The Man Who Loved Islands

by David F. Ross

  ‘It’s the only island ever tae have won a gold medal at the Olympics,’ says Bobby, rhyming off some of the impressive facts that he has become aware of.

  ‘Whit d’ye mean?’ asks Joseph, unsure if Bobby is talking about a participant having represented the island independently.

  Bobby acknowledges his confused look.

  ‘Naw, ah mean the curlin’ stones. That women’s team fae Britain that won the Olympics in 2002 … their stones were aw fae here.’

  ‘Ah, right,’ says Joseph.

  ‘An’ ah’m only the third owner in six hunner fuckin’ years!’

  ‘Aye?’ This does surprise Joseph.

  ‘Aye. A bunch ae monks fae Ayrshire got their hands on it in the fifteenth century.’

  ‘Whit for?’

  ‘Fuck knows. Pagan sacrifice probably. We’ll probably find the charred bones ae drunken bastards an’ auld hoors just up behind the lighthouse wall,’ says Bobby. ‘See twenty years ago, a bunch ae daft fuckin’ students took a snooker table up tae the top ae it, an’ played some frames…’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘They did, an’ more than that, they did it in their fuckin’ y-fronts.’

  ‘Gie’s peace,’ says Joseph, laughing.

  ‘Fuckin’ tellin’ ye! It’s aw there in the sales documents,’ says Bobby proudly.

  They both look up towards the summit. The sides are so steep that they can’t see it. Even Bobby starts to think that last ‘salient fact’ was simply a prank played on him by the selling agents. ‘Bloody impressive though, eh?’

  ‘Aye,’ Joseph agrees. ‘It is.’

  ‘Gary would’ve loved aw this.’

  ‘Ah know, Bob. This is a great thing yer dain’ for him.’

  Bobby turns away when Joseph says this, and walks off slowly, hands in pockets. Joseph knows to give him some space.

  Joseph wanders through the lighthouse building alone. It was built in 1886 by the father of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. This revelation more than any other had Bobby in raptures, convinced that the island might have been the inspiration for the son’s most famous book – the one that meant so much to Gary and helped sustain him while he was in prison. ‘Aye, we might need tae find some fuckin’ buried treasure once aw the bloody bills start comin’ in,’ Joseph said when Bobby revealed this particular fact. The lighthouse building is in reasonably good condition, Joseph notes. He is pleasantly surprised to find a small helipad on the open ground just beyond it. He makes an asterisked note of this. One of his own fears about the event is someone falling seriously ill or an emergency occurring that requires urgent hospital attention. A working helipad indicates that the lighthouse occupants of the past had the same concern.

  The built structures adjacent haven’t fared as well as the lighthouse. They wear the faded grandeur of an old Hollywood actress: dusty and dishevelled but still trying to appear serene. Wild Atlantic gales have blasted their walls, and their roofs look as if demolition is their only safe option. Joseph wanders further. The four cottages at the foot of the cliff are all uninhabitable. He makes a capitalised note that the joiners who are working on the stage construction will need to have their remit extended to cover a ‘sixty-minute makeover’-type regeneration of these buildings. In one of the cottages, Joseph finds some papers. He quickly leafs through the sheaf, pausing at unusual statements or grainy photographs that jump out. One hundred years ago, nearly thirty people occupied these cottages: granite miners and lighthouse keepers, but also farmers and occasional birdwatchers. He is surprised to learn that, until 1970, there was even a tearoom on the island for day trippers. Granite blasting is now prohibited. The previous owners acceded to environmentalist pressure that it disturbed the seabird population. But enough of the smooth, blue hone granite boulders remain loose to justify the £25,000 lease paid by Kays Curling, the local curling-stone industry specialists. Beyond this, there isn’t much sign that man has ever been here. An old light railway line that led from the quarry to the pier has distintegrated. Large fog signals to protect approaching craft are long since inoperative. And as he strolls on, it becomes apparent why. Hettie once told him that Gary Cassidy imagined there was a different type of life on the west-facing side of this strange, granite knuckle, and he was right. Joseph peers through dense undergrowth and sees evidence of the third-biggest gannet colony in Britain. If they decide to come to the party, the carnage portrayed in Alfred Hitchcock’s film will seem as tame as a couple of swooping budgies by comparison. Problem No. 4 is noted: About forty fucking thousand hungry nicotine-headed gannets the size of flying rabbits dive-bombing the audience for food scraps.

  That’ll certainly make the news, Joseph muses.

  When he returns to the beach, Bobby has pitched their tent and started a fire. Joseph half expects him to have waded out into the Irish Sea and caught fish with a wooden branch whittled into the shape of a spear. In fact, Bobby has simply brought along a portable barbecue, a box of Swan Vestas and a few burgers from McGarritys the butcher. It is almost 8 pm and it is beginning to cool rapidly on the shaded side of the island, where they are. They watch the streetlights slowly emerge along the edge of Ayrshire, ten miles away. It still feels that you could almost reach out and touch the mainland.

  Joseph takes out his iPod and plugs it into a small, circular, metallic speaker. He has made a playlist.

  Bobby calls him a geek. ‘Fifty-odd an’ still a fuckin’ music anorak,’ he says.

