The Tartan Ringers

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘See what I mean?’ Our girl was bitter. ‘A waste of political potential.’ She suddenly burst out laughing. The Mawdslay stank sweetly from her smoking. Oh dear. And Dobson’s gaunt face among the pavement mobs.

  ‘Lovejoy.’

  ‘I see him, Dutchie.’

  He was hurrying along the pavement, quickening when we could make a yard or two, dawdling in each hiatus. One overcoated bloke was with him. As long as we stayed with the carnival . . . A group of tumblers formed a sudden arch. The parade trundled beneath, to cheers. Our snakeskin girl sang tunelessly, head back.

  ‘This hint’s taking tablets,’ Tinker croaked, disapproving. To him anybody stoned on drugs is ‘taking tablets’.

  Ahead a regular thumping sounded. A brass band. Correction: a military band, getting closer. Pipes. A cluster of actors froze an instant, took three paces, froze, dressed as vegetables. A pea pod, a cabbage, a possible lentil, a flute-playing celery. Fireworks lit the sky, hitherto the only turn unstoned. A bobby waved us on, veering towards somewhere distantly tall. The thumping of drums at long range. Our pink donkey’s jazzy band bopped past as we got stuck behind the piano. I felt clammy. No sign of Dobson and his goon, but one bloke was stock-still on the pavement, keeping his eyes on us even when jostled. Depression and fear fought for my panic-stricken spirit.

  ‘There’s no bleedin’ notes in that piano,’ Tinker said.

  ‘It’s Jan The Judge,’ our snakeskin said, happy herself now. ‘He plays silence. The performance is in its nothingness.’

  ‘What happens if he don’t turn up?’ Tinker was puzzling.

  ‘Lovejoy. It’s the tattoo.’ Dutchie pointed. Searchlights swept the night. Pipers lined the battlements. A fusillade crackled.

  Slower and slower. The parade was practically static now. Sweat poured off me. The Mawdslay, inch a minute, was trapped. Exactly as. I hadn’t wanted, there was no way for us to go. Behind us bands jigged, actors twisted and danced. Both sides were thronged with acts and noise. Giant puppets milled. Above us stilted actors and balloons. Something shattered the windscreen. Nobody noticed except me.

  ‘Hey, your gondola!’ I grabbed the girl, now floppy limbed and crooning. ‘Scatter, lads.’ I was crouching below the dashboard, yelling. ‘Tinker, hop it. Dutchie, stay among a band.’ I hauled the lass sideways. More glass cracked. The Mawdslay trembled. The bloody donkey trod on my foot. Its band swayed past.

  ‘Where?’ She stood up, peering.

  ‘Over there,’ I yelled, fetching her down on me by a yank of her arm. The shots came from ahead but obliquely, so I spoiled a few syncopations by shoving my way through to the pavement. I couldn’t even do that right. I had to step over three actors in evening dress in the gutter. A placard announced that they were the Drunken Theatre of Leigh. I tugged the snakeskin girl along, some protection. You penetrate crowds fastest hunched over and butting along at waist height. The trouble is you can’t see. After a hundred yards a doorway, people shoving inside with such a tidal rip I got crushed along.

  Brilliantly lit, wall labels and pseudo-Victorian illumination. Red plush, chandeliers. We were in a foyer. Cinema? Theatre? Thickset men in dinner jackets on the door directing us, me included.

  ‘No, mate,’ I said, breathless in my terror sweat. ‘You see, me and my bird are—’

  He practically lifted me aside. ‘Dressing room there, laddie. She in the Supper Room? The Music Hall shares the same accommodation.’

  ‘Where?’ My girl’s question was audible. A bell sounded two pulses. People began to hurry carrying half-finished drinks. A theatre’s two-minute bell.

  Applause burst out upstairs, amid catcalls. A xylophone began. I pulled the door. Two girls were just leaving, all spangles and scales. ‘Jesus,’ one said, disgusted. ‘Not more? There’s not room to swing a cat.’

  ‘Sorry, love.’

  The room was empty but looked ransacked. A ring of tired bulbs around a mirror, a lipsticked notice pleading for tidiness. Graffiti criticized somebody called the Dud Prospect Company for nicking make-up. My ears worked out what was the problem, finally got there. Silence. My adrenals gave a joyous squirt and relaxed: safety and solitude. I sat at the mirror.

  ‘Right, love,’ I said. Hopeless. ‘Do me.’

