Beer, Balls and the Belgian Mafia

tribute.

Chapter One

When I first heard that I had become a target for the Belgian Mafia, I laughed out loud. I recall making some facile joke about being force fed the finest chocolate in Europe or being water boarded with nine percent Trappist ale.

Less than a week later, when I was lying bound, gagged and immobilised in a tunnel in Antwerp with an emotionally retarded, armed and trigger happy psychopath only inches from my face, I would find the idea less amusing.

This was the last thing on my mind however when an old friend returned to the UK to change my life forever.

‘Ricky, you have a message’

It had been the dullest of a week of dull days at work. My ‘to do’ list had stayed resolutely empty, my coffee mug full, as I flicked idly through The Face. I had been locked in a tedious routine of work, gym, a couple of hours in the pub and sleep counting down the days to Christmas. Things were about to change. I pressed the button.

‘Hello. This is Vincent James McLean.’

Vincent!

My hand trembled slightly as I held the receiver to my ear. I hadn’t seen him since that night in New York. The Chelsea Hotel. It was the first time I’d heard his voice in a very long time. I waited for the message to continue.

‘Long time no see. I have a proposition, can we meet?’

The Chelsea Hotel. My mind drifted back. It was classic Vincent. We had been to see Blondie at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and four hours after the gig Vincent had nailed one of the bands entourage after picking her up in Rafters. In typical McLean fashion she turned out to be one of the lead singer’s best mates. Three weeks later I got a phone call to say that Vincent had blagged his way into the band’s touring menagerie and he was off to New York. It sounded too good to be true. Several months later Vincent, complete with tales of his forays into music journalism and promotions, was holding court back in Worksop.

‘Come back with me’, said Vincent. ‘I could do with your help and it would pay well. I know people on the scene. You are going to love it there man. Come on, at least test the water.’

A few weeks later we were on our way. I incurred the wrath of my then boss by going over his head to get a sabbatical and giving him scant notice. I discovered that whilst Vincent was flying first class with British Airways I was going economy on some obscure airline. A lifelong curry phobic I found myself on a plane for six hours that smelt like an Indian restaurant, sitting next to a twenty stone businessman knocking back Red Label and belching Vindaloo. I was in the toilet before we reached Dublin. Dazed and confused I arrived at Newark airport - Vincent was waiting for me at Kennedy - and had to use half the dollars I had brought with me to taxi to Manhattan.

Vincent had been adamant, ‘Don’t call it the Chelsea Hotel. You sound like a tourist. It’s Hotel Chelsea. OK?’

I tried not to be too wide eyed and tried very hard to look as though I belonged. It was a battle. The wrought iron, floor to ceiling windows, vibrant colours and art was a million miles from the dark utility furnished guest houses bland Formica and chipboard Trusthouse Forte hotels of home. I craned my head to gaze on a gaudy piece that caught my eye through the spiral staircase and took a few steps upwards for a better view.

Beneath me, a door opened followed by a cacophony of ‘Hi man’ and ‘How you doin,’ as Vincent was swamped beneath manes of black hair, hugs and handshakes. I studied the canvas as the glad handing continued below. The leather clad entourage was thinning out as I skipped back to the landing.

‘What’s with the freak show?’ I asked.

‘Alice Cooper? A freak show? They’d probably find that quite funny. I’ll introduce you later.’

I found this new reality disconcerting. On the one hand there was the reassuring familiarity of Vincent McLean from next door. Vincent, the boy that helped my dad concrete the drive, the drinker of Mansfield Ales, and my mother’s favourite. ‘He’s such a polite boy’. But there I was, thousands of miles from home, where the very same Vincent McLean was on nodding terms with people I’d only seen on the Old Grey Whistle Test. He was sitting on a bar stool, bourbon in hand, regaling Alice Cooper and his band with outrageous tales of gigs with an unheard of, long defunct, Worksop punk band.

‘Tell the guys about the one where your nose started to bleed during the gig when the girl hit you,’ shouted Alice. ‘That’s a great story.’

