Following a spate of loud and prolonged arguments in the wake of the Campervan revelation, Grant Delgado decided to move out of his mother’s house. The publishing advance paid to him offline by Clifford X. Raymonde made up the bulk of the £16,000 purchase price for a first-floor flat in Barbadoes Road. Its tropical-sounding name hid the irony of a street regularly flooded by the bursting of the adjacent Kilmarnock Water banks. While this had left the ground-floor properties vulnerable, the first-floor ones had always escaped. Grant took advantage of the low cost of the area and, in the first week of 1984, said goodbye to the terraced house in Onthank in which he had grown up. In the months between his decision to leave home and his actual departure, relationships between him and Senga had improved. He came across as laid back, but he was a headstrong and determined young man, and while he had been less than careful with Fat Franny’s money, the threat of serious retribution from the Fatman had disintegrated along with his reputation and his reach. Senga could see that the band was more than just a means of fannying about and that Grant had a real musical talent. Another early source of conflict had been his decision to avoid college but she now understood his reasons for that. It had helped Senga come to terms with him moving out to know that Maggie wouldn’t be automatically moving in. Senga had been a little surprised at that but the relationship Grant had with his girlfriend was often as strange and undivinable as her.
Senga too had made some big decisions, pre-Christmas. With Grant getting on with his life, she had decided to take a burgeoning but tentative relationship with a widower from Saltcoats to a new level. They had met at a classical music club in the Dick Institute. His name was Peter and he was a retired lawyer, some ten years older than her. He’d seemed very keen and initially she’d been a bit overwhelmed by his attention and interest. Peter spoke to Senga in ways for which she had no frame of reference. Her reluctance to let him get closer was solely based on the fear that her background was too incompatible with his and that she would ultimately embarrass herself. But Peter genuinely didn’t seem to care about that. He found her great fun. He loved that she spoke her mind and that whatever was inside her just came out unfiltered by any sense of false decorum. It took a while for Senga to be relaxed with this, but now here she was, herself contemplating a move away from Onthank. On Christmas Day, Peter had asked her and her teenage kids to move to Saltcoats. He had a big detached house that he now rattled around in on his own. It had a large tree-lined garden and beyond its fence line, a panoramic view of Arran. Sophie and Andrew had been a bit hesitant at first, fearing losing contact with their friends, but when they saw the size of what would be their new bedrooms, their inhibitions fell away one by one.
Everyone was moving on, and getting on. Past lives and past memories were gradually being stored away in locked compartments. With Grant gone, nothing now kept Senga Dale tied to Onthank.
A play of ‘The First Picture’ acetate on Radio Clyde’s New Music programme was the Holy Grail for The Miraculous Vespas. The programme went out late on Thursdays; so late in fact that it was actually Friday. The programme began at midnight and ran to two am. It was part of a wildly eclectic week, which featured folk, country & western and jazz music on different nights, interspersed with Dr Dick’s Midnight Surgery and the charismatic Dr Superbad’s Soul Show on the Saturday night. Tom Russell’s rock show, featuring metal bands such as Anthrax and AC/DC, made up the vibrant scheduling mix. But Billy Sloan was Max Mojo’s only target. The DJ had built a reputation for promoting new, edgier music as far back as his ‘Disco Kid’ column in the Sunday Mail, covering the rise of uniquely Scottish bands such as The Associates and Big Country.
Max knew an endorsement from someone like Billy Sloan would make it much easier to get the eventual record distributed, especially if feedback from his listeners was positive. The programmes were rigidly ‘themed’, but it was Grant who had noticed that the DJ had been gradually introducing a section in the middle known as ‘Ones To Watch’. Max had made another C90 with the two songs recorded by Clifford X. Raymonde. Grant had then used it to make another four. The original first-generation tape got lost because neither of them had labelled it. They scooped up the five and stuck them in a brown envelope.
‘So whit’s the plan?’ asked Grant.
‘We head up tae the fuckin’ grid th’night. Sloan does this DJ gig thing at Night Moves. We’ll see the cunt there, an’ he’ll take the tape,’ said Max.
‘Ye seem awfa sure ae that, Max.’
‘Me an’ Billy Sloan? We’re like that, man. Ah bought the bastart a fuckin’ steak. He owes me!’
