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“So, can you believe
that these two youngsters haven’t learnt from the blighted lessons
of their forefathers, and still insist, in the 21st century, on
tying the knot?” was his opening line, as he approached the table.
And after shaking hands with his son, whom he hadn’t yet seen
during that visit, before clasping him into an enormous bear hug,
he gripped his future daughter-in-law warmly to his chest and
turned to Jane.

“Here’s the point
where I should perhaps comment on the apple not falling far from
the tree, seeing two such beautiful woman standing together,” and
his smile was warm, “but I would never be quite that glib.” He held
her shoulders gently as he kissed both her cheeks.

“Though may God strike
me down if it’s not the truest thing I’ve ever said,” he whispered
into her ear, a cheeky smile in his voice.

“Hmmmm, you didn’t
mention, Lyall, that your father was such an old flirt,” she said,
play-pushing his left shoulder back.

“Yeah, well, it’s one
of the many things about him I’ve tried to keep hidden,” laughed
Lyall, joined by his father, who muttered, “And not so much of the
‘old’, young lady.”

As Alasdair took his
place at the table, the waitress reappeared to drop off an extra
menu and take his order for a large Glenmorangie, leaving the next
ten minutes as a chance to catch up and peruse the food on
offer.

As they waited and
chatted, Alasdair shared a little of his day in London, which had
begun at 3.47 that morning, he said, in the nearby Travelodge where
he was spending two nights. He was down South to interview a
prominent member of the shadow cabinet who was debating resignation
after what Alasdair felt was a storm in a teacup, and, he
suspected, a manufactured one to get rid of the guy at that. But he
wouldn’t bore them with the drearily futile machinations of the
Westminster village, he said.

Perhaps more
interesting, he told his audience, was that 3.47am wake-up. At that
precise and rather inconsiderate time, his immediate neighbours in
the hotel had begun a loud altercation. This surprised him, he
said, as he had been led to believe it was all love and honey next
door. Several hours earlier he’d popped into the small and
unappealing hotel bar for the final snifter of the night and bumped
into a guy – mid-30s, jeans and a black casual jacket – in the
process of having one bottle of red uncorked and, on the spur of
the moment, adding another for good measure.

After some banter in
the lift, primarily targeted, Alasdair said, on the inebriated
man’s fascination with his kilt and his heritage, and his
insistence on endlessly repeating the line “Donald, where’s yer
troosers?”, which had him in roaring stitches every time, they had
realised they were walking the whole way together, parting only at
their second-floor doors, numbers 271 and 272. He spoke with an
absolute dryness and total attention to detail, coupled with the
wry eye-twinkle of a chap revelling in spinning a yarn.

And so there had been
no warning whatsoever, he stressed, that what he’d assumed to be
the two frolicking tipsy lovers next door were anything other than
blissed out, an illusion seemingly backed up by the odd
enthusiastic hoot and regular rhythmic thumpings through the wall.
And then something – his snoring; her refusal to succumb to his
drink-addled charms for the fourth time that night; who knew? –
kicked off three-and-a-half hours later and all three of them were
wide awake, and none of them smiling, as their combined shouts and
her eventual loud sobs began drifting through the “soundproofed”
walls. With overblown theatricality, he performed his range of
emotions and reactions, from his initial desperate, weary hope that
it would all end soon, through his glass-to-the-wall fascination,
to his eventual hour or two of snatched sleep with a pillow folded
over his head.

It has to be said that
Alasdair was in fine fettle, very fine fettle, and this was
seriously appreciated by Jane, who was swayed by her own
more-than-slight intoxication, the general upbeat and hazy feel to
the evening and the fact that her initial appreciation of the most
interesting man she had met in months had done nothing but grow as
the meal had gone on.

He was, she thought,
utterly charming. He was just a few years older than her, easy on
the eye, witty, and so comfortable within himself that it rubbed
off casually on those around him; even his politics, not that this
generally mattered too much to her, were impeccable. And the cherry
atop that icing was that, unlike most men she met, his absolutely
self-effacing nature suggested that he had no clue of the effect he
was having on her. He was, it seemed, a genuinely nice guy and
she’d seen enough rotters to recognise this.

