• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The reception was in a hotel in a part of Glasgow I hadn’t been before, reached by a succession of buses through parts of Glasgow I didn’t know existed. They looked like a war had been lost there: entire blocks and streets razed or ruinous, street-lamps smashed, derelicts or wild kids around fires…

I later learned that this was the result of a road-building programme disguised as a housing policy, but at the time – sitting in the smoke-filled top deck of the bus in a suit I normally wore only for interviews – I indulged in some enjoyably pessimistic thoughts about the breakdown of civilisation. As the bus wended on, however, the islands of darkness became less frequent and I eventually hopped off in a residential area in front of a reassuringly bright and noisy hotel. I followed the light and noise to the function suite where I found a scene just like a disco except that most people were wearing something like Sunday best and the age range approximated a normal distribution curve.

Around the edges of the room were tables, a buffet with food and trays of drinks, and a bar at the far end. I picked up a glass of whisky at the buffet and looked around for Annette. The music stopped, a dance ended, people moved on to or off the floor.

Annette came out of the crowd as if it were parting just for her – for a moment, it seemed a spotlight had caught her, so that she shone, while everyone around her dimmed. Her hair was circled with leaves and small red roses, and her dress started with a frill at the throat and ended with a flounce at the floor. It was likewise rose-patterned, red on green on black, and over it she wore an organza pinafore with ruffles from the waist to over each shoulder, the tapes wrapped to a bow at the front. Her face, flushed by the dance, was smiling. As she stopped in front of me I smelt her strong, sweet perfume.

‘Hi, Jon, you got a fag?’ she said. ‘I’m gasping.’

As I lit the cigarette for her she caught my hand and pulled me to a seat by a table. She dragged up another chair and sat down facing me, our knees almost touching through the rustling mass of her skirts.

‘Ah, that’s better,’ she said. A passing waiter offered her a tray – she reached past the expected wine and lifted a shot of whisky. ‘Thanks for coming.’

I raised my glass. ‘Thank you. You look different. Beautiful.’

‘Aw, gee, thanks.’

‘Beautiful in a different way,’ I hastened to add.

She gave a quirky smile to indicate that she was only pretending to misunderstand.

‘You didn’t mention that you were a bridesmaid,’ I said.

‘Didn’t want to scare you off.’

I laughed, unsure what to make of this. ‘I like your dress,’ I said.

She leaned closer and said in a gossiping whisper: ‘So do I. I dug in my heels to get one that I could wear again for parties, so after long discussions with Irene – that’s the bride, went to school with her – we settled on this nice little Laura Ashley number. Then she decided it wasn’t icky and brides-maidy enough, so she got her Mum to run up this thing.’ She flicked disdainfully at the apron frill.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The pinny’s what makes it. You really must keep that for parties.’ I was only half teasing – there was something undeniably sexy, in an undeniably sexist way, about its trailing associations of feminine servitude.

‘Oh yeah, and get taken for a wench?’ she grinned.

‘Never,’ I said. ‘Lady, would you like to dance?’

‘Well,’ she said, considering, ‘perhaps after you’ve refilled my glass, and I’ve emptied it.’

By the time this was accomplished, more than once, Annette had introduced me to some of her friends and relatives and the dancing had changed from disco-style bopping to traditional, but much wilder, Scottish dancing. Annette drew me into it, and started flinging me about until suddenly, like a memory of a previous life, I discovered I knew the steps and the moves and was able to fling her – and the bewildering, spinning succession of other partners – about with the best of them.

As I danced, skipped, stomped,