This had all been achieved by the collaboration with Don McAllister and Fat Franny’s part in Operation Double Nougat. The Ayrshire part of the operation sought to lure the fearsome Malachy McLarty and his crime family from Glasgow into a complex trap whereby they would have assumed control of various criminal business interests in order to push hard drugs and other stolen goods in the communities from a network of mobile sources. Increased surveillance and increased fear in Glasgow’s East End had seen the operation stall of late but, as the year drew to a close, it seemed that things were heating up again in and around Kilmarnock. The on-off miners’ disputes were beginning to cut deep. Initial resolve from many of the peripheral Ayrshire communities had turned to struggle and then desperation around the festive season. Operation Double Nougat’s leaders were predicting a ramping up of activity in the first few months of 1984. In Glasgow’s East End, hope and despair had long been the catalysts for dependency and addiction, and the violent exploitation with which it goes hand in hand. Don McAllister’s squad were as prepared as they thought they could be.
This had all changed Fat Franny Duncan’s fortunes, though. He now envisaged – as Don McAllister said he would – a legitimate business rising out of the ashes of the ice-cream van wars. He was grateful. He hadn’t been a decent man. He had instructed so many things he wasn’t proud of. So many crimes committed and so many people hurt. He had spent many dark nights of the soul during the last six months. He had resolve but was determined to apply it differently. While Fat Franny Duncan couldn’t claim it was a wonderful life, he was very thankful for this second chance.
Fat Franny imagined himself controlling a portfolio of shops when the vermicelli eventually settled. He was going to name the business Blockbusters after his mum’s new favourite TV show. Although increasingly frail and house-bound, Rose Duncan’s mental condition seemed to have stabilised in the previous few months. Fat Franny knew that she’d never fully recover, but having her able to converse with him periodically and remember things that had happened just days before as opposed to when she was only five, made him blissfully happy. She’d even started saying ‘Can I have a “P” please, Bob?’ on the occasions when she needed Fat Franny to help her go to the toilet. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw the Christmas present he’d bought her. It was an electric chair that would be fitted to a rail going up the stairs. It would allow her to recover some independence in getting back up to her bedroom without Fat Franny having to carry her.
He put away his paperwork and smiled. Takings were up on the previous weeks. It was a steady climb in profitability, and he didn’t even need to leave the house. He’d handed over full control of his previous business lists, debts and connections to Terry Connolly. That’s all it had taken. Why hadn’t he done this years ago? He smiled at the thought.
‘Ma? Are ye ready for yer soup?’ It was just about time for a special Christmas edition of Blockbusters. ‘Can I have a “P & Ham” please Bob?’ she had said earlier.
Fat Franny went through to the living room where the theme tune was already playing. Rose Duncan looked like she was asleep, her head simply resting over to one side. But Fat Franny knew. He placed the tray with her soup bowl and plate of bread, buttered and with the crusts removed, down on her small folding table. He lifted her glasses off her face and dabbed the saliva that was dribbling out of the side of her mouth with his sleeve. He leaned over and gently kissed her cheek before wiping away his own tears that had fallen there.
‘You jist have a wee sleep, Mam. Ah’ll record Bob an’ we can watch him later, eh?’
Fat Franny Duncan went back through to the kitchen and telephoned for an ambulance.
05: EVERYBODY’S ON TOP OF THE POPS…
Is yer tape recorder still oan, hen? Aye. Right, this next bit goes pretty fuckin’ fast, so strap yersel in! Any bits a cannae properly mind ae, ah’ll jist make up, aw’right?
Sorry Norma … but that’s the best ah can dae. Ah wis wallopin’ that much fuckin’ Charlie, ma visage looked like that French mimin’ cunt wi’ the permanently white face, ken?’
It aw started great. Everybody loved everybody else. It wis like that fuckin’ Coca-Cola advert. Perfect fuckin’ harmony, ken? The Smiths brought oot ‘Charming Man’ and we aw freaked oot when it got oan Top ae the Pops. Ah remember sayin’ tae them, that’ll be us soon. That prick Simon says ‘Whit dae ye mean “us”?’ aw fuckin’ gallus an’ that … but ah let that yin pass. Briefly thought ae swappin’ the cunt for him ootae The Fall … ken the yin that Mark E. Smith had jist punted? Cannae mind ae his name noo.
