by Ross Raisin
He gets off and walks round the corner past the boarded-up pub, acting it that everything is normal and okay as he approaches the building and punches the code in. There is nobody about. He gives the lift a swerve and gets walking up the stair, his feet echoing against the grey painted steps. A couple of floors up, he stops on the stairhead and looks out through a narrow cracked window at the surrounding roads and buildings. Nowhere he recognizes. All of it alien, and he carries on up to his own floor.
It is a room and kitchen type of affair. The main room with a bed against one wall and a small shiny brown settee against the other. A plastic table with two chairs in the middle. When he first came to see it, the landlord said he should feel free to change things around however he wants, and him and Renuka had a wee chuckle about it afterwards. Bed this side, mini settee the other? Or mini settee this side, bed the other – what do you reckon? There is a doorless opening into the kitchen that he goes through now: toaster, microwave and a kettle, which he fills and flicks on. He puts the swan on top of the microwave and the fryer into the empty sink cupboard, then goes to sit down in the other room, listening as the kettle starts to boil.
No tea. Obviously. Or milk. Crap. He goes for a lie down on the bed instead. Closes the eyes, a heavy tiredness now come over him. A no unfamiliar situation. Careful. Just fucking be careful, my man.
He goes out later and finds a chip shop along the main road. Brings back a fish supper. Pretty decent, it turns out.
After sitting the mini television onto the table and fiddling about with it for a bit, he manages to get it up and running, and settles in to watch it. He should have minded to get napkins from the chip shop, because he’s put grease marks over the settee, and he makes a note to wipe them off later. Nothing on the tellybox. Crap just. He gets up and goes to the window, looks out again at the city. It is still light outside, and he notices there’s no blind. Another thing that will need sorting. Tomorrow, he can make a list or something. In that moment, the great grey expanse of the city stretching out in front of him, it feels all of it too much, and he leans forward to rest his head against the glass. He imagines Robbie and Craig stood there in the bare room, scrutinizing it. All of it, too much.
Ye battle on but. Ye battle on.
He keeps in and about the flat over the next couple of days. Staying busy. Going the messages for bread, milk, ham, beans, washing powder, loo roll. Normal things; normal people things. Then as well the wee chores: washing the clothes, getting them hung on the radiator and the back of the settee, cooking, washing up, pinning the pillowcase over the window. The evenings, he watches the television, eats, drinks a few cans.
On the third day, Beans comes round, the loudness of the entry buzzer surprising him as he’s brushing his teeth, causing him to jab himself in the gums. He’s at the bottom, the voice comes through the speaker, he needs pressing in. A surprise as well, Mick considers as he waits for him to come up the building, that he has minded the number.
He comes in and looks the place over from the doorway.
‘How much is it, this?’
‘Hundred and fifty.’
‘Fucksake. Terrible.’
He goes up to the window and fingers with the pillowcase a moment, nods his head, then turns about. ‘I’d go a cuppa.’
That day, and the next, they go up and down the high street spending his resettlement grant on bits and pieces for the flat. A broom, radio, hammer, nails, wire wool, a blind, bleach. He isn’t too sure about the five packs of wire wool, but Beans is adamant it’s an essential – keeps the mice out – so he gives in and buys it. He’s keeping interested in all this, Beans, longer than he does most things. Possible that he is wanting to prove himself, let Robin see that he’s no just some useless troublemaker. Mick is in the main room, investigating for gaps in the skirting boards, when there is the sound of something heavy scraping through in the kitchen. A moment later and Beans steps out, hands on hips.
‘Place needs a paint, no think?’
The painting project begins the next day. Probably it isn’t allowed in his contract, but so what, screw the landlord, no like he’s going to do it himself, is it? Straight away, the place starts looking brighter. The radio on and a cold draught coming through the window, he starts in the main room while Beans gets stuck into the kitchen, his eyes red and squinting with concentration, specks of paint all over his hat and onto the kitchen counter. Mick grins, finishing round the window frame, at the idea of Beans as a neighbour. Knocking him up because he’s run out of loo roll, giving it his wild stories, ear-biting him down the pub. No the worst thought, being honest.
