Ivor pulls the duvet off his head and nods at her to open the curtains again, then the shutters a crack. The panic is there – it is there like high-quality hospital speed. He looks at the light and it feels like a giant crocodile is smiling at him through the window – just waiting for him to make one wrong move.

– Do you want breakfast, Esme?

– Aye. Can I have cornflakes, please?

She sings it and he smiles and they walk through to the living room.

– Do you want sugar on them?

– Aye.

He makes a cup of tea for Rhona, leaves it at the side of the sofa and taps her on the shoulder.

– Uncle Ivor – if I got my clothes from Tammy Girl, instead of from What Everyone Wants – d’ye think the lassies at school might stop calling me a scaff and let me play with them?

He gives Esme the biggest hug and tries again not to cry.

It’s not good to want to poke the eyes out of eight-year-old girls.

He does though.

Ivor watches Esme sit at the tiny breakfast bar eating her cereal. Big smile at him. Here’s a goal he can set for himself: take the tablets his doctor prescribed. Beta whatever-the-fuck-they-are. If it means he is able to do the school run out there in full sunlight then it will be worth it. He will start with that. Make sure his niece never has to wait in that playground on her own with her teacher again.

– What’s that, Uncle Ivor?

– Tablets.

– From the doctor?

– Aye.

He takes out the first one. Reads the label: beta blockers first and then an antidepressant. That’s what the man says he needs. Maybe he’ll make this part of the day: a ritual. Shower – dress – cup of tea – tablets. He swipes tears off his face roughly. He wants to go and stand with his mates on the picket line. So what if he can’t tell them about Joanne? Nobody wants to hear that kind ay shite fae a guy. It’ll only make it awkward. He’ll carry it for all ay them. Keep it to himself. He will not carry her shame any more, though – not even for one more day.

Esme pads back through to her room.

The doctor is a guid cunt, Ivor will give him that.

He’ll try it this way, see if it works.

– You are undoubtedly phengophobic, Ivor. I can give you a sick note?

– Thanks, anyway.

Undoubtedly phengophobic!

What if he was – doubtedly phengophobic?

Phengophobic but with a lot of doubt about it?

What if he was timidly phengophobic?

Extravagantly phengophobic?

What if he was just a phengo? No phobic about it.