Bill and the UFO21

They heard Rab huffin’ and puffin’ like a steamin’ drunk Clydebank pensioner at a Christmas party, before they saw him. He held two pints of milk out in front of him with a pincer crab grip, like fat relay batons nobody would take off him. Everything else was hugged against the sticky sweat patch of a red Adidas top and, with every uneven step, gravity threatened to loosen and wrestle his haul away.

‘Fuck that.’ Rab’s cheeks were red and puffed out and even his black hair was sweating an oily gook. He let his pregnant load fall, like a man with chronic constipation whose time had finally come. The groundsheet between the two sleeping bags that were being used as mats to sit on took the hit.

Bill was cross-legged on Wendy’s sleeping bag. He lifted the rolls quickly before Todger could get to them. It was difficult to tell how many as they were squashed together; there seemed to be about 20 odd.

Phil was sitting across from Bill. He made a dive for the newspapers. There was a decent spread: The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Mail, The Glasgow Herald, The Scotsman and The Sun. He looked through them again and found a Jackie in among the pages of The Guardian. He flung it into the corner, his face going Poppy-red, when he saw Wendy smirking and quickly flipped through the other papers again and tried not to look at her. ‘You’ve no’ got a Record,’ he complained.

Rab placed the two pints of milk on the synthetic yellow down of the sleeping bag before replying. They clinked cozily into each other, rolling backwards into the weight of shuffling legs. ‘I’ll just go back and get one, will I? ‘They were in a separate pile.’ The smack of his hand hitting against Phil’s head reverberated around the tent.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Phil held the palm of his hand against his head.

‘Why did you get The Financial Times? Is it so you can sell all your shares?’ Bill was feeding the soft white flesh of a roll to Todger and stuffing his gob with the crusty remains. He picked up a bottle of milk.

‘That’s no’ yours.’ Rab grabbed the milk off him.

‘We’ve no’ got anything to drink.’ Wendy looked up at Rab, daring him to contradict her. ‘What’s the point in getting all those rolls if…’

‘What am I a fuckin’…?’ Rab’s mouth was a rictus of longing, unable to embrace the right word and spit it out, but unable to let it go.

‘Look. There’s something about UFOs been seen in Faifley in The Sun.' Phil had the paper open in front of him and there was a double page spread with the picture of a tilting shiny space ship, blocking out the sun and sky, going from page 10-11. Another picture showed a man in a white coat, who looked like a dogcatcher, but was obviously something big in UFOlogy.

Todger nudged Bill’s hand, wondering why he’d stop feeding him. ‘Told you.’ Bill had a smug smile on his face.

‘But my Da’ said that people only buy The Sun to look at tits.’ Phil glanced up his face glowing red. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Wendy.

Bill’s eyes started running. He made sniffing noises trying to clear his nasal passages.

‘Just sneeze all over me, why don’t you?’ Wendy licked her lips. ‘So, what was it like then: the spaceship?’

Bill wiped at his eyes and pushed Todger away, who was whining to get fed. ‘It’s complicated.’ He looked at Wendy out of the side of his eyes. ‘Has anybody got a fag for my hay fever?’

Wendy made a clucking sound with her tongue, buying time whilst she made a decision, before digging into her tight Denim pocket and pulling out ten Regal. She shook her hair away from her face when she lit up and tapped at the packet before handing one to Rab and, with the same defensive gesture, another to Bill. ‘That’s one you owe me,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’ Bill stretched his neck as if he were warming up for a boxing match, and took a deep drag, before rolling up the sleeves on his black coat. ‘I didn’t want to show you this.’

Phil’s mouth fell open and his eyes squinted as he looked at Bill’s bare arms. Rab bit at one of his ragged fingernails and looked at Wendy.

‘I don’t see anything,’ Wendy broke the silence, frowning more than usual.

Bill wriggled out of his coat and held his pipe-cleaner arms out like Karloff’s Frankenstein.

Todger whined and Rab flung a couple of rolls outside the tent. The dog sprung after them and he tied the drawstrings.

‘I thought we were meant to keep him inside,’ said Phil.

‘What are you, the dog’s mother?’ said Wendy.

Rab ignored all the distractions. ‘I don’t see anything either,’ he finally admitted.

Bill let his arms flop down, as if the effort of impersonation had worn him out. ‘Can you no’ see the marks where they grabbed me?’

‘Nah,’ said Phil, ‘a cannae.’

Bill put his fag in his gob as he brushed his hand up the left arm and did the same with the right. ‘You probably cannae see them because they’re invisible. They’re incredibly smart those aliens. But you can feel them. Look.’

‘Am no’ touching you,’ Wendy jerked back and slid her bum away from him. ‘I thought you said they were angels,’ she cried.

Rab reached across, his face screwed up in distaste. He brushed his fingertips up and down Bill’s arm, barely touching the fluffy adolescent hairs that had begun to spring up. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

‘You try,’ Rab said to Phil.

