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I said nothing.
"Yes, well. I was not pleased, I can tell you. There I was sitting with the best-paid job in football. Made for life. A couple of years of inevitable success, beating up the Motherwells and Dunfermlines of the world. If anyone beat us, just buy all their players and stick them in the reserves. Maybe a couple of European triumphs, then easy street. Off to Spain with pockets jingling. Then wham! It's all gone. Finito. 'I'm afraid we have some bad news, Mr. McKean. Two years at best.' It's a fucking shitter, Jimmy."
I nodded. I could see how it was, indeed, a fucking shitter.
"Thirty-one years I'd been in football. Thirty-one bloody years. Seventeen as a player. Fourteen as a manager. Can you name the teams, Jimmy?"
"Kilmarnock, Rangers and Falkirk as a player. Hamilton, St. Johnstone and Hibs as a manager."
" You missed out Dundee. I was top scorer for Dundee three years running. Not that that's a lot of goals, mind. Anyway, you don't make much money with St. Johnstone or Hibs. Rangers was my ticket to fame, fortune and retirement." He drew deeply on his cigarette and slowly blew out a cloud of smoke that hung listlessly in the shaft of light from the window. Then he waved his hand in a great theatrical sweep, dispersing the smoke. "Gone."
We sat in silence for a few seconds. I drained my whisky and picked up my unfinished beer.
"Have ye' ever heard of a guy called Akenaten?"
I thought for a moment. "Does he play for one of those Scandinavian teams?"
"No, you pillock, he's an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. He tried to introduce a new god, make everyone worship the sun."
I sipped slowly from my can of Tennent's, wondering how the hell we had gone from Dundee to Ancient Egypt.
"Anyway," he continued, "you might wonder what this has got to do with being manager of Rangers?"
"Well, yes."
"Fuck all, actually." He laughed, throwing his head back so that it hit some sort of a metal farm implement that was hanging antiquely from the wall. "Fuck!"
"Ouch!" I said sympathetically, as he leaned forward again, rubbing his head. "What is that anyway?"
"How the hell would I know?" He administered alcohol and nicotine, muttering something about "bloody dagos" under his breath. "Some sort of an ancient Spanish heid whacker. Anyway, this Akenaten bloke. The priests erased his name from all the temples and pyramids and things. And his face from all the statues. They erased his likeness, as they say. But the funny thing is, he's more famous than just about any other Pharaoh, at least to people who know about Pharaohs. And it's because of all the faceless statues. He's remembered as the Pharaoh they tried to make sure nobody remembered."
"That's an interesting story, Mr. McKean."
"Have ye ever been in the Boardroom at Ibrox, Jimmy?"
"Yes, once."
"Did you notice all the photographs? Scott Simon, Willie Waddell, Jock Wallace. All the great managers. The place is a fucking temple."
"Yes, I see what you mean."
"Do you, Jimmy? You see, I could have been another photograph up there, squeezed between Walter Smith and some other pillock. Probably out in the corridor. Manager for a season and a half. About as memorable as Pope John Paul the First."
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