Welcome to the Heady Heights

by David F. Ross

  ‘So, m’friends, you’ve seen all of the wunnerful acts tonight. What a fantastic show, dontcha agree?’

  The studio audience did agree and warmed their hands in advance of the studio vote.

  ‘Let’s see just who the audience favourite is, shall we?’

  Heady announced each act in the order that they appeared, accompanied by more dramatic drum rolling. Lonnie Lo Bianco came first, and his audience reaction, measured by the clap-o-meter, was a healthy seventy-six out of a possible one hundred. Healthy, but down on the previous week. The ventriloquist, the singing sisters from Dublin, and the Cossacks dancers all struggled to break the sixty marker. Little Amy hit eighty-one; a record score for the series. All over bar the shouting. Lonnie would be heading back to his truck-driving day job, his dream of a cruise-liner gig or a Butlins summer season shelved for the time being. The High Five would be heading back to the frozen north. To the dole, and lives illuminated only by fags, booze and the odd successful accumulator at Aintree. But then…

  ‘Little Amy, that was a sensational audience response … but y’know, folks … those bright young men, The High Five, well I can’t help but think they are headed for the Heady Heights.’

  Archie acknowledged the fix but didn’t really believe it would happen. Now, he was watching it with his own eyes. The clap-o-meter rocketed up. Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine. It hovered. Time seemed suspended. The dial wavered, and then finally jerked to eighty-three. It was incredible. Archie was overcome with anxiety. The boys were nonchalant. Heady smiled. It was an act. Little Amy was in tears. Behind Archie, her mother raged at a studio-floor attendant. Archie felt faint. He turned. He vomited. Straight into Little Amy’s mum’s plunging cleavage.

  ‘You fucken bastard!’ she yelled at him, before kneeing him in the balls.

  He vomited again. Some blood in it this time, or else a residue of the tomato sauce he’d drowned all the free food in. He slumped to his knees like Otis Redding mid-encore. Heady wandered over. Similarly raging. Archie hadn’t even heard him wrap up the show.

  He grabbed Archie by the collar, pointing down at him like he was a misbehaving dog. ‘Right, you listen to me you fucking cocksucker. One week, one win for these dirty little cunts, and that’s us clear, right? You tell your bosses that the pictures get returned, and that’s the deal done. Non-compliance … an’ anybody close to you is gonna get a fucking visit from some real mean motherfuckers. You understand me, you piece-a scum?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, seemingly satisfied with a nod. He let go and Archie dropped again. There were suddenly no bones inside his skin.

  30

  November 1976

  ‘Whatta fackin’ racket, eh, Eddie?’

  ‘Ach, its aw’right Mike. At least it’s no’ fucken Queen, man.’

  ‘Queen are the bizness, mate!’

  ‘Aye, right! Awa’ an’ try dancin’ tae them then.’

  Eddie Bolton folded the Sun and put it back down on the bar. He despised the right-wing Tory rag, but it was all anybody ever seemed to read down here. He made a point of only reading about the football on the back pages, which was unfortunate, because today a man who was looking for him adorned the front. Eddie drained his pint. Waited until Johnny Rotten had finished yelling and then belligerently slotted coins in the jukebox to put ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on again. Just to annoy Mike the barman.

  ‘Oi, Bolton, you cunt!’ Mike laughed as Eddie prepared to leave The Winchester with two fingers extended.

  Eddie Bolton had grown to despise London during this last eighteen months. Glasgow would’ve killed him, and literally not metaphorically, but there was still a predictability to it that you didn’t get down in the smoke. The riots on the streets when the National Front fought with the anti-Nazis; IRA bombs going off all over the place and now, everyone getting up in arms about some daft weans with spiked hair and padlocks around their necks having a laugh and making some loud music. In the name ae the wee man, why can’t folk just let other folk dae their fucken thing in peace?

  ‘Eddie? Eddie Bolton?’ A middle-aged Frank Worthington lookalike in tight-fitting white trousers approached.

  ‘Who’s askin’?’

  ‘Sorry, pal. Ah’m Archie Blunt. Ah’d hoped Wullie Dunne might’ve been in touch about us.’ Eddie Bolton exhaled. Relieved. His uncle had called. He just hadn’t been specific about the reason.