Phil’s fingertips brushed Bill’s other arm. ‘I can feel something.’ He looked closely. ‘That’s just a spot.’

‘You’re no’ feeling in the right way.’ Bill pulled his arm away from Phil. ‘It’s like a bicycle lock. If you don’t do it right, it doesn’t click.’

‘Let me see.’ Wendy leaned across. She grabbed Bill by the wrist and ran her fingers up and down his arm. ‘Nothing,’ was her verdict. ‘Tell me then smartguy how did you get anywhere near a space ship?’

‘Easy.’ Bill took one last draw out of his fag and crumpled the end into an empty Coke can that had been torn in half and they were using as an ashtray. ‘You don’t find them. They find you.’

‘Was it like a trap?’ Phil was nearest the door. He undid the drawstrings to let Todger back in because his snout was pushing through like a fishing road, whining in and out. ‘You always see that don’t you? Spaceships always leave their doors open. As if they’re inviting you in, but it’s always easier to get in than out.’

‘Nah.’ Rab fed Todger another roll, before pushing him away across to Bill. He tapped the picture of the spaceship shown in the double-page spread. ‘See. That’s got its door shut, because it’s Faifley. Otherwise everybody would be running about with the latest Ray-guns.’

‘You’re all being stupid. Aliens don’t exist. Angels don’t exist. It’s just stupid. He’s making the whole thing up.’ Wendy peeled a roll off and tried to fling it violently outside, but it bounced and sat beside Bill. Todger sniffed it before he started eating.

‘It’s in the paper.’ Bill tapped The Sun.

‘That doesn’t mean anything.’ Wendy was struggling. She tried to catch her brother’s eye.

‘I don’t know.’ Rab shrugged and looked at her sideways, ‘you’re the kind of person that locks the toilet door when there’s nobody in.’

‘Somebody might come in,’ she snapped. ‘How do you know?’

Rab laughed. He’d caught her out. ‘I read your Cosmo as well. You know the kind of questions they’d ask an angel…’ He tried to put on a girly high-voice, but failed miserably. “Does living for all eternity make you fat?”’

‘Hanky-panky,’ said Bill.

‘Shut up,’ both of them said at the same time.

‘You know the kinda crap you’d come away with.' Wendy wasn't sure who to look at, or what to say. 'You’re more likely to sneak up to a space ship and leave as steaming pile of shit on a newspaper and light it, playing little-boy-chap-door-runaway.’

‘Well,’ Bill interjected. After all, he was the expert. ‘They do have a lot of mod-cons, but I’m not sure they would have a proper pooper-scooper.’

Wendy shoved him. ‘You’re making it all up.’

Bill searched through his rucksack for his camera. He pulled it out. ‘I’ve got a photo.’

Wendy scrambled to get outside, as if the tent had run out of oxygen. With her head out of the tent she screamed ‘aaaaaaargh.’

Todger started barking.

She felt better and was determined not to say anything more.

‘That picture could be worth millions,’ said Rab.

‘Zillions,’ Phil looked at Bill differently. ‘You could be famous as Donny Osmond.’

‘Och, not really that famous,’ said Bill modestly.

‘So how did you get the photo?’ Phil asked his new best mate.

‘Well, you know where the old quarry is in the Old Kilpatrick Hills?’ Bill looked from one to the other. He took a deep breath, ready to plunge in to the whys and the whatnots of how it all happened.

‘Nah, where is it?’ Wendy’s head was poked forward and tongue poked out her bottom lip, which she was stroking, hairy-chin-chin, to show that she thought Bill was at it.

Bill ignored her. ‘I crawled up and the space ship was there, half in shadow, half in light.’

‘Nah, you’re spovin’ you don’t get half shadows. Dae yeh?’ Wendy looked at Phil.

‘I don’t know,’ said Phil. ‘Maybe if it was raining. Was it raining?’ he asked Bill.

‘Nah,’ said Bill. ‘It wasnae raining.’

‘Just let him get on with the story.’ Rab sounded as if he was going to give anybody that said anything else a battering.

The problem was it didn’t include Wendy, because she was family.
‘Half a shadows no’ like half a fish supper. You’ve either got a shodow, or you havenae. You’ve either got a spover, or you havenae.’

Rab’s nostrils flared and his fists clenched. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he bawled in Wendy’s smirking face.

Wendy said nothing, looking straight through Rab, and went back to making spoving gestures with her chin.

‘The thing is,’ Bill admitted, ‘I didn’t find the angels they found me. I was lying in the grass and one kinda just hovered above me, like a…

‘Spover,’ said Wendy.

‘Eh, an angel,’ Bill didn’t miss a beat. ‘Todger barked at him. But it was pretty cool, because he could talk to him. The angel said to me “ That dog sure is hungry.” He sounded a bit like Elvis. That’s when I knew he was alright. I asked him what he was daeing down here flying about like a demented budgie. And he said it was because they got bored in heaven, because no matter how good they were they were never good enough.’