Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

Gree.’
    She nodded to herself, as though some datum had been
confirmed, and smiled at me.
    ‘So, colha Gree, are you going to ask me for a
dance?’
    I jumped to my feet, amazed. ‘Yes, of course. Would you
do me the honour?’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said. She took my hand in a warm,
dry grasp and rose gracefully, merging that movement with her
first step. It was a fast dance to a traditional air, ‘The
Tactical Boys’. Talking was impossible, but we communicated
a great deal none the less. Another measure followed, and then a
slower dance.
    We finished it a long way from where we’d started
– fetched up close to the outside tables of the biggest pub
on the square, The Carronade. Some of the lads from work were
already at one of the tables, with their local girls. My mates
gave me odd looks, compounded of envy and secret amusement; their
female partners were looking lasers at Menial, for no reason I
could fathom. She was attractive all right, and looking more
beautiful to my eyes with every passing second, but the other
girls were not obviously less blessed; and she wasn’t a
harlot, unless she was foolish (harlotry being a respected but
regulated trade in that town, its plying not permitted in the
square).
    Introductions were awkwardly made.
    ‘What will you be having, Menial?’ I asked.
    She smiled up at me. She was, in truth, almost as tall as I,
but my boots had high heels.
    ‘A beer, please.’
    ‘Fine. Will you wait here?’
    I gestured to a vacant place on the nearest bench, beside
Jondo and his current lass.
    ‘I will that,’ Menial said.
    Jondo shot me another odd look, a smile with one corner of his
mouth turned down, and his eyebrows raised. I shrugged and went
through to the bar, returning a few minutes later with a three
litre jug and a couple of tall glasses. Menial was sitting where
she’d been, ignoring the fact that she was being ignored. I
put this unaccustomed rudeness down to some petty pretty local
quarrel, of which Carron Town – and the yard and, indeed,
the project – had plenty. If one of Menial’s
ancestors had offended one of Jondo’s (or whoever’s)
that was no business of mine, as yet.
    The table was too wide for any intimate conversation to be
carried on across it, so I sat down beside her, setting off a
Newtonian collision of hips all the way along the bench as my
friends and their girlfriends shuffled their bums away from us. I
filled our glasses and raised mine.
    ‘Slainte,’ I said.
    ‘Slainte, mo chridhe? she said, quietly but
firmly, her gaze level across the tilted rim.
    And cheers, my dear, to you, I thought. Again her whole manner
was neither shy nor brazen, but as though we had been together
for months or years. I didn’t know what to say, so I said
that.
    ‘I feel we know each other already,’ I said.
‘But we don’t’ I laughed. ‘Unless when we
were both children?’
    Menial shook her head. ‘I was not here as a
child,’ she said, in a vague tone. ‘Maybe
you’ve seen me at the project’
    ‘I think I would remember,’ I said. She smiled,
acknowledging the compliment, as I added, ‘You work at the project? I sounded more surprised than I should have been
– there were plenty of womenworking on it, after all, in
catering and administration.
    ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘I do.’ She fondled
the pendant, warming a fire within it, and not only there.
‘On the guidance system.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said, suddenly understanding.
‘You’re a – an engineer.’
    ‘I am a tinker,’ she said in a level tone, using
the word I’d so clumsily avoided. She spoke it with a pride
as obvious, and loud enough to be heard. A snigger and a giggle
passed around the table. I glared past Menial’s shoulder at
Jondo and Ma-chard. They shook their heads slightly, doubtfully,
then returned to their conversations.
    Justice judge them. As a city man I felt myself above such
rural idiocies – though realising her occupation had given
even me something of a jolt. Whatever passed between us, it would
be less or more serious than any fling with a local lass. I
leaned inward, so that Menial’s shoulders and mine defined
a social circle of our own.
    ‘Sounds like interesting work,’ I said.
    She nodded. ‘A lot of mathematics, a lot of – and
this time she did lower her voice –
‘programming.’
    ‘Ah,’ I said, trying to think of some response
that wouldn’t reveal me to be as prejudiced as my