by Ross Raisin
The daytimes when he is drowsing, he’s in and out, on the border of dreams and memories. Not all about her, either; some of them good, wee things from the past. Another dream he has, that isn’t so much a dream as a pure lifelike recollection of something that happened once at the yard. It comes into his head from nowhere. Charley Gordon. A great bear of a man, with a thick red neck and the half of his teeth missing out the big daftie smile. This when he was a plater’s apprentice at John Brown’s and Charley was his journeyman. A Catholic. One of the few, but Charley could handle himself, he aye enjoyed it even, the argle-bargle and the bigotry. All these stories he’d tell Mick of this or that wee nyaff that’d put the mix in and he’d had to sort him out. When he wasn’t telling him these stories he was sending him off to the stores for whatever parts it was he needed. Mostly it was something simple and he’d go ask direct from the storewoman – flange nuts and mating screws, all these strange names that the things had – as he shuffled about and looked at his feet, too shy to talk to her. Other times there’d be a whole load of things that Charley would be wanting, and she’d let him in the stores to collect them up himself, up and down the sliding ladders to get them into his sack.
This one time Charley had gave him a long list of parts for a bevelling job he had to do, and Mick knew he’d expect him to be half an hour or so to fetch it all, but, cocky wee imp that he was, he reckoned he knew that store better than anybody, and so the idea comes to him that he’ll chance legging it up the road to the pool hall for a quick game, before slaloming around those ladders and getting back in time. Course but when he does get in the store, he can’t find half the parts, and by the time he’s collected everything it is gone an hour and Charley is spitting teeth, they ones he’s still got, anyway. He hardly speaks to him the rest the afternoon and he makes him work like a dog, ordering him everywhere to do all these tasks for him. It takes a few days until Charley’s forgave him, and by then it’s all a great joke: the tapping on the wrist and the big smile whenever Mick’s back rushing in from the stores. So he thinks it’s all forgot about, but then later the week Charley sends him off, and he’s that wary of making any mistakes it doesn’t even occur to him what he’s doing as he goes up to the storewoman and asks her if she’s got a pair of large red nipples. The slap she gave him, he could still feel it an hour later, stood at the countersinking machine with Charley chuckling away next to him.
Sometimes a memory like that, it appears from nowhere and it sets you wondering about things, like what happened to Charley? He still alive? Did he ever get himself that wee sailing boat and fuck off to the islands like he used to say he would? Who knows? Probably. Aye, probably. He didn’t mess about, auld Charley.
No Breakfast is back again. Maunderly as ever. Sometimes it’s him, and sometimes it’s the friendly one, wanting to chin him for a conversation. He has a sense of floating most of the time now. He’s outside of everything, outside of himself, giving the same attention to the world as he would to the TV on in the background – the handing over of his rent; the pamp of a car horn outside on the road; a street cleaner changing a bin, bits of newspaper and a banana skin falling onto the frosted pavement. He watches him absently from the window. A black guy. He’s got himself a job, well. How did he do it? Probably he’s qualified for something else, like Dia and Eric, washing dishes with a degree in the pocket. They get on with it but. They aren’t too proud for any of it because they’ve got a purpose, is how, they’ve got a family to provide for and a house to build, so it doesn’t matter how many times these English bastard employers stick the boot on, they’ll always get back up and get on with it just.
It is night outside. He’s not ate in a while but the truth is he can’t be arsed dragging himself out to the shop. Hard to believe that no long back he was on the march across town looking for jobs, arranging interviews, speaking to people on the telephone. It takes him a long while getting up the energy to go out, and when he does, it is because he makes a deal with himself that he’ll stock up with enough supplies that he can make them last.
He hooks the carriers on the window latch where they can hang outside in the cold. The food he wraps up in another carrier inside the bag, to keep it dry if it rains.
