The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas

by David F. Ross

  ‘That’s good,’ said Fat Franny. ‘Look, ah better be gettin’ aff. Need tae get this stuff doon the Cleansin’ afore it shuts.’

  ‘Ah missed ye,’ said Theresa, touching his wrist.

  Fat Franny didn’t look up. He was afraid to look directly at her. ‘Took me ages tae get ower ye, Theresa,’ he said.

  ‘Look, Francis, ah couldnae have coped wi’ everythin’ Rose wis goin’ through. We got engaged an’ ah jist never saw the sacrifices ye wanted me tae make, back then.’

  ‘So noo she’s deid, yer back an’ lookin’ tae pick up again, that it?’ Fat Franny said this with more bitterness than he’d really meant. In the weeks after their holiday in Margate, he’d confided in Des Brick that he had been far too selfish in assuming that Theresa would simply move in. He appreciated a nineteen-year-old wouldn’t want to be tied to an unpaid job as a carer for a demented old woman. But he had been emotionally trapped by the circumstances. He loved Theresa, and, despite everything, felt that she loved him. But he couldn’t desert his mum, and he definitely wasn’t going to put her in a home, like an old dog going to a kennel … out of sight and out of mind. He acknowledged he’d handled it badly. Just like so many other situations in his life.

  ‘Maybe ah should go,’ said Theresa, turning away. ‘Ah just thought that wi’ it bein’ the anniversary an’ that…’

  Fat Franny had lost track of the dates. He’d no idea it had been a year since they had got engaged, and also that today was her twentieth birthday.

  ‘Fuck me, where does the time go, eh?’ he said. There was a long pause. Neither was quite sure what to do or say next. Eventually Fat Franny said, ‘Ah saw ye at the funeral, at the back, an’ that. Thanks for comin’.’

  ‘It wis a lovely service,’ she said, ‘…an’ a good turnout tae.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Fat Franny, although he suspected she’d know many of his former business associates were simply there because they felt they should be, rather than out of any real connection to Rose. She didn’t have a lot of friends and her condition had further limited contact with most of them.

  ‘So, whit ye dain’? Are ye goin’ oot wi’ anybody?’ said Fat Franny.

  ‘Naw … whit d’ye think ah am? Ah’m still wearin’ your engagement ring, Francis.’ It was her turn to be hurt. ‘Part ae the reason ah’m here noo is tae see if there’s any future wi’ us. We never totally finished … it jist fizzled oot efter Margate. Ah hated that holiday, but ah still couldnae move oan until ah knew we were ower completely.’

  ‘So whit noo then?’ said Fat Franny. He missed her too, but he’d learned to get by without her during the last six months.

  ‘Ah dunno, Francis.’

  ‘Ah’m sellin’ the hoose, by the way,’ he said, surprising himself by saying it out loud.

  ‘Aye?’ She was equally surprised. ‘Ah thought ye’d be here forever.

  ‘Things change, Tre … nothin’ stays the same. Ah need a new environment. Ah feel differently aboot Onthank, noo.’

  ‘D’ye fancy a drink sometime? Nae strings, ken … maybe the Coffee Club.’

  Fat Franny pondered this for a while. He looked at the black bags containing his old mum’s possessions. ‘Aye. That’d be nice.’

  ‘Ah’ll treat ye tae gammon steak an’ chips,’ she said, smiling.

  He’d missed her smile. ‘Naw, ah’m a new man. It’s salads aw the way for me noo.’ He smiled too.

  She turned and walked away. They hadn’t made a date. It was too soon for that. And Fat Franny wasn’t even sure this new connection between them would even lead to anything more than them speaking to each other when their paths crossed. But nonetheless, he was pleased she’d come around. It reminded him that he wasn’t totally alone and for that he was grateful. Anything more could wait.

  Nane ae us fuckin’ heard it but Billy Sloan played the demo oan his radio show in Glesga an’ loadsae folk were askin’ where they could get the record, ken? Aw these A&R cunts start phonin’ the hoose, an’ poor aul’ Molly’s tellin’ them tae beat it, an’ tae leave us alane. She thought they were fae a life insurance company. We went back an’ auld fuckin’ hipster, X-Ray made a record aff the master tapes. We got a thousand ae the fuckin’ things pressed at some plant in Cumbernauld. Catalogue no. BT 001. It wis a thing ae fuckin’ beauty. Cost aboot two fuckin’ grand, mind.

