The Last Days of Disco Page 16

  ‘Ya fuckin’ stupid cunt! Look at the state of Davie Cooper! You’re fuckin’ gettin it!’

  And that was just Mrs Malky.

  ‘Twenty quid,’ said Malky, in what was fast becoming the standard rate for any service. He glugged from the large Alpine bottle of American Cream Soda.

  ‘Aye. OK, although it’s Boab that’ll pay ye.’ Joey was grateful that Malky hadn’t borne any grudges from the day the tiny Cooper had been forced into early retirement. They parted, agreeing for Malky to meet them at the church hall the following night.

  5TH JUNE 1982

  ‘What a pity we ever had the hostilities, what a pity there was ever the invasion. Once we have repossessed the islands then of course we have to try to mend fences and we shall do that, but the integrity of the islands must be respected just as the integrity of each country in Latin America ought to be respected, otherwise we shall go to international anarchy and none of our peoples will profit from that.’

  Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, radio interview for the Central Office of Information

  There were four in The Vespas band, including two brothers playing guitar and drums. Bobby didn’t know the names of the brothers or that of the stand-stock-still bass player, but he was reasonably friendly with their singer, Dale Wishart, whom he’d known since primary school. The Vespas’ repertoire was limited and their need for some form of support act for their gigs was obvious. Early in April, Heatwave Disco became that support, topping and tailing the live music with a vinyl mix of Mod standards, Stax and Motown classics. Songs from the new Mod revivalists such as The Chords, Secret Affair, The Lambrettas, The Vapors, The Knack and Nine Below Zero made up the general playlist.

  When the emerging 2-Tone label artists and the slightly less definable Dexy’s Midnight Runners were added to the playlist, it was a pretty impressive line-up. There was a real sense of belonging within this group of kids who followed the band. Concerts by favoured bands were generally few and far between, and almost always restricted to the bigger cities. Watching a Mod tribute band comprised of people they knew and liked, and in a small venue, from which they could stumble home drunk, was a pretty good stop-gap. Heatwave had now completed five such gigs with The Vespas and they had all been pretty great.

  Bobby liked Dale and, despite his often-ludicrous on-stage behaviour, Joey also couldn’t find it within himself to avoid speaking to him on the rare occasions when their paths crossed. Dale’s more outlandish persona had emerged when the band secured an unlikely late-night radio session in January on Ayrshire’s independent radio station, West Sound. The grapevine promoted the theory that the band had only got the spot because Dale’s dad had threatened Mac Barber – a club DJ from Ayr who had landed a nighttime slot on the station. This seemed highly plausible, as the Wisharts were fairly regular visitors to Kilmarnock’s police station and sheriff court. Assaults, money-lending and drug-dealing were among the most frequent topics of conversation when the family dropped in to Don McAllister’s office for tea and a chat.

  The Vespas had built a small but loyal local following by doing the pub gigs around Ayrshire, but the radio session had been a disaster. During the pre-recording of their first original song, the bizarrely named ‘The Legomen Are Here’, Dale – in full-on performance mode at this point – unhooked a microphone and swung it in an arc, knocking out the front teeth of Steven ‘Stera’ Dent, his band’s bass player. A major studio mêlée ensured that the session remained unrecorded and therefore unbroadcast. It had also given birth to the strained relations within the band and led to an inevitable parting of ways.

  Following the first night at the Killie Club in May, Dale phoned Bobby. It was very much out of the blue. His call was to ask if Heatwave would do the DJ sets for some gigs leading up to a farewell show at the Henderson Church. The event was to support a local charity close to Jimmy Wishart’s heart. Jimmy was the singer’s father and it was clear from Dale that this wasn’t a request to be answered negatively. In the spirit of charitable endeavour, Heatwave would also be doing this pro bono. Things had been going well with bookings for the disco lately, and, with the target of travelling to Spain with the rest of the Tartan Army for that summer’s World Cup campaign now almost within their financial grasp, Bobby decided to let this one go for free. However, he ducked out at the last minute, opting to spend the evening with Lizzie and leaving Joey in sole charge.