Apart from the rent visits down the stair, and the toilet, he doesn’t leave his room for a couple of days at a stretch, each time moving only when he has to nick out for new supplies. The bathroom is on the floor below, and he waits listening through his door until he’s sure the coast is clear before he comes out. One morning but, he gets caught out. He’s about to go into the bathroom when a door opens to his side and a woman near walks into him.
‘You going in there, mate?’ She is young, wearing a baggy green sweater and tights.
‘Aye, but you go – go on.’
‘No, it’s alright, I’ll wait.’
He sees a sliver into the room as he walks past: clothes on the floor and a man having a hingie out of a window, smoking. Plants, a big poster on the wall. As if they are living there. He takes a pee and feels suddenly conscious that the woman will be coming in there after him. When he’s finished, he takes a couple of pieces of toilet roll and wipes away the dark yellow spots that he’s dripped on the rim.
The money envelope is getting thinner. As well, the last stores he bought in were badly got by the rain: the sandwiches are eatable, just, but they’re too damp to last more than one meal. The cans are nice and cold but. See one thing that’s for sure is that as soon as any employers start checking him up in their computers, they’ll know straight away from the Employers’ Federation or whatever that he’s got something of a radical about him – with the work-in and the unions and that. Plus the episode with the hotel now as well, don’t think they won’t have that logged too, because they will.
There is a programme on. He watches it for a while. It’s a good one. Interesting. It’s about bears, grizzlies and polars, how global warming is forcing them to live closer together. The Arctic ice cap is melting that much each summer that the polar bears aren’t always able to swim north to it like they used to, because it’s too far away getting, so instead they’re turning south toward the Canadian mainland. Which is where the grizzlies live. The inevitable sectarian battles resulting. But as well what’s different is they’ve started mating with each other. The programme shows this photo of the first cross-breed bear, dead, killed by a hunter. Being honest, it looks to Mick pretty much like a polar bear, but apparently it’s got a lot of the grizzly’s features. In the photo, the guy that shot it is grinning away like a nutcase. He’s got a massive army camouflage coat on, and is knelt down beside the bear with his hands splayed across its back. Stupit bastard. You have to wonder how that meeting went, when the hunter met the biologists: look, I’ve found you the world’s rarest bear, a true wonder of nature, and I blasted it through the neck. The programme doesn’t go into that but. Instead it shows all these polar bears loundering the streets of these freezing remote towns, bold as fuck, petrifying the locals outside the minimarket.
He drinks too much that night, finishing all his lager store. It’s no a wise move, because instead of taking the edge off things it just makes him the more maunderly, and he lies on the bed unable to stop himself greeting. He is surprised – as if from outside of himself, observing somebody else – how long and loud he cries. The need to be with her coming on him so strongly that he can’t stop it, and his whole body becoming tight and strained, searching for the feeling of being with her but no finding it, just a vacuum instead, falling and falling.
He is cold. It looks out the window like no the worst day – sunny, in fact, one of they bright, biting wintry mornings – but No Breakfast is scrimping on the heating and the room feels pure Baltic. He stays inside the bed. Some of the time sleeping, some of it with the eyes open, staring at the ceiling, the brain a blank except for occasional daft wee thoughts, like listening for the announcers between TV shows and counting how many programmes they do before somebody else comes on shift. Wo
ndering what it is they do while the programme is on – do they have to sit there in their booth or whatever preparing for the start of the next show, or can they get up and wander about, get a cup of tea, go the newsagent’s for a scratchcard? Daft wee thoughts. Daft wee thoughts that keep at arm’s length the more important one of what the fuck is he going to do now that the money is almost run out.
When the time does come, he makes a decision. The twenty that he’s got left, he will keep back for food and emergencies. It isn’t enough to pay for another night anyway, and the most important thing is that he’s got enough to feed himself; plus the emergencies, whatever they might be. Drink, probably, if the way he’s craving for one the now is anything to go by. He packs up his things and goes for a wash of his face. Strange, but he has some energy about him now that there is no choice and he is on the move. He switches off the television and leaves the room.
