"Let's go down Shore Road and drop some whisky on that grave dad hit!" Lewis shouted suddenly. "Mr Andrew McDobbie 1823–1875 and his wife Moira 1821–1903 deserve to be thought of at this time!"

"Ugh, you ghoul," said Verity.

"No," I said. "It's a great idea. Verity; to the church!"

Which is how we came to find Helen Urvill and Dean Watt wandering through Gallanach along Shore Road, arm in arm. Dean was playing — necessarily softly — on his Stratocaster, while Helen held a bottle of Jack Daniels. They were being followed by a bemused-looking dog.

"Happy New Year!" shouted Dean Watt, and struck a chord. There ensued a great deal of Happy New Years; the mongrel that had been following Helen and Dean joined in by barking.

There were lots of hugs and handshakes and kisses too, before Helen Urvill yelled, "Yo Verity!" as she hung on Dean's shoulder and breathed bourbon fumes at us. "You sober, girl?"

"Yep," Verity nodded briskly. "Want a lift anywhere?"

Helen swung woozily round to look at Dean, who was fiddling with a machine-head. "Well, we were heading back for the castle… " She frowned deeply, and her eyes flicked around a bit. "I think… " She shrugged; her thick black eyebrows waggled. "But if you're going somewhere…»

"Let's go somewhere," Verity said to Lewis, who was in the passenger's seat. "Somewhere further." She nudged Lewis.

"Okay," Lewis said. "Got a full tank; where we going to go?"

"Oban!"

"Boring!"

"Glasgow!"

"What for?"

"How about," I suggested, over the noise of the barking hound. "That bit north of Tighnabruaich, where you can look out over the Kyles of Bute? That's a nice bit of scenery."

"Brilliant!" Lewis said.

"Great idea!"

"Let's go!"

"Get in, then."

"And let's take the dog."

"Is it car-trained?"

"Who cares? We can point it over the side if it comes to it."

"Fuck it, yeah, let's take the mutt."

"Might not want to come," Dean said, and handed the Fender to Lewis, who put it at his feet with the neck by the door, while Dean knelt down by the side of the dog, which was sniffing at the rear wheel of the Escort.

"Course it wants to come," Helen said, with the conviction only the truly drunk can muster. "Not a dog been born doesn't like sticking its nose out a car window."

"Here you go," grunted Dean, lifting a puzzled-looking canine of medium build, indeterminate breed and brownly brindled coat into the car and onto my lap.

"Hey, thanks," I said, as Helen clambered in beside me and Dean squeezed in on her far side. "So it's me that gets to find out if this beast's shit-scared of driving."

"Ah, stop whining," Helen said, and pulled the fishy-smelling dog away from me to plonk it in Dean's lap.

"All set?" asked Verity.

"I wonder if its wee eyes'll light up when the brakes go on?" Dean said, trying to look into them.

"All set!" Helen yelled, then did some yodelling as we did a U-turn and went smoothly back through the town. Helen offered me some Jack Daniels, which I accepted. We still shouted Happy New Year! at people, and the dog barked enthusiastically in accompaniment; it didn't seem in the least discomfited when we left Gallanach and headed through Lochgilphead and away.

We stopped briefly at Lochgair. I ran into the house. Mum was up, washing dishes. I kissed and hugged her and said we'd be a few hours. Not to worry; Verity was bright as a button and so sober it ought to constitute a crime in Scotland at this time on a Hogmanay morning. She told me to make sure nobody else drove, then, and be careful. She made me take a load of sandwiches, dips and God-knows what, two bottles of mineral water and a flask of coffee she'd just made, and I staggered out the house and had to put most of it in the convertible's rather small boot, but then that was that and off we went through the calm, brightening day, playing lots of very loud music and munching through the various bits and pieces of food I hadn't stashed in the boot. Dog liked the garlic dip best.

"I don't give a fuck what colour he is; a man who can't pronounce his own name shouldn't be in charge of the most destructive military machine the world has ever seen," I heard Lewis say, while I sat looking at Dean Watt, and thought, Shit, not again.

"She did, did she?" I said, trying to look pleased. "Well. Good for her. Nice chap, is he?"

Dean shrugged. "Okay, ah suppose."

We were sitting on the rocks beyond the car-park crash barrier at the viewpoint above West Glen, overlooking the Kyles of Bute. The island itself stretched away to the south, all pastel and shade in the slightly watery light of this New Year's morning. The waters of the sound looked calmly ruffled, reflecting milky stretches of the lightly clouded sky.

Damn, I thought.

Ashley had got off with somebody at Liz and Droid's party. Dancin and winchin, as Dean had put it. Then gone off together. And suddenly I felt like it had happened again. Maybe not quite as stylish as jumping off your uncle's Range Rover into your future husband's arms, but just as effective. My heart didn't exactly go melt-down this time, but it still wasn't too pleasant a feeling.

Dean seemed happy to adjust his Strat and pick out the occasional tiny, tinny-sounded phrase; Lewis and Verity and Helen were arguing about the coming war. Or at least Lewis was ranting and they were having to listen.

"Aw, Hell," Lewis said. "I'm not arguing he isn't an evil bastard…

Ashley, I thought, staring out into the view. Ashley, what was I thinking of? Why had I taken it so slow? What had I been frightened of? Why hadn't I said anything?

Hadn't I known what it was I wanted to say?

" — democracy and freedom, what Our Brave Boys are actually going to be fighting for is to restore the nineteenth century to Kuwait and defend the seventeenth century in Saudi Arabia."

Now I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but it might already be too late. The knowledge and the provenance of its uselessness were the same; a feeling of loss I couldn't deny. Did that mean I was in love with her? If I was, it felt quite different from what I'd felt for Verity. (Verity sat at Lewis's side, huddled in her leggings and leathers and wearing Lewis's startlingly bright skiing jacket, all orange and purple and lime; she looked like a little psychedelic blonde Buddha perched on the tartan car rug.) Something calmer than that, something slower.

" — ternational law is only so goddman sacrosanct when it isn't something awkward like the World Court telling America to quit mining Nicaraguan harbours."

But perhaps I was wrong about Ash being interested in me, anyway. Ashley was the one I remembered talking to in the Jac that evening after Grandma Margot's cremation; she was the one who kept telling me to tell Verity I loved her. If you love her, tell her. Wasn't that what she'd said? So if Ashley felt anything for me beyond friendship, why hadn't she said anything to me? And if she did feel anything, what was she doing going off with this friend of Droid's?

" — next time the US wants to invade somewhere and see what happens; out'll come that good old veto again. Heck, we got lots of practice using that. We'll do it if the Yanks don't. Panama? This place with the ditch? You don't like the guy in power any more after paying him all that CIA drug money over the years? Ah, why not? On you go. Seven thousand dead? Never mind, we can hush that up."

Could I finally be right, and a woman was taking up with somebody else to make me feel jealous? I doubted it. Maybe she had been patiently waiting for me to tell her how I felt, or make some sort of move, and now she was fed up waiting, so all bets were off. But why should she have been so passive? Was Ashley that old-fashioned? Didn't sound like it; from what she'd told me, it was her who went after that Texan systems analyst, not the other way round. If she'd fancied me at all she'd have said or done something about it before now, wouldn't she?