Gomorrah returns to Sky Atlantic tonight for its third season. A tremendous series set in Naples, it always reminds me of the time Alison and I were on holiday in the city. We went out one evening for a meal, me wearing a t-shirt and my Rolex. The doorman at the hotel was always nipping at me not to wear the watch outside, but I shrugged off his advice, thinking he was a big gub. Anyway, we ate and drank down at the waterside, from where we took a taxi back to the hotel. We didn’t know it, but two guys on a moped followed the taxi up the hill. When the taxi stopped outside the hotel, so did the moped. Before I could open it myself, the door on my side of the taxi was opened by an impassive-faced, shaven-headed guy who was built like a brick shithouse. While he held my right wrist in an iron-like grip with one hand, he calmly set about unclasping the Rolex watch band with the other. It didn’t matter how often and hard I punched him, the punches seemed to bounce off him. When he had undone the clasp, he slipped the watch up over my wrist and ran back to the waiting moped, which sped off. Later that night in the city centre police headquarters, where we had gone to report the theft, I was given a big book of mugshots to go through – aye, just like in the movies. Guess what, though? Every single one of the mugshots was of an impassive-faced, shaven-headed guy, built like a brick shithouse. Only in Naples!
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My ould Irish mother was a big admirer of Rabbie Burns and his work. She once swore to me that Rabbie had written a poem about Dalmeny. If you don’t know Dalmeny, it’s a wee village a short distance from South Queensferry, my hometown. Back in Burns’ day, it would have consisted of a few cottages clustered round a largish village green. But its most notable feature was the pretty Norman church in the photo. Burns would have passed through the village on his way back and forth between Edinburgh and the Queensferry passage. Anyway, here on his birthday is that poem, as related to me:
Dalmeny, a village with a green, A church without a steeple, A pail o’ shite at every door And most o’ it on the people. Sorry, Dalmeny! Blame my mother. School holidays. You’re out on your bike again. It’s an old black one your Dad brought home from the dockyard. It has no gears, no lights, front brakes only and a bell that doesn’t work. It’s not the birthday present you prayed to Jesus for, but it’s the only one you have. You do the usual circuit first: speeding up along Rosebery Avenue so that you can climb the steep hill at Arrol Place, turning sharp left at the top of the hill, picking up speed again along Dundas Avenue, careering down the hill at its end, turning sharp left again and returning to where you started. Then you do the circuit again and again and again, always seeking to be faster than the last time. And all the time you’re careful not to apply the brakes lest you’re catapulted over the handlebars. Sometimes you’ll go the whole length of Rosebery Avenue, taking the hill at William Black Place. Other times you’ll make a detour round Lawson Crescent, pedalling as fast as the wind through Apache territory. Occasionally, when you feel really brave, you’ll venture down Queen Margaret Drive and along Station Road, where there’s always a lot of traffic, unlike the other streets. Those are the circuits you ride hour after hour, day after day. By the time you return to school after the holidays, you’ve developed enormous calf muscles that are clearly visible below your short trousers. So much so that the other boys call you Bagpipe Legs.
A dozen years ago, I used to sit at this window with my morning coffee. And every morning a dishevelled old man from the palazzo opposite would appear at a window just out of view on the left of the photo. Still in his dressing gown, he would be holding a feather in his hand and looking furtively behind him. Satisfied that he wasn’t being followed, he would lean out of the window and ever so carefully let go of the feather. Then he would watch the feather spinning and floating downward, and when it landed on the canal a triumphant grin would split his face. About that time, a lady dressed like a maid or a nurse of some sort would take him by the arm and gently lead him away. It was probably a game he played in the same palazzo many decades ago when he was a rich little boy. Now he was a rich old man, reverted to childhood.
There was a programme about James Joyce on BBC Four last night, narrated, strangely enough, by Angelica Huston. Anyway, I’ve gone all Joycean today:
I remembered this morning I used to sing in the shower and you used to stand outside the door listening and I always knew you were there so I sang more loudly as a result and I’d sing things like There may be trouble ahead because there was always trouble ahead but we’d always face the music and dance and we’d always pay the bill before they asked us to leave because we were always the last to leave and then we’d stroll home hand-in-hand with me crooning an old Irish ballad until we reached the old conifer at our door and I’d hug it and say I love you tree and you’d say to behave myself and we’d go inside and listen to the Dubliners or the Clancy Brothers and we’d sing and laugh and cry but the unholy bastards we sold the house to cut down the tree that was our landmark in the dark and then you were cut down as well and the music died and I stopped singing in the shower. So there I was last night watching the latest episode of Vera when I started thinking about Newcastle, where much of the series is filmed. I recalled Amen Corner, my favourite spot in the Toon. A path runs from there round the back of the Cathedral to the rear entrance of that wonderful old bank building on Dean Street, in which my office was located. And I recalled Amen Corner, the band, and Andy Fairweather Low and watching him pour his heart out singing Gin House. Then suddenly I came out of my reverie to see Vera setting off from Amen Corner along the Cathedral path. And seconds later she’s standing in the Victorian splendour of the top landing of the bank building, right next to the corridor that led to my office. Spooky. I needed a drink after that!
At secondary school, we had an art teacher by the name of Doherty, whom everyone referred to as John Dox. John Dox claimed to his pupils that he had been a member of the Special Boat Service (SBS) during the War. He often regaled us with tales of his time in the SBS. On one occasion, he told us how to kill an attacking dog. Apparently, you wait until the dog is almost upon you. Then you grab both its front legs and pull them apart until its heart bursts. On account of our working-class upbringing, we were all as cynical as fuck. “Aye, right,” was what we whispered to each other.
The pub was called The Forth Bridge, so it was only fitting that framed photographs of the old bridge at various stages of her construction should adorn its walls. On one quiet Sunday evening, the pub was invaded by a horde of smiling, spectacle-wearing, camera-clicking Japanese tourists. They didn’t go near the bar, but instead trooped from one photograph to the next, like Catholics doing the Stations of the Cross. The barman watched this performance with mounting anger. Finally, he could hold back no longer. “Aye, you cunts’ll ken aw aboot buildin’ bridges, eh,” he shouted at the visitors. “It’s no’ the fuckin’ Bridge ower the River Kwai, you ken.” One by one, having finished their tour of the photographs, the visitors came up to the bar, smiled inscrutably at the barman, bowed and left the pub.
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