Twenty-One 3 страница

Inside, it barely resembled the picture house it had once been. It was laid out over two levels, with a big stage at the front. On the stage was a band, the singer in tan-coloured leather chaps, his hair swept up into a rockabilly quiff over his pockmarked face. He held the mic stand against his legs as if it were the girl he was in love with. He sang with a thick Johnny Cash twang.

In front of the stage was a small dance floor, where some older couples were doing a hurdy-gurdy version of a hoedown. Old men in tight denims swung thick-armed housewives around, and they looked like they were having a rare time as they locked arms and two-stepped in time to the band. The Opry women wore either cowgirl outfits with Stetson hats or big flouncy harlot’s dresses with lace trim and feathers in their hair. Agnes looked down at her tight black skirt and leather coat. It had cost a fortune from the catalogue. She had sent it back twice to get the fit just right. Now she looked around the room at the denims and the ruffled dresses, and she hated the outfit.

Eugene led her through the crowd. He had leather boots on, and under his tan suit jacket he had a gun belt with a decorative tooled holster holding a shiny pistol in each side. Heads nodded familiarly at him, and he nodded stiffly back. Around the dance floor were small round-top tables where the younger couples sat, not yet drunk enough to take up dancing unabashedly. Eugene pulled out a chair and sat Agnes down in the dead centre of the room, not tucked away in some corner. He took her coat, and she let him linger, his thick hands on her shoulders, just long enough to breathe in the perfume of her hair.

The place was alive with the infectious rattle of the band and the stepping, bouncing dance. The air was thick with the warm smells of golden whisky and leather. It was early still, but the crowd was already carried away. Agnes thought it was funny how a bit of cheap dress-up could be so liberating.

“What do ye make of it then? ” asked Eugene, his face wearing a wide, proud grin.

“It’s marvellous, isn’t it? ”

“It really is. Glasgow was the original Wild West, ye know. Ye can still get scalped out on Maryhill Road on a weeknight. ” Eugene was relaxing into his element. “I’m glad we could finally get to dae this. ”

“Me too. ”

“I realized tonight wis the first time I’d could be sure ye had actual legs, ” he laughed. “That ye wurny just some petrol-station stool from the waist down. ”

“I hope you are not disappointed. ”

“Naw, naw. ” Eugene laughed and held out his paw as way of a formal introduction. “Nice to meet you. Tell me a wee bit about yersel? ”

“Not much to tell. ” Agnes lifted a wet beer coaster and started to spin it nervously. She unfolded the narrative she had practiced in her head. “Glasgow papist born and bred. It’s been a quiet life. ”

“Aye, me too. ”

“I’m a divorcee, ” Agnes added quickly, liking the way it sounded better than, My man left me for a plain-faced dowdy hoor.

Eugene paused; it felt to her like a second too long. “Could ye not make it work? ” asked the Catholic.

Was he disappointed? Agnes couldn’t tell. She shook her head and was relieved when, with a jangling of spurs, a waitress appeared at the side of their table. She was a pretty enough woman, dressed in tight light-coloured jeans and a big rattlesnake belt, the snake’s head still attached, its rattle rammed in its own mouth as a closure. “Why, hello thure, Sheriff, how’s life been-a-treatin’ you? ” She spoke in a broad Texan twang by way of the sharp end of the Gorbals.

“Hiya, Belle, cannae complain. ” Eugene held his hand out towards Agnes. “This is my friend Agnes; this is her first time. ”

Without smiling, Belle nodded her big hat in Agnes’s direction. It was a cold greeting. “So, Sheriff, you riding that new stagecoach of yours around this wild city? ”

“Aye. Unfortunately. ”

“Well, a-one of these days I’m a gonna persuade you to come and rustle me up, ” she went on, in pure Hollywood Texan, leaning close, her shirt splitting open at the chest. “Maybe we could take a little run out to Burntisland. My niece has a caravan by the watter. ”

Agnes wondered whether they had seaside caravans in Texas. She giggled. She couldn’t help it. The waitress looked down at her like she was a pest.

“Maybe another time, eh. ” Eugene shifted in his seat.

Belle sighed and stuck a thumb in her belt loop. “Well, what’ll it be, pal? ” Her accent was now flat South Side.

“I’ll have a pint and a hauf. ” He looked over to Agnes.

“Um … I’ll just have a Coca-Cola, ” said Agnes. She was dry-mouthed over the moment she had dreaded all day.

“Is that eht? ”

“And some lemon? ” added Agnes, as breezily as she could.

