The Words of the Mouth

  ******

  Mairi and I got engaged without really intending to. My parents threw a party to which they invited all their friends and a lot of relatives; dozens of respectable, straight professional and middle-class types, all standing around with drinks and eating snacks.

  Some of the snacks, however, were cakes we had laced with cannabis resin, and soon an unmistakable hilarity began to show in their behaviour.

  "Let's announce that we're engaged," I suggested with a giggle to Mairi, and she, being as stoned as I was, thought this was a fantastically funny ploy.

  With my arm around her shoulder, we went up to my mother,

  "Mum, we're getting married."

  She began to weep with happiness, her dearest wish - that I would turn out all right in the end - had come true.

  She rushed to tell my father, my relations; they gathered round to congratulate us, shake our hands, clap me on the back. The joke had become reality, too real; there was now no chance to recant.

  We set the wedding for the spring, and planned a monster nuptial feast, complete with rock bands and all the acquaintances we could muster, an act of faith to cover up the inner doubts that we both harboured but refused to acknowledge. And so it came to pass that we were married.

  We decided to abandon Edinburgh and go to live on the West Coast, on the island of Jura, to start a new life living close to the land, to be artists, to be free of the cloying social games and the neurotic attitudes of the city.

  We began moving my things out of the High Street flat; I had our VW van parked and was loading boxes into it. There is a law which says you mustn't take more than ten minutes, I was away only three minutes, but when I came back, two cops were there to charge me, I recognised one of the sergeants who had been demoted for lying in evidence at my trial. He had been looking for a chance to get even, and here it was.

  When the police charge you, they ask if you have anything to say.1 thought I would make the longest statement they had ever heard, one that would go into the Guinness Book of Records, After three pages they got writer's cramp and stopped I insisted they go on: "I've got a right to make however long a statement I want."

  But I never received the summons; the tenant of my flat failed to pass it on, and I forgot all about it in the excitement of setting off for Jura.

  On New Year's Day, months later, I came back to my old flat after a long walk in the country, and I saw a police van parked in the same spot where I had got my ticket. Up the stairs, the door was open. I went in, and a big policeman, swaying drunk, said, "Are you Mr. Sangster? "

  "Yes."

  "Yer under arrest."

  "What for?"

  "A parking ticket; you didn't answer the summons,"

  I was shocked, but I asked, "Well, can 1 get some things?"

  He agreed, so I collected a sketchbook, pens, cigarettes and food. Then we went down to their van. I was furious that they were parked with impunity in the very spot where I had been booked.

  I concentrated all my anger on their motor; ‘Don't start,' I willed it.

  To my delight, it wouldn't start. They considered jump-starting it by rolling it down the hill, but the traffic was too heavy. It was decided to walk me to the station.

  "Just give me your hands; we'll put the cuffs on,"

  "You're not putting handcuffs on me for a parking ticket !" I retorted, with all the dignity I could muster.

  1 was put into a cell, which I proceeded to sketch. Then my mother arrived with Mairi, and a New Year's Day meal in a big thermos, along with napkins and cutlery. They persuaded the Inspector on duty to let me have it. I was there in fine style, thoroughly pleased with myself, when there was a change of screws; I could hear the new shift going along, opening the cells. My window opened, and there was a gasp of fury, "How the hell did you get all that? Who brought it in?"

  "The Chief Inspector," I replied airily.