  ‘What?’ She squinted over my shoulder. ‘Are you on soon?’

  ‘Five minutes.’ I swept all the Leichner sticks and pots closer. ‘Do the lot.’

  ‘Bastard apolitical theatre managers.’ She started me.

  For the first time ever I didn’t feel much of a clown. No clown’s clobber, of course, except gloves and a weird hat. I’d sliced the fingers so they dangled, and scalped the topper into a lid. My face was chalk white. Red nose, scarlet lips, lines about my eyes. I looked like nothing on earth. She’d done a rubbishy job, but I was grateful as I left, promising to send along any passing gondolas and vote something-or-other. She was carolling drowsily to her reflection, another smoke helping the mood. I turned my jacket inside out, and nicked some baggy trousers. Being noticeable was the one chance.

  One of the evening-suited bouncers said, ‘Hey. Other way,’ but I kept going, down the foyer and out. The carnival was flowing on, over and round the Mawdslay. It stood there forlorn. No sign of Tinker or Dutchie. An overcoated man moved against the flow, finding refuge behind a pillar box. I capered clumsily into the mob and drew a squad of ghosts trotting with a fife band. A jig. How the hell do you do a jig? I moved faster, advancing up the parade. I even caught up with my stilt walkers, jazz band, the silent piano man.

  A policeman pointed me to one side. ‘I reckon you’re late, son.’

  Thank God, I thought, prancing out of the stream. And saw Big Chas. And Ern. And Mr Sidoli’s two terrible nephews. They were in carnival gear, flashing bow ties and waistcoats, striped shirts, bowlers.

  ‘No,’ I bleated in anguish. The bobby’d thought I was something to do with the fairground. Even as I whined and ran the familiar sonorous pipes of merry-go-rounds sounded.

  ‘Lovejoy.’ I heard Big Chas’s bellow.

  I fled then, down across the parade so terrified that cries of outrage arose even from those fellow thespians who’d assumed I was an act. I needed darkness now as never before. If the gunshots from Dobson’s two goons had seemed part of the proceedings, a clown being knifed would seem a merry encore. I hurtled into a small parked van, wrenching the door open and scrabbling through. Two first-aid men wearing that Maltese Cross uniform were playing cards. I waited breathlessly, gathered myself to hurtle out of the front sliding door.

  ‘All right, son?’ one asked placidly, gathering the cards. ‘An act, is it?’

  ‘As long as he’s not another Russian.’ He gave me a grandfather’s smile. ‘No offence, laddie. They only come over here to do Dostoevsky and defect.’

  Aye. Always the second week—’

  I swung the door out and dived. Somebody grabbed, shouted. Some lunatics applauded. ‘How real!’ a woman cooed as I scooted past, bowling a bloke in armour over. God, he hurt. Another carrying a tray went flying. I sprinted flat out, hat gone and trousers cutting my speed, elbows out and head down. I charged, panicked into blindness, among a mob of redcoated soldiers. They were having a smoke, instruments held any old how, in a huge arched tunnel with sparse lights shedding hardly a glimmer. I floundered among them. A few laughed. There was floodlight ahead, a roaring up there, possibly a crowd. Well it couldn’t be worse. ‘Here, nark it, Coco,’ a trumpeter said, and got a roar by adding, ‘Thought it was Lieutenant Hartford.’

  A gateway and an obstruction, for all the world like a portcullis. I rushed at it, bleating, demented. An order was barked behind in the tunnel, and I’d reached as far as I could go. I was gaping into an arena filled with bands. Jesus, the Household Cavalry were in there, searchlights shimmering on a mass of instruments and horses’ ornamentation. Lancers rode down one side. I could see tiers of faces round the vast arena. I moaned, turned back. Out there I’d be trapped like a fish in a bowl.
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  The soldiers formed up, marching easily past, some grinning. The drum major glared, abused me from the side of his mouth. The portcullis creaked. Applause and an announcement over the roar. The back-marker strode past, boots in time and the familiar double-tap of the big drum calling the instruments into noise. Gone. The entrance tunnel was empty. I couldn’t follow the band into the arena, so I turned. Best if I tried to get to George Street. Those assembly rooms . . .

  I stopped. My moan echoed down the tunnel towards the exit. Dobson stood there, pointing. Two goons, overcoated neat as Sunday, appeared and stood with him.

