The Summer of '93

"It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht

On the Sunday night I left home with my baggage slightly enhanced for my date. The Herald House - I found it a very gloomy hotel and it had some unsavoury shadows looming in the entrance. The entrance was dark and the rooms were dated and dingy. Breakfast was included but the hotel was in walking distance of the office; there was parking and the beds were comfortable enough.

I was surprisingly feeling an overpowering sense of lightness and excitement at the prospect of seeing Ali again.  The dates and places had been misaligned and a sense of reliability on his part has been decidedly lacking. The last time he was drunk in a bar but coherent. I couldn't ever imagine Dionisis drunk like that, but enough of those thoughts, enough! I walked out of the office and found the pub entrance. Ali was nestled in a quiet corner at a table to himself. He was drinking a beer and he looked exceedingly smart. He was wearing a dark sage green suit. It had been a long, drawn out day for me so a bit of a night out was very welcome. I collected a lemonade, drew in a long, deep breath. I nodded and smiled at him as I caught his eye. Once my drink was served I walked over to his table and sat down beside him. "It's good to see you." I said and smiled. He put his drink down and looked at me.

"How you doin?"He was obviously very nervous. Ali was playing with a beermat. It was being spun in his fingers and then he started to rip it into shreds. Yes, he was nervous for sure.
"So what have you been up to?" I asked. I studied his face. He had a pristine short back and sides with long, sun kissed blonde tresses on top. Where the hair was cut it was a contrasting mousy brown. He was wearing a shirt underneath and he'd obviously made an effort. Ali was polished, and was just how I remembered him to be but, but right now, was more sober. The fragrance of stale ale, aromas of food from the kitchen mingled and it had the odd waft of Eau de Ali. I relaxed into the chair as he spoke and I managed to ignore the flashing lights of the fruit machine in the corner, the loud shouting intermittently from the bar, and the background chatter nearby.

"Well" he responded, "things a quite quiet just now at work. So it's good to be on leave. Yeah it's good and it's odd being back at the barracks. And I hate doing the tattoo. It's a bind. But I should get through to see my Mum and Dad's at some point. But the difficulty is without having a car it is a little bit difficult to get about. So I have been reading lots of Nigel Tranter."

This Man was in a serious mood but again I think it was his nerves. We talked at length. I was surprisingly very nervous too.
"So what do you know about Scotland and its history?" he asked me.
"Just the usual", I said, details "about the royal family and the clearances and the issues about wearing tartan."

"But what do you know about the real Scottish history?" His eyes were intent on mine. I stared back and was close and brazen enough to dissect the flecks that made up the parts of his eye colour, so bright and vivid. My gaze widened out to his complexion and nose, tracing the outline of his mouth. 
"Probably not as much as you." I said. So Ali shared with me about how passionate he was about Scottish history. On the table there was a pepper pot and a salt pot and he used those to illustrate the history. "I read a lot about Scottish history as it passes the time in the barracks."

"What's it like being posted in Berlin?" I asked.
"It's a good City." he confirmed.

"But, what about the cold?" I questioned.

"Well, the winters are very cold but the summers make up for it and I like the bars in Berlin."
"And what about getting around the City?"
"Well, that's easy," he smiled, and wriggled in his chair, ripping up another beermat as he spoke, "there's a really good autobahn system if you're not driving and the Metro is really good and really efficient."
"But what about the currency, doesn't it have an expensive cost of living?" I quizzed.
"Yes, it is expensive, if you're going out for meals but if you have your dinner in the barracks then it's quite cheap, plus we have the NAAFI."
"My mum used to work in an office in the NAAFI, that's how she met my Dad."
"Well," he quipped, "nothing has changed since those days! A lot of the squaddies buy cars tax free for peanuts so there's a lot of people driving really smart BMWs, because they have not had to pay tax on it."
"What happens if you leave the army, what do they do then?"
"They just drive the car back I suppose."
I asked "Do you drive?"
"No, no I haven't got round to learning."