Frank 'n' Stan's bucket list - #2: TT Races - Poignant, uplifting and sublimely funny - one to put a huge smile on your face!

by J C Williams

  “Nevermind that. Do I need to start looking for another job?” asked Sally with a grin. “All good things must come to an end, I suppose.”

  “Sally, I’ve got a couple of affairs I need to sort out,” Frank said, as much to himself as to Sally.

  “Yes,” Sally agreed.

  “Sally, how do I get hold of this Tommy Banks?”

  “Frank,” she said, moving closer. “This guy is serious business. Do not underestimate him.”

  “I won’t, Sally. I promise,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  “What do you mean I’m too old?” barked Sally down the phone. “You cheeky bastard, I’ve been an accountant for over forty years! Some would call that experienced!” she said, before listening for a moment, and then replying: “Is that so? Well I’m not too old just yet to come down there and smash your face in, you scrawny son of a–”

  Sally slammed the receiver down. “Frank, where the hell have you been? I’ve been phoning around everywhere looking for you.”

  “I had things to do. I told you I was going out, and… it sounds like you were trying to get another job?”

  “Call it a contingency plan. Did you go to see Tommy Banks?” she asked.

  “I was going to but changed my mind in the end. Where’s Stan?”

  “That’s why I’ve been trying to get hold of you,” she said, clutching for a cigarette. “He’s gone to see Banks. He said something about getting the police involved.”

  “What, is he bloody stupid? When did he go??”

  “Not long after you left. Frank, you need to be careful with this guy, like I said. Seriously. Do you want me to come?”

  “Thank you, Sally. It’s a kind offer, but, well, I don’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way. But thanks!”

  And, with that, he was off.

  Frank sped through the streets of London in his prized Jaguar. Ordinarily a very careful driver, he figured it’d be repossessed by the end of the week anyway and so threw caution to the wind.

  Presently, Frank had precisely not one single clue what he was going to do next. However, the thought of Sally volunteering her services to come along as protection brought him a momentary grin. He took the crumpled note – which he’d discarded earlier – retrieving it from the footwell and cross-checking the name of the bookmakers with the one he was currently parked outside for confirmation.

  “I’d like to see Tommy,” he asked of the surly cashier, once inside. Her demeanour indicated that she did not like her job very much, did not like people very much, or both.

  “Wait there,” she said flatly, disappearing through a door at the darkened recess of the shop.

  It was a difficult environment in which to wait in comfort. Frank tried his best to look inconspicuous by reading a newspaper about greyhounds, but the truth of it was that he stood out like a polar bear with diarrhoea. He’d well and truly stepped into the city’s criminal underbelly and wherever he looked, ignoble, battle-scarred blaggards covered in tattoos stared back at him with contempt. And that was just the women.

  “Go through,” said the cashier, once returned, in the same monotone delivery as before.

  Frank took a deep breath, gathered himself together, and walked into the office.

  Tommy Banks waved him in. “Please,” he said, offering Frank a seat. “You’re Frank Cryer, if I’m not mistaken? A pleasure to meet you.”

  The cordial welcome was unnerving and unexpected. Frank nodded, taking a seat as instructed. Tommy was short, built like a boxer. His hair was shaved to the scalp and his deep-set blue eyes had a fierce intensity. He exuded confidence.

  “I’ve been meaning to speak with you, Frank – may I call you Frank? – so your timing is impeccable.”

  “Ah,” said Frank. He’d meant it to come out with a deeper timbre than it did, but it sounded instead like he’d inhaled helium. “Ah,” he repeated, once he’d cleared his throat, but he knew the moment was lost.

  “We’re both busy men,” said Banks. “So I won’t do you the discourtesy of treating you like an idiot, Frank. Fair enough?”

  “Yes, fine,” squirmed Frank.

  “You and your friend, Stan Sidcup. It’s a nice little business you had there.”

  “Had?” asked Frank.

  “Sure,” said Tommy. “Stan came to see me and told me all about the money problems. Cashflow, as he explained. Shame, really.”

  “Do you know why I’m here?” asked Frank. “Seeing as how we’re not treating each other like idiots?”

