‘Ye got me a frying pan?’
Beans nods.
‘Cheers.’ He takes it, smiling. The coating is worn off the inside rim and it’s quite possible he’s lifted it — the skinny neighbour, more than likely — but no the less, no the less, and he stands there looking at Beans as a lump of gratefulness and fear together lands in his stomach.
Beans is grinning. ‘Off ye go, well. Flatman.’
The bus goes past another parade of shops and he tries to recognize where he is. To mind which is his stop. No yet. He keeps the eyes trained for the boarded-up pub which is where he has to get out. Nobody is noticing him. Strange, that he’s thinking they might, that all of them know the score somehow, when actually they don’t even see him. There’s the occasional wee keek over from a teenage lad across the aisle, but he realized a while back that he’s just looking at the frying pan and papier-mâché swan which are rested on his lap.
He gets off and walks round the corner past the boarded-up pub, acting it that everything is normal and okay as he approaches the building and punches the code in. There is nobody about. He gives the lift a swerve and gets walking up the stair, his feet echoing against the grey painted steps. A couple of floors up, he stops on the stairhead and looks out through a narrow cracked window at the surrounding roads and buildings. Nowhere he recognizes. All of it alien, and he carries on up to his own floor.
It is a room and kitchen type of affair. The main room with a bed against one wall and a small shiny brown settee against the other. A plastic table with two chairs in the middle. When he first came to see it, the landlord said he should feel free to change things around however he wants, and him and Renuka had a wee chuckle about it afterwards. Bed this side, mini settee the other? Or mini settee this side, bed the other — what do you reckon? There is a doorless opening into the kitchen that he goes through now: toaster, microwave and a kettle, which he fills and flicks on. He puts the swan on top of the microwave and the fryer into the empty sink cupboard, then goes to sit down in the other room, listening as the kettle starts to boil.
No tea. Obviously. Or milk. Crap. He goes for a lie down on the bed instead. Closes the eyes, a heavy tiredness now come over him. A no unfamiliar situation. Careful. Just fucking be careful, my man.
He goes out later and finds a chip shop along the main road. Brings back a fish supper. Pretty decent, it turns out.
After sitting the mini television onto the table and fiddling about with it for a bit, he manages to get it up and running, and settles in to watch it. He should have minded to get napkins from the chip shop, because he’s put grease marks over the settee, and he makes a note to wipe them off later. Nothing on the tellybox. Crap just. He gets up and goes to the window, looks out again at the city. It is still light outside, and he notices there’s no blind. Another thing that will need sorting. Tomorrow, he can make a list or something. In that moment, the great grey expanse of the city stretching out in front of him, it feels all of it too much, and he leans forward to rest his head against the glass. He imagines Robbie and Craig stood there in the bare room, scrutinizing it. All of it, too much.
Ye battle on but. Ye battle on.
He keeps in and about the flat over the next couple of days. Staying busy. Going the messages for bread, milk, ham, beans, washing powder, loo roll. Normal things; normal people things. Then as well the wee chores: washing the clothes, getting them hung on the radiator and the back of the settee, cooking, washing up, pinning the pillowcase over the window. The evenings, he watches the television, eats, drinks a few cans.
On the third day, Beans comes round, the loudness of the entry buzzer surprising him as he’s brushing his teeth, causing him to jab himself in the gums. He’s at the bottom, the voice comes through the speaker, he needs pressing in. A surprise as well, Mick considers as he waits for him to come up the building, that he has minded the number.
He comes in and looks the place over from the doorway.
‘How much is it, this?’
‘Hundred and fifty.’
‘Fucksake. Terrible.’
He goes up to the window and fingers with the pillowcase a moment, nods his head, then turns about. ‘I’d go a cuppa.’
That day, and the next, they go up and down the high street spending his resettlement grant on bits and pieces for the flat. A broom, radio, hammer, nails, wire wool, a blind, bleach. He isn’t too sure about the five packs of wire wool, but Beans is adamant it’s an essential — keeps the mice out — so he gives in and buys it. He’s keeping interested in all this, Beans, longer than he does most things. Possible that he is wanting to prove himself, let Robin see that he’s no just some useless troublemaker. Mick is in the main room, investigating for gaps in the skirting boards, when there is the sound of something heavy scraping through in the kitchen. A moment later and Beans steps out, hands on hips.
‘Place needs a paint, no think?’
The painting project begins the next day. Probably it isn’t allowed in his contract, but so what, screw the landlord, no like he’s going to do it himself, is it? Straight away, the place starts looking brighter. The radio on and a cold draught coming through the window, he starts in the main room while Beans gets stuck into the kitchen, his eyes red and squinting with concentration, specks of paint all over his hat and onto the kitchen counter. Mick grins, finishing round the window frame, at the idea of Beans as a neighbour. Knocking him up because he’s run out of loo roll, giving it his wild stories, ear-biting him down the pub. No the worst thought, being honest.
It is Beans anyway that gets him acquainted with one of his own neighbours. They are coming out the lift on their way back into the flat, and there is a woman on the stairhead with a baby in a pram and a dog tied to one of the handles. Beans goes straight up to the dog.
‘How’s it going, big man, eh? How’s it going?’ He is bent down, patting the dog on the neck. ‘He a Staff?’
‘Yeh.’ She snatches a look into the waiting lift.
Beans is pulling the dog’s cheeks back roughly, no that it seems to mind.
‘I had a Staff myself, a long while, I had him. He was a great dog. Walter. Like a fucking radiator, man — oh, pardon me.’ He looks into the pram. ‘True but. See that’s how I called him Walter. Walter water bottle.’
She gives a smile, and presses the button as the lift doors close. Beans is moved onto the baby now though, waving at him with the big cabbage hands. ‘Gonnae give me a smile, pal? Gonnae, eh?’ It isn’t looking likely. The baby is transfixed staring at the big red beardie face, trying to work him out, wondering if something frightening has happened to Santa Claus. The doors open again and she gets moving the pram inside.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Mick says, and she smiles briefly before the doors slide closed.
Awake, asleep, the awareness of Robbie and Craig presses on him all the time. What he would say to them. How their faces would look if they knew where he’s been, where he is the now, that he is on benefits. One moment he is saying to himself: fuck it, I’m fixing this out, but then the next moment the whole weight of everything will be holding him powerless on the bed. Even if he was being offered jobs — and each week he goes up the jobcentre it is looking the more likely that it’s never going to happen — how would he earn enough to pay the rent even? He wouldn’t. And that’s for a craphole like this. It would take years saving up for somewhere better. Just thinking about it makes him feel tired as hell, but he makes a deal with himself only to think about it when he’s outside, on the move, and no when he’s alone in the flat. Plus as well there’s only one radiator in the place and it’s pure nipping. So, when Beans isn’t about, he spends whole afternoons taking these long walks, getting familiar with the local streets and grassy areas, turning it all over in his head.