“Comin’ right up. ” The woman sighed and jangled away, taking care to swing her arse like a fattened heifer.

Agnes watched Eugene’s face. She was glad he didn’t steal a glance. “Well, she seems nice. ”

“Aye, I suppose, ” said Eugene unconvincingly.

“That’s a very pretty name, Belle. ”

“Aye, it is. Shame her real name is Geraldine. ”

Agnes laughed. “Is that right then, Sheriff. ”

Eugene let her laugh at him, it was generous, and it made her relax a little. “Aye, that’s Geraldine from Gartcosh, and I’m not entirely sure she didnae kill that snake and make that belt hersel. ”

“I better watch myself then. ”

“Aye. That wummin could make new boots out of an old husband. ”

The drinks came, and they sat watching the line dancers swing each other around and around for a while before he turned back to her. “So, why are ye no taking a drink? ”

Agnes scanned the story of the cleaned-up version of her life. “Oh, you know. Drink doesn’t agree with me. It gives me a terrible head in the morning. ” She scratched the back of her neck nervously.

Eugene seemed as if he was not going to accept the lie. The flicker of recognition flashed between them. “Aye, well, maybe later. ”

“Maybe. ” She tried to change the subject. “So anyway, how come the town’s sheriff is still single? ”

“I was just going to ask ye the same thing. ”

“That’s a long story. You remember those boots made out of husbands? ”

“What? Should I be careful then? ”

“Well, some say I’m a divorcee looking for a matching purse. ” She sucked on the little straw. “So go on. Answer my question. ”

It took a while for him to answer. He took a sip of the lager and a mouthful of the whisky. “Well, I was married for a very long time, up until last year actually. The big C. Quite sudden. ”

“I’m sorry to hear that. ” She laid her hand on his. “Same thing did my father in. ”

He only nodded and took another mouthful of each of the drinks. The sweat on the side of his lager looked refreshing.

The country music wound down, and the band told the crowd they would take a break. A sweaty couple came over, the woman in a brothel dress and the man in a standard cowboy rig. “Hiya, Sheriff, how’s eht gaun? ” said the woman, as honky-tonk as you could get from Glasgow. Eugene introduced the couple as Leslie and Lesley, a couple of regulars.

Leslie said, “If ye see my wife, don’t tell her I’m here with my young burd. ” The little man smiled a ferrety grin.

“Gies peace. Like ah’ve no heard that afore. ” His wife rolled her eyes, bored after years of the same nonsense. “We jist wanted to come over and see how you were doing, Sheriff. ” Lesley folded her mutton arms under her big chest and took her crucifix between her fingers. “How are you bearing up? ”

“Well enough. ” Eugene looked a little cornered.

“We’re still praying for you up the chapel, ” said Lesley. “Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it? ”

“Aye, ” said Eugene. He glanced nervously at Agnes.

“God love her and keep her. ” Lesley twisted her cross.

Eugene lifted his whisky in salute but didn’t drink.

Agnes watched Lesley. The woman was studying Eugene, her eyes moving from his hair to his mended waistcoat buttons to the collar of his shirt, bleached clean and starched. She was one of those women who lived in details. Who was ironing his shirt? Who was feeding him? “How’s yer sisters? ” she asked finally.

“Aye, fine enough. ” he said. “I might be the eldest but ye wouldnae credit it to watch them in action. They could patronize Methuselah. ”

“Och, they’ll only be worried about ye. Tell your Colleen I was asking for her and they weans, will ye? Terrible mess wi’ her Jamesy. Tell her I’m sending some old clothes over for them. Our Gerald’s taken another stretch, growing like a weed. I don’t know how your Colleen clothes five of them since that Pit shut. ”

Eugene sat stock-still, his whisky glass still half-raised. It took Agnes a moment, but when the penny dropped, her smile began to crack.

“That place is going to the dogs since that colliery shut. I heard all about the Valium nonsense. Oh, and I heard all about that alky hoor that’s moved in across the street. ” She turned to Agnes, expecting some solidarity between women. “In my day the Chapel would have moved someone like that along. It’s no right, having a wummin like that amongst guid families. ”

At that, the ferrety cowboy rolled his eyes and took his wife’s pillowy arm. He half-dragged her back to the dance floor. “Aye, well, cheerio then, ” said the woman brightly, and she turned to Agnes. “Lovely to meet you, darlin’. ”

Agnes nodded, but her eyes were already glassy, black eyeliner threatening to return to liquid form. After the Leslies left, she and Eugene were quiet a long while. Then Agnes spoke: “So, are you all laughing at me? ”

“No. ” Eugene shook his tangle of red curls like an earnest child. “Not me. ”

“Everyone is laughing at me, ” she said, mostly to herself. “I must be a big joke to you. ”

“No, ” he said again. His broad pink palms lay face up on the tabletop, like Shug’s always had, a con artist trying to appear sincere.

