-oO0Oo-

It was like my first house, the first time I had a home all to myself.  A single bedroom flat on the ground floor of a southside tenenmant wasn't precisely the hight of luxurious acomodation but it was all mine.  No Mhairi sitting around making the place look untidy, no born in a barn flat mates to leave their mankey underwear on the radiators.  I had shared a flat with two other students when I left home.  This had seemed the ideal comprimise between staying at home and living on my own.  At least I wasn't 100% resposible for the bills, I had someone to talk to, someone to moan at when the washing up wasn't done, someone to blame when the power got cut off because none of us had enough for another power card.  We had fun there, drinking the cheapest bulk buy dutch beer to be had and watching star trek films till the early hours.  Not knowing quite who's girlfriend you would wake up next to.  The scary beetles living in the bottom of the couch, scary enough that you wouldn't chase a dropped biscuit when it slid down the side of the cushion, not viscious enough to stop you hunting out all the coppers to buy a pint of milk.  We had hauled Rodger's bike into the living room one Autumn weekend with the sincere intention of stripping it, cleaning it and painting it a darker shade of black.  It had still been sitting there, half complete come Christmas so we had strung it with fairy lights and put our presents underneath it.

The flat nominaly was a furnished affair, in reality there was a three piece suite, a divan bed and a fitted kitchen that came with and belonged to my landlord.  He wasn't fussed if I painted it, added sockets, layed new carpet or indeed threw out what little tatty furniture he had provided and started over.  As he had said to me the last time I had seen him "Don't knock down any structural walls." and that was it for the rules.  I could do anything I damn well pleased.  I aquired some second hand industrial looking shelving from one of the Jobs Mark had on refurbishing a wharehouse.  He gave me a pair of pendant storm style lantern fittings to replace the oh so eighties steel spotlamps.  The fire place cleaned up lovely after I binned the three bar electric fire with it's less than convincing log effect and ripped out the hard board that had been glued over the orgional cast iron grate and green tiles.  I couldn't afford to replace the suite yet but I could put up with it.  The bedroom and kitchen had been cut out of one room at the back of the house.  The kitchen had no window which made for boring wall staring washing up sesions instead relying on an extractor fan for ventilation.  It wasn't what you would call spacious but then I couldn't realy see my self suddenly becoming a culinary artiste and requiring a farm house sized table to prepare expansive meals.  It had a freezer and I aquired a microwave, I like pizza.  The bedroom, like the kitchen was on the small size.  The double bed took up nearly all the floor space.  I could stagger two paces from the front door to the doorway of the bedroom and fall full length on the bed.  It suited me as I fully intended to do little else but sleep here, alone.

There was a pub at the corner of the street where I quickly became known to the bar staff as a regular, at least on Sundays I was a regular.  I was a long walk or a short bus ride from Mark's house where I would go and use his computer or just smoke a few J's and talk shite.  I still did the odd bit of work with Mark when he needed an extra pair of hands.  Hod carrier and holder of ends I enjoyed Mark's company and the project based jobs more than I needed the cash in hand he paid me.  There is something satisfying about playing your part in making something better than it was, being there from the begining to the end.  We would talk through a plan of action over a pint or three then the next day we would go out and get it done.  I liked that better than having to deal with customers in my day job.  I had picked up a number working the evening shift at a local supermarket.  Officialy I was checkout supervisor or floor manager or something.  In reality I worked the tills and pointed the shelf stackers in the right direction.  We had the odd drunk wander in but in general it was quiet profesionals that couldn't shop during the day and liked their weekends free of domestic chores that chose to come in at night.  No doubt it would hot up before Christmas but it paid the rent and I could walk to work.  I didn't feel the need to aquire a car now that I lived on top of so many bus routes and just over the back was an urban station with a ten minute journey into town.  I fancied getting a bike but as that would mean taking my oft put off training and test I guessed it would remain out of reach for a while.

