It was more than symbolic that the 250 vacuum-packed pounds of Caribbean marijuana were destined to arrive in Scotland. You could call it a sentimental homecoming for a father and his two sons, but strategically it made sense too. The coastguard in Oban consisted of an old dear who came on board for a natter and, though the cargo was stashed directly beneath her as she sat sipping tea, there was never any great panic.
An inconspicuous Honda was hired to journey southwards, where the goods were stored in a Brent Cross lock-up. My brother and I rented a dingy basement flat on a Camden Town backstreet while my father checked into the swanky Regents Park Hotel. It soon became apparent, however, that 15 years in the Tropics had left him out of sync with city life. The unaccustomed comforts and distractions turned his head to mush and he duly got taken for a ride, fronting 20 and 30 parcels at a time to dodgy third-hand contacts who’d then disappear on him, never to pay up.
It was easy to disappear in London and pretty soon Austin did likewise, sailing back to his Caribbean idyll and asking us to shift around 120 leftover packages. Unfortunately, the stash was getting drier by the week, losing its moist green stinky appeal. As loyal sons, however, and on a cut of £300 for each bag sold, we endeavoured to do our best for him.
Steed, as I’ll call him, had one of those scary, immobile faces and something of the Frankenstein doppelganger about him. He was an old-school ducker and diver who brought us huge boxes of knocked-off sausages in his vintage Jag and always talked like he was underwater and in slow motion. You could almost see the bubbles coming out of his mouth. I never got round to telling him I was a veggie – it might have caused a screw to come loose and a bolt to drop out.
He may well have been One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest next to our Cheech and Chong, but Steed had his connections and an uncanny knack for shifting stuff, regardless of what shape, form or quantity said stuff came in. I imagine he’d have been ideal as a washing powder, ‘shifting’ the stains normal detergents can’t reach. Within six months we’d cleared the lot between us and made a fat chunk of lovely cash for an absent but delighted father – not forgetting a tidy wedge for ourselves.
There were a few scary moments. Early one Saturday afternoon, I arrived at Paddington Station for the train to Bath with a backpack of supplies for West Country ‘trustafarian’ hippies strapped casually to my shoulders. Five 1lb bags in total – each about the size of a small pillow. Word about my new vocation had spread like wildfire in the sleepy hamlet of Bath, which was now about to get even sleepier. ‘Hamish’ – the twat with the stutter who played in that weird band – was now a big-time drug dealer. As I sauntered towards the platform, a cluster of policemen with ‘sniffer’ dogs caught me unawares.
Now, here was a real dilemma. It would have been the easiest (and most simple) thing to simply turn round and miss the train, but I just couldn’t bear to see that ticket wasted. It sounds daft, but that kind of thing crucified me – unless you were brought up in Scotland you’ll probably never understand. Besides, I reasoned with myself, surely they were checking for IRA bombs? That’s what my ‘free-male’ intuition informed me, anyhow. I’d suffered the same momentary panic earlier in the week when news bulletins announced that North London locks-ups were being searched by anti-terrorist squads.
I sucked in that guilty conscience of mine and walked straight past them, before boarding the train and calling Chris on the ‘brick’*. Nervous laughter gushed like cheap Cava at an office party. I had got away with it, though I knew not why or wherefore – just the vague notion that a future of gainful blundering beckoned.
With my bum bag (or ‘fanny pack’ as they call them stateside) bulging with readies and paraded around my waist like a boxer’s title-weight belt, roaches in each of my jacket pockets and a Filofax crammed with incriminating names, addresses and telephone numbers, I was determined to defy the guardians of justice and reward a morally bankrupt father.
* ‘Brick’ is slang for the large, clumsy early mobile phones.