Ross Raisin - Waterline

Pete and Mary; Don and Sheila. He must have opened these cards himself sometime over the last few days, but he hadn’t took full notice of the names. Both couples were there the day. There hadn’t been much chance to talk but it was good to see them. Familiar faces. The men bloodshot and bald the now but aye familiar. He sees Pete now and then because they stay no that far away still, but Don, he couldn’t have seen him in twenty years. Twenty-one, in fact. He can mind fine well actually the last time he saw him: they were in the Empress, the same stools they’d been stuck to for months, fuck this, fuck that, fuck the brother-in-law, fuck Thatcher, fuck the dunny money, bastards. But they’d took their dunny money and by then they’d drunk most of it, and the last he saw of Don he was steamboats and drawling how him and the wife were moving out of the city. They were back the now, they told him. Found themselves a nice done-up flat in a tenement in Drumoyne, where the landlord wasn’t quite the robber their last one was.

The wives must have read about Cathy in the Southside News . Went to the Co and plumped for the same card. He imagines Mary and Sheila going in for it, putting it on the counter with a paper, pack of fags, Lotto ticket.

He gives Pete and Mary’s card a read:

Mick,

We were so very sorry to hear about Cathy. She was such a wee gem. I still mind fine well the launch days and the pair of us dressed up in our finest, and you and Pete three sheets to the wind! Pete is working on the crane at the old John Brown yard at the moment, of all places. I know the last year must have been very hard on you and the family, Mick. If there’s anything at all we can do,

All our best,

Pete and Mary

He smiles. She does go on, Mary. He puts the card back up on the ribbon. He’s heard about the crane. Turned into a visitor centre. He’s seen it lit up pink and red at night a couple of times when he’s been over near Clydebank. The last he knew, they were talking about putting a restaurant in the jib and making it revolve. He’d read that in the paper. It was part of a project to represent the industrial heritage of the area. A revolving pink restaurant. You’ve got to wonder how they dream these things up. And see the view? That’s one thing for starters they’ll have to change. All very well getting the full panorama but if all you’re looking out on is a puddled wasteland every direction — gangs of weans playing football and smoking, pigeons roosting and crapping over the rusted fabrication sheds — it isn’t going to make your mozzarella parcels taste much the better, is it?

In the kitchen Robbie has put up the cards on top of the microwave. He takes the last lot out of Mick’s hand and arranges them in with the others. Through the wall, next door’s baby is wailing. Mick leans against the counter and looks out the window at the back garden, the tubs of flowers that have gone thin and yellow, overgrown.

‘Don’t feel ye’ve got to stay, Robbie,’ he says.

‘We’ll stay as long as we can, it’s no bother. Anyway, Christ, we’ve come that far, there’s no point us leaving yet.’

‘I know that. But Jenna will want to get back soon. It’s no right spending too long away when they’re that age.’

‘He’s fine at his grannie’s. Knowing Jenna’s maw, she’s probably teaching him how to make homebrew or go tracking through the bush.’ He balances the last card on top of the microwave. ‘Anyway, we’re not leaving you on your own with the Highlanders.’ He is grinning. ‘How long do they plan stopping, you know?’

He’s about to tell him he isn’t sure, they haven’t said, but just then the sound of the television comes loudly from the corridor. There are footsteps, which pause a moment, then continue toward the kitchen. Craig comes in the room without speaking or looking at either of them, and opens the fridge. He crouches, looking inside the door, but he obvious can’t find what he wants and starts moving aside the packs of sausages on the bottom shelf.

‘After a beer, son?’

He doesn’t reply. Keeps looking, next shelf up.

‘They’re in the carrier on the side here, if ye are.’

He gets up, giving a quick look at the cards on the microwave. Then he goes for a can out of the bag over by where Robbie is standing.

‘Thanks,’ he says, snapping the can open as he leaves the room.

He wakes and looks out the window at the dark. A few wee lights on in a few distant multis. It’s awful warm but. He considers a moment getting out of the bed to open a window, and stays a while trying to work up the energy to go do it, but in the end he gives it a miss and stays put where he is. Ye buried the wife today. She died, and ye buried her. Somehow it’s no registering. He repeats it to himself a few times, but it’s as though the words don’t make sense, he can’t get understanding them. What he feels instead is the same as he felt the day last week the hospital telephoned to say she’d passed away. Relief, is what it is. It is a relief the funeral’s over, that it’s went off okay; Craig didn’t put the mix in; he doesn’t have to talk to Alan about arrangements any more. He doesn’t have to imagine her in another bed somewhere while he’s lying here. Course there’s other things he could be imagining but they’re so far off seeming real they’re out in fucking hyperspace. He turns over, sticky, heavy and sticky. It was hot the day too. Obvious enough they were all sweaty and tickling in their hats and their suits, but what can you do — it’s a funeral.

He kept off saying it earlier, but he’s really hoping Robbie and Jenna will stay a while longer before they disappear back to Australia. That he won’t be left alone with these more testy elements of the household. Although surely the Highlanders won’t be here much longer. There’s nothing for them to do now that the funeral is over, and there’s nay danger Lynn is wanting to stop around enjoying the luxuries. Craig — that’s another story. And not one that he’s too keen sharing, that’s clear enough. He’s here the now because Robbie’s told him he has to be here, and probably he’ll be away as soon as Robbie’s gone. No that Yoker is the other side of the world, but the way he’s acting it’s fine well possible that it’ll be Robbie that’s back here again first. He needs to talk with him. Go for a drink. Find out what’s going on in that brainbox of his. They both of them need to do that. And if they do, maybe best for his own part swerving the fact he’s no greeted once since she died; that all he can think is: it’s a relief, and when are all of these lot going to get out of the house.

The multis stand solid in a row like a picket line, looking down over the red tenement streets filing toward the Clyde. From up on the seventeenth storey, the view’s a beauty. You can see the glimmering glass roof of the Botanical Gardens north of the river. Kelvingrove Park. The Exhibition Centre’s silver armadillo. And further on, the skyline of the Campsie Fells, keeping the city in. Joe doesn’t much look out at these things though. If he’s looking out, it’ll be at Ibrox. The ground’s a few minutes’ walk from the multi just. On match days, he can see the supporters coming in from all around, crowds growing on the pavements outside the pubs, pouring in through the streets.

This morning but he’s having a see out the window as the sun comes up. Watching the dismal light peter in through the streets that run straight lines toward the river, bending only where they have to go around the stadium, or broken where they’ve took out the tenements and no got round to replacing them. By the river, there’s the twinkling new apartment blocks at Glasgow Harbour, the dry ski centre, and down the water, the shipyards, what’s left of them. Govan, this near side; Scotstoun, across the water. From where he is, he can just make out the top of HMS Defender , sat at her berth at Govan. She looks from up here like an Airfix model, with her miniature gun and helicopter pad on the flight deck. That’s where Joe is headed, the light nearly up now and him away out the flat, clicking shut the front door to go pick up Suggie.