The Last Days of Disco Read online

  ‘Nae tips? At a fuckin’ Cumnock wedding?’ By contrast, Fat Franny’s vocals were loud and, for the assembled entourage, all too clear. ‘Ye must be fuckin’ jokin’! Even the bastard minister usually comes awa wi’ a fifty spot.’ Don Franny spread his arms wide, then placed them at the ten-to-two position, palms face-down on the table top, before continuing, ‘… and a go on at least two ae the bridesmaids!’

  Bob Dale smirked at this but was careful not to let Fat Franny see it. Almost everyone else remained silent with gazes averted. Only Jill Boothby – one half of married DJ duo Cheezee Choonz – indicated a wish to contribute, but her raised hand would remain unrecognised by the Chair for the rest of the meeting.

  ‘It’s like this …’ Fat Franny’s deep growl seemed to come from way down in his gut, reverberating around the bare walls of the cold, twice-extended kitchen. Again there was another long pause as Fat Franny visualised Hobnail clipping Bert Bole and then dumping his weighted body off the pier at Irvine Harbour. He refocused.

  ‘Like it or no, you fuckin’ clowns are part ae a business. Ah’m funding aw yer fuckin’ gigs here. Ah’m providin’ the equipment. Ah provide aw the security tae stop ye gettin’ a kickin’ at shiteholes like the Auchinleck Bowling Club.’ Fat Franny looked around the table at them all, one at a time, in a clockwise direction. ‘You lot – an’ ah can’t believe ah’m fuckin’ sayin’ this – are the fuckin’ talent.’

  The Cheezees were motionless. Bert Bole had his hands outstretched, as if appealing for permission to speak. Mr Sunshine, the former children’s entertainer, appeared to be asleep.

  ‘Hoi … Sunshine!’ Fat Franny threw a cream doughnut, hitting the older man on the side of his face and dislodging his Dr Crippen-style spectacles. ‘Fuckin’ wake up, ya auld prick! This is for your benefit as well.’

  Hobnail could tell Fat Franny’s mood was worsening and thought better of indicating the dollop of cream that was still attached to Mr Sunshine’s bizarre ginger beard.

  ‘You lot are just no bringin’ in enough, an’ it better fuckin’ change, a’right?’ Fat Franny pointed to Hobnail. ‘He tells me yir aw holdin’ oot on the tips.’ The talent all turned as one to look at the standing Bob Dale, who calmly folded his arms, shut his eyes and nodded.

  ‘So here’s whit’s gauny happen. Each ae ye needs to come up wi’ a gig of yer ain in the next month or yer out an’ ah’m gauny get other acts in.’ Fat Franny stood up quickly, causing his chair to fall dramatically behind him. ‘Ah’m away for a shite. Huv a good think about whit ah’ve just said.’

  ‘For God’s sake, put yer haun’ doon, he’s away,’ said Bert to Jill, once both Fat Franny and Bob Dale were well out of earshot. Although not the oldest of the four, Bert was generally their mouthpiece on the odd occasion when they felt a collective need to raise an issue with the fat man. Bert had been involved with Fat Franny’s crew for nearly three years. Back when they were both in their late thirties, Bert’s wife, Doris, had developed a serious gambling addiction. It had started pretty casually. A few nights at the bingo with friends from the BMK had progressed to include daytime visits to William Hill’s after she lost her job at the carpet factory.

  Bert had ended up working extended shifts as a janitor at the James Hamilton Academy. He was well regarded by teachers and pupils alike, mainly due to an unshakeably optimistic outlook. He had a belief in human nature, which led him to attempt to do things for others even if it involved disadvantaging himself. His good nature helped Harry Cassidy to get a job as a fellow janitor, when a more selfish man – and especially one in his financial situation – might have been tempted to keep the additional shifts for himself. In the early part of 1979, things had started to become markedly worse for Bert and Doris Bole. Even though they both knew Doris had a significant problem, it wasn’t easy for them to talk about, and they dealt with it by effectively ignoring it. When they got into serious arrears with the rent and their growing utility bills, Bert took some well-intended advice and went to see Fat Franny Duncan over in Onthank. Nearly three years later, Bert was still working as a pub singer under an alias – Tony Palomino – paying off what had originally been a manageable £150 loan to clear a three-month rent backlog. A month after Bert had made this arrangement, Doris was dead.