They caught the bus up to Glasgow. They went to the Horseshoe Bar for a few pints beforehand and then headed up Renfield Street’s slope into the angular driving rain. When they turned the corner into Sauchiehall Street, Grant’s hopes dipped. A large queue had formed. It wasn’t a night to be outside, though he had at least worn a long coat. Max’s bomber jacket was absorbing the water like a sponge, and his hair – a sculpted concoction held in place by a combination of orange juice and sugar – was turning into a sweet paste.
‘Max, let’s fuckin’ go, man! This is pish,’ said a miserable Grant. ‘It’s fuckin’ freezin’.’
‘Yer a moanin’-faced cunt, you! Where’s yer fuckin’ commitment tae the cause?’ Max had spotted interesting activity further up the street. ‘C’mon ya walloper,’ he said, dragging a sullen Grant Delgado towards the side of a Chinese restaurant.
‘Gonnae let us gie ye a hand up the stairs, mate?’ Max picked up a guitar case.
‘Fuck off,’ said a heavy-set roadie.
‘Ah’ll bum ye a twenty?’ said Max Mojo hopefully.
‘Gie’s peace, ya prick!’ said the roadie.
‘Look pal, we’ve got a band…’
‘Big wow … Who fuckin’ disnae?’
‘We jist need a break, man, fuck sake,’ Max pleaded. ‘Ah’ve got a tape ah’m try in’ tae get tae Billy Sloan … so the cunt’ll play it oan his radio show.’ Max looked distraught. Grant couldn’t be certain he wasn’t actually crying.
‘Fuck sake, son,’ said the roadie. ‘If it means that much tae ye … make it forty, an’ then grab a drum case each, an’ up ye go.’
‘Jesus Christ, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask!’ Max handed over the cash.
‘Anybody stops ye, tell them yer wi’ Kenny,’ said Kenny, the roadie.
Max and Grant climbed the precarious, wet, metal fire escape stair carefully. Underneath it, and outside in the narrow passageway, chickens were being beheaded by machete-wielding kitchen staff. Once inside the club, they put the drums down near the stage. No one stopped them. No one asked who they were with. They spotted Billy Sloan over at the DJ booth.
‘Look,’ said Max. ‘There’s the cunt there!’ Billy Sloan was talking to three other people. Max burst through them and addressed the DJ directly.
‘‘Member me, Billy?’ said Max, smiling broadly. Billy looked around for a bouncer. His colleagues instinctively took a step backward.
‘Aye. Sure, pal. Sure ah dae,’ he said, although he looked like he didn’t.
‘Ah’d just had ma shoes nicked. Ah bought ye yer dinner … aboot six months ago. Yours wis cooked, mine’s wis still fuckin’ breathin’. Ah spewed ma bastart ring that night, by the way.’ Max reached into his pocket. All four strangers took another step back. ‘Hey, nae sweat,’ said Max. ‘It’s a fuckin’ demo tape, no’ a blade, man.’
They all looked relieved. A sodden Grant looked a bit embarrassed.
‘Whit ye called, then?’ said Billy Sloan.
Max told him.
Billy Sloan was accustomed to any manner of gallus corner boys sticking cassettes in his hands or his pockets, but the vast majority were rubbish. Nothing about these two dripping-wet chancers hinted at a different outcome. But like everyone in the music industry, the DJ was driven by the chance discovery of the next big thing. So he took the tape, promising to listen to it, but nothing further.
Max Mojo grunted a profanity, but Grant Delgado politely said thanks.
Max and Grant hung around the nightclub to see a new band called The Big Wheel, led by the Stiff Little Fingers frontman Jake Burns. They rattled through a lacklustre set. Grant knew The Miraculous Vespas had better songs and more attitude already. They should’ve been playing here on the Glasgow circuit, rather than paying opportunistic roadies well over the odds to jump the queue to get in. They only had enough money for one pint, and they shared it. They had missed the last bus back to Kilmarnock and spent a frozen night shivering in the dark, dead shadows of Anderston Bus Station, amongst the pimps and the prostitutes. With his last pieces of change, Grant finally got hold of Maggie from a telephone box the next morning and she drove up to Glasgow in the Campervan to pick them up. As they drove down Argyle Street, Max looked forlornly out the back window. It was grey, dull and hammering down in stair-rods. He was still shivering.