Stonemouth

Sunday, around noon: traditional time for the weekly poker game at Lee Bickwood’s. Lee has a big old converted sail loft near the old docks. Lines of Velux windows look out to east and west and — today — bead with rain as a smir rolls in off the sea, coating the glass. The beads grow slowly fat on the sloped glass, then get too heavy and run off suddenly, gathering speed as they sweep up smaller globules in a chaotic, zigzagging line down the glass. It all happens in silence; the rain is too soft to be heard through the double glazing.

Lee’s family ran the town’s main hardware store for over a century until Homebase and B&Q moved into their respective retail estates on the outskirts of town. Now most of the family lives in Marbella, and Lee has a couple of gift and gizmo shops here and in Aberdeen.

The Sunday poker game has been a fixture for the last ten years or so; Lee provides a running supply of rolls — bacon or black pudding, generally — cooked by his own fair hands during intervals. Lee is not a very good poker player, so getting out early and rattling the grill pan is a good way of seeming to stay with the game while actually ducking out at the first plausible opportunity. Whenever he does get a really good hand, one so good even he believes he can win with it, he stays in and bids big, fast. We tend to fold and he wins, but small. Occasionally somebody will stay with him, but he’s always telling the truth. I have never seen him exploit this pattern. Like I say: not a very good poker player. Lee had startlingly ginger hair when he was a year above us in school, though it’s going auburn now. He’s tall but getting a little pot-bellied, one of those guys who buys all the sports gear but rarely gets round to using it.

‘They can’t be that stupid,’ Phelpie says. ‘They’re fucking billionaire businessmen. They may be assholes but they’re not fuckwits.’

Phelpie prefers to be known as Ryan these days, but we still think of him as Phelpie, and, besides, calling him Ryan would confuse things, given that Phelpie works for Mike Mac, who has a son called Ryan. Ryan the son who was briefly married to Ellie, and who might, apparently, turn up here later. Not sure how I feel about this. Actually, yes I am, but I won’t be scared off just because the guy that wed my girl might show.

Lee agrees with Phelpie. ‘They’ll do the research, Ferg,’ he says. ‘They’ll know what they’re getting into. They’ll have people to do due diligence and such.’

‘Yeah,’ Phelpie says.

Phelpie looks bulkily fit and well fed these days, brown hair slicked back. He wears a blue Deep Blue IV fleece over a pink shirt. Jeans, but new ones, so he’s still the most formally dressed. The rest of us are in sweats, tees and old jeans. Trainers all round. Even Ferg has dressed down specifically for the occasion, though he has set off his open shirt with a cravat. This reminds me of old Joe Murston, and gets me thinking about the funeral tomorrow. The cravat has not gone uncommented upon, though Ferg merely accuses us of provincial small-mindedness, a concomitant lack of imagination and outright jealousy.

‘You mentioned the European and particularly the English League there, Ferg,’ Jim Torbet says. Jim’s a junior doctor at the hospital. Medium build but wirily buff; a rock climber. He’d probably be scaling a cliff today if the weather was better. He’s the only one of us wearing glasses. ‘What about dear old Scoatlund?’ He shifts to Glaswegian nasal to pronounce the last word.

Ferg snorts. ‘Barely worth bothering with,’ he tells us as he shuffles the cards. ‘A duopoly where it makes sense for the two big teams to buy up star players from their lesser opponents and then leave them sitting on the bench or playing for the reserves—’

‘Or on loan to an English team,’ Lee provides, because this is a familiar theme for Ferg, and we can all join in if we want to.

‘— just to make sure they won’t be playing against them is the worst of both worlds: insufficiently competitive and pathetically, defensively cynical at the same time. Personally I think the idea of the Old Firm joining the Premier League is brilliant; get them to fuck out of the small pond that is Scottish football.’

‘What if they get relegated?’ Lee asks.

‘Yeah,’ Jim says. ‘Torquay United might object to travelling all the way to Glasgow.’

‘Be like a European tie for them,’ I suggest. ‘They should be grateful.’

‘Or Taunton,’ says Phelpie.

‘Oh, it’s not going to happen,’ Ferg concedes, dealing the cards. ‘It’s like world peace: great idea but don’t hold your breath.’ He snaps the deck down onto the table, picks up his cards, glances at them and looks left to Phelpie, who is carefully studying his. ‘Phelpie?’

‘Hmm,’ says Phelpie. A couple of people sigh and put their cards back down.

‘In your own time, Phelpie,’ Lee breathes. Phelpie prefers not to be hurried.