  A favour called in by Bert’s doctor to a fellow Mason in the Fiscal’s department ensured a verdict of ‘death by misadventure’. It was a convenient way of avoiding a verdict of suicide, by claiming that the overdose of anti-depressants that had actually killed her was accidental. It didn’t ultimately make a great deal of financial difference to Bert, but it did at least secure the pitiful insurance policy payout to cater for a decent cremation. His mates at the Hurlford Masonic Club paid for the wake. Fat Franny’s weekly compound interest calculations made sure the closure of the debt was always out of reach, so while Bert was somewhat imprisoned by history, he never quite understood the motivation of the others.

  Mr Sunshine was a fifty-two-year-old bachelor, whose real name was Angus Archibald. He used to be a children’s entertainer, performing magic tricks and doing puppet shows. Despite a few criminal investigations relating to ‘improper activities’ in his past, he now worked under Fat Franny’s banner as a DJ for children’s parties. Two of Fat Franny’s minders – Des Brick and Wullie the Painter – constantly persecuted Mr Sunshine, calling him a ‘kiddy-fiddlin’ paedo’, amongst many other lurid things. The erstwhile Angus Archibald rarely got flustered by this, simply drawing on his pipe, tapping his nose and saying quietly, ‘Not proven.’ Mr Sunshine’s bizarre appearance also caused many a second look from parents who’d hired him. He was a heavy, but small man, and he didn’t carry the weight well. He looked a bit like the television magician, the Great Soprendo, but with a wispy ginger, partly combed-over hairpiece, pallid freckled face and trademark Wishee-Washee-style beard. It was a resemblance Mr Sunshine traded on, appropriating the ‘Piff, Paff, Poof’ catchphrase for his own performances. Given his ‘look’ and a suspect past, perhaps operating under Fat Franny’s wing was the only place he could get hired.

  Cheezee Choonz were far harder to fathom. They were a married couple in their early thirties who only worked at weddings. Jay Boothby was reasonably talented. Unlike Bert Bole, he could actually sing, although, strangely, the Cheezees worked for Fat Franny as mobile DJs. Bert couldn’t really understand why, when there was an opportunity to earn more money by having a DJ-plus-singer offer for weddings, he was sent along with the Cheezees. Bert began to wonder if Fat Franny even knew Jay was a decent singer. He only became aware of it himself when he heard Jay testing out the microphones in an empty hall, a few months ago.

  Jay was from Cumbria and Jill was from Cumnock. They ‘met’ through CB radio in the summer of 1980 and married six months later, moving to Kilmarnock in the hope of pursuing Jay’s dreams of becoming a club entertainer. Jill could take it or leave it frankly, but she had no real circle of friends and, as Fat Franny’s most prolific earners, being out with Jay almost every weekend left her with little time to spend with anyone else. Bert was equally uncertain how they had come to be part of Fat Franny’s Union, but, if he was honest, he had never really bothered to find out.

  ‘Have any of you three got any leads here?’ asked Bert.

  ‘Yer jokin’, aren’t ya?’ replied Jay Boothby. ‘Where are we gonna find the time to look for gigs? I hardly know anyone up here.’

  ‘Whit about you, Sunshine?’ Bert wasn’t hopeful, but felt that he should be inclusive.

  ‘Oh aye … the Cub Scouts have lined up a jamboree and the Crosshouse Mothers ‘n’ Toddlers Group have called for a bookin’ … and … and … whit the fuck dae you think? If ah could get gigs of ma own, d’you think I’d be here in this fat cunt’s freezin’ hoose?’

  Bert sighed deeply. At least he’d asked.

  ‘Well, ah’ve got one. At least it’s somethin’. It’s a note on the school noticeboard. Some wee lassie’s looking for a DJ for her eighteenth. If we can tel
l Franny we’ve got that wan, it’ll maybe dae for noo. Ah’ll let him ken that I’ll phone an’ get it sorted the night.’

  2ND FEBRUARY 1982: 7:58PM

  ‘Hullo, can ah speak tae Lizzie … eh, please?’

  ‘Aye, son. Wait an’ ah’ll get her. Whit’s yer name, pal?’

  ‘Eh, it’s Rob … Boaby Cassidy. Ah’m phonin’ about the disco she’s havin’ …’

  He was only kept waiting for perhaps a minute, but, for an anxious Bobby, it seemed like half an hour. He imagined Lizzie’s house; the man who answered as a butler who had to make a journey to the east wing to alert the demure Miss King that a gentlemen caller was holding for her.

