Site Works

by Robert Davidson

  ‘Get your body down here!’

  ‘What’s your hurry?’

  Jimmy Gillies pursed his lips and shook his head.

  ‘Don’t ask stupid questions. You’ve got a brain. Use it!’’

  Down in the hole Paul looked into the culvert at the props holding up the roof shutter. There, in the dark, tucked away behind a spare sheet of plywood was the level box, folded down legs and staff. Less sensitive than the theodolite, also less expensive, it could be left out overnight. Paul took it topside and set up. Conn climbed out of his cab without being asked and carried the staff down to the setting-out peg by the fence. Paul took his first reading from there and checked a level mark he had made on the roof slab after the pour. It hadn’t moved. The joiners’ work had been sound.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘Near enough,’ said Paul.

  ‘Ho!’ said Willie. ‘It’s spot on.’

  Paul closed his survey book and shouted joyfully.

  ‘Spoteroonie!’

  He looked past the excavation and the backfilled section of culvert to the two lines of fence running towards Glen Struie and the haul road. It had a sort of beauty. Conn was a craftsman with the excavator bucket; the way he dropped the clay back and rammed it into place and then carefully replaced the topsoil. The way he broke the lumps down with wide sweeps of the bucket and combed the surface with the bucket’s teeth, leaving it harrowed and ready for seeding come the spring. He had it down to a fine art.

  Conn took the staff into the hole and placed it on the kicker for Paul to level. Jimmy shouted up to him.

  ‘Height to the first bar?’

  Paul walked to the edge of the way-leave where he could think. He turned to the back of the book where he had already worked out the true level of the first bar at this point. He subtracted the level he had just taken.

  ‘185mm to the centre.’

  Jimmy put chalk marks on the vertical starter bars that stood up from the base. ‘Now measure down to the top of the slab,’ Paul called down. ‘235?’

  ‘Spotto both sides,’ said Jimmy, folding down his rule. ‘Okay, let’s get the steel in place. How’s the time?’ He looked at his watch. ‘The day’s getting on. When the job gets idle the idle get going – down the road.’

  Conn climbed back into his cab and Cammy cut the first set of bars loose. He and Willie carried them one at a time to the wall. Starting on the outside face of the north wall they tied one of the bars to the first vertical starter, and the top horizontal to the starter coming out of the existing wall. Paul checked the lap length that had to be 40 times the diameter of 6mm, 240. It was 250, okay. The joiners worked on.

  All Paul had to do now was make sure they used the correct bars and that the spacings were right. When they came to move the wall shutters forward in the afternoon he would check the line with the theodolite. The walls would be spaced just the right distance apart and, when they made their adjustments to the north wall the south would come into place as well. In the morning they would place nails and string lines for the concrete gang to work to and the pour would start about 11:00am Friday. The dumpers would charge up and down the haul road feeding Conn’s skip and it would be over by about 1:00pm.

  Paul would check the wall position after the pour. If it had moved a few millimetres they could bring it back with the props but no adjustments had been required to date. This was why Swannie had brought them up from Glasgow. This sheer effectiveness was why he paid them so far above the rate. Already the local troops sensed what the squad’s wage packets were like. There were rumblings.

  Paul poured a cup of tea from the first of his two flasks. He took out his iPod and fitted its earpieces to his ear and turned it on.

  Cammy took his snips and a length of wire along the mat, tying every second crossing.

  Jimmy and Willie took a bar at either end and heaved it up. As they lifted Jimmy looked at Paul and said something but all Paul heard was the thud-thud-thud of the music.

  Thud-thud-thud!

  Jimmy spoke again but Paul turned his eyes up in his head and started to bounce up and down.

  Bounce-bounce-bounce.

  When he got to the top of his flight he headed the air like a centre-forward.

  Thud-thud-thud.

  Bounce-bounce-bounce.

  Head-head-head.

  He danced round in a circle while Willie laughed and Cammy shook his head and got on with tying. As they picked up another bar, Paul shouted ‘Yeah’.

  ‘Yeah!’ Willie repeated.

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ said Jimmy as they heaved up the second bar, Cammy working his way along, tying as he went – leave a length free, pull the wire round this way, round that, round again, pull it tight, twist the ends with the pliers, snip it off. Next bar!

  Bounce. Bounce.

  ‘Yeah! Yeah!’

  Jimmy came over and signalled that he should take the earplugs out.

  ‘Don’t you know you’re the company man around here? You’re supposed to be in charge. What’s Mac going to think if he hears?’

  It didn’t matter what Mac thought. Paul and Mac had lost touch weeks ago. Paul hung his head, but it had nothing to do with Mac. In his heart of hearts he knew he would follow Jimmy Gillies anywhere but it could never be said. It wasn’t necessary for it to be said.

  ‘Ho, boys!’

  John Kelly ran down the slope of the excavation.

  ‘Ho, John!’

  For John to have walked all the way up here there must be something on, some change, and it wasn’t likely to suit Paul or the grip squad.

  Jimmy rubbed his hands down the seat of his boiler suit. ‘What goes?’

  ‘We’re pouring here tomorrow at 9:00. Mac wants the roof slab at the Pumping Station poured in the afternoon.’

  Willie scratched his jaw. ‘It’ll be dark by 4:00. What’s he thinking about?’

  ‘We won’t be ready,’ said Jimmy, ‘not by 9:00. 10:00, maybe – at best. 11:00 is what we said.’

  ‘9:00 is what he says now. Trevor’s ordered the concrete. The first truck will be here by 8:30. The dumpers are on their way round the hill now.’

  ‘Healey’s men?’

  ‘We’ve got to use them somewhere.’

  ‘You could get rid of them.’

  ‘Tell that to Swannie.’

  No, they couldn’t get rid of Healey. He was part of Swannie’s great scheme, as was Jimmy Gillies himself.

  ‘Okay,’ said Jimmy. ‘It’ll be dark at 4:00. We’ll need all that time to get the shutters down, to clean them off and get them ready. Get Derek up here, he can finish the steel.’

  John Kelly shook his head.

  ‘He’s on the Pumping Station.’

  ‘How am I supposed to get this done in time?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘I’m supposed to meet Mac this afternoon.’

  ‘He’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Jimmy went over to the shutter where he hung his jacket on a bolt and took out his mobile phone. He tried Mac’s number but got through only to the message box. Then he tried Swannie’s number but still made no connection.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ll do it.’

  ‘How do we manage this?’ asked Willie.

  ‘Just by doing it,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Conn!’

  Conn turned the crane on its tracks and looked down from his cabin door into the excavation.

  ‘Paul?’

  Paul had already put his iPod back in his pocket and thrown his jacket in a corner.

  ‘Five of us,’ said Jimmy, ‘all willing. Willie and I will put the chains on the west shutter. Conn, you get the crane to take the weight. Then we can get the bolts out more or less safely. Cammy, you and Paul tie the rest of the south wall steel. Let’s get cooking.’

  Jimmy and Willie picked up their spanners and climbed onto the wall head while Conn swung the crane’s jib across. From the end of the jib hung two hawsers and chains. The hooks on the end of the chains made a long
slow swing as they travelled.

  When the swing had settled Jimmy and Willie grabbed one hook each and hauled them out to the ends of the formwork. Jimmy made a spiral-down gesture with his hands and Conn extended the hawsers until Jimmy made his ‘whoa’ gesture. He and Willie fed their chains all the way round the endmost uprights so the hooks could turn back and clasp the chains. That done he made an open-and-close gesture with his hands.

  Conn drew the chains up until they were tight and the shutter was just drawn away from the concrete. He locked the jib and cut the engine. The two joiners went to work with the spanners, loosening and removing the top bolts, dropping them carelessly on to the concrete base

  ‘You tie, Paul,’ said Cammy. ‘You haven’t got the hands to carry. Too soft’

  ‘They are not.’

  ‘Aye, they are,’ said Conn, climbing down into the excavation, taking the first horizontal bar at its opposite end from Cammy.

