Central Glasgow. After the bells
We said our goodbyes to Alan and Jackie and Andrew and Sandra, and waited on the icy pavement for Alex to bring the car. Kate slipped her arm in mine. I pretended not to notice. Pat Logue had recovered the ground he’d lost. The temperature would affect him less than the rest of us but his wife seemed satisfied: her husband was never going to be a shining example of sobriety. Still, he’d made the effort. Short-lived though it was.
I got into the back with Kate and Gail; Patrick took the passenger seat.
‘Drop us first, could you, Alex? Might be in time to prevent the boys from burnin’ the house down.’
Gail reacted. ‘I warned the two of them before we left. Any nonsense and they’ll be looking for new digs. We don’t do raves.’
Patrick corrected her from the front seat. ‘Nobody does raves anymore, Gail. That was the nineties. Faded out when they stopped being a secret.’
‘You know what I mean. They better be in bed or they’ll hear me.’
We travelled through the deserted city with Alex hunched over the wheel, driving in the tracks of vehicles that had already come this way. He spoke without taking his eyes from the road. ‘So long as I stick to the main drag we’ll be okay. Slow going but we’ll get there. They reckon it’s El Nino.’
Patrick said, ‘El Nino. Plays for Barcelona, doesn’t he?’
At the Broomielaw, the lights were red but we didn’t stop. Beneath us, the Clyde was a black chasm cut between the snow-covered banks.
Kate said, ‘I wonder how long somebody would last in that.’
Alex answered. ‘Minutes at most.’
Pat Logue didn’t agree. He turned in his seat to speak to us. ‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Heard a story once about a man who wanted to join a tribe that lived miles above the Arctic Circle. To be accepted he had to pass three initiation tests no one had ever survived.’
‘Is this a true story?’
‘Do you want to hear it or not?’
We settled down and let Patrick speak.
‘He had to walk twenty miles barefoot across the frozen tundra, wrestle a polar bear, and make love to an Eskimo woman. For eight days there was no sign of him and they were certain he must have perished. But, on the ninth day, a look-out spotted a speck on the horizon, crawlin’ through the snow. When he was close enough they could see he’d been through hell. Deep wounds raked his flesh; one of his arms was almost severed. His clothes were in tatters and he’d lost a lot of blood. Delirious – probably near death – he raised his one good arm and spoke to the chief.
“Right,’ he said. ‘Where’s this Eskimo woman you want me to wrestle?”’
Everybody laughed.
Patrick smiled a drunken smile. ‘End of the street’ll do us. And thanks. For everythin’.’
The Logues got out and we drove back across Glasgow. Nobody spoke until Alex voiced what we were all thinking.
‘How does Gail put up with him?’
I said, ‘She puts up with him because he’s a good guy. He goes his own way and he’s unreliable, but if you need a friend, Pat Logue won’t be hard to find. Apart from that, she loves him.’
We stopped outside the Devonshire Hotel, near Anniesland Cross, on one of the city’s main arteries. Tonight – or more accurately, this morning – it seemed alien.
‘This do you?’
‘Absolutely. Will you be all right?’
‘Never died a winter yet, Charlie. I’ll be fine.’
We watched him do a u-turn that normally wouldn’t be possible on this part of Great Western Road and drive away. Kate took my arm again and we picked our way carefully towards my flat on Cleveden Drive. It felt colder than earlier; the air burned our lungs and nipped our skin. I slipped and almost fell. Kate rescued me. A few steps further on, we both went down, and lay in the snow, laughing.
Kate said, ‘I’m having fun, Charlie.’
I helped her to her feet. ‘Glad somebody is.’
She pulled me to her and kissed me. Her lips were warm. ‘Somebody is.’
In Cleveden, the parties had ended or moved on. I made coffee, adding a generous measure of brandy to take the edge off, while Kate dumped her stuff in the spare bedroom. Her guitar was safely locked away downstairs at NYB; we’d collect it on our way to the airport.
I hadn’t seen this coming. Our affair had been over for two years and at the time we’d agreed it was for the best. Now Kate Calder was in my flat and I still wasn’t sure what it all meant until she called my name and I turned round.
She was standing in the doorway, one hand leaning against the frame, red hair falling across her pale shoulders onto her bare breasts. The night hadn’t been short of surprises but nothing matched this. Her body was as smooth and lean as I remembered. Flawless, and for a moment I struggled to breathe.
‘Think I’d come all this way without these?’
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Kate saw the look on my face and walked towards me, arms outstretched – naked apart from the snake skin boots.
She smiled a slow smile. ‘Let’s try that again. Happy New Year, Charlie.’
‘For Auld Lang Syne?’
‘For whatever.’