I’m forty going on fifty, he said and he smiled, forty going on fifty. Naw but what I mean is I feel like I’m fifty instead of forty. No kidding. In fact I felt like I was fifty when I was thirty! It was one of the major bones of contention between me and the wife. She used to accuse me about it, being middle-aged. She used to say I was an auld man afore my time. No very nice eh? Accusing your husband of that.

He smiled as he shook his head, swigged a mouthful of beer. Mate of mine, he said, when I turned forty, at my birthday, I was asking him what like it was, turning it I mean, forty, and what he telled me was it took him till he was past fifty to bloody get over it!

He smiled again and took his fags out for another smoke although he was trying to cut down. The lassie already was smoking. He lit one for himself. I noticed you come in, he said, the way you walked ben the lounge and then came back here, like you were looking for somebody. I’m no being nosy, it’s just an observation, I thought you were looking for somebody.

She had two brown moles on her cheek, just down from her right eye. They were funny, pretty and beautiful. It made him smile.