Ross Raisin - Waterline

‘See me, I wouldnae beg. Mean, begging’s fine — I’ve done it myself.’ He is scratching at his throat. ‘But thing is ye’re a sitting duck. I’d rather go on the broo. And see, if ye do well then they move ye on just. They don’t want you making more money than they are making, know?’ He chuckles, beer bubbling between his lips. ‘Plus piles as well. Fucking piles, man, it’s a killer on the arse.’ Mick lifts the can to his mouth. The superlager is already kicking in. Drowning it all out.

Beans approves of the office block. Good and sheltery, is his verdict. And he likes being able to see himself in the television screen too. He spends most of the evening until he collapses watching himself in it, waving, dancing, mooning. Mick sits and watches him. The guy is a pure marvel, serious. And no for the first time, he finds himself wondering: who is he? How long has he been living like this? No that you could ever get a straight answer out of him. Impossible. The truth is but, it’s difficult to imagine him any other way, to imagine him as a young man, a wean. No watching him the now, anyway, blootered on the superlager, pulling bits of skin off his face.

‘Where is it ye went, then?’

Beans straightens up a moment, the eyes narrowing, like he is trying to remember.

‘No, see I didnae go anywhere.’ He starts laughing. ‘I was on my holidays. Rothesay. That’s where I was.’ He is falling about laughing, and that’s the last either of them say about it.

They settle into a pattern. The square, the office block, and then going their ways until Beans comes to pick him up at the end of the afternoon. One night, a couple of people come up to them at the office block. Hard to tell if they’re Hallelujahs, or sandwich brigade, or what they are, but Beans soon enough scares them off, great drunken guard dog that he is.

Asleep. Dreaming. The image hits him like a scud in the ribs, repeatedly, no going away. Her hair draggling wet over the tops of her breasts and the bathwater seeping into the pages of her book. Turning the pages over with damp fingers. But the picture is wrong, it doesn’t fit. She is too young. She is the girl in the ship-launch photograph; before they were married. He can’t stop looking at her.

They stop at the lights alongside a heaving pub. There are men packed in the doorways; smoking on the pavements. A row of bum cracks along a window seat.

‘Champions League,’ Martin says, putting the van into gear and moving on through the lights. The roads are not busy, and they make quick progress, turning onto a high street and scanning shop signs for the Superdrug. Martin is keeping fairly quiet. There is nothing awkward about it though, and she sips her coffee, eyes peeled out of the window.

When they do find the Superdrug, it is deserted. They park up outside and she looks at the sheet to check it’s the right location. It is. They get out and have a scout around. The doorway is wet, clean and freezing. ‘Bastards,’ Martin says, and they separate to search down the street in opposite directions.

‘Anything?’ she says when they reconvene at the van.

‘Nope.’

They set off again. Past another busy bar with steamed-up windows.

‘Big match?’

Martin smiles. ‘Quarter-final.’

‘You should have changed your shift.’

He turns to look at her for a moment, then they both go silent as the van cuts through an empty street market, past bare stalls and tumbled stacks of cardboard boxes by the rubbish bins.

They have better luck at the next site. In the arcing entrance of a shopping centre, a young man is sat up amongst blankets and a large red sleeping bag. He recognizes them as they approach. Danny. This is the fourth contact with him, and on their previous visit he had told them that he would be happy for the team to make a referral. He seems quite bright tonight, smiling as they hunker beside him and explain that they have arranged a visit to a hostel, for him to get a look at the place and do an initial interview. He is pleased at the news. They organize a time that they will come and collect him, and he laughs. ‘I’ve not got many plans going anywhere,’ he says.

Danny, they learned on the second contact, is from Hartlepool. His mother died when he was sixteen, after which he went to live with his sister. The sister, though, had her own family and Danny moved out, feeling he was in the way, and, because he thought there was nothing for him to do in Hartlepool, he came down to London. There were a couple of people he knew that had moved down there, but after a short time of sleeping on the sofa of one friend, and not being able to find the other, he ended up without a place to stay, and has been moving from pitch to pitch for the last six months.

Buoyed by this development, they are both feeling quite cheerful as they get back into the van. They stop again on the high street so she can nip out and get them another coffee. Martin watches her through the entrance of the shop. As she turns to leave, she sees him, and he looks away while she comes back with the drinks.

Their next stop is behind a budget hotel, in a small complex of office buildings. There are a pair of men staying in the main office doorway, who they first visited a couple of weeks ago after a phone call from one of the hotel workers. That first time, the pair had been too drunk to talk with properly, but the next contacts had gone slightly better. They have come down from Glasgow, possibly together, although it has been quite difficult to build a clear picture. One of the men, Mick, keeps very quiet while the other, Keith, is obviously the one that does the talking for them both. They have no plans, and nowhere to go, that much is clear. As they come up the steps to the doorway now, the two men appear fairly sober, although they don’t seem to recognize who they are. When Martin reminds them, Keith stands up and exaggeratedly shakes both their hands. He has severe burn marks on his face and neck, although he won’t be drawn on how he got them. A fight, is the most he will say clearly.

The following week, when they meet the two men again, they have begun drinking, but Mick especially is becoming more comfortable with their presence. They learn as well that both men had been staying in a night shelter before they came here, but left when their belongings were stolen and there was some kind of argument with the management.

One night, they are sat in the parked van, eating doughnuts. Martin has sugar on his shirt-sleeve and on an impulse she reaches forward to brush it off, but he withdraws. A few moments later he restarts the engine, and they carry on with their round.

The police have notified them of an elderly man sleeping outside the underground station. They find him, and he is awake, but disorientated, and he backs away, shouting, as they approach from the van. He carries on shouting as they stand at a distance attempting to talk to him, and after a minute or two of this he picks up a shoe and throws it at them. They decide to leave him in peace and try again on another visit. The next time they come to the underground station, though, he has gone, and it is the last they see of him.

Danny, too, has moved off. There was no sign of him at his pitch when they came to take him to the hostel, and he does not reappear on any of the next few visits. The office call around outreach teams in neighbouring boroughs, but nobody knows anything. There is, however, some movement on Keith and Mick. After a couple more successful contacts, a referral is put in to a nearby hostel. The two men are brought over for an initial visit, and they are placed on a waiting list. Although Mick is at first reluctant to move, he seems to draw confidence from Keith, who, although unpredictable, has declared that he is very keen to move into the hostel.