Christmas was a bit odd.  I bought some presents for the kids and sent the down to Morag and David.  I had talked to Morag a few times since leaving, mainly to try and get some idea of how Mhairi was coping.  I couldn't claim to have ever been friends with Morag or indeed David so I could see no reason we should be friends now.  David was just an anoyance, him and his bloody whiskey.  He would spend weeks fretting over some bottle of Macallan '72 or a limited edition bottling of Royal Something or other then he would go out and spend more than I could earn in a month on a couple of bottles of Scotch.  The saddest thing about David's collection of rare single malts was that he didn't drink it.  He would just store it up, slowly filling out the gaps in complete runs of 18 year old or 20 year old bottles.  Every now and again he would get it all out for our entertainment, wipe the dust from their necks and regale us with stories of distileries that had stopped production years ago and little out of the way shops where some wizened old highlander had somethingspecial put away for him under the counter.  He bored me to tears, his wife and family too.  Still at least they could look forward to a reasonable inheritance as the whiskey got rarer and the price went up, all suposing no one had drunk it and filled up the bottles with cold tea behind his back.  She was wasted on him, Morag, she deserved something better and I truely hoped she would find it.

The day itself was nothing and nothing.  I couldn't work out anything particularly exciting to eat, there isn't much point cooking a great big bird if the only one there to eat it is yourself, I bought a small gammon joint and had some of that with sprouts and mash.  I had a pudding, you have to have a pudding and though you can get a nice enough single one I considered my self man enough to make a decent sized dent in a standard family sized lump of duff.  I regretted it.  In the afternoon I fled to the pub, the alternatives being the god awafull family movies on the telly or drinking myself unconscious on my own.  It was a nice atmosphere in lounge bar, most of the clientel consisted of men avoiding the screaming kids and dull in-laws.  We played pool and pretended that Christmas had been about something better when we were children.  I felt like I had aged ten years and I loved it.  A younger crowd filled the place later on, my conteporaries in theory, the place came alive for an hour or two as they met up and headed off into town or to the local venues.  I could have gone dancing or seen some reasonable live stuff localy but I elected to stay with the old men, I was enjoying the crack to be honest.

Boxing day hit me in the face with a festive hangover.  I cursed the drink but knew that I wasn't likely to avoid it with any serious intent.  I went for a walk in Queens Park, enjoying the relative peace and refreshing myself with the cold air.  I watched children try the bikes and footballs that Santa had brought them aqnd enjoy this oh so short break from the relentless misery of school.  I hoped it would snow, if it snowed I could probably persaude Mark to go sledging.  Queen's Park offered excellent sledging potential with it's range of diferent inclines, steps and jumps.  I allready had a couple of strong plastic builders bags squirreled away against the possibility in my hall cupboard.  Andrew was in the city visiting his extended family, cousin's husband's sister's father or some such I think he said.  I had agreed to meet up with him, for a coffee and and as he had put it to catch up with my life.  I wondered if I ever would catch up with my life, I had trouble remembering what it looked like.

I couldn't claim to be overly familiar with Glasgow's offering of coffee shops and trendy eateries so we met in a bar near the station.  Andrew had come down by train from Oban and was heading back the same day,  I had offered my couch but he hadn't sounded keen.  We did drink a coffee, two I believe before we started in on the beer.  I did my best to fill him in on what I had been doing for the last seven years but I was still having trouble accounting for all that time myself.  Andrew seemed to be doing well for himself though.  The guest house plan had never realy made the money it was intended to but he had sold it and the outbuildings to a banker or some such to use as a weekend retreat from Glasgow.  He had used the unhealthy profit to set up a small travel agency in Oban.  He still had the boat but was subsidising it's loss from the profit he made sending the folk of the highlands and islands to the Balearics and the Costas.  He had bought an old church building that only lacked a roof and was living in a caravan in the graveyard.  He had grand plans for re roofing the church and splitting it into a self contained residence and a small guest house.  He thought he might be idealy located to run outward bound style team building courses, taking advertising executives into the hills and making them catch, skin and eat small rodents.  I doubted that there were that many small rodents living in the hills around Oban unless he was refering to the Haggis and thought he might have to settle for rabbits.  Andrew thought there might just be a market in organising Haggis hunts for the American tourists.  I told him that as all wild Haggis by right of an old charter belonged to the crown he could technically still be beheaded for taking a Haggis in or out of season without a royal warrent.  Andrew seemed to think that as he was a MacDonald and his clan had once held the title Lords of the Isles it was not just his right to poach the Royal Haggis whenever he could but he felt obligated to strike this blow for the downtroden highland man, in fact he could distribute the Haggis to single mothers and wood carvers.  I had allways assumed that the plural of Haggis wasn't Haggis but Haggi.  Andrew missed his train and had to sleep on my sofa.

