At twenty years old, Katrina found herself really happy for the first time in her life. She liked her job, and she enjoyed being in the office, the general atmosphere of industriousness, the jokes she shared with the others. Her older male colleagues were mostly kind to her, if a little patronizing; one or two would ask her to make them tea, as though she was a secretary (Katrina usually did it, because it seemed too awkward to go and ask one of the real secretaries to do it on her behalf). Katrina also discovered during this time that she could make people laugh. She became more animated in the way she relayed anecdotes, dryer and more self-deprecating, often finding herself exaggerating her stories. Some of her colleagues became friends, and from time to time they would go to the pub together after work.

She didn’t see her sister much after moving to Glasgow. Jill and Chris had had a baby, so Jill was occupied with her new son, and Katrina with her new life. Her visits to her mother went from every weekend to every other weekend, and though Katrina had thought her mother would make a huge fuss, instead she seemed quietly resigned, as though already aware the battle was lost.

So at the age of twenty-two and finally having escaped her mother, Katrina walked into a pub in Glasgow’s West End and met John.

2

Perhaps it was true what John said later, that she was looking for marriage, although she was hardly aware of it. Though she loved the small, neat life she had made for herself, she still carried a sense of being in flight. She craved the kind of stability that was borne on deep foundations, the reassuring concrete of a husband and children lying thickly beneath the surface of her life.

It was a Thursday night, leaving drinks for one of Katrina’s colleagues in a pub they’d never visited before. (“A special occasion calls for a different venue,” someone had said, and the plan was made.)

John, at twenty-five, was not exactly handsome, but he had a nice face. He had dark brown eyes which Katrina liked, and though he wasn’t especially tall, though his mouth was wide and his front teeth a bit too large, Katrina found his appearance appealing. Several of her male colleagues had made passes at her since she’d started at the Herald, but Katrina had become adept at brushing these off, politely and shyly, careful never to offend. She’d scanned their ranks discreetly and decided none of them would do for a boyfriend. In any case, most of them were married.

John would later tell her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in real life, and Katrina would be embarrassed, but grateful.