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The Western was a quiet pub, tarted up with some attempt at appropriate (i.e., cowpoke) decoration. I arrived about ten minutes early and was standing at the bar, half a pint and one smoke down, when Annette walked in just as the TV heralded the nine o’clock news. The barman reached up and flipped channels. (There were three, all controlled by the government).

Her hair was loose (and bouncy, and shiny, and just washed). She wore a mid-calf denim skirt and a black silk blouse under a puffy jacket which she unzipped and shrugged out of as she walked up. I bought her a lager-and-lime and we found a table by the wall.

‘Smoke?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

I lit her cigarette and we looked at each other for a moment. Annette laughed suddenly.

‘This is silly,’ she said. ‘We know each other just enough to skip the ice-breaking chit-chat, but not well enough to know what to say next.’

Sharp mind alright.

‘That’s a good point,’ I said, treading water. ‘Actually I don’t know anything about you, apart from having seen you across a table or a room a few times.’

‘Didn’t Dave talk about me?’ There was an undertone of curiosity to her pretended pique.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Mind you, he did tell me one very important thing about you…’

‘Oh yes?’

‘That you’re not interested in politics.’

‘Is that all? Huh, and there was me thinking he’d be telling you as much about me as I’ve told Sheena about him.’

‘That must be a relief.’

‘Sure is…And he’s wrong about that, too!’ she added.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, it’s not that I’m not interested. I just don’t like talking about it.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘But why?’

‘I grew up in Belfast,’ she said. ‘Left when I was about ten. There’s a saying over there: “Whatever you say, say nothing.” I still have family over there, still visit. The habit sticks.’

‘Even here?’ I glanced around. ‘What’s the problem?’

She leaned forward and spoke in a lowered voice. ‘Half the people in this city have some Irish connection, and a good few of them have very decided views. So it doesn’t do to shoot your mouth off, especially in pubs.’

As Dave tended to do, I thought. Interesting.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m not curious. I can’t even tell what I’m sure anybody from around here could: whether you’re a Catholic or a Protestant. Me, I don’t have a religion and I don’t care what flag flies over me or what politicians do so long as they leave me alone.’

‘Which they won’t.’

‘Aye, there’s the rub!’

We both laughed. ‘So,’ I said, ‘what are you interested in?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘I like my work,’ she said.

‘So tell me about it.’

And she did, explaining how she didn’t just do the technical stuff but tried to find out about the science behind it. She talked about evolution and population and the future of both, and that got me on to talking about SF, and she admitted to having read some dozens of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion novels when she was younger (or ‘young’, as she charmingly put it). Before we knew it the bell had rung for last orders.

‘There’s a disco at Joanne’s,’ Annette said. ‘Shall we go there?’

‘Good idea,’ I said.

It wasn’t. We hadn’t been there half an hour when the music stopped and the DJ told everyone to pick up their things and leave quietly. We all knew what that meant: a bomb scare. Annette grabbed my hand with surprising force and hauled me through the crowd, with a ruthless disregard for others that I’d hitherto only seen in the QM bar crush.

We spilled into the street just as somebody authoritative shouted ‘False alarm!’ and the surge moved the other way. Annette stood fast against it. I looked down at her with surprise and saw it wasn’t just the drizzle that was wetting her face. Holding her parka around her shoulders she looked miserable and vulnerable.

‘Don’t you want to go back in?’ I asked.

‘I want to go home,’ she said. I held her parka while she struggled to get it on properly. She grabbed my hand again and started walking fast.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, God. I just remembered the first time I was in a bomb.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, trying to be