Like the flickering images of a hand cranked movie, New York flashed intermittently in front of me. Nights in Studio 54 hoping to catch a glimpse of Cher in a see-through chiffon blouse and Xenon , the place in which Vincent insisted I was on the receiving end of a sneer from Bianca Jagger and the occasional foray into Elaine’s, the scene of a fierce football debate about the relative merits of the Blades and Watford, with Elton John. There was the empty glass left by a cadaverous Andy Warhol that I sneaked out in my pocket that was broken in a drunken stumble chasing a cab. It would be worth a fortune now. I can’t remember eating, and thanks to pills I was told the Yanks had used in Vietnam, I don’t recall sleeping much either. It was a head spinning, never-ending, ear splitting chase from club to club filling Vincent’s glass as he glad handed one pop star after another. Sometimes the pills appeared to make Vincent edgy, aggressive and subject to frequent mood swings. It was one of these episodes that told me it was time I should be packing my bags.

An attractive older woman appeared in the corridor of the crowded office that Vincent was sharing with a literary collective. She had her shy teenage son in tow.

‘Mr. McLean,’ she said ‘Last night you promised that you would introduce Dimitri to Mr. Cooper, if I …’ She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence.

‘I have never met you before in my life,’ said Vincent.

‘But…’

‘I think that you will find the door is over there.’

He gave a slight nod of his head and a doorman appeared, as if from nowhere.

‘Marco, could you escort this lady and her son to the door please?’

I glanced at the woman. She looked hopelessly out of her depth, and the boy looked like he was going to burst into tears. Vincent, who had turned his head away, saw none of this.

He tried to explain himself. ‘Cleaner at the hotel I think. A chancer. She must have mistaken me for Father flippin’ Christmas.’

He didn’t fool me. He knew her. I wondered what service the woman had performed to secure Vince’s promise.

Vincent’s erratic behaviour continued to cause me sleepless nights. I was four weeks in and a stone lighter than the day I’d arrived. I decided it was time to go home. Time of my life or not, I was a good working class boy. There was little sign of what I thought of as work and I wasn’t used to free-loading at someone else’s expense. And I neither recognised nor liked the man calling himself Vincent McLean.

‘Mate, I need you here. You keep me grounded. Give me another two or three weeks. You’ll get in the swing of things. I’ve some proper sit-down office stuff to do before the end of the month. I could do with your help. You’d pay your way. Think about it. Meet me tonight at the jazz place. We’ll have a proper talk.’

I didn’t want to go to the jazz place or any place with him. Probably because I knew I’d be talked into staying. Half cut after an all day session with some of Vincent’s Beatnik pals, I was late. The place was heaving and I struggled to make him out but eventually caught sight of his blond mop. Facing the wall at table in the corner, a tall Latina girl with a cascade of dark curly hair in a short black dress was sat astride him; one tanned leg on either side much to the obvious disgust of other patrons. Dipping into a glass bowl she was spoon feeding him chocolate mousse.

‘Rick! Great to see you. Rick, this is Gabriella. Gabriella this is Rick.’

I offered to shake hands. She kissed me on the cheek.

Vincent disappeared, leaving me to engage with his companion. We seemed to get on well. Gabriella, leaning towards me, hand on my knee - her almond shaped eyes looking deep into mine, was clearly fascinated by my every word as I recounted tales of my New York trip and Vincent.

‘Enough of Vincent, I want to hear more about you. Mr. McLean said I’d like you, and I do.’

We talked. I was charm personified as she hung on every word and laughed at each comic aside. A reluctant dancer, I was happy on this occasion to gyrate hip to hip, grinding my pelvis into hers as Gabriella whispered in great detail all the filthy things she would like to do to me.

By breakfast the next morning she’d done everything on her list. Unspeakable, wonderful never-to-be-forgotten things performed in the club toilets, the taxi and back at The Chelsea into the early hours.

Woken by the sound of running water I was surprisingly sober and clear headed. I marveled at the outline of Gabrielle’s body as she stood silhouetted by the light cast by the light thrown by the lamp in the corner. She smiled as she slipped on her dress.

‘Do I find you happy this morning?’ She smiled.

‘You find me tired and very happy. Are you in a hurry to go? Can’t you stay a while?’

‘I have to go honey. Mr. McLean’s money ran out a few hours ago but you’re a nice guy. I enjoyed my unpaid overtime with you but I have to go to work.’

She kissed the tip of her finger and placed it on my lower lip.

‘Pleasure, not business. Now that’s rare.’

