Chapter 18 #2
Shiv looked from Doll to Cal and back again.
Doll was gazing at her, all sincere adoration, with a ring of flour around his mouth.
Shiv was staring at Cal to discern if his friend was mocking her.
They were silent a moment. Shiv held her cigarette packet and her thumb slid the cellophane off and then back onto it, over and over again.
After a while she turned back to Doll and asked, “Before you go, would you be a gentleman and give me a hand with something?”
Doll wiped his hands on his denim and followed her out of the room.
Cal stood by the mantle and watched them go into the bedroom across the hallway.
The bed had been stripped and the white cotton eiderdown piled on top.
Doll fell backwards onto the heap, his arms above his head, laughing, like a boy falling through clouds.
For a moment, Cal couldn’t see the Irishwoman, but he could see her fingers drumming on the door frame, her nails painted pink as carnations.
He watched as they struggled to lift the mattress and flip it over.
Shiv lost her grip and the mattress fell and knocked her against the wall.
Doll offered his hand and helped her to her feet.
Unaware of his own strength, he did it with a jerking motion and for a moment the landlady was airborne.
She flew into his arms. She gasped at the thrill of it.
Tormod MacNeil had stripped the inside of the coach.
He unscrewed the benches and lined the walls with them, which made the space feel like a hospital corridor; the seasoned drinkers dubbed it ‘God’s waiting room’.
Halfway up one side of the bus was a flimsy wallpapering table that he used as a makeshift bar, behind it were cases of lager and a box fan that ran off a diesel generator.
On a clear night, you could hear the music from miles away, so Tormod’s sons had suspended the ceiling to muffle the racket.
Cal could reach up and touch the ceiling, and he wanted to – everyone wanted to.
The balsa wood seaming gave it a criss-cross lattice that felt like a dodgem track.
The island lads thought it was a great laugh to tilt a tile and let the dust rain down on a pretty girl.
The drinking bus was empty except for an old crofter at the table by the emergency door.
He was slumped like a slag bing in a pool of dust-filled daylight.
Cal thought him not unlike a painting of St Francis he had glimpsed in an encyclopaedia once, one of those sentimental Catholic images.
He was bent over and dwarfing his drinks, ministering to his glasses as though they were little birds.
It would be hours before the crowds gathered and the music started. They were gelded by the bus timetable and so there was nothing to do but kill time and get drunk. They bought a couple of pints and went back outside.
The bus was at the bottom of Tormod’s land and between the bus and the sea sat an old pool table.
It had a tilt that they had to compensate for, and when they put their knuckles on the baize, rainwater bubbled up like a sodden lawn.
Doll seemed happy to rattle the cue ball and let the power of it sink what it may.
Cal won four games in a row. Sloppy games, indecisive, helped along by luck more than skill.
Doll was grinning over the top of his pint, his eyes bright with wickedness. “I bet Shiv Malone is as smooth as the back of my knee. You weren’t in that bedroom. You didn’t see how she looked at me. I’ll be ball’s deep afore the singing on Sunday. Mark my words.”
“Yeah? Put your back into it. See if you can get us a discount.”
Doll lowered his pint. He appeared unusually pensive. “It’s rare, a woman like that. You can do all manner of things and in the end, there’s no danger of bairns.”
“That’s proper romantic. Truly, the stuff of bards.”
Doll bought another round of drinks and they moved to sit inside the bus, thankful for the cool breeze that pushed through the open door.
Cal, unable to keep pace, let his lager turn flat.
Doll finished his pint and returned with two more, both for him.
They killed time by flipping a coin across the middle aisle and trying to catch it.
Eventually, three men entered the bus. Their faces were sunburnt but their overalls were covered in a fine plaster dust. Fishermen, most likely, moonlighting on a Friday afternoon.
Doll recognised them immediately and gave them a high-five as they squeezed past. One of the men sat beside Cal.
He peered around him, like he was peeping round a corner, trying to catch a glimpse of Cal’s face behind his curtain of peroxide hair.
They locked eyes and the man blinked in shock.
“We thought Doll had got himself a big blonde.”
Cal watched Doll’s face contort. He enjoyed his discomfort.
The young man held his hand out for Cal to shake it. “Fuck. Sorry mate. I’m Mildew. That’s Peepo. We thought you were a lassie from over there. Could hardly believe our eyes!”
“Could hardly believe Doll’s luck!” added Peepo.