  Tommy waved his hand, inviting Frank to continue.

  “We can’t operate in this town without you on board, Tommy. I know that.”

  “Your friend Stan and I have an agreement. I’m sure you, being partners, know all about it?”

  Frank took another breath to compose himself.

  “I do. And that’s why I’m here. I’d like to buy Stan out of his commitment to you.”

  Tommy laughed. “And why would you want to do that, Frank?”

  “How much?” said Frank.

  Tommy Banks didn’t speak, resulting in Frank filling the silence. “Tommy… Mr Banks…”

  “Tommy is fine. We’re friends here, Frank,” Banks assured him. But Frank got the impression there was no such thing as being friends with Tommy Banks any more than a hare could be friends with a jackal.

  “Stan’s source of income was the business,” Frank went on. “That’s gone pear-shaped. So he’ll have no money to give you.”

  Banks nodded but said nothing at this.

  “Right. So there’s three thousand there,” said Frank, pushing over an envelope. “That’s all I have.”

  Tommy pushed the envelope back.

  “I understand you’re the talent man, Frank? I’m not entirely sure what Stan brought to your operation if I’m being frank, Frank. So you must be the brains out of your little partnership?”

  “And what if I am?” asked Frank, getting a little braver.

  “Well, if you’re the brains, then you’re the asset of the business. What’s say we work together, Frank? I’ll give you the money to get the business back on track, and I’ll introduce you to whoever you need to know. You’ll be the biggest in London. And don’t worry, I’ll stay out of your way – as long as I get my cut, that is – and you won’t even know I exist.”

  “And what about Stan?” Frank countered.

  “Stan, who?” said Tommy, but Frank knew exactly what he meant.

  “I’ve got a feeling your friend Stan has been working a bit too hard lately,” Banks went on. “In fact he’ll really be needing to take some time off to rest and recuperate, actually.”

  “What’ve you done to him?” asked Frank. “Where is he?”

  Tommy Banks leaned over the table, resting on his knuckles. “Frank, forget about Stan. We’ll work together, you and I. You’ll be the biggest agent in London. Frank, I can make you a wealthy man. You just need to forget all about Stan.”

  “So Stan was here?” Frank demanded. “Where is he now??”

  Banks’ face gave away the faintest smirk. “Frank, people don’t take too kindly to being threatened with the police. It’s not particularly nice, and it’s not especially polite, either.”

  “Tommy, where is Stan? What have you done to Stan?”

  “You can’t park there!” protested an overzealous attendant, broom in hand. “It’s a No Waiting zone!” he shouted after Frank. “You’ll get a parking ticket!”

  Frank stood in front of the arrivals board, but the words and figures melted in front of his eyes. A passing nurse applied the brakes on the wheelchair she was piloting. “Are you all right, dear?” she asked, compassion evident in her voice. “You look like you need help?”

  “Ward seven,” said Frank, struggling to catch his breath.

  “End of the corridor, turn left, then the third ward on your right,” she said, using her arms to draw a virtual map, but Frank was already gone.

  Frank sprinted, but tracti
on was always difficult in a hospital; it must be something to do with the wax used.

  “Sally!” he shouted. “Sally, I got your message, I came as soon as I could!”

  Frank didn’t want to ask for fear of the answer. His eyes darted over Sally’s face, looking for a glimmer that everything would be okay.

  Sally’s bottom lip trembled, she went to speak, but the emotion choked her.

  Frank gently gripped her shoulders. “Sally. How is Stan?”

  She put her shaking hand to her mouth. “Frank, he’s in a bad way.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes, but he’s got internal damage and something about a possible bleed on the brain. The doctor said the next twenty-four hours are critical.”

  Stan’s family were small in number, and those he had were up north. Frank didn’t leave his side for three days, before finally relenting due to the smell – his own, that is, from lack of a shower – and the friendly complaints from the nursing staff. Not once did Stan’s friend from the photograph – though informed of Stan’s injuries – visit, phone, or apparently give Stan a second thought.

  Stan eventually roused almost six days later, and the first thing Stan saw when he opened his eyes was Frank.

