The Last Days of Disco (16 page)

Harry stood up abruptly. ‘Don’t you talk about ma wife.
Ma
wife, ye hear it? No yours … mine!’

Don also stood up, closing the manila file as he did so.

‘
Forgiven
? Whit you did left Ethel too fuckin’ ashamed tae look her sister in the face.’

‘Harry …’

‘Don’t fuckin’
Harry
me, you!’ Harry’s voice was getting louder. Don’s hands were faced down in a patting, calming motion. It wasn’t working, though.

‘Ye fuckin’ took advantage when me and her were at the lowest ebb. She’d just lost the wean, an’ you were goin’ wi’ her fuckin’ sister! Jesus Christ, how dae ye think ah’m gonnae react even after aw this time? Ah’m fuckin’ staggered Mary took ye back ya cunt …’

‘Right, Harry that’s en–’

‘… ye destroyed our lives, an’ yer ain wife’s. Although she should fuckin’ ken how it feels at least, since
she
did it tae yer first yin …’

‘Too far, Harry … yer goin’ too …’

‘It took us the best part ae a year tae get back on track. Tae when
he
was born … an’ even then, things have never been the same. Ethel will never get ower it, she’s a fuckin’ nervous wreck … an’ ye fuckin’ ruined any chance ae her an’ Mary ever speakin’ again.
Forgiven
, ya bastart. Ethel cannae forgive
herself
.’ The rage in Harry’s voice was matched by the reddening of his face. He had waited a long time for all of this to come out and even though he could sense that he
would
actually go too far, he still wasn’t fully aware of what that boundary constituted.

‘Ah kent that Mary couldnae have weans, in fact, ah probably kent that before you did.’ Harry’s voice was calmer now. He’d struck a blow. It was a low one, but he’d definitely scored a hit. He walked over to the door. ‘Look, you dae whit ye have tae dae wi’ Bobby. If he’s done somethin’ wrong, then he deserves tae get punished. If he husnae, then let him off, but don’t bring him intae any situation wi’
you an’ me.’

Harry paused at the door with his back to Don. His hand was on the door handle.

‘Ye ken this … ah still cannae speak tae him … tae Gary, even though he’s a better man than me. Ah cannae find the words or the way tae tell him that … an’ for that more than anything else, ah fuckin’ hate you McAllister.’ Harry opened the door and walked through it, closing it gently behind him.

Don stared at the door for a few minutes and then stood up slowly and walked over to the window. He watched Harry cross the road and walk up John Finnie Street. Don watched him walk the whole length. Harry never looked back. Don loosened his tie, poured himself a large Scotch and sat down at his desk. He lifted the phone receiver and dialled five numbers.

‘Mary, hen? It’s me …’

11

OH BONDAGE: UP YOURS!

With Hamish May still in hospital, and the threat of some Fat Franny-funded violence now lurking in the shadows of every gig, Bobby figured Heatwave required a new level of security. The last few functions had gone off very quietly – and successfully – but this was due to Joey’s inspired idea of self-promoted, ‘secret’, one-off nights at the Killie Club. The Club was located in the spaces under the terracing at Rugby Park, home of Kilmarnock Football Club, and was promoted by the music-loving manager, whose cut was an acceptable twenty percent. With the nights advertised locally at forty-eight hours’ notice and populated by mates of the DJs and local Mod band The Vespas, there was little chance of trouble. But The Vespas had asked Heatwave to support them at a gig on the fifth of June. It was going to be held at the large Henderson Church Hall in the town centre and, with tickets circulating widely, Bobby was growing increasingly anxious about his own level of personal protection.

‘Whit about havin’ a word wi’ Malky MacKay? See if he’d dae it?’ suggested Bobby.

‘Aye. That’s no a bad call, mate,’ replied Joey. ‘He’s no a bad lad, once ye get tae know him a bit more.’

‘Right. Let me ken later how ye get on, eh?’

‘Whit? Awa’ an’ fuck yersel’.’ Joey nearly choked on his Cabana bar. ‘Ah’m no fuckin’ askin’ him. He’s mental!’