  ‘Ah’m Lizzie King. Whit ye efter …?’ Illusion shattered.

  ‘Eh, hullo … hi. Sorry tae bother ye, but ah was phonin’ about the party. Ken? Yer eighteenth?’

  There was no immediate response, but the heavy breathing from the other end indicated to Bobby that she had indeed run from a remote part of the house or – more likely – that she was a fat lassie.

  ‘Ye put a notice up at the Jimmy Hamilton, lookin’ for a mobile DJ,’ Bobby continued, hoping to make a connection.

  ‘Aye, that was me. Are you wan ae Duncan’s mob?’ rasped Lizzie King, sounding like a seventeen-year-old Ayrshire Bonnie Tyler. Aye, fat and a smoker, thought Bobby.

  ‘No, well, not really. Ah’m borrowin’ some gear, but that’s all.’ Bobby wasn’t quite certain of the relevance of the question, but there seemed to be an edge to it nonetheless.

  ‘Whit’s the name of yer disco?’ When he’d rehearsed this phone call in his head, all Lizzie’s questions had been about his musical taste, his DJ influences and – most importantly – the price. With the benefit of hindsight, this was an obvious one and he felt a bit stupid that he couldn’t immediately answer her.

  ‘We’ve just started up … but don’t worry, we’re great. Folk have been phonin’ non-stop lately. Phone’s been ringin’ off the hook, so it has.’ Bobby searched vainly around the room for some inspiration. ‘We’re kinda booked solid for the next month, ken?’ he lied, looking at the discarded copies of Playboy and Razzle that lay around his room and then at the VHS tape in his left hand. Big Juggs Disco …? Nah, wouldn’t work. Disco Deep Throat …? Nope, that would rule out the church gigs.

  ‘It’s a mixture of parties like yours and …’

  ‘For God’s sake, ah’m no Eamon fuckin’ Andrews. Ah don’t gie a fuck about yer life story. Just gies the name ae the disco!’

  A Rickenbacker riff provided the answer. In just over four years Weller had never let Bobby down and here he was again, just in the nick of time.

  ‘Aye, sorry. It’s Heatwave. Heatwave Disco.’ Bobby looked at the cover of the Setting Sons LP with a mixture of pride and relief. He felt as if he’d just been told he’d passed a polygraph test.

  ‘Ah’m no payin’ more than £40, an’ ye’ll get it on the night, at the end,’ said Lizzie with a force that firmly established the offer’s take-it-or-leave-it status.

  ‘OK. That’s grea … eh, fine. Yeah, we’ll see ye on the night then?’

  ‘Don’t be fuckin’ late or ah’ll be dockin’.’ Click. There it was again – that monotonous dialling tone. It was in sharp contrast to Lizzie’s vivid accent, but Bobby listened to it – hypnotised by it – for several minutes. When he finally pressed the big button and re-holstered the aerial, he allowed himself to laugh out loud. He was now a DJ.

  3RD FEBRUARY 1982: 10:25PM

  ‘An’ now … comin’ ride atcha, it’s the wan und only Adam and his Ants with “Stan an’ Doliver” …’ Fat Franny was giving them his best lines, but the twins’ twenty-first birthday party was lifeless. No shock to the heart could revive this turkey. The Broomhill Hotel was an awkward venue. A narrow winding stair made the journey from car park to dancefloor with heavy speakers one to avoid. The plan of the function area worked against the generation of any atmosphere. The dancefloor was square, but too close to the bar, where people queued. The DJ had to set up behind a column and adjacent to the door to the toilets, which meant that half of the L-shaped room and a corner of the dancefloor wasn’t even in the DJ’s line of sight. The upper floor of the Broomhill didn’t need a lot of people for it to appear full which, on the evidence of tonight, was just as well. But it was a Tuesday night – the dead zone for mobile DJs – and of the thirty-odd partygoers, more than half looked like a SAGA Tours mini-bus would be returning them to an old folks’ home in about five minutes; just in time for Late Call.

  A lot of nights were like this. If it wasn’t for the fact that the money was the same, regardless of whether the hall was full or not, Fat Franny would’ve found it all pretty depressing. He often wondered what the main motivation was for people holding a party for themselves. A hopeful public display of their popularity? The desire for an event, which – with Kodak’s assistance – they might be able to recount forever? Or simply an opportunity to maximise the presents count?

