Jake quietened a minute to wipe his fat face and Ewan carried him something to drink; and Ewan called The New Year dance is next. Just a word to you all before it comes on. You know who’re the people who’ve got up this dance. They say we’re some kind of Reds: let them say. We’re workers the same as all of you are and as fond of taking a girl to a dance and giving her a cuddle on the sly as the next. In fact, that’s why we believe what we do—that every one should have a decent life and time for dancing and enjoying oneself and a decent house to go to at night, decent food, decent beds. And the only way to get those things is for the young workers of whatever party to join together and stop the old squabbles and grab life’s share with their thousand hands. And he stopped and looked down at the chaps and queans, all kittled up as they looked, with flushed faces, the lasses bonny in that hour though they came from the stews of Paldy and Kirrieben and Footforthie, their thin antrin faces soft in the light: And isn’t it worth grabbing? And that’s all the speech.

And as they cheered him and cried his name, the dirty, kind words of mates in the Shops, a great chap that Εwan, just one of themselves … it seemed to Ewan in a sudden minute that he would never be himself again, he’d never be ought but a bit of them, the flush on a thin white mill-girl’s face, the arm and hand and the downbent face of a keelie from the reek of the Gallowgate, the blood and bones and flesh of them all, their thoughts and their doubts and their loves were his, all that they thought and lived in were his. And that Ewan Tavendale that once had been, the cool boy with the haughty soul and cool hands, apart and alone, self-reliant, self-centred, slipped away out of the room as he stared, slipped away and was lost from his life forever.

And then Ellen Johns was pulling at his arm: Ewan, you look funny, is there anything wrong? and he moved and came out of that dreaming trance, and smiled at her, and Ellen’s heart moved, not the cold smile at all, it might have been that of any kind boy. Hello, Ellen. You look lovely tonight. Can I have the next dance? and she said, wide-eyed, You can have them all if you want them, Ewan.

And he took her hand and drew her close and waved to Jake and Jake started it up, tooootle the flute, claboomr the drum, off they all went in the wheel of a waltz, winkle the lights and Ellen’s head close under Ewan’s shoulder as they spun. And he looked down and suddenly smelled her hair, strange and sweet, and felt dizzy a minute, at the tickle of it up under his chin, at the touch of her up against him close, breast and belly and legs, soft, sweet, something ran with a torch and fired all his body. And Ellen looked up and saw his face, white, and suddenly knew what she’d always known, that she was his for as long as he liked, and she would like that till the day she died.