Waterline Read online

  Chapter 14

  Here they come, the wee chaps. He listens, enjoying the sound of it, as they begin skittering on the concrete outside the shed door. Something aye comforting about the noise of them pecking the ground, tapping, the odd time, on the side of the shed.

  Until recently there’d just been the one – probably the same patient guy that’s been coming all the while – but he’s obvious gone and let dab to all his mates that they can come and eat here, and now there’s a whole mob of them. Good for him, no keeping it all to himself. Obviously no an English bird. A genuine Southsider, that sparrow. It’s mostly just bread he’s buying now, each few days when he works himself up to leaving the shed, and he keeps a couple of slices from each loaf aside to put out for them. Sometimes, when he hears them arrive and gets open the door latch, he lays a short trail of crumbs from the outside, into the shed, to see if he can get any of them to come in. There’s one time, he managed it. This tiny head, poking in the door and then following the line, unaware, or otherwise unbothered by the great hulking creature that was keeping still and watching him from the darkness under the table. Sometimes as well he tries to sneak a look outside at them, but each time he does they all fly off, and he has to wait a few minutes until the noise starts again: that small fluttery sound of them out there, getting beasted into their breakfast.

  Chapter 15

  A dark red car is turning off the high street. It comes past the park and the cemetery, slowing a moment for a pair of old women to cross the road, then continues on until it pulls into a residential street, and a few seconds later parks up against the kerb. A short bald man gets out, followed by a larger, younger man in a pullover. They come through the gate to Mick’s house and stop by the front door. The older man knocks firmly, while the other peers into the living room window. There is no response from inside the house so the older man hunkers down and looks through the letterbox. In a moment he stands up and pushes an envelope through the flap. Then the two men, without speaking, go back through the gate, get into the car and leave.

  On the other side of the house, in the shed, Mick is sitting up close to the radio. It is almost out again, the sound distorting quietly like voices inside a hull. He needs batteries – all the ones that were in the house are used up; more bread as well; cash. For now he clicks the radio off and gets the few remaining pages of the paper over for another read, nothing else to occupy his mind now that the morning is by and the sparrows have finished their breakfast and left.

  FIRST TENANTS MOVE IN TO NEW HOUSING ASSOCIATION DEVELOPMENT

  SLOVAK ROMA COMMUNITY GIVES A HAND TO SOUTHSIDE CLEAN-UP

  LOCAL LOLLIPOP MAN HAS REAL STAYING POWER

  He gives a read of that one:

  Britain’s top football juggler broke the record for keepy-uppies on Tuesday, when he kept a ball aloft for six hours at Debenhams in the St Enoch’s city-centre shopping mall.

  Sadly, his effort was declared unofficial because there was no representative from the Guinness Book of World Records present at the event, although Graeme, 45, has still raised thousands for charity.

  Afterwards he said: ‘I could have kept going but I had to stop because the store was closing.’

  Mick gives a wee smile. Good on ye, pal. The thought of him there in the Debenhams, a crowd of skiving weans and confused old hens gathering round. 42,500 keepy-uppies. Fucksake. That’s just mental. Interesting but, these stories that you hear. This other one he minds – about a restaurant owner with a rat problem: they’re eating into his food stores and frightening the customers. See but these rats are too canny for the traps, and when they do eat the poison it isn’t strong enough to kill them, so the guy decides he’s going to leave his cat there the night in the hope the rats will start crapping it and scarper. So he locks the cat in the restaurant, and when he comes in the next morning he finds it out the back court, on top of the beer crates, devoured, only the poor creature’s carcass left, and even then some of the bones are away.

  Where’d he heard that story? Robbie, was it? Aye, it was – he’d been telling them while they were watching the TV, Lynn shifting about on the settee with a look on her like she’d just sat on a dod of crap, and Jenna elbowing at Robbie telling him it’s no an appropriate story to be saying; but him carrying on anyway, nay doubt enjoying putting the mix in.

  Probably he’s been calling, Robbie. Likely he will have gave Craig a call too, asking him what’s the story with the da.

  He doesn’t want to think about any of it though. It’s more than he’s up to the now; what he needs to concentrate on is this immediate situation in front of him. First things first, he needs cash, and that means bulling up to go into the bank to see about an overdraft.

  He walks quickly, taking the back ways where he can until he has to come out onto the high street. He goes a short cut before the Empress, through a tenement close. There’s nobody about. The door to a garbage cage is flapped open and the wheelie bins strewn all at angles inside it from the binmen coming collecting the morning. He comes down a side street and stops at the entrance to the high street, eyeing left and right. It’s hoaching. It must be lunchtime: schoolweans outside the chip shop; traffic hurtling – and then, just his bloody luck, he keeks the woman from next door, pushing a pram on the far pavement. He retreats back into the side street, head down, observing the feet. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize him even. There is some sort of oil smear down the one trouser leg, he notices, starting above the knee and staining all the way down to his shoes. Perfect. See there’s him trying to keep the head down and remain unnoticed, but just look at the state of him – he’s bloody bogging – he may as well be wheeling her along after him with a flashing light on top the coffin.

  He looks up and watches the neighbour away down the pavement; the messages done, off back now to get on with the business of looking after the snapper, the husband no about, seemingly. And where is the husband? How come you never see him about? Easy to think the worst sometimes but maybe it’s just that he’s off on the rigs or something, you never know. Cathy would have known, sure enough, but otherwise you never know. There is a lull in the traffic and pedestrians, and he steps out onto the pavement.

  When he gets there, the bank is queued out. He decides that he’s best waiting until after lunch, and turns the other way down the street.

  Which is how he finds himself in the library. It isn’t what he intended, but he’d no been intending anything, and it looked quiet inside, so in he went.

  She’s very helpful, the girl at the desk. He can’t have made himself awful clear when he came in, stood there staring just, not knowing if he needed a ticket or anything to go in.

  ‘Can I help ye there?’

  ‘No. Aye, well, see I’m just hoping to have a look round at the books.’

  ‘Ye been here before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on well and I’ll get ye up and running.’

  She lifts the desk counter and he follows her as she gets showing him all the different sections while he shuffles behind picking books out at random, trying to seem like he’s interested in them and he isn’t just in there because he’s too feart of everybloodywhere else. And it’s good too, somebody being kindly that he doesn’t know, who doesn’t know him, who isn’t sticking the whole pity routine on him. By the time she leaves him at it, he has a whole pile of books that he hasn’t a clue what they are. He sits down and opens one of them, all the time looking about to see if anybody is watching him. No danger of that but. It’s pretty empty in here. There is a guy that looks like he’s a scaffer asleep with a newspaper spread out under his forehead, and three old hens at a table in the corner, each with a copy of the same book. Quite an animated conversation they’re having.

  ‘. . . he’s clever, I think, he just doesnae get the credit, ye know. All these people that used to come on the show, and he could talk with any of them.’

  ‘Aye, and he’s awfy handsome too, say what ye want, but he is. Especially when ye look
at the wife there next to him, she’s that weary-looking.’

  ‘Aw, come on, of course she’s weary-looking – the man’s a balloon!’

  The three of them start chuckling.

  ‘He is, Helen, he’s a bloody balloon.’

  The scaffer is woken up. He’s got a pen and he’s started ringing the classifieds, working down the column, putting a circle around every one. Fair play to him. I admire your confidence, my man. See really that’s what he should be doing himself, having a look what jobs are going. If he can’t deal with going into Muir’s, then he’ll have to think of something else, because he can’t exactly live off nothing. What money they had, they used up while she was ill, and an overdraft is only going to last so long. A new job. Maybe move somewhere else. A different town. He turns the idea over for a moment. A wee flat somewhere he doesn’t know anybody, with only a few simple things he needs in it – TV, kettle, heater – new, replaceable things.

  The thought of Muir’s, and seeing Lynsey again after he’d done the run-out last time. What they must be saying about him. His chest starts to tighten and he has to concentrate on his breathing, try to control the panic. Across the way, the guy is still going through the columns, ringing the lot, and he wonders if maybe he’s some kind of headbanger. But then maybe he’s just in here for the same reason he’s in here himself. This is his place of refuge, where people leave him in peace and he doesn’t have to worry about the outside and all the rub-ye-ups. That’s him the now too. Another headbanger in the library. He stands up abruptly to leave, making sure to thank the lassie on the desk and picking up a copy of the Southside News as he goes out.

  It is quiet in the bank, only a few people queuing up and two clerks on. Nobody he recognizes. He has to collect himself, get it done with, get it over, go back to the shed. The recorded voice calls him to a window. There is a young guy behind the glass. His neck is pinched and red, bulging out from his collar.

  ‘I’m wanting to see about an overdraft.’

  ‘Okay. Pass me your bankcard please.’

  He takes it out of his pocket and drops it in the drawer. Across from him there is a dithering old guy stood at the next window – ‘Ma what?’ – and then the voice through the glass: ‘Your statement, sir, I need to see the statement.’

  ‘The account is in debit.’ The clerk is looking at him.

  ‘I know. That’s how I’m wanting to see about an overdraft.’

  He goes back to his screen, tapping away at the keyboard.

  ‘See, I’m afraid there isn’t the option of an overdraft on this type of account.’

  ‘Okay, right.’

  That’s that well. He looks round and the old guy is still rummling shakily in his mac pocket for his statement, pulling out streams of tissue, coins, bus tickets. When he turns back to the window, the clerk is tapping at his keyboard still.

  ‘It might be best, in your circumstances, looking into if you can get a new type of account. I could give you some information.’

  So there it is, then, even the bank knows – it’s there on his screen.

  ‘I’ll leave it the now, thanks.’

  Hunger. No surprise there. He lays in the dark looking up out the window at the moon, big and bright the night. The food store is empty. Him and the sparrows finished the last of it for breakfast so now he’s pure starving, and you’d think he would be feeling some kind of urgency about the situation but he’s not – no a great deal anyway – it’s in fact more a kind of relief now that he’s no money left. Strange. Figure that one out. No money, no food, and no chance he’s going cap in hand to anybody. The idea of that knots him up – obviously it isn’t an option – but he allows himself for a moment to imagine it, some kind of odd pleasure from kicking his own head in. Going to Pete for a lend of some money. Anything we can do to help, Mick. Anything we can do. Except fucking for that, Jesus Christ, are ye cracked?

  But of course the brother-in-law, that’s a different story: he’d be pure delighted, guaranteed. A great song and dance over it, the ceremonious fetching of the chequebook, the smug showy putting on of the wee reading glasses. How much would you like, Mick? Really, it’s not a problem. How much? And going on the broo is out the question too. The thought of that is almost as bad as the thought of going to those other two. Queuing up with the wine-moppers, filling out forms and forms and killing her over and over with each one. The same as it would be with the compensation. Deceased. Deceased. Deceased.

  He’ll be fine. He’ll find a way. No like it’s the first time he’s found himself without any money, that’s what he’s got to mind, and this time as well it’s just him, there isn’t a whole family to support. Nothing could be as bad as the last time, when the job Alan had got him after Australia eventually fell to pieces. All they weeks and months of will theys, won’t theys, and then the first wave of redundancies starting. Dozens of meetings with the shop stewards and the union men, and all that talk of refusing to give them an inch, don’t forget the spirit of ’72 and all that, but in the end it came to nothing. That’s exactly what they got. Nothing. Alan and the Bowler Hats making their arrangements for theyselves, and all the rest of them left out to dry. See that was a worrying time. The severance cheque didn’t solve anything, and the wife’s job obvious wasn’t going to keep the four of them for long. The arguments they had. So ye won’t even consider it, well? It’s the damned pride, is what it is, Mr Little. Ye know Don Paton is gone on the broo, so Sheila tells me, and no drama. I’m no saying it’s easy, I’m no daft, see I’m only saying this frequenting of the Empress every afternoon and sitting about the house like a pound of mince isnae helping anybody.