  Ah wore oot the bastart shoe leather tryin’ tae place it in The Card & Pop Inn doon the street, an’ aw other shops like ‘Bruce’s’ in Glesga an’ away up in Edinburgh. We sold a few ootae 23rd Precinct in Glesga, an’ they asked us tae dae an in-store promotional thing. Aboot six fuckin’ folk turned up. Countin’ Jimmy and Hairy Doug, there wis fuckin’ mair ae us than them! But wan ae them wis the bass player ootae Lloyd Cole & The Commotions … Lawrence somethin’. Cannae fuckin’ recall noo. He wis in buyin’ some arsehole dancey import record.

  Oor record sold aw’right ah suppose, but meetin’ him led tae a tour roon Scotland supporting Lloyd Cole. We got fifty quid a night for it. By this time, ah’d fuckin’ gie’d away shares in the band tae just aboot every cunt we met. Jimmy Stevenson got a cut, Cliff the hippy was in, Hairy Doug and Hairy fuckin’ Fanny were baith ona wee wedge. Ah wis fuckin’ giein’ everythin’ away back then. An’ aw oan top ae the fifty quid a week ah wis payin’ every cunt connected. That’s when it aw really started … on every fuckin’ front!

  40

  2nd February 1984

  Gregor Gidney slammed home the black. Its rattling rasp ricocheted around the cavernous basement of the Crown Billiards Rooms.

  ‘Fuckin’ shot, big man,’ said Ged McClure.

  ‘Aye, ah know!’ said Gregor. ‘Tenner.’ He held out his massive hand.

  Ged McClure reached into his back pocket and pulled out the brown. These two doss cunts better get here soon, he thought. He was running out of money. Tactical losing had cost him forty quid so far, and it was only just past eleven in the morning.

  Benny Donald and Terry Connelly zig-zagged their way around the thirty empty tables like a couple of synchronised Pac-Men eating up trails of invisible pellets. Eventually, they reached the furthest table. The one where Gregor Gidney was fleecing Ged McClure. Ever since he’d been banjo-ed by a toilet cistern in London, Ged’s anger had built to the point where he was absolutely desperate to hand out some monumental doings. He’d been informed that the two teenage wallopers who were uppermost in his ‘to be battered’ list were to be left alone for the time being. Gregor Gidney, his handler, had told him just to chalk it up to experience.

  ‘Fuck ae you two pricks been?’ said Ged, more tersely than he’d intended. ‘Gregor’s been here since nine!’

  ‘Sorry pal. Motor widnae start, an’ ah didnae want tae roll up Sauchiehall Street in wan ae the Mr Whippy vans, ken?’ Terry Connolly laughed at his own intended joke. No one else did though.

  Given the nod by Gregor Gidney, Ged McClure racked up the reds again, sighing to himself in acceptance he would soon be down to IOUs.

  ‘Things are gonnae ramp up rapidly boys. Yer Uncle Malachy needs ye tae be ready. Heat’s comin’ oan up here an’ we need tae shift operations doon tae aw you tattie-munchers,’ said Gregor. He cracked the cue ball and it scattered the reds like tear gas being fired into an organised picket line. The ball bounced off three cushions before coming to rest behind the green. With his first shot of the frame, Ged McClure was snookered already. Malachy McLarty’s was one of the most feared names in Scotland. He communicated with others via hand-written postcards. They were always of Glaswegian landmarks and contained brief, crudely written coded messages. The crudeness of the writing wasn’t down to Malachy’s illiteracy. In 1964, an attack on his car had left him with a bullet fragment lodged in his hand. With the resultant nerve damage, he had to learn to write with his left hand. That morning, in an empty Glasgow billiard hall owned by his boss, Gregor Gidney had three such postcards written and ready for hand-delivered distribution.

  Terry Connolly got one with the city
’s George Square pictured on one side. On the other the words: ‘THE WEANS NEED MORE ICE CREAM’. Terry got the message. Increase distribution, increase sales, and – although it wasn’t made specific – cut Fat Franny Duncan out of the loop altogether. Benny Donald’s card was more direct: ‘YOU NEED TO WASH MORE OFTEN, SON’. Gregor Gidney noted that this was an instruction that worked on both levels. The postcard was of the famous Glaswegian coat of arms. ‘The bird that never flew, the tree that never grew, the fish that never swam, the bell that never rang … an’ the gadgie that never washed.’ Benny Donald wasn’t coping well with the subterfuge. Since he was also taking an undeclared cut of the funds that Terry Connolly was passing him to pay off mounting gambling debts, he had more reason than most to sweat profusely. The extent of the dark stains under the armpits of his pastel-coloured t-shirt betrayed his anxieties. It wasn’t a good look for a person neck-deep in McLarty business dealings. Ged McClure had already failed Malachy McLarty once. He had been instructed to find the missing Tony Viviani from Galston and recover money stolen from a rigged Quinn family fist-fighting competition. Tony Viviani was now secure in the comparative safety of Wormwood Scrubs, and the route to the money had been closed off. ‘THERES ONLY ONE TYPE OF ICE CREAM. NO MORE FUCK-UPS!’ was Ged McClure’s written commandment.