As they ate through a
mix of colourful dishes – polenta crisps with avocado and yoghurt,
crusted tofu with wakame and lime, fried tomatoes with goat’s curd…
– the conversation cascaded, along with the red wine, towards the
inevitable end of the evening. It was nearing this point when
Alasdair suggested they move on for a final snort or more before
bed. After all, he continued, he didn’t get down to London anywhere
near as frequently as he’d like nowadays, and he missed the
place.

“I’m not so sure,
Alasdair,” said Lorna, using a tone her mother recognised as being
a polite but firm no thanks. “I’ve got to be up early bells
tomorrow, and it’s getting late for a work night.”

“Ach, ye old southern
softy,” he said. “This surely isn’t the girl I met for our night
out in Edinburgh’s Old Town? I seem to recall you saying you could
drink me under the table, and giving that notion a damn good try…
albeit failing. Lyall, put the girl straight, won’t you.”

Lyall, however, knew
his fiancée well enough to recognise that tone too.

“No, Da. I’ll see you
for lunch tomorrow, and we’ll all get together before the wedding
again for sure, but she’ll be a right misery if I don’t get her
home, right Jane?”

And she nodded.

“So, it’s just the
oldies then, unless you’re going to bail out on me too. Family
trait perhaps, this lack of stamina?”

“Oh Lord, don’t
challenge her,” said the younger woman. “You have no idea what
she’s capable of! All those business dinners and entertaining have
given her a solid-iron stomach when it comes to booze.”

It was true that Jane
had a remarkable gift for appearing sober in the midst of
intoxicated chaos, but this was generally because she followed a
piece of advice given to her early on in her career and drank less
while appearing to keep up with the crowd; not such a hard thing to
do once you got the knack. Tonight, however, she was not on
business.

“Indulge your future
co-conspirator in grandparenthood?” he smiled, as his son poked him
a crafty shove in the ribs, irritated and mildly embarrassed by
this blatant reference to something he saw as being a mere speck on
a distant horizon.

“Just try stop me,
granddad.”

After a short but
fiercely contested battle over who would pay the bill – a fight
that Alasdair won – the four of them took the short stroll from the
restaurant down to the tube station, wavering occasionally along
the way to peer into some shop window or other, mostly at shiny
items that caught the eyes of the women.

As Lyall and Lorna
headed underground to the Victoria line northbound, Alasdair turned
to Jane. “So, what do you fancy?” he asked. “This road is lined
with pubs, though my choice is always for a place where there are
seats and the noise isn’t cranked up so loudly you can’t be heard.
I don’t even think it’s an age thing with me, though I might be
kidding myself – I’ve always liked the chat above all else.”

Having agreed on this
as a sound guiding principle, they opted for a large dated chain
pub not far from the station with a rather eclectic clientele – a
few businessmen in suits dotted around in pairs, but mainly older
and middle-aged less affluent-looking couples and groups.

To get in, they’d had
to manoeuvre through a small group of five or six cigarette
smokers, not native English-speakers but clearly locals, mixed
gender, laughing and drinking outside. They parted easily to let
the couple through, and it was interesting for her to see how
friendly people became when a man in a kilt appeared, with the sort
of convivial familiarity that you might use to greet Santa or the
Easter Bunny.

Inside, the dominant
sound was a human one, of voices and the odd cackle, rather than
the dull rhythmic beat that pounded through most of the pubs in the
area at this time of night. And although it was full, the place was
large enough to have spare seats aplenty.

As they headed towards
the bar, Jane noticed a heavily pierced biker chick walking away
smiling with a little tray of shot glasses filled with drinks of
many colours, and before Alasdair could say a word, she asked the
barmaid if could she possibly have the same, please. They took the
collection of eight vibrant shots, with little idea of what they
were, and sat in a six-person booth.

“So,” said Alasdair,
“here’s to our bairns, and may they make a better crack of the whip
at marriage than, well, at least than I did.” And a toast.

