The Last Days of Disco (24 page)

‘Andy! The bed’s gettin’ cold. Hurry up …’

Stupid fat cunt
, thought Hobnail. Stacks of pound notes sat in the hole in front of him. The number of times he’d listened to the fat bastard going on about that fucking
Godfather
film: ‘Dae ye ken the importance ae forward planning? Thinkin’ ahead? Well, let me tell ye this. When Coppola started shootin’ the part one, he asked fur eighty days. The studio
gied
him eighty-three. He did it in seventy-seven!’ Fat Franny had delivered this analogous tale so many times, those figures were ingrained in Hobnail’s memory. ‘An’ that goes tae prove the value ae making proper plans.’

Serves ye right ya fat prick,
thought Hobnail as he headed for the back door. He looked up at the pinboard on the wall next to the
door, with its line of keys along the bottom edge. He took the set labelled ‘Metropolis’ –
another wee problem sorted for later
– and headed out the back way, over the fence and away across the fields.

18

I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE A LONG, LONG TIME

Fat Franny Duncan strode purposefully towards the ten-storey monolith that dominated his town's skyline. He fucking hated that building. Hated the people that used it. Hated the stone aquaduct in front of it that carried the West Coast rail line to the South. Hated the whole fucking town. Somebody knew something. Had some information. Could point a finger. Fat Franny's mind was racing. Was it someone in the Inner Circle? Was it one of the younger boys working on instruction? Was it a complete fucking stranger?

As he paced down the narrow Foregate, furtively looking right and left, Fat Franny couldn't stop thinking that
everyone
was a potential suspect. Fat Franny had a simple code:
Fuckin' Ten Commandments? Ther' wis only five in Kilmarnock and three of them involved no' starin' at yer mate's burd!
The two that really mattered were ‘Nae nickin' fae the Boss' and ‘Don't shit wher' ye sleep'. The Two Commandments had been broken and retribution was going to have to be swift and brutal.

Fat Franny burst through the unpainted double-swing doors of The Metropolis, its entrance permanently in the shadow of the dense car-parking levels above.

‘Wullie!
Wullie
! Where the fuck are ye?' He shouted into the semi-darkness. A torchlight's focused beam came back and caught him full in the face. ‘Turn that fuckin' thing aff, ya cunt!' said Fat Franny, shielding his eyes. It took a few seconds for his vision to re-adjust.

‘Who ae ye callin' a cunt, fatman?' It wasn't Wullie the Painter holding the torch. It was Mickey Martin.

‘Where's the Painter?' said Fat Franny.

‘Aye, ah'd like tae ken that as well,' replied Mickey. Fat Franny was blindsided.

‘Ah'm tryin' tae open this fuckin' place at the weekend. Doesnae fuckin' look likely at the minute, does it?'

‘We were down here last night wi' your guy Denny. He was fuckin' happy enough
then
.'

‘
His
name's no ower the fuckin' door is it? Plus we've lost another day wi' that snidey wee cunt no' turnin' up. Ah've got fuckin' partners an' they're aw kickin' off about us missin' the openin' date.'

‘Look, ah've got ma ain fuckin' problems here. Ah don't ken where he is either. In fact, while we were down here yesterday, some bastard wis breakin' intae the house.'

‘An' whit the fuck does that have tae dae wi' me? Ye implyin' it was me that did ye ower?'

‘Did ah say that?' Fat Franny was struggling to find a positive way out of this conversation. He could recognise that Mickey was holding all the aces, but his blood was boiling and paranoia was his primary driver. ‘Though it's a wee bit ae a fuckin' coincidence that we aw get shouted tae an
emergency
meeting here, that isnae really an emergency at aw. An' at the same time the Ponderosie gets fuckin' hit.'

Mickey Martin laughed. He genuinely didn't mean to but
that stupid fucking name.

‘Think it's funny? A big fuckin' laugh, eh?' glowered Fat Franny.

‘Hey, watch yer tone, ya prick. Yer in ma' fuckin house now.'

Fat Franny turned to walk out.