But the fucker got me a Cabbage Patch wean for Christmas an’ ah forgave the cunt. They were as rare as fuck back then. Ah’m certain the bam nicked it oot fae under some poor wee bastart’s tree, but still … it wis the thought that counted, eh?
38
Following a spate of loud and prolonged arguments in the wake of the Campervan revelation, Grant Delgado decided to move out of his mother’s house. The publishing advance paid to him offline by Clifford X. Raymonde made up the bulk of the £16,000 purchase price for a first-floor flat in Barbadoes Road. Its tropical-sounding name hid the irony of a street regularly flooded by the bursting of the adjacent Kilmarnock Water banks. While this had left the ground-floor properties vulnerable, the first-floor ones had always escaped. Grant took advantage of the low cost of the area and, in the first week of 1984, said goodbye to the terraced house in Onthank in which he had grown up. In the months between his decision to leave home and his actual departure, relationships between him and Senga had improved. He came across as laid back, but he was a headstrong and determined young man, and while he had been less than careful with Fat Franny’s money, the threat of serious retribution from the Fatman had disintegrated along with his reputation and his reach. Senga could see that the band was more than just a means of fannying about and that Grant had a real musical talent. Another early source of conflict had been his decision to avoid college but she now understood his reasons for that. It had helped Senga come to terms with him moving out to know that Maggie wouldn’t be automatically moving in. Senga had been a little surprised at that but the relationship Grant had with his girlfriend was often as strange and undivinable as her.
Senga too had made some big decisions, pre-Christmas. With Grant getting on with his life, she had decided to take a burgeoning but tentative relationship with a widower from Saltcoats to a new level. They had met at a classical music club in the Dick Institute. His name was Peter and he was a retired lawyer, some ten years older than her. He’d seemed very keen and initially she’d been a bit overwhelmed by his attention and interest. Peter spoke to Senga in ways for which she had no frame of reference. Her reluctance to let him get closer was solely based on the fear that her background was too incompatible with his and that she would ultimately embarrass herself. But Peter genuinely didn’t seem to care about that. He found her great fun. He loved that she spoke her mind and that whatever was inside her just came out unfiltered by any sense of false decorum. It took a while for Senga to be relaxed with this, but now here she was, herself contemplating a move away from Onthank. On Christmas Day, Peter had asked her and her teenage kids to move to Saltcoats. He had a big detached house that he now rattled around in on his own. It had a large tree-lined garden and beyond its fence line, a panoramic view of Arran. Sophie and Andrew had been a bit hesitant at first, fearing losing contact with their friends, but when they saw the size of what would be their new bedrooms, their inhibitions fell away one by one.
Everyone was moving on, and getting on. Past lives and past memories were gradually being stored away in locked compartments. With Grant gone, nothing now kept Senga Dale tied to Onthank.
12th January 1984
A play of ‘The First Picture’ acetate on Radio Clyde’s New Music programme was the Holy Grail for The Miraculous Vespas. The programme went out late on Thursdays; so late in fact that it was actually Friday. The programme began at midnight and ran
to two am. It was part of a wildly eclectic week, which featured folk, country & western and jazz music on different nights, interspersed with Dr Dick’s Midnight Surgery and the charismatic Dr Superbad’s Soul Show on the Saturday night. Tom Russell’s rock show, featuring metal bands such as Anthrax and AC/DC, made up the vibrant scheduling mix. But Billy Sloan was Max Mojo’s only target. The DJ had built a reputation for promoting new, edgier music as far back as his ‘Disco Kid’ column in the Sunday Mail, covering the rise of uniquely Scottish bands such as The Associates and Big Country.
Max knew an endorsement from someone like Billy Sloan would make it much easier to get the eventual record distributed, especially if feedback from his listeners was positive. The programmes were rigidly ‘themed’, but it was Grant who had noticed that the DJ had been gradually introducing a section in the middle known as ‘Ones To Watch’. Max had made another C90 with the two songs recorded by Clifford X. Raymonde. Grant had then used it to make another four. The original first-generation tape got lost because neither of them had labelled it. They scooped up the five and stuck them in a brown envelope.
