The Sideman

by Caro Ramsay

  The remote had slipped from the arm of the wheelchair and had disappeared under her ample buttocks. She wriggled around and poked under the cushion, before shaking out her knitting. The remote went flying across the floor. It spun round and spilled its batteries under the dog basket.

  Hamish the Scottish terrier opened one eye, judged there was no food involved in this disruption and wasn’t for moving, so Wilma wheeled over and turned the channels over on the Sky box, poking the button with her knitting needle. There was a new Scandi drama starting on Channel 4 that she wanted to see. She had perfected the art of reading subtitles and knitting a complicated Fair Isle pattern simultaneously.

  She reversed herself back to the sofa. The programme was starting in less than five minutes so she’d wait until the first advert break before she shouted at Alastair to put the kettle on. He always spent a Sunday night doing his guitar homework, though why, she had no idea as he had a tin ear. He had to stop the singing lessons when he made Hamish howl, so he had taken up the guitar now. It was no more tuneful but it was quieter. Wilma understood it was therapeutic for him to plunk away.

  The programme started and she settled back. A young girl, in her early twenties, was walking through a field of corn in the windblown rain. She had the obligatory Nordic jumper on, her red hair and high cheekbones gave her the look of that young constable Morna Taverner. The jumper and the actress were being soaked by the rain, and would probably catch the death of cold, thought Wilma. But, knowing these dramas, the girl would be dead by the first advert break anyway. She knitted on, with one eye on her needles and the growing tapestry of colour spilling across her lap, the other on the screen. The girl was running now, her arms pumping. There was no music, only the sound of her ragged breathing, and heavy footfall. She was running for her life, obviously. Wilma counted her stitches, and listened to the rain battering on the living-room window. The noise deafening, then quiet as the wind changed direction. The weather had been foul all week. The Portree – Port MacDuff ferry had been off more often than it had been on. She turned her attention back to the television where a man was now watching the running girl. She was still in a cornfield. He was in a car, a Volvo of course, watching her through the raindrops on the windscreen. The wipers went back and forth, clearing both his and the viewer’s vision of her running away with her wet red hair straggling after her. She was an elusive figure between the sweeps of the wipers. Each time she reappeared she was further away. She might just make it. The girl was obviously running away from him, terror filled, not caring where she went, not looking back. She did the obligatory stumble as she ran, her arms wind-milling to stop her falling. There was music now, helping the drama along. The man stayed in his car, watching as the camera angle swept in so it was right on the girl’s shoulders, as if the audience themselves were chasing her down.

  Wilma liked that effect, she had to resist looking over her own shoulder. She settled for a shiver.

  The girl looked behind her, her small heart-shaped face stared right into the camera. The corn parted, swallowing her. She turned and ran straight into the arms of a big man.

  There was a bang. Wilma jumped. Hamish woke up, ears alert. The screen went black and silent as the opening credits rolled and the image on the screen changed to a fat detective sitting in his office, swinging on his chair, drinking a cup of cold coffee. It always was in these dramas, they never had time to eat and they never went to the toilet. Wilma went back to her knitting, realizing she had dropped stitches, and tutting, unravelled it.

  The scene with the detective moved on with no sound. The storm fell quiet allowing the sound of the guitar to float down, a few ragged chords, a song that got so far and then got stuck. It resumed but floundered at the same point. The detective on the TV started shouting down his telephone in Swedish. Or Danish. Or something. The music stopped again. This time it got far enough for her to recognize the song; one of Simon and Garfunkel’s lesser known ones, the one about Emily. It wasn’t one of her favourites, but Alastair had always had a fondness for it.

  The scene on the TV returned to the cornfield. Filmed from a bird’s-eye view that rose until the body of the girl appeared, lying in a small flattened area of corn, as if she was in a nest, comfortable and asleep. A few dots circled round her, policemen like vultures. The girl lay in the middle, a tiny spindle in a big spinning wheel.

