Ross Raisin - Waterline

He turns over toward her, but she’s gone — he sees her suddenly over by the wardrobe, getting dressed. ‘Come on, you, get a move on. They’ll be closing soon.’ He gets up and changes and they go down the staircase, but when they get to the bottom they are on the lower deck of a bus, taking a seat at the back over the engine, because she is cold. She keeps chuffing her hands together to warm them up. They are about to get off, and the driver calls to them to come over. When they get to the glass side of the cab he looks in and it is the barmaid from the Empress. She’s got all these photos stuck up around the cab. This one of her weans, two wee girls, playing in a paddling pool. She looks annoyed about something. ‘Go on, get off, then,’ she says, so they do and they step out into the car park of the Co. He fetches a trolley and they go inside, where it’s very busy, and hard to move around. He jostles the trolley up an aisle, with the wife in beside him reeling off a list of things they are needing: carrots, tatties, bog roll, flowers. She sends him off to the freezers for a chicken, but when he’s got it he can’t find her again, the place is too hoaching with shoppers. He tries going down the central aisle to look both sides and he is up and down twice before he sees her — she’s at the checkout, sat in a booth. When he gets on the approach he can see that she’s wearing a blue shirt and a Co badge with her name on it. He gets unloading the trolley and she passes each of the items over the scanner, her head down. He notices then that she is greeting. ‘What is it, hen?’ he says, but she doesn’t answer, she keeps scanning the shopping. ‘It’s okay,’ and he tries to take her hand as she scans the bog roll. ‘We can go now,’ he says. He can’t see her face but he knows she’s smiling, and she stands up to leave the booth, but the door is locked and it won’t open. She shakes it, and he gets helping her but it won’t budge and he can hear her sobbing again. ‘Climb over it, hen. Come on, try, will ye? We can go now, look, I’ve got all the shopping — I got the tatties, see?’

He’s said these last words out loud, he realizes, sitting up from the mat with a plaster-peeling sound. He stays a moment with his arms folded on top of his knees, getting his bearings, looking out the window to get a fix on what is real. The brainbox in a muddle still. He stares out as, slowly, it clears. There’s something of a moon the night. You can see it above the dark blocks of the multis. Five or six black shapes with only a few windows lit, and the yellow spines of the stairwell lights — one of them flickering, up near the top.

Craig is the first to leave. His bag is packed up and ready by the door when the rest of them have finished their breakfast.

‘What time will you start work tomorrow?’ Lynn asks him as they gather in the lobby, watching him put on his jacket.

‘I’m in early. I’ll talk with my boss and see what’s what.’

He gives her a stiff hug, and the rest of them line up along the corridor to see him off.

‘Don’t be a stranger, now,’ Alan says to him. The kind of thing you say to people who are strangers.

‘Okay,’ Craig replies, and it is actually rare comic — the look on his face — it’s that obvious he’d rather top himself. Mick looks over at Robbie, wondering if he’s thought the same. Robbie’s looking pretty serious but. He’s next up, and he gives his brother a tight squeeze. There’s a look between them that’s hard to read. Understanding, maybe. Disagreement.

When it gets his turn it is in the end quite easy. With all the rest of them stood watching there’s no question of a wee private chat, so they stick to the formalities just. A brief hold. A pat on the back.

‘Come over for your tea sometime soon, eh?’

‘Okay, I will.’

And he’s away. Off to wait at the bus stop and get moving across town.

The Highlanders are next. A drawn-out carry-on of hugs and promises shortly after Cash in the Attic . Poor Lynn hardly able to bring herself to get leaving, she’s that torn up about it.

They decide the three of them to go for a walk in the afternoon. The sun’s come out again after the cloudy spell of the last couple of days, and they go up the park for a bit of a wander. It’s enjoyable. Being able to relax and have a bit of patter finally, and no be wary the whole time of treading on eggshells. It’s a shame there’s only this day left. Robbie and Jenna’s flight goes early in the morning. They’ve got their taxi to the airport booked already, and Jenna has tidied up their stuff from the living room. For now, walking through the middle of the park, past a fringe of small planted flowers, Jenna is asking him what his plans are for the next couple of days, after they’ve gone. He’ll give a call into work, he says, see when they need him. Get the house cleaned up. Finish off the parmesan. He grins, but the pair of them have got their concerned faces on. Obvious enough what they’re thinking: how will he get on, on his own? Will he manage? Will he hit the drink?

‘How was it last night, with Craig?’ Robbie asks.

‘Yeh, it was fine.’

‘Really? The two of you get to talk?’

‘Aye, well, kind of. Mean, it isnae easy. But there was no bust-up at least. How, has he said anything to you?’

‘No. Not much, anyway.’ They slow up a moment as a young boy chases across the path after a football. ‘See I was just wondering last night if he might talk to you about compensation and that.’

‘No, he didnae. He has to you, then?’

‘Not directly. I know it’s on his mind though. He brought it up the other day, how more cases are being brought, and there’s been some big victories and that. There was one last month, apparently, don’t know if you saw, a hundred and fifty grand, he says.’

‘It’s no a victory, Robbie.’

‘I know, Christ. That’s not how Craig sees it either, you know. He’s angry, Da. He’s just angry. He needs to blame somebody. And they’re as good as anybody, aren’t they — the employers, the insurance companies — he’s right about that, isn’t he?’

They come past a battered play area with a swing and a mangled see-saw. The seat on the swing is come unfixed from the chain on one side, and juts down like a broken bone.

‘Da?’

‘I don’t know, Rob. I don’t know what I think.’ He looks ahead up the path. ‘You agree with him, then? You think we should put in a claim?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s your decision, Da.’ He glances across at Jenna. ‘We’re obviously not going to be around through it all, so it’s not for me to say.’

‘Of course it bloody is. She was your maw too. You’ve as much right as Craig or anybody else.’

Robbie goes quiet as they walk on. He notices, further on, Jenna take his hand as the path widens and they come toward the far side of the park.

‘Now’s no the time to be thinking about it, anyway,’ Mick says after a while. ‘Come on.’ And they leave the park with the sun still going brightly over the tenements, starting back to the house.

They get a carry-out from the curry shop for their tea, a bit of cargo from the offie. Robbie insists paying for it. Says he’s hardly put his hand in his pocket the whole while he’s been here. Fine. It’s no like you can argue with him anyway. They watch a film after they’ve eaten — a good one, Australian, as it happens, even though it’s just what’s on the television. It’s about this guy who’s a notorious hardcase, robs drug dealers and cuts their toes off kind of thing, but who doesn’t let a long stretch in the clink stop him from keeping up with his psychie tendencies: stabbing, torturing, and then writing a book and becoming a celebrity — true story, apparently. Robbie and Jenna tell him the guy’s well known over there as a writer and a lunatic. When the film’s finished, they stay up and finish the beers. Chatting. No about anything much, just chatting. It’s good; he enjoys their company. It is the back of midnight by the time they’re done, so when their taxi comes at six the next morning to pick them up, the pair of them are a wee bit groggy-looking as he comes down the stair to say goodbye.