When the Lights Come on Again by Maggie Craig Page A

darker than his hair, thought Liz, or maybe they looked darker because they were wet.
    ‘She?’
    His smile grew broader. ‘I call her Morag,’ he confided.
    In the name of the wee man, she thought, this one’s a real numpty, a complete eejit.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said again. Polite but firm. ‘But I’m afraid my friend and I shall have to decline. After all,’ she said grandly, getting ready to walk away from him, ‘we don’t know you from Adam.’
    He laughed out loud, amusement putting a twinkle in the hazel eyes.
    ‘Oh, that’s very good.’ And then, as the two girls stared uncomprehendingly at him, ‘Adam,’ he said. ‘That’s my name, you see.’ He looked first at Helen, then back at Liz. ‘Adam Buchanan.’
    They were standing in Buchanan Street. Helen asked the obvious question.
    ‘Named after the street?’
    Young Mr Buchanan looked embarrassed. ‘I believe it was named after one of my ancestors.’
    That did it for Liz. She’d had quite enough of consorting with the Idle Rich for one evening. She opened her mouth to once more turn down the offer of the lift. Helen Gallagher got there before her.
    ‘It’s very kind of you,’ she said decisively, ‘but we couldn’t possibly take you so far out of your way. Goodnight, Mr Buchanan. Come on, Elizabeth.’
    Liz felt her arm being taken in a firm grip. Helen set the pace, marching them both firmly in the direction of Queen Street railway station. It occurred to Liz that her new friend was turning out to have some surprising characteristics.
    When they were safely under the shelter of the great glass and steel roof of the railway station and she could lower the umbrella, she said as much. Helen shrugged.
    ‘Folk like that,’ she said, ‘I’m never exactly sure what to say to them. I’m no’ very good at social chit-chat. Isn’t that what they call it?’
    She turned her pretty mouth down in mock dismay. The gesture brought her face alive, revealing a mischievous intelligence behind the chocolate-box prettiness of her features.
    ‘Mind you,’ she went on consideringly, ‘he was quite nice. Gorgeous eyes. Did you no’think so?’
    Liz shrugged. She had noticed the eyes. Not that she was going to admit it.
    ‘I suppose so. Not my type, though. Far too posh.’
    Helen laughed. ‘Are you sure you’re not a communist?’ Then the amusement left her face and her features took on a wistful look.
    ‘I’d like fine to have had a hurl in a car, though. I’ve never been in one. Have you?’
    ‘No,’ Liz admitted, ‘but maybe we’d prefer one that wasn’t called Morag!’
    Laughing as she scanned the departure board, Helen grabbed Liz’s arm.
    ‘Platform five. A Helensburgh train. We’ll have to run for it!’
    The man at the barrier waved them through and they ran up the platform, flinging themselves into a compartment with only seconds to spare. The door was slammed behind them, the whistle blew and with a great puff of steam from the locomotive the train pulled away from the platform.
    ‘Let’s give the train a name!’ gasped Liz as they sank together on to the cushions.
    ‘Adam?’ suggested Helen.
    “Then we could call that one Eve,’ said Liz, pointing to a train snaking its way in to another platform.
    Those two remarks brought on a fit of the giggles which lasted until they were nearly through the tunnel which linked Queen Street to Charing Cross, the next station down the line. Recovering from her mirth, Liz rose to close the window against the blackness of the tunnel and the smoke and steam drifting back from the engine.
    Her task completed, she took a seat opposite Helen and found the girl regarding her with a very odd look on her face.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I was just thinking,’ began Helen, ‘that here you are trapped in a railway carriage with a Fenian. Does that no’ worry you?’
    Liz winced. Fenian was one of several insulting names Protestants gave to Catholics. She had heard her father come out with most of them: