Welcome to the Heady Heights - Softcover

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1 

 

Nine months earlier…

 

He waited and waited and waited, becoming increasingly agitated. It was early morning and bitterly cold; the hurricane had now done its worst according to Michael Fish, but Glasgow didn’t seem to be listening. The storm-force winds were still battering the boarded-up shopfronts and rattling the few panes of glass left in the three tenement floors above them. And the bus was late. And so was Chib Charnley. 

 

    He’d observed Chib hirpling along the street. The wind was behind him, but he still moved like a man of twice his age.

 

     ‘Where the fuck’ve you been? Jesus, Chib!’

 

     ‘Ah’m sorry, boss,’ said Chib. ‘It’s my hip. Man, it’s absolutely heavin’.’

 

     ‘Aye, well.’ Wullie Dunne sighed. ‘Get it looked at properly then.’ 

 

    Wullie found it hard to lambast Chib Charnley. He’d taken a bullet for his boss, after all, and although that had been more than a decade ago, Wullie would always look after his minder. It was the least he could do. He wasn’t going to be like other bosses, who went through hired muscle like Richard Nixon went through tape recorders.

 

     ‘Finally!’ sighed Wullie as the bus pulled up for them. It wasn’t a recognised stop, but the driver and conductor were both on a modest cut for making the weekly Thursday morning exception. 

 

    Things were going through a rough cycle. Everybody was having to rein in the expenditure, which was why Wullie Dunne had been using the top deck of the number 61 bus for ‘business meetings’ every Thursday morning for almost a year. It was the route used by Tollcross residents to get home on giro day. Since he had collections to make from most of them, it seemed like common sense to combine the two – saving on the escalating cost of the petrol. The Arab oil embargo might’ve taken its time in getting here, but it was now well and truly hitting the streets and petrol stations of Shettleston.

 

     ‘Sorry, Mister Dunne,’ said Archie Blunt. He held out a hand to assist Wullie onto the bus’s back platform, even though Chib was the one who needed help. ‘Duke Street was blocked off. A Milanda bread van was on its side. The wind blew it over. The stuff was everywhere, like. Christ, ah’ve never seen so many seagulls! An’ they’re aw fightin’ with the dossers for the scraps. Mental, so it was! Just like that Hitchcock movie.’

 

     ‘Fuck sake, Ah’m frozen stiff, here! Let us on an’ gie it a rest with the film reviews, eh? Didnae expect Barry Norman tae be takin’ the fares this mornin’.’ 

 

    Amid rasping splutters and clouds of diesel fumes, the aging Corporation bus pulled way, chugging through the sideways rain like a glistening Irish tricolour. Archie held onto his pole, leaned out, peaked cap at a suitably jaunty angle, and looked ahead. A man he recognised gesticulated at him. It was Bobby Souness. Archie’s finger was poised over the bell. The bells were rarely used; most drivers preferred to control all movement by use of their mirrors. Regular crews often employed coded, choreographed clouts on the ceiling of the driver’s cab. But Archie’s new driver was still learning the ropes. Archie had the power – the final say-so on whether or not the bus should make any unscheduled halts. The bell remained silent. At that moment the bus swerved in closer to the kerb and ploughed through a large puddle. A comedy spray enveloped Bobby Souness. He hadn’t been sharp enough to jump back. The young driver hadn’t intended this outcome, he was simply pulling in to let an ambulance pass, but Archie applauded him anyway.

 

     ‘Ya fucken walloper, ye!’ yelled Bobby Souness, shivering. Freezing water dripped from his bearded chin, down his neck and inside his shirt. He heard the triple ring of the bell, and the bus slowed again. Archie Blunt glared out from the open rear access. 

 

    Bobby Souness had never quite understood why Archie Blunt hated him. As he ran towards the still-moving bus, he couldn’t recall any slight, deliberate or accidental. Bobby was a Rangers supporter, admittedly, but not one of the staunch King Billy 1690 brigade. And Archie Blunt had never come across as overtly fervent in his following of the Celtic. It was a total mystery. Out of breath and still dripping wet, he leaped onto the rear platform as the number 61 slowly picked up speed. 

 

    ‘Cunt.’  Bobby Souness wheezed at Archie. He looked around the lower deck, briefly considering whether he’d get away with nutting the bastard. Too many witnesses. 

 

    ‘Prick,’ hissed Archie as Bobby struggled for breath in front of him. 

 

    A grudged handful of copper was passed over, an equally grudged full adult single ripped from Archie’s heavy ticket punch machine, and Bobby Souness headed for the top deck. He sat down without looking up. He checked his remaining match. It was still viable despite the soaking. It sparked into life and was deployed into lighting a moist Embassy Regal. 

 

    ‘They things’ll kill ye.’

 

     Bobby Souness looked up sharply, his heart sinking to the bottom of a bowel of digested porridge. The voice belonged to Wullie Dunne, the businessman bookie. Bobby Souness owed the man known as The Wigwam – for loans and bets. Two hundred pounds and counting. In his current predicament, it might as well have been two million. He wasn’t alone in featuring in The Wigwam’s book of debtors; virtually every East End male Bobby knew of had a similarly threatened income.

 

     ‘Of aw the buses, eh Bobby? Almost didnae recognise ye there, son!’ The Wigwam was at the other end of the bus, in the front seats the smaller kids normally dragged their stumbling parents to so that they could pretend they were driving. 

 

   ‘Ah was hopin’ for a wee word in yer shell-like.’ Wullie nodded sideways in the direction of Chib Charnley, his half man, half granite rockface enforcer. 

 

    Chib began to move towards Bobby. And with Archie inadvertently blocking the stairwell, Bobby Souness was forced to think fast. Survival instincts kicked in. His eyes darted about. A dreep out the back of a moving bus on a busy Tollcross Road had its obvious risks but he’d take them over the ones inside. In one movement he vaulted over two slashed seats like an Olympic hurdler and hit the release lever on the rear emergency window. He landed on the road like Olga Korbut. He still had it: the instinct for self-preservation that had saved him many times as a younger man. Flat feet planted, Bobby rolled with the forward momentum through a rippling stream of shallow dirty water. His bunnet stayed on his head, the fag remained lit and smoking and, as he moved into an upright position, he ran. Sodden but still with the use of his legs.

 

     ‘Fuck sake,’...