  They both laugh, and then sit in contemplative silence, eating charred burgers and drinking from bottles of Budweiser as the Super Furry Animals yearn for life in the Presidential Suite.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  July 2015

  ‘There’s a problem,’ admits the fat councillor.

  Judging by how much this heavy man is sweating, Max Mojo isn’t sure if that problem is personal hygiene-related, or Big Bang-related. He regards the obesity statistic seated next to him on a bench on an elevated banking of land that faces west, allowing a panorama in which the Ailsa Craig is the centrefold. Max tries hard to conceal his utter disdain and contempt for people like Cramond Crockett. Max has concluded – without evidence to support his theory – that Cramond Crockett is a product of a previous era’s Scottish Labour-driven, union-orientated political class, which permitted widescale abuse of everything from personal expenses to commercial junkets to chauffeur-driven taxis ferrying officials home pished from every conceivable event where they’d be (mis)representing their constituents. Such men – and they are almost exclusively men, in Max’s experience – are easy prey for the bribe. The Big Bang needs such a man on the inside of the local Ayrshire Council chambers. The event has stoked a mass of opprobrium and the Council are being placed in a difficult position. Since Ailsa Craig is a privately owned entity, it is difficult to invoke legislation that would prevent an essentially private event taking place there. Max has appeared on television in the last few weeks arguing successfully that The Big Bang differs little from the many times the previous owner held private barbecues on Ailsa Craig’s beaches for his friends. It should matter not, Max has argued, that Bobby just happens to have many more friends, and a more powerful sound system. A Green Party spokesperson, who was invited to appear on the same programme, was shouted down by the youthful audience for suggesting that Max’s associates would be guilty of a form of gannet genocide, and that all involved should be arrested if the gig goes ahead.

  With the gig’s momentum building up, rehearsals going as well as can be expected from such a bunch of temperamental fuck-ups, and the dramatic eyelid stage almost complete, Max has elected to remove the one remaining blockage that he feels might threaten proceedings. Max has paid Cramond Crockett to ensure the gig’s smooth passage through the local Council’s Licensing Board hearing. For Heatwave Promotions to sell food, alcohol and any gig-themed merchandising requires a licence granted by the nearest authority. Cramond Crockett serves on the committee and has apparently secured this licence by spread
ing about some of the £15,000 Max has given him. Unfortunately, in a drunken night out with colleagues, the Councillor has let it slip that the gig is only proceeding because he intervened.

  ‘Ya stupid fat cunt, ye!’ Max screams.

  ‘Keep yer voice, doon, for fuck’s sake,’ says Cramond Crockett. ‘This’ll no’ come tae anythin’.’

  ‘So whit are ye fuckin’ botherin’ me aboot it for, then, ya dick?’

  ‘Ah just felt ye needed to know, ken?’ says Cramond patting Max’s arm in a condescending manner. In fact, Cramond Crockett has concealed the worst of this story. He is actively under investigation and has just been suspended. Not for Max Mojo’s Big Bang licensing bribe – that is as yet undetected – but for a series of similar cases over the course of the last five years. It is only a matter of time, however, before this latest transgression is discovered.

  ‘So whit happens next then? An’ where’s ma fuckin’ money?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Cramond assures Max, in a way that only serves to worry the band’s manager more. ‘None ae this’ll track back tae you, even if somebody makes an issue ae it.’

  ‘Whit d’ye mean “if ”? Look Cramond, ye better be tellin’ me the whole fuckin’ story here, right?’ Max is blazing. ‘’Cos if ah find out yer linin’ us up here tae save yersel’—’

  ‘Calm doon,’ says Cramond, even though it looks to Max like a heart attack is on his immediate horizon, ‘Ah’ve got it covered. Like ah says, ah just thought ye should be aware … in case some daft Daily Record reporter starts sniffin’ aboot.’

  Max Mojo leaves the sweating Councillor sitting on the bench. But only after he has unleashed such a voluble tirade of profanity that it prompts a woman in a house more then fifty yards away to emerge into her garden from her kitchen and yell an ignored protest.

  Max catches a taxi back to the Manse in Crosshouse. The twenty minutes it takes to get there dissipates his anger sufficiently for him to be able to conceal it. But when he opens the door to the church hall where The Miraculous Vespas are practising, he receives another surprise. Eddie Sylvester is there, dressed in an emerald-green track suit and strumming a guitar as if he has never put it down.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ laughs Max. ‘Whit’ve you come as … the Jolly Green Giant? It’s no’ a fancy dress gig, ya diddy!’

  ‘Leave it, Max,’ says Simon. ‘He’s here, aw’right, can we just leave it at that?’

  ‘Aye, aw’right, keep yer fuckin’ wig oan … Christ sake, ah huvnae even seen the cunt in nearly ten … naw, fuck … twenty years. Ye can imagine the shock, eh?’

  Eddie Sylvester moves to his brother’s side and whispers in his ear.

  ‘He says he disnae want anybody swearin’ around him, or else he’s no’ doin’ the gig.’

  Eddie leans in and whispers again.

  ‘An’ he also says that we’ve aw tae pray on stage before the gig.’

