The Tartan Ringers (27 page)

Past Balmoral. We could always pop in and check that the royal gardeners were growing enough flowers under the old Queen Mum’s roses. She was murder on ground-cover plants.

T
HERE
’
S NOT A
lot of northerly roads into Edinburgh. Unless you’ve a hang-glider, this means two accident-prone motorways. O’Flaherty pulled into a lay-by south of Perth, still not smoking as he shook my hand.

‘Get them bastards, Lovejoy,’ he said.

‘Me?’ I was amazed. ‘I’m not like that. Honest.’

‘To be sure. But the driver they topped was my mate.’ He was so wistful as he said, ‘I wanted Antioch to let me drive the pusher. Good luck.’ I waved him off.

Assassins are pretty cool, and often misunderstood. I’ve often noticed that. I was trying to evade the blighters, not find them. Which worried me, thinking about Mr Sidoli and the travelling funfair. Except Edinburgh’s Festival was still in mid-orgy. Which meant Sidoli and Bissolotti would presumably still be hurdy-gurdying grimly on that green. But, my hope-glands flicked into my mind, where can you hide a Lovejoy best, but in a lovely throng? I shelved the terrible fact that any solution would be only temporary. Dobson & Co had my home territory sewn up. The north was done for, now I’d sprung Dutchie. Edinburgh was limbo, but a satisfactorily crowded one.

‘We’ll leave you in the motor, Dutchie,’ I decided. ‘A cutting file and you’ll be free as air.’

‘We’re splitting up?’ he asked.

‘About Tipper Noone,’ I said, concentrating hard on the long strings of motorway lights. I had to be sure. Now that Michelle and me had come together, maybe I was feeling like his dad or something equally barmy.

‘Tipper ships for us, Lovejoy. Repros through the Hook.’

Does? No past tenses for poor old Tipper, RIP? Dutchie, for all his gormlessness, was looking better and better. I drew breath to exploit Dutchie’s unawareness, but Tinker said helpfully, ‘Your pal Tipper’s snuffed it.’ So much for tact.

The A90 had most traffic, so I bombed in on that while Tinker cheerfully narrated Tipper’s tale to the stricken Dutchie. Parking the motor would be a nightmare . . . Too late I noticed the bloody toll bridge. Too tired for any more vigilance, I was in the queue and the man asking for the gelt. He could see Dutchie quite clearly, manacles, chains, block. No hidey nooks in a tourer.

‘Fringe?’ he said, nodding at Dutchie.

‘Eh?’

‘Your show.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The council should provide proper places for the Fringe Festival. It’s a disgrace.’

‘Ta. We’ll manage.’ I tried to look brave but wounded.

‘Good luck.’

And we were through. Fringe? ‘What was he on about, Dutchie?’

Dutchie chuckled. His first ever. ‘He thought we were performers. The Fringe Festival’s unpaid art. It makes its way. Streets, bars, even bus stops, living rough.’

I cheered up. We were along Queensferry Road. Civilization and people – God, the people – lights, traffic. ‘Shout if there’s an ironmonger’s.’ Suddenly it was simple. I could buy a cutting file without fear. Part of our show’s props. See how easy towns are, compared to countryside?

Signs directed us a different way than I’d intended. Older buildings, denser mobs, louder talk, songs, turmoil. I didn’t want the old crate trapped in some sequinned cul-de-sac.

‘There’s a pub, Lovejoy.’ Tinker had dried into restlessness.

We were down to trotting pace. I didn’t fancy this at all. I wanted a zoom through the fleshpots, a rapid file session to lighten our load, then to go to earth while Tinker and Dutchie caught the Flying Scot south to safety. I’d follow later when I’d convinced our pursuers I’d escaped. But sedate traffic in a glare of road lights can be inspected quite easily – as indeed the pedestrians were doing, openly admiring our Mawdslay.

‘Tinker. Got your medals?’ A brainwave. The cunning old devil always carries them, and a mouth organ, to do a bit of busking if he’s short of a pint and I’m not around.

He obeyed, smoothing them in place. A cluster of stilt walkers followed us, striding and waving. A couple of girls in Red Indian costumes danced carrying buckets. A jazz band led by a pink donkey, I assure you, stomped jubilantly beside us, one of the players drumming on our side panel, a deafening racket. At a traffic light, me grinning weakly and trying to hum along to show we honestly were fringe people too, a lass in a straw boater stuck her head next to mine and screamed, ‘Seen a gondola?’

‘Er, no, love.’

‘Soddation.’ She climbed into the passenger seat. Tinker cackled. She seemed to wear little, black mesh stockings and bands of snakeskin. ‘You can drop me off. You in the procession?’ She lit a cigarette. Where the hell had she kept that? ‘Or marching?’

‘Well, er, you can see how we’re fixed.’