  Then the camera plummeted down like a hawk on its prey, crashing into the dead girl’s eye, into the blackness and emptiness of one single pupil.

  Wilma went back to her knitting as the investigation got underway. In forty-five minutes all would be well.

  She heard another bang and looked up. Hamish growled at the front door, she thought she could hear the low rumble of a diesel engine. A car coming up the street, then doing a U-turn, there was a flash of headlamps and a squeal of brakes.

  The music from the TV got louder, more dramatic.

  She heard another bang, this time she knew it was the front door. She thought about ignoring it but that had been twice now. Maybe three times. She checked the clock; it was nearly midnight. Putting her knitting to one side, she wheeled to the window, pulling back her winter curtains by a fraction of an inch to look out into the bitter night. She saw a Land Rover bumped up on the pavement and flinched when she caught sight of the man, dressed in black, barely visible, standing in her front garden. He gestured that he wanted the front door opened. Now.

  She let the curtain roll back, tensed in her chair, gripping the wheels, suddenly feeling like the girl running through the corn. Her husband got the awkward chord change and the tuneless song went on.

  Jo and Walter had walked the same route every Sunday, around midnight, except when on holiday and the twelve weeks when Jo was off with her new hip. They sauntered mostly together, side by side, chatting and watchful. They looked like any other old couple, maybe a bit incongruous out on the streets of Glasgow in the witching hour; Walter with his thick anorak zipped up to his neck, a scarf tucked in to keep out the chill. Jo wore a navy blue coat that nearly reached her ankles but it did keep the cold away from her hips. Their faith and their uniform were both worn quietly, their belief more obvious in their compassion.

  Over the years they knew who was on the street, who would be in what doorway, who might need feeding, who might kick-off, who was new and who might be saved in the Lord’s eyes. Nobody was beyond redemption. But mostly, they sought out those who might be in need of a kind word and a bowl of soup, if not the loaves and fishes of the Lord himself. Though, they both hoped, that would come later.

  Big Smout McLaughlin sometimes joined them. He was an enigma of Glasgow city centre. Tall, thin with chiselled features, articulate and well educated. They wondered, but never asked, why he chose to sleep in an alley at the back of the sheriff court. Sometimes he would come to the soup kitchen with a young one in tow, showing them there was always someplace to go if it got too scary out on the street. Smout McLaughlin had only ever stayed in the night shelter himself once in the twenty years he had been living rough and that was because of a vile chest infection. Jo reckoned he had somewhere to go when he needed, a safe haven tucked in his back pocket somewhere. To Jo, the maths were simple. People didn’t last twenty years on the streets of Glasgow; pneumonia, sepsis or more recently TB would take their toll. All on the backdrop of the chilling wind and the damp, damp air that picked off the weak.

  On this bitter November evening Jo and Walter were heading east from George Square. They had walked the concourse of Queen Street train station, had a word with the transport police. All was good. Next stop was Buchanan Street bus station, the first stop for many of the throwaways and runaways finding refuge in the cold, hard streets of Glasgow, or as their overnight stop on the way down south, to the colder, harder streets of London.

  Walter adjusted the holdall he carried over his shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, just bulky. It contained a couple of clean blankets and about ten pairs of warm woolly socks. They were heading, vaguely,
for a young lad living in a box outside the side door of the bus station. Until recently he had been overnighting on the ground floor of the multi-storey. That was highly prized territory in the depth of the winter. Last week, the boy had his cardboard boxes back out on the street, tucked underneath the overhang of the station roof. And he had a bruised, bloodied face and a red socket where a front tooth used to be.

  Tonight they found him, nestled into his fleece against his flattened cardboard. It was three degrees outside, the boy didn’t have a pick on him. They woke him with a gentle prod, knowing that he would lash out before realizing they were handing him a blanket. Then they gave him the socks, Walter handing them over one at a time trying to make some kind of human, and humane contact, letting the eye connection last as long as possible.