He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to bump into anybody on the way out, but the reception door is open and the younger one sees him coming down. He must think he’s paying another night, because he comes to the doorway, only then noticing the bag.
‘You are going back to Scotland?’
‘No.’
He nods his head. He’s an alright type, even if he does stick the nose in too much.
‘I’m done with the room but. Thanks.’
Chapter 23
One thing is for sure: they don’t like you sitting down in this city. He’s been more than twenty minutes looking for somewhere to park down and eat his sandwich, but he hasn’t passed a single bench yet. They don’t want you staying put; they want you rushing about, horn-pamping, snatching the free newspaper. There are no people stood outside the pubs smoking. There aren’t even any pubs that he’s passed, christsake. He keeps on. He doesn’t know where he is, and wanders at random, but it must be he does some kind of a loop or something, because after a while he is arrived back at the coach station.
It is hoaching inside, people milling about, queuing, sat waiting in the bays. That’s fine but. The more people, the less obvious he feels, and as he walks through he wonders how many others in here are hiding, kidding on they’re going somewhere but in fact just keeping out of the cold. He needs to pee. Another problem. A short search and he discovers that it’s 30p for the pleasure of using the toilets. The money situation as it is, he’d rather not. See if he was needing a tollie then maybe that would be a proper use of the emergencies fund, but no a pish, nay chance.
There are a couple of carry-out coffee places near the station, but it’s a while before he finds a pub. When he does, it is fortunate a busy one, and he has no problem sneaking in the toilet to take a fine long and satisfying widdle. The only problem, once he’s done, is that now he’s here he could genuine go a pint. No. First he needs to – well, fuck knows what he needs to do first, but definitely it isn’t that, so he gets making his way back to the station instead. Finds himself a seat, lodged between a Muslim woman and a Chelsea supporter. There is a voice over the tannoy but he isn’t hearing it. He is in the Birmingham bay, is the last thing he notices before he nods off.
When he wakes it is showing 17.44 on the information board. The bay is emptied and he is sat with empty seats all around him. He gets up and goes over to the newsagent’s, looks at the price of sandwiches and gives them a bye, deciding on a chocolate bar instead. Then over to the nearest busy bay.
Outside, pulling into the slots a bit further on, the Glasgow coach. He watches uneasily as the passengers start to spill out. How long since he came here? It seems like forever ago but it’s only a few months probably. He can’t be sure. No the best few months, being honest. Very funny ye sarcastic bugger. The Weegies are started filing past the windows and he looks down. Hardly likely there’ll be anybody that knows him, but so what, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It might. In fact it’s a racing certainty the way things are going, so he keeps the head down, stares at his feet. His neck starting to strain. Waiting for it – a tap on the shoulder. Someone who recognizes him; someone who’ll go back up to Glasgow and say that they’ve seen him, tell the Highlanders, tell Craig – and just for a split second he allows in the thought that maybe he’s been looking for him, maybe actually it’s him on the coach coming down on the search for him because how can you know? You can’t, and all he does know is he has to get rid of the thought, get hold of it and get fucking shut.
‘Hello. Are you okay?’
A young girl, sitting in beside him. He pulls back. Confusion and panic stiffening through him. ‘Would you like something to eat?’ He sits up and looks about to see if anybody’s watching. The girl is sat turned toward him, smiling. She’s got a wool cardigan with big wooden buttons; a woolly hat with these two bobble-danglers either side. He doesn’t say anything and she starts going in her bag. He stands up. He has to be away. The heart is pounding. He moves down the bay; a man watching him over his newspaper, flicking the eyes back down as he hurries past.
A crawling, scunnery feeling follows him as he moves away down the road. Only one place he’s headed the now; screw the rules.
He orders himself a pint. Three pound fifty pence, but no surprises there, he is in London. For some reason. For some reason he is in London. There is a game on the television. A few in watching it, but it’s obvious no a football pub because they don’t look too interested. The pint is calming him, settling the nerves. He stays and drinks it slowly. Takes his time before swallowing up to leave. Now what? Careful. Best no to think about the big picture right now, because it’s just too bloody big, is how, and he’s too close up to be able to see it properly. What he has to do is focus on one part at a time, stepping back until he can see the whole thing clearly and figure it out. Wee steps. He is cold, and he is hungry. He does his jacket up to the neck and sets off looking for something to eat.