‘Ye just said he was a good lad! And ye ken ‘im better than me.’ Bobby’s palms were outstretched. Joey intuitively knew what was coming. ‘C’mon, get in there.’

It was true that Joey knew Malky more than Bobby, but the basis of this knowledge was now almost three years old. In the early part of his fourth year, Joey had been going through a phase of picking up regular detention punishments at school. These were mostly for ridiculous things, like passing notes in class, or laughing out loud at an old female teacher’s ridiculous attempts to administer the belt to a boy almost two feet taller than her and her ultimately having to stand on a box to do it. During this period Joey had even copped a detention slot for ‘repeatedly sneezing’. He wouldn’t have needed Perry Mason to get him off on that one, had he attempted to make an issue of it, but the truth was, Joey actually enjoyed detention. It was marshalled by a groovy English-teaching hippy who evidently considered the short straw of detention duty to be as much a punishment for him as for the detainees. Given that it was generally the same miscreants populating the detention chamber night after night, something of a shared group mentality kicked in and they all passed the time talking about football or, more significantly, music. The hippy brought in a Dansette record player and forced his captive audience to listen to stuff like ‘Bug-Eyed Beans from Venus’, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ or ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’. Joey emerged from this phase with a love for the first, a respect for the second but nothing other than outright, lasting contempt for Genesis.

Back then, detention for Joey began to feel more like an after-school record club and, although the class was populated by the misbehaved, the boisterous or, on occasion, the downright violent, short-term friendships inevitably prospered. One of these unlikely
pairings was between Joey and Malky Mackay. As early as second year, it was accepted wisdom that Malky was the best fighter in the school. How this had happened was unclear. As far as Joey was aware, there had been no qualifying bouts before a shot at the title. No mandatory defences against leading contenders of the day. Malky was just assumed to be the heavyweight champion. That he’d achieved this while still only fourteen didn’t say much for the youths in the upper school, but it did give him an undeniable air of invincibility. If, indeed, heavy was the head that wore the crown, Malky certainly didn’t show it.

Their main connection was through Subbuteo. Malky invited Joey back to his house to see his set-up. Poorer kids were obsessed by the game. Slightly better-off ones had moved onto Scalextric. Malky had amassed an impressive collection of accessories, from the dugouts and touchline fencing to the much-envied stadium, complete with politely seated supporters. It looked great, and when he switched on the battery-operated floodlights, Joey was suitably awed and initially a little envious. Impressive though the stadium was, Malky only had one battery-operated pylon and the empty seats outnumbered the static punters by around twenty to one.

Joey only had the basic components. He did, however, have some glamorous teams. He had River Plate from Argentina, Cagliari from Italy and the Brazilian national team. Malky, on the other hand had only ever needed two: Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Rangers in away strip. His house was a temple to all things bluenose. A smiling portrait of the Queen greeted everyone upon entry. Framed pictures of famous goals lined the route upstairs to the bedrooms. Posters of the team and individual players fought with pennants for space on Malky’s bedroom walls. A Rangers alarm clock, bedspread and lightshade kept up the theme. Curtains, carpet and a dressing gown completed the ensemble. Although he’d apparently taken enough of a liking to Joey to invite him back, there was an undeniable tension when Malky wasn’t happy. To Joey’s relief, their game was going well. Naturally, he was Rangers reserves, and he was getting hammered. It
was a price worth paying. When Malky’s mother shouted up the stairs that his dinner was ready and that Joey needed to go home, he stood up abruptly, tripped over the black elastic strips of his home-made bondage trousers and collapsed onto the field like some stumbling, drunken Gulliver, crushing half of the Rangers first team, and destroying the mini-terracing, sending the shocked and motionless fans flying across the room. Joey was a punk-like tsunami.

‘Ya fuckin’ stupid cunt! Look at the state of Davie Cooper! You’re fuckin’ gettin it!’

And that was just Mrs Malky.

‘Twenty quid,’ said Malky, in what was fast becoming the standard rate for any service. He glugged from the large Alpine bottle of American Cream Soda.

