Ross Raisin - Waterline

He gets his sandwich, and he walks over to the cemetery to go sit down on one of the benches and eat it.

Still a blank. The familiar tightening of his body coming on and he has to relax. He has to relax. Normally he can do that in here, that’s aye how he comes, but he’s no helping things rubbing himself up like this; he should just calm it down, eat his sandwich. Craig. Craig is here. He’s going up the footpath. The first instinct is to duck the head. He’s walked right past him, and now he’s away up the path toward the grave. Did he see him? Impossible to know, he might’ve, he might, how could he not’ve — he’s come right beside him. The heart going mental. His body rooted to the spot, but nothing he can do: he can’t get up because that will obvious draw attention to himself so all he can do is stay put and hope he doesn’t turn round. He gives a keek up. The back of Craig’s jacket, a way up the footpath now. He watches as the boy passes through a line of trees to the next lawn and stops when he reaches the grave. He’s got his work clothes on, by the look of it, although it’s hard to tell from this distance. He’s just standing there, looking down. Me and you, Maw, it’s me and you against all the rest of them. He stands there a minute or two before he starts to bend and crouch down, and as he does so he turns his head. He is looking straight toward him. It’s a bare instant just, a single second, then he turns back to the grave.

He flicks the light switch out of habit but of course it doesn’t come on, but so what, he doesn’t need to see any of it, the less he can see in fact, the better. As it is, he can still make things out in the half-dark. The mound of post at his feet; the bare, ripped ribbon dangling off the wall. This needs to be done quickly, or if not he’s going to collapse in a heap no able to get up and that’ll be that, never to be seen again. Except by the man up the stair, of course, that bastard — he needs to be calm, concentrate — no think about a man up the stair. He keeps it all blanked out as he goes through the kitchen, fetching a carrier, and then gets up the steps to the bedroom. He moves quickly inside. Ignores the dark heap on the bed. He pulls open her drawer and grabs a handful of jewellery, dropping it into the bag. His breath is snatching now, coming in jolts, but he’s managing it, he’s coping, taking another couple of handfuls to empty the drawer, and the truth is it feels good — there — so fucking what? What difference does it make anyway? She’s dead. She’s not going to wear it.

He’d be pure raging if he knew. But he doesn’t, and he can get to fuck if he thinks he’s got any more right to her than anybody else. He goes out of the room and back downstairs, where he gets his jacket and the small battered holdall from the lobby, and starts putting things into it: the carrier of jewellery, then out to the shed for his change of clothes and the newspaper. Then he’s away. Gone. Goodfuckingbye.

‘Ye back, then?’

‘I’ve brought some more things.’

‘Go on, well, let’s see.’

He empties the carrier into the tray. She gives him a look but he ignores it, and he stares away toward the window while she inspects through it.

‘Is it for loan or sale, this?’

‘Sale.’

‘Okay, well we buy gold and silver by the gram, so I’ll need a wee while to price this lot up, that alright?’

‘That’s fine. I’ll wait.’

She gives him £250 for all of it. It’s worth a lot more, he knows, but no like he has much of a choice. There’s a ring in there that used to be her grandmaw’s, which must be worth a couple of hundred on its own, plus a few other things that were handed down to her when she was a wean in a big house in the Highlands and she hadn’t yet disgraced and ruined herself with the dirty plater husband.

It’s pishing it down when he gets outside. He could get on the subway, all this cash he’s got on his tail now, but he needs to be careful saving it so he waits for a bus instead, standing a long time with the wind blowing in and water dripping off his nose. He gets the next one into the centre and gets off at the coach station. There is only a short queue at the ticket desk.

‘When’s the next coach to London?’ he asks the guy.

There is a bronze statue by where the man waits. A life-size young couple greet each other, a bag on the floor beside them, and he is lifting her up, their lips about to meet, one hand sliding down over her bottom. The man smiles, looking at it. A couple of girls come past and notice the statue; they start giggling. His own bag is not much bigger than the bronze man’s. In it, his few clothes, his work boots, a plastic wallet with his valuables and a little food for the journey. Already there is a large group waiting by the glass doors for the London coach, but he sits further off, on a plastic orange seat by the statue.

He goes inside his coat for his phone and makes a call.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes, my name is Juraj. I am arriving in London tonight.’

‘Got an address?’

‘Yes.’

‘Passport?’

‘Yes,’ he lies.

‘Right. You’ll find details where to come in the morning. There will be a van waiting. Bring the passport, and the driver will need your expenses up front. He’ll take you straight to the site.’

‘Okay. Okay. The flat is not shared? My wife and son come here soon. The other man said it is not shared.’

‘No, not shared. Polish?’

‘No. I am from Slovakia.’

‘Right, well. Plenty of Polish there. Slovak too probably. You come at six tomorrow. Details are in the flat.’

He puts the phone back in his coat and continues to wait for the coach. Things will not be easy once he arrives; he is not stupid. When the agency in Slovakia arranged for him to come to Glasgow, they told him the same thing. You will have your own room. It will be comfortable for your wife and child when they join you. And on the outside, the red brick building did look beautiful, if you ignored the — ‘Govanhell’. . ‘Fuck off gypos’. . ‘Scum’ — local poetry. He could not bring them to a place like this. Five cramped streets: no privacy, no heating, no landlord. White and Asian gangs. In London, at least, they will be hidden — Roma, Polish, Pakistani — nobody will care.

An old woman is standing in front of the statue. She looks at it for a moment, then moves away to where a line is forming in front of the glass doors. Back home, it is getting more dangerous: last month, his wife’s brother was badly beaten and left in the tip next to where they live. There is no choice now but for them to come here; it is the right decision. The driver is opening the doors and climbing onto the coach. He stands, picks up his bag and goes to join the queue.

There are no empty pairs of seats left on the coach, so he sits down next to a man who is staring out of the window with his hands on top of his bag, clasping it to his lap. Past the man’s head, he can still see the statue through the glass wall of the station, and he continues looking at it until the engine starts up and the coach rolls off. He grins. When my wife arrives here, he thinks, this is how I will touch her bottom.

A young guy with a shaved head is come and sat in next to him. It’s okay but. He doesn’t look like the type that’s going to be chinning him all the way down for a conversation. Which is good, because it’s a long-enough journey. More than nine hours. Arriving in London in the wee hours, when the pubs are shut and the cafes aren’t yet open. He could’ve planned it better, serious. He could have planned it at all, in fact.

By the time they get leaving the city and the sudden leap of green at the end of the schemes, the gloaming is come on outside the window and he is falling asleep. When he wakes up the lights are turned off and it takes him a moment to mind that he’s on a coach, people snoring around him, a dim strip of lighting along the aisle floor, fallen crisps and a crisp packet and legs stretched out. He looks out of the window into the rushing darkness. He doesn’t feel jittery. He feels okay. He doesn’t feel anything.