  She was right, obviously. And her taking on more hours at the store, it was hardly fair, plus on top of that having to come home knackered after work to him there on the settee, grumbling and drunk. Again. After she’d went through all this with him fifteen years before. Her working and him on the bevvy. Desmond the only person who was doing any the better out of it, his bar mobbed with black squad the whole time, drinking and shouting and scheming their plans of attack, convincing themselves that things could be got back how they were. That they knew what they stood for. I am a shipbuilder. That right, eh? So what are ye now that the shipyard has copped its whack and the job is away? I am a shipbuilder. Once a shipbuilder, always a shipbuilder, and all that tollie they’d told theyselves. No just the jobs that went, but the life. Ordinary life, it was gone; it had to be admitted. Himself a culprit. One of the worst. He wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t cope with the idea that things had changed.

  He turns over stiffly and pulls the blankets up to his chin. The nights are too cold now to sleep all the way through. A rain is starting, pattering above his head. He needs to figure something out. He will but. He’s managed before, and he’ll manage again. Before he eventually got in with the private-hire driving he’d had to leave town to do it, disembark to Newcastle, the short-term contract at Swan Hunter. You battle on just. That’s what he’d done then, even if he did spend most of that time lonely and drunk, and it had been against her wishes in the first place. She’d not wanted to be left on her own, looking after the weans, but he’d done it anyway, the same as he always did, the same as when they went to Australia – had that been a joint decision? Had it hell. He’d told her that was what they were doing and so they did it. The moon there out the window. A full one. The great yellowy cunt, bright as a bare arse. Always his idea. Pack your things, hen, leave your job, your friends, your home – we’re off! That’s how it had been. His idea.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Ye have the item with you?’

  ‘Aye, it’s just here.’

  ‘Can ye put it in the tray for me please?’

  He takes off his watch and places it in. She inspects it a moment, turning it about in her fingers. She’s pure laggered in jewellery: her fingers and thumbs, a gold necklace, and these wee pearly bullets in her ears. Must be she gets a discount.

  ‘Give me a moment please.’
r />   She swivels out from her chair and goes through a back door, and he stands waiting in the empty shop. It isn’t like he expected. What was he expecting? Christ knows. Not this, anyway. There’s nothing antiquey about the place, that’s for sure, all bright lights and a blaze of yellow in the display windows. Sour red carpeting and security notices on the walls. It’s like a bank. Actually, no, it’s even worse than a bank. He goes over to the window to look at the pieces. Hundreds of rings and bracelets, each of them their own sorry story. In fact, see why don’t ye just go and slit the wrists in the corner here – ye may as well if ye’re in the mood, ye maunderly auld bastard, christsake. There is a dull chap on the security window as the woman returns.

  ‘Twenty pound.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘It’s quite worn.’

  ‘No, mean, it’s more than I thought.’

  She smiles. ‘Want it back, well?’

  ‘No, no, it’s okay, thanks.’

  She is still smiling as she takes out the money and puts it in the tray.

  A grey, dreich day outside, the tops of the multis merging into the clouds and the sound of car tyres hissing up water as they come past. Twenty quid. He should probably feel pleased but he’s too bloody starving, on the approach now to a minimarket for a sandwich. The watch was a fiftieth birthday present from the other drivers at Muir’s. It must have been pretty expensive if he was getting twenty for it now. That birthday – him, Cathy and the boys, they’d went to a restaurant in the centre. He tries to picture her, but he can’t. It was just before Robbie left for Australia because Craig was digging him up the whole time – gonnae send Kylie my love and all this – he wouldn’t leave it alone. They’d sat at a table in the corner and she’d been next to him, the place full and noisy, the waitresses with these old-fashioned aprons on and Robbie awful cheeky getting with them, to Craig’s annoyance. He can’t see her though. He knows she’s there sat right next to him but she’s the only part of it that’s a blank.