‘Aye. OK, although it’s Boab that’ll pay ye.’ Joey was grateful that Malky hadn’t borne any grudges from the day the tiny Cooper had been forced into early retirement. They parted, agreeing for Malky to meet them at the church hall the following night.

There were four in The Vespas band, including two brothers playing guitar and drums. Bobby didn’t know the names of the brothers or that of the stand-stock-still bass player, but he was reasonably friendly with their singer, Dale Wishart, whom he’d known since primary school. The Vespas’ repertoire was limited and their need for some form of support act for their gigs was obvious. Early in April, Heatwave Disco became that support, topping and tailing the live music with a vinyl mix of Mod standards, Stax and Motown classics. Songs from the new Mod revivalists such as The Chords, Secret Affair, The Lambrettas, The Vapors, The Knack and Nine Below Zero made up the general playlist.

When the emerging 2-Tone label artists and the slightly less definable Dexy’s Midnight Runners were added to the playlist, it was a pretty impressive line-up. There was a real sense of belonging within this group of kids who followed the band. Concerts by favoured bands were generally few and far between, and almost always restricted to the bigger cities. Watching a Mod tribute band comprised of people they knew and liked, and in a small venue, from which they could stumble home drunk, was a pretty good stop-gap. Heatwave had now completed five such gigs with The Vespas and they had all been pretty great.

Bobby liked Dale and, despite his often-ludicrous on-stage behaviour, Joey also couldn’t find it within himself to avoid speaking to him on the rare occasions when their paths crossed. Dale’s more outlandish persona had emerged when the band secured an unlikely late-night radio session in January on Ayrshire’s independent radio station, West Sound. The grapevine promoted the theory that the band had only got the spot because Dale’s dad had threatened Mac Barber – a club DJ from Ayr who had landed a nighttime slot on the station. This seemed highly plausible, as the Wisharts were fairly regular visitors to Kilmarnock’s police station and sheriff court. Assaults, money-lending and drug-dealing were among the most frequent topics of conversation when the family dropped in to Don McAllister’s office for tea and a chat.

The Vespas had built a small but loyal local following by doing the pub gigs around Ayrshire, but the radio session had been a disaster. During the pre-recording of their first original song, the bizarrely named ‘The Legomen Are Here’, Dale – in full-on performance mode at this point – unhooked a microphone and swung it in an arc, knocking out the front teeth of Steven ‘Stera’ Dent, his band’s bass player. A major studio mêlée ensured that the session remained unrecorded and therefore unbroadcast. It had also given birth to the strained relations within the band and led to an inevitable parting of ways.

Following the first night at the Killie Club in May, Dale phoned Bobby. It was very much out of the blue. His call was to ask if Heatwave would do the DJ sets for some gigs leading up to a farewell show at the Henderson Church. The event was to support a local charity close to Jimmy Wishart’s heart. Jimmy was the singer’s father and it was clear from Dale that this wasn’t a request to be answered negatively. In the spirit of charitable endeavour, Heatwave would also be doing this
pro bono
. Things had been going well with bookings for the disco lately, and, with the target of travelling to Spain with the rest of the Tartan Army for that summer’s World Cup campaign now almost within their financial grasp, Bobby decided to let this one go for free. However, he ducked out at the last minute, opting to spend the evening with Lizzie and leaving Joey in sole charge.

‘A’right Malky?’ Joey tried not to smile as he saw Malky standing at the main door waiting for Jimmy’s van. The former undisputed champion of the James Hamilton Academy was wearing a suit – his dad’s perhaps, judging by the cut – and a tie. The tie was a James Hamilton Academy one.
Thank fuck he didnae wear his old school blazer
, thought Joey.

‘Got the twenty there?’ Malky had always been a man of few words. Joey took the two notes from his pocket and handed them over. Malky examined them as if they were forgeries before eventually putting them in his inside jacket pocket. Joey didn’t even
ask him for assistance with the gear, knowing it would cost more if he did, and since Jimmy no longer even came into the venues, Joey resigned himself to a long night of heavy lifting for no reward.