Ross Raisin - Waterline

It is. It’s the draught. He closes up all the doors and windows and goes back to sit down and calm himself. Straight away it’s hot again, but he’ll have to live with it just, better that than a fucking heart attack.

Lynsey will have left the office by now; somebody else on the dispatch. Somehow, the thought of talking to her again, it unsettles him. Implications. All these bloody implications that there’s no way around. Lynsey and the wee giggle they could always have, a flirt, you might call it even, but it’s fine, it’s fine because you get to an age and you’re married and sex isn’t in the equation when women are talking to you. You’re no a threat, so you can have a laugh and a giggle because nobody’s on the lookout for your physical needs and your desires — but now — see now those are all busted into the open and people are wary of you because that’s exactly what they’re looking out for.

He calls the office line. It keeps ringing, and he gets ready for what he’s going to say on the answering machine, but mid-ring it gets picked up.

‘Hello.’

He considers putting the phone down.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Mick. That you, Malc?’

‘Aw, Mick, hi. How are ye? Ye’re calling late, eh?’

‘I didnae think ye’d be there still.’

‘No, I got stuck here. I had paperwork to fix out and then the phone wouldnae stop.’

There is a pause.

‘I’d like to come back in, that’s how I’m ringing.’

He can hear Malcolm breathing on the other end.

‘Thing is, Mick, we’re no too busy the now. Mean, if ye want to take some more time, see the family, ye know, that’ll be fine, it’s no a problem.’

‘No. I’d like to come in.’

He can smell the whisky returning off the receiver.

‘Okay, well, that’s fine. Ye sold the car, didn’t ye?’

‘I did.’

‘Right, so we’ll get ye one to rent again. Come in whenever and we’ll find some shifts, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’d best get leaving, Mick. We’ll see you, then.’

‘See you.’

He sits down, closing his eyes, trying to compose himself. It’s done. Task completed. Now relax. But just then it occurs to him he hasn’t checked the phone messages in a long while and there might have been a call. He goes back in the lobby to the phone. There’s three new ones.

‘Hello, Mick, it’s Alan here, just to say we’ll be with you late afternoon, it looks like. Depends how the traffic is. I imagine you might not have a lot in, food-wise, so we’ll pick up some supplies on the way. See you in a short while, hopefully.’

What was that about no having a heart attack? Jesus. It takes him half the message before he realizes it’s an old one and the Highlanders are not in fact about to arrive any moment. He replays it for the date anyway, just to be sure. Delete.

The next message is Robbie.

‘Hi, Da, just calling to say we’re back, and to see you’re okay. Flight was a fucking nightmare in the end — not enough ground staff or something in Hong Kong so we were held up five hours, so we’re both kinda whacked now. Jenna’s asleep upstairs with Damien. Anyway, hopefully the Highlanders didn’t hang around too long and you’re doing okay. I’ll speak to you soon, alright. Take care.’

The last is Robbie again.

‘Hi, Da, I guess you might be working. Anyway, I’m just after seeing how you’re getting on, is all. I’m back at work myself this last week, which has been good, you know, takes your mind off things a bit — Jenna’s asking to tell you hi, Da, she sends her love — so, yeah, give me a call. Any time is fine, and I can ring you straight back. Okay, take care, speak soon, bye.’

End of messages.

Dark outside. He switches off the television. Pulls the bed covers and the pillow out from beside the settee, then goes upstairs and finds the camping mat. He drags everything together to the kitchen back door, and goes out into the garden.

It is cool outside, but pleasant enough, no wind, no noise either. He walks up to the shed and goes inside. There are boxes and a hammer on the floor, which he picks up and puts onto the cracked plastic table against the back wall. Then he takes the chairs and the rusted mower out to the back of the kitchen and returns to the shed with the bed covers, laying out the mat, the pillow, the blankets onto the floor. There is just enough space for it. A final check out the door that there’s nobody spying over the fence, and he closes it behind him.

It is cold. There is a wind got up, and he lies with the covers pulled close, no able to sleep, listening to the glass clacking loosely in the window frame. He should have gave it a bit more thought, brought some blankets out. Good job he minded the whisky, well. He takes another mouthful, gulps, and feels it burning down his throat.

He turns over. Can’t fucking sleep, man. Nay chance him going back in the house though. He’d rather go cold than stay the night in there: all the rooms, despite the clearout, still hoaching with nudgewinks, making him think about everything. No that he’s faring the best out here either, in truth. We’ve no been thinking about anything else. We’ve no been thinking about anything else. Really, Mary? Ye sure about that? You’ve been thinking about what DVDs to watch and that your fence needs a varnish, but no, no, see what we’ve really been thinking about is Cathy and this terrible situation here. That’s what’s been on our minds the whole time. And have ye gave much thought, Mary, how it’s Cathy copped her whack and it’s no you? That’s the question. Pete was in the yards the same amount of time — to the very day, in fact; they started the very same day — and you’ve shook the overalls out and washed them and vacuumed the carpets exactly the same as Cathy has. And why no Pete, for that matter? Or himself. Always the same question, coming back at him. How is it no himself? Him that was working with the stuff every day, brushing against the laggers and their buckets of monkey dung, walking under scaffold planks with great showers of it floating down like snowstorms. And the best question of all — ye ready for this, Big Man — how isn’t it the brother-in-law? See if there’s anybody deserves to cop their whack then it’s him, surely, it’s him and all the rest of they lying bastards, because they knew, they knew long before anybody else did what the dangers were, but they did nothing. Nothing. All the reports they must’ve had telling about the risks, and all of it sided off for the more important business of trying to keep up with the Japanese and the French and the Germans. How not the brother-in-law? But he was shut away, wasn’t he, the door snibbed closed, pouring whisky down the throats of shipowners and insurance men. We’ve upheld our responsibilities and don’t think we haven’t. We’ve put the signs up — telling about ventilation and masks and dust checks and all these things that were never bothered with and nobody ever thought to ask for because you couldn’t read the bloody sign even, it was that covered in fucking dust.

He presses himself into the crack between the ground and the wall, trying to stop the wind getting a run on him as it races through. The whole of him is aching. Hardly a surprise. It’s pure ancient, this camping mat, worn down almost to nothing and if it wasn’t already then it will be soon, all this tossing and turning he’s doing. Another gulp of whisky. And another. Liars. Fucking liars — see what about all they poor bastards up at the asbestos factory actually making the stuff, hadn’t they been lied to worse than anyone? You’d see them coming out with it pasted wet over them from head to toe from hosing the machines down. Each holding a newspaper to stick under the bahookie when they sat on the bus, trying no to piss the driver off. They’d been told it was only dangerous when it was dry. So they took it home, and then what happened — what do ye think bloody happened? — it dried again, didn’t it, but that was fine, far as the powers that be were concerned, that wasn’t a danger. Fucking lies, all of it. They deserved everything that was coming to them. And if it was him dying, then maybe he would go down that route. Secure a future for Cathy. But it wasn’t; it was him brought the stuff in the house. And he should have known. Even if no at first, way back, then he certain could have done later on, when there was the warnings and the newspaper reports and he could have seen through all these lies and no been so blind to it. He’d even worked with somebody who thought they’d took a bad back. Actually known somebody die who’d thought that at first, but then when it was Cathy in the doctor’s he didn’t think to say anything about it, he fucking forgot.