December 1992

He'd managed to blag a lift home. Someone knew someone who... It was always the same in Scotland. Six degrees of separation didn't touch it. Three was more like it.

He told his ma he would get the train back to Kirkinwall, so he was there for Christmas. Christ knew how he was going to afford it. That and the bus fare too, seeing as the train line no longer ran all the way to the village he'd grown up in thanks to Dr. Beeching, as he told his friend Lillian while they downed shots in the Student Union.

The comments were overheard, and two days later, some posh idiot phoned his halls.

"Alan Kirkpatrick, yah? I'm off to pay my dues to Mater and Pater in the homestead. Do you want a lift? If you'll contribute something to the petrol money, I'm happy to oblige."

Gordon Campbell-Smythe was someone Kippy—Alan Kirkpatrick's nickname gifted to the few—knew vaguely. The Campbell-Smythes were big names in Kirkinwall, thanks to the acres of land they owned and had done for centuries. In recent years, they'd been forced to sell it off, bit by bit. They clung to their position and Right Hons titles nonetheless.

Campbell-Smythe Junior hadn't bothered with schooling in Kirkinwall—or not that much of it. He did two years at the local primary before being packed off to prep school and then Gordonstoun, famous for educating the Royal family's male members. There, Kippy supposed, he'd have mingled with the power players of the future—the about-to-be politicians, industry leaders, and media giants—schooling him in all he needed to know to take his place where he belonged.

At the top of the privilege tree.

Gordon arranged to meet him three streets from his halls, at a street that served as a slipway to the motorway nearby.

If Kippy hadn't known what to look for, he might have taken an intelligent guess. The battered Land Rover that screeched to a halt now, the front door nearest to him flung open.

Yes, that one.

"Kirkpatrick?" a head popped out, its appearance too brief for Kippy to see or recognize the driver. "Hop in and hurry up!"

He was already an hour later than he'd promised. Kippy's hands and feet had long ago given up the attempt to stay warm. Letting himself into the vehicle was a struggle, his hands too numb to get a proper grip on the door handle.

Inside, the Land Rover smelled of hay and manure, but was warm. Gordon stamped his foot flat to the floor, and the vehicle roared off. Kippy angled himself, curious to see if he remembered the guy. An old memory surfaced. Him and Dode long ago, shouting silly insults at a tousle-haired boy dressed in shorts, the kid snot-nosed and red-eyed.

Was this him?

Gordon Campbell-Smythe didn't resemble that snot-nosed, red-eyed kid. The man, hunched over the steering wheel and throwing out curses here and there at drivers he thought wronged him, did not seem like he'd once upon a time needed to huddle in a corner trying to escape from other small boys.

Kippy, an outsider in his home town for many years, checked himself. Hadn't that been him? Hiding his gayness for many years?

He glanced at Gordon again. The farmer look was there, a solid, bulky young man, reddened cheeks and hair that hadn't seen the attention of a good hairdresser for many a month. And yet... Kippy felt something inside him stir. The curse of coming out. Anything and everything became a possibility.

He channelled Lillian, also posh and thus hard-schooled in politeness, and summoned up something to say.

"Aye, thanks for the lift, mate."

Gordon grunted. "Could do with the company, to be honest. Awfully long, dull journey this. I'd much rather stay in the city for Christmas and New Year, but the olds insist I come home so they can wheel me out in front of the very olds and remark on my progress."

There was small talk, and there was the tone of the confessional. Another person who preferred city life to the claustrophobia of small towns and country living. Old, draughty multi-bedroomed farmhouses weren't his reality, but Kippy imagined the scene now—a living room, antique furniture, hunting pictures painted in oils on the wall and people drinking sherry from crystal glasses.

Christ.

They'd reached the outskirts of Glasgow, now on the A77, the traffic thinning out. Gordon moved his gearstick, wriggling it from side to side. The Land Rover let out a series of noises, none of them healthy.

He swivelled his head to one side, eyes panicky.

"I don't think..."

Kippy grinned at him; ridiculousness always made him cocky. "What?"

"... this bloody old banger is going to make it."

He pulled up on the hard shoulder, flopping forwards onto the steering wheel with a groan. Kippy watched Gordon's hair move and rearrange itself around his bent-over head. His fingers itched to stroke it; to feel the thickness of it between his fingers and imagine what the other hair on his body might...

Snap out of it.

Years of conditioning, the rules that told you what was acceptable and what most certainly wasn't, surfaced.

Ahead of them, the cars flashed past. Traffic indifferent. Vehicles sailed away. Gordon raised his head and watched them, the ghost of a smile on his face. It put colour in his cheeks, the rosy glow inviting.

"Have you even been to Dalmellington?"