Agnes watched the hands rest there and gulped down the poor me’s that wanted him to hurt her, the part of her that longed for the expected. “So, what exactly is Colleen McAvennie to you? You all loop around so much I wouldn’t be surprised if she was your cousin, your sister, and your milkman at the same time. ”

Eugene sighed. “You asked me if I found your house alright and I said yes. Well, ah wisnae very clear. ” He took a slow mouthful of the beer, a quick mouthful of the whisky, and lay his palms open again. “Colleen McAvennie is ma baby sister. ”

The happy noises in the room stopped. Agnes could feel the Leslies surely looking at her. Their thin eyes branded her with the familiar burn of shame on the side of her face, on the hem of her skirt, on the rings on her fingers. She let the words sink in. The amber lager called her name. It said it would make it all better.

She realized that Eugene was talking again. “Our Colleen is only one of eight of us, all livin’ on that scheme. Good Irish stock. Ye know how it can be. Our Granda was one of the first miners, and we all grew up and sort of stayed on. They didn’t think much of imagination in they days. ” He tried a warm smile. She was not to be thawed.

“So. What does she say about me? ” asked Agnes, straightening her spine.

“Och, don’t you worry about her. She says too much about every fuckin’ thing. ” His open palms closed into balls. “Well, anyway, I can imagine …”

“It’s just a small place …” soothed Eugene.

“I’m a bad drunk …”

“and there’s nothing to dae …”

“and I’m a bad mother …”

“where everyone knows everyone’s business …”

“I make a right show of myself …”

“and should mind their own. ”

“and I am a filthy hoor. ”

At that last word he shifted awkwardly in his seat. The good Catholic, the firstborn, solid and true. “I see, ” she said quietly.

“I have to ask, ” he said, after a moment. “I mean. Ah’m very sorry to ask ye this. ” She watched his thick neck twitch. “But did ye ever sleep with her man? With Big Jamesy? ”

Agnes waivered over the answer. Years of drink made you uncertain. Years of people asking Do you remember the night you did this? made you lose your own sense of truth. The things she had forgotten in blackouts could be small and insignificant, but they could also be epic and they could be wretched. The truth was she had not slept with Jamesy, not willingly anyway. He had conned his way inside her and then he had welched on their deal. That made it something worse than sex. She didn’t know the name for it.

“No. I never slept with Jamesy. ” She said it in as certain a tone as she could manage.

Eugene lifted the glass to his lips again, glad, it seemed, to put something between them. Agnes sat bolt upright, her head tilted high to the point of looking uncomfortable. “You know the things they say about me are not true. I keep a lovely house. It’s immaculate. ”

A thin man took to the stage. Ragged and pinched-looking, he had long white hair in the style of Willie Nelson, the front of it fouled yellow with years of nicotine. He rattled into the mic much like he was calling a Scottish jig.

“Gather round folks. It’s that time again. It’s H-high Noon. Which for you—good old Irish cowboys amongst us—means it’s half past ten at night. ” The crowd laughed kindly. “It’s the gunslingers’ ball. So line yersels up. An’ we can get started wi’ the first round. ”

Glad of the distraction, Eugene downed the rest of the amber liquids in one. “Right ye! On yer feet. ” He rose and, not waiting for her answer, lifted Agnes from her chair. He drew back his coat, exposing his two silver pistols. He drew the holster from his waist and encircled hers with it. He tightened it, but it still hung loose. “Right then. Watch me. ”

“The cowboy onstage is gonnae count to three. ” He held his arms stiff by his side. “Only when he gets to three are ye allowed to go for yer gun. Right? When he gets to three, draw yer pistol and then aim and pull the hammer and then fire. ” Eugene drew one of the guns up and with a quick motion palmed the hammer back and mimed squeezing the trigger. “Don’t worry about being too guid an aim. Just be as fast as ye can on that trigger. ”

“I can’t. I’ll make a fool of myself. ”

“We left our pride at the door. ” Eugene pointed to the shiny plastic badge. “Ah’m the sheriff in this town, and ye’re my lady. Nobody will mess with ye. ”

Agnes only heard the part where she was my lady.