‘Ah.’ She gazed round, eyes narrowing as she took in Dutchie’s slavehood. ‘Good, good. Rejection of imperialistic chauvinisms. The medals are genius.’

‘Me wounds still hurt, dear.’ Tinker started a shuddering cough. Sympathy always starts him cadging.

‘Shut it, Tinker.’ No exits down the side streets. All one way now, with the multicoloured mob a long winding tide. Police grinning, waving. A Caribbean dustbin band bonged to our right. A non-band of chalk-faced mimers played non-instruments alongside. Jesus. We were in a parade. My head was spinning. ‘Lads, look for a way out.’

‘I agree,’ the girl groused. ‘No political motivation. They’re hooked on happiness. Perverts.’

I’d no idea what she was on about, but I made concurring mutters and simply drove in the worsening press. It was pandemonium. In front were handcarts, a lorryload of Scotch bagpipers. All the shops were lit bright as day. Pirates dangled from lamp posts, singing that chorus from
Faust
. A girl wearing a dog on her hat reclined on our bonnet with a weary sigh and popped a bottle of beer on a headlamp. Tinker whimpered. The dog looked fed up. Two ballet dancers danced outside a shoe shop,
Jewels of the Madonna
but I couldn’t be sure because of the other bands. Applause. A youth dragged a floreate piano into the swelling parade, making placatory gestures to me to hold back while he made it. Wearily I waved him on. That said it all – Lovejoy, hot-rodding to escape, overtaken by a pianoforte. A poet declaimed from a girl’s shoulders. She was dressed as a skeleton and clutched an anchor.

‘See what I mean?’ Our girl was bitter. ‘A waste of political potential.’ She suddenly burst out laughing. The Mawdslay stank sweetly from her smoking. Oh dear. And Dobson’s gaunt face among the pavement mobs.

‘Lovejoy.’

‘I see him, Dutchie.’

He was hurrying along the pavement, quickening when we could make a yard or two, dawdling in each hiatus. One overcoated bloke was with him. As long as we stayed with the carnival . . . A group of tumblers formed a sudden arch. The parade trundled beneath, to cheers. Our snakeskin girl sang tunelessly, head back.

‘This hint’s taking tablets,’ Tinker croaked, disapproving. To him anybody stoned on drugs is ‘taking tablets’.

Ahead a regular thumping sounded. A brass band. Correction: a military band, getting closer. Pipes. A cluster of actors froze an instant, took three paces, froze, dressed as vegetables. A pea pod, a cabbage, a possible lentil, a flute-playing celery. Fireworks lit the sky, hitherto the only turn unstoned. A bobby waved us on, veering towards somewhere distantly tall. The thumping of drums at long range. Our pink donkey’s jazzy band bopped past as we got stuck behind the piano. I felt clammy. No sign of Dobson and his goon, but one bloke was stock-still on the pavement, keeping his eyes on us even when jostled. Depression and fear fought for my panic-stricken spirit.

‘There’s no bleedin’ notes in that piano,’ Tinker said.

‘It’s Jan The Judge,’ our snakeskin said, happy herself now. ‘He plays silence. The performance is in its nothingness.’

‘What happens if he don’t turn up?’ Tinker was puzzling.

‘Lovejoy. It’s the tattoo.’ Dutchie pointed. Searchlights swept the night. Pipers lined the battlements. A fusillade crackled.

Slower and slower. The parade was practically static now. Sweat poured off me. The Mawdslay, inch a minute, was trapped. Exactly as. I hadn’t wanted, there was no way for us to go. Behind us bands jigged, actors twisted and danced. Both sides were thronged with acts and noise. Giant puppets milled. Above us stilted actors and balloons. Something shattered the windscreen. Nobody noticed except me.

‘Hey, your gondola!’ I grabbed the girl, now floppy limbed and crooning. ‘Scatter, lads.’ I was crouching below the dashboard, yelling. ‘Tinker, hop it. Dutchie, stay among a band.’ I hauled the lass sideways. More glass cracked. The Mawdslay trembled. The bloody donkey trod on my foot. Its band swayed past.

‘Where?’ She stood up, peering.

‘Over there,’ I yelled, fetching her down on me by a yank of her arm. The shots came from ahead but obliquely, so I spoiled a few syncopations by shoving my way through to the pavement. I couldn’t even do that right. I had to step over three actors in evening dress in the gutter. A placard announced that they were the Drunken Theatre of Leigh. I tugged the snakeskin girl along, some protection. You penetrate crowds fastest hunched over and butting along at waist height. The trouble is you can’t see. After a hundred yards a doorway, people shoving inside with such a tidal rip I got crushed along.

Brilliantly lit, wall labels and pseudo-Victorian illumination. Red plush, chandeliers. We were in a foyer. Cinema? Theatre? Thickset men in dinner jackets on the door directing us, me included.