‘So whit’s the plan?’ asked Grant.
‘We head up tae the fuckin’ grid th’night. Sloan does this DJ gig thing at Night Moves. We’ll see the cunt there, an’ he’ll take the tape,’ said Max.
‘Ye seem awfa sure ae that, Max.’
‘Me an’ Billy Sloan? We’re like that, man. Ah bought the bastart a fuckin’ steak. He owes me!’
They caught the bus up to Glasgow. They went to the Horseshoe Bar for a few pints beforehand and then headed up Renfield Street’s slope into the angular driving rain. When they turned the corner into Sauchiehall Street, Grant’s hopes dipped. A large queue had formed. It wasn’t a night to be outside, though he had at least worn a long coat. Max’s bomber jacket was absorbing the water like a sponge, and his hair – a sculpted concoction held in place by a combination of orange juice and sugar – was turning into a sweet paste.
‘Max, let’s fuckin’ go, man! This is pish,’ said a miserable Grant. ‘It’s fuckin’ freezin’.’
‘Yer a moanin’-faced cunt, you! Where’s yer fuckin’ commitment tae the cause?’ Max had spotted interesting activity further up the street. ‘C’mon ya walloper,’ he said, dragging a sullen Grant Delgado towards the side of a Chinese restaurant.
‘Gonnae let us gie ye a hand up the stairs, mate?’ Max picked up a guitar case.
‘Fuck off,’ said a heavy-set roadie.
‘Ah’ll bum ye a twenty?’ said Max Mojo hopefully.
‘Gie’s peace, ya prick!’ said the roadie.
‘Look pal, we’ve got a band…’
‘Big wow … Who fuckin’ disnae?’
‘We jist need a break, man, fuck sake,’ Max pleaded. ‘Ah’ve got a tape ah’m try in’ tae get tae Billy Sloan … so the cunt’ll play it oan his radio show.’ Max looked distraught. Grant couldn’t be certain he wasn’t actually crying.
‘Fuck sake, son,’ said the roadie. ‘If it means that much tae ye … make it forty, an’ then grab a drum case each, an’ up ye go.’
‘Jesus Christ, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask!’ Max handed over the cash.
‘Anybody stops ye, tell them yer wi’ Kenny,’ said Kenny, the roadie.
Max and Grant climbed the precarious, wet, metal fire escape stair carefully. Underneath it, and outside in the narrow passageway, chickens were being beheaded by machete-wielding kitchen staff. Once inside the club, they put the drums down near the stage. No one stopped them. No one asked who they were with. They spotted Billy Sloan over at the DJ booth.
‘Look,’ said Max. ‘There’s the cunt there!’ Billy Sloan was talking to three other people. Max burst through them and addressed the DJ directly.
‘‘Member me, Billy?’ said Max, smiling broadly. Billy looked around for a bouncer. His colleagues instinctively took a step backward.
‘Aye. Sure, pal. Sure ah dae,’ he said, although he looked like he didn’t.
‘Ah’d just had ma shoes nicked. Ah bought ye yer dinner … aboot six months ago. Yours wis cooked, mine’s wis still fuckin’ breathin’. Ah spewed ma bastart ring that night, by the way.’ Max reached into his pocket. All four strangers took another step back. ‘Hey, nae sweat,’ said Max. ‘It’s a fuckin’ demo tape, no’ a blade, man.’
They all looked relieved. A sodden Grant looked a bit embarrassed.
‘Whit ye called, then?’ said Billy Sloan.
Max told him.
Billy Sloan was accustomed to any manner of gallus corner boys sticking cassettes in his hands or his pockets, but the vast majority were rubbish. Nothing about these two dripping-wet chancers hinted at a different outcome. But like everyone in the music industry, the DJ was driven by the chance discovery of the next big thing. So he took the tape, promising to listen to it, but nothing further.
Max Mojo grunted a profanity, but Grant Delgado politely said thanks.
