‘Bart, you all right love?’ she called, pulling her tatty pink dressing gown over bare shoulders. Bart had bought her a new one for Christmas. It was exquisite. Cream, and so soft it was like one of the really posh cuddly toys you seemed always to find in bookshops, for some inexplicable reason. It was hanging on the back of her bedroom door, and she stroked it every time she entered or exited. But it was too nice to wear. She’d only spill coffee down it, or splash it with the remnants of the previous night’s pasta sauce. The thought of spoiling something so luxurious and thoughtful was enough to keep her in her threadbare robes, at least for another six months or so. She’d start wearing it before Christmas came around, she told herself.

Bart hadn’t replied by the time she’d reached his bedroom door, knocking politely, always mindful that her boy needed his privacy. He had never bought a girl back for the night, not that Maggie would have minded if they’d been discreet, but Bart conducted his relationships elsewhere. He obviously had girlfriends. He was a good-looking lad, and that wasn’t just the blur of looking at him through mummy-goggles talking. At six foot he was big enough to stand out but not so tall that he attracted silly comments on the street. His father had been six foot four and once threatened to deck a man who had somehow imagined that no one had ever asked her husband what the weather was like up there. Maggie’s husband – God rest his soul – had been a decent man, but not blessed with looks, all sharp features and eyes closer together than suited the average face. She was the exact opposite. Broad, flat face, wide eyes (wide hips too, and getting wider by the year, she reminded herself). Perhaps the differences between them was what had left Bart with that sort of symmetrical, well-balanced face that wasn’t exactly attention-grabbing, but with which no one could find a single fault. Great skin, even teeth, good bone structure, and a fair brain. He was in his final year of a business studies college course that he was hoping would offer a potential career in London. Plenty of work in Edinburgh, Maggie always told him. Or Glasgow, if he wanted to leave home. Anywhere in Scotland. But London was the dream. Always had been.