Glasgow, February 1993

Kippy visited Kirkcudbright fleetingly in February, his excuse for staying only two nights that he needed to get back to prepare for the end of the year show and his exams. His mum accepted the explanation without protesting, shaking her head a little sadly and asking about that lovely girl Lillian.

His gran, the formidable Mrs Burnett, owner of Braemar Quality B&B in the town eyed him up appraisingly when he went to visit. You only ever had a limited window to see her. Anytime before 12pm was out because she would be too busy clearing up after breakfast and the departure of last night's guests, while 3pm onwards was also verboten as new guests arrived to check in.

She looked smaller, older and more tired than he remembered. Running a B&B was demanding work. Surely, she should retire now. 'Quality' had always been an optimistic description of the Braemar. If he'd been there for the two weeks of the holiday, he would have offered to paint the place for her. His gran had a weird design sense. She liked clashing patterns and noisy wallpaper. He'd have stripped it all out, painting it in warm, neutral colours and gifting her with some of his own charcoal sketches of the town.

"Would ye?" she asked when he told her of what he would have done. "That's awfy noble. Your drawings might be worth a bob or two in a few years' time."

Her voice was almost always sardonic, so it was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

Now, she looked at him afresh. "There's somethin' different about you. I cannae put my finger on it."

If he couldn't tell his mother he was gay, he was hardly going to tell his grandmother.

"The art school life must suit you," she said, finally. She was not a woman to be rushed with her opinions. "It must give you something you never got here."

Sometimes, she was unnerving.

"D'ye hear from Katrina much?" She sounded wistful at that. Katrina had often helped her gran out at the B&B, and they were close, as close as two people who chose to keep their feelings permanently buttoned up could be.

"I saw her at New Year. You know she's doing some stuff in telly now, dong hair and make-up for them."

Mrs Burnett nodded. "Aye. The TV people making the programme with that daft peacock. I'll no' be watching that."

The daft peacock comment made Kippy smile. Mrs Burnett had never been Mick's number one fan. She probably watched Katrina's pre-occupation with him too and shook her head. Mick wouldn't be any grandmother's choice for her favourite girl.

He thought the comment about not watching the programme was a lie. How could anyone from Kirkcudbright resist—one of their ane sons on the telly, a big star? He reckoned that when the programme went out, the good folks of the town would gather in each other's homes, sitting around the TV and ready to deliver their verdicts long before the closing credits came up.

"Enjoy yoursel'" were her last words to him before she let him out of the door. He returned to Glasgow, relieved. He no longer felt he belonged in Kirkcudbright and the walls around the harbour car park had hemmed him in. He had crossed the streets uneasily, feeling as if the passers-by stared at him, or they watched him from their windows.

The place was too small, too old-fashioned and too dull. He longed for the roar of traffic, the streets crowded with shops and pubs that were always open, and the feeling you could go someplace where no-one knew you at all.

Back in Glasgow, Lillian pounced on him as soon as he returned. She must have been listening out for him, as she knocked on the door only minutes after he had turned the key in the lock.

This Lillian wasn't one he had seen before. Her cheeks were streaked where tears had run through the thick foundation she was wearing, and her eyes were swollen.

"What's wrong?" He dumped his bags on the floor and indicated that she sit down. She sank onto his bed, lying out fully stretched and fixing her gaze on the ceiling.

"Kippy, I'm going to FAIL!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The end of the year project. I. Just. Can't. Do. It. I shouldn't be here. I'm a fraud and a fake. They probably only let me in because I'm a girl and they needed a quota of women or something. Either that or my dad bunged them a load of cash and begged them to take me. I wouldn't put it past him."

"Do you really think that Glasgow School of Art can be bribed to take in students?" He plugged in the small travel kettle his mum had given him and made them both a cup of tea. Lillian always said she much preferred coffee, but she took the drink gratefully.

"Have you got any hob-nobs?"

Oh, god. She'd sprinkle crumbs all over his nice clean sheets. He handed them over anyway and tried not to wince when she split the packet and biscuit fragments dusted the duvet cover.

"What's the matter with your end of the year project. Looks fine to me," he said, taking the packet from her so she couldn't do too much damage.

Lillian's end of the year project had favoured environmental art. It was a mosaic piece using scrap food wrappings that took its inspiration from Jessie M. King. Lillian said she had always loved the illustrations in children's books more than the stories, so her project borrowed from the woman who was best-known for her beautiful pictures. It showed a female figure in a forest and made use of lots of greens and blues, so the whole thing seemed like the encapsulation of nature and all its bounteous glory.

