Ross Raisin - Waterline

He stays on the chair and watches the machine foaming up. He has stopped greeting and his eyes and his throat feel parched and raw. His dobber, too, a similar sensation. The din of the machine as it starts spinning is reassuring, keeping out the mob of thoughts, but a moment later somebody comes in; he can see their feet out the corner of his eye. They turn around on finding him there and are immediately away. A door closing somewhere down the corridor. Out the blue he starts chuckling: Christ knows what they must say about him when they’re all together.

She is up early, before the alarm goes off. By half nine, she has washed, dressed and dried her hair, and has a full hour before she needs to set off for the terminal. She switches on her laptop and draws open first the curtain, then the thin veil behind it. On doing so, she wonders if maybe they are better kept shut. It’s not exactly the most appealing sight. Car parks upon car parks, an ugly trunk of ring-road, and, more immediately, a view into the corresponding room on the corresponding floor of the next hotel. Their curtains are still drawn, but the light is on. No doubt it looks pretty much the same in there as it does in her own room. The bright, speckled carpet and single chair; the watercolour print in wood-effect frame; the bedside ledge glued to the wall.

She checks in, then opens her inbox. There is a schedule attachment for the next ten days, which she should really have printed out earlier. It would have made life a lot simpler, and God knows what hoops she’d have to jump through to get it printed out in the hotel — it’s not exactly the kind of place that has a business lounge — so she gets out a pen and paper to write it out. It’s fine anyway. Gives her a chance to make some notes on one or two other things. When she’s done as much preparation as she can be fussed with before getting on the plane, she clears her inbox: a few emails from the coordinator and the internal auditor in Zagreb, one from her brother, and an invite to a party that she will be away for. The chambermaid comes in at one point, a couple of quick knocks and then her face sheepishly looking round the door. The girl apologizes — ‘sorry, sorry’ — and leaves. Closing up the laptop, she stands and goes to switch on the TV.

The trouble with these places, even after you’ve got over the concrete and the carpets, is always the heating. The windows don’t open to the outside so it’s inevitably a choice between sweltering, or spending an hour with the baffling control panel and ending up freezing. She decides to swelter. It doesn’t really matter; she’ll be on her way soon. Certainly she’s not going down for breakfast. She saw the restaurant on her way in last night. All plastic plants and unhappy Polish waitresses. Better to brave the airport prices and grab something in departures before she gets on the flight.

In the corridor outside the room, the housekeeper is knocking on another door. There is no sign around the doorknob, so, when no response comes from inside, she opens the door slightly for a look-in. A suitcase covered with clothes is visible on the floor by the wardrobe; she lets the door shut and goes back through the corridor. She has done all the rooms but two, and all but one on the floor above. With nothing else to do but hang about until they are vacated, she pushes the trolley into a lift and goes down to the laundry room. Inside, a few of the housekeepers are sitting and talking; another ironing bedsheets in the steam press. She takes a seat with the others, and waits.

He is lying awake one night when there is a quiet tap on the door. Before he can sit up, Dia pokes his head in.

‘Mick, are you awake?’

A remote panic straight away upon him. ‘Aye, what is it?’

‘Come on. We are doing a raid.’ Dia smiles broadly and steps out, letting the door close and the room go back to darkness. He gets up and pulls some clothes on. It occurs to him, amidst his confusion, that Dia knows which is his room.

In the corridor Dia is stood waiting with Eric, Obi and Vincent, all of them grinning and dressed in trackie bottoms. Christ knows what they’re up to. He doesn’t question it but. Dia puts a finger to his lips and Mick follows with them, away up the corridor toward the hotel. Who cares what it is, it’s better than being awake in his room, anyway. He walks behind Eric, who keeps turning around smiling, a small rucksack on his back. He’s never seen him so cheery. They are in their baries, all of them. Surprising how pink the soles of their feet are.

‘Okay, wait.’

They are at the entrance to the potwash. Dia nudges the door open, looks inside, then turns round and motions for Mick to come in with him. Quickly, without speaking, Eric goes in before them; Obi and Vincent stay guarding the entrance. They’ve obviously planned it, then; or they’ve done it before.

It is dark in the potwash, and then in the kitchen, the blue light of the flytrap glinting off the microwaves. Eric waits behind in the throat and he follows Dia, who is taking a key out of his pocket; unsnibbing the padlock to the cold room.

It is big inside, and he feels the chill immediately as he goes in. There are shelves of food all around, cartons and packets everywhere. A whole wall lined with sausage boxes, bloody thousands of the bastards. Giant plastic sacks of chips humped on top of each other like mixing cement, or body bags. Dia clear knows what he’s after: he’s stood balancing on the chips with his hand feeling inside one of the top-shelf boxes. He looks down at Mick a moment. ‘It is okay. The stocktake was yesterday,’ he says, pulling out a handful of what looks like steaks, each tightly cauled in plastic.

The two of them are smiling as Dia hands him down five steaks, then gets ransacking another box off to the side. They are surprisingly squishy, the steaks, like tube feed-bags. Dia’s got what he’s looking for: mashed tatties. Even these are vacuum-packed. Fucksake, they no cook anything theyselves here? Dia gives the signal and they are away, quickly through the potwash and out to Eric and the others, who clock the steaks and start slapping him and Dia on the back.

Genuine a smooth operation. By the time they get back to the basement and go in the staff room, they haven’t come across a single person. The door is closed and they start laughing. Eric gives him a no too brilliantly executed high five. And then, as Dia gets the steaks under the grill, Eric pulls out bottles of beer from the rucksack.

‘How ye get the keys, Dia?’ he asks as they drink.

Dia turns round from poking the mash with a spoon. ‘The pastry chef, he is an idiot.’

The steaks are almost black, they’re that well fired, and the mash is dry and powdery. Christsake it tastes good but. They eat without talking, like at the lunatic, but this time with satisfied nods and smiles and the sweet pure fucking magic of a stolen beer to go down with it. When they’ve finished, they clean away meticulously all the evidence and prop the door open as they leave, to clear the smoke. Firm gripped handshakes. Greasy smiles. Bloody genius.

Dear Robbie,

I hope you and Jenna and Damien are well. I’m sorry I haven’t called or wrote to you sooner. I was meaning to call but for one reason or another I haven’t been able to. It’s no excuse, pal, I’m sorry. I’m in London now if you’ll believe it. Don’t know if I can myself actually. They let me go at Muir’s and as well I just needed something different, you know, so when I saw this job advertised and they gave it me I decided I’d come down. I’m working in a hotel, believe it or not, in the kitchen. It’s alright. I’ve got a decent place to stay and it’s worked out okay. They are a good lot here, no the bosses of course but what can you expect? I’m getting on fine and I’m well so you don’t need to worry. Food’s not up to much but!