I'd met the sublime Verity for the first time in some years in the observatory, one coal-sack-black moonless night in 1986, a few days before I left to go to University, when I was already full of the exhilaration and fear of departure and independence, and the whole huge world seemed to be opening up before me, like some infinite blossom of opportunity and glamour. The twins had taken to having star-gazing parties in the cold, cramped hemisphere which protruded from the summit of the compact castle, and I'd arrived late after being out on the hill with little brother James during the afternoon and then suffering a delayed tea because some friends of dad's had showed up unannounced and had to be catered for.

"Aye, it's yourself, Prentice," boomed Mrs McSpadden, informatively. "And how are you?" Mrs McSpadden was the Urvill's housekeeper; a rotundly buxom lady of perpetual middle-age with a big baw-face that gave the impression of being freshly scrubbed. She had a very loud voice and dad always told people that she hailed from Fife. A ringing noise in one's ears after a close encounter with the lady tended to enforce the impression this was literally true. "The rest are up there. Will you take this tray up? There's coffee in these pots; you just turn the wee spot to the front here, ken, and — " She lifted the corner of a heavy napkin smothering a very large plate. " — there's hot sausage rolls under here."

"Right, thanks," I said, lifting the tray. I'd come in through the castle kitchen; entering through the main door after it had been shut for the night could be a performance. I made for the stairs.

"Here, Prentice; take this scarf up to Miss Helen," Mrs McSpadden said, flourishing the article. "That lassie'll catch her death of cold up there one night, so she will."

I bowed my head so that Mrs S could put the scarf over my neck.

"And mind them there's plenty of bread, and some chicken in the fridge, and cheese, and plenty of soup forbye, if you get hungry again."

"Right, thanks," I repeated, and jogged carefully upstairs.

"Anybody got any roach paper?"

I squeezed into the brightly-lit dome of the observatory; it was about three metres in diameter, made from aluminium, the telescope took up a lot of it, and it was cold, despite a wee two-bar electric heater. A modestly proportioned ghetto-blaster was playing something by the Cocteau Twins. Diana and Helen, bundled in enormous Mongolian quilted jackets, were crouched round a small table with Darren Watt, playing cards. My elder brother, Lewis, was at the telescope. We all said our hellos. This is cousin Verity. Remember her?" Helen said, as she draped the scarf I'd brought her over Darren's head. Helen pointed at a cloud of smoke, and as it blew towards me and cleared I saw her.

There was a sort of cubby-hole in the non-rotating part of the observatory, built into the attic of the castle's main block. It was just a long cupboard really, but you could coorie down into it to make more space in the dome proper. Verity Walker was lying in a sleeping bag there, only her upper half protruding into the dome; she was smoking one joint and rolling another, on the cover of a pictorial atlas of the universe. "Evening," she said. "Got any roach paper?"

"Yeah; hi," I said. I put the tray down, searched my pockets, pulled out some stuff. The last time I'd seen Verity Walker, maybe five or six years earlier, she'd been a scrawny tyke with a mouth full of orthodontic brace-work and a serious Shakin" Stevens habit. Now — once seen through the smoke — she had short, pure blonde hair, and a delicate, almost elfin face which tapered to an exquisite chin that looked like it had been made to be grasped lightly in three fingers and pulled closer to your lips… well, to my lips, anyway. Her eyes were the blue of old sea-ice, and when I saw her complexion all I could think was: Wow; Lloyd Cole city! Because she had perfect skin.

That'll do." She took something from my hand. "Thanks."

"Hey! That's a library ticket!" I grabbed it back. "Here." I handed her half a book token my mother had given me.

"Thanks." She started cutting it with a little pair of scissors.

"It's just a tokin" token," I told her, squatting down beside her.

She grunted with laughter, and my heart performed manoeuvres that the connecting plumbing makes topologically impossible.

"All set for the big move, bro?" Lewis grinned down from the wee seat under the eye-piece of the telescope. He reached over to the table where I'd set the tray down and started pouring coffee into the mugs. My big brother has always seemed more than two years older than me; a little taller than my 1.85, and a little more thick-set, he looked bigger still at the time thanks to a beard of the burst-sofa persuasion. Back then, it was his turn to be in disgrace with my father, because he'd just dropped out of University.

"Yeah, all set," I told him. "Found a place to stay." I nodded at the telescope. "Anything interesting tonight?"

"Got it on the Pleiades just now. Take a look."

We took turns star-gazing, playing cards, crouching round the little electric heater, and constructing joints. I'd brought a half bottle of whisky, and the twins had some brandy, which we used to beef up the coffee. The munchies struck again an hour or so after we'd polished off the last of the sausage rolls; the twins mounted an expedition into the depths of the castle in search of the mythical Soup Dragon (we spoke in Clanger while they were gone) and returned with a steaming tureen and a half-dozen bowls.

"Where're you staying in Glasgow, Prentice?" Darren Watt asked.

"Hyndland," I said, slurping my soup. "Lauderdale Gardens."

"Ah, that's no far from us. Going to be around on the thirtieth? We're having a party."

"Oh, ah, yeah; probably." (Actually, I'd been going to come home that weekend, but I could juggle things.)

"Ah well, come along; should be fun."

Thanks."

Darren Watt was in his last year at Art School and — for me, at least — had been the epitome of cool since New Year two years earlier. After the bells, mum had driven Lewis and me into Gallanach; we went to a party Droid and his chums were giving. Darren had been there; blond, lean, drop-dead bone structure, and exuding style. I'd admired the looped silk scarf he'd worn over a red velvet jacket that would have looked silly on most people but in which he looked totally poised. He'd given me the scarf, and — when I'd tried to demur — explained he was growing bored with it; better it went to somebody who would appreciate it, though he hoped I'd hand it on too, if I ever tired of it.

So I took it. It was just an ordinary silk scarf, given a half twist and the ends carefully sewn together, but that, of course, made it a Mobius scarf, the very idea of which I just thought was wonderful. I thought Darren was pretty wonderful, too, and for a while wondered if maybe I was gay, too, but decided against it. In fact, a large part of the attraction of an invite to a party at Darren's place was due to the fact his flat-mates were three salivatingly attractive and reputedly enthusiastically heterosexual female arts students (I'd met them when he'd brought them to Gallanach on a day trip the previous year).

"You still making models of these wave-powered hoodjie-ma-flips?" I asked him, finishing my soup. Darren was wiping his plate with a bit of bread, and I found myself copying him.

"Aye," he said, looking thoughtful. "Looks like I've found a sponsor for the real thing, too."

"What? Really?"

Darren grinned. "Big cement company's interested; talking about a serious money grant."

"Wow! Congratulations."

For the last eighteen months or so, Darren had been making these tenth-scale wood and plastic models of sculptures he wanted to build full size in concrete and steel one day. The idea was to construct these things on a beach; he'd need planning permission, ots of money, and waves. The sculptures were wave-powered mobiles and fountains. When a wave struck them a giant wheel would revolve, or air would be forced through pipes, producing weird, chest-shaking, cathedral-demolishing bass notes and uncanny howls and moans, or the water in the waves themselves would be channelled, funnelled, and emerge in a whale-like spout of spray, bursting from the top or sides of the sculpture. They sounded great, perfectly feasible, and I wanted to see one work, so this was good news.