Ross Raisin - Waterline

Craig is after excusing himself from the room, away to the lobby to put on his jacket. Mick gets off his seat and follows him.

He is by the front door, the jacket on, searching his pockets.

‘I might come join ye for a nightcap, if that’s alright,’ Mick says, reaching for his own brown jacket off the hook. He can feel the eyes looking at him.

‘Aye, if ye want.’

They keep on quick along the pavement. The blue light of televisions flickering through windows as they go down the street; heads, lager cans, weans lying on their fronts. Craig is walking at a fair crack. They stay side by side, and he has a job keeping up.

‘Ye go the Empress, is it?’

‘Usually. It’s quiet in there.’

‘Aye, well, nothing changes, eh?’ He falls back to let Craig pass a lamppost, and hurries on after. ‘There many in there ye know?’

‘No really. Only Desmond.’

He chuckles. ‘See that’s what I mean. Nothing changes.’

Desmond. A fine familiar and reassuring figure. Comb-over wrinkling under the gantry lights; the big potato hands lining up whisky tumblers along the drip trays to catch each last drop from the lager taps. He should thank him again for the wake, he gets thinking, as they turn onto the high street. It’s busy the night, smokers stood outside the Brazier and a queue out the door of the chip shop. Rangers were away the day but there’s still plenty of Bluenoses about the place. The two of them march on through. Keen to get on and be sat down with a drink.

It’s not Des behind the bar though. There’s a woman he doesn’t recognize as he goes up for their drinks and Craig sits down at a table in the corner. The tumblers are there on the drip trays though, so he’s about somewhere. Probably in the back, reading his detective novels. Glass of Grouse. Fag plugged in the ashtray. Disturb me at your peril, hen, disturb me at your fucking peril.

She holds the glass under the tap and allows the froth to slurp over the rim, slowly pooling in the tumbler underneath. Mick turns to keek over at Craig, where he is sat by the window staring up at the football highlights. Why is it they’re here, again? He’s no too sure any more. What was he expecting — a nice wee chat? A pure certainty that isn’t going to happen, and yet here they are; he’s pushed himself on the boy to come out for a drink but now they’re here he knows fine well it can only end in a fight. What choice has he got but? Nay choice. They need to have some kind of a conversation, whatever else happens. It isn’t his fault the boy sits there like a cauldron and you can’t get near him. Not totally his fault, anyway, no the full share.

He pays for the drinks. As he picks them up off the counter he catches sight, through the bar, of a recognizable shape sat in the parlour, hunched over a Guinness.

‘Pat,’ he calls through. No response, so Mick puts the pints down a moment to go round and say a quick hello.

‘Pat.’

He looks up.

‘Mick. How ye getting on?’

‘Fine. Keeping a lid on it, ye know.’

Pat looks through to the main bar, past the two lagers sat on the far counter. ‘Ye have the family with you, eh?’

‘I do. All of them.’

‘It was Tuesday, they said.’

‘It was, aye.’

Pat nods. ‘Ye have my condolences, Mick.’

With that, he turns back to his drink, and the matter is at a close. Condolences dispensed. They say goodbye.

Round the other side, Mick picks up the lagers and regards Pat a moment sipping his Guinness. He’s certain a worse state than whenever last he saw him. The nose is badly gone the now, sore and swollen, delicately fractured with blood vessels. What do you expect? The guy’s been coming in here for decades. He’s in with the bricks. He was sat right there almost thirty years ago when him and Cathy moved back from Australia, his grumbling presence even then moiled into the sight and smell of the place, as crucial a part of it as the framed battleships along the walls or the great dark stain on the ceiling. There was a brief period just, after the smoking ban came in, when he stopped coming. Desmond had told him, the big hands braced on the counter, that he’d no choice but towing the line. He wasn’t risking the fine. Pat had simply got up off his stool and walked out. ‘That’s fine, well. I will take my custom elsewhere.’ And he’d went round the bar and left, simple as that, closing the door quietly behind him. That’s me, pal. I’m off. Ye have my condolences. He was back within the month though. Climbed onto his seat at the bar and ordered his Guinness as if nothing had ever happened. No word was spoke again about the incident, and you’d never know that Pat gave it another thought except that now, whenever he goes for a smoke outside, he lights up his fag as he’s walking through the bar, and takes that first draw while he’s still in the lobby, getting open the door.

‘Here we are, son.’ Mick places the pints on the small table and sits in opposite.

‘Cheers.’ Craig takes a drink of his lager and looks back up at the television. Mick joins his gaze. Hibs and Aberdeen. No the most compelling TV viewing. The commentator is the main noise in the room, which is pretty empty. A few tables across there is a man silently out with his wife; by the toilets, the occasional whine and clobber of the fruit machine, a young lad going away at it.

‘The Rangers game been on yet?’ Mick asks.

‘No yet. They won though.’

Through the bar, past Pat, there’s two old boys on the faded red wall seat that goes around the parlour, pattering away together. He takes a long sup, observing Craig over the top of his glass.

‘When did ye last get down?’

‘Eh?’

‘I say when was it ye last got down?’

‘How ye mean? Down where?’

‘Ibrox.’

‘Oh, right. Years ago. With you, probably.’

‘Christ, long time ago, that. Motherwell, was it, two — nil? I can mind that, I think.’

‘It was Hearts.’

‘Aw, aye, that’s right, it was.’

They go quiet again. Get watching the football. The Celtic match comes on and the man and his wife turn to have a look at the screen. They’ve played at home and he doesn’t recognize who they’re against, but whoever it is, it looks like Celtic have cuffed them. Is this what he’s been doing? he thinks with sudden pity. Sat here watching this keech on his own. Is it that bad he’d rather this than stay in the house? Obviously it is. What can he do about it but? There’s nothing he can say that’s going to put everything right, no now, it’s too built up, and the boy’s obvious no in the mood to listen either so anything he says is just going to dig him up the worse. Being honest, the best thing is for him to get back across town to his flat. Go back to work. See his mates. He’s no doing himself any good maundering away here, and the truth is, say what you want about it, but it will be a relief tomorrow when he’s gone. There. He admits it. The bastard father, spilling the beans. Celtic’s match is still on — three — nil, four — nil, more maybe — but Mick’s gaze drops away from the screen and he starts staring at the wall underneath the television mount, at the brown pitted wallpaper like moulding orange peel, and at the pictures hanging unevenly in rows. Ships and footballers, mixed together: the Bloodhound , HMS Valiant , Davie Meiklejohn, HMS Indomitable , Willie Johnston, RMS Empress of Japan , Alan ‘The Wee Society Man’ Morton. Clydebuilt, each every one, crafted and revered all down the water, talked about over people’s teatimes, sold off to England. Some of the players probably worked on these ships. They probably did; that’s how it was. They would have served their apprenticeships on the yards, black squad, up early for a day’s work, and then away for a quick shower and a bite to eat and they’d be down the training pitches. There was one guy he’d went to school with, Andy Loy, was in the juniors at Rangers: a great young player, fast, skilful, but he didn’t make the cut. Close, but no quite. He’d stayed on at John Brown’s instead, and become the yard’s ratcatcher. A terrible job in truth but the daftie bugger had loved it. This wee stinking hut that he’d worked out of — the shelves piled with poisons and explosives and rusted weaponry — but the swarming hordes all about the place never getting any less because Andy wasn’t going to risk losing his job so he only ever killed the male ones.