Waterline

by Ross Raisin

  ‘The machine does not drink tea,’ he says. A strange way of putting it, but he gets the point.

  Later the same shift, he tells Dia he saw the meeting in the staff room.

  ‘It is terrible, terrible, they do this. These people’ – and he chibs a handful of teaspoons toward the restaurant – ‘we must not give them one inch, or they take the mile.’ Mick can’t help smiling at the phrase, but the head chef comes through that moment and they both quieten up. When he’s gone, Dia tells him what the story is, with one eye watchful of the throat into the kitchen.

  The housekeepers, he says, are wanting to go on strike because they aren’t getting their correct pay. Some dirty chicanery it sounds like too. The hotel has started only clocking their hours for the time they actually spend in the rooms. So if any of the guests decide on a lie in or a lumber before breakfast, and don’t vacate when they’re supposed to, the housekeepers have to wait without being paid for the time.

  ‘Serious?’

  Dia nods slowly.

  ‘How do they know? How they know the cleaners aren’t in the rooms?’

  ‘They spy.’

  ‘Aw, that’s terrible.’ He pulls the machine down and starts a new cycle. ‘And ye’re joining in yourself, well, if they strike?’

  ‘Yes. If they can do this to them, they will do this to us.’

  The whole of the basement staff are in on it, he finds out soon enough. Too bloody right. Dia’s no wrong, what he says. Give them an inch and all that. The next meeting is called one morning, wee nods and whispers after staff food, and he goes along to it. It’s no exactly organized. The staff room is a fair rabble getting when he arrives, and for quite a long time nobody is looking too sure when it’s supposed to start, until a few of them begin shushing their fingers and one of the women stands up on a chair. It’s the one he saw in the manager’s office. She speaks in Spanish, but he gets the gist. The finger jabbing away. She’s good; she holds the room. A certain kind of magic that starts to happen when a person stands up like that and gives a voice to all these disgruntleds listening in.

  After a few minutes, she starts saying it in English, ‘No pay, no work,’ and the KP boys are joined in with the clapping. Obi and Vincent are here as well. He claps with them. It feels good, being part of it. At the same time but, there’s a sense of being cut off, all of them, cut off. They’re clapping in a basement and there’s nobody else here. It’s hard no to think how small they are. When the work-in was starting and Bertie was climbing up on his brazier, everybody heard about it. That’s how it succeeded. Everybody joining together to support them – the miners, the Dutch, the Beatles – there’d been eighty thousand on the march through Glasgow. Eighty thousand! And, as well, they were actually building something then, they weren’t striking, they were actually keeping the work going, how could anybody argue with that? A strange kind of work-in it would be if they tried that here, scrubbing lavvies that haven’t been sat on, plates that no food has touched. No the less, no the less. It is good, what they are doing. It is crucial.

  He goes to the next meeting as well, a smaller affair with only a handful of the housekeepers and him and Dia. More of it is in English this time. A couple of the women get up and tell how much pay they’ve had nipped the week, or which rooms hadn’t surfaced until the back of eleven. He keeps quiet, listening. Leaves when Dia leaves. When are they going to get doing something about it, is the question he’s wanting to ask. If there’s going to be a strike, who is behind them?

  A day off. The thought of hauling himself up and out of the hotel, buying a mini television, making a phone call. Easier staying in his room, hidden, safe, a few cans left.

  Without a window and any shifting of light, it’s hard keeping track of the time. There is the alarm, obviously, but that only points what the hours and minutes are, it doesn’t give a proper sense of the here and now, passing. It is marking time, but it’s not his time that it’s marking. A noise in the corridor. Voices coming past, gradually fading. Do terminal patients feel the time in a hospital, laid out on a ward? When the brain and the body are losing their functions, shutting down, sparked and lulled by drugs. Do they know how long they’ve been there, or do they stop feeling the hours – the long stretches between grapes and colostomy changeover speeding up as the mind slows down?

