Ross Raisin - Waterline

That’s what Dia has told him. The KPs are pretty much the only ones that ever talk in English. And they understand better than he’d thought, the times that he’s had any conversation with them; which isn’t a great lot, to be honest. Eric is still quiet with him while they work, although he has noticed that he’s aye similar with the others when they’re together. Dia is a wee bit more talkative getting with him though, telling him sometimes which of the waiters and the chefs he dislikes the most.

Outside of the potwash and the lunatic buffet, there aren’t many places to go: there is a small staff room, round the dogleg at the bottom of the corridor, with a table and a few chairs, a battered oven, a kettle and a toaster, but Mick never goes in there, so the only place he sees anybody is in the laundry room. He goes in one afternoon, with a carrier of socks and pants, and Dia is at one of the machines taking out his clothes. Before he gets leaving, Mick chins him to ask about their pay. Dia smiles.

‘It is not very much.’

‘Aye, I’ve noticed.’

‘You write down how many hours but it is always the same.’

‘They take some off for the accommodation, then? They must do, eh?’

He grins. ‘Oh, yes. They do. And food. We stay in a fine hotel. See?’ He looks up and around at the drop ceiling. ‘You are not with the agency?’

‘No.’

‘You are lucky. You are an Englishman. I am with the agency.’

‘Careful, pal, I’m Scottish.’

Dia laughs. ‘Yes, yes, sorry. Scottish. We are the same, then.’

Mick smiles. ‘Aye, well, maybe.’

The next time he is on with Dia, they speak some more. Dia asks him about Scotland and Mick begins telling him about the yards, what like it was working in them. He quietens up soon enough though. Dia is obviously interested, but he doesn’t press him. It’s surprising, in fact, how much he knows already. He knows all about the big boats that were made on the Clyde, which probably goes to bloody show what dark part some of these ships they made had to play in people like Dia’s history. Mick realizes he doesn’t know if Ghana has a coastline even. Pretty bloody ignorant, really, but he doesn’t ask. Dia tells him about his family. He has a wife and a baby, he says, at home in his country. He’s going back soon to work as an accountant. That’s what he studied, accountancy, christsake.

He is getting on. He’s no maundering up in Glasgow with his head stuck to the freezer or rotting in the shed like a sack of potatoes; he is getting through the days and the already familiar pattern of work, sleep, work, sleep, work, day off, work. Over the next couple of weeks, he goes each few days into the terminal and gets a supply of four-packs for the bargain price of £6 each. One day off soon, he’ll get out and onto the subway, buy the mini television, allow himself to think about giving Robbie a call. Even to see outside of the airport, that would be something.

He is dozing in his room one afternoon when he hears some kind of commotion down the corridor. He ignores it at first, but after a few minutes he gets up to have a hingie out the door at what’s going on. It is coming from round the dogleg. He walks down the way, and keeks inside the staff room as he goes past. All the housekeepers are in there, it looks like, and as well he notices Dia and Eric inamongst. The women are talking in Spanish, but maybe those two understand anyway; it wouldn’t come as a great surprise, in truth. He goes in the laundry for a moment, listening to the babble through the wall, then he leaves away back to his room.

He wakes up, sweating. The jittery sensation of knowing he’s awake and the dream is by but the feeling of it staying with him. He sits up with the sheets resting damply on his stomach, the head muddled, the image still there. She is knelt down in front of him and he is looking at her from behind. A great dump of washing in front of her, and she is lifting a pair of overalls out of the pile. He closes his eyes and tries to keep the picture moving, to see the front of her, but his chest and then the whole of his body has started laddering, hardening. The yellow edge of light on top of the door and the dim shapes of the room coming into focus. Wardrobe. Table. Clothes left lying on the floor. He is in the hotel. A potwasher. On again the morning, a matter of hours just.

He gets up and perches on the end of the bed but it’s impossible getting a hold on anything, it’s all birling about the brainbox. He stands up and moves toward the bundle of clothes by the table, picks up the overalls and gets them under his arm. He claws a fistful of coins from the wardrobe drawer and leaves the room into the ever-lit light of the corridor.

His limbs are stiff as he walks and he’s not feeling totally in the present, no at all in fact — he feels half asleep, the dream still pulling, like drag chains, behind him.

The laundry room is empty. He goes in and gets a punnet of powder from the dispenser, and puts the overalls into one of the washers. He sits on a chair and watches them spin and flump through the glass; shuts his eyes and tries to see her.

The sound of a door opening and footsteps in the corridor. One of the housekeepers is at the doorway with her dressing gown wrapped about her, a pissed-off look on her face. She comes toward him and bends down, putting a hand on his shoulder.

‘You should go to bed now, yes?’ she says with a small sad smile, then she is away.

The butter bucket. Daft but you get fixed on it, studying how full it’s getting, sat there on the ledge where the waiters scrape the butter dishes into it; a measure of how busy the service is. And then you start guessing what level it’s going to get to, is it going to beat the record and all this. Daft. But it keeps the sanity. The busiest shifts, it’s best taking a deep breath and getting stuck in, no a word between the two of you, each in your own worlds, the machine booming, the baldies shouting through for pan collections, and the ping of microwaves in the kitchen going ten the dozen like a sweet shop after school closing.

He gets put on Wash 2 now as well, which is pretty much the same story as Wash 1 except you get pish-wet through to boot. In the quieter moments, he talks to Dia, and a little bit to Eric now, who near knotted himself the morning he came in with his overalls a size snugger from drying them too quickly. ‘Staff food is good, hey?’ And he’d had a right chuckle at him. ‘Must be, aye.’

One thing he’s noticed: the lull before service starts, the waiters come past the hatch with a tray of teas and coffees for the kitchen. It’s the same story with beers too, when the chefs go into the restaurant at the end of the night for a drink. There’s times when he’ll be pure murdering for a drink himself after a shift, but the other KPs don’t seem bothered. Maybe a religious thing. Or maybe because it’s normal just, it’s the way it goes and they accept it. One shift he asks Dia about it, how they never get brought a tea in. Dia laughs. He pats the top of the machine.

‘The machine does not drink tea,’ he says. A strange way of putting it, but he gets the point.

Later the same shift, he tells Dia he saw the meeting in the staff room.

‘It is terrible, terrible, they do this. These people’ — and he chibs a handful of teaspoons toward the restaurant — ‘we must not give them one inch, or they take the mile.’ Mick can’t help smiling at the phrase, but the head chef comes through that moment and they both quieten up. When he’s gone, Dia tells him what the story is, with one eye watchful of the throat into the kitchen.

The housekeepers, he says, are wanting to go on strike because they aren’t getting their correct pay. Some dirty chicanery it sounds like too. The hotel has started only clocking their hours for the time they actually spend in the rooms. So if any of the guests decide on a lie in or a lumber before breakfast, and don’t vacate when they’re supposed to, the housekeepers have to wait without being paid for the time.