  Frank shouted for the nurse, barely able to contain himself.

  “Hiya, pal,” Frank said. “Don’t try and speak because there’s damage to your jaw and it’s wired shut.”

  Stan just looked at him. Nothing needed to be said for Frank to read his face.

  “You had me worried there,” said Frank, wiping the snot from his nose and then daubing at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I thought I’d lost you, you daft old sod. Again.”

  Stan gently gripped Frank’s thumb but no words were spoken. Those few days were the only time in Stan’s life when anyone could actually get a word in (a fact Frank was often eager to remind him of later on).

  Stan would spend three months in that hospital and even after several rounds of major surgery, the thing that concerned him most was his teeth – or rather the lack of them. Once the hospital surgeons had finished with him, his next appointment would be with the cosmetic surgeon.

  “I’ve got a plan,” said Frank one wet Sunday afternoon when some of Stan’s strength had returned. By this time, he was able to urinate on his own terms, and the wiring on his teeth had come off.

  “Remember years ago, when we bought Daisy the campervan?” Frank asked, a twinkle in his eye.

  “Of course,” Stan replied. “Daisies, by the way–”

  “Bloom well in the autumn, I know,” Frank answered, and they both shared a laugh.

  “Do you remember what I’d originally intended to spend the money on?” Frank continued. “Before Daisy?”

  “A taxi, wasn’t it?” responded Stan.

  “A taxi, yes. I can see it now, Stan. When you get out of here, let’s go back to Liverpool and buy a taxi, yeah?”

  “There’s no money in that, is there? Or is there?” Stan wondered aloud.

  “Well of course there is,” said Frank, reeling off the business plan he’d conceived during the long nights in the hospital waiting rooms. “We can pick up and start again, right? But maybe I’ll keep one eye on the money with you,” Frank added. “Assuming you don’t mind.”

  “You can have that, Frank. I just wanted to say I’m…”

  “We don’t mention it again, Stan. It’s over and done. You don’t need to worry about Tommy Banks, either. He’s sorted. I’m ready to get out of London. We’ll make a new start. I can see it now, Stan,” he said again, this time driving an imaginary car. “We’ll have one car, and then two, and, hell, before long, we’ll have a whole fleet of taxis.”

  “With the name Frank-and-Stan plastered all over them,” said Stan, embracing the idea. “Oh, our logo could be Frankenstein, see, as in–”

  “Yeah, I think I get that one, Stan, no further explanation required,” Frank replied, stretching his arms out and doing his best impression of the famous monster – which got another good laugh out of both of them.

  “I’ve got someone primed to help us in the office as well,” offered Frank.

  “Who?”

  “Craggy Sally. She’ll be fantastic! She can help us out with the accounts, of course. And she says she’s got some money saved so if we don’t pay her for a few weeks it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Brilliant,” said Stan. “Frank, thank you. You’re a very singular friend.”

  Frank dismissed him. “They may have to stay with us for a while – you know, until they get settled.”

  “They, who?” Stan asked.

  “Craggy Sally. You do know she looks after her granddaughter, right? So the little one is coming along for the ride. She’s an unusual kid, but she seems…”

  “Seems what?”

  “Well, she’s an unusual kid. Yeah.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “The kid? Stella, I think it was. Yes, Stella, that’s it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  D ave ambled down pit lane, taking an appreciative glance at the outfits queued up waiting patiently for the ultimate test of any racing machinery. His leathers were immaculate; he felt like the kid at school daring to unveil his new trainers for the first time.

  Over the throbbing clatter of revving engines, he couldn’t escape a squeaking noise that appeared to be following him. He took a glance over his shoulder… but nothing. It sounded as if he were trodding on a duck with each step.

  Confused, he looked down, appearing for all the world like he was bowing his head offering a last-minute prayer to the big guy in the sky.

  “Ah,” he said, the answer revealed: the noise emanated from the inside of his thighs every time the fresh leather met with the opposing leg on each stride forwards.

  Mystery solved.