Two hangovers in a row, if I hadn't been due to work that night I would have used the traditional hangover cure of putting it off until later.  We managed to get Andrew back to Glasgow and on to the appropriate train.
"So if you give me a ring and let me know what train you're on I'll meet you in Oban."
"Oban?  Train?  Ring you?"  I had no idea what he was on about.
"You did say you were going to come up for New Year didn't you?" a puzzled look crossed his face.
"I thought that was the guy in the Kebab shop" I told him.
"No" he said "The guy that threw up on his girl friend?"
"The guy that kept trying to order spring rolls I think" I honestly couldn't remember him asking but I had to admit it had some appeal.
"I meant you" He drinned "Well?  Do you want to come up or what?"
I considered the alternatives, I could stay in and go to bed early as I had planned to but some how this didn't appeal quite so much.
"Yea OK" I said "I'm not working New Years eve so I'll get the train up then"
"Sorted"
It had been good to see him after so long and I was looking forward to going back up to Oban even if it was only for a night and for the sole purpose of getting plastered.  

The sales had started in Glasgow and the press of people was somehow worse than it had been before Christmas.  I walked accross George Square trying hard to stand on one of the many scabby pigions.  I couldn't understand people who fed pigeons, nasty disease ridden things shitting everywhere.  Vermin, rats with wings.  Worse than those who would feed the urban pigion where the people who kept them.  The suberbs of Glasgow are littered with half arsed home made sheds built by middle aged pigion fanciers.  Every weekend the you could see people taking their little darlings in open fronted cages as far away as they could get then letting them go so they could fly home.  OK so the fact that these stupid animals that couldn't tell the diference between a cigarette butt and a piece of paper from six inches away could find their way home to Glasgow from the other end of the country even if they were blidfolded for the journey out held some minor interest but how did this continue to create any amusement once you knew they could do it?  I was more interested in why they would want to.  If some idiot were to pay for me to be taken to France I don't think I would be in any great hurry to come rushing back here.  I have literaly seen lorry loads of pigion crates traveling up and down the motorways of Britain.  There should be laws against this sort of idiocy.  A few years ago someone's prize racing pigion had been blown of course.  It had been found in New York three and a half thousand miles away.  I doubted the blown off course thing myself, I imagine it was just sick of being shipped up and down the country and having to fly hundreds of miles in the pissing rain just to get it's tea.  It was trying to escape to a country where such barbaric practices had died out.  They flew it back on a plane if I remember rightly, if they weren't so objectionable I would feel sorry for it.

The Christmas Decorations, subject of Glasgow civic pride where up all round the square.  Iluminated bells, angels and chrismas trees didn't look that impressive when they were not actualy illuminated.  The wooden nativity scene with life sized figures was barely visible behind it's security glass and wire fence but then we wouldn't want the baby Jesus getting stolen by some happy drunk, again.  I sidestepped uncountable big issue sellers on the way to the station, I couldn't realy see a major diference between selling the Big Issue and just begging.  I didn't give to either.  Poop.

If I was going to Andrews for new year I would need to get some essential supplies.  I bought a reasonably good bottle of Scotch from work using my employee discount.  I can't claim to know anything about whiskey, either to buy or to drink and I'm fairly sure that the local supermarket isn't the best place to get the genuine quality article but I felt that if I spent enough money it wouldn't be laughed out of town.  I paid £30 for a 12 year old something or other.  The rest of my supplies were not going to be so easy.  I'm not a big canabis smoker, I enjoy being stoned under certain circumstances.  I couldn't work or do anything usefull and productive after a joint so for the most part I didn't bother with it.  Since I left Mhairi and moved back to the city I didn't even have anywhere I could go get some.  I phoned Mark, he would know.  Mark said he would introduce me to someone local so I put my coat on and walked round to his flat.  It was bitter outside, the sky grey and oppressive.  I hunched up inside my clothes and wished I had some suitable warm headgear.  As I crossed the park the first flakes began to fall, it was snowing.  It came down thick and fast, in what seemed like minutes the path was white with a thin layer.  It had been cold and dry for a week and the snow lay where it touched, my boots left a trail of dark prints behind me.