  ‘A’right Malky?’ Joey tried not to smile as he saw Malky standing at the main door waiting for Jimmy’s van. The former undisputed champion of the James Hamilton Academy was wearing a suit – his dad’s perhaps, judging by the cut – and a tie. The tie was a James Hamilton Academy one. Thank fuck he didnae wear his old school blazer, thought Joey.

  ‘Got the twenty there?’ Malky had always been a man of few words. Joey took the two notes from his pocket and handed them over. Malky examined them as if they were forgeries before eventually putting them in his inside jacket pocket. Joey didn’t even ask him for assistance with the gear, knowing it would cost more if he did, and since Jimmy no longer even came into the venues, Joey resigned himself to a long night of heavy lifting for no reward.

  The night started quietly. Few people turned up and those who did were either Wishart family members or associates under orders to be there. Joey played some new records as a warm-up. He’d picked up some rare vinyl at a record fair in Glasgow’s Merchant City, and a run of old classics including Eddie Floyd’s ‘Big Bird’, Madeline Bell’s ‘Picture Me Gone’ and Lee Dorsey’s ‘Get Out of My Life, Woman’ had the small group of assembled Mods in raptures. Joey was really enjoying the power. He also debuted some brilliant new songs, like Odyssey’s ‘Inside Out’ and The Associates’ ‘Party Fears Two’. Many of these were elongated twelve-inch mixes in order to avoid him having to speak and run the risk of patronising or offending the Wisharts.

  Dale came over to say that his band would be on stage at nine, in around thirty minutes. The singer looked thoroughly defeated. Gone were the sharp Fred Perrys and Lonsdale shirts of old. Now he was all floppy hair, batwing shirt and lycra trousers. He wore legwarmers and gleaming-white patent shoes. Joey felt for him. It was apparent that there were some considerable musical differences at the core of The Vespas. There was a faint glimmer of a smile when Dale said the band would be starting with their own version of The Jam’s cover of ‘Heatwave’, and that the DJ should activate the smoke machines and the strobes ‘for old time’s sake’.

  Just before The Vespas entered stage left, a large mob piled into the church hall. There was no immediate commotion. They all paid and made their way to the middle of the hall. Joey whispered to Malky that perhaps there would be a decent atmosphere for The Vespas’ farewell after all. Malky couldn’t care less. At five to nine the main lights went down and curling, dense smoke began to fill the church hall. Joey could still see the tall, skinny singer through the fog. Even from the opposite end of the smoke-filled hall, there appeared to be a sparkle in his eye as he stood front and centre-stage, clocking the half-full venue, rather than the embarrassing turnout he’d anticipated twenty minutes earlier.

  ‘Hiya, Kil … nock … we’re the …. and we … go … build a … of music … love … you … ight!’

  It was hardly ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’, but nevertheless Joey had to admire his enthusiasm. From his postion on stage, though, Dale was unaware that his microphone wasn’t working fully and he sounded just like Norman Collier.

  ‘We … Heatwave!’ shouted Dale. The opening bars of the first song were terrible. The sound was was tinny and mono-tonal. It was like Ultravox heard under water. Even though the events that followed were regrettable, Joey Miller was almost grateful to the punter in the front row who threw the empty bottle that hit the singer in the face, stopping the song before the end. It quickly became apparent that this was no protest act from an insulted music fan. The large group who had come late to the gig took the bottling as a signal to attack the stage and those on it, prompting
a counter by the surprised Wisharts and their followers. A full-scale riot ensued.

  Joey missed most of it as he had bolted for a side door and found himself at the back of a female toilet. If he was going to be beaten to a pulp, several heavily made-up females would either be ahead of him in the queue or would be responsible for it. As Joey cowered at the side of a cistern, the noise from the main hall was incredible. Stained-glass windows that had survived for more than a century were sure to be among the victims; as was the majority of Heatwave Disco’s sound equipment and record stocks, Joey figured. A twelve-inch single, carefully thrown, could be a handy weapon, and Joey envisaged emerging into a scene of carnage where casualties lay with ‘Let’s Start the Dance Again’ or ‘The Message’ embedded in their skulls.

