The next installment - Ken & Debbie

Ken had been dating another lady, before he met my mother, a blond. He always went for blonds, somehow their hair caught his eye. His hair had been dark brown and wavy, in his prime (well, he was still in his prime but the hair-loss thing made him look older). He'd started losing his hair when he was 18, it came out in big clumps when he was arranging the curls over his forehead in front of the kitchen's only mirror. Annoying when you had two younger sisters who took every opportunity to tease you about it.
"Ach look at Kenny, he's gonnae haeve nae hair left soun."
"Ach away owt of it, will yeou? Can ye nowt see ahm busy"
"Ooooh yer busy alright, out with yer fancy laydy. Yer think she still gonnae laeve yer when yer bald, ken?"
Eileen always used his name like this - ken on the end of the sentence meant 'you know,' and of course in his case it was his name. Double hilarity on the part of his younger sister Faye, usually ensued.
"Ach whatever, they'll love mae whatever, ken yerself."
But he'd secretly puff it up a little and make it look like it was thicker than it was, and comb it over his balding bit. Now he was running late. He was determined to get out of this teeny tiny council flat he shared with his sisters, ma and pa. It was just too crammed for the five of them. He chuckled as he thought about the new job he'd just landed, what a brilliant job - real prospects. No more lugging his battered case around trying to sell stupid bonds out of it. Yes, he was still selling but it'd be a damn-sight easier task to sell Rowntrees sweets than anything else - he'd be visiting shops and companies that had asked him to, and then he just had to take their order.
Ken smiled again at his reflection in the mirror, the face looking back at him was gold and shiny where the reflector was worn away through age. It made him look a little like a hairy greek god with his gold patina - and his teeth looked ultra white and shiny. Anyway, he must be off, Debbie would be waiting for him, and he wasn't picking up his new sales car until the week after this one. A blue and silver ford, second hand but still more than most people around the housing estate would ever own. He'd have to put the word out it was his or else it would get nicked.

"Single tae priest hill," he barked at the bus driver, he'd had this one before...he'd short changed him quite a few times in the past. Ken counted out the money carefully - his new job meant he'd have to wait a good few weeks before his first pay check, and before that he had Debbie to impress. He thought she was in the bag, she looked like a filmstar, but lived in the same poor neck of Glasgow as himself. Lucky as at the moment he couldn't have afforded to ride anywhere else and still be able to get them both some drinks. Traditional he might be, but he didn't think a girl as pretty as she was should have to pay for her own drinks.

"Hey there, wow yae lak stunning. I havenae seen tha dress before." As he stepped off the bus she was waiting for him, a vision in powder pink and laquered out blond hair.
"Ach shudup will ya? Yae know me ma was making this fer us."
"Well, we have something tae celebrate. I got me a new jabe just today, so I did. At Rowntrees, been trying to get ahn there fer a long while. Job fer life so they say...if I play me cards right."
"Wow, get you." Debbie took his arm. Ken liked the way her powder pink nails looked around his dark blue suit. He hadn't worn a tie, it was warm for an October evening, and the club he was taking her too wasn't too strict on the dance code - everyone had them off by the second or third dance, or risked choking on their own sweat.
"Hey Ken, what was the name of tha fella I met the last time we were gaen here?"
Debbie was not great with names. In fact, she wasn't great with anything that required a lot of thought - fine with him with looks like that, who needed brains?
They walked into the club, Debbie hanging off his arm, like a medal worn for his new-found job, and soon they were swallowed up by the rest of the young 'Hill clan, out to celebrate what they could. Most were unemployed but they somehow found the money to get in and then relied on the good will of others, like Ken, to stay there.
A little later, a photographer for the local paper snapped some pictures, one of them was Ken with his beautiful blond date. They looked like they might be going places, it was Ken's smile that caught his eye, like he knew he'd be working his whole life and not on the dole like the rest of them.
That photographer sent Ken his photos in repayment for the feature. It lived in the glove-box of the blue and silver ford for a while, as Ken was going out with the owner. But the truth was, by the time that photo was taken, Ken already knew he couldn't spend his life with a girl who couldn't ever remember a common name like Willie.