The Young League dance was fair in full swing, chaps had gone flocking to buy up tickets at Gowans and Gloag’s and all over Footforthie, a tanner hop was a good enough chance to take your quean to on New Year’s Eve. And she’d said But aren’t those creatures Red? and you said you were Bulgared if you knew, did it matter? And she said Reds were awful, they believed that women—och, stuff that you wouldn’t speak about. And you said you wouldn’t but these Reds were different, the head of them was a toff kind of sod, Ewan Tavendale—

And your quean said Bob! or Will! or Leslie—don’t use those kind of words to me, and you nearly went off your head at the runt, trying to make a lad speak genteel. But she turned up ready to go to the dance down in Long Hall, and there was that Tavendale, you’d never spoken to him, standing at the door and taking the tickets and nodding to folk; and up on the platform Jake Forbes’s band that was wee Jake Forbes all on his own, hard at it banging out the Omaha Pinks, Jake tootling away with his big white face like a bowl of lard on the melt by a fire, queans and chaps all over the floor, your quean looked the bonniest and awful posh, how the hell did queans manage to dress up like that?

Then the Pinks struck up and you gave her a grab, she hadn’t on stays or much else below, and off you all went, slither and slide, one foot in and another out, like a cock with concussion, tweetle the flute. And Jake stood up and hit the drum and banged the bell and clattered the cymbals and looked as though with a bit of encouragement he’d have kicked hell out of the nearest wall. Christ, what a row: but it kittled you up.

It was cold outside but the chaps didn’t heed, you took out your quean for a squeeze between dances, cold though it was, she breathed You mustn’t, not here—to hell, she liked it. Then she’d fix up her dress and back you’d go, New Year coming fast, some of the chaps nipped over to the pub and brought back a gill of the real Mackay, kittling everybody up, you forgot you’d got sacked the day before, and father was cursing like hell and said he’d have to keep you on the PAC … or that your job was a bloody stalemate with no chance of earning a penny piece more. Funny how fine your quean felt and smelt, other queans as well as you changed with chaps. And there was that toff Ewan Tavendale, only he didn’t look a toff a bit, just one of the lads, he was dancing like hell when Jake put on a Schottische. Every body cried Hooch! and wakened up more, a daft old dance, not up to date, but you fair could swank and give a bit prance, in and out, now on your own quean’s sleeve, now on that of the schoolteacher folk said was Red, only a kid, she was dressed in red, with black hair and a flaming skirt, she laughed and cried Hook! not Hooch!: she was English.