  At nine-thirty, Joey was still ensconced in a girl’s toilet cubicle. The noise had died sufficiently to hear the more welcome sounds of approaching sirens. He unlocked the door and, along with his cautious fellow deserters, ventured carefully back into the main hall and towards the only available exit beyond. The scene was a familiar one, but its familiarity was associated with last year’s scenes from Ulster. Windows were indeed smashed. The injured were nursing wounds, and the recently arrived cops were lifting those left standing. The Heatwave gear was in better condition than Joey was entitled to expect. It was apparent that Malky had earned his twenty. A few lights were out and the speakers were on their side, but there were no shattered fragments of black plastics lying around, looking as if they’d been targets at a clay pigeon shoot. The focus of the crowd’s anger had been directed towards the stage end of the hall, whereas Joey had set up at the rear. As for the actual stage itself, the band was gone, their instruments strewn all over the place. Apart from a synth that, although still upright, was on fire.

  In the days that followed, it transpired that there was no charity. The gig was an attempt by the Wisharts to raise money to pay off a Glasgow gang from whom they had taken a large amount of drugs that they had been unable to move on. The Quinn rent-a-mob was hired by Fat Franny, but badly briefed by Hobnail. He had only mentioned the word ‘Heatwave’ and when the heavies misheard Dale’s opening introduction, the leader simply launched his bottle in the direction of the code word. To make matters worse, they’d all got there late, due to the bus drivers’ strike.

  Dale Wishart, formerly of The Vespas, was in intensive care at Crosshouse Hospital. He had been opportunistically walloped by Stera’s bass, while trying to get his bearings following the bottle’s impact. Bobby visited him only once in hospital the day after the gig – on the way to see Hamish May – but it was still once more than Joey.

  At the same time as many in the Henderson Church Hall were getting their balls booted, Bobby was getting his fondled. He’d taken advantage of the limited supporting role Heatwave would be playing in Dale Wishart’s last stand to suggest that this gig didn’t need both him and Joey. That this was a charity gig in more ways than one further lowered his interest. But he had an ulterior motive. After the night at The Anchorage, Bobby had fallen out with Joey on the walk back down Templehill. He hadn’t been comfortable doing it, but he felt obliged to defend Lizzie rather than support Joey’s daft theory that Hamish had been abducted as a result of Lizzie being unable to control herself. Bobby did feel a bit of subsequent regret when it transpired that their friend had, in fact, been Shanghai-ed; a fact that only came to light after the unconscious teenager’s tiny rowing boat had been snared by an Irish fishing trawler near the Mull of Kintyre. Hamish had been in Kilmarnock Infirmary suffering from hypothermia since that day.

  Lizzie had slipped off her bra in the taxi back home from Troon and had encouraged him to feel her up in the back of the car. Her nipples felt enormous and Bobby had almost shot his load when Lizzie reached down and rubbed the bulge in his jeans. In the days that followed, it became clear that they’d be having sex at the next available opportunity. With Hettie staying with her friends and Harry and Ethel due to go to an anniversary party at The Clansman, the Friday of The Vespas’ gig was that opportunity. Bobby said nothing of this to anyone, least of all Joey. Joey was a bit strange around girls and most of them – including Lizzie – found him a wee bit too intense and serious. They had gone out to The Broomhill for a pint to throw Harry and Ethel off the scent. But also to provide the necessary Dutch courage for a sexually inexperienced young man desperate for his equipment to work in the way that God intended.

