Ross Raisin - Waterline

The middle of nowhere. A bus depot. Quiet streets and closed shops. A car showroom; a cemetery; a golf driving range that it is easy enough getting round the back of and into one of the alcoves. It’s actually quite comfy there on the spongy green felt with the wooden roof over his head, looking out over the field with its distance markers and a tractor perched at the side.

Screw the buses. There is an office block close to the subway, a big concrete one with dark, morning make-up streaks down the side of it. It is set back from the road, and there’s a large, covered doorway at the top of some steps, in front of a revolving door. The lights kept on the night, so it’s no the darkest, but see maybe that’s in fact a good thing, because even if he is visible, so as well is any other cunt that wants to come along and get acquainted. He huddles in against the doors and gets drinking. Big, frequent gulps, anxious to be bevvied quickly, obliterate the memory. Through in the reception there is a grand flower display, an empty desk, and on the wall beside it a black-and-white TV screen flicking between images of the building: vacant corridors; an office floor; the bare insides of a lift. Nobody anywhere. It looks like the nuclear bomb has gone off. Fucking Trident, man, crank up the engines, float her up the Clyde. But then, the queerie shot of himself, bundled in the doorway. The only survivor. He gives a wave and sees his arm moving. Just him, then. The rest of the world is finally went away. Cheers. The head swimming now. Cheers to that, well.

The cleaners come when the clock in the reception is showing just the back of six, and he has to get up and move on. They are alright about it, being fair, but it’s obvious that staying put isn’t an option. It is cold, that time the morning, and he is stiff and sore from the ground and the drink, so he walks around for a couple of hours to get the blood going before making his way to the subway. A giant bruise is looming all down his side. He hitches up his shirt and jacket and he can see that the whole area is raw — no a great purple job, but kind of flamed and scarlet, like a rash. Maybe it is a rash, actually. Either way but. He isn’t keen on investigating.

The streetlights are still on, and the pavements almost deserted. A few unchancy types. A damp, pink jogger labouring by. He comes after a while to a high street, and there is more action: shutters ratcheting up; a delivery van reversing; the soaked front patch outside a newsagent’s. He is a ghost. Nobody seeing him. He walks on down the pavement. An Asian man in a butcher’s coat is opening out a board by his shop window: Star Buy — medium fresh chicken. £2.50 kg. He starts chuckling. Medium fresh chicken. Good luck with that one, pal. And then he sees that the guy is an exact Asian John Virgo, serious, he is, and that just makes him laugh the more. The delivery van is parked outside. The back doors are open, and two more Asian men are handling what looks like a skinned sheep, hung over the one guy’s shoulder as he goes into the butcher’s, dark stains all down his coat. The limbs on the animal joggling lifelessly, like a tired wean over a da’s shoulders. As Mick walks on past the van, he sees the second guy stood inside it, twisting another carcass out of a pile and lobbing it toward the back doors, where it falls on the wooden boards with a wet thump.

Up the way, a charity shop is open already. A business type stood outside, fingering through a row of books on a trolley. He steps up and stands in beside him, pulling a book off the trolley and starting to give a flick through the pages. A sideways glance from your man, but so what, serious? He slots the book back in and gets reading the spines, and halfway along the row his gaze is checked.

He reaches to take the book but his hand is shaking. A noise coming up his throat but he is only dimly aware of it, the man looking at him, walking away. Remember , by Barbara Taylor Bradford — ‘An Unforgettable Tale of Passion and Suspense’. He looks up. Through the window, a woman is bent over, rummling inside a plastic bag, and he slips the book under his jacket and moves away.

Somebody brushes against his arm and his body stiffens, the whole of him suddenly turned cold. He doesn’t know where he is but there are crowds pouring down the street and he is searching through them, stupit, stupit, but he can’t stop himself, desperately trying to mind her face, but he can’t.

There is somebody coming toward him. A man. He’s on the approach from the road, coming up the steps, a carrier in his hand, and Mick is started to tighten, the bevvy no taken hold yet and this cunt in front of him all too fucking real.

‘Would you like a sandwich?’

He is holding one out toward him, like a bone.

‘It’s fine, take it. There were some left we didn’t sell.’

He looks at the sandwich in the guy’s hand, tightly wrapped in cling film.

‘What type is it?’

He brings it to his face, inspecting the filling.

‘Not sure. Prawn, I think.’ He holds it out again.

‘Ye have any beef?’

The man gives a wee laugh and pauses, then gets rustling about in the bag.

‘No. He brings out another. ‘Tuna?’

Mick shakes his head. ‘I’m alright.’

He is staring at him. ‘You don’t want any of these sandwiches?’

‘No.’

A wee lift of the eyebrows.

‘Okay, then. Fair enough.’ And away he goes. The Master of Sandwiches. Fuck you, pal. Who’s he getting annoyed a person doesn’t want to take his leftovers? He doesn’t like fish sandwiches. That simple. The smell of them. One of the only things he can mind about his da, he used to eat these tins of pilchards, and the stink when they were opened, it was honking.

Sandwiches. Always fucking sandwiches. They never come and offer you a bloody bottle, do they?

*

He is sat on the blanket staring at the book, the sun gone behind the clouds. He takes his cap off and looks out at the pavement. An empty can rattling along the fence with the wind.

‘Fuck me. A man of riches.’

He looks up. It is Beans. Stood over him, grinning, peering into the cup. He bends down and sits against the wall next to him. His neck and the side of his face are red and leathery, his ear a great black scab.

‘Check you — in the money, eh?’ He points at the cup. There is the rumble of a train underneath the ground. He is stretching himself out, sticking his legs onto the pavement. Mick closes his eyes. Tries to make sense of things. It’s too much an effort but, and he opens them again, looking across. Beans has got a blue jumper on, a tear down the side of it, his head turned away toward the cash machines; a big peel of skin coming off behind his ear. A moment later and he is lumbering to his feet.

‘Come on. Ye hungry?’

Mick doesn’t move. The eyes fixed on him from under the dirty red hat.

‘No. I’m sticking it out here.’

‘Aw, right.’ He stays there, dawdling, pedestrians trying to get past. ‘I’ll see ye, well.’

The rest the afternoon is sunny and he gets quite a few drops. He doesn’t feel relieved, or angry, or anything, about Beans. As if he wasn’t really there, he imagined him just.

He is real enough though. He appears again as Mick is about to get leaving, a carrier of lagers with him. Mick gets up his things and they are away up the road together to find somewhere to drink it. Simple as that. Back into the routine without so much as a word about all this time that’s passed. Easier just carrying along with it. And immediately he is feeling safer. Which is stupit, obviously, seeing as all the unchancy situations he’s been in it’s because Beans has put him in them. He’s got the beers in but. The one thing he can always be relied on for. They sit on a bench in a drab concrete square and get drinking.