The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas Page 16

  It was against this background of concern from the media, the government, the police, the burghers of Wembley Park and his hypertensive mum, that Max took the tickets for the game. He eventually persuaded Grant to go with him, by promising that they would go and hang about outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House, waiting for John Peel.

  Max prepared a hopeful mix tape of the new records. After a fair number of false starts – and some industrial-strength swearing that resulted in Molly Wishart’s brush handle banging her annoyance from the kitchen downstairs – the tape was made. To record vinyl onto C90, a conventional tape recorder was positioned next to the main speaker of Max’s old record player. The ‘record’ button was depressed – it now shared that characteristic with the rest of the occupants of the house – along with the ‘pause’ button holding the recording sequence until just before the point where needle made sound. Max pondered the Luddite nature of this recording technique. He’d read about compact disc technology revolutionising music, and now the first ones were being sold down south. He knew that essentially all recording was similar, but he now longed to be in a proper studio with real equipment and a qualified sound engineer. Mix tapes, enjoyable though they were, only made this longing more pressing.

  This new tape – self-titled Philly Soul Sounds of the 70s – was to go with Max to Wembley in the hope that the two strangers who would be providing him and Grant with a lift as part of the ticket deal, would play it at some point on the road trip. Having sourced the tickets, Max delegated the task of sourcing the kilts; de rigueur for a Scotland away fixture. Reluctantly Grant took up the challenge. His find was less kilt, more tartan blanket with big belt holding it up. Max Mojo and Grant Delgado would eventually leave Kilmarnock the day before the game looking like walking advertisements for the Russ Abbot Madhouse for the stereotypically Scotch.

  Big Jock and the wee Pie-Man were to be their front-seat chaperones for the journey. Max knew neither of them, but since the lounge bar owner had arranged it, Max wasn’t complaining. The altered Wednesday-night date for the game affected Big Jock’s hospital porter shift patterns, so they had decided it would be best to drive down overnight on the Tuesday. Max and Grant would be dropped in the city and picked up first thing on the Thursday morning, even though a return journey wasn’t part of the original deal.

  29

  31st May 1983

  10.43 pm

  ‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ!’ Max shouted from his room. He opened the windows and shouted it again and again. It brought both parents running upstairs.

  ‘Whit is it, son … are ye’ aw’right in there?’

  ‘Eh? Aye. Ah’m fuckin’ fine. Gie’s peace, for fuck sake.’

  ‘Hey! Knock that oan the heid, right? Ah don’t care whit they doctors say, speak tae yer Ma like that again an’ ah’ll separate yer heid fae yer shoodirs.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad!’

  ‘It’s nearly flamin’ midnight … get a bloody grip, son.’

  Max Mojo had felt like a ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He thought back to the dream about carrying the cross up to the Mount at Onthank; back to the first thing he could vividly remember before all the headaches had started. It was as if someone had just relieved him of that burden and then given him a blow job into the bargain. He felt euphoric. He felt dizzy. He wasn’t on drugs, at least not recreational ones anyway. He’d just listened to the greatest record he’d ever heard.

  It wis ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ Fuckin’ bolted me tae the floor, man. Ah wis gettin’ ma stuff th’gither for goin’ tae Wembley an’ Peel’s oan the tranny. He’s wafflin’ oan aboot aw kinds ae shite, an’ playin’ fuckin’ pish music like Steel Pulse or tunes that’d make ye slash some cunt wi’ a blade jist tae make it stop. Wisnae a great Peel night, ken, but then he puts on this band that’s in session, ken? Fuckin’ guitar, man. Fuckin’ Johnny. Jesus Christ, ah wis aboot greetin’ at the end ae it. Couldnae fuckin’ get ower it.

  ‘You need tae watch yersel’ noo, aw’ right?’ Max’s mum had many reservations about her damaged son heading down to London, but, as Washer reminded her, his doctors encouraged them to treat him as normally as possible.

  They had reluctantly accepted that he had changed his name by deed poll, and that he was – for the mid- to longer-term at least – now a different person. Washer wasn’t entirely demoralised by it. Max Mojo was driven and determined, whereas Dale Wishart had been a plodder. One to whom life just happened. Max might’ve been an obnoxious, foul-mouthed wee bastard, but at least he seemed to know what he wanted. It was an odd brew of emotions that Washer Wishart now experienced when regarding his son. Although he despised the thought of it, Max was actually the type of character Washer had once anticipated handing the family business over to at some future point. By default, he had become the son Washer had never had, and previously didn’t know he even wanted.