  ‘This is Jimmy.’ Archie ushered his shifty sidekick forwards. ‘We’re down for The Heady Heights shows. Ah was hopin’ we could aw maybe crash at yours for a few days. The Wigw— … yer uncle Wullie said it would be aw’right.’

  ‘Ah … aye. It’s cool, pal. Anythin’ for my uncle.’

  Hands were offered and shaken. Pints were bought. And quickly drunk. There wasn’t room at Eddie’s place for all of them, but following the call from The Wigwam, Eddie had sorted beds in a hostel closer to the studios for the boys and an increasingly irritated Chib Charnley.

  The three men walked towards Eddie Bolton’s flat near Hammersmith Bridge. As they approached the detached deck-access block where Eddie lived, Archie began to feel a sense of doom. Heady’s veiled threats, shrugged off in the euphoria of the clap-o-meter triumph, had now built steadily in his subconscious. But they were in too deep now.

  Eddie Bolton shared this compact Hammersmith flat with three women. Once assembled in the living room, they were introduced by first name only and not by their relationship to Eddie. Their respective ages didn’t shed further light on this either. Archie assumed that none of the four were related by blood or marriage.

  Aberdonian Martha was to be the one most affected by Eddie accepting two interlopers into their group. She was asked to give up her single room and move in with Ange and Dee-Dee, the other two women. All three were annoyed but Martha continued the protest by making a racket and scowling venomously at the new duo for the best part of two hours. Archie made a mental note not to accept a cup of tea from her. Archie sipped tentatively from the can of Guinness that Eddie handed him. A Dubliners record was playing away on the record player. Archie picked up the Sun with its hysterical screaming ‘Revie Out’ headline and read the story again. The 2–0 defeat to Italy in the Stadio Olimpico capped a horrendous year for Revie. His two-year term as national manager was about to end abruptly, it seemed. When the tabloid press takes against you, you’re totally fucking screwed, the three men agreed.

  ‘Christ on a bike, Archie … is that you?’

  ‘Eh?’ Archie thought Jimmy was asking if he’d farted. He shook his head while sniffing inquisitively.

  ‘On the front … there, on the cover ae the paper.’

  Archie turned it round. It was him. A small picture, and a narrow column, but there nevertheless. A subtle headline, for the Sun: ‘Heady Heights Show Winner Kidnapped by Manager’.

  He read out the first of the three paragraphs: ‘“A sixteen-year-old band member of telly talent show winners The High Five has been abducted by the band’s manager. Archie Blunt (sixty) vanished from the London studios where The Heady Heights is recorded with the child musician believed to be in the boot of his car.”’

  Archie panicked. Was there a chance his dad had seen this? Did they sell a different version up in Scotland? To make matters worse, Archie was beaming a big, dopey, straight-to-camera, get-it-right-up-ye smile. He couldn’t even remember the picture being taken, but it must’ve been recently. Vince Hillcock didn’t hang about; had to give him that. It was a non-story; a fabrication, yet there it was on the front page. He was being sent a coded message.

  ‘Jesus fuck!’

  Jimmy was confused. He understood the basics, but the developing nuances were roaring past him faster than the Red Arrows. ‘Which yin are ye supposed tae have lifted?’ he asked.

  ‘Disnae say,’ said Archie, his voice quavering. ‘Dinnae think that’s really the point ae this though, eh?’

  They had just settled at Eddie Bolton’s place. There had been a warm welcome from the host, a
nd although it would be like climbing Mount Everest in his sannies, Jimmy had initially assessed that a ride off the Martha one wasn’t totally out of the question.

  Archie Blunt was irritated. He dearly wished he could stay here longer, but it now looked like that wouldn’t be possible. Fucken bastart tabloids! Couldn’t even get his age correct. He went out to the hall and made a call to The Wigwam. If the first part of the plan had gone well, Archie could expect to tap into some much-needed financial sustenance. The High Five were now holed up in the hostel with Chib Charnley monitoring them periodically; but keeping six teenage Bridgeton tearaways in pocket money in London was like feeding the electric meter powering Blackpool Illuminations.