  As they walked back up Almond Avenue, Bobby spotted auld Sadie Flanagan about fifty yards up ahead. It was a warm evening and Lizzie was dressed very provocatively with a ridiculously short pleated ra-ra skirt riding all the way up her muscular thighs. If auld Flanagan saw the two them and noticed – as everyone in the pub had – that Lizzie was wearing no bra under that skimpy white vest-top, Bobby would’ve faced the parental Spanish Inquisition the next day concerning where they had been that night. Bobby took evasive action and they climbed over the fence at the back of the school. He’d intended to go in through the back-garden gate; actually that very phrase had gone through his mind and had been the origin of the rapidly developing hard-on that was now bursting up through his Y-fronts.

  They reached the rear hedge at Bobby’s house, but in a crushing blow to the evening’s romantic plans, he could make out the unmistakable silhouette of his father through the curtained kitchen window. As they approached, it was apparent that an argument was in progress, and that his mother was on the receiving end. If they had gone out at all, it hadn’t been for long. Although this wasn’t a massive shock given the way things had been between them lately, Bobby was still annoyed.

  ‘Ach, fuckin’ bollocks.’ Bobby’s angry tone had been louder than he’d intended. Lizzie saw the silhouette turn towards them. She pulled Bobby down behind the large timber shed, where Heatwave Disco’s equipment was housed. The kitchen door opened, throwing some additional light into the gloom. Harry stared out across the garden. He was sure he’d heard something out there. There was nothing, though, and at least it had broken the momentum of an ongoing dispute with Ethel that had no resolution. Gary was that cunt McAllister’s son and no amount of crawling over the coals of a twenty-year-old situation would change that. Harry had made his decision decades ago. For better or for worse, there was no erasing that now.

  Out in the garden, Lizzie had ensured silence by clamping her mouth over Bobby’s. After the door closed and the kitchen light was extinguished, her warm, soft tongue worked its way all around Bobby’s. He liked it a lot, but he did have a very sensitive gag reflex and when she almost touched his tonsils, he had to push her back slightly.

  Fucking hell, Bon Scott died from choking on his own vomit, Bobby remembered. Bet his head was bent backwards at the time as well!

  ‘C’mon we’ll go in there,’ whispered Lizzie, nodding towards the shed. She took his left hand and lifted it up the inside of her vest. He could feel those massive, plate-sized nipples standing to attention. His hand worked its way around Lizzie’s tit like a baker kneading dough. Fuck me, that felt fucking fantastic. For a moment, Bobby thought that he was actually saying these thoughts out loud.

  ‘Aye … OK,’ he said finally. ‘It’s where ah keep the gear but it’s got a carpet an’ it’ll probably be a’right.’

  Lizzie stood up. She looked quickly towards the house. It was now illuminated only by the clear moonlight. Everything else was quiet. Bobby reached under the black plant pot and found the padlock key. He opened the wooden slatted door carefully and stood back, allowing Lizzie to step inside. Although the equipment in the shed had not been arranged with all the considered attention to detail and diligence of Hairy Doug’s, there was an order of sorts to the composition. Bobby reached for his father’s torch and flicked the switch before placing it upright in the corner of the shed. He turned to see Lizzie pulling off her vest-top. Bobby’d had a few pints and thought she looked gorgeous. The bizarre perspective of the light source made her cleavage look even bigger. Lizzie arched her back,
forcing her breasts forward and pushing hard against him. Bobby fell backwards and had to put his right hand out to stop himself falling over a small lightbox at his feet. His face was smothered in Lizzie’s hot, heaving tits.

  ‘Kiss them.’

  Bobby lifted them up so that he could speak. ‘They’re really big.’

  ‘They’re no as firm as ah’d like them tae be.’

  ‘Ah think they’re fuckin’ brilliant.’

  Lizzie took his left hand and pulled it slowly up her thigh, across her pants and inside the elastic. He was still looking straight at her, as his hand found its way around the hairy mound and his fingers finally worked their way easily inside the soft, full lips of her fanny. With his right hand, he clumsily undid his belt buckle and, with Lizzie’s help, Bobby’s jeans and Y-fronts were rapidly down at his shins.