and laughs and laughs.
Or, if I start by describing the Southfield Fry, its own story will be left hanging. Why did Grandpa Salvatori leave Parma to sell deepfried food in a Scottish housing scheme? Whatever the reasons, the Southfield Fry was probably the best chip shop in the world. Even to open the door felt like you were releasing a genie: all the pent up steam would push past you and soar, liberated in the cold air.
After swimming, we’d warm our paws on the hot cabinet, and Gianfranco would yell “Dinnae put yer honds on the cabinet, ye mucky wee bastards.” We’d pull our pink wrinkled fingers from the glass and press them on the stainless steel and watch as our fuzzy prints faded then disappeared.
Gianfranco’s menu, a yellowing fat-speckled piece of card, was as limited as his customer service skills. You could have chips, chip butty, fish, sausage, haggis, or pie. In 1993, he introduced deepfried pizzas, but these were never added to the grease-stained menu, nor were the cigarettes and chocolate bars, or the big glass bottles of Irn Bru and ginger beer. These sat on shelves behind the counter, wearing their prices on star-shaped orange badges. In 1996, the only other decoration was a fixtures chart from the 1986 world cup, a picture of Rossi, and a framed photograph of a Parma side from the seventies. The Southfield Fry was only two and a half metres wide by six metres long. There were no seats and no “chip-forks”; you bought your food, you fucked off outside, and you got your hands greasy.
In short, but for the Salvatori family’s legendary frying skills, there would have been no reason to patronise the place; and if you frequented Salvatori’s in the mid-nineties, chances are you would have heard Gianfranco lament his son’s refusal to fry. “The boy can dae it, ken? He jist wilnae. And it’s no suttin you can teach any doss cunt; it’s in here,” he’d say, beating his chest. But though he was about as Italian as the food his father served, Giorgio Salvatori had reinvented himself as a Sicilian entrepreneur. He had the name, the dark eyes and Mediterranean features; it was nothing to affect a thick Italian-American accent. In 1996, he was nineteen and had started to traffic fake or stolen designer clothes. As an aspiring Mafioso, he had acquired a Vauxhall Astra, a fake Rolex, and one of the biggest gold chains in Dundule.
And then he met Deanne.
I won’t pretend that I wasn’t upset when she dumped me in favour of Giorgio, but I certainly wasn’t bitter. He was older and better looking than I was. He had a car and a fake Rolex. For her to have done anything else would have been a sign that she was crazy.
The day I chose to say goodbye was the warmest of the year. On Deanne’s street, an ice-cream van Popeye jingle drifted from two blocks away. A boy practised wheelies. On a small square of grass, a bare-chested man putted golf balls, while a wasp crawled round and round on his beer can, tilting its bottom up before disappearing inside. Between cars, three girls in football shirts clapped and swung a rope:
“Ah wet ma hole, wet ma hole, wet ma holidays,
Tae see the cunt, tae see the cunt, tae see the cuntary.
Fuck you! Fuck you! Fu-curiosity,
Ah wet ma hole, wet ma hole, wet ma holidays.”
And a girl on a plastic tricycle, mouth sticky and purple from ice poles, pedalled the pavement, singing “Wet mole, wet mole, wet moley say, you a cunt, you a cunt, you dee-dee-da-day.”
Deanne’s gate was rusty and it scratched a curved groove on the first slab of the concrete path. The grass was long and yellow and trance music bounced through an open window. She answered the door in her dressing gown. “Wayne, what the fuck are you doin here?”
“Well, thing is see, I know you’re seeing Giorgio and that but—”
“Wayne, ah telt ye before: it’s over between us.”
“Aye, I ken, but—”
“No buts, Wayne. Over. Finished. Goodbye.”
“I’m no trying to get back with you, I just wanted—”
“You shouldnae be comin roond like this. Come on, clear off.”
“No until I get a chance to talk with you.”
“Wayne? Do yersel a favour—” There were thuds on the stairs. A pair of Lacoste shoes. New Levis. A fake Rolex. A Henri Lloyd polo shirt. A big gold chain. “Whadda fuck are you doin here, ah?”
“Alright Giorgio.”
“Alright? Am I alright? Look in my eyes. Are these the eyes of a man who is alright?”
“I’m only here to get my CD back.”
“You came for a CD? What fuckin CD?”
“Bonkers.”
“Did I fuckin ask you? Bonkers, where’s that? Is that in your room?” He bounded back up the stairs.
“Wayne,” whispered Deanne, stroking my cheek, “dinnae come roond again.”
The girls had stopped skipping and were leaning on the fence. “Are yous gonnae start swedgin?”
“Giorgio will kick yer heid in.”
“Fuck off and play,” said Deanne.
“This fuckin CD?” Giorgio ran down the stairs and threw the box onto the concrete path. It bounced and landed in the long grass, so he ran up the path and stamped on it. Then he dragged the disk out, holding it flashing in the sun. “This fuckin CD?” He tried to snap it.
“Dinnae!”
It buckled but wouldn’t break, so he frisbeed it into the street. As I turned to watch its flight, Giorgio kicked me hard up the arse.
Jerry the Fence’s shop, below the tenements, at the far end of Lanark Road, with the sign promising “Cash paid for jewellery, antiques, scrap gold and other valuables,” and the dusty windows, and the wire mesh, was the sort of place where you thought seriously before you entered, where you studied the chain you wanted while mustering your courage, where you stood at the door, breathed deeply, and pushed.
The day after my altercation with Giorgio, I found Jerry berating a customer. “I dinnae gie a fuck what yer mother paid for it. That’s nine-carat gold and cubic fuckin zirconia. If yer mother bought that thinkin they were diamonds then she was as stupid as you are.”
“Well at Cash Creator…”
“Cash Creator! Those fuckin bandits, they wouldnae pay ye a price even if they were fuckin diamonds. You could walk in there with Tutankhamun’s Tomb and the bastards would offer ye twenty quid: ‘Well knowin the second hand business like I do, there’s no much demand for Tutankhamun’s tomb.’ Offer the bastards a Fabergé egg and they’ll tell ye it’s worth a fiver and they’ve already got three up the stair!” The man shrugged and gathered his things. Jerry watched him stoop over the counter. “Yer rabbit there. Quite a nice piece.”
“Aye ?”
“Aye. How did ye get hold of this? Royal Worcester Porcelain. Dates fae about the time of the First World War, that. They didnae make many of these brown ones. Quite a nice piece… I might be able to sell yer rabbit, and I suppose I could take the rest off yer hands as a favour. Say,” he exhaled, “eighty quid?”
The man shrugged again. “Aye,” he said, but with his eyes closed.
“Right, let me nip tae ma safe.” The man lay the ring in his palm, tracing its circumference with a dirty finger. Jerry returned with a grin and started to count. “Twenty, forty, sixty.” You could hear the notes whispering between his fingers. “And that’s eighty. Pleasure