Kippy shook his head. As he'd grown up in Kirkinwall, his world wasn't large. The village, Dumfries, and now Glasgow. Perhaps one day he'd make it to London. Land there, Dick Whittington-style, and amass his fortune.

Gordon pushed open the door his side and jumped out. He leant through the open window. "Would you like to find out?"

Did the invite make it sound as if infinite possibilities beckoned?

Oh yes...

The warmth of the Land Rover left behind, Scotland's winter weather hit Kippy full on. Grey skies and wind that buffered him, its spitefulness poking through gaps in his socks and trousers and whistling up where he hadn't tucked his shirt into his jeans. He thrust his hands in his pockets.

Gordon pointed to their left streetlights that lit a town and made it look not that far away. They trudged onwards, footsteps heavy over grassland.

"Is there a garage in Dalmellington?" Kippy asked. Gordon nodded. "Yes. I need to get something to eat too. Missed breakfast in the halls this morning." He turned his head, gaze careful. "Lunch will be my treat seeing as this is my fault."

Kippy prickled, irritated that Mr. Privilege assumed he couldn't afford it. Then again, it was the truth. And food in his belly might calm down that over-active libido, the thoughts that kept returning to off-limits places. Gordon's ruddy complexion, for instance. Did it cut off at his neck? Was his chest your average Celtic pale? Did the strawberry blonde hair run in that line from belly button to crotch and then...

"Ta," he said. "I'm fair starvin' myself."

The garage was at the side of the road, the two pumps doing steady business. The tiny shop, its shelves packed with de-icers, waxes and spare brake pads, smelt of rubber and petrol. Its ancient owner stirred himself behind the counter when Gordon asked if there was a mechanic he could talk to.

"Car's off the road," he said. "It just stopped."

"Neil," the man shouted, and another equally ancient guy appeared black-rimmed nails and stained hands giving his profession away. He beckoned Gordon to join him, jumped in his own motor, a battered Mitsubishi with a tow bar, and drove off.

Alone in the garage with the old man, Kippy hugged himself. The small two-bar heater gave off little heat. Luckily, the garage owner showed no inclination to talk.

Gordon and the mechanic returned 15 minutes later, the Land Rover hooked up to the . "Needs a new exhaust gasket," Gordon said, face remarkably cheerful, "which Neil can't get until tomorrow. We'll have to stay the night here. There's a hotel up the road."

"My treat," he repeated, "as this is my fault."

The garage owner shot him a suspicious glare, making Kippy flinch. Did he think they were a couple? If two men booked into a hotel in Glasgow, no-one would bat an eyelid. Here, though—those little houses with their twitching net curtains and the handful of shops where eyes followed you. Too much like Kirkinwall where centuries-old prejudice ganged up against anything that might whiff of homosexuality.

On the other hand, he was unlikely to come back to this dump of a town ever again. "Splendid!" he pitched his voice high and channelled Lillian once more. Gordon turned, puzzled, and then amused.

"I say, do you think they'll have haggis for dinner? I hope so."

"They will have phoned the hotel by now," Gordon said once they were outside, the wind picking its way back into the gaps where Kippy's clothing did not cover him.

"Aye?" Voice normal once more, Kippy followed him. Gordon strode ahead, along the main street and taking a sharp left up a hill.

"Told them to expect a couple of poofs. We'll be stoned to death before we even get in there."

Ah. There it was then. An invitation. Ask me if I am one.

"Did me and Dode bully you when you were a wee boy?" Kippy chose the different question.

Gordon nodded, making Kippy stop. Fitting, wasn't it, that the wind howled around them whipping Gordon's badly in need of a cut hair around his head?

"I'm sorry," Kippy said, "kids are arseholes. And..."

Gordon had stopped, his head tipping to the Tennents sign in front of them, the big T in the lager glass swinging back and forth. "This is it. You said you wanted haggis for dinner, didn't you? Shall we see if it's on the menu?"

He asked for two rooms, making Kippy's heart ache with the pathos of it. My friend and I...

Your friend who longs to sneak along the corridor in the dead of night, knock on your door and ask to come in...

The woman, old, battle-axed and likely the recipient of that phone call Gordon had talked about, glared at them. "We've only the one room."

Gordon looked at him, a man asking permission. Kippy jutted his jaw forward.

"Wonderful!" Gordon declared, echoing Kippy's earlier camp-as-Christmas over the topness. "Alan and I adore sharing a bed."

The woman's face expressed disgust. Money was money, though. She pushed her register towards Gordon and asked him to sign.

The hotel had a payphone in its small bar. As soon as they'd booked in, both of them had phoned their respective mothers to break the disappointing news, Gordon's gleeful smile a contrast to his sombre tone.

"Can't be helped, Mother. Pass my apologies on to Rose. Perhaps I'll catch up with her after Christmas."

