Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

The community hall at Balanish was where the battle lines were first clearly drawn and the initial skirmish took place.

The hall, as we grew older, had become the centre of our limited lives. It was where we spent our Saturday nights, at a youth club run by some of the older village kids. When I say youth club, there was nothing formal or organized about it. It was usually one of my brothers who got the keys and opened up the hall for two or three hours on the Saturday evening. The boys played five-a-side football in the main hall, while the girls crowded into a room at the back, listening to music and gabbing about inconsequential things. Like clothes. And boys. And, more recently, make-up. We were always home by around eleven, and certainly before midnight. The sabbath, which began on the stroke of twelve, was inviolate. And any kind of activity beyond then, youthful or otherwise, was strictly forbidden.

Which was why the discos were always held on the Friday. In fact, they didn’t usually start before midnight, after the older ones had got back from a night out in Stornoway.

It was a funny thing, I’d noticed, that the closer a village was to Stornoway, the more worldly the kids seemed. As if proximity to the ‘big city’ somehow bred sophistication. Way down in Balanish, we were like country yokels. And, then, when we were old enough to go to Stornoway with our friends on a Friday or Saturday night, we felt positively cosmopolitan, even if all we did was hang about the Narrows in the rain and drink beer.

I was still just thirteen when my parents first allowed me to go to the Friday night discos, and only then because Uilleam and Anndra were going. Anndra, by now, was the DJ. And he was good at it. He was a handsome boy with a shock of sandy curls, and an easy way with him. His craic always got folk laughing. Girls like boys who make them laugh, so he was popular with the opposite sex.

Any time I went, Seonag would go, too. She always stayed over at our house and shared my bed. The first few times we went, there was no sign of Ruairidh, and I began to think that he regarded the local disco as beneath him. I’d heard he went to Stornoway most Fridays with a group of older boys from Shawbost who had a car.

Then one night in November there he was. He and a group of boys I didn’t know. Disco night usually wound up at around 3 a.m., and Ruairidh and his pals didn’t arrive until after 1.30. You sensed a frisson of excitement among the girls when they came in. But the boys were playing it very cool, standing along the back wall, smoking and drinking beer from cans.

Anndra had recently acquired coloured lights that flashed in time with the music. And so blue, red and white light flashed intermittent accompaniment to the thump, thump of every track. Seonag and I had spent most of the night dancing with each other, handbags at our feet, in the absence of invitations from any of the boys. Now, along with all the other girls in the hall, we were anxious to be noticed by the newcomers.

For the first time, it seemed to me, in all the years since he had rescued me from the bog, Ruairidh Macfarlane finally caught my eye. I looked away immediately, both embarrassed and anxious not to seem too keen. When I stole another glance I found his eyes still turned in my direction. To my astonishment he smiled, and I think my heart rate went off the scale. I snuck a quick look at Seonag and almost recoiled from the animosity in her glare. She had noticed Ruairidh and me making eye contact, and her nose was well and truly out of joint.

I turned to look at Ruairidh again and very nearly fainted when I saw him pushing his way through the dancers in my direction. I’m sure I blushed bright red when he said, ‘Hi, Niamh, haven’t seen you for ages. Want to dance?’ And I was grateful to Anndra and his coloured lights for hiding my embarrassment.

I tried to sound as if I was doing him a favour. ‘Sure.’ And made certain there was as little eye contact as possible during the dance itself. I was aware of him staring at me, and felt myself blush again each time I flicked a glance in his direction. I remember that the song Anndra played for that dance was Michael Jackson’s ‘Dirty Diana’, and I focused all my attention on singing along to it, in the certain knowledge that Ruairidh wouldn’t be able to hear me. Just see my lips moving. I didn’t have much of a voice.

When it ended, I gave him a smile, almost relieved that it was over. He nodded and drifted off into the haze of cigarette smoke caught in the lights. I turned to find Seonag still giving me the evil eye. We resumed our dancing around the handbags for the next couple of songs. I recall Maxi Priest’s version of an old Cat Stevens song, ‘Wild World’. And Deacon Blue’s ‘Real Gone Kid’, with everyone pointing in the air and singing along with the ‘ooh-ooh’ chorus. Strange how such things stay in the memory. But really I was just treading water till Anndra played the smoochy song at the end, and hoping that Ruairidh would ask me to dance for that one. I would have the chance at last to put my arms around him and feel his body next to mine.

Seonag had disappeared off to the loo when Anndra announced the final song of the night. It was the Phil Collins hit, ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, from the film Buster , and I just about melted at the thought of closing my eyes and surrendering myself to Ruairidh’s arms. I tried to catch sight of him, to meet his eye and convey somehow that I was ready for this. But to my dismay it was one of his friends that I saw approaching through the crowd. Not an ugly boy, but he had acne spots around his mouth, and greasy-looking hair, and he wasn’t Ruairidh.

He smiled awkwardly. ‘Dance?’

I had one frantic last look around for Ruairidh, but there was no sign of him, and I submitted to the inevitable. I shrugged as indifferently as I could. ‘Okay.’ And to his disappointment immediately adopted the waltz position, keeping my body as far away from his as I could.

It wasn’t until well into the song that I saw Seonag in Ruairidh’s arms, resting her head against his shoulder, for all the world as if they had been going out with one another for weeks. They swayed together in slow unison, and neither of them glanced once in my direction.

I felt sick, and angry, and humiliated, and I have no idea how I managed to keep dancing until the end of the song. The lights came up, and amid a sprinkling of applause, those couples who had formed a union for the night headed quickly to the door, recovering coats and hats and scarves on the way out. I looked around for Seonag, but there was no sign of her. Her handbag had gone. No sign of Ruairidh either. His friend stood uncomfortably in front of me for a moment or two, as if he thought I might take his arm and head out with him. I threw him the most fleeting of smiles. ‘Thank you.’ Then retrieved my handbag and hurried for the door.

Kids in gangs and couples and singles streamed down the hill towards the war monument, warmth and smoke rising from them like steam in the cold November air. It was a clear night, I remember, the blackest of skies studded with stars. There was, for once, no wind, and frost lay thick on the tarmac, glistening on every blade of grass.

I stood at the top of the hill, wrapping my coat around me for warmth, and scanned the bodies making their way carefully down the slope, everyone holding on to everyone else for fear of slipping on the frost. And there they were. Ruairidh and Seonag. Hand in hand, nearly at the bridge by now. Even from this distance I could hear them laughing, imagining that it was me they were laughing at. Or about. I cursed myself for being so damned cool during that first dance, and turned to head off in the other direction towards home. Only to find Uilleam walking gingerly by my side.