My wife left at 6am. She asked if I was going up to the picket line. I used half-sleep as an excuse and just grunted. She said something about making a stand, if the jobs go they aren’t coming back. As usual I wondered if she’d make me a coffee, as usual she didn’t. Like the recounting of her dreams this stopped a long time ago. So much time has passed, always so much time passing, so many disappearing details that I don’t even realise I’ve forgotten.
Jack and my wife will no doubt be standing close together on the picket line. She’ll have made him a flask of coffee and they’ll be smiling at each other through the steam. It really is a peculiar thing, to watch this flirtation, this courtship, and feel absolutely nothing. I’m neither enraged nor jealous. Just ambivalent. My wife would no doubt say bingo, you’ve hit it on the head, ambivalence is the reason I can’t be bothered to make a stand with my fellow workers. Sometimes you have to step outside yourself, she said to me a couple of days ago.
I can’t imagine how to do that or why I would even want to. Isn’t the self the last bastion against the crush of uniformity? If my essential nature is ambivalence then I’ve got to keep the tattered flag flying. Some would say I’m just too scared to make a decision one way or the other, that I’m paralysed with fear. I’m not sure. Take Exhibit A, the sad affair that Jack and my wife will undoubtedly have, if it hasn’t already begun. The prospect doesn’t leave me fearful. If anything it fills me with a certain relief. She does indeed deserve some pleasure. Just no fucking in my bed, please. Or the Den. Anywhere but my bed or the Den.
I finish my coffee and re-settle the laptop. Pornography makes its inevitable tired suggestion but I’m drawn back to the journal entries. I read for a while then come across myself staring into space. Adelina. The first time I saw her in the café. Edged in black, the sun bright in the doorway behind her. I know she will come again. The weight is sudden but I don’t know what exactly is pressing, expectation or uncertainty. I’m glad of the searing heat of the 40-minute shower. I could stay here all day, all night, letting everything just stream, stream away.
‘Glad you could make it.’
‘I can’t stay.’
Jack’s not bothered, it’s clear that nothing’s going to shake his camaraderie and content. This is his commissar moment, Petrograd in October 1917. Today will define the emotional parameters of the rest of his life and my wife’s beside him to share the pride. She stares at me with a mix of defiance and disdain. And surprise that I bothered to come along at all.
I’m a bit taken aback myself, I hadn’t expected such a turn-out at the picket line, Malky, O’Neill, Des and Camp Gary, a few other warehouse boys. They’ve strategically placed the picket at the corner of the visitor centre car-park, blocking access to the Mashhouse, Stillhouse and the Filling Store. Malky’s even made a make-shift brazier from an old oil drum. Canna have a fuckin picket line without a brazier! Everyone’s cheery. Applause breaks out when Slinky appears, canary bibbed as per usual, on the other side of the car-park.
‘You coming to join us?’
‘Guy’s a fuckin plum.’
‘Love to have another go at him,’ says Camp Gary.
‘Hey hey,’ says Jack. ‘The argument will win boys, not the fists.’
‘The fists’ll win too, he’s a scrawny wee cunt.’
‘Let it be, boys. Keep it disciplined.’
Jack’s in his righteous element, my wife’s eyes shining with devotion, like a lapdog. She’s a big hit with everyone, the only non-distillery worker on the picket line. It’s what the miner’s wives did in ’84, she tells us, a bit more solidarity and things would’ve been different. Jack’s nodding furiously, even history would start to doubt itself if it hung around with him too long. Rosa Luxemburg reborn has even arranged a ‘Family Intervention’ for later today. There’s things we have to discuss, apparently, so many things that have tumbled past me like the burn in spate.
‘Check it out!’
‘Aw aye, here we go.’
‘Spiderman’s swung into action.’
The distillery Land Rover has pulled up beside Slinky. Ronnie, the warehouse supervisor, leans out of the window, talking to Slinky and gesticulating towards the picket line. Never a faster man than Ronnie have I seen scampering up the racks to check the barrels. Blink and he’s twenty feet in the air. He likes that we call him Spiderman, when we’re waiting for a lorry he’ll say his Spidey Sense is telling him twenty minutes till arrival. He drives slowly across the slushy, gritty car-park and round towards the picket. I step back towards the Stillhouse door, the others forming a line across the access road, blocking the way.