The thin man onstage called out the women’s round, and women started to line up. Agnes hadn’t noticed all the guns before, but there they were, long and shiny and fake-looking. Eugene deposited her in line. “I can’t! ” she hissed.

“Look, jist pretend it’s our Colleen, and ye’ll surely get her right between the eyes. ”

The first two women squared up, twenty feet apart across the sawdust-strewn floor. The thin man introduced them as the Anniesland Angel and Delta Deirdre. With his hand in the air, he counted loudly into the mic. “Ah One-ah … Ah Two-ah. ” On three, each woman reached for the pistol at her waist. She drew it level and palmed the hammer and pulled the trigger. It made a loud smoky crack, like a wean’s cap gun. Delta Deirdre got the clear jump on the Anniesland Angel. She blew the smoke from the top of the gun. The room let out a roar.

“Oh, aye, ” said Eugene. “I forgot ye’ll need a stage name. ” He slipped away with a wicked smile. She watched him sit back at the table and order another round. He gave her the thumbs up, his fingers meaty and pink.

By the time Agnes reached the front of the line, the air was thick with sulphur like it was Guy Fawkes. A woman at the front asked Agnes her name and writing it down handed it to the man on the microphone. Agnes was led across the floor and turned to face another woman, the one she would have to shoot. Unfortunately, she looked nothing like Colleen. Wearing pigtails, frilly white socks, and a short kind of gingham pinafore, she was easily sixty and looked like she made school dinners for a living.

The thin man onstage announced the gun fighters. On the left was Arizona Ann. The crowd clapped as the dinner lady lifted the hem of her dress and curtsied. On the right, the man said, pointing to the newcomer, was Phoenix Rising. The crowd clapped again, and Agnes was sure they had clapped a little louder for her.

The man started the count. “Ah One-ah … Ah Two-ah—”

“Sorry. Wait, wait! ” shouted Agnes, sinking to the ground and tucking her clutch bag between her legs. The crowd laughed. Agnes crimsoned.

With a sigh the man started the count again. In concentration, Agnes put her tongue in front of her teeth. The men were all watching her. “Ah One-ah … Ah Two-ah … Ah Threeeee …”

There was a bang, and then shortly after there was another bang. Agnes opened her eyes. The dinner lady had raised her fist in victory.

In his round, the sheriff made it through to the semi-finals, and Agnes sat most of the night alone at the table and nursed a warm glass of cola. He shot the other men easily, and in a funny way she felt proud; she sat in a daze and let herself think about what a good-looking couple they could make. Then she thought about Colleen and all the other tight faces that had judged her and might be his siblings.

The sheriff was eventually put out by the singer, who went as the Singing Plumber. The pockmarked man looked like he was really into it, like he practiced in his bedroom with his Kenny Rogers records on. He had a scowling face, which he pulled into a cheap Clint Eastwood gurn that he’d proudly perfected.

The plumber went on to win; he got some tokens for free drinks from the bar and then climbed back up onstage, and the band started again. More couples, greased by cheap drink, took to the wooden floor. The sheriff led Agnes into the centre and held her close, in the formal way that young people didn’t bother with any more.

“I liked the name ye picked for yersel. ”

“Thanks, but you didn’t give me much warning. ” He was warm and sweet-smelling and his breath was hot. She allowed herself to be pulled into him and let her body press against the barrel of his chest.

“Ye did great. ” He looked genuinely proud. It made her happy.

“Hardly. I was shot dead in three seconds. ”

“Did picturing Colleen no help? ”

“I had my eyes shut. ”

Eugene roared in laughter, his eyes shining with the drink. “Well. Ye definitely win the prize for bonniest. ”

“Shush. Besides, just you wait. I’ve got some old curtains at home, and I’m going to make me a big dress for the next time. ”

He looked thrilled. He shook her slightly. “Will there be a next time? ”

“Go on then, I suppose so, now that I have the outfit planned. ”

“I can’t wait to see it. Will it be one o’ they big flouncy hoor’s dresses? ”

At that word, Agnes flinched as if he had stepped on her toes. He felt her straighten in his arms. Agnes shrank back into herself, and cold air filled the spaces where she had pressed her body against his. The band played a new song, a sad, broken-hearted tune, one that made women dance with other women and sing along.

“So how long have ye been off the drink? ”

“Maybe you should ask your Colleen. ” It was Eugene’s turn to stiffen.