  Paul took the snips and tying wire to the bars and made the first knot – free length, round this way, round that, round again, tighten and snip while Cammy and Conn lifted the next bar.

  ‘How many pies can you eat, Paul?’ asked Cammy, not looking at him.

  ‘Pies?’

  ‘Yes, pies.’

  ‘One at a time?’

  ‘One, two, three at a time, any way you like but how many at one go.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Tight, snip.

  ‘Three – four, maybe.’

  ‘Ho!’ Willie called from the wall head.

  ‘He can eat fourteen,’ said Cammy admiringly. ‘Fourteen at one go.’

  ‘Fourteen,’ Willie called out triumphantly.

  ‘I could manage that,’ said Paul. ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m an old man of forty – when I was your age I could manage twenty-six. That was my record. Twenty-six.’

  ‘This was when he was on that big pyramid contract in Egypt,’ said Cammy.

  ‘Nah,’ Willie said. ’Neffartootie’s tomb is where Old Jimmy served his time. This was on the Caledonian Canal.’

  Jimmy Gillies worked quietly away and steadily.

  ‘The Caley Canal,’ said Cammy. ‘Leaking to this day.’

  Paul, Cammy and Conn continued on the south wall, Paul chalking the bar positions, Cammy and Conn lifting the first bars across.

  Jimmy and Willie dropped the last of the bolts on to the concrete base and climbed back down to place wooden pads and wedges to support the shutters after they were moved. Conn fired up the engine and eased the first shutter from the wall.

  Thuck!

  The low end swung heavily out from the green concrete, out and across the channel, its slow grace eloquent on the subject of mass and motion and what amounts to unstoppable force. Everyone acted at once; Paul moving in to grab the edge, trying without thought to halt the swing into the opposite wall, Jimmy’s arm going out to stop him, Cammy also grabbing him by the shirt, the two of them hauling him back.

  ‘Careful, son!’ Jimmy said sharply. ‘What would I tell your Dad?’

  Paul turned away as if he had been struck.

  The shutter clipped the east side lightly and swung to and fro without hitting again. Jimmy and Willie waited until it was almost steady in the centre of the channel and moved in to take a hold of each end.

  ‘We can fix the shutters,’ said Cammy, ‘but we can’t fix you.’

  ‘Don’t call me ‘‘son’’ ’.

  Jimmy nodded to Cammy and Cammy signalled up to the crane cab and slowly Conn lifted the shutter, slowly swung it out and laid it gently on the haul road with its facing side up.

  The face of the shutter was stuck with lumps of concrete and streaks of mortar. Without removing the chains the two joiners set about knocking it away, beating it with their hammers and brushing the loose material off on to the road stone. Willie dipped a mop into the bucket of lubricating oil he had brought topside from the culvert and ran it all about the plywood face. That done they dropped back into the excavation and Cammy held his hand up, circling it in the air, opening and closing his fist, guiding Conn and his jib as he moved the shutter through the air. Slowly it came down to land at the wall kicker, Jimmy and Willie putting their shoulders against it to push it in the last few centimetres.

  ‘Hold it there!’ Jimmy shouted.

  Cammy made a flat palm towards Conn while Jimmy and Willie propped the shutter up with sturdy timbers. This done they went through the process again with the outside shutter but this time the concrete was more stubborn. The joiners hammered away all the harder. They banged and brushed and scraped with the edges of their hammers and, from time to time, straightened to ease their backs. Suddenly Willie shouted at the top of his voice.

  ‘Your hole, getting your hole, that’s the best’.

  He bent down again and continued beating at the concrete lumps. Jimmy shook his head.

  Willie straightened again.

  ‘Then again,’ he said. ‘I once got a wank with a velvet glove, which was better than a shag come to think of it.’

  ‘That’s a mountaintop view,’ said Cammy, also straightening, looking inland to the Sutherland hills. ‘No one can explain why it should affect us as it does.’

  ‘Cammy was a minister of the church before he joined us,’ Jimmy said to Paul. ‘He had a crisis of faith.’

  ‘Still have,’ Cammy volunteered.

  Conn leaned out of his cab and spoke to Willie.