  ‘Help!’ I screamed, turning to run. And halted. Round the side of the arena gateway stepped Sidoli’s nephews. Two more henchmen dropped from the tunnel archway, crouched a second then straightened to stand with the Sidolis. Big Chas walked between them. Five in a row. Both ends of the tunnel were plugged. I was trapped.

  ‘Now, lads,’ I pleaded, swallowing with an audible gulp. Blubbering and screaming were non-negotiable. ‘Too many people have been hurt in all this . . .’ The fairground men trudged towards me.

  Dobson called, ‘He’s ours, tykes.’

  ‘Ours,’ a Sidoli said. The tunnel echoed, ‘Ow-erss, owerss.’ He was Sidoli’s nephew all right.

  No side doors in the tunnel’s wall. I stood, dithering. Big Chas’s line was maybe twenty yards away and coming steadily. Dobson’s pair had pulled out stubby blunt weapons. I thought: Oh Christ. A war with me in the middle.

  ‘Stop right there, Chas,’ I said wearily. ‘You were good to me. You’ve no shooters, like them. It’s my own mess.’

  And I walked towards Dobson. My only chance, really. And it bought me a couple of seconds. It bought me much more than that, as it happened. I moved on trembling pins towards my end. At least I now only had one army against me instead of two. More favourable odds, if doom wasn’t a certainty.

  ‘No!’ a Sidoli shouted. ‘Noh,’ the tunnel yelled angrily.

  Dobson backed smiling out of the tunnel entrance to where I’d first cannoned into the Guards band, his goon with him. I came on. They were in a perfect line. A stern warning cry, ‘Loof-yoy! No!’ behind me.

  If I’d known it would have ended like this, in a grotty tunnel, I’d have marched out into the arena with the band and hared up through the crowd somehow—

  An engine gunned, roared. It seemed to fill the tunnel with its noise. I hesitated, found myself halted, gaping, as a slab lorry ran across the arch of pallor, and simply swept Dobson and the two overcoats from view. And from the face of the earth. All in an instant time stopped. To me, forever Dobson and the two nerks froze in a grotesque array, legs and arms any old how, in an airborne bundle with that fairground slab wagon revving past. They’re in that lethal tableau yet in my mind. Dobson’s expression gets me most, in the candle hours. It’s more a sort of let’s-talk-because-there’s-always-tomorrow sort of expectation on his face. But maybe I’m wrong because it was pretty gloomy, and Ern didn’t have any lights on as he crashed the wagon into and over Dobson and his nerks.

  Footsteps alongside. I closed my eyes, waiting.

  Big Chas’s hand fell on my shoulder. ‘Lovejoy,’ he said, friendly, and sang, ‘Hear thy guardian angel say: “Thou art in the midst of foes: Watch and pray!” ’

  ‘I’m doing that, Chas,’ I said.

  Mr Sidoli was overjoyed to see me; I wasn’t sure why. They gave me a glass of his special Barolo while I waited. I’d expected death. Unbelievably I was left alone on the steps, though everybody I remembered came up and shook my hand. The fairground seemed to have grown. There was no sign of Bissolotti’s rival fair. Instead, a marquee boasted a dynamic art show, periodically lasering the darkness with a sky advert.

  Francie rushed up to say everybody was proud of me. Her whizz kid was temporarily running the Antique Roadshow. Like Tom the cabin boy, I smiled and said nothing, simply waited for this oddly happy bubble to burst.

  It was twenty to midnight when I was called inside. Mr Sidoli was in tears. His silent parliament was all around, celebrating and half sloshed.

  ‘Loof-yoy,’ he said, scraping my face with his moustache and dabbing his eyes. ‘What can I say?’

  ‘Well, er.’ Starting to hope’s always a bad sign.

  ‘First,’ he declaimed, ‘you bravely seize. Bissolotti’s main generator, and crush his treacherous sneak attack.’ He glowered. Everybody halted the rejoicing to glower. ‘And restrained yourself so strongly that you only destroyed three men.’

  Scattered applause. ‘Bravo, bravo!’

  ‘Destroyed? Ah, how actually destroyed . . . ?’

  His face fell. ‘Not totally, but never mind, Loof-yoy. Another occasion, si?’ Laughter all round. ‘Then you cleverly tell the police it is my generator so I can collect it and hold Bissolotti to ransom.’

  This time I took a bow. The nephews burst into song.

  ‘And at the arena you bravely tried to spare my nephews then the risk when they go to help you, knowing how close to my heart . . .’ He sobbed into a hankie the size of a bath towel. Everybody sniffled, coughed, drank. I even felt myself fill up.