“Is it hard. Not drinking? ” he asked earnestly.

“Yes, and it gets harder, not easier. ”

“How come? ”

“Well, you get a little bit stronger every day, but the drink is always there waiting. Doesn’t matter if you walk or run away from it, it’s still just right behind you, like a shadow. The trick is not to forget. ”

“Forget what? ”

“All sorts of things, ” she sighed. “How weak you are, how bad you were on the drink. You think sometimes that you can control it. That you’ll have mastered it. ”

“I bet ye can master it, ” he said plainly.

She looked up at him. “That’s why going to the meetings is important. You’ll never master it. ”

“I hope ma drinking doesnae bother ye? ”

It took her a moment. “No. ”

“Does it? ”

“Oh, no. Just wish I could have one with you. To feel normal. ”

“Och, ye look normal enough to me. ”

He had answered so plainly, so quickly, that it struck her. “Believe it or not, that’s one of the nicest things I’ve heard in a long time. ”

They danced on, and she tried to feel better. She tried to cut off her doubt and her shame and let the daydreams from earlier reignite. He could be the one to help dig her out of her emptiness, a friend, a lover, a father. She could keep him clean and fed; she would keep herself neat. He could give her money. They could have holidays. He would buy her messages in a big trolley from a big, name-brand supermarket. She would love him. This was how her daydreams ran.

The spaces of cold air were closing between their bodies again, when something inside her pushed her to ask, “If Colleen told you that I am such a disgrace, why did you come tonight? ”

He didn’t answer for a while; the wait made her embarrassed, and when he did answer it was clear he had thought about this before. “Ah have been lonely fur years now. Lonely long afore ma wife died. Don’t get us wrong. She was a guid wummin, a guid wummin jist like our Colleen, but we were jist stuck in our wee routine. ” The music didn’t match the soft sadness of his words. “When ye think about it, ah’ve been under the ground most of ma life. There wasn’t much in me for sharing at the end of a day. After twenty years, what do you talk about? But she was a guid wummin. She used to make me these big hot dinners, with meat and gravy, the plate scalding hot cos she’d warm it up all day in the oven. We ate big hot dinners because we had nothing left to say. Nothing worthwhile anyway. ”

He went on. “Ah’m forty-three. That’s four years older than when ma own father died, so I should’ve been done. I should’ve been retiring from the pits, living the rest of ma days out with her and with nothing to say. ”

She heard his throat catch, “When I saw ye I wasn’t looking. I didn’t know of you then, hadn’t heard our Colleen lift your name. That’s wummin’s stuff, isn’t it? They don’t talk to the men about that. Gossip. Telling tales. Chapel. That’s their club. All I know is when I saw you sat behind glass, I saw someone lonely too, and I hoped we might have something to say to each other. ” His lip trembled. “I realized then. Ah don’t want to be done. ”

Agnes kissed him then. Eugene, solid and true. His lips were hard but tasted sweet.

Twenty

Agnes was sat on the bedroom carpet with her back to the door. Soft love songs played on her bedside clock, and she was on her knees, with the pink buds of her toes wriggling behind her, happily humming along. Shuggie watched her head lowered in concentration as she sorted through piles of her own underwear. She was sorting it all, the black from the white, and then separating the whites into fresh bright whites, almost whites, and at the end a discarded pile of used-to-be-a-very-long-time-ago whites. Shuggie came up behind her; he spread his own toes and interlaced them with hers, pushing each joint tightly between his mother’s. He put his arm around her shoulder and watched her work.

She held a lacy pair of underwear out to him, it had a sateen gusset in the front, but the sides were all lace. She was pinching the side seam. “What do you think of these? ” she asked. “I think maybe they are too low on the hip, a bit old-fashioned maybe? ”

They reminded him of something. Shuggie glanced from the underpants to the white lace curtains hanging over the window. She followed his gaze. “You cheeky sod! ” But she wasn’t angry, she leaned against him and threw the knickers in the discard pile. “That settles that! ”

Shuggie picked up an old white bra. He stretched it and listened to the elastic groan and snap. “I bet Leek could make a catapult out of this. I could put in all the McAvennies’ windows with five lumps of coal. ”

Agnes uncurled his fingers from it and threw it back into the discard pile. “I’d never be able to live it down. ”

“What are you doing this for, anyhows? ”

Agnes held a negligee up to her face, suspending the silken fabric just below her eyes, and moved it back and forth, like one of Sinbad’s mysterious harem. “I just need to get organized. ”

