Ross Raisin - Waterline

A stifty wind in under the door. He pulls the blankets close. Jesus, he’s hungry. He drags the emptied tool box from under the table and feels about inside it for the end of a packet of biscuits, then gets eating a couple. It’s nearly finished, the food store. A battle plan needed. Another problem for another day.

He has had a pure stroke of luck. He’d been one afternoon rummling about in the back of the shed for anything useful there might be, and he found the wee battery radio they used to put outside sometimes when they were sat or she was at the gardening. It’s still working. A miracle. And it’s good too, having it on, no bother that the reception is pretty fuzzy, it’s better than nothing, especially these nights he’s laid there just, with the brainbox going, no able to sleep.

He listens to the quiet voice of the nightwatchradioman. He’s talking about this TV programme that he watched the day about assisted suicides and people going away for them, the legalities and all that. Mick’s no hearing it all, but it’s relaxing, the sound of the guy’s voice. There is a call-in after, but they don’t stick to the topic. People can ring in saying whatever’s on their minds. What do ye think will be the score Saturday? Barry in Pollokshields predicts a thumping away victory for the Gers, and a hat-trick for the new boy. Here’s hoping, Barry, here’s hoping.

The food store is gone. It’s fine but, it’s okay; no like it has come out the blue. He’s been intending the last few days to go the messages for one or two items. Bread. Biscuits. Cheap things that don’t need going in the fridge and he can keep out here. Another bottle of whisky would be much appreciated too, but he’s got to be careful watching the pennies, got to start thinking where’s the money going to come from. He closes his eyes. Got to do this, got to mind to do that. It’s too much to think about. Easier to shut the eyes just and go to sleep, no have to deal with anything just now.

Des is standing on the pavement out front of the Empress when he spots the distant figure of Mick approaching down the street. He drops his cigarette to the ground, picks up the broom that is propped against the wall, and gets sweeping the lunchtime dog-ends into the road. No that there’s a great many. There’d only been a few in: the small group of staff from the recruitment agency round the corner, a couple of shopping-centre workers, and Pat, who is the only person left in the bar now, quietly drinking his Guinness over the racing odds.

He finishes clearing the pavement, and waits to say a hello to Mick if he isn’t stopping in for a drink. Halfway down the street though, Mick crosses over and goes into the closemouth of a tenement on the other side, a blue carrier bag in his hand, and disappears. Des goes inside. He pours a refill for Pat, a Grouse for himself, then goes into the back for a sit down.

Maybe it had been someone else. Looked like Mick but. He sits back and lights a fag, keeping an eye through the bar to the lobby entrance. The family must have all gone by now: it’s well over a month since Craig was coming by those nights, so he’s obviously back up in Yoker. They might be on with a claim by now, from what Craig had been saying then. Awful fucking sad, what had happened. She was a great woman, Cathy, a cracker. Always had been. Back in the day, he used to have something of a crush on her. When he was a young guy first working the bar for his father, he’d look forward to her coming in with the other women during the work-in. There will be no bevvying, the shop stewards had told their men, so they were doing it for them, they’d joked. Just awful bloody sad. It could’ve been any of those women — still could be. The whole area is a timebomb. It could well be him next, or Pat, or any of the men that he’d stood and listened to from behind the bar, right from when there first started to be the rumblings, talking about it like it was something far off and no to do with them, even though they were sat there with the dust caked in their ears and their arseholes. A customer is coming into the lobby entrance. Des gets up, reluctantly wedges his fag in the ashtray, and goes through to the bar.

Mick comes back into the shed with a wee feeling of triumph and puts the items into the food store: bread and biscuits, a packet of cheese, tinned apricots and luncheon meat; even a paper for something to read and while away the hours. See all that stupit carry-on and then in the end it was fine. He’s probably only been gone twenty minutes. He gave the Co a swerve, so all he did was get to the cash machine on the high street, draw out a note and ignore the fact the account is gone overdrawn, then dot in the minimarket on his way back for all these bits and pieces. Easy-oasy.

Now that it’s done he steps out of the shed again and sets his sights on the house. He may as well get everything done in one go, collect more plates, a knife and a fork, and fill up the watering can with fresh water. Then he’ll be set.

He stands outside the shed and looks down the line of back gardens, all empty; wet leaves and rubbish strewn about. Five minutes and he’ll be done. Put the blinkers on, get in and get out. He starts toward the house. Grey pebble-dash; green back door. Strange but he doesn’t recognize it, it’s that unfamiliar somehow. If he’d been in the shed and he’d tried thinking what colour is the back door, what colour is the front door even, he wouldn’t have been able to say, serious, he wouldn’t. All they details: doors, carpets, furniture, they all merge into a general feeling you have, a habit, of being in the house. A place you return to at the end of the day after your toils, and relax. The familiar routines — putting your keys on the counter, sticking the kettle on, getting sat in your chair — it’s natural just, you don’t even think about it. All of it so far past the now. Gone. None of it fits.

The bulb is out in the kitchen. He goes to the cupboard for plates, working by the dim light coming in through the rain-smeared window. Grey shadows on the counter from the kettle and the toaster. He gets a cup, a knife, fork, then he rinses out the watering can; gets filling it with clean water. What would be a good idea as well is pulling the covers off Robbie’s bed: the nights are too cold getting, even with the extra blankets he’s brought out. He goes out of the kitchen and it’s the speed of things, the combination of them all happening together, that undoes him. The light no turning on. The tide of envelopes by the door. A noise upstairs — a bump. It all happens in a second, before he can get registering any of it, and his heart banjos right up his fucking throat and he has to shove against the banister, pressing his back to it and craning to look up the stair. His breathing is heavy and snatched, he can’t control it. It is gone silent up there. But then there’s another bump somewhere above his head; he makes a dart for the living room door beside him. Quiet as he can, he crouches down behind the settee and gets lying in the narrow gap between it and the wall.

His leg is murdering underneath him, but he doesn’t budge. Still nothing from up the stair. The blood in his ears is making it hard to listen, but he strains to hear, ready for any sound in the ceiling above him. Stupit. He is trapped, and whoever it is that’s up there is just waiting, because they know it, or they’ve went, or they weren’t even bloody there in the first place, Christ knows. So he stays put, the leg aching and his knees pressed into the back of the settee. From where he’s lying, he can see part of the video player under the television, but the display clock is blank so he can’t tell how long he’s been there, maybe only a few minutes, or maybe hours, who knows?