  Less than five minutes after Archie had returned, the telephone rang. Eddie Bolton was up, catching it after only two rings. Like he was expecting the call. Archie could hear him faintly:

  ‘Aye. What did ye say yer name was again, pal?’ A pause. ‘Right, hold on an’ ah’ll get him.’ Eddie came into the room. ‘Archie, it’s a lad called Geordie McCartney for ye.’

  Archie was stunned. How did Geordie know they were here?

  ‘Big man. What’s up?’ asked Archie into the phone, nervous of the response.

  ‘Archie, it’s your da!’

  Archie left early the next morning without saying goodbye to anyone. He thought that was best. He went home in much the same condition as he’d arrived only three days earlier; hungry, anxious and skint, and with his possessions inside a plastic Marks and Spencer’s carrier bag. He boarded a train at Euston, finding a free table seat. When no one was looking, he tore up the four ‘reserved’ labels. He sat back and stretched out. He opened the first of a six-pack of Strongbow. It was 6.50 a.m. His dad was in the hospital. He was stable, Geordie had said. A chip-pan fire at the old man’s house. An accident waiting to happen. Archie felt sick to his stomach. If Heady Hendricks had arsonists targeting his dad, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. This was total insanity; it was his fault. He couldn’t be persuaded otherwise. Geordie told him not to worry. That Archie’s dad was in the best place. Cathy, the young carer had been in the flat upstairs. Thank God for Cathy, his dad’s guardian angel. She’d called the police, and they’d alerted the fire brigade. An ambulance followed swiftly. The city’s emergency services all combining like a gang of underpaid superheroes. Archie now needed money more than ever. He’d have to pay for regular care for his father.

  He wiped his moist eyes and tried to focus on other subjects. But everything dragged him back to the mess he’d made of his life. His unfulfilled life. He thought about Bet, as he had been doing regularly of late, and of their last weekend away, in Rothesay. The wind and the whisky; the shouting and the regret. Of how things were never really the same after it. He watched as the landscape became progressively greyer and grimmer, south becoming north. Hours passed. People came and went from his table. People he would never see again, brushing lightly against him. Preoccupied with their own stresses. No one spoke to him, and for this he was grateful. The raindrops intensified and exploded against the north-bound train carriage window. Archie knew there and then that the ludicrous dream of stardom was dead. Vince Hillcock was toying with them now. The Sun report would be just the beginning; a humorous hors d’ouevres to tide Heady Hendricks over until the photos were recovered and they could get to work on Archie and do some real damage. God knows what Vince Hillcock might concoct next, but whatever it was, Archie Blunt was certain he would be blamed for it. It was hard to assess the article’s deeper meaning. ‘A warnin’, nothin’ more,’ Wullie Wigwam had reassured Archie, over the phone. ‘Just them lettin’ us know they know, y’know?’

  Archie’s inebriated thoughts danced with the only two outcomes he could now imagine: the scam didn’t work and they were all arrested, or the scam didn’t work and they all ended up supporting parts of the new M74 flyover. Either way, his dependant dad would be totally alone.

  Someone sat down. Someone familiar. Someone who did speak.

  Hey, boy … when you’re hot, you’re hot!

  ‘Fuck sake, Jim. Put that away!’ Archie glanced over the table. Jim Rockford had slid his brown leather bomber jacket back to let Archie know he was packing.

  Relax, man.

  ‘OK, where did you get it?’

  What?

  ‘The fucken gun, man!’ Archie was angry but tried to contain it to a whisper.

  Oh, that.

  ‘Aye … that! You’re no’ licensed tae carry a gun. No’ over here, anyways.’

  It’s for protection, buddy. Yours, not mine. Wouldn’t be doin’ my job otherwise.

  ‘Just … keep it hidden, man. Or we’re both fucked.’

  Ah promised Rocky … an’ yer pop. Said ah’d look after ya!

  ‘Ah know. Ah’m grateful. Really.’

  Look, what d’ya really know about the Indian?

  ‘Who?’

  The Wigwam? Can ya trust him?

  ‘Ah think so. Don’t really know though. What options dae ah have?’