“Why bother? Father Barry taught us that the only person that should see your underwear is you. ”

“That Father Barry, he’s a right good time. If you must know, I’m having a night out”—she leaned into him conspiratorially—“except in the daytime. ”

“With the taxi driver? You’re not going to let him see your underpants are you? ”

She laughed and flicked the small button of his nose. “Aye, with my big gingerbread man. And for your information, no, I’m not going to let him see my underpants. ”

He had been so excited to show it to her. Since he had picked her up in the hackney he had alternated between saying, “you’re gonnae love it” and “I hope you’re gonnae love it, ” every few minutes. Eugene drove them down roads Agnes had never seen, and at first she had been sad to see they were angled away from the city. She had been hopeful that they were going for a nice lunch in the town or, better still, an afternoon show at the King’s, and so she had dressed for that.

Now they stood looking at the deep gouge in the earth, and Eugene scratched the back of his neck in consternation. “Fuck, I’m gonnae have to carry you. ”

The mud crept over the black heels, she threatened to topple at any moment. “But what if you drop me? ”

He peered into the deep gorge. “Och, don’t worry. Ye’ll die quick. ” He lowered on to one knee in the muck, like a knight, and presented his back for her to climb on to. Agnes delicately hoisted up her skirt, as high as it would go, not minding that he should see her thighs but careful not to expose the clumsy, thick gusset of her black stockings.

She wrapped her legs around him, and he lifted her easily. It was very dangerous going down; there were some slick steps embedded into the earth, but deeper down the steps eroded and the path was blocked with collapsed boulders. Eugene held on to the side of the gorge and took it slowly. Several times he had to put Agnes down and climb ahead and then help her over some obstruction. They were both breathless and filthy when they reached the bottom.

The gorge that they stood in had been carved from thousands of years of slow-moving water. The lazy river that ran there was rust red, the water collecting millennia of red sandstone sediment. It looked almost like watery blood, and it made Agnes uneasy. The red walls towered overhead, undulating and twisting with the slow will of the river. In the centre was a large sandstone deposit that stuck out into the water like an altar. Although the gorge widened at the bottom it narrowed towards the top and was overhung with trees and moss. When she looked up she could hardly see the sky. Eugene was beaming.

“The devil’s pulpit, ” he said proudly. “Smashin’, int’it? ”

Agnes stood on the balls of her feet. Her heels pitched and stuck into cracks in the rock. “Well, I can tell you were a miner. ”

He was running his hand over the sandstone and moss, caressing it like he had missed it. “The first time we came here was with ma faither. Hardly anybody knew about it then. He’d set up a wee deckchair, open a few cans, and let us spend hours laughin’ and roarin’. ” Eugene was looking around, remembering the good times. “The water is freezin’, but our Colleen used to love swimming in it. She had such long legs, she could easily beat any of us in a race. ”

Agnes frowned at the blood-red water, she tucked her evening bag under her armpit. “She must have looked like Carrie at the end of the day. ”

Eugene bent over, he scooped a handful from the burn. “No, no! You can drink it, fresh as anything. Look. ”

He held the water up to her lips, but she put her hand to her chest and shook her head. Almost instantly she wished she had just drunk the water. Eugene looked crestfallen then. He wiped his wet hand on his trousers. “That was stupid of me, eh. What was ah thinking bringing a wummin with your manners to a place like this? ”

“No. It’s just not what I had expected. ” She ran her hand across the red sandstone, trying to pull from it the warmth of his memories. “I suppose it’s been a while since either of us were at the courting? ”

“Does it show? ” Eugene rubbed the dust from his brogue on to the back of his trouser leg. He dug a piece of red rock out with his thumbnail. He squeezed it tight, till his knuckles blanched white. “I was only a lowly miner, but ah bet if we squeeze this long enough it’ll make diamonds. ”

Agnes laughed. She unclasped her evening bag and tilted it towards him. “Why didn’t you say so? Now you’re talking! ”

When two German tourists came down into the glen he carried her out of the earth again. This time she wrapped her whole self around him and deliberately held her lips close to the pink skin behind his ear. Eugene had a plan for the day, and whatever form it took, she was determined not to spoil any more of it.

He drove them to the Campsie hills, it was a boggy walk to the far side of the hills, but this time she did not complain. They sat on the far side of the green slopes and looked out over the distant city. He had packed an old tartan blanket, and without her needing to ask, he sat between her and the howling wind and unfolded the food he had prepared.

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