Jill is at the counter, as usual, unsmiling and distant. Her hair is short and yellow-blonde. She scans the bottles, then the beer. He gives her his credit card and opens his mouth to say something about Ann-Marie, but thinks better of it. Jill asks if he wants to spend five p on a poly bag. She is not from the area. Niall only knows her name is Jill because it is pinned on her geometric blouse. No one in this town ever comes close to being as beautiful as his wife, not even Catriona. Guilt seeps through him.

It has been ten years. No one in the town ever looked like her back then either. The other girls from school brushed their hair back into perfect ponytails, the tops of their heads hard with hairspray. Other women cropped their hair, sometimes leaving it long at the back and short at the sides. In lots of small ways, the town has never truly left the nineties.

Sportswear is popular for men and women: joggers, T-shirts printed with holiday destinations. Other women wear tight jeans and sequinned, off-the-shoulder tops for cigarettes and pints at the pub. He found these girls pretty and exciting at one time – they were the only girls he knew. But they treated Christine like a foreigner.

The bottles clink in the bag as Niall carries them out of the shop. As he leaves, he passes Alan Mackie in the doorway, still smiling from the pub.

‘Whup!’ Alan says. ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this! I’m getting a few for Duncan’s place.’

Niall nods, not knowing which Duncan he means. Alan eyes him with mild curiosity.

Making sure no one can see him, Niall sits in the pickup and takes a yellowing plastic cup, part of an old thermos, from the glove compartment. He unscrews the red cap from the vodka bottle and pours himself a drink, neat. He never learned what Christine really thought of him, even to this day. She was mad but calm. Daydreamy at times, at others anxious. In a good mood, she would act as though she was humouring him and that nothing passed her by, because she had seen more of the world than he had.

Soon after they met, they went to the big beach near Strath Horne for a walk. There was little wind and families were out on the sands. Dogs were running with driftwood and children were jumping off the rocks Niall had jumped off as a child. He told her a story and used the word ‘jamp’. She corrected him, and he tried to carry her into the water. He picked her up in a fireman’s lift and she kicked her legs and screamed, and he noticed a family he knew staring at them, so he put her down among the sand dunes. She kissed him, and they lay there for a long time.