Stonemouth

I’m still standing very still, half waiting for Powell to stamp forward suddenly and plant a size twelve hard on D-Cup’s nuts, because I’ve seen Powell do this before: seem to defuse a situation, make light of it somehow, then deliver a single, wince-inducing blow to somewhere sensitive just when people — especially the designated miscreant — thinks it’s all sweetness and light again. I wait, but this doesn’t happen. So I start to relax too. Instead, from the floor, D-Cup’s thin wee voice says, ‘Can I open my eyes noo, Mr Imrie?’

Powell laughs, and so we all do. Again, like it’s just the funniest thing we’ve ever heard anywhere anywhen.

‘Aye, fit like yersell, son,’ Powell says, and D-Cup gets shakily to his feet, grinning uncertainly and already, from his expression and body language, starting to look like he knew that was going to happen all the time and he was just playing along. Even so, his fingers are shaking so much he can’t get his sovs back on, so he quickly stuffs the rings in a pocket of his shellies. Powell picks up the red ball he was playing with earlier and lobs it, slow and underhand, to one of the heavy-set guys, who catches it.

Powell smiles at D-Cup. ‘Aye, all fun and games, but: that happens again and you’re gettin hurt, okay?’

D-Cup swallows, suddenly serious again. ‘Aye, Mr Imrie,’ he says.

Powell swings away from the table. ‘There you are,’ he announces quietly, again to nobody in particular. ‘Man agreein to his own kickin.’ He sort of broadcasts a smile to let us know it’s all right to laugh, or at least grin at this. The last elements of tension seem to drain away. I can hear and see people going back to their own games round distant tables.

Powell comes up to me, puts an arm round my shoulder and we walk off a few steps, his head close to mine. ‘Had a wee word with your car hire company, Stewart,’ he says quietly. ‘Hired the car for a week, that right?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I agree.

‘Aye, well, Mr M wanted me to check that was just for reasons of … cheapness, rather than what you might call signalling an intent to linger in the area after the funeral.’

‘The week was cheaper than Friday evening to Tuesday morning,’ I tell him. ‘That’s still when I’m leaving.’

‘Aye, aye, that’s what the manny I talked to at the hire company said you’d said,’ Powell says. He pats me on the shoulder. ‘If you did need to go earlier, though, you could, eh?’

‘Earlier?’

‘Monday evening, or afternoon, say.’

‘Why would that be, Powell?’

‘Not saying it’ll be necessary, just checking.’

‘Yeah, but why—’

‘Well, you know; the boys.’

‘The boys? You mean Murdo, Fraser, Norrie?’

‘Bit headstrong. Can be. That’s all.’

I look at him. Powell can do quite a good blank stare. ‘Powell,’ I say slowly, ‘I checked in with Don. I—’

‘Aye, well, you didnae really cover yourself in glory there, either, from what I hear, but it’s more the boys …’

‘What do you mean? I thought we got on fine.’

‘I think Don thought about it and decided you’d been a bit, I don’t know: cheeky.’

‘What?’

‘You probably shouldn’t have mentioned Ellie.’

‘Jesus, I just asked how she was.’

‘Aye, all the same.’

‘Powell, look, are you saying I should be worried here?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, not really. Things are just a bit, you know, funny, with Joe being gone and you being back, and Grier being back. Things’ll settle down. Just a bit of restlessness in the undergrowth. It’ll pass. You can relax.’ He nods at the table behind me. ‘Just enjoy yourself.’

I look at him. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’ He pats me on the shoulder again. ‘Hunky McDory. See you later.’ He takes my right hand in his and — holding my right elbow firmly with his left hand — gives me an eye-wateringly firm handshake. I try to do the same back, but my merely average-fit grip is roundly outclassed.

Then, with a final tap-tap on the elbow and a glance and a nod at everybody else round our two tables, he’s off.

BB and me, and D-Cup and his three pals, finish our games quietly, and — for all the interaction we have — as though we’re playing on different continents. At the end of our game BB and I agree the fun’s gone out of the room a little and a pint somewhere else might be in order. We walk away from the table and I’m sort of expecting to hear a remark from D-Cup or his pals, but all there is is that bump, snick and rumble of balls, filling the uneasy silence.

9

The Deep Blue IV is a mega-trawler; its white superstructure seems to sit floating above the buildings and cranes of the inner harbour, dwarfing everything around it. Even before I climb as high as the bridge I can see the windows of my dad’s office in the Old Custom House on the other side of the harbour, but it’s the unaccustomed view of the building’s green, copper-sheathed roof that attracts the eye.