Waterline

by Ross Raisin

  Chapter 31

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll give you a call after I speak to Kenny . . . He’s coming on straight from college, I think . . . He won’t have, but I’ll ask him. Okay, got to go.’

  The boy puts his phone into his jeans pocket and waits. The woman in front of him is literally taking forever. He glares at her back. When finally she does take her card out he steps forward, but she’s not moving, she is staying by the machine, and now she is actually putting the card back in. Unbelievable.

  When the woman at last shuffles off and it is his turn, he hesitates a second by the machine, unsure how much money to get – whether or not the plan is to get some food before they go in. He takes out thirty, turning away from the tramp on the pavement, and slips it into his wallet before he moves into the crowd of people streaming toward the tube station.

  It is easier in the daytime. Mostly he can sit there for hours and hours without thinking about anything, watching the feet just and then sometimes, chink, and he’ll look up at them walking away, a back of the legs and a backside, disappearing down into the subway. He never drinks in front of them. Common sense, that’s all. He saves the bevvying for the end of the day when he leaves, and he always spends up whatever he’s got, meaning the good days usually are followed by bad ones. Sat there the morning, turning green on the pavement. The sweats. The shudders. Shivering against the wall trying no to move his eyes, and the heart torn and flapping from the paranoia that is rising up inside him that any moment one of these pairs of feet coming out the subway are going to belong to somebody he knows. A total conviction building that Robbie is on the approach. He tries to fight against it but it’s hopeless, hopeless, he hasn’t the strength, he just wants to sleep, to sleep, to forget and let the brain go numb but he’s too fucking sober and his breath is dying each time Robbie’s haircut emerges up the stairs. He closes his eyes but it’s impossible to stop the sense of him coming toward where he’s sat; and then he has to look up – but he’s gone, lost into the crowd.

  The middle of nowhere. A bus depot. Quiet streets and closed shops. A car showroom; a cemetery; a golf driving range that it is easy enough getting round the back of and into one of the alcoves. It’s actually quite comfy there on the spongy green felt with the wooden roof over his head, looking out over the field with its distance markers and a tractor perched at the side.

  Screw the buses. There is an office block close to the subway, a big concrete one with dark, morning make-up streaks down the side of it. It is set back from the road, and there’s a large, covered doorway at the top of some steps, in front of a revolving door. The lights kept on the night, so it’s no the darkest, but see maybe that’s in fact a good thing, because even if he is visible, so as well is any other cunt that wants to come along and get acquainted. He huddles in against the doors and gets drinking. Big, frequent gulps, anxious to be bevvied quickly, obliterate the memory. Through in the reception there is a grand flower display, an empty desk, and on the wall beside it a black-and-white TV screen flicking between images of the building: vacant corridors; an office floor; the bare insides of a lift. Nobody anywhere. It looks like the nuclear bomb has gone off. Fucking Trident, man, crank up the engines, float her up the Clyde. But then, the queerie shot of himself, bundled in the doorway. The only survivor. He gives a wave and sees his arm moving. Just him, then. The rest of the world is finally went away. Cheers. The head swimming now. Cheers to that, well.

  The cleaners come when the clock in the reception is showing just the back of six, and he has to get up and move on. They are alright about it, being fair, but it’s obvious that staying put isn’t an option. It is cold, that time the morning, and he is stiff and sore from the ground and the drink, so he walks around for a couple of hours to get the blood going before making his way to the subway. A giant bruise is looming all down his side. He hitches up his shirt and jacket and he can see that the whole area is raw – no a great purple job, but kind of flamed and scarlet, like a rash. Maybe it is a rash, actually. Either way but. He isn’t keen on investigating.

