“For about a year before we started, and five or six years after it all went tits up. It was a nightmare the second time around, though,” Billy said, his lips drawing back in distaste. “Kids had seen the shows then, you see? Couldn’t go anywhere without one of the little bastards throwing haggis at me. One time, they filled all my desk drawers with it. Filled it right to the top. And I… I knew then that I couldn’t continue. I just couldn’t. You can’t, can you? Go on? Not when your drawers are being filled with haggis.”

“The American tour—was that what caused the break-up?” Logan asked.

“Yes. No. I mean… yes. That was the final straw, but things hadn’t exactly been rosy before then. Not for a while. There’s a lot of pressure, you know? Being at that level of fame.”

There was a sound from Tyler. Not quite a laugh, but not not a laugh, either. Billy glowered at the much younger man, his face becoming something cold and stern. “We were, you know? At that level of fame. A lot of people dismiss us as a novelty act now, but they forget we did the Royal Variety Show. And not just once, either. Three times. Once for the Queen herself. And we went head to head with the Terry & June Christmas Day Special, and nearly won. And that was on the BBC. In some parts of Scotland, we did win. And this was when Terry & June was at its peak, not towards the end.”

Billy’s face had been completely taken over by a scowl now, and the words were gushing out of him like some sort of blockage had worked itself free.

“And people nowadays, they go, ‘Yeah, but you were no Cannon and Ball, were you?’” He raised a finger to some imagined figure in the shop doorway. “Fuck off! Cannon and Ball? I could tell you a thing or two about Cannon and Ball. Believe me. I could tell you things that’d turn your hair grey.” His tongue flicked out, like he was ejecting something distasteful. “Fucking Cannon and Ball.”

It appeared to occur to him then that perhaps he’d said too much, and he wound his neck back in. With a shaking hand, he took a sip of his coffee before continuing.

“That sort of fame’s a lot of pressure, like I say. The cracks were there before America. That just hammered a chisel into them.” He gave himself a shake, and a sound rang out like a fart asking a question—a parp of surprise that rose in inflection at the end. Billy’s face fell. His eyes, which were already impossibly wide, somehow grew another ten percent. “That was the chair. That wasn’t me. That was the chair.” He bounced up and down on it and said, “See?” despite the fact that the sound didn’t come again.