Have you ever been to Edinburgh for New Year? You really should, even if you don’t have tickets for the execrable street party on Princes Street, which is usually avoided by the locals. I have spent many years in Edinburgh for Hogmanay, and only once have I had to endure the street festival, penned in with other ‘revellers’ (great word – such a shame we usually only hear it at New Year). Edinburgh is beautiful.
The year I go to Edinburgh’s annual street party is 1997. I am 22. I have just broken up with my girlfriend. Yes, girlfriend. We weren’t together very long and my tears were dry before I had time to get my handkerchief. My friend and I don’t have tickets for the street party, but we are not-very-reliably informed it is the ‘place to go’, so we buy lots of beer and make sure we are within the boundaries before they are roped off to ticketholders. It is ludicrously easy. But now it is 7.30pm, it’s freezing and I am going to be here for at least five hours.
I light a cigarette in the absence of absolutely anything else to do (this is a very long time ago – I haven’t smoked for over a decade) and as I take a drag, a group of people my age appear before me, one guy and two girls. They are what my grandmother would call “merry”. They ask for a light and we chat for a while. My friend is very sociable and boisterous, so we soon develop a camaraderie. The guy introduces himself as Alex. We get chatting to another group of guys and soon we have a little posse all of our own, swaying as the beers take hold, lighting each other’s cigarettes and talking utter rubbish – each of us pretending it isn’t absolutely freezing. Everybody laughs at all my jokes, even the ones that aren’t funny. Alex laughs longest and loudest of everyone.
The hours crawl by and eventually we resort to the game you can only comfortably play with strangers – Truth or Dare. Various dull revelations are uncovered during the first couple of rounds: weirdest place you’ve had sex, weird celebrity crushes etc. One of the guys we have met, who is freezing his balls off in a kilt, asks Alex if he is gay. Alex says he is, and looks straight at me. Something happens to me that I don’t quite understand. I want to back away from them all. I’m not homophobic – or at least I don’t think I am – but I don’t want that question to come my way. I shuffle from foot to foot and feign blowing into my hands to keep them warm. They are not cold – my gloves are thicker than axminster. I feel nervous and excited. And yet I drip with dread.
The game continues. A dare. One of the girls, who has been feeling my backside on and off for about half an hour with absolutely zero response from me, dares the man in the kilt to kiss Alex for ten seconds. My stomach churns; I feel sick. Mr Kilt reluctantly accepts this challenge. I play along and exclaim “Urrrrgh” loudly as they kiss, noticing that Alex tries to slip the other guy his tongue. It is my turn to be asked. I pick “truth” – I don’t want to be dared the same.
The other girl tries to focus on me and asks my question: “Do you fancy Alex?”
I try not to glare back. I think what reaction should be. I pull what I think is my best puzzled face. “Me? No, no.” And then I look at Alex and pat his shoulder with a pathetic ‘matey’ stroke. “Sorry, man. You’re just not my type. Wrong sex and all that.”
Alex smiles back at me without even a hint of snide. “Haha, no problem!”
And then it is over. For now.
The game fizzles out once everybody else has snogged each other – it is fairly obvious the man in the kilt will be going home with almost every female in a 10-mile radius – and I drain my can of beer and excuse myself to go to the loo. I’m glad to be away from them, but I am not alone for long. I hear my name being called and turn to see Alex bounding up behind me.
“I need the loo too so thought I’d chum you,” he says.
My stomach lurches and I start to feel light-headed. He chats to me as we queue for a portable loo but I feel awkward and can’t really process what he’s saying. Suddenly, he produces a cigarette for me and lights it. I look at him.
“I thought you didn’t have a light?” I ask.
He looks from my face to the lighter and back again.
“Ah,” he says. If his cheeks weren’t already rosy from the cold, he’d blush. “That was just a ruse.”
“A ruse?”
“Yeah, to get to talk to you.”
“What?” I ask. “One of the girls wanted to talk to me?”
“No,” says Alex gently. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh, why?” I reply, not being deliberately stupid, I promise. I am 22, remember.
He takes a really long drag of his cigarette. “I thought you and your friend were together, a couple,” he chuckles. “I just wanted to check.”
“Why?”
“Because…” he begins, but then a loo becomes free and a man further back in the queue tells me to “get a fucking move on”, so I leap into it and have a very shaky piss.
When I come back out, there’s no sign of Alex, so I assume he has gone back to the group. I then feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s him.
“I want to talk to you,” he says, gulping.
“What about?”
“You. You’re gay, aren’t you? I mean–” he scratches his head. “I hope you are. Are you?”
I pull my mouth in tight and attempt to shrug. “No, I’m not.”
Alex leans in closer. “Are you sure?”
I look around to see if anybody from the group is near us. They’re miles away, but I have to make sure. I run my hands over my face and try to think.
I pull Alex away further down the street.
“What are you doing?” he smiles drunkenly. I don’t reply. I don’t know what to say.
We end up on a narrow, dark street, free of Hogmanay drunks. There is an even smaller close just off it, and we scoot down it. It is drizzling. There is just one light, glowing orange but far from warm. There is a metal fire escape staircase. It’s almost like I know I will never forget this.
Alex clears his throat. “I want to kiss you. But I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
My mind explodes over and over again. A supernova of confusion, curiosity and fear. I have been cautious all my life, risk-averse. Tonight, something feels different.
I put my hand round his waist and pull him to me. I feel the damp chill of the fire escape on my back. I am surprised by the feel of the stubble and the forcefulness of his mouth. Somewhere on another planet, a crowd starts to count backward from ten. Everything melts away.
When we break apart, it is 1998. And nothing will ever be the same again.