I forced Mark to make me a coffee when I got there, I felt so cold it hurt.  I was confused when we left Mark's, I stood by the passenger door of his van while he walked off up the street.
"Hey!" I called.
"We're walking.  C'mon." He said.
I ran to catch up.  I couldn't understand why we were walking, Mark didn't walk anywhere, he drove to the shop on the corner to get his fags and I had been looking forward to warming my toes with the Transits over efficient heater.
"Have you ever noticed what's written on the side of my van?" He asked.
I looked back helplessly.  I couldn't see the Transit through the falling snow but I remebered that is said something like Mark Hastings, Electrical Contractor, Domestic and industrial blah blah blah with the usual logos for the profesional bodies he was affiliated to.  I looked back at Mark and seeing the bemused expression on my face he sighed.
"I know we're not going to pull off the deal of the centuary or anything, it's only a bit of hash, nothing serious but we are going to buy drugs.  from a drug dealer."  He looked again to check my comprehension.  "For god's sake Lachie, it's got my name and phone number on the side."
"Er...Yea, right.  Look, how dodgy is this guy?" I asked.
"Hugh?  He's not.  But I would rather avoid the possibility of any misunderstandings that involve my business, my livelyhood."
I supose I understood but it all seemed a little much to me.  I disliked the mistique of buying hash, all this messing around, making a conection.  It all seemed like shit games to me but then unless there was going to be a significant change in the perception of so called soft drugs, unless they decriminalised it then some one who sold a bit of dope was just a sleazy drug dealer.  No diferent in the eyes of the law than someone who sold cocaine, crack even heroin.  I have never been sure where I stand on the legalise canabis issue.  I supose I don't see that it has any serious issues, it's less dangerous and addictive than Nicotine, cafiene and alchohol, much less nasty than alchohol.  But if it were legaly legal then teenagers might feel the compulsion to turn to something less acceptable in order to atain the same forbiden fruit thrill.  Besides which if it were to be legal then our estimed leaders would just tax it to death and claim they were doing it to discourage people from buying it.  Allways a convincing argument when used to try and hide from the fact that punative taxes on addictive items like cigarettes and tobacco dont have a detrimental effect on their sales and the net result is more money in the coffers of the exchequer.

We walked down a long, pleasent looking suburban street.  The bungalos with their neatly clipped hedges and imaculate gardens slowly blurring under the thickening blanket of snow didn't quite seem to gel with the image of a sleazy drug dealer I had formed in my mind.  I shouldn't have worried.  At the end of the street were some small industrial units and beyond them some waste ground.  Between the waste ground and the units stood a single row of red sandstone tenemants, forgotten when the area had been re developed.  Of the three gound floor flats accessable from the single close only one still had it's windows un boarded.  There didn't seem to be any sign of life in the four story building and even the door to the close was missing.  If I had felt uncomfortable when Mark had refused to bring his van I had become scared on seeing the location of the proposed deal.  Mark walked ahead of me into the narrow hall at the bottom of the close.  The close, like so many others in this city smelled of stale urine, the empty flats had been fitted with the standard Glasgow District Council Steel door to prevent anyone savaging the water tank, plumbing and wiring for the scrap value of the copper.  The door of the one remaining flat had been overpainted matt black, scratches and dents allowed the origional red to show through.  Mark knocked once on the door, rattled the letter box then bent down and whistled through it.  Christ, secret knocks and everything.

We waited long enough for me to start wondering if anyone was home.  I assume that we were being checked out through the peephole but it remained dark and I didn't hear anyone.  Suddenly there was a scraping noise of metal against metal from behind the door.  We were let into the flat by a gaunt long haired young man wearing the obligatory black tee shirt and combat trousers.  "Hey, Shug, you're up then?" Mark said.  He mubled something incomprehensible and indicated we should come inside.  The heat was incredible after being out in the snow.  Even though it was daylight outside the curtains were drawn and the flat was in almost total darkness.  In the living room the gas fire was turned up as high as it would go.  A massive grey tabby lay as close to the fire as it could possibly get without catching fire.  Hugh came in behind me "sit down or something" he said indicating the large brown sofa under the window.  He wandered into the kitchen "what the hell time is it Mark?" he called though, Mark told him it was about two and he cursed.  I reached down to stroke the cat and it promptly bit me, sinking it's claws into my arm for good measure, I winced but knew better than to try and retrieve my hand too quickly.  Hugh chuckled as he came back into the living room carrying a standard foreskin style pint glass full of what looked like tea with milk.  "You've met the beast then?" he said.  Mark introduced me and made some small talk, they exchanged news of people I've never heard of.  Hugh asked me how much I was after and weighed a quarter ounce for me.  For the sake of politeness and to assess the quality before we left I offered to roll one off the bit I had just bought.  I assertained that Hugh was one of only two tenants left in this council owned block, the coucil where looking to knock it down and him and his upstairs neighbour where sticking it out for the compensation when they were forced to move.  Everyone else had given up and left, the coucil obviously hoped everyone would but Hugh thought they would probably front up soon and he wasn't going anywhere.  He rolled a reciprical joint from his own gear.  I tried to tell him about going up north for the new year before lapsing into wasted silence while I fought with his cat.  Eventualy Marked nudged me hard and said we should be getting back.  When we stepped out of the flat the cold hit me like a brick to the forehead.  Behind us as we left I could hear Hugh doing whatever it was he did to secure his front door.

