She surveys her husband coolly. He is ten years younger than her, still in his very late midlife crisis. A bright crimson Teddy-boy coat is draped over the sofa and creeper shoes kicked off by the telly. She sets down a Peter Allan bag. Agnes has got some treats for her nieces, a few boxes of sweetie cigarettes, four Atlas comics and brightly coloured yo-yos. She can give them the gifts when they come over tomorrow for their tea.

– Do you have to do another seance, Agnes?

Agnes puts the kettle on.

Her husband is in his armchair staring at a blank telly.

– The telly is off, Archie.

– I just like tae look at it! Is that alright wi you? Fucks sake.

He tuts and inhales his cigarette furiously, keeps staring at the black screen.

He has a newspaper beside him.

– Another news story on the city planners. Agnes, they are shagging this city up the shitter, making it a wee toy town fir tourists. Edinburgh isnae a big city, it’s a large village. There are already too many cars! That city council should listen tae me. They’ll end up getting smog deaths ay, like they did in London four years ago, how many died there, Agnes? Thousands!

He triumphantly concludes his point by grinding his cigarette out.

Archie’s quiff is lacklustre.

There is a half inch where his trousers ride up and expose thick white socks and very hairy ankles. Agnes looks at him in despair and once again dreams of a man who, like her, listens to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, one who buys her silk headscarfs and bracelets that jangle, one who takes her to bed after a brandy in the early afternoon, one who is not as hairy as a bear.

Someone who could make her feel… seen.

She wants a man who really, really – looks at her and sees her.

Men go after women with such conviction and then when they have them they discard them in plain sight. And just like Bluebeard, they keep the bloodstained keys to their women’s souls hostage – while, of course, coveting any other women they now think they’d like to lock up in their make-believe tower. But the one at home better not go anywhere! Her days as a free person are done. Agnes feels so discarded by this man with whom she is legally bound to spend her entire life. He won’t even leave her. She just has to live with being nothing to the person she is most often around. Agnes has to go to spirit lately – just to feel like herself.

– So is the fake medium gonnae stop her Fraudulent Medium Act whatever it is then?

– No. I blame Helen Duncan.

– I blame Winston Churchill.

– You blame Winston Churchill fir everything, Archie! Even our blocked sink.

– The man’s a fucking Druid!

– I have no issues with Druids!