  The streetlights are still on, and the pavements almost deserted. A few unchancy types. A damp, pink jogger labouring by. He comes after a while to a high street, and there is more action: shutters ratcheting up; a delivery van reversing; the soaked front patch outside a newsagent’s. He is a ghost. Nobody seeing him. He walks on down the pavement. An Asian man in a butcher’s coat is opening out a board by his shop window: Star Buy – medium fresh chicken. £2.50 kg. He starts chuckling. Medium fresh chicken. Good luck with that one, pal. And then he sees that the guy is an exact Asian John Virgo, serious, he is, and that just makes him laugh the more. The delivery van is parked outside. The back doors are open, and two more Asian men are handling what looks like a skinned sheep, hung over the one guy’s shoulder as he goes into the butcher’s, dark stains all down his coat. The limbs on the animal joggling lifelessly, like a tired wean over a da’s shoulders. As Mick walks on past the van, he sees the second guy stood inside it, twisting another carcass out of a pile and lobbing it toward the back doors, where it falls on the wooden boards with a wet thump.

  Up the way, a charity shop is open already. A business type stood outside, fingering through a row of books on a trolley. He steps up and stands in beside him, pulling a book off the trolley and starting to give a flick through the pages. A sideways glance from your man, but so what, serious? He slots the book back in and gets reading the spines, and halfway along the row his gaze is checked.

  He reaches to take the book but his hand is shaking. A noise coming up his throat but he is only dimly aware of it, the man looking at him, walking away. Remember, by Barbara Taylor Bradford – ‘An Unforgettable Tale of Passion and Suspense’. He looks up. Through the window, a woman is bent over, rummling inside a plastic bag, and he slips the book under his jacket and moves away.

  Somebody brushes against his arm and his body stiffens, the whole of him suddenly turned cold. He doesn’t know where he is but there are crowds pouring down the street and he is searching through them, stupit, stupit, but he can’t stop himself, desperately trying to mind her face, but he can’t.

  Chapter 32

  There is somebody coming toward him. A man. He’s on the approach from the road, coming up the steps, a carrier in his hand, and Mick is started to tighten, the bevvy no taken hold yet and this cunt in front of him all too fucking real.

  ‘Would you like a sandwich?’

  He is holding one out toward him, like a bone.

  ‘It’s fine, take it. There were some left we didn’t sell.’

  He looks at the sandwich in the guy’s hand, tightly wrapped in cling film.

  ‘What type is it?’

  He brings it to his face, inspecting the filling.

  ‘Not sure. Prawn, I think.’ He holds it out again.

  ‘Ye have any beef?’

  The man gives a wee laugh and pauses, then gets rustling about in the bag.

  ‘No. He brings out another. ‘Tuna?’

  Mick shakes his head. ‘I’m alright.’

  He is staring at him. ‘You don’t want any of these sandwiches?’

  ‘No.’

  A wee lift of the eyebrows.

  ‘Okay, then. Fair enough.’ And away he goes. The Master of Sandwiches. Fuck you, pal. Who’s he getting annoyed a person doesn’t want to take his leftovers? He doesn’t like fish sandwiches. That simple. The smell of them. One of the only things he can mind about his da, he used to eat these tins of pilchards, and the stink when they were opened, it was honking.

  Sandwiches. Always fucking sandwiches. They never come and offer you a bloody bottle, do they?

  *

  He is sat on the blanket staring at the book, the sun gone behind the clouds. He takes his cap off and looks out at the pavement. An empty can rattling along the fence with the wind.

  ‘Fuck me. A man of riches.’

  He looks up. It is Beans. Stood over him, grinning, peering into the cup. He bends down and
sits against the wall next to him. His neck and the side of his face are red and leathery, his ear a great black scab.

  ‘Check you – in the money, eh?’ He points at the cup. There is the rumble of a train underneath the ground. He is stretching himself out, sticking his legs onto the pavement. Mick closes his eyes. Tries to make sense of things. It’s too much an effort but, and he opens them again, looking across. Beans has got a blue jumper on, a tear down the side of it, his head turned away toward the cash machines; a big peel of skin coming off behind his ear. A moment later and he is lumbering to his feet.

