THE story is this. The interview is on. Rod is keen. Los Angeles is keen. London is keen. It will take place when he's here for the cup final. Somewhere in Glasgow, maybe. In the morning. Or at lunchtime. Possibly in the evening. We just don't know.
London will have to phone LA, who will have to phone Rod, who is in London. Then LA will phone London, who will liaise with Rod's friend Ricky, who has been landed with the nightmare of co-ordinating this royal visit. He is in Aberdeen.
The phone rings on Friday night. The voice on the other end sounds like Denis Law. It's Ricky. The interview is on. But lunchtime is looking unlikely. Evening would be good. But only if the Poland-England game is on TV. If not, who knows? "Rod will not be a happy chappy if he finds out his game isn't on," he says.
The game is not on TV but Rod thinks it is, so at lunchtime he appears in the foyer of a smart Glasgow hotel. Well, just after lunchtime, an hour and ten minutes before kick-off, and not before he has invited the SoS photographer to climb in through the hotel window. He is dressed in light flannels and white shoes, as if for a boat show. Though he is indoors he wears sunglasses, and his face is hidden under a mop of streaked hair. Spalding Gray says rich people wear sunglasses so they can reflect the gaze of the public. Rod's disguise may give him a place to hide, but it is less than discreet.
But introductions first. These are his brothers, Don and Bob. Neither resembles Rod: Don looks less other-worldly than his famous sibling, but will later entertain everyone by performing an old Scottish lament with a waste-paper basket on his head; Bob is smaller and darker, and looks as if he has lived a harder life than either.
The man holding court is Doc Paterson, an old family friend, referred to by all as The Doc. Rod says he is "My second father, or as close as you can get to it."
"This is true," The Doc says, clearly pleased. He is bursting with yarns about his days as a Glasgow doctor. When he tells a story everyone listens, Rod included. The razor gang goes down especially well.
"What are you drinking?" someone asks.
"I'll have a big brandy," says The Doc.
"Yeah, I'll have that too. I would be excited by that," says Rod.
Despite rumours of arthritis, which he puts down to cartilage trouble, Stewart still plays football. Those who aren't family at this gathering are members of his team, the LA Exiles. He points a brandy glass at one of the portlier members of the entourage. "That's one of the Exiles over there - he used to play for the Greek national team. So here's to Greece qualifying for the World Cup." Everyone cheers loudly, and there are choruses of "here we go", delivered in heavy Greek accents.
He agrees - quite cheerfully, as it happens - that he has been a victim of his own success, playing up his jet-set image to his artistic detriment. "Oh, absolutely. And I indulged it as well. I believed everything I read about myself in those days, in the period 1979 to '81. I agree with every critic, especially the guy from Rolling Stone who says I betrayed my talent."
What the man from Rolling Stone actually said was: "For a golden hour, Rod was one of rock's finest singers, with a lock on, of all things, sincerity, taste and self-mocking humour... Those values have been sacrificed as, rushing headlong after megabucks and artistic bankruptcy, the working-class Scot became the Hollywood tart, the definitive period, the saddest poseur."
"He's absolutely right," says Rod.
Does it worry you?
"Nothing worries me. Nothing worries me, nothing at all."
One thing which remains puzzling is Stewart's strong sense of Scottishness. He was born in Highgate, London, and his Scottish father moved south while still young. Stewart is unsure of the details.
"Don, how old was Dad when he moved to London - 16, 17?"
"Well, he spent a spell in the merchant navy, didn't he? Must have been early 20s."
"But he was up in Ayrshire for a wee while during the war," says The Doc.
"He was born in Leith," says Don.
"Funnily enough," says Don, "Gordon Strachan, his grandmother went to the same school at the same time."
"So, if they'd shagged each other," says Rod, "boy, we would have had a footballer."
It's now 2.15. Ricky is trying to get the group on the bus but all have retired to the gents, a tiny cupboard under the stairs. There are around eight people in there, and the noise coming under the door resembles a soundcheck by Chas'n'Dave.
Finally, despite Ricky's best efforts, Rod has stopped to pose for a photograph with his brothers. The basket is on Don's head. A voice shouts: "Sultry, Rod, sultry!"
