Ross Raisin - Waterline

‘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.

‘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.’

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.