  He gets up and dressed for staff food at five. They sit chewing in quiet. Occasional bits of conversation. He asks Dia and Eric if it’s been busy and they tell him no, it’s Thursday, always quieter on a Thursday. On the other row of tables, where the receptionists sit, he spots the woman he spoke to the day he arrived. It’s the first time he’s seen her – probably she only comes down for the lunatic when she’s on a double, or maybe she brings her own food in usually, who knows? What does it matter? She is sat pattering with her co-workers. Smiling quite a lot as she talks. Probably that’s how she stands out, the smiling, it’s no exactly a common feature down here. Dia picks up his plate to get leaving, clapping Mick on the shoulder as he goes.

  He stays and finishes his food, half listening to Obi and Vincent talking about an increase in their agency charge – Vincent hadn’t noticed it, but Obi is saying he’s seen it on his payslip – while across the way, she is the last of her group getting up. He waits for her to move over to the clearing table, and picks up his plate.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he says, standing in next to her.

  ‘Food could be better,’ she laughs, scraping her plate.

  ‘Look, see I was hoping to ask a favour, if it’s okay.’

  A wee look of surprise, or unease.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’

  ‘It’s no a big one’ – he tries a smile – ‘it’s just I’m wanting some paper. Mean, I want to write a letter.’

  A look of relief. ‘Of course, no problem. Tell you what, if you wait here a minute I’ll go fetch some for you now.’

  He sits down at a table, watching her go. The heart is clappering, he realizes. Stupit crapbag.

  She is back quickly.

  ‘This enough for you?’

  He grins: he’d only wanted a couple of sheets but she’s brought him the whole caboodle – a full pad of hotel writing paper, a pack of envelopes and a biro.

  ‘Aye, that’ll do it. Thank you.’

  She gives him a smile. ‘No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.’

  Back in his room he sits down on the bed with the pad beside him. He tries to think. What is there to say but? There’s nothing. There’s everything of course but there’s no way to put it without saying things he doesn’t want to say. Without lying. See if Robbie knew the truth of it he’d be pure beeling. And no just with him either, with the whole family, Craig in particular. And then they’d all be drawn into it. They’d all know.

  Dear Robbie,

  I hope you and Jenna and Damien are well

  is as far as he gets. He puts the pen down and stares about, trying to concentrate. Instead though he starts thinking about the receptionist. He doesn’t know her name. He should’ve asked her. I ought to have written you sooner, I know, or gave you a call, but everything’s went that fast I’ve lost track of how long it’s been. Which is kind of true, but it’s bullshit still. It isn’t what he wants to say. The truth is he just hasn’t called. He could have done, but he hasn’t, simple as that. Nay excuses. The thought of her again. Being friendly with him, no pitying, friendly. Smiling.

  An erection. Christ. He looks at it a while. Ye dirty auld bugger, eh. He pushes the pad aside and sits there staring at his dobber. After a moment he gets up and goes to the door to spy a look into the corridor. A voice, or a radio, sounding quietly down the way, but there is nobody about, all of them working, or asleep, or whatever else it is they do.

  He sits on the edge of the bed, cleaning himself off. It is uncomfortable. Sore. He bundles up the toilet roll and drops it into the waste bucket. That’s the letter writing by, well. No way he’s doing it now. But as he goes to put the pad on top of the table
, leaving it there with the pen, a scunnery feeling is started welling inside him. Dear Robbie, I hope you and Jenna and Damien are well. That’s all he’s got to say. And now this carry-on. He needs suddenly to sit down, close the eyes, screw them tight, fight back the waves of disgust that are convulsing in his stomach.

  His chest begins heaving, erratic wet dribbles coming out of his nose, and then when he does start to greet it isn’t in a great relieving burst like the other one he’s just had the now, it is a jerky, tight, drivelling kind of greeting, which doesn’t make anything the better because he knows as he’s doing it that it isn’t for her that he’s bubbling; it’s for himself. Self fucking pity. The desperate fucking emptiness of needing her there. Needing to tell her that he’s sorry, but no for her sake, for his own. Selfishness. He gets off the bed, glancing down, as he goes over to his work clothes, at the stiff little pouch that is sat in the bottom of the waste bucket.