  ‘Come on. Ye hungry?’

  Mick doesn’t move. The eyes fixed on him from under the dirty red hat.

  ‘No. I’m sticking it out here.’

  ‘Aw, right.’ He stays there, dawdling, pedestrians trying to get past. ‘I’ll see ye, well.’

  The rest the afternoon is sunny and he gets quite a few drops. He doesn’t feel relieved, or angry, or anything, about Beans. As if he wasn’t really there, he imagined him just.

  He is real enough though. He appears again as Mick is about to get leaving, a carrier of lagers with him. Mick gets up his things and they are away up the road together to find somewhere to drink it. Simple as that. Back into the routine without so much as a word about all this time that’s passed. Easier just carrying along with it. And immediately he is feeling safer. Which is stupit, obviously, seeing as all the unchancy situations he’s been in it’s because Beans has put him in them. He’s got the beers in but. The one thing he can always be relied on for. They sit on a bench in a drab concrete square and get drinking.

  ‘See me, I wouldnae beg. Mean, begging’s fine – I’ve done it myself.’ He is scratching at his throat. ‘But thing is ye’re a sitting duck. I’d rather go on the broo. And see, if ye do well then they move ye on just. They don’t want you making more money than they are making, know?’ He chuckles, beer bubbling between his lips. ‘Plus piles as well. Fucking piles, man, it’s a killer on the arse.’ Mick lifts the can to his mouth. The superlager is already kicking in. Drowning it all out.

  Beans approves of the office block. Good and sheltery, is his verdict. And he likes being able to see himself in the television screen too. He spends most of the evening until he collapses watching himself in it, waving, dancing, mooning. Mick sits and watches him. The guy is a pure marvel, serious. And no for the first time, he finds himself wondering: who is he? How long has he been living like this? No that you could ever get a straight answer out of him. Impossible. The truth is but, it’s difficult to imagine him any other way, to imagine him as a young man, a wean. No watching him the now, anyway, blootered on the superlager, pulling bits of skin off his face.

  ‘Where is it ye went, then?’

  Beans straightens up a moment, the eyes narrowing, like he is trying to remember.

  ‘No, see I didnae go anywhere.’ He starts laughing. ‘I was on my holidays. Rothesay. That’s where I was.’ He is falling about laughing, and that’s the last either of them say about it.

  They settle into a pattern. The square, the office block, and then going their ways until Beans comes to pick him up at the end of the afternoon. One night, a couple of people come up to them at the office block. Hard to tell if they’re Hallelujahs, or sandwich brigade, or what they are, but Beans soon enough scares them off, great drunken guard dog that he is.

  Asleep. Dreaming. The image hits him like a scud in the ribs, repeatedly, no going away. Her hair draggling wet over the tops of her breasts and the bathwater seeping into the pages of her book. Turning the pages over with damp fingers. But the picture is wrong, it doesn’t fit. She is too young. She is the girl in the ship-launch photograph; before they were married. He can’t stop looking at her.

  Chapter 33

  They stop at the lights alongside a heaving pub. There are men packed in the doorways; smoking on the pavements. A row of bum cracks along a window seat.

  ‘Champions League,’ Martin says, putting the van into gear and moving on through the lights. The roads are not busy, and they make quick progress, turning onto a high street and scanning shop signs for the Superdrug. Martin is keeping fairly quiet. There is nothing awkward about it though, and she sips her coffee, eyes peeled out of the window.

  When they do find the Superdrug, it is deserted. They park up outside and she looks at the sheet to check it’s the right location. It is. They get out and have a scout around. The doorway is wet, clean and freezing. ‘Bastards,’ Martin says, and they separate to search down the street in opposite directions.

  ‘Anything?’ she says when they reconvene at the van.

  ‘Nope.’

  They set off again. Past another busy bar with steamed-up windows.

  ‘Big match?’

  Martin smiles. ‘Quarter-final.’

  ‘You should have changed your shift.’