As she chatted away about liking English manners and accents my head began to spin and my breathing quickened. First horror, then shame then anger. Rage like I’d never felt before. I wanted to rip Vincent’s head from his body. The patronising bastard. I didn’t even notice Gabriella leave. I stormed down the corridor. There was no reply from Vincent’s room. I knew he was in there but the coward wouldn’t show his face. He’d got this one so wrong. I hammered on the door. ‘How dare you? How dare you think I could be as shallow as you, you fucking wanker.’

I packed and was gone within the hour. I booked into a cheap hotel near the airport and spent a week trying to sort a flight to get me out of New York and out of Vincent McLean’s life whilst fighting the impulse to head back into the city and push my fist down the back of Vincent’s throat. Eight days later I was in the UK sitting at King’s Cross waiting for the Doncaster train delighted to be heading back to small town England. I’d be back to beer instead of champagne, pretty girls-next-door rather than call girls and grumpy old shopkeepers who would never dream of saying ‘have a nice day’.

Chapter Two

I heard nothing of, or from, Vincent for a couple of years. Initially it was deliberate policy on my part and I assumed we would lose touch for good when I moved to London. A couple of years later a Christmas card found its way to my parent’s house. A Christmas card wasn’t Vincent’s style. I interpreted it as a belated apology and we exchanged letters.

My new role as Vincent’s long distance minder started in late 1984. I was 24 years old, living in a bedsit in Whitechapel and issuing press releases for a merchant bank near Liverpool Street station. Vincent had somehow found his way to Arizona. His long furiously scribbled letter explained how. Although as a typical Vincent literary effort, it was in parts scarcely decipherable and full of misinformed comments about the miner’s strike. Two mines had already closed at Worsborough and Featherstone and there were strong rumours of imminent closures. His take on things was riddled with contradictions.

Vincent had been writing since his teenage years. He had parceled up his life’s work in a crate and sent it to a literary luminary. In Vincent’s, no doubt simplified version of the story, this had led to him being offered a scholarship at a University in Arizona. It would have been unbelievable if it had been anyone else but Vincent. It was typical of his outrageous good fortune.

An emeritus professor in English Literature, Professor Foxx-Franklyn, was assigned to mentor Vincent. The professor quickly developed a crush on him. The more sarcastic Vincent became and the more he took advantage of the Professor’s Achilles heel - his weakness for pretty, angry young men in leather jackets - the more Foxx-Franklyn loved him. Vincent was able to live the life of Riley, working when it suited him; but more often seducing undergraduates in his hand-picked room. His letter detailed a few of his conquests. As usual I sensed that his heart wasn’t really in it. He would be ruining young lives to temporarily relieve his boredom. The Prof gave him straight A’s for everything. He wrote, ‘They’re giving Degrees away; it seems rude not to take one. Bit of an issue though. I didn’t tell the Professor I was gay but - and this is the problem - to be honest I never said I wasn’t.…’

My no-nonsense advice on how to shake of the attentions of the possessive Professor was embraced by Vincent and used to good effect.

At Arizona Vincent had met a guy called Ralph. His dad owned an advertising agency in Lubbock, Texas. Ralph was impressionable and thought Vincent was the sharpest guy that he’d ever met. So Vincent said. He invited him down for the weekend and Vincent manfully ‘worked his way through steaks the size of small North Nottinghamshire towns, smiled a lot and talked the usual bollocks’. It helped that his dad, Kurt, was the biggest Robin Hood fan in the Deep South. He offered Vincent the chance to put some slogans to country music promotion posters and do some dialogue for TV ads.

Vincent was in his element. He hated Country but that made it easier to make his tag lines sharper. Kurt offered him a full-time job but Vincent, who had secretly been shagging Ralph’s younger sister Aimee, wanted out of the country scene and away from the increasingly lovelorn nineteen year old without offending the family, and preferably without being chased out of town with a gun aimed at his head. I helped contrive a way to get Vincent out of there, posing in a long-distance call as a distressed relative. Much to the family’s distress - they loved their English Gent from Sherwood Forest - Vincent dropped the bombshell that he needed to get to New York to attend to urgent family issues on the Irish side of the family. Kurt shook his hand warmly and said he’d pass his name on to some contacts in the Big Apple. Within a month Vincent was packing his bags and heading north working with an agency specialising in PR for the music industry.