“Don’t rush – let’s
add my own failure to the pot. Here’s to broken marriages,
beautiful children, and to the future. May they learn from what
they’ve seen and have the most glorious life, Alasdair; may they be
happier than anyone in the universe ever was.” And another two
drinks down, they sat in silence a moment or two, staring at the
four remaining flavoured vodkas.

“The two orange ones…
they must be orange – nothing else makes sense, right?” They both
nodded earnestly at Jane’s words, which she spoke as if delivering
the most profound observation ever to spring from a human mind.
“Peach maybe. And the red one, well, that’s a no-brainer.”

“Indeed. We’re talking
strawberry or a crisp Scottish raspberry perhaps. A
no-brainer.”

“Indeed. But the blue
one, the blue one, Alasdair. What on Earth is the blue one
about?”

“Well, my dear,
there’s only one true way to taste a flavour, and that is to put it
to the lips and taste it.” He downed the blue in one, handing the
red over to the woman who already felt like his kind of person,
both in the evening’s drinking and in the longer-term venture of
two families meeting. “Ah, interesting. There are slight tea notes
with a hint…” he smacked his lips… “of Ribena.”

The night was growing
more nebulous by the sip. Jane’s consciousness slipped in and out
just a little, while Alasdair increasingly became the star of his
own show; first setting the pace and then, knowing it was time to
slow down considerably or give in and head for sleep, settling down
to interview her.

“I think you’ve the
advantage here,” he said, leaning in over the table, having just
returned with a glass of water for her and a large whisky for
himself in response to the bell for last orders.

“I know you’ve spoken
to Lexi; she mentioned it in our last chat, and anyway Lyall’s so
much his mother’s boy that he’s been delighted at the way you
two’ve got on, but I’ve no clue about your own ex. Lorna’s never
really mentioned him. But he was around until she was, what, 12,
13? And she’s 25 now… a fine girl, credit to you, Jane, a beautiful
match and I’m delighted for the pair of them.

“Does it seem like a
long time, short time? Do stop me if it’s not a topic up for
discussion.”

She paused and traced
the rim of her glass with a well-manicured, red-tipped index
finger, the question serving to sober her up a little.

“No, it’s appropriate
for you to know,” she said, choosing her words deliberately,
nodding her head slightly and staring down at the table, on which
both her elbows now rested. “And I’d hope the fact that Lorna
doesn’t talk about him, about any of it, is more about her, I
really hope, than about us, about him and me. About what
happened.

“Long time, short
time? Hell, it’s a lifetime ago and that’s how it feels, and it’s
been a long hard slog, but, Alasdair, I got there and I’m still
standing and better for it all. It just took, yeah… it was a long,
hard slog.” She looked up at him, then, brown eyes from behind the
sideswept semi-fringe of her short blonde hair.

“Ach, it’s not always
easy, is it?”

“Sometimes it seems
like no lesson ever worth learning is. No pain, no gain – bet we
both got that T-shirt, right?”

Chucking-out time was
a long process in a bar that stayed serving until midnight and so
had become the late-night haunt of anyone wanting a serious drink
on a weekday night. His day was not due to start until 10.30, and
that was just a quick meeting before his train back home shortly
after noon.

Having just seen her
most recent project successfully to completion, a process that
always left her first elated and then drained, Jane was in the
middle of a long weekend, added to which she was well used to
playing as hard as she worked.

They wandered back
through to the exit and she turned quite naturally towards the taxi
rank she knew to be five minutes’ walk away. Without questioning
the direction, he sauntered alongside her.

They walked past a
late-night mini-mart, the outside of which was framed with racks of
exotic fruit and vegetables that, after a long day, were beginning
to slump.

“Now here’s a plan… if
you’re game?” he said, twisting as if to head into the shop. “Half,
quarter bottle of whisky – or any other preference – another shot
or two back at my hotel, and then I see you safely back into a cab
and you text when you’re home. Appeal?”

It did.

Whisky, large carton
of orange juice as an alcohol alternative rather than a mixer, and
a packet of salt-and-pepper cashews in a thin plastic bag, and
seven minutes later the two were back at the door of room 272,
second floor. Alasdair slid the plastic card that passed for a key
in and out of the lock, while Jane stood by, hand over mouth to
cover the spluttering giggles that kept erupting.