Sensing Morna was less than taken with him, Malcolm concentrated the still-considerable remnants of his charm on her for the next half hour or so. Donald had always been impressed with this in their youth, the way Malcolm could win round the stubbornest opinion if he put his mind to it; he saw it now as a desperate flail. Malcolm just couldn’t stand that someone in his immediate vicinity wasn’t convinced by him. It was sad, Donald thought, to be still so paranoid, so desperate for approval, at the age they were.

Gradually, over a couple of rounds, the story came out. Anouli had finally thrown Malcolm out after fifteen years of touring and gigging and fighting and drinking. Donald was impressed – he wouldn’t have bet on that relationship lasting longer than any other in Malcolm’s life. Failing to make a name for himself outside of her legend, Malcolm had barrelled round the bluegrass-and-folk circuit in Kentucky for a while, then bagged himself up on board a Greyhound bus and, reading between the lines, had become a vagrant. He spoke of Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, of riding the trains, the camaraderie of the road and the noble American tradition of wandering; Donald and Morna heard sleeping in doorways, eating off the streets, soup kitchens. Eventually, he’d been taken to hospital after a heart attack, and on being unable to pay the bills it had been discovered that his visa was long-expired. ‘Forcibly deported,’ he said with some pride. ‘So I arrived back in Glasgow and decided to become a drain on the good old NHS, eh?’

Morna looked over at Donald. ‘Malcolm, where are you staying just now?’

He waved a hand. ‘With good people.’

‘OK,’ Morna said. ‘Well, I’m going to pay a visit to the ladies’ room.’

‘You couldn’t make yourself look lovelier, my darling, trust me on that.’

Coming out of anyone else’s mouth that line would have clunked, but Donald was amazed to see even his stoic Morna simper slightly as she turned away. The scarecrow turned those pale eyes, suddenly full of purpose, back to Donald.

‘A good woman you’ve got there. I hope you don’t mind me saying that I’m surprised to see you, ah … settled. I’d always thought – ach, never mind man. Never mind. Now, tell me. Where’s my daughter? Where’s my girl, the big celebrity? Oh aye, I know all about her. It wasn’t much news in the States, but my sister wrote me when she had her big hit song, and I used the internet at the library a wee while back. Incredible, these things they have now, isn’t it. But nobody seems to know where she is any more. That thrawn bitch her mother wouldn’t help me and if you ask me, I don’t think she had a bloody clue.’