  Fat Franny could tell almost instantly into which category people fell. Within half an hour he had Deirdre and Donna Dunlop – the twins for whom this particular celebration was in aid – firmly in the first grouping. Their furtive glances towards the door and the slight drooping of their shoulders as another elderly relative came through it were a dead giveaway. But there was an additional edge evident here. The twins were apparently in a self-esteem struggle with each other, and the result on this particular evening was a dull, dreich, no-score draw with a third of the match still to play.

  ‘An’ a very highly ‘propriate one for y’all now. It’s Dave Stew-Heart and Barbara Cat-Skin with “It’s My Party” …’ Fat Franny chuckled to himself at this jokey pronunciation before continuing, ‘… and I’ll bloody cry if ah want tae …’ No-one looked up, far less laughed. He faded the music down again and flicked the mic switch. ‘We’ll be cutting the cakes after this wan.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Bert. Get us a pint, will ye?’

  Bert Bole had been downstairs in the bar, building up the courage to come up and tell Fat Franny the bad news. As he stood at the bar watching Pearl Fisher pour the golden liquid into the pint glass, he thought it could maybe wait another day. Fat Franny didn’t seem to be in a good mood, and this damp squib of a party was clearly the principal cause.

  ‘That’ll be 75p, luv,’ said cheery Pearl, whose surname since she’d married Andy Fisher had required her to be almost constantly upbeat. The number of times she’d had to smile cheerily, as some drunken prick had asked stupid questions about her name badge. Still, it could have been worse. Andy knew a guy who knew a guy called Colin Curtain, and he’d married a girl named Annette.

  Bert walked back over to the decks and put the pint down on a three-foot-high Marshall amp. Cliff Richard was singing about exultations and telling everyone that he was in love with her, or him. The assembled well-wishers surrounded the blushing twins, and an impromptu Hogmanay-style, crossover-arm-linking began, giving the whole scene a surreal air. When the circle started rushing in towards the girls, Fat Franny pushed on ‘The Stripper’ by the David Rose Orchestra, just to witness the confused looks on the faces of those on the dancefloor.

  Thirty minutes later, and, entirely predictably, the twins’ dad approached the decks.

  ‘We’re goin’ tae call it a night, big man,’ he said. There were now less than fifteen people in the room, but four of them were being paid to be there and another was Bert Bole.

  ‘Fair enough pal,’ said Fat Franny. With a bit of luck he’d be home before midnight. An unexpected bonus.

  ‘Let’s say we call it thirty quid, eh?’ said Mr Dunlop.

  ‘Whit? Ah don’t fuckin’ think so!’ Fat Franny had had this exact conversation many times before.

  ‘Come on. We booked ye til one o’clock but yer stoppin’ at eleven.’ Mr Dunlop’s arms were widespread in demonstration of the reason behind his argument.

  ‘Aye, but ah’m only stoppin’ cos’ you asked me tae. Ah’l
l play on tae one in the morning if ye want me tae.’ Fat Franny had recently read a book on mind games, which had suggested mirroring and matching as a tactic of positive negotiation. Accordingly, his arms were also now opened out with hands facing upwards.

  ‘Ah’m no sure that’s entirely fair.’ Mr Dunlop now had one hand on his hip and the other was scratching the top of his balding head. Fat Franny knew this looked ridiculous, but since it had been highly recommended to him, he mimicked as the book decreed.

  Bert Bole watched this bizarre ritual from the comparative safety of the bar. He observed both men looking like teapots, saluting like Hitler and then – most curiously – both standing on one leg. Whatever it was, Fat Franny looked to have emerged triumphant. The other guy had just slapped money down on a box of records, leaving Fat Franny with that recognisable, thin-lipped smile, which only seemed to happen when he came into contact with money. Bert reconsidered his earlier trepidation and decided that having just been paid was as good as it was going to get to let Fat Franny know he had been usurped.

  5TH FEBRUARY 1982: 2:47PM

  ‘So whit did Gary end up gettin’ ye?’ said Joey Miller.

  ‘Eh? Ach, bugger all,’ replied Bobby. ‘Cunt got me a magnifying glass an’ a satsuma. He told me to look through the glass. When ah did, he says, “Look, ah got ye a Space Hopper”.’

  Joey laughed and folded his arms. ‘Aye, ah’ve got a family like that as well. For ma sixteenth, ma dad got me “Hide and Seek”.’