It is Beans anyway that gets him acquainted with one of his own neighbours. They are coming out the lift on their way back into the flat, and there is a woman on the stairhead with a baby in a pram and a dog tied to one of the handles. Beans goes straight up to the dog.
‘How’s it going, big man, eh? How’s it going?’ He is bent down, patting the dog on the neck. ‘He a Staff?’
‘Yeh.’ She snatches a look into the waiting lift.
Beans is pulling the dog’s cheeks back roughly, no that it seems to mind.
‘I had a Staff myself, a long while, I had him. He was a great dog. Walter. Like a fucking radiator, man – oh, pardon me.’ He looks into the pram. ‘True but. See that’s how I called him Walter. Walter water bottle.’
She gives a smile, and presses the button as the lift doors close. Beans is moved onto the baby now though, waving at him with the big cabbage hands. ‘Gonnae give me a smile, pal? Gonnae, eh?’ It isn’t looking likely. The baby is transfixed staring at the big red beardie face, trying to work him out, wondering if something frightening has happened to Santa Claus. The doors open again and she gets moving the pram inside.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Mick says, and she smiles briefly before the doors slide closed.
Awake, asleep, the awareness of Robbie and Craig presses on him all the time. What he would say to them. How their faces would look if they knew where he’s been, where he is the now, that he is on benefits. One moment he is saying to himself: fuck it, I’m fixing this out, but then the next moment the whole weight of everything will be holding him powerless on the bed. Even if he was being offered jobs – and each week he goes up the jobcentre it is looking the more likely that it’s never going to happen – how would he earn enough to pay the rent even? He wouldn’t. And that’s for a craphole like this. It would take years saving up for somewhere better. Just thinking about it makes him feel tired as hell, but he makes a deal with himself only to think about it when he’s outside, on the move, and no when he’s alone in the flat. Plus as well there’s only one radiator in the place and it’s pure nipping. So, when Beans isn’t about, he spends whole afternoons taking these long walks, getting familiar with the local streets and grassy areas, turning it all over in his head.
How can you attack things full pelt when it’s enough already just getting through the day-by-days? The way things have been, even the most wee things feel like an achievement, like he’s winning. Shaving. Going the messages. Putting a blind up. They’re effort enough as it is that the idea of getting those done and then saying – right, well, that’s they sorted, now let’s crack on for that warehouse job I’ve been passed over for five times already – it saps all the energy from him.
It’s one of the things Renuka talks to him about when he sees her next. He takes a bus to meet her in a cafe for a chat about how he’s getting on. She tells him he is at a contemplative stage of his Cycle of Change. A good thing, apparently. Important that he acts on it. Crucial. The next stage looming all the time over him. Does he feel ready? Almost, he tells her, his stomach dropping through his arse onto the bits of lasagne on the floor by his feet. Almost.
It is afternoon and him and Beans are sat in the flat watching television. Beans hasn’t spoke in a while, and he is staring now at the adverts, scratching the backs of his hands, his eyes bloodshot, unreadable.
‘Ye crabbit, eh?’
Beans ignores him.
‘Hey, you,’ Mick grins, digging him in the leg. ‘Ye crabbit or something?’
He stands up suddenly. ‘This is keech, let’s go the pub, eh?’
‘Sure. Okay.’
The nearest pub is a walk. Beans seems to know well enough where he’s headed, and they walk on past the high street, down a couple of quiet residentials.
‘I’m on the bell,’ Beans says when they arrive, going up to the bar while Mick gets sat at a corner table. The place is quiet. A couple of men playing pool in a small room on the far side, and four regulars on barstools who eye Beans silently as he counts the smash in his hands and asks the barman what the pool table takes.