The third man joined them. Hoggy limped like he had come off a rough horse. He passed the cans around and looked similarly disappointed that Cal was a man. “Monstrous!” he said with a booming laugh. “But then we knew you’d be ugly if you were Doll’s girlfriend!”
There was a percussion of dull thuds as they knocked their cans together in salute.
Then Mildew patted his hair, which sent off a cloud of plaster dust. The men cursed him and covered their drinks.
“We’re plastering the old primary school.
The council found black mould, and standing water in a tank that could have Legionnaires’.
Nasty stuff. So we’ve been stripping all that out and taking our sweet time.
” He reached into his overall pocket and took out a handful of colouring pens.
“Do you want some felt tips? I’ll sell them to you. ”
“No, thanks,” said Cal.
Mildew took the lid off an orange marker. He flicked it at each of their faces. Doll didn’t flinch fast enough and was rewarded with a vibrant slash from earlobe to chin. “Aw grow up, Mildew.” He spat on his thumb and rubbed at his face.
Peepo clicked his fingers and pointed at Cal. “I know you. Thought I did. You’re the singing fella’s lad. Bible John. You went to the Nicolson with my sister, Lily. Lilidh Murray.”
“Did I?”
“You another Falabay castaway?” Mildew roughed Doll’s hair. “Still not got a proper road, I see. You keep pushing the council and we keep telling them not to bother. Can’t have you maws getting loose and frightening the children.”
“Scared we’d shag your sisters?” said Doll. “You know, I lost my wick to your Lily.”
“You fucking wish.” Peepo laughed bitterly.
Cal knew it was a lie because Doll had lost his virginity to him.
But Doll sat up a little straighter. “So, how come you’re walking like you’ve shat yourself, Hoggy?”
Mildew gasped and cut in quickly. “Will you tell it, or can I?”
“Please,” said Hoggy with a tired huff. “Be my guest.”
Mildew knew he had their full attention then.
So he took his time, shook some dust from his hair, sipped his drink, savoured their anticipation.
“Imagine this . . .” he began, sounding a little like Sean Connery.
“Swainbost. A cold and rainy night. We were trying our damnedest to get rat-arsed, but our dole cheques had run out. We were sitting round Granny Hogg’s back room, nursing a quarter bottle between the three of us, but the bottom of the bottle was in sight.
So, here we devised a wee game of whoever could sit on the peat stove the longest, could swallow the last few mouthfuls.
Nobody could bear the heat for longer than a few seconds until your man, Hoggy, snuck away and returned with this sly grin upon his face. ”
“Forty . . . seven . . . seconds,” said Peepo slowly.
They all gawped at Hoggy. He shrugged. “It was uncomfortable like, getting gradually hotter. But I thought I could sit there fine. I thought I could bear it, you know? See, I put a damp towel down the back of my trousers. But I heated the towel up that much that it started to steam and scald the back of my legs. I tried to whip my trousers off it, but the polyester had melted to the towel and it cooked us like a boil-in-the-bag cod.”
“You’ve never smelt anything like it!” said Peepo. “It was delicious, if I’m honest.”
Cal was horrified but the other men were twitching in fits of laughter.
“Och, he lived . . .” said Mildew.
“But his arse came up in this giant blister,” added Peepo.
“I was face down, arse up for weeks,” said Hoggy. “My mother would crouch at my side. I had to eat my soup through a straw. You would be surprised at how few soups are suitable for the straw.”
“You’re fucking lucky to be alive,” said Cal.
Hoggy waved his hand. “Ach. What’s the point of being alive if you don’t try to kill yourself now and again.”
Peepo finished his can and crumpled it in his fist. “Right lads!” he cried. “We better away and have a wash afore the lassies show up.”
“Should be some fine totty in the night,” said Mildew. His hair, now free of plaster dust, was the same auburn colour as Peepo’s and Cal realised they were brothers. “Ellie Nelson is getting married, so I’d bet they’ll all be in.”
The men said their goodbyes. They gathered their tool bags, and as they passed by, they each pinched Doll’s spare tyre like adoring uncles.
Hoggy paused on the bottom step. He leant towards Cal and whispered. “It doesn’t get going till about eight, and it won’t get good till the back of ten. See if you can get him to eat something. Last time he was out, he pissed himself on the dance floor.”
Cal watched as the workmen piled into a souped-up Escort. The car was dwarfed by a spoiler as big as a church pew.