It was unbelievable. There was I struggling to make the announcement of the appointment of another Senior Vice-President seem interesting, often slogging over the wording long past midnight, with a social life that seldom varied from the odd glass of flat King & Barnes in the backroom of the Windmill, whilst Vincent McLean, who had never done a hard day’s work in his life was earning mega bucks in the land of opportunity. Life, it seemed to me, was unfair.

Wind the tape back to 1976 and I was waving Vincent off in a taxi as he headed for New York having won a school’s writing competition with a half-hearted effort he penned whilst watching Space 1999 while I did his homework. It always seemed to come easy to Vincent although I didn’t really envy him. His life seemed too chaotic, too full of conflict.

Sometimes I wanted to tell Vincent where to stuff his career in advertising and his pictures of girls with ridiculously perfect teeth and his sex-life crises but instead, like the loser I was, I continued to dish out the advice; sorting missing air tickets, hiding dodgy imported bootleg tapes, sorting out last minute flowers for forgotten anniversaries and providing long-distance alibis for wronged boyfriends intent on revenge. ‘My pocket British Consul’ Vincent would say. ‘I’ll make it up to you one day,’ he reckoned. Perhaps his call and the offer to meet meant that the time had come to keep his promise but I was wary.

My trouble is I find it almost impossible to say no. I took the tube to Hyde Park, walked to a brasserie in Notting Hill and found Vincent lording it at the bar chatting to a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Predictably he ignored me until she had kissed him a polite goodbye and swanned off with some guy in a blazer holding her coat. As she passed me she winked. It was someone whose face I had seen on breakfast TV. The guy in immaculate suit was also familiar. Vincent lifted his wine glass in greeting.

‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead’

‘Sorry?’

He gave me the same, mildly patronising, slightly amused look that he would have given me when we were fourteen and hanging around, winding up old Isherwood at the fish shop by ordering fish, chips and scraps in French. ‘Thatcher you prawn. The old bitch has tossed it off. She’s fallen on her sword. How can you have possibly missed that? It’s on every news bulletin, every news stand in London. It’s the end of an era mate…our era!’

Since my marriage had started to fall apart. I had been locked in a little self-contained bubble, followed by a year when I thought of little else but separation. I didn’t find out that the Berlin wall had been pulled down until two weeks after the event. Martians could have landed in Camden and I’d have been sitting in The World’s End staring morosely into my pint, mumbling to myself, oblivious to the end of the world as we know it.

I looked around the bar. Everyone looked chirpier than usual, more upbeat. Most of these people will have voted for her, maybe even Vincent, and now they can’t wait to cheer as they kick her through the door. Someone hushed the huddle to be quiet and pointed to a TV screen high above the bar.

Britain has a new prime minister for the first time in more than 11 years. Margaret Thatcher formally tendered her resignation to the Queen early this morning after leaving Downing Street for the last time. John Major was elected her successor yesterday by Conservative Party members.

I remembered how we used to chant her name at playtime after she stole our break time drink. ‘Thatcher, Thatcher…dirty milk snatcher’.

I remembered the sense of impotent fury I had felt in 1979 after weeks of desperate canvassing for the Labour party in Manchester. And then standing in a bar in Knightsbridge a few years later when a rabble of ‘Hooray Henries’ and pink cheeked Sloanes roared in chanting ‘Five more years’, over and over again. Now she was gone. I should have felt ecstatic but it felt like a pyrrhic victory. She had changed our world forever. Maggie Thatcher had gone but there would be others out there ready to take her place. I looked at Vincent with his pinstriped suit and his west end cut and I knew instinctively that we could never go back.

‘Looking fit and well Vincent. Life must be good. Flying visit?’

‘No. I’m back for good. Business has been good and I’ve brought my ill gotten gains home to the new land of opportunity. I have been flitting backwards and forwards doing a bit of research for three years now.’

He looked at me guiltily. ‘Sorry, I had intended to get in touch but it’s all been a bit manic.’

I waved away his apology. ‘Land of opportunity? Here? You’re too late. The South has made its money and the North is dead. The game is over.’

‘You couldn’t be more wrong mate. The North is where there’s a killing to be made. Or North Midlands to be exact. That’s why I wanted to see you. To invite you back to the green and gently rolling countryside of North Nottinghamshire.’

