Ross Raisin - Waterline

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.