‘An' aye, ah
dae
think it's fuckin' funny. An' whit's funnier is
you
doin' this work for fuck-all cos' ye think yer gettin' a gig here. Ya stupid bastard.' This stopped Fat Franny in his tracks. ‘Why would ah hire a fat walloper like you ower they Heatwave boys?'

Fat Franny turned and walked back towards Mickey Martin. Mickey stood impassively, a smug grin all over his face. Fat Franny was shaking. Mickey could see it. His reflexes were primed for avoiding a thrown punch. But Franny's rage was not so blind as to obscure the consequences of raising fists against Mickey Martin, even with no witnesses.

‘Ah'll no forget this, Doc. Ye might no' care too much the now, but we'll be havin' this out in the near future.' Fat Franny poked a stubby finger into Mickey's chest. His stance was aggressive but he was holding back. ‘An' when that happens, the fuckin' boot'll be on the other foot!' Fat Franny turned and walked away towards the doors.

‘Ah ken ye'll no forget. Elephants
never
fuckin' dae!' shouted Mickey as Franny disappeared through them into the pedestrianised precinct outside.

‘Fuck's sake, Doc. That was close. Just as well ah went tae the bog when ah did, eh?'

‘Just get on wi' it, eh? Ah wisnae jokin' when ah said that ah'm fucked if we don't get this open for the weekend, so get yer tea down an' get a fuckin' shift on,' said Mickey. ‘An' Wullie?'

‘Whit?'

‘Don't lose ma fuckin' keys, an' stay out ae his way for the next few days, eh?'

Hobnail was astonished at the cost of sending a recorded-delivery parcel. He'd never really posted anything before – apart from a severed big toe – but still, £10.98 was daylight fucking robbery,
in his opinion. Just as well Fat Franny was paying for it from the £46,763 of which Hobnail had relieved him. Hobnail had kept a small amount for himself, but the vast bulk of this sum was now in the heavily wrapped parcel that sat on the counter of the small post office in the back of the corner shop in Crosshouse. Hobnail had got up early – mainly to avoid detection – but also to walk out to this remote village where there would be far less chance of anyone knowing who he was and therefore of him drawing attention to such a large parcel. He was still amazed that he'd been able to walk around on the night he'd taken it, with all of the money in two double-wrapped Safeway bags that he'd found in Fat Franny's house. The memory brought a smile to his lips and it reminded him of how little he'd smiled in recent years. The thought of that fat tosser trying to interrogate his poor old mum about the identity of ‘Andy', whom she was trying to get back into bed, made him go one step further and burst out laughing.

Hobnail couldn't make up for all that Senga thought she had lost by staying with him. He didn't have the vocabulary. He also couldn't connect with Grant in a way that would positively address the dilemma of accepting Hobnail for the person he was, while at the same time persuading the boy that there was a different, better future if he avoided his father's mistakes. Hobnail shared Senga's fears about Grant. He just couldn't articulate them to either. But maybe this pack of twenty-, fifty- and hundred-pound notes could say it for him. It was too late for Senga and him, but perhaps not for Grant and the other kids. Senga would get the money. She'd know what to do with it to avoid suspicion. She'd be savvy enough to know where it came from and would have no scruples at all about utilising this
found
money for the benefit of her family. But she would also get Hobnail's crudely written note, and, although he'd tried to disguise his child-like handwriting, the expressed wishes contained within it that Senga enjoy Vienna would casually betray the identity of the sender. Hobnail took some comfort in hoping that it might also prove to his wife that he
had
been listening after all.

By the time Guardsman Gary Cassidy's four-leg plane journey home from the Falklands had ended, his father, Harry Cassidy, was dead. Somewhere around the equator – as his son slept lightly on a Hercules whose principal purpose was that of repatriation – Harry Cassidy suffered a second attack, which was massive and fatal. His wife was in a ward two floors above, unaware of this or anything else that was going on around her.