  Malachy McLarty’s longer-term plan was coming together. The earlier McLarty recce into Ayrshire was aimed at testing the waters, and also the resolve of the area’s operators. Malachy was a very shrewd judge of every situation in which he found himself. He studied people closely. He could read their bravado and their fears and, more specifically, weigh up instantly which of these was the stronger force in influencing someone’s likely actions. From Marty’s feedback, he’d assessed Washer Wishart, Fat Franny Duncan and the Quinns, principally Magdalena. He’d gauged the Ayrshire context quickly. Just like the Joker, the Penguin and Poison Ivy, they all had key strategic weaknesses. Get them all on side as part of an apparent pact and gradual assimilation of their various patches would be pretty straightforward. Washer Wishart was ultimately too caring. Fat Franny had no self-awareness and existed in a bubble of gullibility. Nobby Quinn couldn’t make a decision that his wife hadn’t ratified. They were all ripe for the taking, and now, five years on, they were all about to be taken.

  Gregor Gidney imparted some additional instructions to all three. Timing remained uncertain but in the next few months, the McLartys would take hold of Ayrshire, starting in the East. The money that Terry Connolly was generating and Washer Wishart was washing would need to be promptly but secretively recovered from its various sources. That was Benny’s job. In parallel, competing businesses needed to be put beyond function. Come the order, that would be Ged McClure’s job. For old time’s sake, Emporio Viviani would be first on that particular list. McClure had been assembling a new team of young local muscle, and he reported positively that the Quinns had been easier to assimilate than he would’ve thought. People just didn’t seem to have the stomach for the fight down in Ayrshire, he’d observed.

  The three affiliates climbed out of the subterranean Crown Billiards Rooms into the brightness of Sauchiehall Street. Hopes and fears fought for prominence in each of their thoughts about their immediate futures.

  41

  March 1984

  Having exhausted all potential sources of output, Max Mojo reluctantly decided to head south again. He had assumed that the inevitable national success of ‘The First Picture’ was a formality. Depite having been lauded by the Scottish musical cognoscenti, the record had only sold 450 copies. X-Ray Raymonde criticised Max’s inexperience and blamed the poor sales on his arrogance in not acknowledging the importance of securing a distribution deal with an organisation such as Rough Trade. Rough Trade Records had previously put out seminal records like Stiff Little Fingers’ ‘Alternative Ulster’, and were now readying the first Smiths LP for release. Max Mojo was determined to seek out Rough Trade’s main man Geoff Travis, having researched that the record label and its Cartel distribution arm had recently become separate entities. Armed with a bag full of self-financed ‘The First Picture’ vinyl, a system full of lithium and head full of hopeful dreams, Max Mojo boarded the early super shuttle service from Glasgow Airport to London Heathrow. It was his first time on a plane, but a few G&Ts and a pack of ten Embassy Club would see any on-flight nerves promptly dealt with.

  At the same time, Grant Delgado was headed in the other direction. Maggie’s sudden disappearances were increasing in spontaneous regularity. She simply packed up the Campervan and vanished without warning or explanation. Any attempts to interrogate these sojourns were met with silence. So Grant did the only thing any reasonable boyfriend would; he hired a car and followed her.

  Simon Sylvester was spending his afternoons in prison. Following yet another conviction for petty theft, a lawyer – paid for by Max – secured a reduced sentence of 150 hours community service. The judge heard mitigating pleas and that a custodial sentence would result in a talented young man being removed from his one passion: The Miraculous Vespas. Simon Sylvester was ordered to participate in a music-development programme for the inmates at Carstairs. He couldn’t read music or teach it to others but for all concerned parties, it seemed a convenient if opportunistic punishment.

  The Motorcycle Boy spent much of time in the early part of 1984 in therapy. The therapist always came to the house in Caprington.

