It was too soon to give up and go home, so Scott kept walking. Without the distraction of his family – their constant bickering and complaints – he saw more of Thussock this morning, things he’d missed previously. There was a small police station opposite the pub, a branch of a Scottish bank he’d never even heard of, and a betting shop that looked busier than pretty much everywhere else. A little further and he’d reached the bridge over the river. He stopped, leant over the balustrade, and peered down into the murky waters.
‘Don’t do it, son,’ a man shouted, grabbing Scott’s back and scaring the hell out of him.
‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ he said quickly as the elderly gent walked on, laughing with his mates.
Scott realised he was almost back at the school. Bloody hell, he was rapidly running out of town. He thought about going down to the rail station, figuring that if he was going to have to commute, maybe public transport would be a better option. It wasn’t what he wanted, but if there were no jobs here, what else could he do? Surely there’d be work in Edinburgh or Glasgow or somewhere between?
He stopped to cross a narrow side street, and had to pull himself back quick when a dusty builder’s merchant’s truck thundered past and swerved out onto the main road. He looked down the street to check there was nothing else coming and saw a sign on the fence the same as the logo on the side of the truck that had almost hit him. Walpoles. Strange name, he thought. The sign might as well have said ‘Welcome to Dodge’, because it looked pretty desolate down there. Less the Wild West, he thought, more like the Numb North, and he laughed at his own pathetic joke as he followed the track down into a decent-sized builders yard. Scott thought this place looked slightly more promising. The familiarity of bricks, tiles, cement and sand was welcome and, if nothing else, he figured he might be able to price up the materials he needed for the kitchen wall. The sooner he made a start on that the better. He’d heard what Michelle had said yesterday, but she was looking at it all wrong as she so often did. And if he couldn’t find work, which seemed increasingly likely, then wasn’t this the perfect time to get done everything that needed doing to the house?
Walpoles looked like a typical builder’s merchant’s place: a dustbowl of a yard with pallets of bricks, slabs, joists and various other mounds of material dotted all around. It looked scruffy and rough, as behind the times as the rest of Thussock, but it reminded him of the work he used to do and the business he’d built up from nothing then lost. Three hundred and fifty miles away from home he might well have been, but a brick was a brick wherever you found it.
He couldn’t see any prices. He walked over to a pallet loaded with sacks of plaster, the whole thing still wrapped in plastic like it had just been delivered. ‘Help you there?’ a gruff, barely understandable voice asked. Scott turned around and saw a short, stocky, balding man standing behind him. He wore a grubby blue polo shirt with the ‘W’ from Walpoles embroidered on the breast pocket.
‘Just looking, thanks.’
‘Not the kind of place folks usually browse, this,’ the man said, and Scott thought he should explain.
‘Just pricing up. I’ve bought a house not far outside town. Got a few alterations planned.’
‘You in the trade?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I was,’ he answered, ‘until I moved up here.’
‘You in the grey house?’
‘Haven’t heard it called that before, but yes, it’s grey. Needs a lick of paint.’
‘On the road into Thussock.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Willy McCunnie’s old place.’
‘Was it?’
‘Aye. Poor old Willy. Terrible, that was…’
Scott paused, uneasy. ‘You sound like you know something I don’t. You gonna tell me a horror story or something? Something bad happen there?’
‘Not that I know of. Lovely guy, Willy.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died.’
‘Oh.’
‘Ninety-two he was.’
‘Oh,’ Scott said again.
‘Cancer.’
‘Right.’
‘So what’re you doing?’
‘What?’
‘To the house. What you plannin’?’
‘Complete overhaul by the time I’m done. The place needs gutting. Heating, wiring… Got some structural stuff to do first. Couple of walls to knock through, that sort of thing. Probably replace the kitchen and bathroom, maybe add a conservatory… like I said, pretty much a complete renovation.’
He nodded thoughtfully. Scott waited for him to say something, and had to wait a little longer than was comfortable. ‘You need to talk to Barry,’ he eventually said.
‘Barry?’
‘Barry Walpole. This is his yard, see. I don’t know what terms he’s doing at the moment. We just shift stuff about for him, he likes to do all the figures and the sellin’ himself.’
‘I’m not looking for any favours.’
‘Good. Barry won’t do you any.’
‘So where is he?’
‘Just gone out in the van to kick a supplier up the arse. Bugger short-changed him.’
‘Not a good move?’
‘Nope. You don’t upset Barry. You should come back later.’
‘Okay. Any idea when he’s due back?’
‘Nope.’
‘Right.’
‘Give it an hour.’
‘Okay. Is there a number I can get him on?’
‘He has a mobile.’
‘Great.’
‘But he leaves it here. Doesn’t like carrying it.’
‘Isn’t that why they’re called mobiles? So you can carry them around?’
‘Like I said, give it an hour.’
Scott turned to leave. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He started back towards the driveway and passed a grubby caravan he’d barely noticed on the way in. It was obviously being used as an office, and equally obviously had been parked in the same spot for some considerable time. There were piles of bricks propping it up at either end, the tyres were flat, and the curved roof had been stained green by fallen leaves and bird muck from the overhanging trees. In the window was a handwritten sign. It simply read ‘Driver wanted’. Scott looked back at the man and pointed at the sign.
‘Talk to Barry,’ he said.
‘Warren says you’re lookin’ for work?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you’ve got experience?’
‘I can drive a truck, if that’s what you mean.’
‘It’s not. You know about the trade?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve had more than fifteen years experience, both working for myself and being employed on plenty of sites. Small scale domestics right up to large corporates. I was a project manager with—’
‘Fair enough. That’ll do.’
Barry Walpole chewed the end of an already well-chewed pen and watched him. Scott could handle himself, but Barry was an imposing character. Six feet tall and probably the same wide, he’d had to turn sideways just to get through the caravan door. The floor had groaned under his weight. The usual fitted furniture had either been stripped out of the van or had worn out, and Barry sat on a threadbare swivel chair behind a desk piled high with unsorted papers. There was a filing cabinet in one corner and a key cabinet screwed to the wall. The door of the key cabinet swung open several times and he slammed it shut as though he was swatting a nuisance fly. He took a swig from a mug of coffee, then put the cup down on a mountain of invoices. The silence was increasingly uncomfortable. Scott felt obliged to try and fill it. ‘So, how long have you been in business here?’ he asked.