  ‘Aye. Ah will,’ said Max, curtly, while jamming a white t-shirt into the recesses of his blue Adidas bag. He was already dreaming of a new band sound, all jangly guitars but still with a soulful Mod groove. The Postcard records of Orange Juice offered a bit of a template, but Grant had developed into a decent singer, and for all Max loved them, he couldn’t describe Edwyn Collins as the type of singer he’d wanted in his band. How he hoped against hope that Grant – but perhaps more importantly, The Motorcycle Boy – had also been listening in to the John Peel show.

  Ah mind ae leavin’ the hoose that night as if ah wis’ oan speed, ken? Like some daft drunk cunt stumblin’ through a railway tunnel an’ spottin’ a wee light awa’ at the end ae it. Mibbe that’s a bad analogy, but ye’ll ken whit ah mean, eh, Norma? Thousands ae fuckin’ weans aw stuck in their bedrooms wonderin’ who the fuck they were an’ whit they were aw aboot, were aw oan the verge ae fuckin’ life-changing enlightenment.

  ‘All men have secrets and here is mine.’ Fuck sake, the quiffed cunt wis singin’ right at me, man.

  Ah didnae ken it at the time but they lyrics were exactly how ah felt … ‘But still I’d leap in front of a flying bullet for you.’ Fuckin’ hell. Grant loved it tae. That song felt tae me what ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ probably felt like tae aw they millions ae wee American lassies aw desperate for their first shag. It wis the future fur us … the band, ken? Bumblin’ aboot tryin’ to find a kinda common ground, ye know. We were definitely gettin’ there by that time, mind you. But there wis still different fuckin’ styles … vibes, an’ that, an’ then aw ae a sudden, it’s right there in front ae us. Guitar. Drums. Bass. Voice. Nae need to bother wi’ fuckin’ trumpets or banjos or synths or any ae that fuckin’ JoBoxers shite.

  Otherwise, it wis generally gettin’ a bit fuckin’ mental, ken? Too much pressure, as the wee Selecter lassie used tae sing. Too fuckin’ right, hen! Ah needed tae get ootae Dodge or else any number of wide cunts wid ae pannelled us. The debts were risin’ faster than Neil Kinnock’s blood pressure. This wis’ aw before Grant’s stash came intae full public knowledge. Only folk that knew wis me, him, the pikeys … an’ as ah only found oot later, the Burundi drummer. An’ ah couldnae tell Washer, like. An opportunity tae fuck off doon tae that London presents itself, like a big fuckin’ safe, warm, wet fanny at the end ae a night oan the batter … or at least that’s how ah felt aboot it at the time, like. So ah dives right in. Who fuckin’ widnae, eh?

  30

  31st May 1983

  11.57 pm

  Grant left his house in Onthank to rendezvous with Max Mojo at the Broomhill Hotel just before midnight on Tuesday with more than just Morrissey’s mercurial lyrics ringing in his ears. Senga’s three-point interrogation still reverberated as much as Johnny Marr’s guitar.

  1. Why was he going at all?

  2. What did he know about the two strangers?

  3. Where was he going to sleep?

  Grant lied about the first two but number three left him stumped because, to be honest, neither he nor Max had even considered the question. Big Jock and the Pie-Man were sorted f
or digs with friends of the smaller man with the unusual – and unexplained – nickname. The wee man kindly phoned his contacts from Abington Services on the first stop en route to ask if there was room for the two kilted teenagers as well. The shaking of the tiny bald head inside the phone booth indicated no sanctuary.

  ‘Nuthin’ dain’, boys,’ said the Pie-Man. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Ach, nae worries. Thanks fur tryin’ at least, eh?’ said Grant.

  ‘Baldy wee basturt.’ The engine started just as Max Mojo made his feelings on the subject known. General Johnson’s vocal intro on ‘Give Me Just a Little More Time’ thankfully also concealed them or the trip would have been over before they had crossed the border.

  ‘Ah’ll try another couple ae folk fae Galston at the next stop. Viviani might put ye’se up,’ said the Pie-Man optimistically. ‘No sure if he’s still in London, mind, but if ye’se can keep schtum aboot it, he might dae ye’s a wee turn, ken?’