Mick watches as he goes and puts his coin on the table, the pool players exchanging glances as he does it.
They drink quietly for a bit, Mick staring at the slumped backs of the regulars and the tattered silver Christmas decorations drooping off the gantry. After a bit, he turns toward Beans.
‘Know that dog ye were talking about – Walter – when was it ye had him?’
‘Jesus, cannae mind.’
Mick takes a drink.
‘What was it recent, like?’
‘Eh?’
‘The dog, was it a long while ago or was it recent?’
‘Christ, a long while.’ He stretches his neck round to look behind him. ‘Fucksake, they no done yet?’
One of the pool players is walking back to the room with a couple of pints.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Copped his whack, didn’t he.’
‘Sorry, I didnae mean –’
‘Fine. Fine. He was old, he’d done his stretch. I was in this place anyway, I had to give him up, they wouldnae allow dogs.’ He turns round again. ‘See that? Fucking kidding me?’ He pushes his chair back and gets marching toward the pool room, where the two men are racking up for a new game. Mick sits watching, as if through a haze, a dream, the two men standing close together with their pool cues propped on the floor, Beans shouting, he can’t make out what over the Christmas pop music. This song, he minds the video, the English comedian and the blonde lassie, what was her name? A line of angled heads at the bar, and Beans bent over the pool table, scattering the balls. Kim Wilde. That’s her. Whatever happened to Kim Wilde? Beans away now out the pub doors. The barstool men slowly turning to look at him instead . . . the Christmas tree, have a happy holiday. Everyone dancing merrily . . . no these fuckers, serious, look at them. Jesus. He stands up. Gets gone.
Beans is already off down the pavement.
‘Hey, wait up. Wait up a moment.’
But he’s away. On the march. A cloud of breath above his head. Mick hurries behind, calling out, all the way to the high street. A bus pulling up – Beans makes a run toward it and hops on.
For the next couple of weeks Beans is even more unpredictable with his visits. He comes round twice, briefly, without any announcement, but then over Christmas he is there almost every day. They buy a chicken. Sprouts, tatties, superlager. They fix up a proper feast for Christmas day and fall asleep blootered in front of the television.
He makes Renuka a tea while she sits at the table and looks about the room.
‘It looks good in here,’ she says when he comes through with the mugs.
‘Better, eh? Keith has been helping me get the place fixed out.’
‘Good. Actually, that’s something I was hoping to ask you about. Keith’s key worker wanted to know if he’s been round at all. His depression has been quite bad of late, and he’s been absent from the hostel a few times. How has he seemed to you?’
‘Fine, fine. Normal. He’s been a great help, being honest.’ He decides no to tell her about the business in the pub.
‘Okay, good, I’ll let Robin know.’ She clasps her hands around her mug. ‘So, you said last time that you’d been thinking about us being in touch with Missing People. Have you given any more thought to it?’
He takes a drink of tea and rests the mug on the table.
‘Ye might say that, aye.’
Chapter 40
He is there early, even with the traffic. Time enough for a wee settler before he arrives. It is a big place, pretty empty the now in the quiet after lunchtime. One of these bright-lit chain affairs, low leather settees around low tables. He gets sat on one of the few normal table and chairs, near the middle of the room, facing the entrance. A couple of business types in suits are stood at the bar, drinking lagers and talking loudly. Mick takes a sip of his half. His giro isn’t due until tomorrow, and he’s spent almost the last of his money on new shoes and trousers. He didn’t consider it. The thought then of Robbie having to buy the drinks. Alarm starting to race through him again and it’s a few minutes before he can get it under control.
He continues to drink slowly. A pure battle no to neck the thing but he manages to keep nursing it, while the businessmen move onto the spirits and the bar staff have a short argument what music to put on, and so he isn’t anywhere near as well on as he’d want to be when, early himself, Robbie walks in.