  And you walk forward into certain death!’

  I was gripped in powerful arms. Ern and Chas sang a martial hymn. Fists thumped my back.

  When you think of it, I really had been quite courageous. In fact, very brave. Not many blokes have faced two mobs down. It must be something about my gimlet eyes. You must admit that some blokes have this terrific quality, and others don’t.

  Joan was watching in her usual silence. Her eyes met mine. Well, I thought, suddenly on the defensive. I’d been almost nearly brave, hadn’t I? I mean, honestly? Joan smiled, right into my eyes, silly cow. She’s the sort of woman who can easily nark a bloke. I’d often noticed that.

  They’d have finished the auction in Tachnadray.

  It was three o’clock in the morning before I remembered Tinker. Sidoli’s lads found him paralytic drunk busking in George Street, Dutchie doing a political chain dance round his political granite block. Tinker said we’d all go halves. His beret was full of coins, enough for a boozy breakfast for us all.

  Chapter 31

  COUNTRYSIDE. NO RAIN, no fog. And, at Tachnadray, no longer only one way out. Me, Duncan and Trembler were talking outside the workshop. They’d taken on half-a-dozen apprentices. From the quality of their work I wouldn’t have paid them tea money, but Duncan said they’d learn.

  ‘Make sure you spread them about this time.’ I meant the reproductions they were going to mass produce. ‘One each to East Anglia, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol and Southampton. Stick to one route and you’re in the clag.’

  ‘We’ve had enough trouble,’ Duncan said with feeling.

  ‘You didn’t have any,’ I pointed out nastily. After all, I was the hero. ‘Okay, your son was a hostage, but safe. He’s a McGunn.’

  ‘There’s no trouble for you now, Lovejoy, eh? I mean, those two men, and the others?’

  ‘Tipper Noone? And the driver? No. Whatever the police find won’t matter a bit. Dobson and his killers are dead.’

  The vehicle was fixed by Ern, a spontaneous case of brake failure. The police could enjoy themselves speculating on the guns found on two of the deceased. I, of course, wasn’t within miles. I sprouted alibis, Sidoli’s doing.

  ‘Wotcher, love,’ I said to Elaine.

  Elaine had a new automatic wheelchair. I said it wasn’t as good as the old garden machine we’d sold at the auction. She’d bickered back that I didn’t have to sit in it.

  ‘Lovejoy,’ she said, in that tuneful propositioning voice women use when they’re going to sell you a pup. ‘How’d you like to become a partner?’

  ‘If that is a proposal of marriage, you’re too plain.’

  ‘Stop fooling. In Tachnadray.’

  ‘It’s not me, love. Trembler here will. It’s time somebody took him in hand.’

  That’s what we’d been heading towards all along. Elaine turned her
seabed opalescent eyes on Trembler. ‘Will you, Cheviot?’

  ‘He’s been on about nothing else,’ I said irritably. ‘He’s trying to work out how to word it. Nerk.’

  Trembler tried to start a solemn contractual conversation. ‘I’ll have to think—’

  ‘Me and Tinker did a draft contract for you after breakfast. And,’ I added, ‘my percentage of the auction profits you can spilt three ways – Tachnadray, and the families of the driver and Tipper Noone. How’s that?’ As soon as I’d made the offer I groaned. Still, easy come, easy go.

  ‘Is Lovejoy serious?’ Elaine asked.

  ‘I’ll do a list of exploitations. Pottery, prints, pressed flowers of Tachnadray, tartan novelties, photographs of the ancestral home. And you’ll sell inch-square plots to tourists, fortune at a time, each with a great Sale Deed in Gothic Latin lettering, a sealing-wax blob on a ribbon. Postage extra. And “coin” tokens in fifteenth-century denominations. It’s where greatness lies.’

  ‘There’s something scary about all this, Lovejoy.’ But Elaine’s eyes were shining.

  You have to laugh. For the first time in her life she’d challenged the outside world, and won victory. Now she wanted the thrill of the contest over and over. There’d be no stopping Tachnadray now, especially with Trembler on the team.

  ‘I’ll come and check on you every autumn, Cheviot.’ It was the end of an era. There’d be a sudden drop (I nearly said tumble) in Soho’s sexploitation shares tonight.

  They had moved away when Elaine paused. ‘Oh, Lovejoy. Can I ask something?’

  I walked over. Trembler moved politely out of earshot. Her eyes were radiantly lovely looking up at me.