  Tony Viviani was a Galston man of Italian descent. His family had originally come from the same region as Frankie Fusi’s but the adopted Ayrshiremen had never met. Tony had operated an ice-cream van as part of his father’s ‘Emporio Viviani’s’. During his ‘rounds’, he charmed a number of young Galston women into the back of his van with the promise of a free double nougat. For him, this utopian existence continued for years until he unwittingly plundered a fifteen-year-old niece of Nobby Quinn. Amid rumour and counter rumour that he had actually raped her, and fearing ending up in the foundations of the Auchinleck bypass, he’d bolted around eighteen months before, surfacing in London. There he would have probably stayed in anonymous bliss had he not sent a postcard from London to the Standalane pub in Galston asking the landlord to send on a reference for a labourer’s job. The card was posted up behind the bar and before Judith Chalmers could say Wish You Were Here, everyone knew where he was, including his fearsome wife Deirdre, who, with four kids and another due, headed south for the Big Smoke. Tony hadn’t so much as said goodbye to her. Deirdre, like many others in Galston, was also aware of the rumours that her fecund husband had stolen a large sum of money from a rigged fist-fighting tournament run by the Quinns.

  This was the back-story that new Smiths fans, Max Mojo and Grant Delgado headed into on that sunny Wednesday morning in old London Town. By the time they made it over to Hammersmith it was close to opening time. Tony Viviani wasn’t in the pub the Pie-Man had given the teenagers the directions to, but someone knew him and where he was staying. That same someone then spent what felt like about an hour telling them a story that was to reveal where he had been sitting when an IRA bomb had gone off in the corner of the very same pub two years earlier. As it happened he had been sitting at home watching television. Max called the old man a soppy old cunt for wasting their time on such an anti-climactic story. Grant got his arse kicked by the owner, and the two kilted Scotsmen were unceremoniously booted out on to the street.

  ‘Fuck sake, eh? Knock that fuckin’ shite oan the heid doon here, or ah’m headin’ back hame oan the train. We’re gonnae end up gettin’ an absolute doin’ affa somebody if you cannae fuckin’ button it.’ Grant was raging.

  Did the body rule the mind, or did the mind rule the body? Ah dunno!

  Ye’ll appreciate here, that ah couldnae fuckin’ help aw that shite, right? Back then, a lot ae the time, whatever wis in ma heid jist came right oot. Still does tae a certain extent, an’ by the way, ah dinnae think that’s a bad thing, ken? There should be mair folk plain speakin’. We widnae be in aw this fuckin’ mess wi’ they towel-heids in the Middle East if we’d aw sat doon at the beginnin’ an’ telt each other the plain facts. Fuck aw the ‘Bootros Bootros Galley’ bollocks. Somebody calls me a cunt, an’ can back up the reasons why ah’m a cunt, then ah’m happy wi’ that. Ah’ll be a cunt tae him, an’ ah’ll stay oot his fuckin’ way as a result. Ah’m a wee bit like that auld gadgie … the Prince Philip.

  Each tae his ain, ken? Que Sera…

  ‘Get yersel tae fuck,’ said Max. ‘Widnae be in this fuckin’ position if ye’d let us book a hotel like ah said.’

  The rest of the journey was conducted in silence and on foot. Tony Viviani was living in a two-bedroom, second-floor flat right next to Battersea Power Station. This iconic structure was like an old English pub table overturned after a brawl; the urban decay at its base resembling all the things that had dropped from it as it had fallen over. As Max and Grant approached the front door, a sense of doom began to build. What if Tony Viviani hadn’t actually spoken to the Pie-Man’s contact? What if he had said it was okay but had been so pissed at the time that he’d forgotten he’d said so? What if he was a mental case?

  Grant’s steps were noticeably slowing, letting Max take the lead. After three sturdy knocks, the wooden door opened. A look-a-like of Ringo Starr in the film That’ll Be the Day looked them up and down. As if to reinforce the metaphor of a man living beyond his sell-by date, he wore a faded yellow t-shirt with the words ‘I SHOT JR’ screen-printed on the front. The two kilted strangers in front of him could only have been those referred to him by pals of wee Paddy Bolton, the Pie-Man.

  ‘Whit team dae ye’se support?’ Tony asked, with an eyebrow raised. It seemed like a trick question.

  ‘Don’t really like fitba,’ said Max.

  ‘If ye did like fitba, whit team wid ye support?’ Tony wasn’t to be denied. Grant was beginning to think the correct answer was the password.

  ‘Christ’s sake … whit is this, the fuckin’ Krypton Factor?’ Max was becoming agitated, but Tony defused the tension with a smile. He was simply enquiring on the assumption that Scots travelling to Wembley would have club allegiances. Ayr United was his.

  ‘You two the mates ae the Pie-Man, then?’

