‘My man Neil here is the local hotshot reporter, babe. Maybe he could make you a star. Actually, couple of wee geniuses here the both of you. Clio went to the college like you. She was doing music, though. Neily the boy wonder’s got a proper diploma in journalism, haven’t you, pal? He can do all that shorthand stuff. He knows it.’

Gogsy himself had gone to Glasgow University, but he didn’t like people to mention it.

‘I never got my diploma,’ Clio said. ‘Well impressed with you, like. My daddy’s a folk singer, and I found out they couldn’t teach me anything at the college I didn’t already know, so I ended up skiving off to do my own gigs. Bit different when you’re actually learning a trade, now.’

The baton was passed back to Neil with a smile he got lost in, and he found he didn’t know what to say.

The Welly, a Thursday maybe. Everyone pulling notes out of their giro envelopes, getting rounds, slapping backs. The boys from the Militant were over in one corner, some of their wives and girlfriends sitting bored nearby, sharing a packet of crisps and lighting fags for each other. Clio was amongst them, thinner and taller, her clothes and make-up brighter, her long fingers flexing around a half-pint glass. The jukebox had broken, so that auld wife off the Glenbrae had started singing – ‘Ohhh, Danny Boy’ – and the older ones across the room were clapping or thumping the bar in time, slurring along. And Clio was suddenly up and over there, as the final chorus ended, quick, small movements, kneeling at the side of the auld wife from the Glenbrae, holding her hand. They did ‘These Are My Mountains’ together, Clio’s voice pulling against and high above the old woman’s burr, taking the whole room with her. Neil had never heard the Welly so quiet before, never seen such an explosion of applause afterwards. Gogsy was looking on, pleased; he pulled her in to him as she went back to the table and planted a wet, showy kiss of ownership on her neck, called out, ‘That’s ma girl! That’s ma girl!’

Once you were Gogsy’s, you were Gogsy’s. Neil watched Clio walk down by the shops, afterwards, the heads turning like she was Madonna let loose on a housing scheme. Perhaps they would have done anyway; Clio didn’t look like anyone else round here. She went into the butcher’s and he decided his mum could probably do with some bacon.

‘Aye, well, it’s for Gogsy, intit?’ The butcher was winking at her as he went in, shaking his head at the proffered purse. ‘At boy sorted my brother out with a wee problem recently.’