Bill and the UFO24

They’d come out of the darkness of the scary tunnel at Trafalgar Street and swept up onto the well-worn footpath at the side of the canal, like a howling marauding army. The midges hung in the shrubs and trees on one side ready to ambush the unwary and the water sat on the other, ready to catch the wary. It didn’t move much and stank like a drain, because it was. Wendy kept a close lips policy.

‘The heat’s killing me. Can I no’ take this daft coat off?’ Bill asked. ‘I’ll keep the specs on.’ He tried to sound conciliatory.

‘Nah.’ There was a hint of sunburn red at Wendy’s neck. She went so far as to undo two buttons on her cheesecloth top, but no further, so that her two pebble-bump breasts got a bit of air Her hair had a tomahawk parting and forehead showed beads of adolescent sweat, but she smelled vaguely of old women’s Lemon drops.

Todger was splashing about in the scummy water of the Forth and Clyde Canal.

Wendy crinkled up her nose, like a mouse and said cattily. ‘You don’t see Todger complaining and he’s got a fur-ball coat on.’

Nobody gave Phil or Summy a second glance. And anybody caught looking at Bill’s shuttered eyes quickly slid away. Not that it mattered much. There were only down and outs, ducks with fluff ball chicks and duck watchers: men cooing pigeon talk with knitted cardigans, and sensible sandals and women with day old blue bread and orange and yellow cagoules, folded on their chunky freckled arms that brought the threat of overcast weather to the eighty- odd degree temperatures, like a rain dance.

Phil held his nose and larked about as if he was choking.

‘Even the goldfish are wearing masks to avoid the smell.’ Bill trailed behind. He did his little stupid laugh, to show it was a joke and walked faster to catch up.

‘You don’t smell so sweet yourself.’ Wendy dipped in her pocket and pulled out her packet of fags. ‘That’s how you’re better keeping the coat on. It’s like keeping the fridge door closed when you’ve spilt milk.’ She wriggled her hips as she searched her denims for a light.’

Bill gave her one of his cloak and dagger looks and X-rayed the fag packet to see how many were left. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a little one left with my name on it.’

‘Nah,’ Wendy sniffed. ‘And if it had your name on it I’d wipe it aff.’

‘Twos.’ Bill shouted like a bingo caller.

Todger bounded up onto the embankment and shook all the water out of his fur. He had a deep baritone bark. The other dogs, greyhounds, kept behind metal fencing, bit of chicken wire and anything else that could be buried in the ground to make dog runs for racing dogs, were like adolescents yapping- hanging out in the sun.

Summy got caught in the dog drizzle as Todger shook his coat out. ‘If you go back that way there’s a grating between the canal and the Sewerage works. That’s turd hell, where Jesus practiced walking on water. And I think, after that,’ he looked daggers at Todger, ‘I’m beginning to know why he didn’t come out of the tomb.’

Bill briefed Phil, as they walked, on where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there. None of it made sense, but Phil nodded with his mouth open as if it did. There was only one thing worse than Bill talking heart-felt rubbish and that was him trying not to.

The Town Hall Clock toned that it was three. Bill started walking a bit quicker, his coat billowing around him like Lawrence of Arabia, but because he couldn’t see very well, swerved one way, then the other, like a buckled wheel and was still lagging behind the others. The others bunched up on the embankment, like fresh water salmon before they made an uphill leap, in the place confusingly called Alky corner, although there was no corner.

Summy spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘Don’t look at them.’ He was talking about the three fishermen ahead of them. ‘That’s my uncle Jack. Just try and ignore him, as if you don’t know him.’

Wendy stopped dead. ‘But I don’t know him.’

The others slowed down. Their knees knitting together, like a collection of old maids.

‘Don’t be like that.’ Summy looked at her as is she had suddenly put on a bridal veil and it was not to his approval, but they were almost level with his uncle. He had a bruise of a face that was hard to look at. The rings under his eyes should have had a halo of luminescent red and white traffic cones around them. He had the kind of black teeth that could only make a dentist smile with a pair of pliers in his hand. Any self respecting Clerk of Works would have visited his face and condemned what was left to the wrecking ball. Apart from his ears, of course, which were worth salvaging.

‘He wasn’t always like that.’ Summy tried to explain.

Everybody looked over.

‘He fell in with bad company. He met my Auntie Jean.’

Two men also with fishing roads stared back at them. One despite the heat had on a pair of oilskin and green wellies that, as they got closer, smelt as if somebody had shat in them. The other looked like his shady brother, but he had long straggly black hair, so it might have been his sister, or Summy’s Auntie Jean.

‘Aha, Aha, Aha.’ Uncle Jack’s finger shot out and like a magician his forefinger snaked out and stopped just before hitting the target of Summy’s red Addidas t-shirt. ‘Is that you John? Hey, I thought it was you.’ His voice was that of a deranged door-to-door salesman. ‘You’ve not changed a bit. Mind I told you shagging gives you spots. You’ve got a couple of crackers.’

Wendy clasped her hands together and laughed, delighted that it wasn’t her getting the smarmy remarks.

‘Who is this little lady?’ He examined her and smiled with all of his teeth. ‘She’s like a flower in the Sahara. Is that your girlfriend?’

‘Nah,’ said Phil too quickly.

Uncle Jack looked at Summy.

‘She’s too good for me.’

Finally, he looked at Bill, as if he didn’t want to ask him.

‘She is if she’ll gee me a fag.’

‘Have we not got a cigarette for this young gentleman.’ Uncle Jack turned to one of his pals.

‘Nah, we’ve no’ got nothing,’ said shitey boots.

‘Sorry. We seem to be all out. I’ve not even got an aspirin. Not that I’d let pharmaceutical drugs like that pass my lips. Just some poor Tonic Wine, that has never done a man…’ He turned around gallantly and included his other companion in his deep bow. ‘Or woman, any harm.’

Wendy smiled and pulled out her fags. She handed each of them one. There was one left for herself.

‘Why thank you, kind lady.’ Uncle Jack bowed again.

‘Fanks,’ said his companions one after the other. The woman pulled out an old-fashioned bullet of a lighter that smelled of paraffin and brass.

The circle of smokers stood close to each other with fishing rods firing up towards the sky and the distant smell of newly cut grass threading its way upstream and threatening hay fever.

Phil had jumped down onto one of the concrete platforms and was looking at the water, where a Co-op plastic bag with green bottles in it was weighed rock like in the shade of the reeds and brown bulrushes, out of the heat of the sun. His voice wavered, uncertain. ‘How come you’ve not got any hooks on your rods?’

Uncle Jack examined him. ‘Well. Fish are animals, like you or me. Some of them are like underwater dogs or cat. We don’t want them to get hurt.’

‘But how do you catch them?’ persisted Phil.

‘Any fool can catch a fish with a big jaw hook. I only want to catch fish with small delicate mouths that are smarter than that.’

‘But how?’

‘We let the fish decide.’ Uncle Jack turned back to his companions. He looked at Summy and shook his head, as if disappointed in his travelling companions. He took one last draw from his cigarette and just as he was ready to flick it into the canal a hand shot out.

‘I’ll have that,’ said Bill, taking a couple of puffs and flinging it in the canal for him.

‘A man after my own heart,’ said Uncle Jack.