McCann's face was stern, severe, decided. The workers; the toilers. Oh, God yes, I wanted to write something that would make a difference to something other than my bank balance and the state of the charts. I tried; there was some socially relevant stuff in there; I even had a couple of Vietnam war songs ready, but the thing ended before we could get them out. I wanted to write anthems for the working class, marching tunes for disaffected youth and oppressed minorities, but... I never got round to it.
'Ah... Jim...' Tommy said. 'I think TB's get tin a bit overaffectionate with your coat.'
I got to my feet. 'What?'
Tommy set off for the choir. 'Naw! TB! Stop that! Bad dug! Get away from that!' He disappeared behind some packing cases.
McCann and I followed him. TB was in the choir, near the still blowing space heater, bent across a chest I'd thrown my old naval greatcoat over. He was trying to mate with it. His rump, supported by two wobbling, tile-skidding legs, was still pumping away enthusiastically at the dark blue mass of the coat when Tommy came up behind him and kicked his backside.
TB dismounted instantly and didn't even stop to growl; he ran off past the pulpit and towards the pile of crates, knocking over a free-standing lamp cluster as he did so; it crashed across my Charles Rennie Mackintosh chair and whacked one of the security monitors, which fell to the tiles and imploded.
'TB!' Tommy yelled, then ran after the beast as it disappeared between unopened cases of Bulgarian sewing machines and boxes of Russian ear-muffs.
McCann and I doubled back and started running, keeping to the east aisle. McCann was laughing as he ran. 'TB!' Tommy shouted again, hidden by crates of Czech televisions. 'Heel, boy. Sit! Sit!'
'Some dug that, eh Jimmy?' McCann panted as we neared the main doors.
'I'll kill it.' We rounded the corner by the dump truck and skidded to a 'top at the same time as Tommy, coming from the opposite irection. 'You see him?' he asked. We shook our heads. Tommy scratched his. 'Shit. I lost him. Sorry about this, Jim. He's not usually like this. I thought he could hold his drink.'
'Never mind,' I said.
'Tell ye what,' McCann said. 'Open one a they big doors and we'll go back tae the pulpit, form a line, and flush him oot. He'll head fur the door when he sees it's open.'
Tommy was indignant. 'He might run away! He might run into the street an get run over!'
I said nothing. McCann snapped his fingers. 'We'll put a big empty packin case just the far side aw the opening, so he'll run into that.'
Maybe I'd had more shandies than I thought, but this sounded like a good idea. We opened one of the St Vincent Street doors by a couple of feet, put an empty tea chest on the top step outside, then ran back to the pulpit. I thought I could hear the sound of running water somewhere inside the piled crates; about level with the boxes of Polish jam. We formed a line with Tommy in the middle and started down the floor of the building, McCann and I taking an aisle each and Tommy clambering over the mountains of cases and boxes. I found the remains of a trainer as we passed the kitchen in the west transept.
'Got him!' Tommy shouted, from somewhere in the middle of the pile. There was the sound of wheezing, scrabbling claws, and glass breaking. Then Tommy said, 'Aw ...'
'Did ye get him?' McCann shouted from the other aisle.
'Naw, but Ah must have givin him a hell of a fright. Jeez ... this is honkin. Whit a pong. Sumhin wrong wi that dug's guts...
McCann's quiet laughter echoed from the far aisle. Tommy said, , Ah really am sorry about all this, big yin. I'll clean all this up after we've caught him, okay?'
'There he is!' McCann shouted. There was a noise of claws skidding on tiles from the far end of the folly, near the doors, and McCann's running feet. I started running too.
I got past the bulldozer in time to see TB's rump and hind legs fly over the packing case we'd positioned outside. McCann tried to follow the dog, but hit the case and sprawled, cursing. Tommy ran up behind me and we pushed the door open to get out.
TB stood at the bottom of the steps, on St Vincent Street, breathing heavily and looking rather unsteady on his feet. He was staring at us. I helped McCann to his feet; he was rubbing his skinned palms with a grubby hanky. Tommy started down the steps, slowly, holding one hand out to the panting beast. 'Good boy, TB; here boy...'
TB stood looking at him, saliva dripping from his mouth, tongue lolling, flanks pulsing, then leaned forward, opened his mouth and threw up onto the pavement and keeled over, flopping sideways onto the sidewalk in front of a young couple walking past. He lay there, flat on the ground, legs straight and eyes closed.
Tommy straightened, stuck his hands in his pockets. 'Aw, shit.'
'Is he all right?' McCann asked, putting his hanky back in the breast pocket of his jacket.
'Aye,' Tommy said, going down to the recumbent hound. 'He's just drunk.' He shook his head. The beast was still breathing. 'Ah suppose Ah'd better get him back to ma maw's. She'll no be very happy.'
'I'm going for my coat now " I told Tommy. 'If I find anything in the pockets...' I pointed at the dog, which had started to snore. I left the phrase hanging and went back into the folly for my greatcoat.
'Is that curry Ah can smell?' McCann said as I kicked the tea chest back through the doors.
Apart from a few hairs, the dog had left nothing on or in the coat. I turned the power off to the smashed TV monitor and closed the door leading to the tower. There was a smell of dogshit in the nave.
Tommy's mother expected him and the dog home for their tea. She lived about quarter of a mile away, on Houldsworth Street. McCann was nursing his grazed hands, and limping. Tommy took TB's front legs, I took the rear. The dog was as limp as a sack of potatoes, but heavier. We tramped through the darkening street, getting the occasional funny remark, but nobody stopped us. McCann sniggered every now and again.
'Must have been the curry,' Tommy said. 'He was obviously hungry or he wouldnae have eaten the wee fork as well.' The dog grunted as though in agreement, then resumed its snoring.
'Aye,' McCann said. 'Some dug that. Can ye rent it oot? Gie it tae people ye dinnae like?'
'Never thought of that, Mr McCann,' Tommy admitted. My shoulders were getting sore. I took a better grip of the animal's legs and looked down distastefully at it; the dog was quietly pissing itself.
The urine was soaking into its belly hair and running down its flanks and round to its back, to drip off there, onto my latest new pair of trainers.
'What does "TB" stand for anyway?' I asked Wee Tommy.
He looked at me as though I was an idiot, and in an almost resentful tone said, 'Total Bastard.'
'Oh, yes,' I said. 'Of course. Obvious really.'
'Ye mean there's nuthin wrong wi its lungs after aw?' McCann said, disgustedly.
'Not compared to its bladder,' I muttered, trying to keep my feet clear of the dribbling canine pee.
'Naw, it's perfectly healthy,' Wee Tommy said. 'It's just...' he shrugged, shaking the totally relaxed and snoring hound '... it's an animal.'
'Fair enough.' McCann said.
We tramped across the motorway by the St Vincent Street flyover; the rain came on.
We all got wet.
SIX
The weirdness began about the end of '74, after we'd finished the album, before anything had really started happening. We'd worked ten and twelve hour days in the studio, used shifts of technicians, seen virtually nothing of London except the inside of the studio in Ladbroke Grove and the flat off Oxford Street. We still overran by a week, but taking a month to do an album — even with the mixing still to be done — was hardly slow. Some bands take that long for one track.
I got out of the flat exactly once, to wander down Oxford Street and Carnaby Street (it was a relic even then). Bowie clones and skinheads; platform boots and every now and again the confusing sight of people wearing narrow-legged jeans but otherwise looking ... I don't know; up to date, fashionable. There was change in the air: I could almost smell it. I got back to the flat feeling relieved to be out of that bewildering gaggle of styles and sensations.