I’m in the pub where Begbie throws his pint off the balcony. Brew Haus, now. It’s directly opposite my hotel. Tonight was a masked celebration of Ellie and Janet. It was at the Oran Mor in Kelvinside – the old Kelvinside Parish Church. There’s a ballroom upstairs decorated by Alasdair Grey. My nephew recently got married there. I was dancing on the ghost of my father.
I remember as a child being driven around these streets. Dad had moved on but he left a bit of his heart here always. He was my age when I was born and a proud Scotsman through and through. My memory of this city is a sixty year old dad driving me through his old stomping grounds. I absorbed a few of his stories, with the indifference of a child who doesn’t know he’ll be clinging onto memories before long. The swimming baths. The place where he broke a window throwing an unwanted meatball. “Get thee gone and come back never,” she shouted, exactly like this. “Nobody speaks like her nowadays.” 1984.
His brother’s wife died just the other week. She was here, just here, near here. My uncle wrote me out of his will: “I did a bad thing”, but it was always tense between them and I was a late child. My cousins are all living around this way though. I’ll see them tomorrow. One of their exes is a dear friend. Another spent ages trying to persuade me: “You should come work in Glasgow, it’s a smaller pond.” “No. I want to crack London.” Oof.
I walk out of Hillhead station and in under a minute I hear a shout : “BARCLAY!” He can’t remember the first name immediately, goes with the surname…
There he is, the same cousin’s husband, divorced now. He is in my industry. He’s shouting my name and I am strangely glad to see him. I ignored him when he said I should move here. He always annoyed the fuck out of me but he might have been right back then. He also told me to set up a Vlog. In about 2006, long before this noise I’m making here. “Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day,” said Bruce Robinson through Paul McGann. I didn’t take his advice – you can’t take advice from someone that needs to see you take it. I’m still in the mix, but hey maybe that would have been the way to get the big spondoolicks quickly. I’ve always been about the long and winding road though. He put his daughter under so much pressure to be a singer that it killed the love. I saw it happening and tried to tell him. But she’ll make more money elsewhere.
It was wonderful to be here in this city for my friend Ellie. I’ve known her almost as long as my father has been dead, and she’s sewn into the Scottish arts scene. My understudy in Stratford this time last year was a gorgeous softly spoken man my age from around here, known to her. Maybe I could shift here, now, in this time of self tapes. The tyranny of London is cracked. Let’s see how it all pans out but … maybe maybe. For now, I’m gonna hit the hotel in Glasgow… See family tomorrow. Fly back to London. Glory. Lou is already in Dubai. This big world ain’t so big right now, at the end of the age of aviation. We should probably use it while we can. Generations to come will wonder how we justified wasting so much fuel. But it’s happening now, we can happen with it. I’m in Glasgow. Fuck it. Hi.
AlBarclay 