  The boy had woken up, flinching, his fist up ready but he didn’t pull away. Seeing the socks, he immediately kicked off his dirty soaking trainers, one toe pushing off the heel of the other. Even in the stink of the human waste in the alley, Jo could smell the stench of the boy’s feet from here. His toes were translucent grey, the skin round his toenails white and wrinkled, fisherwoman toes. There were deep dark tramlines where the seams of the socks had put pressure on the skin. She thought she could see the red puncture marks through the dirt in between the toes, but it was dark except for the overspill of lights from the concourse; maybe she was seeing what she expected to see. It wasn’t her place to judge. The boy pulled on a pair of fresh socks, then placed his foot on the ground, soaking the dry sock, then pulled on his trainers.

  Walter was talking to him, taking a good look, thinking that he was in his late teens at the most. Jo stood back, pretending to give him space and remain unthreatening, but really keeping clear of the dreadful smell. Walter’s voice, friendly but not overly so, was telling the boy how close the soup kitchen was if he wanted something to eat, giving him rough, brief directions, before adding, if he couldn’t manage they did have a van and could collect him. The boy was ignoring him, going anywhere meant giving up his space under the overhang. He was too busy stuffing the other two pairs of dry socks into his pockets and down his trousers. They were a prize and he didn’t want them taken from him by unseen eyes watching from the dark.

  Walter asked him if there was anything they could do for him. The boy looked blank. Even if he didn’t speak a word of English, as increasingly was the case, there tended to be some response. Those in the clutches of heroin tended ‘to roll’ as Walter put it. Cocaine addicts rarely stayed still enough to fall asleep but this boy gave a resentful closed look before he went back to his business with the socks, pulling back the cardboard bed into the shelter of the overhanging roof. Two sheets had worked their way out from the wall a few inches and were swelling with the rain.

  The look was more than Walter had got the last time, and an inch was better than a mile in the right direction. A look, then a word, then a smile, then he would be looking out for Jo and Walter to come walking along the street. Then a conversation and information. Then the boy was not that far from being saved from the streets and hopefully safe in the arms of Jesus.

  Jo and Walter walked away, saying goodbye, wishing the boy would shout at them to come back but he didn’t. Not this time.

  Their next stop was usually The Heilandman’s Umbrella, a section of Argyle Street under the raised tracks of the railway. The shops and pubs were busy with shoppers during the day and clubbers out on the bevvy at night, and with the homeless and the lawless in the small hours. They preferred to get covered in pigeon shit rather than the constant Glasgow rain. Jo and Walter had turned into Buchannan Street precinct when Smout appeared, out of nowhere. This time he had a saxophone as well as his rucksack, obviously been doing some busking.

  ‘How are you doing my friends, still doing the good work of the Lord?’

  ‘While there remains good work to be done? Of course.’

  It was a familiar exchange.

  Their conversation was light hearted; Smout was not a lamb looking for a shepherd. He was more a collie looking after his flock.

  He fell into stride with them both. ‘There’s a new one you might want to talk to, she’s hanging about the bottom of the Buchanan Galleries. Been there all evening, confused. Older, definitely older and somebody has had a go at her already. And drunk, can’t get a word out of her, you’ll know by the smell, Eau De Thunderbird. See ya.’ And he nodded, slapping Jo gently on her back, walking his jaunty walk into the darkness of Dundas Lane where he melted to invisibility, the smirr of rain swallowing him.

  Walter consulted his watch and looked up as the rain started coming down in stair rods, jagged spears of orange in the streetlight, a night bus crawled its way round Nelson Mandela place, windows steamed up, engine groaning slightly.

  ‘Shall we?’ asked Walter.

  Jo nodded. There was only one thing more vulnerable than the young on the streets of a big city. The elderly.

  Ten minutes later Jo and Walter found the woman huddled into the corner of the steps of the concert hall. Her dark blue jacket had the hood up over her head and pulled tight round her face in an attempt to keep the world out. It was Jo who approached this time, even from a distance she could smell the alcohol but as she got closer she could see the blood on the side of her cheek, dried in a leaf-like pattern. The woman looked up, then when she saw Jo looking at her hands, she looked down at them also.