We walked out into the silent snow muffled night.  It seemed to have got very dark, very quickly and the falling snow created strange coronas round the yellow street lamps.  It didn't look like it was going to let up soon and there was enough underfoot to produce a loud crunch as with each step.  I let Mark get a few paces in front of me before bending down and scraping together my first snowball.  It hit him square in the back, I hadn't aimed for his head straight off the bat, that would have been downright nasty.  He ran to the first parked car up the street using it as both cover and amunition.  I got me with a couple of good ones before I made it to the cover of a hedge.  I watched him trying to creep up on me as I gathered as much loosely packed snow as I could from someone's front garden.  I dropped the lump of snow over the hedge and onto his head just as he came round the end of it.  This time I ran as he pelted my back.  We continued the running battle most of the way up the street and even when we were too out of breath to keep running and attacking we each tried to catch the other out with a sneak attack when we thought we might get away with it.

The doorbell rang.  I didn't open my eyes, even with them closed and the curtains drawn I knew the room was unaturaly bright.  The snow must have stuck right enough last night, no sudden warming of the weather had melted it, the rain hadn't com and turned it all to unpleasent mush.  I knew when I looked out of the window my city would still be white and soft.  I pulled the covers over my head and grinned, the door bell rang again.  Yea yea, I'm getting there.  I crawled to the end of the bed and without exposing too much of myself to the cold air I reached for the curtain, I wanted to see it.  The one time Glasgow could look clean and shiney new, under a good layer of snow.  I flicked the curtain aside, jesus!  It took a couple of seconds to assimilate what I was seeing.  40 beady little black eyes stared in at me with pure malice.  40 gnarled and twisted hands reached out to me as if to scratch out my eyes and blind me more than the stinging whiteness could.  20 narrow lipped smiles indicated nothing but self assured hatred.  The doorbell rang.  I scrambled bacward to the head of the bed. Juesus H Christ, those little bastards.  I opened the curtain a crack and took another look, they were still out there looking in.  The kids around here must have some kind of grudge against me or just a seriously over developed sense of the absurd.  Perhaps both.  Outside my window some one had constructed 20 or so small deformed snowmen each with their own twiggy little arms, their faces worked in unpleasent expressions with black pebbles from the path.  Silly sods I thought as the doorbell rang again.  I'm coming, I'm coming.  I pulled on a T shirt and opened the front door.  It was Mark (or possibly some character I haven't introduced yet depending on whether I've written enough Mark already) wearing the biggest grin you could want to see and carrying a cheap plastic sledge.

"You don't want one of them" I shouted through to the kitchen as I found my clothes "I have some heavy weight polly bags in the cupboard"
"We'll see" he said.
Fortified with coffee and with my trusty builders rubble sacks in my pocket we walked up to Queens park.  Victoria road, unlike the side street where I lived was almost completely clear of snow.  It formed an unnatural river of black in the white city scape, busses and cars made their allmost normal stop start journey up and down.  We were amoung the first people to make it to the park, the snow must have stopped sometime late last night.  The hard bright sunshine lit up the heavy white trees.  It was still and silent in the park proper and we stuck to the path as we made our way up the hill looking for likely runs.  I wondered about the park and the hill.  I assumed it had had been a Victorian  construction, the victorians where big on serious lanscape gardening and it was perfectly possible that they had created the hill just to give the ideal view down the tree lined avenue and on straight as an arrow down Victoria road to the city proper.  Ipressive bay fronted town houses faced into the park now almost exclusively occupied by the offices of Solicitors, Accountants and posh Dentists.  The hill was topped with a flagpole and view point where you could see and impressive vista of Glasgow, Glasgow and more Glasgow.  We didn't go all the way to the top.