Max and Grant hung around the nightclub to see a new band called The Big Wheel, led by the Stiff Little Fingers frontman Jake Burns. They rattled through a lacklustre set. Grant knew The Miraculous Vespas had better songs and more attitude already. They should’ve been playing here on the Glasgow circuit, rather than paying opportunistic roadies well over the odds to jump the queue to get in. They only had enough money for one pint, and they shared it. They had missed the last bus back to Kilmarnock and spent a frozen night shivering in the dark, dead shadows of Anderston Bus Station, amongst the pimps and the prostitutes. With his last pieces of change, Grant finally got hold of Maggie from a telephone box the next morning and she drove up to Glasgow in the Campervan to pick them up. As they drove down Argyle Street, Max looked forlornly out the back window. It was grey, dull and hammering down in stair-rods. He was still shivering.
39
18th January 1984
Fat Franny Duncan had filled six bin-bags with his mum’s old clothes. He had initially felt that he’d just leave everything as it was. He hadn’t entered the room since the day his mum had passed away. It was understandably musty. He opened the curtains, and then the windows behind them. He turned around and saw things that were so familiar they had almost become a part of her. All of these items had a story that Fat Franny could instantly visualise. A frayed blue blanket that Rose had wrapped him up in when he’d come home freezing after falling through ice at the Kay Park lake. He’d have been about eight at the time. Framed photos of Franny progressing through childhood and developing into the man he was now; her pride and joy. An unfinished 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Kilmarnock Cross, which he’d got her to help her remember. Numerous vases containing flowers from Paper Roses, the new florist in town; the flowers having long since died.
Fat Franny Duncan sat in his mum’s armchair ruminating on the emptiness he felt. His mum’s death had been painless. She had been at peace, with herself if not her turbulent domestic past. It was Fat Franny who had often been awkward and tense near the end. He acknowledged now that feelings of loss about her decline hadn’t really been about her at all. They had been about him. For him; the man that he might once have been had he taken a different path.
It had taken three weeks for him to enter this room, because he knew it would force him to contemplate his own mortality and confront all of the choices he had made in his own life. The things he had done that, had she known about them, would’ve changed the way she felt about him. He was grateful that she didn’t know, but equally determined to use his shameful regret as a catalyst for change.
The Ponderosie was massive, having been knocked together years earlier. He had no real need for the extra space, although more and more cardboard boxes filled with dodgy VHS tape stock were appearing by the week. Fat Franny had also felt that gutting the house and removing the traces of his mum’s life would have been disrespectful to her memory. When he thought about it further, though, she’d had no real emotional attachment to the place. Rose had grown up in the neighbouring village of Fenwick, jus
t up the A77. She had lived with Abie in Onthank, but not in this particular part of it. When the opportunity to take the house first emerged, Fat Franny had been most attracted to its easily protected position, at the end of a cul-de-sac. Now though, with Rose gone, that just seemed to reinforce his detachment and exarcerbate his dislocated loneliness.
The tipping point had come a week earlier. A letter from the council threatening an enforcement action because he hadn’t secured – or had even applied for – planning permission and building warrants to convert the semi-detached house from one into two. Fat Franny had no intention of dealing with this now, and had made the decision to sell the house for cash, probably to Terry Connolly, who was flush with the success of the drug-infused ice-cream business. It was obvious to Fat Franny that Terry was creaming off the top from the McLartys, but Fat Franny was in on the bigger picture and he figured it prudent to strike while Terry was hot. Especially since – either at the hands of Malachy McLarty or Don McAllister – he was certain to get a lot fucking hotter.
Fat Franny Duncan opened his front door. On the other side of it was Theresa Morgan.
‘Hello Francis,’ she said.
‘Hiya yersel,’ he replied.
‘Ah wisnae sure whether tae chap or no’,’ she admitted. ‘Ah’ve been standin’ here for aboot fifteen minutes, no sure whether tae just go.’ She handed Fat Franny a card. ‘Ah’m really sorry aboot Rose. Ah ken how much she meant tae ye.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘How’ve ye been?’
‘Aye. Aw’right. Ah went back an’ applied for the college efter we … well, y’ken?’ She paused. ‘Business, though, no’ hairdressin’. Ah’m really enjoyin’ it, y’know?’
The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas Page 21