‘You mean to the rusty closed collieries, to decaying un-policed pit villages, to no-go areas full of heroin addicts and burnt out wrecks of stolen cars? I worked my nadgers off at school and University to get away, so there’s no way I’m going back. Especially now Thatcher has smashed her way through it with a wrecking ball.’

I knew this was the start of a discussion rather than the end and I was right; it was a long but fascinating night. I looked forward to discovering the 1990’s version of Vincent James McLean. The ability to charm had always been part of his youthful armoury but he suffered from a compulsive need to infuriate and irritate. He was either loved or loathed but he had preferred the latter. After his ‘A’ levels when he went to the States as his essay writing prize, he issued no warning and said no goodbyes to his closest friends. They never heard from him again. I was the only one he made contact with. I never understood why and never asked, but that was the Vincent of my younger days: the enigmatic poet, the dangerous steely blue eyed, bare-chested, androgynous punk. He was destined, in my imagination, to die famous but penniless in a Parisian brothel, leaving a legacy of cynical and fatalistic poetry, ground-breaking plays and legions of broken-hearted lovers. Yet here he was in a hand-made Jermyn Street suit holding a Filofax. I was disappointed.

I would have to revise my predictions. I was still undecided, still unclear as to what Vincent was intending to do and why he needed me as part of his team. Briefly he sketched me an outline of a business that appeared to be based on regeneration through beer and property speculation. He told me that he would expand his ideas later that evening in his favourite London pub, The Lamb, in Camden.

That evening Vincent was at his most eloquent and persuasive. He talked with such passion about his plans for the urban regeneration of our home town that it was impossible not to be swayed by his rhetoric. He even allowed me to pin him down on detail.

Vincent’s eyes blazed with intensity as he gave me his spiel. ‘You need to see a wide horizon Ricky; you need my vision to see a bigger picture. I want you to stand, not where the brewing industry is now, not where the property speculation business is now, but where it will be in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. You need to imagine how we could be engaging with receptive markets in Europe, and then India, Russia and China. These places are going to wake up soon and we’ll set up shop in the global markets of the future and take a look around. We will be able to speculate all over the world, sell our beers all over the world. Britain isn’t the only beer drinking country in the world, in our European back yard there is the German market, the Belgian market, the Dutch market, the Czech market.’

‘OK,’ I interjected, ‘But where is the money to back this speculation coming from?’

Vincent smiled. ‘Everything is in place. After advertising I began to play around with property speculation in the States. I set up a company with a couple of Yanks and we began to play around converting old farm buildings into flats. It was in the boom years of the mid 80’s, and, within five years, prices had doubled. We were in exactly the right place at the right time.’

Vincent leaned over the table and took a long sip of his pint. ‘I have a property business in the States worth 10 to 15 million in today’s market. The property company I am going to base in Worksop, TATM Properties, will be a spin-off from an enterprise bankrolled by the parent company in the States. Any personal debts I accrue over here will be covered by the American operation. TATM Brewery will, technically and legally, be independent. The only things the two new UK companies will share is me and the TATM acronym. It’s the brewery where I want you but I may call on your word skills to help with a bit of a charm offensive with the property business. I don’t expect an easy ride but it’s best the investors don’t know that. Having a full time communications and PR guy on the pay roll might set few alarm bells ringing so it’ll just be an informal arrangement.’

I got out my notebook and pen, instantly feeling more comfortable as I unsheathed my Biro. If I had been more together emotionally I would probably have started by trying to ascertain the ratios and percentages of truths, half-truths and bullshit but, instead, I allowed myself to become caught up in the moment.

‘So, what kind of investment is available and how are you going to deploy it?’

‘The stakeholders have already sanctioned 6.25 million dollars for our kick off. They would have given me more if I had asked for it but it’s not needed. We already have enough capital to buy up the whole town, ship it to Hull and float it off down the North Sea. The brewery has a different set of backers but they’re equally enthusiastic. We own part of an old brewery complex with options to take over the entire site and a massive plot for future development freehold. There is capital for investing in the current premises and we’re awash with cash for recruitment and marketing. We’ve even got money in the pot to buy a nearby old mill that I want to turn into a brewing heritage museum.’

Vincent rubbed his hands together, as if warming them in front of the old coal fire in his family living room. He couldn’t resist a smirk. ‘I have already established operational headquarters for the property business. It’s…unique’

I raised my eyebrows thinking it all sounded too good to be true but Vincent was in full flow. ‘I