He finds a kebab shop and goes inside, warmth and grease clinging about him as he joins the line of men at the counter intently giving the guy their sauce and salad directions. He feels comfortable in here. Warm. Unnoticed. The kebab man skilfully shaving strips of meat off the doner like a barber working at a throat. One thing’s for sure, he could fine well go a kebab the now. Too expensive but. When it comes his turn he gets himself a bag of chips instead, and goes to sit at a stool in the window, biting them in halves and watching the steam lick out of the soft potato insides.
It is late. He steps out of the shop. This torpor all through him that he can’t shake. He starts walking back the way he came; nay other suggestions rolling out the carpet for him. To get warm just. A wee nip of something, just to get warm, it’s as far as he can think. Shortly before the pub he notices a side street, dark, too narrow for lampposts. Without much of a thought, he goes down it. It is cobbled, and a couple of cars are parked with the one tyre perched onto a pavement, and at the end there is just a wall, the back of another building. He steps onto a concrete lump and looks over the line of palings into a small rubbish yard at the back of the pub. Weeds and dog-ends and black wheelie bins.
There’s only a few customers still in. The television is off, and he sits down at a table underneath it, slowly sipping at his whisky, feeling the warmth of it spread through him. He gets a second, and by the time he’s near the end of it the barmaid has the mop out, doing behind the bar counter; she doesn’t notice him leaving.
He drops the bag down and clambers messily over the palings, scraping the skin off the back of his leg. There is no lighting out here, but he can make out the push bars on the fire exit and, next to it, a stack of bottle crates. Further in, a large humming box like a generator, with gas cylinders propped against it. He puts his bag down behind the box, the other side from the fire exit, and sits down, hoping it might be giving off some warmth. Nay such luck. Here we are well. No an expected turn of events. He sits blankly for a time, more and more uncomfortable getting with the cold and the hard uneven ground knuckling into his arse through the bag.
After a while he gets up and goes on a s
earch for anything that might improve the situation. And he’s in luck, because lodged behind the wheelie bins is a whole load of flattened McCoy’s crisps cardboard boxes. Okay. All it needs now is a bottle or two of beer left in one of these crates and he’ll be laughing. He checks. There isn’t.
The cardboard does improve things, laid out on the ground underneath him, but it’s impossible to sleep still, no with this cold knifing at his body. Even with the whisky inside him he’s pure frozen. And alert. Listening for the fire exit or anybody coming down the side street, propped rigid against the generator with his bag tucked behind him and the raw skin on the back of his leg stinging against his trousers.
Chapter 24
He doesn’t sleep, hardly at all, a few snatches just. The cold, and his back ridged against the generator, he’s stiffened up and he can barely move. All of him is numb. A few times during the night he tells himself he needs to get up, keep moving, go find somewhere covered he can be warmer, but the effort of it is too much. The aching body will not budge. A pain that began in his feet and his hands, tightening over his frame until it has grip of every part of him starts, after a while, to lessen; the outside of him deadened, and the cold then working its way inside, into his nose and his throat, stopping the breath in his lungs and getting inside the brain, forcing it to press, paralysed, against his skull. Noise is increasing. Traffic on the main road. A bus braking. When he does move, he does it very slowly, muscle by muscle. It is dark still but there is a blue gloom to the sky. He gets out from behind the generator; stands up and perches his sore backside against it, looking at the dim yard. Dog-ends outside the fire exit. A cracked glass lampshade leant in a crate. A stack of rusted metal chairs lurching against the wall. He tries to pick up the cardboard and put it back behind the crates, but his fingers won’t work so he shunts it behind the generator, then takes a few goes attempting to get his bag and his body to struggle over the palings.