Catriona is fast asleep, her mouth slightly open. Niall looks down at his heavy work boots, grey with dust and paint, on the oatmeal carpet. He moves quietly over to one side of the copper-framed bed and places the peppermint tea in its new white mug on the bedside table, next to yellow tulips. A slim phone lies on the double bed’s empty pillow like a surrogate partner. There is a MacBook at the end of the puffy bedspread, playing an American drama. Catriona’s frame looks small and childlike as she lies in a foetal position under the bedclothes. He stands watching her chest rise up and down. She isn’t wearing a bra under her pyjama T-shirt. An acoustic guitar is propped in the corner, surprising him, and a pair of shiny heels have been kicked off by the large mirrored wardrobe. He can’t remember if she was wearing them last night.

He hears a rustle as Catriona turns her head towards him and her face changes into fear and panic. ‘Niall …’

‘No, no, don’t worry at all,’ he whispers, starting to walk out of the door. ‘I just wanted to say sorry. The thing is …’

She takes a deep breath.

‘The thing is …’

‘Please. Please leave me alone.’ Her voice is distant and rough. They stare at each other for a moment.

‘Hope you like the tea,’ he mutters under his breath as he leaves.

11

The next day, when Niall is driving home from Catriona’s, he remembers his conversation with Sandy. Of course he knows that Lauren deserves something good. Especially now he knows things aren’t right at school. ‘Slick bastard,’ he says to himself. He didn’t even know Sandy had a niece, but he imagines them now, on their happy family trip out. His thoughts are interrupted by the drama of the landscape that surrounds him at this particular part of the road. He can’t help but marvel at the tawny expanse of forest and hill, rising on either side for miles. He reaches the top of the hill near their village and slows the pickup, looking out at the mossy green patchwork of the land, the silver loop of the burn, the red herd of grazing deer and the burnt-orange bracken. In these rare moments he feels godly.

As he makes his way down the hill, the feeling channels out of him and he becomes an ordinary man, who has a daughter. He doesn’t often appreciate how lucky he really is to have a daughter. He doesn’t like to think it, but one day she’ll leave him. He wants to make her something special. A homemade pie. The kind of pie Desperate Dan might eat, with two horns sticking out of the pastry.