Huts64

On the death row of nightshifts in Ailsa ward, I felt like a lovesick vampire, the far away light of the weekend brought on a nostalgic ache in my throat. As Tuesday fell flat, like an upright domino into Wednesday morning, my foggy mind, could almost touch it. Thursday night toppled. Wullie the Pole grudgingly handed me my pay packet, as if he was doling out his own money, at the handover meeting on Friday. He slipped in some snide remarks about my hair, the way I looked, getting a short back and sides. But I didn’t care. I drowned him out with my smile. I squirmed in my chair, glancing sideways at Carol, my nightshift supervisor, willing her to stop talking and start fussing about with her shopping bags, to fast forward time, the way she normally did.

No bell rang. But I skipped down the corridor, from the office, like a school kid, behind Wullie the Pole. He jangled the ward keys from his pocket and placed them into his big hand, peering at them, as if they contained some kind of mystery. I almost grabbed them off him. He knew it was the gold one and was doing it on purpose. I held my breath as he finally found the right key for the right lock.

I let Carol, and her shopping bags, go first. Age before beauty. Pregnant woman before unpregnant men, or something like that. I didn’t care.

Wullie the Pole, tried to hold me back with his words.

‘Night shift again, next week,’ he said, sniffily, through his nose.

But I wasn’t letting him hook me. Peter Davenport would be back. His sick line was finished. And if he didn’t come back I’d just kill myself.

Even though nothing had really happened, I’d missed everything. I just lay on top of my bed, like a smiling corpse, with my eyes closed, waiting for my life to be given back to me and for the pub to open. I was going to make sure I got my moneys worth.

The weather was only unpredictable when it didn’t rain. My dad’s pal-I used to call him uncle-Davie looked at me and looked quickly away, as if he didn’t recognize me. He had his collar up, unshaven, crouching inside his long black Cromby coat, prepared for every eventuality, but sunshine. He smoked one Capstan full strength, and lit another, as he recycled breath. Davie’s splash of summer was a red can of McEwan’s Export, the triangular hole punched neatly in its top, but it hung limply on the end of his hand, like an ornament, as his eyes hungrily searched The Horse and Barge’s closed wooden doors for a signal that there was some kind of life inside, and the pub doors would miraculously open sooner, rather than later.

There was a bit of friendly jostling with the regulars. I was like a fresh kid, cueing up, waiting for the Saturday morning picture hall to open, and let in the ABC minors. I smiled, in acknowledgement, when I saw Barry Ferguson walking along solemnly, with a newspaper under his arm, as if he was going to the office.

‘Alright?’ Barry said, standing beside me and unfolding the four square pieces of his paper, at the sport pages, as if it was complex origami, and looking at it, as if he’d already said too much.

‘Fucking wasps,’ Barry said swapping at one that was buzzing about with his newspaper, ‘I fuckin’hate them’.

‘They’re dyin’ off,’ said Uncle Davie, the naturalist, brought back to life by a hearty swig from his can.

‘People always say that. I don’t give a shit. As long as they don’t try and take me with them,’ said Barry trying to wave the problem away.

‘Sorry,’ I said, waving my arms about. ‘I’d a bath last night’, I offered as some kind of explanation for the wasp too-and-frooing and trying to use my head as a base for its suicidal furies.

‘That’s it then,’ said Barry, in his usual deadpan mode ‘the last time any of this crowd had a bath Moses passed them in his reed basket’.

I laughed against the grain, more in shock than amusement, at Barry playing the comedian. It was a bit like expecting Benny Hill to ever be funny.

They tried to disguise the place, spraying it with some kind of Domestos. But I looked about Horse and Barge with its Formica tables and mismatched chairs with the eyes of a tourist arriving home. Barry Ferguson might have done a lot of bad things, but at least he always bought me a pint without me even needing to ask.

Wee Billy Fallon was standing on tiptoes, as if that would make him get served quicker, clutching his money, squeezed in between Barry and me, at the bar.

‘It was never like that in my day,’ Billy Fallon, the old timer brayed, turning to Barry, in confidence, ‘old Davie would have everything ready. You didn’t have to go down stairs and put on taps and forget who ordered what and fucking fuck about. I bet if I dug old Davie up and put him behind the bar he’d still be quicker than her.’

‘What’s she use is she?’ Billy Fallon said in exasperation, at getting ignored again. ‘What’s she fucking got that makes her a barmaid?’

‘Big tits,’ said Barry winking at Molly the barmaid, and ambling away with his pint and his half, in his sure steady way, knowing there was as much chance of a smile from her as there would be watching the Benny Hill show.

Barry didn’t go far. He sat in one of the little alcoves, just off the bar, his resting leg jiggling its own little tune and paper unfolded again, a sure sign that he didn’t want any company. He looked up, his eyes, non-committal, as I put my pint of heavy on the faux wood shelf beside his, and followed my gaze. He buried his mouth in his half of whisky before it shaped into disgust.

‘Shame that,’ said Barry, looking over at Bundy Macintosh, stretching his neck, moving his head about, as if he was warming up for a prize-fight. ‘She’s just a fat alky now,’ he said, taking a nip out of his half.

I squirmed. Barry was saying what I’d been thinking, but would never have said. I was too close to her, such thoughts felt like a betrayal, but he was also too loud. Bundy was sitting just three tables away, close enough to hear him. But the combination of her being fat and being an alky combined weight to make her also seem deaf.

But she might have been in Edinburgh’s Morningside or Australia for all the notice I took of her. I felt worse because I said nothing, did nothing, and didn’t want to see her, or sit with her. I didn’t know what to say to her, but I took my pint and trudged over to her table.

The funny thing was that Bundy was wearing the same black smock the size of a small dhow, that she always wore, but there was nothing of her inside it, apart from her big almond shaped eyes. Her fat had melted away, but we’d grown used to seeing her as she was, like a memory that was placed over the shape of her. She smiled when she saw me and grabbed at my hand. I tried not to look about me, to see if anybody was watching, but my face went beacon red.

‘How are you?’ I chocked out.

‘Fine. Fine,’ she said heartily.

But she’d a sour smell, like milk turning and her hand was as cold as formaldehyde. Death had bypassed her.

I nodded, gently extricating my hand from hers. ‘I’ll need to get a pint up,’ I said, holding up my glass, as evidence. ‘You want something?’

Bundy looked at the drink on the table in front of her. Then looked at me, with a half smile on her lips. ‘No nothing,’ she said.

Bundy made a grab for my hand as I got up. ‘But maybe you can do me a wee favour?’

I tried to work out how much of a wee favour I could give her without leaving myself too short.

‘Maybe you can put Flowers of the Forest on the jukebox for me?’ Bundy slipped a sixpence into my hand.

I shook my head. I’d never heard of it. ‘I don’t think they’ve got it.’ I tried giving her the sixpence back.

‘They’ve got it alright,’ said Bundy, pushing my hand roughly away. ‘It was my daddy’s favourite. I was 18, going to get married and thought I knew everything. My whole life was stretched out in front of me. He’d throat cancer. We whispered about such things in those days. And we never told him. But he knew. Aye. He knew. He was 52. And I thought he was old. You know what he said to me? He said: “Life’s just a wee dream hen. Life’s just a wee dream”.’

The song clicked on and time seemed to click off. Everybody seemed bound together, in the mist of fag smoke, looking for something that wasn’t quite there and listening for the loss of it. And it was me clutching for Bundy’s hand and searching for little Addy beside her.

‘You’ll be alright son. You’ll be alright,’ said Bundy, stroking my wet face and shifting her bulk sideways, before moving steadily towards the door.