Sentence The Twohundredandsixth
Teri laughed at the memory: she was eighteen, had left school and it was her last summer before Uni and was on a family holiday on the West Coast of Scotland, a little town, stiff with Presbyterian rectitude, pinched mouths and tight arses, where the Wee Free Minister, like an Old Testament Prophet, called down the Hounds of Hell, snarling barghests to devour th tiniest of Sins that might quiver the pellucid air; where the weekly Dance was dry (and every man carried a hip-flask in his back pocket and every girl had a quarter bottle in her handbag) – it was held on a Friday night, in the local Cinema, from 8pm till 1am (though the boys all claimed that 8-1 was the ratio of girls to boys and their chance of copping a feel or getting a hand wank was 8-1 on, there were various other odds but getting laid was even money) and the music was provided by a local Ceilidh Band and a
Showband, over from Ireland, who played al the current top 40 hits in the same jig-time rhythm; Summer Visitors, from Cities in Scotland and even England, were the big attraction, and the local girls detested Stacy and Me and our friends and relations, like Ginger and Isa – who was by far the youngest – Roxie and Trixie, Goldy, Elvira and Leigh, Rosie, Jinty and Pru and the others, while the boys sent dagger eyes at Gordon, Malcolm and the twin boys, Ronnie and Robbie and their chums; so while the local lads virtually forced us girls to dance with them, and the local girls clawed and bit their way to seize one of the visiting boys, actually dancing was fraught with danger, as local couples, ostensibly Waltzing or doing a Slow Shimmy, raced around the hall like Dodgems, charging and
bumping any couple which contained a visitor (the locals never letting their grip relax for an instant) and many ankles were raked by stilettos, and many dancing pumps and the toes they contained were crushed under tackety boots (polished specially for the occasion); any perceived coquette from among the holiday girls could well have received a dirk between the shoulder blades, so, as we never got a chance to sit out a dance, and our only escape from the carnage was a quick visit to the loo – always crowded with girls who were our arch enemies, but smiled if we offered them a ciggie or a swally from our bottles, and even got into some chat with us, that was where I first set eyes on Morag MacKinnon!
Teri laughed at the memory: she was eighteen, had left school and it was her last summer before Uni and was on a family holiday on the West Coast of Scotland, a little town, stiff with Presbyterian rectitude, pinched mouths and tight arses, where the Wee Free Minister, like an Old Testament Prophet, called down the Hounds of Hell, snarling barghests to devour th tiniest of Sins that might quiver the pellucid air; where the weekly Dance was dry (and every man carried a hip-flask in his back pocket and every girl had a quarter bottle in her handbag) – it was held on a Friday night, in the local Cinema, from 8pm till 1am (though the boys all claimed that 8-1 was the ratio of girls to boys and their chance of copping a feel or getting a hand wank was 8-1 on, there were various other odds but getting laid was even money) and the music was provided by a local Ceilidh Band and a
Showband, over from Ireland, who played al the current top 40 hits in the same jig-time rhythm; Summer Visitors, from Cities in Scotland and even England, were the big attraction, and the local girls detested Stacy and Me and our friends and relations, like Ginger and Isa – who was by far the youngest – Roxie and Trixie, Goldy, Elvira and Leigh, Rosie, Jinty and Pru and the others, while the boys sent dagger eyes at Gordon, Malcolm and the twin boys, Ronnie and Robbie and their chums; so while the local lads virtually forced us girls to dance with them, and the local girls clawed and bit their way to seize one of the visiting boys, actually dancing was fraught with danger, as local couples, ostensibly Waltzing or doing a Slow Shimmy, raced around the hall like Dodgems, charging and
bumping any couple which contained a visitor (the locals never letting their grip relax for an instant) and many ankles were raked by stilettos, and many dancing pumps and the toes they contained were crushed under tackety boots (polished specially for the occasion); any perceived coquette from among the holiday girls could well have received a dirk between the shoulder blades, so, as we never got a chance to sit out a dance, and our only escape from the carnage was a quick visit to the loo – always crowded with girls who were our arch enemies, but smiled if we offered them a ciggie or a swally from our bottles, and even got into some chat with us, that was where I first set eyes on Morag MacKinnon!
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