We picked a decently steep spot starting from a tree by the path.  Down the slope I thought I could see an uneven hillock that might develop into a decent jump.  The idea of sledging in soft snow without a decent toboggan is to try and form a smooth hard packed run that leads you further and faster down the hill with each run.  We started with Mark's glorified tea tray.  It didn't precisely scoot down the hill the first few goes, truth be told I had to push him but once we got the start smoothed out we could get some momentum up.  Soon we were alternating between the sledge and the rubble bag.  Eventualy I hit the bump with enough speed to take off some.  I swear it felt like I broke my coxic bone and I rolled another ten feet unable to curse the pain for laughing too much.  We wasted the afternoon getting faster and longer runs in.  I was ringing wet from the amount of snow inside my clothes.  Even Mark had to admit that lying flat on one of the bags, just your shoulder blades and heels pressing on the glassy compacted snow was quite the fstest, scariest thing he had done in a long time.  Eventualy we couldn't go on.  We were wet and cold, sledged out.  My lungs hurt from laughing so much in the still ice cold air.  We trudged out of the park gates and straight into the nearest warm pub.

Mark tried to talk me into satying in Glasgow for the New Year.  I could spend it with him and Sam.  Yea that sounded great, she had been away for ages and when she comes back to be with her boyfriend and finds me loitering around getting in the way.  I realy couldn't see that she would be that happy to see me in any case.  It haddent been the most happy of times when I had last seen her.  I pointed out that I had made a comitment and that I couldn't realy let Andrew down, anyway Oban was bound to be fun for the festivities.  I jokingly suggested that he come with me.  He even seemed to give it serious consideration, I thought I was going to have to have the birds and bees conversation with him again.  I wondered if he realy did miss the point about being with Sam or if there were more to it.  I decided he was probably humoring me.  We didn't stay out long, I was heading north again the next day and doubted if I actualy had any clean clothes, well clean I could probably find but dry was going to be more tricky.  We parted at the door and I went back to find my flat still besieged by hordes of angry little snowmen with threatening pointy fingers.

Every radiator in my house was hidden under carefully folded shirts, trousers and underwear.  I gathered enough to last a couple of days and packed it all in a small holdall.  I set the alarm, shut the flat and locked the two mortices.  Outside it was biterly cold, the rutted, uneven snow had formed a hard crust that made walking a slipery and dificult affair.  After only a few days the underlying dirtyness of the city was begining to leak through the clean white covering of snow.  Patches of orange grit had been scattered on the road and pavements to at least try and ease the passage of pedestrians.  Most of the roads had now also recieved several dosings of salty grit and the blackend mush this produced had been sprayed onto the snow by passing cars.  The buildings themselves were warm enough to force the snow to retreat from their walls leaving a wet black moat round them.  The steps down to the small station had been cleared as had the platform itself.  I didn't have to wait long for a train to Glasgow Central.  You could hardly tell it had snowed at all in the city centre.  It was as cold and the greyish light spoke of winter but there were only a few tiny patches of white to be seen in nooks and corners.  Shoppers hurried past, thier collars set against the wind and cold.  I was in no particular hurry as I had nearly an hour before my train.  I sat in the station and sipped a coffee.  We still hadn't got the hang of decent coffee to take with you.  What I had was better than the watery muck I would have had a few years ago from a machine but it was filter coffee that had spent too long in the pot.  It just tasted bitter and nasty.  The only better quality beverage on sale were the newly trendy Lattes and esspresso based concoctions from Starbucks and the ilk.  There had been italian coffee bars in Glasgow for many years, a lot of them doubled as chippies and sweet shops.  I had never been keen on the frothy coffee they served in what I thought of as a tea cup but their mock 50's styling I found appealing and comfortable.  Perhaps it wasn't mock at all, I wonder how many of them had recieved any remodeling since the 50's.  Without ever having been there I was certain that they were still a cheap imitation of some half real, half imagined American diner of the period.

