‘Fine, aye. The doctor gave her a new prescription. Says it might help her sleep better.’
‘Seems to be working, eh?’ He smiles, glancing up to the ceiling, and keeps on with his tea. It’s quite loud, the TV, he realizes, and he stretches over for the remote to turn it down.
‘I saw Mick Little the day, ye know, one of the drivers at Muir’s.’
She nods.
‘I no tell you his wife died?’
‘No, Christ, that’s awful.’
‘Cancer, I think, mesothelioma.’
‘That’s awful. Poor man.’
‘I know. He looked bad as well, broken, ye know?’
‘What do ye expect? His wife died. How ye think he’s gonnae look?’
‘I know. I know.’
He scrapes up the last forkful of chilli and puts the plate by. She’s checking her watch, he notices, no wanting to miss her programme. It’s not on for a few minutes yet though, so they keep watching what’s on, something with a guy on a boat talking into the camera.
‘Ye speak to him?’
‘Mick? No. It wasnae the right situation. I was coming back with the messages, I passed him on the street.’
‘How ye no speak to him, well?’
‘Naw it wasnae the right timing. What am I gonnae say, serious? It’s best no intruding. She only died a few weeks ago, I think.’
She finishes eating and puts her tray on the floor.
‘He coming back to work?’
‘Maybe, I’m no sure. Possibly not actually, what with how quiet things are the now. Might be he’s near retirement anyway, I don’t know.’
‘Ye could give him a knock, maybe, in a few weeks, see if he wants to go for a drink.’
‘Maybe, aye.’
‘You and Bertie and all them. Give him a while and then call in on him. He’d probably like that, if he’s no going back to work.’
‘Come on but, what am I going to do, call in at his house? It’s no like I know the guy that well. I don’t want to go nebbing in on him.’
‘Ye’ve been drinking with him before.’
‘Aye, I know, but that’s different, that’s at work. It wouldnae be normal, chapping his door, ringing him. The guy doesnae want to feel like a fucking charity case, does he?’
‘He got family?’
‘He’s a son, aye, up in Yoker, far as I mind. Guy doesnae want people chapping his door every five minutes does he?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know the man. It’s awfy sad but.’
‘It is.’
She picks up the remote and turns the channel, pushing back into her seat as he collects the trays and takes them out the room.
Chapter 8
The waffles ran out a couple of days ago and he is actually feeling hungry for once. No wanting to leave the house but. No wanting to be in it either, so it’s no the ideal situation: moving from one room to the other, unable to settle anywhere until eventually he does sit down at the kitchen table and he stays there for quite a long time, not thinking, waiting just for the hunger to get the better of him and force him out the front door.
There’s McDowell’s, and that would be the obvious choice, the familiar place, but what he’s after is a bit of peace as he’s eating his bacon roll and so he goes a bit further down the high street to the other one, the Millennium Star. The same recognizable sounds and smells but: bacon hissing on the fryer, the half-tuned radio, the week’s pile of newspapers next to the tea urn. There’s a raggedy old ticket near the door, bent over the day’s paper. He’s probably been in all morning, squinnying at the racing odds. Mick gets himself sat in the corner, away from the old guy and the only other table: three roadworkers silently beasting into chicken dinners with peas and gravy and roast tatties. The girl comes over and he orders himself a roll and a tea. She gives him the once-over before she walks away, but there you go, he’s no exactly looking his best, what can you expect?
They’re East Europes, these three. Big, quiet baldy crusts — a sure banker there’s a whole coachload of them sleeping shifts in a tenement single-end somewhere, and so what, good on them, see if it’s no them doing the work then who else is going to do it? These young lads you see loundering about the streets and the schemes complaining there’s no work for them? Nay chance. And if all the yards were still standing, you know fine well it would be these boys working on them, building the ships. Hot, hard, dangerous work, no for the lounderers of this world. There’d be no complaint from these but; a bedroom of bogging feet but there goes another paycheque straight on the plane and have you got any more shifts for me, gaffer?
The salty smack of the bacon tastes good. He eats slowly, in stages, making sure it goes down nice and easy. She’s still got her eye on him, the waitress, drying cutlery into a tray. Worried he might do a run-out. Maybe he should get out some bits of smash onto the table. She’s no half so suspicious of the old ticket by the door but, that’s clear enough, the way she’s trotting over for a wee patter and a top-up of his tea mug. Canny old scaffer. He’s got it sussed. He probably comes in every day. Then on the panel, claiming for all his afflictions, the money never seeing further than the fifty-yard stretch from here past the bookie’s to the offie. No that you can blame him but. If they want to top up his tea for free then it’s no like he’s going to stop them, is he? This is his patch; they know him here, and he is tolerated and fed titbits like a stray cat. How wouldn’t you keep coming back?
Bread and eggs and biscuits and all this stuff they do their own brand of in the Co. Plus a bottle of whisky, for good measure. He’s got himself a trolley, although he isn’t intending filling it, see even if he wanted to he doesn’t have enough cash on his tail. He last went to the cash machine just before Robbie and Jenna left, and he saw then that the account is pretty low getting. Which is how there’s no choice but to phone in to work again when he gets back, and tell them he’s coming in to sort out renting a car. Nay excuses this time.
It is quiet, this time of day. There’s a calm atmosphere in the place, full of the steady sounds of overhead lights and fridges and a wee forklift chirring past with boxes of butter packs. Further down his aisle, there’s a woman battling on with the messages as she tries to get her weans under control, pulling them out of freezers and fishing out rogue items from the trolley, crisps and cans of ginger and all these things that have found their way in there.
He stands watching his shopping move along the belt. It would have been an idea getting a vegetable or two. A bag of peas, or a nice big cabbage. Too late the now but. Next time maybe.
‘Mick.’
He turns round. It is Mary. Pete is behind her.
She makes as if she’s going to come toward him, but his trolley is in the way.
‘How’s it going?’ Pete says.
‘Okay, Pete, thanks.’ The whisky bottle teeters as the belt jerks forward. He reaches for the divider, and his hand is shaking a little as he puts it behind his shopping. He keeps it held down a moment. ‘Good time the day to come, this, eh?’
They are both looking at him.
‘It is, aye,’ Pete says. ‘Quiet.’
The cashier is finished scanning his things. She’s waiting for him to move forward, his items strewn now over the bagging area.
Mary is watching him. The cashier is watching him. They’re bloody all watching him. His amount is showing on the screen, and it’s more than he was expecting. He gets out the wallet, his hands still jittery and the whole thing turned by now into a self-conscious show of himself; nothing he can say or do that doesn’t some way point at it, the dead wife. What’s he doing for money now he’s no been working? Is he gone on the broo? Or is he gone on the whisky, look?
There is enough money, and he pays. He gets bagging up as Pete and Mary’s shopping starts coming down the belt. Chicken pieces, a Still Game DVD, a curry pack, wood varnish. That’s the weekend lined up, well, chugging along. Suddenly a squeeze on his arm, and he looks into Mary’s face, smiling at him. Here it comes, then.