  He stays on the chair and watches the machine foaming up. He has stopped greeting and his eyes and his throat feel parched and raw. His dobber, too, a similar sensation. The din of the machine as it starts spinning is reassuring, keeping out the mob of thoughts, but a moment later somebody comes in; he can see their feet out the corner of his eye. They turn around on finding him there and are immediately away. A door closing somewhere down the corridor. Out the blue he starts chuckling: Christ knows what they must say about him when they’re all together.

  Chapter 21

  She is up early, before the alarm goes off. By half nine, she has washed, dressed and dried her hair, and has a full hour before she needs to set off for the terminal. She switches on her laptop and draws open first the curtain, then the thin veil behind it. On doing so, she wonders if maybe they are better kept shut. It’s not exactly the most appealing sight. Car parks upon car parks, an ugly trunk of ring-road, and, more immediately, a view into the corresponding room on the corresponding floor of the next hotel. Their curtains are still drawn, but the light is on. No doubt it looks pretty much the same in there as it does in her own room. The bright, speckled carpet and single chair; the watercolour print in wood-effect frame; the bedside ledge glued to the wall.

  She checks in, then opens her inbox. There is a schedule attachment for the next ten days, which she should really have printed out earlier. It would have made life a lot simpler, and God knows what hoops she’d have to jump through to get it printed out in the hotel – it’s not exactly the kind of place that has a business lounge – so she gets out a pen and paper to write it out. It’s fine anyway. Gives her a chance to make some notes on one or two other things. When she’s done as much preparation as she can be fussed with before getting on the plane, she clears her inbox: a few emails from the coordinator and the internal auditor in Zagreb, one from her brother, and an invite to a party that she will be away for. The chambermaid comes in at one point, a couple of quick knocks and then her face sheepishly looking round the door. The girl apologizes – ‘sorry, sorry’ – and leaves. Closing up the laptop, she stands and goes to switch on the TV.

  The trouble with these places, even after you’ve got over the concrete and the carpets, is always the heating. The windows don’t open to the outside so it’s inevitably a choice between sweltering, or spending an hour with the baffling control panel and ending up freezing. She decides to swelter. It doesn’t really matter; she’ll be on her way soon. Certainly she’s not going down for breakfast. She saw the restaurant on her way in last night. All plastic plants and unhappy Polish waitresses. Better to brave the airport prices and grab something in departures before she gets on the flight.

  In the corridor outside the room, the housekeeper is knocking on another door. There is no sign around the doorknob, so, when no response comes from inside, she opens the door slightly for a look-in. A suitcase covered with clothes is visible on the floor by the wardrobe; she lets the door shut and goes back through the corridor. She has done all the rooms but two, and all but one on the floor above. With nothing else to do but hang about until they are vacated, she pushes the trolley into a lift and goes down to the laundry room. Inside, a few of the housekeepers are sitting and talking; another ironing bedsheets in the steam press. She takes a seat with the others, and waits.

  He is lying awake one night when there is a quiet tap on the door. Before he can sit up, Dia pokes his head in.

  ‘Mick, are you awake?’

  A remote panic straight away upon him. ‘Aye, what is it?’

  ‘Come on. We are doing a raid.’ Dia smiles broadly and steps out, letting the door close and the room go back to darkness. He gets up and pulls some clothes on. It occurs to him, amidst his confusion, that Dia knows which is his room.

  In the corridor Dia is stood waiting with Eric, Obi and Vincent, all of them grinning and dressed in trackie bottoms. Christ knows what they’re up to. He doesn’t question it but. Dia puts a finger to his lips and Mick follows with them, away up the corridor toward the hotel. Who cares what it is, it’s better than being awake in his room, anyway. He walks behind Eric, who keeps turning around smiling, a small rucksack on his back. He’s never seen him so cheery. They are in their baries, all of them. Surprising how pink the soles of their feet are.

  ‘Okay, wait.’

  They are at the entrance to the potwash. Dia nudges the door open, looks inside, then turns round and motions for Mick to come in with him. Quickly, without speaking, Eric goes in before them; Obi and Vincent stay guarding the entrance. They’ve obviously planned it, then; or they’ve done it before.