  Max chain-smoked his way through the flight. The air at the back of the cabin might’ve been murky, but the vision in Max Mojo’s head was crystal clear. The band needed a far higher public profile. They needed an event. Max landed in London at exactly the same time that Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers was declaring the previously sporadic walk-out actions in various coal fields was now a national strike. As Max travelled across the UK’s capital by tube, the front page of every Evening Standard proclaimed ‘STRIKE!’ It was either a portent of doom, or a call to arms, depending on the reader’s perspective. Max took it as a statement of intent. He was headed for Rough Trade in Ladbroke Grove, in an optimistic blur of encountering Geoff Travis. He got off the tube at Notting Hill Gate. He walked up the vibrantly colourful Portobello Road, alive with the possibilities that a tour of towns most affected by the strike might create. The Miraculous Vespas would become a protest band. Their next single would donate a percentage of profits to the families of striking miners. The band would end the tour with a massive, open-air gig in Ayrshire. He walked under the Westway; the same place where Joe Strummer had prospered, and where The Jam’s ‘This Is the Modern World’ cover was photographed. Max Mojo was inspired by standing on the shoulders of such giants. The Striking Miners Benefit Concert would be like The Clash at Victoria Park for Rock against Racism. It would confirm The Miraculous Vespas as a band with a conscience. It would also see them headline, since Max Mojo would be the funding organiser. Max’s brain was bursting with ideas. The event could feature all the great current Scottish bands – Simple Minds, Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, The Bluebells – and would also be a platform for the new ones: Friends Again, Fairground Attraction, The Trashcans … surely all would do it, and probably for next to nothing, given the opportunity to stick two fingers up to Thatcher and her new lapdog, Ian McGregor. He would call it Louder in Loudoun. Suddenly, being in London seemed like a massive distraction.

  Grant Delgado parked the car at the gates of what looked like an old Victorian school building. He stared up at a beautiful, stone clocktower. It was the vertical punctuation mark in a complex collegiate campus of buildings near the Old Crookston Castle on Glasgow’s southern edges. Grant originally thought that Maggie must be studying for a degree through the Open University, and that her covert visits here must be to do with assessments or registrations or something related to her course. While Max and the others would’ve taken the piss, he couldn’t understand why she felt she couldn’t share this thirst for knowledge with him. He drove away, satisf
ied that her private activities weren’t worthy of concern. As he drove out of the car park, Grant saw a sign that he hadn’t noticed on the way in. It read: NHS LEVERNDALE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL.

  Despite his lowly expectations, Simon Sylvester was actually enjoying going to prison.

  He was now a small part of a new, emergent initiative aimed at rehabilitating inmates through music. He had been coerced admittedly, but now went willingly. Simon had even vowed to bring the band back for a free gig, Johnny Cash-style, when the first LP had been recorded. Simon Sylvester had been given a glimpse into a future that, in only slightly different circumstances, could have been his. The Miraculous Vespas had offered an alternative path and since he hadn’t taken it seriously enough at the beginning, he now achnowledged the debt he owed it. He knuckled down and quickly learned piano and more advanced guitar. By the time he’d neared the end of his own sentence, he’d taught ten willing kids how to play the whole of The Jam’s ‘Sound Affects’ LP.

  Eddie Sylvester – the Motorcycle Boy to everyone other than his therapist – was faring less well. The sessions were attempting to determine whether he was actually agoraphobic or whether some other veiled condition was the underlying cause. His childlike demeanour anytime his mother’s name was mentioned was a clear indication that he hadn’t recovered from that trauma a decade earlier. Eddie Sylvester was suffering from a mental disorder that meant he needed constantly to obtain approval from others. He wasn’t agoraphobic as such, but the only way he could now function in crowds was to attempt to blank them out and focus on his dead mother as the adjudicator of all of his efforts. Extreme stage fright was the initial catalyst for his current condition, his father was informed. His therapist felt that he shouldn’t stop performing with the band. He needed it as an outlet, she’d said. But he also needed to open up more about how he felt about losing his mum. His father had also buried memories of her as a coping mechanism. He had rowed with his wife about cutting the grass in the first place. Now, he was left with the terrible guilt of his last words to her being an insult that prompted her to go out and do something he should have done himself. Talking about it now would be just as difficult for him. So it was left to Simon, with his new empathy for others, to draw the submerged pain out of his brother’s broken heart and help him to function as normally as possible in a world full of unsympathetic and judgemental people.