  Max sniggers. ‘Anythin’ else for Pastor Jack Glass, eh?’ says Max. ‘Some Holy Ribena oan the rider? They wee communion wafer biscuits that the Catholics eat? A few fuckin’ loafs an’ fishes?’

  Eddie leans in for a third time.

  ‘As well as the fee, he wants his church roof in Prestwick fixed for free,’ says Simon.

  ‘Aye? Whit a fuckin’ surprise, eh? In it for the money … just like every other cunt then!’

  ‘Fuckin’ shut it, Max,’ Grant Delgado stands up to face off with Max. ‘Just fuckin’ leave him, right. Who cares why he’s dain’ it … why any of us are dain’ it!’

  ‘Aw, the big man finally speaks,’ says Max.

  Maggie instinctively moves closer to Grant, in order to try and hold him back if necessary. But Max backs away. He turns and heads for the house, to find his fellow Heatwave directors and to go through outstanding actions.

  As he leaves, he shouts, ‘An’ get fuckin’ practisin’ … ye’se sound like fuckin’ Coldplay!’

  But they don’t. Amazingly, given the time they have all, apart from Simon Sylvester, spent away from their instruments, they sound great. Grant’s awkwardness instantly diminished as Simon Sylvester hugged him warmly on meeting. And although Eddie occupies a different state of mind, he too seemed happy to see the others when he joined them, viewing them as potential converts rather than old colleagues, no doubt, but still, he appears content to be once again in their company. The rehearsals were going on for a fortnight before the guitarist appeared. But he is a natural musician and picked up the old songs instinctively, despite the lengthy passage of time since he or anyone played them. Max’s old faithful portable record player is again back in the church hall, as it was during their first incarnation, and the band’s initial nerves have given way to a renewed confidence as they reacquaint themselves with the vibes and the rhythms of their troubled debut album.

  Grant Delgado has been momentarily rocked, though, by Max’s confirmation that Joe McAlinden and Teenage Fanclub will be their support acts. Teenage Fanclub are a Scottish institution, a band with an incredible back catalogue of songs. It will be difficult to find someone that doesn’t like them. And Joe McAlinden has just released a wondrous new record under the band name Linden. Both are very accomplished acts with their own substantial, core support, so Grant was initially surprised that they have agreed to appear on the undercard, so to speak, particularly as Max Mojo tried to sign both of them in the early 90s, in a vain attempt to refloat Biscuit Tin Records. The Bellshill band were, however, impressed both by Max’s bravado and his personality, and why they went with Alan McGee at Creation, neither manager nor the individual musicians can now recall.

  The Big Bang setlist is emerging: the full content of their debut LP, naturally, sustained by some of the band’s favourite cover versions, and then three original songs written by Grant that didn’t make the initial album cut. The set runs to just over an hour, and fifty minutes has been allocated to both support bands. Heatwave Disco will provide the music before, between and after the bands, and with no curfew, beyond that which the gannets and the gulls might dictate, plans are being made to ensure enough records are present, unlike on the Disco’s first ever outing for Lizzie King’s eighteenth birthday party.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  August 2015

  Max Mojo has secured countless promotional initiatives. On behalf of a formerly dormant company, he has banked lucrative advances from Apple, Sony, McDonalds, and Canal+ from France for the rights to capture the gig for a future feature film.

  Heatwave Promotions Ltd, on the other hand, is accumulating increasing monthly losses. The company has taken on personal loans from Bobby Cassidy, one of its three directors, to cover the accelerating expenditure that the venture is now racking up. Joseph has mulled this over recently with Bobby, but they both accept that, although unconventional, Max appears to know what he is doing, and since they didn’t actually set out to make money from the gig, achieving the most unlikely event anyone has ever contemplated has a heroic, even intoxicating, sense of folly about it.

  Nevertheless, the fame that is now knocking daily on the big, wooden Manse doors is blinding them to a number of obvious concerns, ones which should seriously worry them, were they able to examine them more closely. First among these is the fact, unknown to his collaborators, that Max Mojo has set up the new promotions company with three designated directors, of which Max himself isn’t one. Equally unknown is that Hamish May is. Max’s long-term accountant has been controlling this process: establishing and registering the limited liability company and setting up the shareholders’ rules of agreement to permit Max – a named non-executive director, and one-time bankrupt – access to the expenditure via the signature of one of the named shareholders: most conveniently, the oblivious Hammy.

  Just like his hero, Malcolm McLaren, Max has accepted a verbal financial offer from Richard Branson at Virgin Records just as he is putting pen to paper on a better one that assigns future The Miraculous Vespas releases to the more appropriate Island Records. But this contract, lik
e the other ones that deal with the incoming funds, is filtered through Biscuit Tin Ltd, a company with paper ownership largely assigned to Molly Wishart, Max’s old and infirm mother. By the time the legal consequences of all of these complex deals and agreements are sorted out, Max plans to be long gone.

  Bobby, Joseph, and the rest, know nothing of these important details, but Max has impressed everyone involved with The Big Bang. Even Grant Delgado now holds a grudging admiration for his ability to keep this runaway rollercoaster on track.