Her daughter Hettie had fallen asleep briefly in her room, exhausted from a general lack of sleep and also from the emotional trauma of having both parents in a serious condition in the same hospital. Her brother Bobby was in the hospital café at the time of his father's death. Bobby's Aunt Mary – his mother's sister, to whom he had never spoken, and wouldn't have recognised if she had served him his tea – was on her way to the hospital. Her intention was to come clean with her niece and nephew, and suggest that Ethel come out of hospital to live with her and her husband until Harry was back on his feet. She could afford professional help for her catatonic sister, as her husband had a good job. Meanwhile, her husband – feeling remorse at the stress under which he'd unwittingly put Harry – was dropping off another note at the house in Almond Avenue. This one was a formal card with a single blue flower on the front. On the inside was one word: ‘Sorry' in black Monotype Corvisa script. Below this, the initials D and M were written in blue ink. The envelope contained nothing other than the designation ‘Mr Cassidy'.

Gary suspected that something was wrong when only Bobby met him at Prestwick Airport, on yet another unusually balmy summer's evening. For weeks it had seemed that the weather was due to break, yet it had held in a way that made Bobby recall the long hot summer of 1976. And there were potentially still a couple of months of it to go.

‘Fuckin' hell, Gary. He's dead! Dad's dead!' Bobby's legs buckled
and Gary instinctively caught him. Bobby cried in a way that Gary had never seen him do before. Somehow, it wasn't a shock to Gary to hear of his father's passing. When he'd been ordered to gather his pack and belongings together, ready for moving out on the flight from Port Stanley's small airstrip, the unique circumstances had been explained to him. He had been dismissed for a four-week break at home before reporting to Wellington Barracks. The return home at the beginning of this period was being accelerated even further because his father had suffered a heart attack. He said little to Bobby in the car on the way to the hospital. He had no words. He couldn't cry. He had none of those tears left. Bobby just sat in the car, staring out the window into the dark of the moors at Symington, sobbing quietly.

Gary had left to go to war as a boy and come back as a man. The reality of this cliché of warfare was more complex, though. His appearance shocked Hettie, whose numbness about the last three weeks was closer to Gary's than to Bobby's. It had seemed to her that Bobby's head had been completely in the sand during this last month. He had appeared to have the childish expectation that bad things would go just away if you avoided recognising or confronting them. He had run away to Lizzie's or Joey's when dealing with Ethel had got too difficult. It was an uncharacteristically selfish – and sexist – response, but it had made Hettie resent him. It appeared that she was simply expected to care for her mother because that's what daughters did. Hettie had had no outlet to release her feelings of pain, fear, resentment, loss and subsequent joy for Gary. Now he was finally back, she fully expected to feel far more comfortable and safe with her elder brother – the one who had only weeks ago stood trembling next to a friend who was searching in shock for his foot that had been blown off, and another friend whose life he had saved.

Hettie was in her mother's single bedroom – as she had been almost constantly for four days. Ethel was asleep, an induced sleep that she had been in since earlier that day when a doctor had
broken the news of her husband's death to her. Her two children had been in the room with her, but her lack of response to the news contrasted sharply with Bobby's reaction; his emotional collapse was as unexpected as it was distressing. Hettie tried to hold it together – tried to listen to the doctor as he spoke directly to her – while it hit home hard how small their family circle actually was. The only current benefit of this was that they had found it easy to conceal Gary's homecoming. They would now have to hide their father's death, to give them time to act appropriately before the press descended on them yet again. Hettie had been suspicious of everyone in the last few weeks and hadn't even spoken to her own small group of close friends since their exams had started.

She looked at Bobby, distraught in the chair in his mum's hospital bedroom, and realised that he was someone who had never given a minute's thought to the passing of his parents. His closeted teenage life revolved around having fun and avoiding anything that might cause him distress. She had once envied such an existence – things that went wrong for Bobby were generally fixed by the opening of his father's wallet, or a girlfriend's sudden change of heart. Now it made her feel more adult and superior, but also a little sorry for him. It was a strange brew of emotions.

The three of them returned home, but Bobby changed and headed straight back out to see Lizzie, murmuring that he couldn't stay in the house that night. It was just after midnight. Gary picked up an envelope at the front door and brought it into the living room, sitting it on the mantelpiece. He'd told Bobby to go if he had to, and then eventually calmed his angry sister. It was amazing how mature Gary had become – old before his years. He was only twenty, but he wore the haunted, wrinkled face of a man twice his age. Hettie wanted to talk to him. To soothe him and let him know that he was
safe now. At fifteen, she wanted to
protect
him.