‘Mornin boys,’ says Spidey, leaning out the window.
‘Ronnie,’ says Jack.
‘Goin to let me through then?’
‘Sorry Ronnie, can’t do that.’
I see Slinky across the way. He’s on his mobile.
‘Not very democratic that. Man’s got a right not to strike.’
‘He does indeed. But you’re in the union Ron, you go with the majority. Otherwise what’s the point of paying your dues?’
‘It’s not like I’m doing much. Stan’s just needing a hand with the boiler.’
‘That’s the whole point. Doing ‘‘not much’’ is the same as having everyone at work. It’s either all in or all out.’
Ronnie sighs, shakes his head. ‘Just get out of the way, Jack.’ He edges the Land Rover forward and everyone has to take a couple of steps back. What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, shouts Malky. I’ve never seen my wife move so fast. She’s across to the Land Rover window and slapping Ronnie hard across the face, then reaching in for the keys and throwing them back to Camp Gary. He quickly pockets them, standing defiantly with a big cheesy grin.
Ronnie looks stunned, the very picture of emasculation, knuckles white on the steering wheel. A slow hand clap follows his humiliated trudge back across the car-park. The distillery manager Rab rolls up in his big red Mercedes. He gets out with a wave across to the picket. I think he’s laughing as he speaks to a beet-red Slinky, who’s about to start hopping up and down like Yosemite Sam. Then he’s driving off with a few long toots of the horn.
My wife’s being crowded, congratulated. Jack’s got his arm round her shoulder, asking if she’s ok.
‘Fine,’ she says, ‘always wanted to do that.’
Jack must have a hard-on, surely. Their eventual sex has just been given a nuclear super-charge. What a turn-on today’s incident will be, Reds in the bed right enough! That’s some woman you’ve got there Jim, he says, some woman. I couldn’t agree more, no doubt she’ll still be high as a kite when we sit down this evening for the ‘Family Intervention’. I tell Jack it’s a pity I can’t stay but I’ve got to get to the home to see my father. He nods in sympathy and I guess my wife’s probably updated him with our latest dramas. He’s the only one who acknowledges me when I leave. My wife’s warming her hands at the brazier, back turned.
‘Shame you can’t stay,’ says Jack.
‘Gotta get going.’
‘Course. Course.’
‘The old man’s coming to live with us.’
‘Did you vote with us Jim?’
Damn near tripped over his tongue in his eagerness to get it out. Must’ve been gnawing away for a while. Fuck him, I can hold his gaze all day long. ‘You know me well enough by now, Jack.’
‘Aye. I do.’
‘So why the fuckin question?’
‘Ok Jim, ok.’
I walk away. When I’m about twenty feet away he shouts out. ‘You watched Matewan yet?’
Slinky’s scurrying ahead of me, across the bridge. A big 4x4 has pulled up in the turning circle Malky’s cleared of snow. A tripod has been set up, the camera pointing across towards the picket line. A guy in a long black coat is holding one of those big furry microphones and a pad of paper. He holds out a hand as Slinky reaches him. Slinky ignores it, of course, and his own hands start windmilling in that over-blown, self-important st
yle peculiar to him. I trudge past and nod to the cameraman, who’s got a vague smile on his face as he listens to Slinky bleating away. This is private property, he keeps saying. He’s got no presence, never has had. Turn it off, he’s pleading, you can’t . . . Yes, Slinky’s an easy man to ignore.
JC’s girlfriend Ruth opens the door on the fifth knock. As usual I get a hug as if I’ve been lost in the Yukon for the last ten years. JC’s always been a lucky bugger with women but even he landed sweet when he met Ruth. She’s from Yorkshire, straight down the line but gentle as midsummer surf. Six years JC’s had her living up here in exile. All the strange, swirling currents of this place and she’s still cheery. I’m amazed she hasn’t been dragged under by now.
‘Jim.’
‘JC.’
He gives me an appraising, sideways look and holds my gaze for longer than normal. I’m here to spill the beans and he knows it. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been like this. It’s as though I take a long time to work myself through. Others say I can’t face up to things and they’d have a point. But you can only realise the truth of something when you’re ready to let yourself admit it.
