She turned, grinning, to him. 'What did you say this place was called?' He looked at the map he was carrying, shrugged.

'Penielhaugh, I think,' he said. She laughed.

'Penile-haugh. Wonder if we can get inside.' She went to a small door. There were three large boulders resting against it. She tried to roll them away.

'You'll be lucky,' he told her. He pushed and heaved the rocks away. The little door opened. She clapped her hands and went in.

'Wow,' she said, as hejoined her. The tower was hollow, just a single tube of stone. It was dark, the earth floor was covered in pigeon droppings and tiny, soft feathers, and the noise of the disturbed, cooing birds echoed faintly in the darkness. Sudden flapping sounded like fading, uncertain applause. High above, a few birds flew across dusty beams of light shining from the wooden cupola. The air was rich with the smell of the birds. A single narrow stairway - stones set jutting from the wall - spiralled up into the light-capped gloom.

'Amazing place,' he breathed.

'How sweet the sound ... Tolkienesque, as they used to say,' she said, her head back, looking straight up, mouth open. He went over to the bottom of the spiralling stairs. There was a narrow metal rail set on spindly, rather rusted-looking rods. He thought: a century and a half old, if it's original. More. Even older. He shook it, dubious.

'Think it's safe?' she asked him. Her voice was low; he looked up again. It looked like a very long way to the top. A hundred and fifty feet? Two hundred? He thought about the rocks which had been rolled against the door. She gazed up too, caught a falling feather and looked at it. He shrugged.

'What the hell.' He started up the stone steps. She started after him immediately. He stopped. 'Let me get ahead a bit first; I'm heavier.' He went on up another twenty or so steps, keeping his feet close to the wall, not using the iron rail. She followed, not coming too close. 'Probably quite all right,' he told her half-way up, looking down towards the small circle of dark spattered earth at the base of the tower. 'Probably find the local rugby team trains by running up and down this every day.'

'Sure,' was all she said.

They got to the top. It was a broad, octagonal platform of grey-painted wood; thick timbers, solid planks and a firm, secure set of rails. They were both breathing hard when they got there. His heart was hammering.

It was a clear day. They stood getting their breath back, the wind stroking their hair. He breathed in the fresh, cool air and walked round the airy circle, drinking in the view and taking a few photographs.

'Think we can see England from here?' she said, coming over to him. He was gazing north, wondering if a distant smudge on the horizon, over the other side of some distant hills, was above Edinburgh. He made a mental note to buy a pair of binoculars for keeping in the car. He looked round.

'Soitinly,' he said. 'Good grief, you could probably see your mother from here on a really clear day.'

She put her arms round his waist and cuddled him, her head on his chest. He stroked her hair. 'Really?' she said. 'How about Paris?'

He sighed, looked away from her, over the border countryside, across low hills, woods and fields and hedges. 'Yeah, maybe Paris.' He looked into her green eyes. 'I think you can see Paris from almost anywhere.' She said nothing, just hugged him some more. He kissed the crown of her head. 'Are you really coming back?'

'Yes,' she said, and he could feel her head nodding, rubbing against his chest. 'Yes, I'm coming back.'

He gazed at the distant landscape for a while, watching the wind move the tops of the serried firs. He laughed once, just a sudden shrugging motion of his shoulders, a noise in his chest.

'What?' she said, not looking up.

'I was just thinking,' he said. 'I don't suppose if I asked you to marry me, you'd say yes, would you?' He stroked her hair. She looked up slowly, an expression he could not read shown on her calm face.

'I don't suppose I would either,' she said slowly, her eyes flickering, switching from one of his eyes to the other, a tiny frown etched in between her deep, dark brows. He shrugged, looked away again.

'Well, never mind,' he said.

She hugged him once more, head on chest. 'Sorry kid. It'd be you, if anybody. It just isn't me.'

'Yeah, what the hell,' he said, 'I don't suppose it's me either. I just don't want to be apart from you for so long again.'

'I don't think we ever have to be again.' The wind blew some of her red, glossy hair up against his face, tickling his nose. 'It isn't just Edinburgh, you know, it's you as well,' she told him quietly. 'I need my own place, and I dare say I'll always be too easily led astray by a soft voice or a nice bum, but... well, it's up to you. You sure you don't want to look for a nice wee wifey?' She looked up at him, grinning.

'Oh,' he said, nodding, 'pretty damn certain.'

She kissed him, lightly at first. He leant back against one of the grey square posts of the tower's superstructure, clutching her buttocks and rolling his tongue round inside her mouth, thinking, Well if the damn post gives way, what the hell; I may never be this happy again. There are worse ways to go.

She pulled away from him, a familiar, ironic smirk on her face. 'Yi talked me inta it, yi sweet-talkin bestid.' He laughed and pulled her back.

'You insatiable hussy.'

'You bring out the best in me.' She fondled his balls through his jeans, stroked his erection.

'Anyway, I thought your period had started.'

'Good God man, not afraid of a little bit of blood are you?'

'No of course not, but I haven't brought any tissues or -'

'Oh why are men so fucking fastidious?' she growled, biting his chest through his shirt and pulling a thin white scarf from a pocket in her jacket like a magician producing a rabbit. 'Use this, if you must mop up.' She covered his mouth with hers. He pulled her shirt out of her trousers, looked at the scarf held in his other hand.

'This is silk,' he told her.

She pulled his zip down. 'You better believe it kid; I deserve the best.'

Afterwards they lay still, shivering a little in the breeze of a cool July day as it moved through the painted wooden structure. He told her her aureoles were like pink washers, her nipples like little marshmallow bolts, and the tiny puckered slits at their tips like slots for a screwdriver. She laughed quietly, dozily, amused at such comparisons. She looked up at him, a sort of ironical, roguish expression on her face. 'Do you really love me?' she said, apparently unbelieving. He shrugged.

''Fraid so.'

'You're a fool,' she chided gently, lifting one hand to play with a lock of his hair, smiling at it.

'You think so,' he said, lowering himself for a moment, kissing the tip of her nose.

'Yes,' she said. 'I am fickle and selfish.'

'You are generous and independent.' He brushed some windblown hair away from near her eyes. She laughed, shook her head.

'Well, love is blind,' she said.

'So they tell us.' He sighed. 'Can't see it myself.'