Adele watched Cliodhna move around the room, a room full of women who wanted to talk to her, smile at her, celebrate her, because she had always been able to stand up, resist the push to conform. The warm, sharp wine sloshed on her tongue and she walked over to the table where a woman stood with a clipboard and stickers, under a hand-drawn sign that read JOIN US!, wrote down her name, phone number and email address.

Later, she would wonder where she’d found all that extra energy from. The eighteen months after she attended a meeting just because of an old acquaintance’s face were the busiest she remembered since the boys were small. She found herself listening to a variety of speakers at nearby village halls, nodding along in agreement at the sheer obviousness and sense they were talking. She who had a bone-chilling fear of drawing attention to herself in public, decorated her car with stickers – BAIRNS NOT BOMBS; SAVE OUR NHYES – until Dougie refused to ride in it any more. She went on marches, holding up banners with the Paisley Women for Independence group that Ash had helped to start. She and Jamie and Jamie’s girlfriend Sarah caught the train through to Edinburgh and climbed a hill, amongst thousands of others, for a huge rally overlooking that old city and its peaks. Cliodhna sang that day, one amongst a line-up of thirty; and Adele’s voice got lost in the crowd singing her chorus back to her. People gotta rise up. People gotta rise up.

‘Did I ever tell you I went to school with her?’ she shouted into Jamie’s ear, over the loud guitar noises.

‘No! No way, Mum! You should totally go and talk to her afterwards. Maybe you can get us all backstage.’

‘Och no. No, no. I don’t think so, son. She wouldn’t remember me.’