Magic, Mayhem and Melancholy

Blackbirds sing outside. I can’t see them but I have grown to know their sound from my enforced solitude in an Ayrshire barn conversion. I’m lying on the floor gazing up through the dormer windows at the grey sky, the only movement the steady stream of rain water as it trickles down the window. I have one hand clutching my phone and the other absent mindedly caressing one of my breasts. Yes, this is why I am living in self-enforced exile, I’m now a woman.

Of course the gathered ranks of the Scottish football media used to call me a big wuman all the time anyway but now I find myself sans-penis and although exciting at first, I now don’t know quite what to do with myself. I’ve also been fired from the Times which makes it worse. I thought I was so untouchable, me – Spiers, the curse of Rangers and champion of downtrodden Celtic fans everywhere, but then I pulled a gun on Magnus Linklater only to discover later that he had one of Lawwell’s agents hiding behind me with an even bigger gun, one that fires darts and can knock out Elaine C Smith at full charge from fifty yards. Then I woke up, post-op in one of Lawwell’s underground chambers with Graeme Souness eyeing me most maliciously and before I knew it I was in 221b with Donald Findlay laughing at me so hard he coughed on his pipe and had to hold onto the fireplace while his housekeeper fetched him sherry.

‘Oh, oh, oh, Spiers! What are we going to do with you?’ he roared. ‘I mean, I’m not complaining – that’s a magnificent set of bouncers you have on you but in the name of the wee man, what possible good was this going to do Lawwell? I simply don’t understand and that worries me.’
‘Honey trap, it has to be,’ muttered Souness darkly, his moustache bristling.
‘Sex magic,’ suggested Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter without expanding which was a shame as this sounded quite interesting.
Findlay recovered slightly and straightened his back, ready to expound some theory of his own but then he looked at me and burst into shrieks of laughter again and had to be helped into a chair.

Once Findlay had calmed down they sat around a table by the huge bay windows and pondered how best to approach the current stalemate with the SFA.
‘Lunny’s working to nothing but the BBC’s own pro-Celtic agenda,’ growled Souness. ‘He doesn’t quite realise how he’s being manipulated in that he doesn’t know or doesn’t believe that the Pacific Quay CSC are working for Lawwell, suppressing anything damaging to Celtic while highlighting ad nauseum all minor incidents involving Rangers. He told me this under torture so I believe him. Regan knows fine well what’s going on but he’s been nothing but a Lawwell puppet since Celtic annexed the SFA before the season even started. Our problem lies not only in the disproportionate punishment of Rangers by Lunny but also the knock on effect it is having on referees who are now too scared to award anything our way for fear of being dragged through the media mud once the Young Bhoys of the BBC have edited the footage to suit Lawwell. This is extremely concerning to us as we have a game against Celtic in a few days. My suggestion is that you allow me to take out Lawwell once and for all – I’ve never understood your desire to give him a free hand to do as he likes, not when you’ve got me, and indeed Jorg Albertz at your disposal, not to mention Richard Gough and his navy or the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos. With all this in our armoury we should be taking the fight to Lawwell, not letting him ride roughshod over Scottish football while his confederates, Devine, Kearney, McBride and all the others do the same to Scottish society. The country is teetering on the edge of something awful and for what, a game of football?’
‘Now now Graeme,’ puffed Findlay, composed at last and sucking on his pipe. ‘You’ve trusted me for three seasons and haven’t I always delivered? I think you should have more faith in my reasoning and calm that itchy trigger finger of yours. A time for cool heads, I’ve always said, don’t you think Spiers? Eh? Cool heads? Now,’ and he regarded me with a smirk. ‘Now, I think I have a use for you after all,’ but before he could continue his sitting room door burst open and there was Findlay’s housekeeper standing with eyes and mouth wide open, the business end of a huge sword sticking out of her belly – she’d been run through from behind.
‘Mrs Hudson!’ screamed Findlay and in a twinkling had opened a vial of orange liquid he’d produced from his pocket and was gulping it down just as Souness had produced a pistol from his dinner jacket and Albertz began trying to find an unlocked window.

It was the Green Brigade. We knew instantly as they were but teenagers although very dangerous teenagers since they’d been brainwashed by the old rapey looking guy who was leading them and who’d run through Mrs Hudson. They screamed in delight as they saw us trapped in there and pushed the housekeeper aside and made for Souness first, cutlasses held aloft. Souness downed the first eight with his Walther PPK so that the next wave had to jump the bodies of their comrades to reach him by which time he’d picked up a fallen sword and was busy pinking anyone who came near. Their numbers soon told though and Souness was forced into a corner and had to resort to the Maltese Cross manoeuvre to keep them back. I was pressed against the window which Albertz had failed to open and was now rushing with a chair. ‘Don’t break my bloody window!’ shrieked Findlay before convulsing and writhing on the floor, his body growing and tearing open his lounge suit and smoking jacket, revealing muscle upon muscle out of which coarse black hair was sprouting – I’ll say it again, one touch of the hard stuff and that Findlay is an animal! He stood up and his head nearly touched the ceiling. The Green Brigade who almost filled the room now, all stopped and stared at him, perhaps remembering tales of how the beast Findlay had ripped the heads off the first incarnation of their little organisation.

There was a crash and I turned to see Albertz had thrown the chair through the window; an absolute shame as it had been the original Georgian glass. This was the final straw for the Findlay beast and he reached down, picked up three of the Green Brigade and took off their heads with one bite. The room was now a chaos of struggle and screams and gore. I heard another crash and Souness had fallen backwards through the middle bay window from the weight of the Green Brigade who were hurling themselves on him.
‘Sorry guvnor, time for me to go,’ winked Albertz before taking off through his hole in the window. Looking up one last time before following him, I saw Findlay holding the rapey looking leader of the Green Brigade by the neck with his teeth, he was shaking him like a dog would a doll until old rapey stopped thrashing and his body fell limp into the fire, his cheap nylon shell suit catching light and just as I plunged out the window, tits first, I could tell that the room was going up in flames then I was rolling across the lawn and I came to at the feet of what looked like a giant Sikh sailor. I looked up at him and it was Richard Gough!
‘By the gods, Spiers! You’re a woman!’ exclaimed Gough before throwing himself into the fray, his Jack Tars in turbans right behind him waving their tulwars.

The scaling ladders went up and as Gough and his sailors poured into the room to aid Findlay, I felt for broken bones as usual and realised for the first time that I was no longer checking my manhood first to make sure it was still there.
‘Yes, you’ve still got a fanny,’ muttered Souness who kneeled beside me reloading his Walther and when he finished he got up and looked down at me, almost in pity.
‘This is where I belong, Spiers; amongst the madness and bloodshed. You do too, only you don’t know it. I’m going back in there, you can do what you like,’ and he started to leave but I called out to him, ‘But it’s crazy! It’s beyond lunacy,’ but before I could finish he winked at me and said, ‘You think this is mental, wait till you see the game against Celtic on Wednesday.’

I ran as fast as my jiggling boobs would let me and as I left the grounds of 221b, an explosion rocked the neighbourhood and sent me sprawling. I got up and kept running and didn’t look back.

That was Christmas Eve and there was nothing merry about it. Now here I lie, in my secluded barn watching the grey sky turn into night; the blackbirds the only sound I can hear. My phone sits quietly in my hand. No one’s asked me to work at the Rangers Celtic game yet. I’m becoming desperate.