age 27 - the gangster's moll

Winter gets a bad rap, but I can remember some of the good things that happened in winter when I used to live in a cold country.

Like when you're at a weekend party at a country house, by a huge bonfire, and your mate's lovely sister walks right up to you and kisses you hello full on the lips, and now you love her more than anything. Later you lure her away for a moonlight walk by the lake, then suddenly you're inside each other's jackets, all warm and cosy, and you forget that the husband back at the house is a gangster. Allegedly of course.

Then on the way back, you split up so you that don't enter the house suspiciously together. But she never arrives, and all the folk at the party become a search party, and you join them in the woods, pretending you don't know why she's disappeared. People are worrying she might have drowned, but then somebody finds her safe and asleep, in your tent. Husband asks why she was in there, and you say search me mate.

Next weekend, you arrange a clandestine meeting at the flat in Auld Reekie where you say "I feel bad keeping secrets from your brother, I'll have to tell him" and she says "are you crazy - do you want to get shot?" Actually she says "do you want to get us both shot?" but it's the "you .... get shot" bit that makes the impression on you.

A few days later you phone her because you want to break it off, but even then the husband keeps answering, and you hang up. That's when you realise you're not cut out for this stuff.

I'm reading Dead Air by Iain Banks, where the guy is in the same sort of situation, but I think he's handling it better than me. I hope he survives.

PS for obvious reasons I won't post a photo.