaints. Residents? Ye kidding? Who’s that, well, the fucking swan? She’s fine, man, she knows the score, she’s no a bastard like yous. But they aren’t finding it so funny, they’re just stood there in their high-vis jackets and their fishermen’s wading boots. If you don’t move, we will have to get the police. Eh, what? Who are yous, then, if you’re no the polis? They are laughing again and started throwing the chuckies at these three but the game’s over. Up in the air. Suddenly the polis, the protectors of the residents, are arrived and they are being pulled about and corkscrewed up the path – bloody hell, says the one of them, as he keeks the drinks cabinet. They let go of their arms a way up the pavement, and it looks a banker they’re about to get slung in the meat wagon, but no – get walking, they are told. The polis following at a short distance behind. Onto the roads and they keep going, miles and miles, turning round one point and the polis are gone, Beans muttering to himself, grumbling, chapping now on a door. After a while an Asian guy opening. No, he says, and he shuts it again.