It’s become one of our friendship’s rituals, Jim’s reticence and JC’s exasperated patience. There’s comfort in ever-repeating patterns. I know JC will move around his cosy little living room as I speak, change the music, stop me mid-sentence to clarify something, shake his head like how the fuck have I got myself in this situation. Ruth plays her role too, legs folded under her and hands cupped round a mug of tea. She says Adelina sounds nice but she must have a reason for coming here, Cuba isn’t an easy place to leave. I refuse any speculation, just glad of the shelter, the crackling fire and the soft music. I want them to let me into the warm existence that they effortlessly inhabit, where all is so clear and so present.
‘You have to tell Katie. I mean, she’s going to find out and it’s not fair.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Why do you always take so long to do what you know you’re eventually going to do anyway?’
‘Just thinking it through.’
‘But you already have!’
‘Maybe. Maybe I have.’
‘Ruth. Gonna nip out and get the mell hammer from the shed, Jim’s needing a bit of encouragement again.’
I leave just after one. Too early to head back to the distillery when my wife thinks I’m visiting my father. Instead I drive up the glen. The Corsa slips and stumbles into the snow, the white void. I can’t make out the edges of the winding single-track. Only the fences on each side and the drooping Sitka and pine let me gauge where I should place the tyres. Eventually I’m through the woods and dropping down to the flat bottom of the glen. The river barely moves, edging sluggishly east, a black gash in the universe.
I stop the car where the road comes to an end. There’s a house about fifty yards away, just beyond the start of the hiking track that eventually reaches the west coast. The windows have an orangey tinge, smoke rising from the chimney. The house looks homely but I’ve never liked its almost supernatural stillness. If I crept up and peered inside I’d see hollow-eyed ghosts staring back, mocking laughter piercing me like the shrill ring of my mobile phone.
It seems apt to receive the first phone call here, Adelina’s name blinking on the blue screen. I reject the call and it rings again as I’m turning the car, again when I’m driving up the distillery road.
The Boy’s at school, my wife still dreaming of Jack’s revolution up on the picket line. The house is cold and quiet. I shuffle from room to room with a blanket draped round my shoulders and the mobile in my hand. I find myself touching ornaments, lifting books, standing at the door to the Boy’s room and surveying the mess. The wind gets up. From the kitchen window I watch the snow sweeping in again. My phone rings again and this time I have to answer.
‘Yes?’
‘Jim? Are you there?’
I feel suddenly embarrassed. ‘Adelina.’
‘I know this is a shock, Jim but we have to talk.’
I can think of nothing to say.
‘Jim? Are you there? I said we have to talk. It all must seem so dramatic and I am sorry. But you gave me no choice. I did not know what else to do.’
‘This is my life.’
‘And I have mine!’ There’s a hint of anger in her tone. ‘You have no idea. No idea at all.’
‘This is my life.’
I end the call. It’s wonderful to hear her voice but I refuse to let myself think about that.
I spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped in the blanket in the Den, watching Matewan. The film’s morality is obvious, insistent. After the conversation with Adelina there isn’t a better antidote to uncertainty. I’m gripping the arm-rest as the film comes to its climax. No doubt Jack sees himself in the reflection of the martyred union organiser Joe Kenehan.
It’s amazing to think that people like Jack and Joe exist, men who’d know what to do when the next phone call comes. Even as I judge from my ever-careful distance and question their principles without offering any alternative I know they’d know what to do. Me? I’m just like you, the fearful 99 per cent, cobbling virtue from self-interest I’m blind to see, perma-bemused and trying not to stand out, to be singled out. Adelina hasn’t phoned back but she will. I remain alone, for now, pacing these whispering rooms, refusing the heroic battles, the man who observed it all, who still observes, who passes with the lightest of touch.
‘It’s been pretty frantic in the last few weeks. No-one’s fault, but it’s time we sat back and took stock.’
But my wife’s steely glare at me makes it absolutely clear there is fault to be dished up. She looks away, belatedly trying not to be too obvious. ‘The last thing we want is any more surprises.’