  It is dark in the potwash, and then in the kitchen, the blue light of the flytrap glinting off the microwaves. Eric waits behind in the throat and he follows Dia, who is taking a key out of his pocket; unsnibbing the padlock to the cold room.

  It is big inside, and he feels the chill immediately as he goes in. There are shelves of food all around, cartons and packets everywhere. A whole wall lined with sausage boxes, bloody thousands of the bastards. Giant plastic sacks of chips humped on top of each other like mixing cement, or body bags. Dia clear knows what he’s after: he’s stood balancing on the chips with his hand feeling inside one of the top-shelf boxes. He looks down at Mick a moment. ‘It is okay. The stocktake was yesterday,’ he says, pulling out a handful of what looks like steaks, each tightly cauled in plastic.

  The two of them are smiling as Dia hands him down five steaks, then gets ransacking another box off to the side. They are surprisingly squishy, the steaks, like tube feed-bags. Dia’s got what he’s looking for: mashed tatties. Even these are vacuum-packed. Fucksake, they no cook anything theyselves here? Dia gives the signal and they are away, quickly through the potwash and out to Eric and the others, who clock the steaks and start slapping him and Dia on the back.

  Genuine a smooth operation. By the time they get back to the basement and go in the staff room, they haven’t come across a single person. The door is closed and they start laughing. Eric gives him a no too brilliantly executed high five. And then, as Dia gets the steaks under the grill, Eric pulls out bottles of beer from the rucksack.

  ‘How ye get the keys, Dia?’ he asks as they drink.

  Dia turns round from poking the mash with a spoon. ‘The pastry chef, he is an idiot.’

  The steaks are almost black, they’re that well fired, and the mash is dry and powdery. Christsake it tastes good but. They eat without talking, like at the lunatic, but this time with satisfied nods and smiles and the sweet pure fucking magic of a stolen beer to go down with it. When they’ve finished, they clean away meticulously all the evidence and prop the door open as they leave, to clear the smoke. Firm gripped handshakes. Greasy smiles. Bloody genius.

  Dear Robbie,

  I hope you and Jenna and Damien are well. I’m sorry I haven’t called or wrote to you sooner. I was meaning to call but for one reason or another I haven’t been able to. It’s no excuse, pal, I’m sorry. I’m in London now if you’ll believe it. Don’t know if I can myself actually. They let me go at Muir’s and
as well I just needed something different, you know, so when I saw this job advertised and they gave it me I decided I’d come down. I’m working in a hotel, believe it or not, in the kitchen. It’s alright. I’ve got a decent place to stay and it’s worked out okay. They are a good lot here, no the bosses of course but what can you expect? I’m getting on fine and I’m well so you don’t need to worry. Food’s not up to much but!

  I didn’t tell your brother I was coming down here. It all came about so quick to be honest but I will do when it’s the right time, so you’re no to put the mix in, okay? He’s dealing with things in his own way and he’s the better left alone until he’s ready, so I’m waiting my time just before I tell him what’s what. Same as I was with you, being honest, Robbie, I just needed to wait while I had things fixed out until contacting you. It’s just it needs a bit longer with your brother.

  I will write again soon, I promise. With where the hotel is, it’s probably easier than calling, but when I’ve got my day off next I will go find a telephone and I’ll call you.

  Take care, son, love to the family,

  Your da

  He seals up the envelope and fishes the address out of his wallet. It’s a fair pathetic effort but what else can he say? Whatever he puts it doesn’t change anything, and as well if he’d been in contact with him sooner and given him the full run-down, Robbie would’ve been straight onto the plane, knowing what like he is. Nay point telling him it all the now. He is fine, that’s all he needs to know. He’d thought about putting in about the stolen steaks or the housekeepers’ dispute, but it didn’t feel right; plus he wouldn’t want him getting the wrong idea why he’s got involved helping them.

  He goes to the post office at the terminal on his next day off and gets the letter sent off there. Better that than seeing if the hotel’s got its own service. You can fine well imagine the crafty bint up the stair, there with her envelope steamer, weeding out the radicals. So, the food’s no good, then – that what you think, is it? We’ll see about that, Scottie, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?