Ikey pulled up the site van between the Struie Pumping Chamber excavation and the Resident Engineer’s hut. Less deep than the two A9 chambers Trots and Jinky were shoring up the sides with trench sheets, propping the sheets with metal frames top and bottom. He peered down at the tops of their heads. Holding a metre long spanner between them they cranked the frames into position and tightened the box into shape.
‘Cigarettes, sweets, newspapers wanted, sirs?’
‘Don’t give us that ‘‘sir’’ stuff,’ Trots said. ‘You’re a working man, not just an ugly wee monkey. Show some dignity.’
‘Dignity, sir? Not me, sir. Want anything from Brora? I’m going there after I wash the RE’s floor.’
Jinky unbuttoned the top of his boiler suit and rolled it down. From the back pocket of his jeans he took a small leather purse and from that some change. The change he rolled in a handkerchief and tossed up to Ikey.
‘Fag papers.’
‘That all, sir?’
Silence.
Ikey took a brush and shovel from the back of the van and poked his head round the door of the RE’s hut. Allan was seated at his desk, the phone pressed to his ear like a gun. His eyes were distant with concentration and anxiety.
‘Sir?’
No response. Ikey entered and began to brush.
‘Mac went this morning,’ Allan said to the phone, ‘after Health and Safety left. That’s right, down the road. Kelly broke every safety rule in the book but he’s paid the price. It looks like Mac will be held culpable as well.’
Silence.
‘… and a broken hip from the fall. Yes, expensive errors.’
Silence.
‘No Vernon, it won’t. What’s GR saying; furious?’
Ikey brushed out the four corners of the hut and dropped to his knees to reach under Allan’s desk. He gathered the dust and dried mud to the centre of the floor and scooped it onto the shovel, took it to the door and dropped it to the ground outside.
‘Watch that!’
Trots wasn’t as angry as he sounded. Leaning against the site van he was taking tea from a flask, eating a roll. Jinky was rummaging in his bag, eventually finding his flask.
Ikey took a bucket from the back of the van and filled it from the urn of hot water he had topped up at the compound and dropped in a wet cloth. A second cloth he draped over his shoulder. Again he knocked the door and poked his head round.
Allan was still behind his desk, listening. His head was down and his free hand stroking the top of the desk was trembling.
Ikey squirted washing-up liquid into the bucket and again went down on hands and knees. He took the cloth at the bottom of the bucket in both hands and leaned back and forward, persuading the mix to foam. Starting from the two corners behind Allan he dipped and scrubbed with the cloth, pulled the remaining grit towards himself and made sure it was all lifted in the cloth and then floated off and left in the bucket. He worked in circles, making them larger as he leaned back and forth, moving along, joining them to cover the whole floor within his reach.
‘James sent Mac to the Black Isle job, what’s left of it. That’s right, a non-job, a temporary arrangement. Mac himself reckons he’ll be sacked. Meanwhile James has stationed himself here in the Agent’s hut. Yes, Trevor is acting Site Agent and they are going to manage the site themselves until something gets sorted out. New people on the way.’
Silence.
‘Yes, James still has to be away a lot.’
By the time Ikey reached the centre of the floor the water in his bucket had turned a flat murky grey. He went outside and poured it onto the river bank, rinsed his cloth and refilled from the urn. Jinky was straddling the trench sheets and reaching with his foot for the top rung of the downside ladder.
Back in the hut and once again on his knees Ikey listened to the RE with one ear, only half wanting to know. He began at the remaining two corners, leaning on the cloth and drawing it back and forth. From the corner of one eye he watched Allan flicking through the Contract Document as he spoke.
Silence.
‘The two cofferdams are ready now,’ Allan said to the phone. ‘The tunnellers arrive the day after tomorrow. Yes, traffic plans have gone past Roads and Police.’
Silence.
‘No full time General Foreman for the present. Any sign of Harry coming back from Newtonmore?’
However Vernon Street replied Allan paled at it. ‘The cables?’ he asked. ‘They’re going to support them. That’s all they’ve said. They’re leaving it to the tunnellers. There’s no more detail.’
Silence.
‘To a fine art, Vernon. Yes, as we say.’
Silence.
‘Okay, I’ll find out.’
Ikey finished washing the floor as Allan hung up. He took the bucket of dirty water to the door and looked at the RE. Allan looked past him blankly, stunned.
‘Couldn’t speak while you were on the phone, sir. Mr Williamson says he has the line pegs re-est … re-estab …’
‘Re-established.’
‘On the line of the pipe, sir. On the hill, sir. Can you check it, sir.’
‘Check it?’
‘At least take a look, sir.’
Allan looked through the eyes of a frightened child and nodded slowly.
‘Anything from Brora, sir? I’m going there now.’
The Resident Engineer did not reply. Lost within himself, he looked like one who would rather be anywhere but here, who wished that the time was any time but now. Slowly his head descended into his hands.
Trots was still topside when Ikey came out. He took the bucket from him and cast its contents down the river bank.
‘Get them to give to give you a mop,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be on your knees for any man.’
‘Wasn’t, Mr Trots, except to scrub the floor.’
On the drive south he reflected on how things could be worse. He could move around in his head better than most, if not so well in his body. Like Raskolnikov in Saint Petersburg, like Mr Crawford in his contract and John Kelly in hospital, or for that matter like Trots in his beliefs, he could be a slave to the decisions of others and his own nature and trapped.