I stood on the quiet platform and waited for the train to arrive.  At the end of the platform nearest the station proper a crowd of passengers was forming expectantly, their trollies piled high with holiday luggage.  I stood away from their noise and bustle knowing that the train would be long to reach back to me here once it had stopped.  I looked down at the tracks.  How did so many people manage to use the toilet while the train was standing in the station, I realy wouldn't want to work trackside.  Accross the tracks from me a small electric cart pulled three large rubbish bins down the platform to be emptied.  The ecentric wheels of the bins rattled producing a twisted faximily of the sound of a full sized train.  The station anouncer told us something that was probably meant to give us usefull information as to when the train might arrive.  I could make out the word Oban and I don't think I heard either cancelled or delayed.  I looked up the track hopefully.  Nothing.  The train wasn't late yet but the sooner it got in the sooner I could get inside in the warm.  I hoped it would be warm.  I wondered idly if there was time to get another coffee and looked up at the large station clock.  Just under five minutes, I guess not.  I was wrong about the train.  I didn't recognise the little two carriage sprinter style train as mine even as it rolled by me, not until the garbled message came over the tanoy that the oban train had arrived did I walk back and get aboard.

I figured that Mark would be at the airport by now, waiting for Sam's plane to land.  standing watching the screen, ticking down the minutes till it landed.  The plane would land and still he wouldn't see her, just the empty gate, perhaps people from other flights comming through with their little laden carts.  He would have to wait impatiently by the gate as she cleared imigration.  Sam herself would then have to wait for her luggage to come spewing out onto the conveyour, watch everyone elses bag roll slowly past or perhaps she would be lucky, perhaps her bag would be one of the first out and she could move quickly on to the green and red chanels, did she have anything to declare?  Gifts, esentials from home that might infringe the punative rules of UK customs and excise, that might attract yet more tax?  I doubted it, she would breeze through the green channel and out to where Mark stood counting all the travelers that were not her, not Sam comming back to him.  She would eventualy be the next person past the "do not enter" sign, they would embrace.  They would feel all the worries about seeing each other again drop away.  They would know that they still loved one another and that everything was going to be OK.  Perhaps they would rush from the airport, get home just as fast as they could, tear each others clothes off, experience that hot rush of passion that is almost unique to those who have to be seperated by such a distance.  Perhaps they wouldn't even make it out of the airport before they just had to hold each other, touch each other as if to reasure themselves that there was nothing physically missing, that no small part had been left on the plane, confiscated by a cold official, stolen away while they were not there to gaurd it.  That fist kiss of missing someone, like the first first kiss all over again.  But then again, Mark wasn't me and Sam wasn't mine to miss.

The train was swallowed by the tunnel, the tunnel that led out of the city.  We headed north, the busy little train, last train home to the highlands this year.  It was a happy crowd that filled the two small cars.  Some of my fellow passengers had obviously began allready the festive consumption, making a running start at the main event.  I was happy to read the paper that some kind person had left on the seat and gaze absently out the window at the unfamiliar view passing.  The city, eventualy the river.  I loved it here and this time I didn't feel I was leaving, just going visiting was all.  I wondered if I was hiding, just a little from Sam.  I didn't want to introduce any note of sadness to her life right now.  I was sure Mark and her were right together and her home coming if thats what it was should not be marred by being reminded of things past.  I wished them all the best, happiness and prosperity for the new year and many more to come.  It occured to me that they might get married, they might have children.  Mark would be a great father.  He cared, he enjoyed life, he was enthusiastic about almost everything.  He would give you what little he had if you needed it and he would give it with a smile on his face and nothing but goodness in his heart.  Would they let me be uncle to their children?  Perhaps that wasn't fair.  It's not something I could reasonably hope for let alone ask.  I looked out the window again at the water passing bellow us as we traveled up the side of the loch.  I had allways thought I wanted to live by the sea.  Look where that got me though.  Living by the sea couldn't fix anything, couldn't make right what had gone wrong.  Couldn't make me happy while the rest of my life was fucked up.  I'd still like to do it though, one day but I suspected I was a city boy at heart.  Without the busy distraction, the press of people day after day, I just got my self into bother.