He hasn’t seen him. He’s gone straight to the bar, standing in next to the businessmen and saying something to the barmaid. Mick stays sat. He looks the other way, toward a television screen with no sound because all you can hear is the music that is playing over the speakers. He cannot move; his whole body is turned to mince. On the screen there is a wee video of footballers on a training field and the rolling news underneath – the big story from the English League One is that the Carlisle United manager is for the chop and another guy is lined up already for the hot seat. He turns around. Robbie is coming toward him. A pint in his hand, approaching the table.
‘Robbie.’ He tries to get standing up but he is rooted.
Robbie stands on the other side of the table, looking at him. His face – he sits down and Mick cannot look at it so he fixes his gaze on his hands instead, resting flat on the table. How steady they are, his son’s hands.
‘How are ye, Rob?’
He knots his own hands together around his pint, and they look like an ale jug, one of they old-fashioned type of ale jugs. A stupit thought to have the now. Stupit. Will he no speak? Is he going to sit there without speaking for the whole duration, however long that will be, the duration, perhaps a fucking lifetime? Mick glances up at him. He is greeting. No bucketfuls, but his face is tightened and the eyes are welled up, and Mick has to look away – will Rafael Nadal overcome his knee injury in time for the Australian Open? At the moment, his chances aren’t looking too rosy.
‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘Ye don’t have to say anything, son.’
The two businessmen are away, one of them laughing and putting the arm around the other’s shoulders a moment, then withdrawing it, clapping the hands together. Off blottoed back to the office for an afternoon’s work. He looks at Robbie, who is watching them leave.
‘I’m sorry, Rob.’
There is silence as they take a moment to consider each from their own side of the table how pathetic it sounds.
Robbie turns back toward him.
‘What, were you homeless, Da?’
‘If that’s the word.’
‘What else is the word?’
‘No, well, it’s that one, aye.’
‘Mean, you were on the street?’
‘Some of the time.’
‘Jesus.’ He is staring now at the table. ‘Didn’t you think I would’ve helped you?’
‘I know ye would, son. I know.’
Robbie is screwing his eyes, scowling. ‘We didn’t know if you were alive. Most of them thought you were dead.’
He hasn’t drunk any of his pint.
‘I sent a letter.’
‘Oh, yeh, your letter. Suddenly I get this letter and me and Alan are come to stay in fucking Heathrow for a month but nobody there knows where you are either, only that you were calling yourself Mick Provan and you got the sack.’
; The barmaid is coming toward them. She is carrying a large black drinks tray which she sets down on the edge of their table, and picks up Mick’s empty glass to put on it. She hovers by them for an instant, looking like she’s about to say something, until she seems to clock that the atmosphere’s no the best and she walks away.
‘Alan was with you, then?’
Robbie shakes his head slowly. ‘Fuck off, Da. He’s been bloody great. Do you know it’s him that was paying the rent arrears after you abandoned the house?’
He closes his eyes, or the elastic has went. His insides are turned to liquid, the bones alone holding himself on the chair, somehow. How is that? How are they holding him on the chair still? He was fixing things out. He was out the hostel and into a flat and he was fixing things out. He opens his eyes; sits upright in the seat. The thought comes to him suddenly that he is glad he hasn’t shat himself.
He tries to say something but no words come.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Craig’s there telling him to –’
‘Robbie,’ he interrupts him, ‘look, I’m sorry but, mean I don’t think I can hear all this the now. I’m sorry.’
‘What? What is it not a good time or something?’ Robbie stands up. ‘You’re right.’ His voice is shaking. ‘You’re right.’
He steps out from the table and tucks his chair back under. Then he turns, and starts to walk away.
He stays there, sitting. The bar is empty. After a few minutes the music is turned up loud, no paying customers left for the bar staff to worry about, only one old guy on his own sat staring at the sports news.
Chapter 41
The rest of the afternoon is a wipeout. The door locked; television on. Renuka and Beans no calling round, or if they do he doesn’t notice.
