‘Well. We thought you were such a good singer that sometimes we would bring you onstage at the hotel where we played. And your daddy would say into the microphone, “Now for the most special guest of the night,” and you would hold the great big microphone, with long ribbons in your hair, and you’d sing them “Auld Lang Syne”, just like we were doing earlier. And the audience would go wild, really they would. They would cheer and stand up and clap so hard their hands hurt, because that’s how good you were. And I remember thinking right there, even though you were only four, this girl has something special about her so she does. And that’s why it’s important that you sing. I took a photograph and I’ve still got it somewhere, of you on that stage. I’ll mail it to you right away, as soon as we’re back home, I will.’

He spent four hours trying to find that photograph when they got back, then put it into an envelope and marched straight up to the post office, banging on the door until old Jacksie came to open it, complaining at him. It was urgent, he said. It had to go in the first morning’s post. He was never quite sure why, but it seemed like a very important thing to do.

When the girl was eleven, Malcolm left for America. He’d fallen in love with a bluegrass singer they’d met at the Kenmore Folk Festival: Anouli was forty, with a fantastic rasping voice; she seemed to love the drink as well as Malcolm did. Donald watched them crashing slowly together over a number of nights, their raucous harmonies at the end of one jam session an almost obscene display. Malcolm seemed alive again, offstage as well as on, that pilot light behind his eyes visible once more, so Donald approved and left them to it, assuming that it would fade away when she went home at the end of the week.

Two months later he was showing off his plane ticket.

‘Jesus, man, anyone would think you were the wife and it was you I was leaving.’

‘Well you are, in a way. You’re leaving me and Fraser and the band. But that’s not what I’m getting at and you know it. I’m talking about your responsibilities, Malcolm. To that wee girl.’