  ‘I got that once as well. It was a green velvet job, a long evening glove such as Princess Margaret used to wear. She pulled it on slow, like this.’ Conn made a show of running his hand along his forearm. ‘Then the young lady pressed down between the fingers to make sure it was on real tight.’

  ‘She was teasing you,’ said Willie. ‘She didn’t want you to take too long.’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  Jimmy had one eye on Cammy as he bent to the shutter.

  ‘Just get on with this,’ he said. ‘We’ve only got today.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘In the Gorbals,’ Conn said. ‘It was 78 Oxford Street, in the stairhead lavvie.’

  ‘Hey! Same address.’

  The two men raised their fists in mock salute.

  Paul looked at Jimmy, more than half expecting him to bring this banter to an end. Instead Jimmy made the only conscious joke Paul ever heard from him and uttered the only strong word.

  ‘Bastards!’ he said. ‘That was my sister.’

  ‘Everybody,’ said Willie, ‘needs a wee hand from time to time.’

  ‘Enough! Cammy, back in the excavation.’

  By now the sun had moved to the other side of the hill and what little heat the air had taken from it was already departing.

  With the second shutter on its pads they pushed the bolts through and tightened and the two shutters stood unsteadily, but independently, in place.

  ‘Okay,’ said Jimmy, ‘we’ll eat while you three tie the rest of the steel. Then we’ll steady it.’

  Jimmy and Willie took out their flasks and sat on some loose timbers. Now Willie had a question for Paul, the bosses’ man among the men.

  ‘Why this concrete culvert? Why not a big pipe? It would be cheaper and quicker.’

  ‘The Engineer wanted to give Mister Crawford a reinforced concrete design for his professional qualifications. He has exams to pass. When he does that his rate goes up and the Engineer charges accordingly. Also, the Engineer is paid on a percentage of the price. When the cost goes up his fee goes up. That’s the way it’s done.’

  Paul felt uncomfortable talking this way, as though he was giving away a secret of his Craft. As though he was saying: this is our way, but I prefer yours. I would rather be in your Craft. It’s more honest.

  ‘Harry told me,’ he said. ‘He’s pretty hard on his bosses, pretty cynical, except for his ultimate boss, GR.’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘This is how it is,’ he said. ‘Between this kind of thing
and the Healeys of this world, this is how it is.’

  ‘It would be better with a big, fat pipe,’ said Cammy. ‘We’re wasting our time.’

  Willie put his flask back in his bag, pieces finished.

  ‘No we’re not. We’re here to make a living. Somebody else has to worry about what’s best. Jimmy’s got to worry about getting that girl of his through University. I’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to feed. You’re single, Cammy; so you have to think about it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cammy. ‘I don’t matter. What about you Paul? What are you here for?’

  ‘Paul matters because he’s the future of this game,’ said Jimmy. ‘At least, I hope so.’

  Paul said nothing to this but put his flask away and climbed topside. He checked the set-up of his theodolite over its peg. ‘We’d better get on or it’ll get too dark to check the line,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the way,’ said Jimmy. ‘Do the job in front of you. The rest will take care of itself.’

  The three joiners set about putting the metal props in place and tightening the bolts, connecting the two sets of shutters and making them firm. Again and again Jimmy and Willie checked the wall widths. Again and again they measured across the gap to make sure the distance was correct and consistent and, when they were ready, Willie took Paul’s levelling staff and held it outright, horizontal, from the north wall’s inside face. Paul knew his offset size was 600mm. He checked the reading through the telescope of his theodolite.

  ‘15mm north,’ he called down.

  Cammy slackened the props on the north side while Jimmy tightened those on the south. Willie put the staff back in place.

  ‘Too much! 5mm back.’

  The joiners went through their slackening and tightening process again. As they completed the movement the sun dropped below the horizon and it was suddenly dark.

  ‘No use – can’t see.’

  Willie stepped back and found the torches in the culvert. Back on the shutter he shone his on the 600 mark.

  Paul checked the reading and called out, ‘Okay! Now, how am I going to check back?’