  Jo approached as if she was a frightened animal. It could be a mental health issue, she needed to be careful. Human bites could be very dangerous. She knew that. But the older woman stayed calm, staring at some point lying in the middle distance.

  Jo tried a few opening lines: ‘Would you like a blanket? Something to eat? A bed for the night? Someone to talk to?’

  There was no response at all. But she didn’t react adversely and Jo placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. Soaking wet. That jacket was giving her no protection from the rain. Jo turned and shrugged to Walter who pulled out his mobile phone and called the community police as Jo got a blanket from the bag and placed it round the woman’s shoulders. The woman, maybe not so old now, had looked up, vague recognition in her eyes as she reached out, her bony fingers moving in the air, edging their way to the badge and the black epaulettes on Jo’s uniform.

  And with a trembling finger, she pointed.

  Wilma sat at the doorway, the warm living room behind her; the hall had taken on the chill of the November air. She had called for Alastair but he hadn’t heard. She opened the door.

  There were three of them, all dressed alike. One nodded to her and invited himself in.

  He said one word. ‘Tonka?’

  Another stood back watching the street, one hand holding a large torch, the other deep in his parka pocket. The man in the doorway pressed closer, his hands crossed in front of him, peering over her shoulders up the stairs, then followed his colleague up, giving her a nod in passing.

  Twenty years of peace and quiet, away from the madness, and here they were knocking on her door at midnight. She’d had her mouth open ready to protest, to ask them who they were, exactly. But she had known, known from the minute she saw them. No point in asking these men for I.D., that was the last thing they would have given.

  She tried to tell them there was nobody living here of that name, no Tonka. It was a forlorn feeble attempt, her words spoken to their backs as they went up her stairs, silent muddy boots on her lovely new stair carpet. She could have wept.

  They knew who they wanted, and they knew he was here. Another two men came inside and closed the door, dwarfing her and the cottage in their bulky dark blue and black jackets. Small men, in their thirties she guessed, young enough to be her boys. Hard faces, wide shoulders, alert and light on their heavy feet.

  ‘Evening missus. Sit quiet and we’ll be out of here double quick.’

  Glaswegian accent. They usually were these people; Glaswegians were violent, any excuse. The guitar fell silent on a protesting chord. She waited, staring
up the stairs.

  Wilma had known that this day would come, shattering life’s illusion like glass. It was a relief. There was nothing like waiting for that knock that never came. She kept to one side, her chair against the living-room door, but never taking her eyes off the top of the stairs where she could see a sliver of the man’s body through the spindles of the bannister as he spoke softly, a quiet monologue. She heard Hamish whimper on the other side of the living-room door as if he also knew. She was still watching as the men came back down the stairs, moving at speed. They both nodded to Wilma as they passed, avoiding her eyes and they went straight out the door, leaving Wilma, in her chair, impotent in the possession of her own house. She watched them disappear into the black night, the dark wind swallowing them. She didn’t hear the doors of the Land Rover open or close. Just the gentle pit pat of her husband coming down the stairs, carrying what he called his ready pack from the top of the wardrobe. He took his boots from under the stair, his jacket and his scarf from the hall stand. He didn’t say a word to her or look in her direction in case he read it in her eyes.

  Don’t.

  She looked into the ebony night, her eyes catching the twitch of the curtains across the lane as the neighbours had a quick look. She sat there alone and stunned as the Land Rover tail lights retreated and then vanished from her view as the vehicle turned the corner, hearing the engine accelerate hard, then there was nothing but the rattle of the rain and the howl of the wind.

  The woman had said nothing on her way to the hospital, sitting in the back of the police car with ease and a degree of comfort, as if the journey did not faze her or she had absolutely no understanding of what was going on. The two cops who had picked her up, Turner and Whitely, had tried a few opening gambits about the weather and how it was far too cold to be sitting on a stone step at this time of year.