Art’s mother. She was splendid – stately and sharp, in her tiny flat by the water in Glasgow. Her name was Deborah (Deborah) (it did, actually, suit her) but everyone called her Debs. My mind often returns even now to those Friday nights when we caught the sleeper train to her place. The duck pond. The red bricks. The hallway tiled with tasteful art. I’d walk through the dappled lounge out to the veranda and she’d rise from her sunbed, warm and musky, and pull me close with such a sweetness I felt as though she was my daughter – that was the level of delight. When she cooked for us – invariably a roast chicken – all the condiments came out: mustard, horseradish, peanut butter, mango chutney, the lot. She was like that. Generous. I got to a point where I was scared of saying I liked anything in case she gave it to me. One time she packed me off with a thin, sinister wooden statue of the Virgin Mary (I thought it was a decorative shoehorn!), Art rolling his eyes as I trotted dutifully out of the door with it in my hand. I still had that, somewhere, in a shoebox, along with a silver St Gerard pendant she gave me when we said we were trying.

DRAFTS

Dear St Gerard,

Fat lot of use you were.

BR,

Jenny McLaine

ART SAID

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, babes, but you’re not very maternal.’

I stared at him.

‘It’s not a bad thing!’ he said.

‘It sounds like a bad thing.’

‘You’re just very conscientious and neurotic, delightfully capricious and contradictory – and hilarious of course.’

‘What’s that, Art?’ I said. ‘The fucking feedback sandwich?’

‘Ha! There – you see?’

‘NEUROTIC?’

‘Sorry, that’s the wrong word. You just think too much.’

YOU

You are not maternal, said the blood.

You are not maternal, said the tobacco.

You are not maternal, said the overtime.

You are not maternal, said the overdraft.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

The next evening I wait outside Sonny’s dance school near Tower Bridge. I watch the lights inside the building, looking for signs of departure, in between checking the comments on my column, which this week is about the benefits of being big spoon for a change.

Sonny comes out. I am stunned, for a moment, by the height of him.

‘All right?’

‘All right? Did your mum tell you I’d be coming?’

‘Course she did. Be a bit weird if she didn’t.’

‘I suppose.’

He sets off walking. I follow. I wonder whether I should have brought him a drink, or some chocolate. Crisps? A Kinder egg?

He pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

‘What are you doing?’

‘You smoke.’