Plenty herring, plenty meal,

Plenty peat to fill her creel,

Plenty bonnie bairns as weel,

That’s the toast for Mairi.

When she is older Lauren wants to be a woman like the one who comes alive in this song, someone with a generous smile, someone everyone loves.

Red her cheeks as rowans are,

Bright her eye as any star,

Fairest of them all by far

Is our darling Mairi.

Lauren wonders if a song about her mother would sound the same. Maybe it would be very different.

Rachel finishes on a flourishing chord and gives her foot a little stamp.

‘Is Sandy teaching you?’ Lauren asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s my dad’s friend.’ She hopes the tone of her voice says I know him better than you. Next time he’s round, Lauren will ask to learn ‘Mrs McLeod’, the third tune in sequence. Lauren imagines Mrs McLeod like her Primary 3 teacher, with big skirts, round glasses and black hair in a bun.

When she comes back to class after interval, she finds each of her coloured pencils have been snapped in half. Her father bought them as a treat from the supermarket.

She looks around. Maisie is watching her from another table and swivels her head back to face the teacher.

At lunchtime Lauren stays in the cloakrooms, their walls an oak tongue and groove. She watches the girls from the year above kneel on the coarse grey carpet in a huddle and pull their coats over their heads to tell ghost stories.

‘What are you doing?’ asks Lauren, knowing fine well. She stands close to them, then kneels gingerly.

Jenny sticks her head out and a giggle rises from under the bed of winter coats. ‘It’s just for P7s. You can’t join us, sorry. I’ll get a row.’

‘Who says?’

‘My mum.’

‘How?’

‘Because.’

‘But—’

‘Because of your mum, Lauren,’ a voice says from under the coats.

That evening Lauren sits eating cheese and beans on toast on the sagging sofa, her legs curled to one side. She watches her father tuning his guitar.

‘Dad.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you ever hear people say things about us in town?’

‘Say things about us?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why would they be saying things about us?’

‘Dad.’ She waits for him to speak and he doesn’t. ‘Stop being like that.’ When he still doesn’t respond, she carries on, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes. ‘You know they speak about us. You’re pretending everything’s OK. Well, I’ve been pretending to you. People at school give me so much shit.’

‘Hey. Lauren. Watch it.’ She’s got his attention now.

‘How can you tell me not to swear? You don’t care. Have you even got me a babysitter for tomorrow?’

He shakes his head with a plectrum between his teeth. ‘Oh God, Lauren. Have you not asked Ann-Marie?’