Ross Raisin - Waterline

‘Who’s Jenna?’ Beans asks when he’s gone out the room.

‘His wife. They’ve a wean too, a toddler.’

Beans goes quiet a moment, thinking.

‘He come over to see your flat, then?’

‘No exactly.’ He may as well tell him the score. ‘Turns out I’ve been on this missing persons list for quite a while. They were looking for me.’

Beans is nodding slowly. ‘That’s good. They’ve found ye. That’s very good.’

The last two days of Robbie’s stay pass quickly. The temperature is dipped to freezing but he’s bought a new two-bar heater and they keep most of the time to the flat, or the pub, Beans joining them for a pint but keeping on pretty good behaviour. The last afternoon, when Beans goes off, they get wrapped up and go on a long walk, at one point passing the subway station, Mick keeping quiet as they move by. It is good, being around him; he enjoys his company, always has. Strange how you forget. No that it’s perfect but. Obviously. There’s moments when he can feel Robbie is gone quiet and he knows that he’s thinking about things, withdrawing from him. Fair enough but. Fair enough. Robbie doesn’t bring it up but he knows that he is missing the family, and from what he can tell when he’s talking to Jenna in the kitchen, she’s feeling the same way.

The morning of his flight, they sit in a cafe along the high street eating ham, egg and chips. Robbie says he wants him to come over to Australia for Easter.

‘I’ve talked to Jenna about it. It was her idea, actually.’

Mick looks up at him without speaking. Robbie’s got that face on him that says he’s ready for a fight if one is needed.

‘That’s kind of you, son. See but —’

‘I’m paying for your flight.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’ll cost a fortune.’

‘I know. Tell me about it. But you can’t afford it and I’d be paying the fare to come over here anyway. And this way you’ll see Jenna and Damien.’

Hard to argue with that, but he tries.

‘See, I’m no long in the flat yet, is the thing. I don’t know if I’m allowed.’

‘I’ve spoken to your key worker and she says it’s fine.’

He winces at Robbie using the word.

‘Fucking hell. Da, I’m only talking about a couple of weeks, it’s not like I’m asking you to come out and live with us.’

‘No, course, I know that. Just it’s a big thing, is all. I’ll need to think about it.’

It is decided but, and he knows it.

The next few days he is thinking about it constantly, sitting in the flat or on one of the afternoon walks, worrying. Guilt, money, the whole caboodle. An agity excitement that breaks through but when he imagines being there. Seeing the grandwean — although of course he understands well enough that part of that is because Damien is too young to understand any of what’s happened. Unlike his maw. He is nervous about the thought of seeing her, what she must think, all this time that Robbie has been gone from them because of him. If he could be employed by then, it would be easier. Obviously he couldn’t afford the flight still, but maybe he wouldn’t feel like such a bloody leech — he’d be able to pay for things when he’s out there. It isn’t looking too rosy though, the job search. It’s enough of a struggle convincing them that he is a reliable, time-keeping, non-bevvied type of individual, let alone that he’s qualified for anything. He goes into the office and sits waiting for his turn, never with the least expectation any more that anything will come of it.

One afternoon when he is returned from a hailstorm, there is a flashing red light on the telephone. It takes him a while retrieving the message, but when he has, it is Robbie, saying that he’s wanting to speak to him so he’ll call back later the evening.

When he rings again, Mick is in the middle of cooking tea. He turns the grill down and wipes the grease off his hands before going through to answer.

‘Craig is coming,’ Robbie says.

‘Eh?’

‘Craig. He’s coming over here for Easter.’

There is silence on the line.

Jenna probably in behind, listening.

‘Da? You hear what I said?’

‘He know I’m coming?’

‘He does. He needed a bit of arm-bending, but he’s coming.’

. .

‘Da, it’ll be fine.’

‘The Highlanders as well?’

He can hear Robbie chuckling. ‘No. It’ll just be us.’

He goes on to explain the arrangements: where he’ll be staying, the food they’re going to eat, the trip down the coast they’ve got planned with Jenna’s sister and her own baby. He doesn’t take much of it in. Robbie says that he’ll call again next week when he’s booked the flights. He puts the phone down and goes back through the kitchen to get the grill turned off. The tops of his hash browns are burnt, but he plates them up as they are, with sausages, beans, and goes to sit down at the table and eat, as the hail starts up again outside, tapping and scratching against the window.

He is on the bus, the top deck, looking out for any signs of a toy shop. He’d tried down the high street but with no luck, so he decided instead to get a bus into the centre. Even now though, it’s no looking likely. He gets down the stair and steps off. Wanders up a busy shopping street for a long time — clothes stores, fried-chicken shops, pharmacies, junk stalls — nothing. In the end, without any particular thought, he goes into a sports superstore.

It is a massive warehouse-type shop floor, mobbed out with swivel rails of trackie bottoms and luminous shirts. There isn’t much of an order about it, and he has quite a difficulty getting through, squeezing between the huge bulging roundabouts of all this noticeably unsporty-looking clothing.

In one corner, where football and rugby boots are displayed on a wall, he finds a giant basket full of mini footballs. He rummles about through them on the off chance there’s a Rangers one, but course it’s all Chelsea and Tottenham and Man United, although he does eventually find a plain one, no team markings on it. Probably it isn’t the best present for a toddler, but it’s no bad. No bad at all. He decides he’ll get it, and looks up the way, trying to plot a route through to wherever it is he has to pay. Radio station music playing loudly through giant corner speakers. A shop-assistant boy bent over, bundling up fallen heaps of shirts from the floor. Snooker cues, mounted on the wall like rifles. He snakes his way through, moving past the shop assistant. The clink of metal hangers going onto the rail — and an image comes into his head, distinct, vivid, the wife shopping. Out of nowhere. He puts a hand out to hold the rail, disorientated, needing to sit down. A buffit-step type thing by the wall, next to three cardboard cut-out snooker players with their arms folded, serious looks on their faces. He parks down on it and closes his eyes. Tries to hold on to the image. He can see it clearly. She is fingering through a line of tops, swivelling the rail around. Her face. It is a study of concentration, looking down with a frown, a wee double chin pressing against her throat. Pulling out and discarding the tops back into the wrong place on the rail. He has started greeting. The suddenness of it. An overwhelming feeling of emptiness that he lets come over him, and he stays sat there a long time, minutes, hours maybe, fuck knows.

He opens his eyes. The cardboard snooker players stood around him and the shop assistant looking over, a grimace of confusion on his face. Probably he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He gets up and wipes the eyes, gives the boy a wee smile. ‘Don’t worry, pal, I’m away the now.’ And he gets walking off, squeezing hard on the mini football, to see if there’s any tills through this bloody jungle.