There is a key ring in one of the coat pockets. London, it says on it. A pair of palace guardsmen with their daftie hats on. He turns it about in his fingers. No key. Course not. Why would there be? There must have been once but. Or at least somebody’s bought it that had one. A car owner. House owner. Seems unlikely Beans knows a person like that. More likely the coat’s been lifted. Nay fucking chance he’s taking it off though. He is shaking with the cold now. A bit of a wind and a spray coming off the river. An agity feeling is building, uncertain if Beans is going to bring any drink back this time. He can’t bring himself to think about how it will be if he doesn’t. A whole day and a night to get through in the cold, time not moving on, clotting around him. He finds a few loose pieces of chinex in the other pocket, puts one in his mouth and chews away.
It is dark when Beans returns. Another half-loaf with him. No beers but. Mick doesn’t say anything, and they get eating the bread. He’s still in the same mood, Beans, keeping cloyed up, and Mick starts feeling an irritation build inside him that he is behaving like this. He doesn’t say anything though. He lets it stay there, choking any words he might get saying, watching Beans chuck the empty loaf packet out onto the water. Sleep is impossible the night. The temperature feels like it’s dipped even further. The only warmth, Beans’s back sweating against his. He wants to get up and walk away somewhere, just walk, but he can’t, he can’t move.
Afternoon. The dull anxiety waiting for if there’s beer or if there’s no beer. There is. A big plastic bottle of superlager. Beans in a good mood too. They get stuck in and numbness starts to flood through him. A distant laugh, which he realizes is Beans. How is he getting it? He’d said the money was gone. He can’t be bothered maundering on it but — so what, just drink, just fucking drink it down. He starts laughing. He’s like a wee bird. That’s what he is. A wee chick, a wee sparrow chick staying put in the nest all day while Beans goes back and forth, getting him food and drink, coming back onto the veranda and regurgitating it up for him. Every day. How many? How many days? Fuck knows, and he is laughing again. He turns round and Beans is laughing too, anybody’s guess what at. Strange how the time goes. There it is, stretching out in front of you — only the river, boats, the sound of traffic, and the thought mob raring to stick the boot on.
Chapter 28
Beans’s voice up the path, coming back, talking to himself. The heart starts going, in anticipation, or panic, or habit just, fuck knows. He turns round and looks through the bush, and Beans is there with another man. Panic tightens through him. They are crawling under the bush. ‘See here’s the guy I’m telling ye about.’ The man is nodding at him, sitting himself down on the veranda. He is younger, the hair closely cut, his sweater and his jeans pretty clean-looking. A bottle of superlager is being passed between Beans and the guy, who takes a long pull, gulping twice. Then they pass it to him. The two of them talking. ‘They’re taking all the old spots, is the problem.’ He is English. ‘Come over for the building jobs and all that but then they get here and they’ve already filled all the fucking jobs, so they’re out on their arse but they can’t afford the fucking fare home.’ Beans laughs with him, passing the drink. Then the guy sees the swan and he’s off down the banking. A big stick suddenly in his hand and he is laughing, poking it at the nest. The swan is hissing and it’s looking like she’s going to up and stiffen him any minute, until Beans gets in there first. He jumps on the guy’s back and the pair of them start tummelling about in the wet scrub by the nest. Beans on top now, pounding him. Seconds later the guy gets scrabbling up onto the banking and he’s away under the bush. ‘Fuck are you doing? It’s a joke, Jesus, it’s a fucking joke.’
He opens his eyes. Daylight. He is outside, and he is freezing. Beans is sat staring out, eating. Mick sits up and he gets handed a sandwich out of a carrier.
He looks at it a moment. ‘There’s a bite mark in this.’
Beans turns, frowning. ‘Aye, so what?’
‘Just, mean, there’s more teeth marks in it than you’ve got teeth,’ he grins, and Beans creases over, knotting himself.
Later, and Beans is stood above him, giving him these wee kicks in the thigh. ‘Come on. We need to go the messages. I told ye.’
Onto the road, the pavements. Odd. Like he’s there but he’s in fact no there. They are looking at him, but from somewhere else, another consciousness, another world. Like being bevvied. Operating in your own space and everybody else fogging up around the edges of it. No that he’s drunk but. The soreness all over his body is sure enough sign of that. ‘This is the best time. Ye have to wait the last minute, when the fella’s there with his gun, stickering all the stuff up.’ True enough, there he is. Fridges. Shopping trolleys. ‘Discreet, right. We need to be discreet.’ But Mick is started laughing. Discreet! No likely. They look like a pair of cartoon characters, stalking behind tailing the guy as he is going about putting on the stickers. Into the baking aisle. The comforting smell of it. A wean stood staring while his maw chooses between the brown breads. He doesn’t know what to make of the pair of them, his mouth in a wee study, slightly open, then he’s darting off with his mammy, holding the hand. Beans has a stick of bread, and a piled handful of tinned salmon — Reduced to clear.
Outside, in the car park at the back of the building, there is a gap through to where the warehouse bit is. The shutters are closed but up against them there is a stack of red plastic crates. ‘Here.’ Beans passes him a couple. They are shallow but long and wide, and they have to hold them with arms stretched out, leaving quickly away down the road, taking up half the pavement between them.
‘Bread crates,’ he says. ‘Good mattresses. Plenty of give, see, and they keep ye off the ground.’ He’s right too. They work well, slotted together with the matting laid out on top, and he is much more comfortable the night, no forgetting as well the bottle of superlager they got from the offie on the way back. He is able to sleep, even though he wakes up often. Each time he does, the tunnel boufing with a rank smell. The sour stankwater — but then there is a hiss of air from behind him, tickling the backs of his legs. The salmon.
Rain. They keep to the tunnel but it is filling up with water, so thank Christ for the bread crates. They stay sat or lying on top of them all night and all day as the blashie weather continues; his body aching, disintegrating, but always auld Beans there, trusty as ever with the bottle. The sun appearing. Beautiful spring sunshine. Daffodils. Bloody daffodils, where they come from? We have received a number of complaints. Sat throwing chuckies into the river, aiming at a can caught up in the yellow foam. Beans is a fair aim. A man of surprises, ye are. Aw, fuck off, pal, I used to play cricket for Scotland, ye know. The pair of them falling about pishing themselves. They are just stood there looking. A few residents have made complaints. Residents? Ye kidding? Who’s that, well, the fucking swan? She’s fine, man, she knows the score, she’s no a bastard like yous. But they aren’t finding it so funny, they’re just stood there in their high-vis jackets and their fishermen’s wading boots. If you don’t move, we will have to get the police. Eh, what? Who are yous, then, if you’re no the polis? They are laughing again and started throwing the chuckies at these three but the game’s over. Up in the air. Suddenly the polis, the protectors of the residents, are arrived and they are being pulled about and corkscrewed up the path — bloody hell, says the one of them, as he keeks the drinks cabinet. They let go of their arms a way up the pavement, and it looks a banker they’re about to get slung in the meat wagon, but no — get walking, they are told. The polis following at a short distance behind. Onto the roads and they keep going, miles and miles, turning round one point and the polis are gone, Beans muttering to himself, grumbling, chapping now on a door. After a while an Asian guy opening. No, he says, and he shuts it again.