  A man surged through the carriage with a young, crying child in tow. Looking for a toilet. Archie stopped momentarily. He didn’t want him to hear the detail of their conversation.

  A noisy group got on at Carlisle; a rugby crowd. Middle-class and high-spirited, as opposed to the negative way working-class football fans would be described when displaying the same behaviour. Surrounding him. Further chat with his consigliere would have to wait. But he felt reassured, nonetheless. For better or worse, Archie, Jimmy and even Bobby Souness had to trust The Wigwam’s judgement. The boys would be fine. Fuck, they were having the time of their young lives. Two weeks. Three shows. And then hopefully it’d be over. The fake allure of showbusiness had faded faster than a Hollywood actress with stretch marks. Although it seemed like a slim chance, if he got out of this convoluted mess with his neck intact and a modest amount of cash with which to rehouse his old dad, then he’d have thought himself lucky and recounted the exaggerated tales from bar to street to bookie for the rest of his days.

  He minded Jim Rockford’s principal advice, every time he left the house; to avoid the dangerous city streets, which didn’t leave many. But if he was to succumb to the worst of Heady Hendricks’ menacing warnings, better to cop it back in the city he knew and loved than fade into nothing in a nowhere existence. That cyclical thought sustained the optimistic side of him through the depressing monochrome of Motherwell. Strange how the mind worked in times of stress, he acknowledged.

  Chib Charnley paid another visit to Heady Hendricks’ Hampstead home. This was the first time he’d approached the front door. The previous information had been handed to an assistant at the studios. Chib had tracked the vehicle carrying the star back to this address three times since. It was a hugely impressive artifice. Chib looked up at the four-storey façade, part of an elaborately constructed terrace that looked like it had been built as a film set. He wondered if Heady owned all four floors and the attic space above its Palladian portico, or if he lived in one large front room and sub-let the rest. His mental arithmetic capabilities worked overtime. A substantial wedge could’ve been earned from that venture. Chib rang the front doorbell.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  ‘The man ae the house home, is he?’

  ‘And who shall I say is enquiring?’

  ‘So, he is in then? Good. Just gie him this. We’ll be in touch soon.’ Chib turned and, supported by his cane, edged carefully down the slippery concrete steps. The elderly, besuited manservant took the envelope and closed the door with no indication that the encounter was in any way unusual.

  Four

  The Final Curtain

  31

  December 1976 – Thursday

  Archie went straight to the Royal from the train station. His dad was asleep. He’d suffered smoke inhalation, but the ward sister was sure he’d be fine.

  Archie sat by his bed for a while. It was the middle of three on one side of the ward; there were another
three on the other. All of them were occupied by pensioners. The ward smelled of piss. And dying flowers. Archie had to leave. It could’ve been the same ward his ma had died in. Maybe they all just looked depressingly similar.

  A taxi dropped him off at the end of Tennyson Drive. A worrying thought had occurred to him. Geordie mentioned that some young guys were hanging about the close entry earlier in the week. They had jostled him as he tried to pass. Encounters like that weren’t that unusual in the East End, but something about this one had prompted Geordie to recall it, and now Archie had construed it to be Heady’s henchmen; the thugs who had surely set fire to his dad’s place. But perhaps Archie wasn’t thinking clearly. Perhaps he just needed a decent night’s sleep. He’d contact the attending police officer in the morning. It was too late now.

  He walked slowly along the drive. A black van was parked outside his entry. It could’ve been the TV Detector Squad. Rumour was they were now working nights to drop in on those, like Archie, with no television licence. He waited and watched. Eventually two figures – he assumed them to be men but couldn’t be certain – emerged from the close and got in the van. Archie waited for five minutes after it turned right into Muiryfauld Road before progressing. There was other movement in the street, but it was the activity around his own block that unnerved him. He saw that the light in the flat was on. Geordie would be in. He was panicking for nothing.

  Archie opened his front door. It was unlocked. It was a decent close – doors were regularly left that way to allow the neighbours to replenish sugar or milk or fags in the event of a sudden shortage. Archie was knackered. Too knackered to contemplate any remaining threat lying behind it.