‘No, mate,’ I said, breathless in my terror sweat. ‘You see, me and my bird are—’

He practically lifted me aside. ‘Dressing room there, laddie. She in the Supper Room? The Music Hall shares the same accommodation.’

‘Where?’ My girl’s question was audible. A bell sounded two pulses. People began to hurry carrying half-finished drinks. A theatre’s two-minute bell.

Applause burst out upstairs, amid catcalls. A xylophone began. I pulled the door. Two girls were just leaving, all spangles and scales. ‘Jesus,’ one said, disgusted. ‘Not more? There’s not room to swing a cat.’

‘Sorry, love.’

The room was empty but looked ransacked. A ring of tired bulbs around a mirror, a lipsticked notice pleading for tidiness. Graffiti criticized somebody called the Dud Prospect Company for nicking make-up. My ears worked out what was the problem, finally got there. Silence. My adrenals gave a joyous squirt and relaxed: safety and solitude. I sat at the mirror.

‘Right, love,’ I said. Hopeless. ‘Do me.’

‘What?’ She squinted over my shoulder. ‘Are you on soon?’

‘Five minutes.’ I swept all the Leichner sticks and pots closer. ‘Do the lot.’

‘Bastard apolitical theatre managers.’ She started me.

For the first time ever I didn’t feel much of a clown. No clown’s clobber, of course, except gloves and a weird hat. I’d sliced the fingers so they dangled, and scalped the topper into a lid. My face was chalk white. Red nose, scarlet lips, lines about my eyes. I looked like nothing on earth. She’d done a rubbishy job, but I was grateful as I left, promising to send along any passing gondolas and vote something-or-other. She was carolling drowsily to her reflection, another smoke helping the mood. I turned my jacket inside out, and nicked some baggy trousers. Being noticeable was the one chance.

One of the evening-suited bouncers said, ‘Hey. Other way,’ but I kept going, down the foyer and out. The carnival was flowing on, over and round the Mawdslay. It stood there forlorn. No sign of Tinker or Dutchie. An overcoated man moved against the flow, finding refuge behind a pillar box. I capered clumsily into the mob and drew a squad of ghosts trotting with a fife band. A jig. How the hell do you do a jig? I moved faster, advancing up the parade. I even caught up with my stilt walkers, jazz band, the silent piano man.

A policeman pointed me to one side. ‘I reckon you’re late, son.’

Thank God, I thought, prancing out of the stream. And saw Big Chas. And Ern. And Mr Sidoli’s two terrible nephews. They were in carnival gear, flashing bow ties and waistcoats, striped shirts, bowlers.

‘No,’ I bleated in anguish. The bobby’d thought I was something to do with the fairground. Even as I whined and ran the familiar sonorous pipes of merry-go-rounds sounded.

‘Lovejoy
.’ I heard Big Chas’s bellow.

I fled then, down across the parade so terrified that cries of outrage arose even from those fellow thespians who’d assumed I was an act. I needed darkness now as never before. If the gunshots from Dobson’s two goons had seemed part of the proceedings, a clown being knifed would seem a merry encore. I hurtled into a small parked van, wrenching the door open and scrabbling through. Two first-aid men wearing that Maltese Cross uniform were playing cards. I waited breathlessly, gathered myself to hurtle out of the front sliding door.

‘All right, son?’ one asked placidly, gathering the cards. ‘An act, is it?’

‘As long as he’s not another Russian.’ He gave me a grandfather’s smile. ‘No offence, laddie. They only come over here to do Dostoevsky and defect.’

Aye. Always the second week—’

I swung the door out and dived. Somebody grabbed, shouted. Some lunatics applauded. ‘How real!’ a woman cooed as I scooted past, bowling a bloke in armour over. God, he hurt. Another carrying a tray went flying. I sprinted flat out, hat gone and trousers cutting my speed, elbows out and head down. I charged, panicked into blindness, among a mob of redcoated soldiers. They were having a smoke, instruments held any old how, in a huge arched tunnel with sparse lights shedding hardly a glimmer. I floundered among them. A few laughed. There was floodlight ahead, a roaring up there, possibly a crowd. Well it couldn’t be worse. ‘Here, nark it, Coco,’ a trumpeter said, and got a roar by adding, ‘Thought it was Lieutenant Hartford.’

A gateway and an obstruction, for all the world like a portcullis. I rushed at it, bleating, demented. An order was barked behind in the tunnel, and I’d reached as far as I could go. I was gaping into an arena filled with bands. Jesus, the Household Cavalry were in there, searchlights shimmering on a mass of instruments and horses’ ornamentation. Lancers rode down one side. I could see tiers of faces round the vast arena. I moaned, turned back. Out there I’d be trapped like a fish in a bowl.