  Monty was already aboard sidecar Number Forty-Two. Dave offered a firm slap on the back, and climbed himself aboard the bike they’d both spent countless hours building, stripping down, and rebuilding. It’d been their obsession for months, and, now, for the first time, it was about to be revealed if their determined efforts would produce the results they hoped for.

  Dave pulled at his crotch, where it felt constricted now he was sat down. It could well have been the new leather, not yet broken in. An alternative explanation, however, was that his testicles had necessarily increased dramatically in size: after all, he was about to pilot this precision-tuned contraption down Bray Hill.

  The outfits higher up the starting order were dispatched at ten-second intervals. Dave ran his tongue over his lips and took a deep breath to counter the increase in his heart rate as he pressed down on the electric starter. He winced in anticipation, but he needn’t have fretted as the engine burst into life at the first time of asking with a glorious roar. He gave a series of short twists to the throttle to get the oil circulating, and looked back at Monty, who was now crouched, prepared for action.

  He rolled forward as another machine set off towards the traffic lights at St Ninian’s crossroad. He tried to keep focussed but his mind raced with nagging doubts about gearing ratios and suspension set-up. Ultimately, the only way to know if he’d chosen the correct combination was to test them on the TT circuit – something he was about to do, just now as a matter of fact, as a hand pressed down on his right shoulder gave him the permission to go.

  Dave released the clutch, applying the power as they burst away from pit lane. The outfit, full of composure, was lively off the line before settling as Dave moved up the gearbox – second, third, and then fourth – as they tore steadily towards St Ninian’s. He had to remember to breathe as he knocked into fifth approaching the top of Bray Hill, doing one hundred and thirty. He’d been sat still only a few brief seconds earlier, and was now virtually hurtling off the face of the earth on one of the most daunting descents in road racing.

  If this were the U.S.S. Enterprise, then Dave and Monty had just entered warp speed, you could say, as they passed
through the popular vantage point at the foot of Bray Hill, where the suspension was provided its first challenge as the outfit bottomed out – creating a haze of sparks caused by metal hitting tarmac at one-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour.

  Breathing was a little easier as he tucked in, keeping the throttle pinned over the iconic Ago’s Leap – named in homage to the TT legend Giacomo Agostini – a short distance up Quarterbridge Road. Houses, telegraph poles, and garden walls flashed by in a blur, the occasional glimpse of a marshal’s orange tabard visible in Dave’s peripheral vision: all representations of the speed he was travelling.

  His brain was starting to catch up with the images being thrown at it as Dave dropped back down the gearbox and applied the brakes, gently at first, as he came up on the landmark of Quarterbridge – by day a daunting series of roundabouts, but now a fierce right-hander that required a rapid reduction of velocity – before easing around the sharp bend in second gear on relatively cold tyres with minimal grip. It was another popular vantage point, where there could be several hundred people to witness a careless tumble by competitors perhaps braking too late or perhaps having been overly confident in the grip their tyres would offer.

  No such problem for Dave, accelerating away from those enjoying a cold beer on this warm evening at the Quarterbridge Pub. He was getting a feel for the bike; it wasn’t perfect, but he was pleased, and the new engine was seriously rapid. He caught sight of the outfit that set off ten seconds before him, but he didn’t have time to register if he was going quick or they were going slow.

  A short burst of acceleration brought him towards the oak tree at Braddan Bridge, where he applied the brakes just after the rugby club on the right – its fields peppered with tents from the visiting fans.

  Dave dropped to second gear for the sweeping left and right-hander at Braddan Church – slow in, fast out – thirty, maybe thirty-five miles per hour in front of the temporary grandstand. His confidence about the grip increased as the tyres were surely getting warmer by this point. He felt Monty clambering over on the right-hander; agile for a man of his build, this was truly a team effort.

  Dave was motoring east, and the sky was clear. He winced, for he knew the sun’s rays would bore into his eyes as he passed the industrial estate to his right. His tinted visor provided protection, but he was still momentarily blinded – which is not ideal when traversing at the pace he was. Time enough to recover before calling upon his brakes, once more, on the left towards the Railway Inn, followed by a right which caught out many a rider too enthusiastic with the throttle.