"I can't do it anymore," she said and drew a folded-up piece of paper from her pocket. "This is what it should look like. She handed over the page. Unfolding it, Kippy saw it was her sketch of what the mosaic was meant to resemble, a roughly-drawn pencil sketch that showed the figure and the outline of trees and bushes. She'd made notes either side of the drawing too, outlining what colours she would use and the effects she was aiming for.

"I still don't see what's wrong with it," Kippy said, refolding the piece of paper and returning it to her.

"The effects! They aren't right. I wanted it to suggest mysticism. My woman just looks lumpy. She doesn't look ethereal."

Kippy had to agree. He'd taken to calling the figure in Lillian's painting, Marje—a name that seemed to suggest solidity. Her form was rounded and her features blunt, the outline of her face sharp against the background.

"Maybe she shouldn't be mystical, then," he said. "Contrast the real with the magical forest kind of thing."

Lillian screwed her nose up and then began to nod slowly. That might work.

"John was asking after you, by the way. He was here the other day, dropped in to give me a belated Christmas present. I should show you what he got me, something very handy. You don't expect men to ever buy anything that's –"

"Lillian," he interrupted her before the flow of information overwhelmed him. To be honest, he'd stopped listening after 'John'.

"What did he say?" he hoped his voice was an exercise in studied casualness. Best not give Lillian the weapon of knowing just how he felt about John.

"Oh, just wanted to know how you are getting on, at art. And the other thing."

"The other thing?"

"Being gay, you muppet," she exclaimed. "He remembers you from that party. You must have got a bit drunk and told him you were just out or something."

And the rest. Some sense of self-preservation had always stopped him from telling Lillian just how he and John had spent their time together all those months ago. A good thing, too. She'd probably see it as her duty to then set them up. And that would be embarrassing.

Or it might be...incredible.

"What did you tell him?" he asked, again at pains to keep the voice as light as possible.

Lillian was back to making notes on her picture of Marje and eyeing his packet of hob-nobs speculatively. She hadn't moved off his bed, so he might as well accept that waking up the next few mornings to crumbs that had managed to burrow themselves into every crevice was his lot.

"I told him you were everyone's star pupil," she announced grandly. "And that you now shag everything that moves."

Oh. God.

He remembered one thing about John vividly. It wasn't the waking up in his bed the next morning, and seeing him standing there in his Lycra shorts, though that was crystal clear too, the vision reinforced through constant conjuring up for wanking material. No, what he remembered most was standing outside Delmonica's, cigarette in hand, when John took it from him.

The feel of his fingers on his mouth had lingered a long time. He'd fleshed the whole thing out in his mind, imagining moving to the next stage, and the next. In his mind, they were never in public toilets or a dingy alleyway. They were always in a bed. It was almost embarrassing in its soppiness.

Jordan and he never did it in bed.

Ah yes, Jordan. He'd turned up at Alt-Feast unexpectedly. Seconds after they'd seen each other, they'd been outside, the January chilliness no deterrent. Jordan got on his knees in front of him and repeated the expert blow job he'd done when he initiated Kippy into gay-dom.

He hadn't given Kippy his number. Kippy hadn't asked. But he did turn up at the Student Union regularly, and the unspoken agreement was that they always had sex. Kippy occasionally took himself to Delmonica's at the end of the night. He'd stand outside, smoking and waiting.

Bible John and all his crew were usually there, and they chanted at him. Once, an earnest young woman made her way over to him and told him quite seriously that homosexuality could be cured through repentance, Bible Study and the love of a good woman.

He nodded along, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth so that it didn't hit her in the face.

"I don't know any good women," he said, when she eventually drew breath, pausing after yet another anecdote where some misguided gay dude renounced his sins and saw the hetero light.

She was, he could tell, about to jump in there and offer up the happy coincidence—well, I'm a good 'un, so he repeated the John trick, pressing his finger to her mouth, then putting it in front of his own and sucking on it.

"Plus, I love cock."

The bouncers joined him in pissing themselves laughing as she stalked away.

Jordan often invited him in, and they'd make use of that back room or even the pool table, almost always on the understanding that Kippy was never to turn up there at the same time. Predictability, Jordan said, was the pits.

"Anyway, you can tell him yourself next week," Lillian said now, throwing the half-empty packet of hob-nobs at him. "He's invited to this do I'm organising on behalf of the Aged Ps. Promise you'll come along. I need all the support I can get."