  He turns to look at her for a moment, then they both go silent as the van cuts through an empty street market, past bare stalls and tumbled stacks of cardboard boxes by the rubbish bins.

  They have better luck at the next site. In the arcing entrance of a shopping centre, a young man is sat up amongst blankets and a large red sleeping bag. He recognizes them as they approach. Danny. This is the fourth contact with him, and on their previous visit he had told them that he would be happy for the team to make a referral. He seems quite bright tonight, smiling as they hunker beside him and explain that they have arranged a visit to a hostel, for him to get a look at the place and do an initial interview. He is pleased at the news. They organize a time that they will come and collect him, and he laughs. ‘I’ve not got many plans going anywhere,’ he says.

  Danny, they learned on the second contact, is from Hartlepool. His mother died when he was sixteen, after which he went to live with his sister. The sister, though, had her own family and Danny moved out, feeling he was in the way, and, because he thought there was nothing for him to do in Hartlepool, he came down to London. There were a couple of people he knew that had moved down there, but after a short time of sleeping on the sofa of one friend, and not being able to find the other, he ended up without a place to stay, and has been moving from pitch to pitch for the last six months.

  Buoyed by this development, they are both feeling quite cheerful as they get back into the van. They stop again on the high street so she can nip out and get them another coffee. Martin watches her through the entrance of the shop. As she turns to leave, she sees him, and he looks away while she comes back with the drinks.

  Their next stop is behind a budget hotel, in a small complex of office buildings. There are a pair of men staying in the main office doorway, who they first visited a couple of weeks ago after a phone call from one of the hotel workers. That first time, the pair had been too drunk to talk with properly, but the next contacts had gone slightly better. They have come down from Glasgow, possibly together, although it has been quite difficult to build a clear picture. One of the men, Mick, keeps very quiet while the other, Keith, is obviously the one that does the talking for them both. They have no plans, and nowhere to go, that much is clear. As they come up the steps to the doorway now, the two men appear fairly sober, although they don’t seem to recognize who they are. When Martin reminds them, Keith stands up and exaggeratedly shakes both their hands. He has severe burn marks on his face and neck, although he won’t be drawn on how he got them. A fight, is the most he will say clearly.

  The following week, when they meet the two men again, they have begun drinking, but Mick especially is becoming more comfortable with their presence. They learn as well that both men had been staying in a night shelter before they came here, but left when their belongings were stolen and there was some kind of argument with the management.

  One night, they are sat in the parked van, eating doughnuts. Martin has sugar on his shirt-sleeve and on an impulse she reaches forward to brush it off, but he withdraws. A few moments later he restarts the engine, and they carry on with their round.


  The police have notified them of an elderly man sleeping outside the underground station. They find him, and he is awake, but disorientated, and he backs away, shouting, as they approach from the van. He carries on shouting as they stand at a distance attempting to talk to him, and after a minute or two of this he picks up a shoe and throws it at them. They decide to leave him in peace and try again on another visit. The next time they come to the underground station, though, he has gone, and it is the last they see of him.

  Danny, too, has moved off. There was no sign of him at his pitch when they came to take him to the hostel, and he does not reappear on any of the next few visits. The office call around outreach teams in neighbouring boroughs, but nobody knows anything. There is, however, some movement on Keith and Mick. After a couple more successful contacts, a referral is put in to a nearby hostel. The two men are brought over for an initial visit, and they are placed on a waiting list. Although Mick is at first reluctant to move, he seems to draw confidence from Keith, who, although unpredictable, has declared that he is very keen to move into the hostel.

  One week, Mick has a bruise on the side of his face where, Keith tells them, he was kicked sitting outside the underground station. It has clearly caused him some distress, and she and Martin are growing concerned, especially given the experience of their previous accommodation, that the connection might break before their places become available. For the next couple of weeks, however, they remain where they are, and when the time does come to move them on there is not in the end too much difficulty getting them into the van, and inside the hostel.