Upstairs in the bedroom—a too-twee affair of tartan carpets, terrible pictures of Scottie dogs, and a window that looked straight onto the bins out the back—they sat on the candlewick-covered bed.

"I'm gay," Kippy said. Maybe it was obvious, maybe it wasn't. Better to be sure. And Gordon, he realized, was the first person from Kirkinwall he'd admitted it to.

"So am I!" Gordon flopped back onto the bed, spreading out his arms. "I hate Kirkinwall. I loathe going back there."

Kippy tipped back to join him. "Why? Have they marked you out as the only gay in the village?"

Gordon's hand had somehow crept into his. Kippy squeezed it, the sharing of years of experience where men hid themselves from what they were. Two arms stretched across a space.

"The only gay virgin."

The words lurked there. Kippy, his gay cherry something only recently popped, didn't know if he had the confidence to do what his libido dictated. 'Roll on top of him,' it instructed. 'Start with a kiss, then move your mouth downwards, linger on the nipples and lick slowly from the belly button to the groin where you will...'

Gordon shifted his head, grinning at him, expression half excited, half worried.

"Alan," he said, the name breathed out in a half-sigh, "do whatever you want to me. And then tell me what I should do to you."

Kippy propped himself up on an elbow. Gordon had rolled onto his side too, facing him. His mouth hung open, Adam's apple moving furiously.

Nerves. The desperation to try something he had fantasized about for so long. Kippy recognized it well. He reached out and touched Gordon's face, letting his fingers rest on his mouth.

"If you say so, aye..."

*****

Later, in the dining room, Kippy leaned in to whisper his words. "The staff will have spat on our food." The waitress who'd taken their order had appeared wide-eyed, staring at them for far longer than was polite. When she put their soup first course in front of them, it was lukewarm and had been poured straight from a tin.

Gordon grinned. The change that had come over him in the last few hours was remarkable. Here they were, in one of Scotland's shittiest locations, and the man did his best to look like a loon.

"Who cares? We're the ones who got away, Alan. Escaped dumps like this place. Once I'm qualified, I'll never go back to Kirkinwall. Never. D'you want that bread roll, by the way? I'll eat it if you don't."

He stopped, smirking.

"I'm fair starvin' myself."

Fifteen years later

He didn't do newspapers. What did they ever bring you but doom and gloom? Today, though. The Herald had chosen to feature his latest exhibition, awarding it two whole pages. A biggie.

John had left the paper on the dining table, the pages marked down. Kippy picked it up, freshly brewed coffee in hand. He sat down. Their west end flat often amused him. "You paid what for that?" his mother's voice. "Cannae believe an eejit would want tae splash out that much for a wee bittie hoose that doesnae even have its ane garden!"

Too egotistical to read your reviews first, Kippy decided, starting at the beginning of the paper. He skim-read, waiting for something to grab his attention. Two pages in, it did.

Best known for his strong views on Scottish nationalism, Gordon Campbell-Smythe was a combative figure in politics...

That cold December night... what, ten years ago? More. It had been around the time of his first term at the art school. By the time he and Gordon left the hotel the next day, the camaraderie had begun to disappear—grains of sand trickling through the hourglass.

Kippy sensed them both pulling on another pair of clothes—the uniform that made you fit back into the small town you'd come from. Neither of them bothered to say, Call me when you get back to Glasgow, when Kippy opened the Land Rover door and let himself out.

He handed over the loose change in his pockets—the petrol contribution Gordon had talked about—and wondered what he'd just paid for. Not to say anything when Gordon returned to that draughty sitting room and sat next to Rose?

Who was she? Another landowner's child dangled in front of the son and heir?

Yes, as it turned out. Better known these days as Rose Campbell-Smythe, pink-cheeked, elegantly chignoned, and the mother of two.

What happened to you, Gordon?

He knew the public story well enough. Campbell-Smythe went straight into politics, his rise through the Tory ranks dizzyingly fast. He'd never go back to Kirkinwall, he'd told Kippy. But there he was, regularly pictured in the area shaking hands with other ruddy-faced landowners and promising them the Conservative Party was their best bet.

That one-time long ago encounter seemed to have escaped press attention, something of a miracle. Did that ancient garage owner and the battle-axe in the hotel die before Gordon became someone of consequence—the story of the men who disgusted them one they took to their graves?

There were rumours he was a heavy drinker.

Campbell-Smythe was found dead in his office last night. The cause of his death is still to be established, but police have ruled out any suspicious circumstances.

Kippy put the paper down, his reaction startling him. Eyes watering. Heart thumping painfully. An overwhelming sense of gratitude for his own much happier circumstances.

The ones that got away... He heard Gordon's words tumbling down the years towards him.

Aye, I did.

I wish you had, too.