  ‘Aye. You Tony the Pony fae Galston?’ said Max, suppressing the urge to call him a prick.

  Tony looked outside and beyond them. ‘Naw. Tony’s no here jist noo. He’s em … away in Benidorm for the summer. Ah’m his cousin … Terry. C’mon in boys,’ he said warmly. He was evidently the worst liar on the planet.

  Grant figured he wouldn’t stay on this informal home-made witness protection programme for long. Tony/Terry beckoned them in. Grant was relieved that he was so welcoming. This sense quickly evaporated when the penny dropped about the biggest ‘What if’ of them all. What if Tony Viviani hadn’t told his missus?

  Naturally, he hadn’t. Deirdre more than lived up to her billing, going absolutely mental.

  ‘You’re fuckin’ jokin’, ya daft tally prick! Two fuckin’ clowns in skirts ye’ve niver even met afore … steyin’ … in ma hoose? That’ll be fuckin’ right! Get rid, or I’ll make that call tae Ged McClure, an’ let him tell Nobby Quinn yer here.’

  Max and Grant stood motionless next to the living-room window. Tony the Pony tried to reason with his irate wife. Stammered pleas about how he couldn’t let the Pie-Man down, that they were homeless and defenceless lads from the old country, that they had come all this way and finally – the one that had Grant move instinctively to a concealed position behind the curtain – that he and she would only need to sleep on their folded-down sofa for one night.

  ‘Have you loast yer fuckin’ marbles, ya greasy walloper? Bad ’nuff them bein’ here at aw’ but you’ve telt them they can huv oor bed!’ Deirdre drew breath. Another assault seemed inevitable. ‘Yer a fuckin’ lazy bastart! Couldnae even stick the buildin’ site withoot aw the screwin’ aboot.’

  This last jibe seemed unrelated to context but spoke loudly of the darker malaise at the centre of their relationship. There was a brief few seconds of calm, then an almighty smash as the mirror above the electric two-bar fire shattered on contact with a flying plate.

  ‘Ah’m takin’ the weans tae Brenda’s. Ye can dae whit the fuck ye like wi’ they two clowns, but if the three o’ ye are still here the morra mornin’, Quinn’s crew’ll fuckin’ kill ye ’cos ah’m phonin’ McClure right noo! Thomas, Joseph, Maria, Mary! Get yer stuff, we’re goin’ tae y
er Aunty Bren’s.’

  Fifteen minutes of uncoordinated banging and swearing later and they were gone.

  Tony Viviani had wisely stayed in the living room with Max and Grant, clearly thinking the better of any further appeals. When the noise had dissipated to an extent where Deirdre was evidently more than a block away, Tony smiled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Fancy a beer then lads?’ he said.

  Max and Grant had somewhere to stay for the night. Despite the mess he’d made of his life, Tony Viviani had clearly retained a degree of magnetic charm. He seemed like the kind of guy that everybody generally liked until they were having an off-day, whereupon his constant glass half-full attitude became a severe irritation. He didn’t seem unduly concerned about the prospect of hospitalisation at the hands of the Quinns, although Grant in particular wanted to ensure that he didn’t come into contact with them. The whole caravan business with Maggie had eventually died down, but only after he’d handed over two thousand pounds. He was in no mood to rekindle bad feeling with Rocco Quinn by associating with Tony Viviani.

  ‘Dinnae worry aboot the missus, eh? Time ae the month, an’ that, ken?’ said Tony, convinced that Deirdre would cool off, realise she really loved him and come home in a different mood next morning, having left the phone safely housed on its cradle.

  31

  1st June 1983

  4.03 pm

  Max and Grant made it to Trafalgar Square as the sun seemed to be at its warmest. The fountains were boarded up but that didn’t stop the Scots fans from again treading that very thin line. The large crowd with whom they travelled towards Wembley tipped burger vans over, a small group of English supporters were chased outside a tube station in a hail of bricks, and a policeman’s helmet was stolen, causing quite a serious stramash and resulting in around ten arrests. All in all, it was quite an intimidating atmosphere even though all of the supporters outside the stadium appeared to be in blue and tartan. This dark mood continued inside the ground. From all around Max and Grant, empty quarter-bottles of vodka and whisky were thrown at the police patrolling the running track around the pitch. Thankfully, none hit their intended targets. The mood worsened as England went 1–0 up and then, in the second half, deservedly doubled their lead. Glenn Hoddle had torn Scotland apart and the Tartan Army’s golden boy, Charlie Nicholas had been a nightmare.