I put down the paper and looked around. *blah*

It was dark when the train reached Oban, lights twinkled and bobed out on the bay.  I stepped out onto the stark modern station.  There had been a victorian edifice here suitable and appropriate for the gateway to the isles.  I'd never seen it and misguided railway planners and updaters had stupidly disposed of it years ago.  I looked about at what they had obviously considered to be the cutting edge of rural station design at the time.  It didn't seem finished.  Andrew was waiting for me and he frowned at my bag.
"Shit, I didn't think about that" he said "I was just going to head straight to the pub, do you want to get rid of that?"
"No no, it's OK" I replied "I can lug it.
He didn't look convinced but nodded his assent.
"C'moan it's too bloody cold out here" He led the way.
I asked him what the plan was.
"Fucked if I know" he said amiably "we'll see how it goes"
The noise blew out into my face as I opened the door of the pub.  The place was full and then some, we struggled forward to the bar that I assumed lay ahead.  I tried to buy the first round but the barman just looked at me blankly as I yelled my order.  Andrew just shook his head watching my complete failure to comunicate, he almost climed the bar and shouted something I couldn't make out into the bar staff's ear from less than six inches.  I assumed my foriegn lowland accent had added to the already near unsurmountable comunications dificulties in the crowded and noisy pub.  I let Andrew break trail as we tried to find somewhere if not to sit then at least stand without danger of being sweapt away by the crush, I still had my bag though I had to haul it through the gap closing behind me.  We found a place of relative calm between the cigarette machine and the ladies toilet though conversation consisted of alternatly screaming in each other's ear.  I could hear the sound of a fiddle and possibly a guitar and wondered if it was live somewhere in here or if someone realy thought a duke box was in any way a practical thing tonight.  I looked about at the concentrated mass of drinking laughing people and realising that it was still very early I grinned.

Later we played pool.  When Andrew had said something about going to a club or the club I hadn't realy envisioned this.  We had had to sign a book to get into a large well lit and considerably less crowded bar.  The white formica tables where reminisant of school and the vinal floor looked easy to rid of those tricky blood and puke stains.  I was introduced the Archi, Heather, Claire, Donald and umpteen other people who's names I couldn't recall seconds after being told them.  I laughed at jokes I could barely understand and lied about who I was knowing that what they heard would probably be forgotten almost as quickly as I could say it.  The duke box here contained little or nothing less than 10 years old and most of what was played was either country or barly remembered tunes from the 70s and early eighties.  I put my mony on the edge of the table and waited my turn to play.  I must have been at that particular level of relaxed drunkeness for a while where the odd mathmatics of poolball interaction makes perfect sense or doesn't realy matter because I held the table for four or five games.  Eventually the beer took control again and I was soundly thrashed by a surprised looking young lad.  We smoked a couple of joints crammed round one of the big square booths in the back of the bar.  I looked to Andrew for a check on how cool it was to skin up in the place but he nodded that it was fine.  Eventualy we tired of the hard drinking dour mood of the place and headed off to find where the party had gone.

The main street was busy enough for a cold night with off key singers and wandering crowds.  We massed about twelve or fifteen bodies ourselves as we parambulated along the front.  One of our number, Archi or Jimmie or someone thought it was a good idea despite the protestations of his girlfriend to jump from the top of the low wall into the sea.  We wern't quite fast enough to stop him and 14 angsious faces peered down at him cursing and limping on the stoney beach below.  No doubt he was lucky that the tide had been out though when we met him at the top of the slip he seemed less than fair pleased that he had landed on solid ground rather than in ice cold water.  We made it into the hotel bar a couple of drinks before last orders and I assumed that at some point I had missed the bells.  It was already a new year and I hadn't noticed the old one passing.  Some how we must have moved on from the hotel after chucking out time becauSE I found myself again signing a book for entry into a lodge or the lodge.  I didn't actualy stop in the bar proper but sailed on through in the indicated direction of the toilet.  They were painted a pretty shade of royal blue and were obviously well cared for even on this busy night.  A very pleasent place to throw up.  I was sitting in the kind of deep sofa that takes considerable effort to rise from the next time I felt that particular urge but rise I did and putting down the glass of whiskey that had caused this sudden feeling of nausia I staggered and bounced down the stairs to the toilet.  I had looked for an up but for some reason the house seemed to lack one.  As I rid myself of the contents of my stomach for the second time I was convinced I had been drinking guiness though I couldn't quite figure what would have encouraged me to do so as I like stout less than I do whiskey.  I couldn't realy see the need to get up again from my seat by the toilet pan and the porcelain was comforting cool as I lay down for a second to collect my self.  It had been a fine night, a great night to get drunk in Oban.  I was glad Andrew had invited me, I wondered where he was.

-oO0Oo-