Peter sits beside me, hands neatly clasped. He’s uncomfortable, probably wondering how he landed a part in this sit-com. Opposite him, Amber’s face is a mask of frowning concern. She and my wife are wearing the same fluffy purple jumper with plunging neckline. Lucky Pete can ogle two sets of boobs and has the biggest tit of all, Jim Drever, right next to him. The Boy’s elsewhere, staring up at the ceiling. I follow his gaze and see one of those round yellow smiley stickers stuck there. When I look back at the Boy he taps his nose and smirks.
‘So item number one.’
I hold up the piece of paper; I can’t believe she’s typed up an agenda. ‘Is this really necessary?’
‘Item number 1,’ she says, a bit louder. ‘The Return of the Father.’
‘Sounds like a film,’ says the Boy.
The Boy’s right. Peter tenses slightly, stifling a laugh. He’s on unsafe ground here, doesn’t want to do the wrong thing. He might end up on the mother-in-law’s agenda next time.
‘I’ll be picking him up on Wednesday.’
‘We know that Jim. I think we’re all just a bit surprised is all.’
I neck my third dram and settle back in the chair. ‘A surprise for me too.’
‘But you’ve known for months,’ says Amber.
‘That I have.’
‘So how is it a surprise for you?’
I’ve no answer to this.
‘You might have thought to tell us, is what Amber’s saying.’ My wife’s using that wheedling tone that sets my teeth on edge.
‘No-one likes surprises,’ Peter says.
I stare at him until his cheeks start to redden.
‘Know what I mean?’ he stammers.
‘Where’s he going to sleep?’ Amber asks, but she knows that the only available room is her own.
‘Yours,’ says the Boy. ‘Haha!’
‘Shut up you little – ’
‘Amber.’ My wife takes her hand. ‘I know you’re thinking that it seems you’ve been booted out. But you haven’t. We’d all have had a bit more time to get used to this if your father had told us a bit earlier.’
‘I know mum. It’s just I know I’m getting married and we’re going to be living at Pete’s. But this is still my
home. I’m just a bit sad. Everything seems to be changing so fast.’
‘You big daftie, you’ll always be welcome here.’
Damn right. Not a day goes past that she isn’t welcomed here, seven months after she ‘moved out’.
‘I know it’s not ideal that your Grandpa’s coming here. And this goes for you too son. But it’s all for the greater good.’
Christ almighty, has Jack just materialised? Even Peter’s staring at her, brow furrowing, huh? I should say something, it’s what’s expected of fathers in situations like this. ‘I’m sorry Amber, I should’ve mentioned it sooner.’ Peter’s nodding again. Like a reward for my contrition he re-fills my glass. ‘It won’t be long, there’s a couple of homes I need to check out.’
‘Which you won’t leave too long this time?’
A tremendous sniper shot from the wife. Right between the eyes. Joe Kenehan would roll with it, take the whupping and re-group. I’m the Bad Guy here. The only reason this Family Intervention was dreamed up was to humiliate poor Jim Drever. What do they call it in Red China when you have to publically denounce yourself? They’re right of course, I sometimes get embarrassed by my own indifference. ‘No. I’m on the case already.’ Because things are better when they’re a case are they not? More exciting. Something to solve.
‘Good. So now that’s out of the way we have item number two on the agenda. The Wedding!’
After an eternity of hugs between mother and daughter, dewy-eyed glances between Amber and Peter, and universal discomfort between all of us when we run out of ways to make our joy apparent, Amber pulls herself together. ‘The ceremony run-through’s a week Friday. Dad, have you made sure you’re not on nights ‘cause the only time we can do is 8.30?’
‘Not a problem.’ Actually it might be because I’ve forgotten all about it. Not that I’m going to grovel into some confession before I’ve had a chance to speak to Stan about switching a shift. That would not be prudent. I keep schtum as we work an interminable way through the sub-agenda. The Dress, the catering, the ice-sculpture. I’d forgotten about the ice-sculpture but Peter apparently hasn’t. He’s been working on it, honing the necessary skill, he says. The whisky ignites a bonfire in my imagination and I’m thinking soaring doves, elegant swans, lovebirds. He looks a bit embarrassed as he admits, I’m not sure I can manage all that Jim.
The Stillman Page 14